©2011 by James D. Keating
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the express permission of the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal. Direct any requests for additional information to author, c/o Nightwatch Publications, 1102 S Austin Ave. Suite 110-167, Georgetown, Texas 78626 or Nightwatchpublication@gmail.com
ISBN: 9781624881442
First printing
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
All of the characters and events in this book are fictional. The names of several of my good friends were used, with their permission, for some of the characters. I would also like to thank them for their knowledge and expertise regarding police procedures: Frank Carey, formerly with the Chicago Police Department, and chief of police in several Illinois and Florida cities; Leona Totosz, Chicago Police Department, retired; Roger Widdows, Cook County Sheriff’s Police, retired; and Gerry Poppers, ex-Sauk Village Police Department. All mistakes in police procedures and other mistakes are mine alone in spite of everyone’s best efforts.
And most of all, my thanks to Deb from Just Manuscripts, who had to read through 600 pages of my terrible handwriting to type the manuscript. She has the patience of a saint and is a pleasure to work with. And a special thank you to my dear friend, Lynn Widdows, for the many hours she spent editing the manuscript.
CHAPTER 1 – MONDAY, JULY 14TH
Richard Martin, a successful commodities broker lives with his wife Carolyn and their two young children in an $800,000 home in the Edgebrook section on the northwest side of Chicago. Martin had set the home security alarm system three hours ago when he and the family went to bed. Now he was being prodded in the face with the muzzle of a pistol.
“Wake up and don’t make a sound!”
Startled awake and disoriented by the bright light shining in his eyes, he sat up in bed. The intruder backed up and said, “Get up and get on the other side of the bed and sit next to your wife.”
Martin got out of bed tripping and stumbling in the tangled covers lying on the floor at the end of the bed. He fell on the bed next to his wife. Carolyn was sitting on the edge of the bed sobbing and trying to pull the hem of her nightgown down to cover her thighs. A second intruder was hunched on the floor in front of her taping her ankles together. He grabbed one of her wrists; she screamed and tried to pull her arm free. The man back-handed her across the face and said, “Shut up and sit still or we’ll kill your kids! Hold your hands out so I can tape your wrists.”
Martin started to protect his wife; the man guarding him swung the pistol hitting him across the temple knocking him into his wife. Carolyn started screaming again.
“Gag the bitch!”
The man finished taping her wrists together, then grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back. He slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth.
Martin heard their ten year old son Richard, Jr. and nine year old daughter Ashley screaming in the hall outside the bedroom door. The door opened and a third man shoved the terrified children into the bedroom. The man in the doorway was backlit by the hall light. Martin saw the man was dressed the same as the other two men, dark colored pants and shirt and ski masked pulled down covering his face.
The two children, trembling and screaming for their parents were shoved on the floor at the feet of Martin and his wife. Both children had wet their pajamas. Their wrists and feet were quickly taped.
“Tape their mouths, I can’t stand that screaming!” He poked Martin with his pistol and said, “Where’s the safe?”
“We don’t have a safe, we keep everything in a safety deposit box at our bank. We…”
Martin got a hard slap across his forehead with the side of the pistol. He felt the blood running into his right eye.
“Don’t try to bullshit me. We know about the safe and we want the jewelry.” The man added, “She gets the next slap, asshole.”
“All the jewelry we have is in the jewelry box over there on top of the dresser.” Martin pointed with his chin toward the dresser on the far wall.
The man, silhouetted by the sliver of moon light coming in the window, walked to the dresser. He snapped on a pen flashlight and shined it in the jewelry box, pushing some of the jewelry around with the end of the light. He said, “I don’t see your wife’s big diamond ring or the matching earrings and necklace.”
He walked back to the side of the bed and pulled a cigarette out of a pack in his shirt pocket. He pulled the bottom of his mask up, put the cigarette in his mouth and used a Bic lighter out of his pocket to light it. He took a puff, looked at the glowing end, then shoved it against the nightgown where it covered Carolyn’s right breast. The scream of pain was muffled by the tape covering her mouth.
The smell of the burning nightgown and what had just happened caused Martin to vomit. Between sobs he was able to get out, “Jesus, stop it, I’ll tell you! The safe is on the floor in the closet behind the shoe boxes. The combination is 24 right, 12 left, 4 right. Everything we have is in there. Take it, just leave my family alone.”
The man pulled a pillowcase off of one of the pillows and walked into the closet. He partially closed the door and kicked the shoe boxes out of his way. He knelt down, shined the pen light on the dial and turned the knob.
Three minutes later the man came out of the closet with the contents of the safe dumped into the pillowcase. He walked back to the dresser, grabbed the jewelry box and dumped the jewelry into the pillowcase. He walked back to the bed and grabbed Martin’s taped hands, found the ring finger and pulled off the wedding ring. He did the same to Carolyn and dropped the rings in the pillowcase. Then he said, “Okay let’s go we got everything.”
The man who had pistol whipped Martin and tortured Carolyn with the cigarette said, “We ain’t got everything yet.” He ripped the tape off of Carolyn’s mouth.
