She was still alive when the first of the rats emerged from the sewer drain and scurried along the gutter. It was soon followed by several more. Farther down the street, even more rats appeared in another drain. Waiting for the relative darkness between the passing headlights, they crept along toward the bat.
The first rat seized her in his huge incisors and scurried back into the darkness of the sewers, leaving nothing but splayed footprints and long, wormlike tracks from their tails in the gray slush.
The parasites, commonly known as bat bugs, sensed the life slipping out of their host and crawled off of her body as it was ripped apart and the pieces grew cold. They smelled the carbon dioxide exhaled by the rats and crept onto their new hosts. The rats, eyes bright with hunger and muzzles wet with the bat’s blood, felt nothing as the bat bugs wriggled through their coarse hair and gorged themselves.
CHAPTER 7
10:44 PM
December 27
Tommy’s first night on the job started in a bar, a dim hole in the wall on the West Side. It wasn’t anything fancy. A few flat screens hung around the place, tuned to sports. A dozen tables were spread out over a greasy linoleum floor. A thick haze of smoke hung throughout the bar; these guys didn’t pay much attention to the no-smoking ordinance either. It didn’t even look like the place had a name. The only notable attribute was an extremely large parking lot in the back, with at least three exits leading to major avenues and expressways.
The parking lot was full of city vehicles. CTA vans. Dark blue electrician trucks. Sewer behemoths, with the huge tubes draped over the cab. Tommy counted at least thirteen Streets and Sans trucks. Some were garbage trucks, others were heavy-duty work vans, fellow rat control workers.
Don, his partner, led Tommy through the tables and sat near the grimy front windows, filled with neon beer signs and dead flies. Don lit a cigarette and shoved a sticky menu at Tommy. There was a narrow kitchen behind the bar, where, apparently, they’d make pretty much anything you wanted as long as it was deep fried and covered in plastic melted cheese.
“First night, my treat.” Don’s mustache and wide nose made him look a lot like an easygoing walrus. When he first climbed in the cab, Tommy wasn’t sure what to make of his new partner. Don’s bulk made it difficult for him to even fit behind the wheel. He’d fixed Tommy with a cold stare and nodded at Tommy’s ragged Sox cap. “You a fan, or is that for show, just to fit in with the guys here?”
“I grew up in Bridgeport,” Tommy answered, getting pissed.
“Thank Christ.” Don grinned. “Last guy I had to break in, fucking douche bag coulda cared less about sports. Jesus humpin’ Christ, can you imagine? Fucking living in Chicago, and you don’t like sports? Give me a fucking break. The only thing worse woulda been if he’d a been a Cubs fan.”
So they talked baseball as Don headed west. Both clubs had new managers, so there was plenty to discuss. They really didn’t hate the Cubs, but it was more fun to make fun of the struggling north-side club. As south-side fans, neither one missed Ozzy, but they were heartbroken that both Buehrle and Pierzynski were gone. It wouldn’t be the same without them. And before Tommy knew it, they were pulling into the parking lot.
Don ordered a double cheeseburger and cheese fries with a Diet Coke. “Don’t drink booze anymore,” he said. “Doc says it’s not a good idea. But hell, you feel like a beer, knock yourself out.” Tommy got the chicken sandwich and potato chips. He thought about it for a moment, decided fuck it, and ordered a beer with it. He had to admit, so far, his first night on the job wasn’t so bad.
“I’m not gonna bullshit you. Day shift has the cushy end of the job. Hell, all they do is ride around all day and look busy. Put out some poison, a few traps, hang some signs, quote, ‘make their presence known in the neighborhoods.’” Don shrugged. “You and me, we get the shit end of the stick. We’re the ones getting our hands dirty, out collecting the dead rats.”
Don stabbed a cheese fry into a lake of ketchup and fixed Tommy with a grin that straightened out his mustache. “But you, my friend, you stick with me and I’ll show you some things you never seen. Things that make this job of ours a sweet deal. But first, you gotta answer me this. Who’s upstairs pulling strings for you? Guy like you doesn’t just fall into a job like this. I got ten guys on the garbage detail fighting for this spot. What makes you special?”
Tommy had known this was coming. Hell, he’d be pissed if he’d worked for a job for a long time only to watch some young punk jump ahead of him. “Believe it or not, Lee Shea got me this job.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“He a friend of yours?”
“Hell, no. You?”
“Fuck, no. I hate that slimy little bastard.”
“Me, too. So let’s just say he’s got my balls in a vise. Says to be here and be ready for work, and well, here I am.”
“You ain’t the only one in town. Motherfucker’s got his hands in a lot of places around town. Yours ain’t the only balls that sonofabitch is squeezing.” Don sat back, absentmindedly wiping ketchup and cheese out of the corners of his mustache. “What the hell are you gonna do? Fuckin’ Chicago. Might as well make the best of it. Have another beer. We’re gonna be here a while. Take a nap, you feel like it. We’ll head out later. I got a place where we can find all the rats we need.”
CHAPTER 8
11:44 PM
December 27
Ed followed the Kennedy into the city and got off at Addison, heading east.
“Jesus. I’d forgotten how much I hate cruisers,” Sam said, struggling to find a comfortable position for his long legs among all the electronic crap and extra gear in the front seat. He unscrewed his flask, offered it to Ed. Ed shook his head. Sam took a deep pull. He mostly hated the police cars because they didn’t have a radio. Oh sure, every car had plenty of law communication equipment, but not an honest-to-goodness AM/FM radio. Not that the radio stations played much that they liked anyway.
Ed and Sam couldn’t stand most current popular music. R and B? Please. That used to mean something more than grunting and cooing “baby” a thousand times. Once in a while, they’d get lucky, and hear an old Sam and Dave song, maybe even some Muddy Waters, and they’d sing along, Ed in an unnaturally deep baritone, and Sam in a strangled, off-key cry. Outside the car, it probably sounded like shit, but inside, he figured they harmonized just fine.
Hearing a good song was rare. They stayed away from the popular stations. Sometimes the local college kids got tired of playing songs in which the musicians had apparently fallen asleep on their keyboards staring into the unfathomable depths of their belly buttons, and went retro and played some good stuff. You’d be surprised how hard it was to hear legendary local blues folks like Junior Wells, Magic Sam, Koko Taylor, or even Howlin’ Wolf on the radio.
Jazz? Sure, there was enough jazz to make your ears bleed. Problem was, Sam thought most of it sounded like somebody recorded a toddler with ADHD attacking a piano with a hammer while somebody else threw a drum set down the stairs.
They pulled up in front of one of the grand old dames that lined Lake Shore Drive, colossal, ornate buildings decades beyond their glory years. Ed hit the siren, jolting the night doorman out of a nap. Ed left the spinning lights on, splashing the front of the building with a blinking blue light show.