They got out of the Explorer into the cold sleety morning, Wolfe putting up his own hood against it.
“Hey Shuggie,” he said. “What’s up?”
Shuggie nodded as they walked over to the barrier. All the Viceroys but Shuggie were having a good long look at Seline.
She looked at Shuggie.
Shuggie hooked a thumb at her. “We saw you takin’ your woman to that crib you got all up in that crap hole of a building.”
“I’m not anybody’s woman” Seline said, in flat, informational tone.
The Viceroys laughed.
“Bitch, shut up while Shuggie’s talkin,” Renfo said.
Hearing that, Wolfe felt a tautness come into his shoulders and jaw. He put his hand on the butt of the .45 at his waistband. “Renfo. Don’t talk to the lady like that.”
“Never mind, Wolfe,” Seline said calmly.
Without looking at his lieutenant, Shuggie said, “Shut up, Renfo.”
Wolfe saw Renfo give Shuggie a cold look. Could be Renfo was starting to resent Shuggie.
Wolfe relaxed a little and dropped his hand from the gun.
“Wolfe,” Shuggie said, “this is the end of my turf, right here.” He tapped the barrier. “I been having some trouble with a, what you call it, a splinter faction. All Viceroys having trouble with ’em. And past here, there’s the other Viceroys. Different chapter.” Shuggie shook his head sadly. “Man I cannot guarantee, if you go on from here, you get through where you goin’. It’s looking pretty sketchy down that way. There’s a motherfucker in CPD got some friends in the Chunkies.”
Wolfe glanced past Shuggie at the street beyond. It looked lifeless from here. “‘Chunkies’ are the splinter faction?”
“Yeah, Chunky Crunkies, is what they call themselves. Splintered off from the Viceroys. I think they’re working for the Club, is what’s up. They say they got their own thing. I don’t like either one—not Club, not Chunkies.”
“When you say the ‘other Viceroys’, Shuggie, what’s that about?”
“You think I tell all Viceroys what to do? No, just my ‘hood, man. Motherfuckers past here are… harsh. I cannot guarantee my protection there. Not from every Viceroy on the Southside, dude. You stay around that crib of yours, it’s okay. But past this point…”
Wolfe shrugged apologetically. “I got to go down there.”
Shuggie seemed to think it over. Then he nodded. “I’m committed to staying here—I’m watching this corner, man. But… you got my cell number. And who knows?”
Wolfe nodded. “Sure. Who knows? How do I identify a Chunkie?”
“Bull’s eye tattoos—each man got one around his right eye. Center of the bull’s eye is the eye socket.”
Shuggie moved the barrier out of the way of the Explorer. “Hey Wolfe—that girl there as tough as she acts?”
Wolfe said, “She just got out of the Marine Corps.”
“Straight up?”
“Straight up.”
Shuggie walked over to Seline. He stared at her. She stared back.
Then he stuck out his hand.
They shook hands. She nodded at Shuggie, then turned and went back to the car with Wolfe.
“So those are definitely friends of yours?” she said, when they’d gotten back into their seats.
“Shuggie is, I guess. I’d back him up in a fight. I know, maybe we should have a picnic on the roof of that building the safehouse is in. Have all the Viceroys over.”
She drove the car between the Viceroys and the barrier. “And they bring their AR15s?”
“So okay, maybe a picnic’s not the best idea.”
They drove through an area of low rent high rises; then passed onto another block of mostly houses, with fences around the yards. Winter-bare trees stood in margins between the sidewalk and street. The houses seemed clean, and well kept. A small black child looked out the front picture window of a two story house. The child waved to Wolfe. Wolfe waved back.
Another block down, on the left, was an elementary school. But the windows were boarded over. “I heard Chicago closed a lot of inner city schools,” Seline said. “Seems a shame.”
“It is. Makes things worse for people around here.” He was looking at the GPS. “Address we want is to the right and then about nine blocks up…”
They turned, drove past a Golden Chicken and a tavern, and then crossed a street into a more ragged neighborhood. Trash clogged the sidewalks, and old tenements rose gauntly on either side, fenced off and boarded over.
“You sure this is the neighborhood?”
“Oh yeah. This is the…”
That’s when a Molotov cocktail hit the hood of the Ford Explorer, the bomb shattering in flame and broken glass.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I hope the guy you stole this car from has good insurance on his car,” Seline said, as Wolfe gunned the motor. He wanted to get past whoever had thrown the firebomb before dealing with the fire.
The Ford Explorer surged ahead, trailing flame, black smoke blotting the windshield, and then it skidded out of control.
The Explorer spun around three times, and slammed a rear door against a steel post. The engine died.
Flames continued to flicker across the front of the car.
“Yeah,” Wolfe said, drawing his pistol. “I sure as hell hope the guy has insurance, too. Come on, put on that backpack and let’s get out before the damn car blows up.”
But when he stepped onto the road his boots skidded and he almost fell—there was oil spread all over the street. And it wasn’t there accidentally.
“Hold it, Seline! Stay in the car, put that backpack on, and flatten down!”
He held onto the side of the car and looked around. He saw hooded faces watching him from across the street, about where the Molotov cocktail had come from. The Chunkies were half-sheltered behind a tumble of masonry below a half-fallen building.
He saw the glint of light on a gun barrel and he fired twice to keep them back. The faces vanished, ducked down. For the moment.
He reached a hand into the car. “Come on, get out this side!”
She took his hand and helped her slide across the front seats, and out of the car. She was wearing the backpack. “Hold onto the side… they’ve dumped oil on the street!”
“What? Oil?”
She steadied herself. Fire still crackled from the hood of the car.
“I’ve heard about people doing this… they scare you into hitting the gas, you hit their oil spill and the car goes out of control…”
She took her gun from her purse. “And then what?”
“They loot you and… it’s not good. Wait…”
He turned, catching a movement from the corner of his eye. Someone was raising up behind a dumpster on this side of the street—and pointing a gun at him.
He fired, and Seline fired too, their guns barking like two dogs side by side. Jets of orange licked out from the two guns and someone shouted in pain.
“Come on,” Wolfe said firing another shot across the street. “Time to go skiing. Take my arm and we’ll steady each other—into that doorway across the sidewalk.”
She didn’t argue. She clutched his arm and they half-skidded, half-ran, across the oil slick to the sidewalk, stumbling up it. Two bullets cracked into the wall to their right, spitting chips of brickwork.
Then they were in the doorway, descending. It went down to a basement apartment, under the main stairway. The door was padlocked—Wolfe kicked it, hard, three times, and broke the hasp of the lock.
He turned—and saw a dark figure running at him, raising an AK47. The guy had a bull’s eye tattoo around his right eye.
“Go on, Seline!”
“But—”
He was taking careful aim. “Go!”
She went through the door and he aimed. He had a flickering impulse to fire at the center of the bull’s eye but instead he aimed at a clearer target.