CHAPTER 2 – MONDAY MORNING
Chicago Police Detective Jim Ryan turned the gray Ford Taurus off 35th Street onto the private road that runs south a quarter of a mile and stops at the gate of an abandoned trucking terminal.
Ryan steered the car around one of the potholes in the broken and crumbling asphalt road. He didn’t see one of them, the right front wheel dropped into the deep hole and the car bounced violently. “I was worried for a minute that you were going to miss that one,” said Ryan’s partner, Brian Dwyer who was sitting in the passenger seat holding onto the arm rest as the car rattled along. Dwyer looked out the side window as they slowly passed three other abandoned trucking companies, tall ragweed grew through cracks in the concrete driveways and parking lots. “There were four trucking companies back in here and they’re all out of business, hundreds of jobs gone and our last president said the economy was sound,” Dwyer said.
“Well, there is some consolation, we didn’t vote for him. Let’s hope this guy’s stimulus package turns things around. ” Ryan steered around another gaping hole in the roadway and eased the car to a stop in front of a gate at the end of the road. A police officer dressed in dark blue wash pants and a short sleeve blue uniform shirt limped out of the small guard shack and pulled the gate back to let the car into the parking lot.
Ryan eased the car passed the gate then stopped and rolled the window down; hot humid air blew into the car. “George, how you feeling this morning?” Ryan asked.
“Good today, Jimmy; I’m getting a little stronger every day. I’m glad to be back to work even if it’s only light duty. I was going nuts around the house all day and I think the wife is glad to get rid of me for a few hours each day.”
“She almost got rid of you permanently, Berkley; you’re damn lucky to be alive. If that bullet had been two inches to the right you’d be out in Holy Sepulcher cemetery right now,” Dwyer said.
Berkley put his hand on the roof of the car, leaned down and looked across at Dwyer, “that same mope shot you too Brian.”
“No, it was his asshole brother that shot me, but I was smart enough to be wearing my vest. You’re lucky you didn’t get your ass suspended. You knew you were supposed to wear the vest at all times on duty.”
Berkley laughed, “a month in the hospital and five months on medical leave around the house was worse than a suspension.”
“We got to get in and see the boss, we’ll talk to you later.” Ryan took his foot off the brake and let the car roll forward into the parking lot. Berkley patted the roof of the car as it passed. He pulled the gate closed and limped back to the stool outside of the guard shack.
The City of Chicago bought this abandoned truck terminal six months ago to be used by the police department as a clandestine headquarters for its undercover units. It’s an ideal location, isolated from the public view. Undercover officers aren’t seen going in and out of regular police district stations and undercover vehicles are not parked in plain sight in police parking lots. The trucking company property is surrounded on all sides by acres of vacant land covered with ragweed that towers higher than the razor wire on top of the six feet cyclone fence that encloses the property. A few marijuana plants growing wild can be seen among the ragweed along the bank of the canal that runs south beyond the property.
Within the next few years some politically connected developer will buy the entire tract of abandoned and desolate property, have it re-zoned and turn it into high-scale condos and townhouses to accommodate the surging population growth as the city is re-discovered by the affluent citizens that fled to the suburbs years ago to avoid the poor public schools and rising crimes rates. Now that their children are grown the white flight is moving back into the revitalized and appealing inner-city, pushing the blacks and brown further toward the fringes of the city and into the surrounding suburbs.
Ryan parked the car next to a large blue truck with the city seal on the door and ‘Bureau of Electricity’ printed below the seal. Nearby, two men had the cover off of the huge gray air conditioning unit and were working on the wiring inside. “I hope they can get the damn thing running; it’s hotter than hell already this morning,” Ryan said.
“I just hope those two are real electricians and not a couple of the gang intelligence guys practicing their undercover disguises,” Dwyer said as he got out and slammed the door.
“If we heard a loud explosion and see flames leaping out of the box we will know for sure who they are.”
“Yeah,” Dwyer said, “we’ll know they’re city electricians.”
Both men were laughing as they climbed the concrete steps up to the old freight dock. The dock has fifty overhead doors, and a center office, on each side of the long freight house. The offices on the south side of the building that use to handle in-bound freight were now home to the gang intelligence unit. The out-bound offices on the north side of the building were used by the narcotic unit. The new offices at the front of the building were now used by the Central Investigation Unit. A separate building behind the terminal had been the repair garage and now has units from automotive maintenance and electronics to do repairs on the undercover vehicles and radios.
Ryan and Dwyer’s footsteps echoed as they walked across the empty cavernous dock area and into the CIU offices. The air conditioning had kicked on and was started to pour cold air out of the overhead ducts. On top of a row of filing cabinets two larger fans turned slowly circulating the still warm air.
Joan Ronsky, one of the civilian secretaries looked up from her computer screen and said, “The commander came in a few minutes ago and was looking for you two. I told him you were on your way in. He wants to see you right away.” She tried to look at both men as she talked but her eyes kept turning to Dwyer.
Joan had worked as a secretary at Detective Area One and was transferred at her request to CIU with Ryan and Dwyer when Commander Carl Helms started staffing the new unit.
The detectives walked into Helms’ office. “You were looking for us, Carl?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, have you heard about the home invasion last night up in Edgebrook?”
“We picked up some radio traffic on the city-wide frequency earlier this morning but that’s about all we know.”
Helms quickly filled them in on what he knew. He added, “The score was about four blocks from Chief Murphy’s house so you know he is especially interested, and I guess the victim has a lot of clout so this is going to get major attention.”
“Everybody that lives in Edgebrook has a lot of clout, Carl,” Dwyer said.
Helms nodded and continued, “In the last year there has been four other scores in the northern suburbs and another one in Edgebrook about six weeks ago. There is a strong probability this is all the same crew. Lincolnwood had the first score and they have been coordinating everything between our department and the other suburbs.” Helms tore a piece of paper off of a pad on his desk and continued, “this is the address of the Lincolnwood PD, they’ve got a meeting scheduled with all the departments and I want you two to attend it. All of our burglary dicks in Area Five are tied up on the latest score; some are at the house, some at the hospital and some canvassing the neighborhoods. So the commander in Five, Ernie Barbaro, called Lincolnwood and told them I would be sending a couple of dicks to the meeting, Grecco will be at the meeting also. He was on his way in here when he heard about the score and went into Area Five. He worked on the last score in Edgebrook before he transferred into CIU. Grecco will bring whatever information he has to the meeting.”
“You know we get lost when we go north of Madison Street Carl; Lincolnwood is a long way from the south side, and we don’t know anything about burglary crews,” Dwyer said.
“The woman in Lincolnwood, and the woman last night were sexually molested by these morons and you two worked plenty of sex crimes when you were in the homicide-sex unit. And as for getting lost, just keep going north until you see a lot of wealthy homes, big lawns and old trees. You’ll know you’re getting close,” Helms laughed and added, “and if you see a guy in a ski mask with a pillowcase full of loot over his shoulder ask him for directions.” Helms was still laughing when Ryan and Dwyer walked out of his office.
“We should have stayed in homicide, “Ryan said. “We didn’t have to travel so far.”
“But now we’re dealing with a much higher clientele, Jimmy.”
“Yeah, and wealthy people can be a pain in the ass.”
“Your lower middle-class, blue-collar, south side Irish prejudices are showing Jimmy. Let’s take a ride and see how the upper class lives.” Dwyer gave Joan a wink as they walked out.
CHAPTER 3
In a rundown one-story frame home on Grand Avenue in an old section of Chicago known as ‘The Patch’, Randy Hobson sat at the kitchen table with his three partners, Mark Cantone, Anthony Angone, and Gene Taglia. Hobson’s wife was sprawled out on the couch in the front room watching television. Their one year old son was in the kitchen under the table crawling around the men’s feet.
Hobson finished counting money into five equal piles, “$3,117 each isn’t too bad for one night’s work and there will be more when we move the jewelry.” He handed each of the men their share of the money then, turned sideways in the chair and put the remaining two piles of money in a drawer under the counter next to the sink. He leaned over and took four more cans of Budweiser out of the refrigerator and sat them on the table. The window air conditioning unit was moaning and kicking out warm air.
Taglia threw an empty beer can into the already full garbage can under the sink and pulled one of the full cans over in front of him. He popped the top and said, “You said we’d get at least thirty grand in cash out of there. Fifteen grand is a long way from thirty.”
“We’ll get at least that much for the jewelry,” Hobson said. He picked up the rolled up pillowcase lying next to the overflowing ashtray and dumped the contents onto the table. Four wrist watches, three rings, gold chains, cuff links, a diamond necklace, and earrings tumbled out. A gold cuff link bounced off of the scarred Formica table top and landed on the dirty linoleum floor next to the baby who immediately snatched it up and put it in his mouth. Hobson leaned down, grabbed the baby by an ankle and pulled him backwards from under the table. He pried the cuff link out of the baby’s mouth and hollered, “Mandy, come and get this god damn kid will ya!”
“I’m watching my show,” was her angry reply.
He slid his chair backwards, picked up the baby and carried him into the front room and propped him on his wife’s large stomach. “We’re trying to take care of some business in there for crissake. And he needs to be changed!” He walked back into the kitchen. His wife hit the remote on the TV and turned up the volume to drown out the baby’s crying. She got up and dropped the baby in the playpen at the end of the couch and threw herself back on the couch.
When Hobson sat down again Angone had one of the Rolex watches on his wrist admiring it. Cantone was looking at the woman’s ring he was holding not knowing it was a near-perfect 3 carat, round cut diamond; to him it was just a lot more money. “Should we pull the stones out of the settings?”
“Yeah,” said Hobson, “it will make them harder to trace.” He picked up the woman’s Rolex and looked at the back for initials or an inscription. “Take a look at the other watches and wedding bands for any markings. We’ll sand anything off before I take it up to the Jew.”
Angone looked at the back of the watch before he threw it in the pile of jewelry on the table. “As soon as the Jew listens to the television or reads the paper he’ll know where this stuff came from.”
Hobson scooped up all of the jewelry and put it back in the pillowcase. “We’ll wait a few days until things cool down and I’ll take everything up to him.”
Angone took a drink of his beer and said, “There isn’t any sense in waiting; things aren’t going to cool down for a long time after what you did to that broad. The fucking cops are going to look for us forever. We had everything we were going to get and were ready to get out of there when you had to stop and have that broad…”
Hobson grabbed him by the arm, “Shut up, asshole! You want Mandy to hear you? Mandy, come out here and make us some breakfast!”
“I don’t give a shit what she hears. This is my last job with you. Shit like that is going to get us caught or killed. People like them have a lot of connections.”
“Don’t get pissed Tony, we got away clean. My guy has a couple more jobs lined up for us and then we can retire for awhile. You can’t quit now we need you to do the alarms,” Hobson said.
“You fuck with the woman the next time and I’ll kill you myself and leave you there.” Angone got up from the table and started toward the door. He stopped and nodded toward the pillowcase, “call me when you got my end. And another thing, I don’t know why your guy gets a full share of everything when we take all of the risks.” He stood and threw his half-empty can of beer into the sink with the dirty dishes.
“The guy sets everything up, tells us when to hit and what they’ll have, he knows if there’s an alarm and everything we need to know. Come on sit down now, stay for breakfast.”
“She ain’t gonna make us no fucking breakfast, besides it’s almost lunch time. I’m going to the pancake joint.”
“I’ll go with you,” Cantone said getting up from the table.
“I might as well get out of here too; I gotta take Ma grocery shopping,” Taglia said.
The torn screen door slammed behind them as they crossed the sagging back porch and down the rickety wooden stairs to the yard. A mangy brown, mixed-breed dog on a chain leash looked out at them from under the porch, an empty plastic water bowl in its mouth. They walked around the piles of dog shit on the sidewalk and out the gate next to the garage into the alley.
“You want a ride?” Angone asked Taglia.
“No, I only gotta go a couple of blocks,” Taglia walked east down the alley, Angone and Cantone went west.
“Pull your shirt down and cover your gun.”
Cantone looked down and saw his shirt tail had ridden up and the butt of the pistol tucked in his waistline could be seen. He pulled the tail down over the gun and kept walking.
Angone lit a cigarette and said, “I don’t know how he can live like that; the house is a pig pen. She don’t do nothing around there, even the kid is dirty all the time.”
“He doesn’t seem to mind.”
“He’s a fucking hillbilly,” Angone said. They came out of the alley on a side street, turned and walked to the corner of Grand Avenue. Angone’s Pontiac Firebird was parked at a meter, a parking ticket visible under the windshield wiper arm. “I’m glad to see the cops are hard at work.”
“I thought you put money in the meter.”
“I did, but since that goddamn mayor leased the meters to a private concern the goddamn things eat quarters.” He pulled the ticket off the windshield, tore it up and threw the pieces into the gutter.
After both men were in the car, Cantone asked,” Are you really gonna quit?”
“I don’t know, the money is good and it beats driving that truck. But Hobson is a moron. He’s causing us a lot of unnecessary problems and there’s a lot of people that could give us up. There’s whoever the guy is setting up the jobs and there is the Jew fence. If the cops grab either of them and turn them they could give up Randy. And he’d give us up to save himself.”
“You think he’d stool on us?”
“In a fucking heartbeat.”
Cantone looked at his watch, “Shit I’m not going to have time to stop and eat with you. I gotta take my kids to Little League practice. Drop me by my car.”
CHAPTER 4
It was six o’clock when Ryan and Dwyer got back to their office in CIU. Helms was in his office with his feet up on the corner of the desk reading a report; he looked up when he saw them in the outer office. “Come on in, I thought you two got lost up north.”
The detectives sat in the two gray metal chairs across the desk from Helms. “Can’t you use your clout with Murphy to get us some decent furniture?” Dwyer asked as he squirmed to adjust the loose back on the chair.
“Murphy said we were lucky to get what we got; the city’s broke and can’t afford new furniture. He said he knew you two would scrounge up anything we needed.” He threw the report he was reading into his open attaché case on the desk and pulled his feet down. He nodded toward the report and said, “That’s all we got so far on that score last night. What did you learn up in Lincolnwood?”
“We learned that they got a lot less crime and made a helluva lot more money than we do,” Ryan said.
“And they got a lot more comfortable chairs than we do,” Dwyer said. “I should have boosted a couple of them when I was there.” He opened his notebook to the notes he took at the meeting in Lincolnwood. “We got copies of all of the scores in the suburbs and the earlier one in Area Five. Grecco gave the other departments everything he had. There is a lot of physical evidence and DNA evidence from the two women that were molested but no suspect at this time.”
“It looks like the same crew did all of the scores,” he glanced in the file folder and continued, “house alarms circumvented at the telephone box, entry through a back door, family taped up. All dressed in dark clothes and masked. Probably white, and one sounded like a hillbilly. Last night the one mope got careless he wanted specific pieces of jewelry, he’s the one that left the DNA evidence.”
Helms took a piece of hard candy from a jar on his desk, unwrapped it and put it in his mouth. “These weren’t random scores; someone is setting them up. Have they found a common denominator yet; same alarm company, same insurance agent, anything in common?”
Ryan answered, “Not yet. We’ve got three different alarm companies, none of the reports mentioned the insurance company or broker. We asked the suburban dicks to re-interview the victims for that information and also any place where they’ve worn the jewelry in the last few months like a certain restaurant, or social event where it might have been seen. Some of the bigger pieces weren’t the kind you wear every day.”
“How about bank boxes at the same bank, somebody is giving information to that crew,” Helms said.
“They all did have one thing in common,” said Dwyer, each one of them and some of their neighbors had several false burglar alarms go off. The police responded but there was no evidence of an attempted entry. Each time it was written off as a false alarm, nothing unusual at that time.”
“Did they check the telephone box for any tampering?” Helms asked.
“I don’t know, I’ll check,” Ryan said and made a note of that in the file folder.
Just then a deafening thump came from the overhead air duct as the air conditioning unit kicked on. “Jesus… I thought the electricians were going to fix that,” Ryan said as dust blew out of the vent.
“Don’t beef about it, at least it’s running,” Helms said. “What else did you get from the meeting?”
“Two things,” Dwyer said, “One, the family from the first score in Lincolnwood where the woman was molested went on an extended vacation right after the incident. They never told the Lincolnwood dicks they were leaving nor contacted them when they came back, and they haven’t wanted to be re-interviewed.”
Helms grabbed another piece of candy. “Maybe it was more seclusion than vacation. I’m sure they, especially the woman, are trying to put this behind them and every time they have to talk about it reopens the terrible experience. What was the second thing you picked up up there?”
“The cooperation we got from those departments was great. They had copies of everything ready for us, and I mean everything, every report, every crime scene photo and lab reports. I think a lot of it was due to Grecco being there. They all knew him and really like him. When he was in Five Burglary he used to go to monthly meetings with the north suburban dicks. He’s got a good relationship with them. And that county sergeant that was at the meeting is the same guy we worked with that night we got in the shooting at that motel in Chicago Heights when we grabbed the two assholes that killed the federal agents and one of ours.”
“I knew about their monthly meeting,” Helms said, “and Grecco is going to keep going to them. We can pick up a lot of good information at these meetings. The suburban detectives in the south and west suburbs have monthly meetings also and I’m probably going to have you two start going to them. The mopes doing stickups and burglaries don’t just work in the city or in the suburbs. If everybody shares information we have a better chance of grabbing them, just as long as we don’t try to take over their investigations or treat them like hick cops.”
“No, that’s the FBI’s style of cooperative investigations,” Ryan added.
“Carl, we know our way around the south and west side and suburbs but we spent all our time in homicide. We aren’t that sharp on robbery or burglary investigations,” Dwyer said.
“But you know how to conduct investigations; you know how to interview people and what to ask. You both have good street smarts and you both work. I don’t have to check up on you.”
“I work, but I’ve been carrying Jimmy for years,” Dwyer said winking at his boss.
“Well, keep carrying him; you’re doing a good job. Oh, one more thing before we leave, I heard the sergeants list is supposed to be posted in the next few weeks. Did either of you take the test?”
“Jimmy took it,” Dwyer said, “I’m too close to pulling the pin to bother with a promotion.”
“Don’t be talking about retiring Brian, you’re got a few good years left and I need your knowledge and experience if we are going to show some results with this unit,” Helms said.
“And I need you to keep carrying me,” Ryan said.
“I’ve got twenty-five years and the minimum age so I can go anytime I want. I’m getting to hate the winter,” Dwyer said.
“Where would you go Brian, you hate the winters, you hate the hot summers. Florida is a bitch to live in during the summer and they have hurricanes,” Helms said.
“I don’t know, maybe Arizona or maybe around Las Vegas, a lot of our retired coppers are living in Henderson. Maybe I’d get a part-time job in one of the casinos.”
“How good is your source about the sergeants list being posted?” Ryan asked.
“Very good, and I know they are supposed to make about 150 sergeants in the next three years.”
“I might have a chance if I got in the very well qualified group.”
“You’re a white male, the last real minority with no clout,” Dwyer said. “If you’re not a black, Hispanic or female you get run around on the list so the department can be more diverse. Look how long it took Carl to make lieutenant. How many lists expired before you got promoted Carl?”
“I was on two promotion lists that expired and I had to take the test again.”
“And how many times on those two lists did they go around you and promoted people that were lower on the list that were minorities?”
“That happened nine times in the six years I was eligible.”
“And now the captain’s rank is no longer covered under civil service, it’s an exempt rank where the promotion is solely on merit, and 30% of the civil service promotions are now supposedly based on merit, which we know is bullshit!”
“Well sometimes that’s the only way some competent people can get promoted.”
“That’s the party line Carl. It’s the only way they can promote more minorities and political hacks with phony scores on rigged oral interviews that carry more weight than the written test score. You watch, those phony oral interviews and inflated scores are going to be the next thing the US Attorney’s office is going to be looking at. They got the mayor’s patronage chief for mail fraud for sending phony test results thru the mail when they were doing all that illegal patronage hiring and circumventing the civil service for those jobs in streets and sanitation and the water department. That poor guy got almost four years in a federal prison for something that’s been going on since the city was incorporated.”
“And he was a real decent guy,” Helms said.
“Caught up in a shitty system and prosecuted for strictly political reasons. Now they’re going after the same practices with the county and state government,” Ryan said.
“And they could go after almost any city, county or state government anywhere in the country and it’s the same. When you got elected you give jobs and contracts to the people that helped you get elected. Look at the federal government, the U.S. Attorney that’s prosecuting these patronage cases, is a patronage appointed position by the party that wins the White House. Hell, years ago Jack Kennedy appointed his brother Bobby, Attorney General and he had never been in a courtroom in this life.” Dwyer put his notebook on the edge of the desk and continued. “The system stinks. And people wonder why I never took a promotional exam. Carl, you and a few other bosses deserved to be promoted, and a lot sooner than it happened. Every now and then they have to promote a few competent people that can do the job to cover the political hacks that were already promoted and taking up space. Jesus, we got a deputy superintendant that can barely read and write; you know who I’m talking about. He couldn’t pass a test to be a crossing guard!”
“At least it hasn’t made you bitter, Brian,” Helms said. He stood up and closed his briefcase. He looked at his watch and said, “I better get going. Barb wants to go shopping tonight.” He grabbed his suit coat off the back of the chair and threw it over his arm. “Anything else before I get out of here?”
“Yeah, Grecco is going to give us the names of fences that he knows could handle these expensive pieces of jewelry from the scores,” Ryan continued. “It’s not as easy moving a hot TV or some guns from the usual house prowl. Plus, there’s a lot more heat in these scores.”
“And speaking of heat, the dick that’s handling the investigation in Lincolnwood said our friends from the G asked him to send them copies of all of their reports,” Dwyer said.
“The FBI always asks for copies of reports on major burglaries and thefts. They go on the assumption that the stolen property will travel interstate and that gives them jurisdiction,” Helms said.
“I hope we don’t get involved working with those assholes again, we had enough problems with them the last time,” Dwyer said.
“Well arresting an FBI agent on a murder conspiracy didn’t do a lot to endure you two with the Bureau,” Helms said. “Come on I’ gotta get going or I’ll be in the dog house when I get home.”
“You want to stop with us for one on the way home?” Dwyer asked.
“You two never stopped for one in your life. If I hang around with you two I’ll end up in the divorce court. Where are you stopping, Marge’s?”
“Where else?” Dwyer asked
They walked out to their cars; the humidity had gotten worse.
CHAPTER 5
The name of the place, ‘The Fireside’ was in large gold scroll letters against a black background in the front window of the tavern, but everybody called it ‘Marge’s.’
When Joe Caruso a city firefighter, opened the original place fifteen years ago it was in Mt. Greenwood on Kedzie Avenue next to the firehouse. When the neighborhood started to change Joe moved the business; it’s now in a double-wide store at one end of a string of small businesses in a strip mall, just east of Cicero Avenue on the Chicago side of 87th Street. Fire department rules wouldn’t allow Joe to have a liquor license in his name so the license was always in his wife Marge’s name. It was easier to get the license in Chicago than in any of the nearby suburbs.
Five years ago Joe was killed on Christmas Eve while fighting a fire in an abandoned warehouse on the west side. The roof collapsed killing him and two other firemen. Since that time Marge has run the business herself.
Most of Marge’s customers are blue-collar city workers, firemen, police officers, streets and san and union tradesmen, living in the Mt. Greenwood, Scottsdale, and Bogan areas of the city in the southwest enclave. Chicago’s rapidly expanding minorities had caused white flight to the suburbs but a residence ordinance requires all city workers to live in the city. Supposedly, the ordinance was enacted so city workers could respond to an emergency faster if they lived in the city. In reality, it was to keep the middle class tax base from fleeing from the city. As a result of that, white city workers on the city’s south side crowded into two pockets at the edge of the city; one in Hegewisch on the city’s southeast side near the old abandoned steel mills and the Indiana border, the other pocket was on the southwest corner of the city bordering the suburbs. But even these two areas are becoming integrated. The homes are mostly single-family bungalows and Georgians all well maintained, low crime rate, no gang activity, and no graffiti, yet. Pick any block and you’ll find the majority of the residents are city workers.
Ryan turned off of 87th Street into the parking lot and found a spot in front of the State Farm office. Ryan and Dwyer walked to the Fireside.
It was cool inside and warmly lit. The rich smell of home cooking filled the air; there was never a stale-beer tavern smell in the Fireside. Soft music was playing on the juke box. Six of the twenty-five stools at the long bar were filled with four off-duty firemen and two streets and san workers who were watching a White Sox Ball game on the TV hung from the ceiling in the corner. Marge was behind the bar leaning over the sink washing beer glasses. She looked up when she heard Ryan say hello to one of the men at the bar.
Ryan and Dwyer walked to the far end of the bar and took their usual stools around the corner of the bar where they could see the front door; a street-wise police officer never sits where he can’t watch the door.
As they sat down, Marge’s brother-in-law Vince waved to them from the pass-thru window into the small kitchen behind them. Vince had been a city fireman and was trapped in the same fire and roof collapse that killed his brother Joe. He had spent several weeks in the hospital and months in rehab before he finally went on full disability pension because of a crippled right leg that left him with a noticeable limp. Now he worked in the tavern for Marge as a part-time cook, bartender, maintenance man, and full-time goodwill ambassador. His limp didn’t affect his personality, or his ability to shoot pool. He often warned any new customer that challenged him to a game of pool on one of the two pool tables that he made more money shooting pool than he got from his disability check.
Marge dried her hands on a bar towel and took two frosted mugs out of the cooler under the bar. She poured two Bud Lite drafts, brought them over and sat them on the bar in front of Ryan and Dwyer. She walked through the opening at the end of the bar and around between the men and gave each of them a kiss on the cheek; Ryan got a longer kiss.
“Hi, are you two finished serving and protecting for today?”
“Yeah we got it all under control Marge so we thought we’d come and protect you,” Dwyer said. He took a mouthful of the beer; it was ice cold. “I had to force Jimmy to come here, He wanted to stop at the Greek’s on Archer where he thought we could get a good sandwich and a cold beer.”
“Oh, is that true?” Marge asked, giving Ryan a gentle elbow in the ribs, and shaking a Pall Mall out of Ryan’s cigarette pack lying on the bar.
Ryan lit Marge’s cigarette and moved the ashtray closer to her. He put his arm around her waist and said, “Brian said the Greek’s got better sandwiches but you kiss better, the Greek always needs a shave.”
Ryan had been a customer at the Fireside long before Joe was killed. When Ryan was married and living at home, on Saturdays when he was running errands and paying bills he always took his two daughters along with him. Part of their Saturday ritual was to stop at the Fireside for lunch. If Joe was tending bar he would make a fuss over the girls and tell them he was going to introduce them to his two sons when the girls got older. Joe was Uncle Joe to the girls and they took his death very hard.
A year ago Ryan’s wife Donna, asked Ryan to move out of their house while she thought about their life and marriage; she was trying to decide if she wanted a divorce. It wasn’t that Donna didn’t love Ryan, it was that she was tired of the loneliness. She felt Ryan was never home, he was either at work with the police department or at his part-time job. Ryan had worked in homicide most of the years of their marriage.
After the Ryans separated, he sublet a furnished apartment near the family’s home and not far from Marge’s tavern. After a few months, Ryan and Marge started “dating” with an occasional dinner. Then during a homicide investigation which ended in a violent shoot-out with one offender killed, Dwyer wounded and Ryan barely missing death, Ryan and Marge’s relationship turned into a love affair. Ryan’s wife finally made up her mind and filed for a sad, but friendly divorce. Ryan and Marge tried to keep their relationship a secret, but it was the worst kept secret in Chicago. At times they received a lot of good natured kidding from the regular customers in the Fireside.
Ryan took a drink of his beer and asked, “How was your day?”
“We had a good lunch crowd and in the afternoon Vince worked on that beer cooler. He thinks he’s got it fixed; it seems to be staying cold. How about you two, did you keep the city safe?”
Marge was always interested in what Ryan was doing. She felt better knowing what he was working on. Donna never wanted to hear what he was doing. She hated his job because it kept him away from home so much. The only time she or the girls knew what Ryan was doing was when they read his name in the paper or saw him on television news walking some murder suspect into a police station. The girls were proud of their father and idolized him.
Ryan put his beer glass on the coaster and said, “We’re just getting started on a home invasion crew that has been hitting up north and in the suburbs. They hit again in Chicago last night and it was a bad one. They molested the woman.”
“Oh my God, how awful,” she looked to see if any of the customers were looking and took a puff on the cigarette. “I heard about it on the 5 o’clock news but nothing about the woman being attacked.”
“They’re trying to keep that quiet, the family is quite wealthy and influential,” Dwyer said. He picked up his beer glass and slid off the stool. “Sit here Marge. I’m going over there and see if I can take on the winner in that pool game.”
Vince hollered through the pick-up window in the kitchen, “Do you guys want a sandwich or anything before I start cleaning up back here?”
“No, we’re fine Vince, thanks,” Ryan said.
One of the firemen sitting mid-way down the bar hollered to Marge, “Marge, before you get too comfortable down there at that end could we get a couple more beers? Now that Ryan’s here we won’t get any service.”
The firemen next to him laughed good naturedly of that.
Marge put her cigarette in the ashtray, came around the bar and got two Budweisers out of the cooler. She sat them in front of the two men. She patted him on the hand and said “Now behave for a few minutes,” she put the empties in a beer case and rang up his money, then walked back and sat next to Ryan.
For the next hour they talked in between her waiting on the customers. Several customers came and went. One of the regular customers came in with his wife and two children for a late sandwich. Marge brought their order over to their booth on the far wall past the two pool tables. Vince finished cleaning up the kitchen and worked the bar, occasionally bringing Ryan another beer.
Dwyer won the last five games and couldn’t find anyone else interested in trying to beat him. He put his cue on the table and walked back to the bar. Marge started to get off the stool, he put his hand on her shoulder, “No, stay there Marge.” He put his winnings from the pool table on the bar and signaled Vince, “Get everyone a drink and tell them it’s on Tom,” pointing to the fireman he just beat. He took the last mouthful of his warm beer and said to Ryan. “I’m going to head home now, I got a doctor’s appointment in the morning so I’ll meet you at the office.”
“I’ll drive you home,” Ryan started to get off the stool.
“No, stay here, I’m going to pick up a few things at the convenience store then I’ll walk home. I need the exercise.” He kissed Marge goodnight. He dug several quarters out of his pocket and handed them to the young girl standing by the juke box picking out some selections. He said, “Play some soft ones.” She looked over at her dad in the booth who nodded it was okay to take the money. Dwyer stopped to say goodnight to Vince and several customers at the bar and then walked out.
After Dwyer left, Marge asked Ryan, “Is Brian feeling okay? He seemed awfully quiet tonight. Even when he was shooting pool he was quieter than usual.”
“He’s got a lot on his mind right now. His wife’s Alzheimer’s disease test showed it’s advancing fast. And he’s been having some prostate problems and had a biopsy and should get the results tomorrow. He’s expecting the worst but hoping it’s not cancer and just enlarged.”
“Is he still talking about retiring?”
“Brian is always talking about retiring. He could retire tomorrow but he wouldn’t know what to do with himself all day if he did. The wife has had psychological problems since their daughter died a few years ago, and now with the Alzheimer’s she really needs care. He did have a neighbor lady come in and stay with her for a few hours every day but now he has an old Polish lady living in with them to be with her full time.”
“Are we going to end up like that, Jimmy?”
“No, we’re not Babe; we’ve got your two sons and my two daughters to keep us busy. Of course, my two might give us psychological problems before we get them full grown.”
“They’re just normal teenagers Jimmy. And speaking of the girls, are you going to take them anywhere for a vacation before they have to go back to school?”
Vince re-filled Ryan’s glass and he took a drink and answered Marge, “I don’t know, I’ve got plenty of comp time and vacation time, but with this home invasion crew we’re starting on, I don’t know what kind of schedule I’ll be on. The last time I talked to Donna she said her parents were going to Florida and wanted to take her and the girls with them.”
Marge took a sip of coffee that Vince had given her earlier; it was cold by now. “It would be nice for the girls but I wish you could spend more time with them, they idolize you and before you know it they will be off to college. Look at my two, Joey is in his third year and Anthony is a sophomore already.”
“And you say the house is too quiet.”
“Yes, but I’m glad the Circle Campus is close enough. They can come home when they’re hungry and to drop off their dirty laundry. That’s about the only time I see Anthony now that the rest of the time he’s with his girlfriend.”
Ryan laughed, “Boys will always need their mom.”
“Until we teach them to operate a washing machine. Anyway, maybe you could get a couple of days off and I could get Vince to run the place and we could take the girls to the Wisconsin Dells.”
“I mentioned that to them and they said they were too old for the Dells and Disney World. Maybe we could rent a cottage up in Michigan for a week.”
“It’s late in the season and probably everything is booked by now. Do you want me to make some calls?”
“Let’s wait and see what Donna and the grandparents decide to do.”
“Okay, but if nothing else you have to try to spend a few days with them.”
“Maybe I’ll go to Florida with them and Donna.”
“Don’t be a smart ass,” Marge said, giving him a gentle nudge with her elbow. “Speaking of Donna, what’s going on with her?”
“She never has much to say, but the girls let it slip that she is still seeing that guy that teaches with her at Bogan. Remember the one she went out with on New Year’s Eve?”
“Yes, I remember. I also remember the trouble it caused when she got stopped by the Oak Lawn police for driving under the influence and she called your apartment and I answered the phone. She was really hot about that.”
“Well, she still hadn’t made up her mind about the divorce at that time.”
“Did I tell you she called me a few days later at the tavern and apologized for what she said on the phone?”
“Yeah, you told me; maybe you two will get to be best friends,” Ryan snickered.
Marge gave him another gentle poke in the ribs and said, “I told you before don’t be a smart ass. It’s best for the girls and all of us if she and I get along with each other.”
Ryan drained his glass and Vince looked down the bar and asked, “One more Jimmy?”
Ryan shook his head no and looked at his watch. “You’re right it is better for all of us. The girls really like you and they enjoy being with you when we’re together, and Donna doesn’t seem to resent it. Donna’s a good woman and a damn good mother; she just couldn’t put up with the job and the hours. Every time she planned something I’d end up having to work. Remember last Christmas day, I was supposed to go with her and the girls to her parents’ house for dinner when we got that break on the guys that killed the federal agents?”
“Yes, and I remember a few days later when you finally caught them and Brian got shot and you almost got yourself killed. Can you imagine the worry we women go through?”
“You seem to handle it okay.”