High Chicago

CHAPTER 51

Simon Birk had landed on his back on the rutted earth, not far from a line of portable washrooms and a dumpster filled with odd lengths of wood and rebar. A pool of blood was fanning out around his head but the rest of him-his top half anyway-looked fine, good enough for an open-casket funeral. Most of the damage would be on the underside and internal: pulped organs beneath the intact skin.

"And there you have it," Curry said. "Simon Birk's final groundbreaking."

We made Curry walk ahead of us toward the trailer, supporting Avi with an arm around his waist, Avi moaning and limping, all the adventurousness knocked out of him. Then Curry said, "Fuck it," squatted and got his shoulder under Avi and stood, grunting, hefting him like a fireman would. A lot stronger than his slim frame suggested, handling Avi's weight and staying sure-footed among the deep ruts created by earthmovers' treads.

When we got to the trailer, he let Avi fall heavily to the ground. Avi cried out and Curry told him to quit moaning. "It's one fucking leg," he said. "It's not like you were shot."

I opened the trailer door and peered in. I could see Henry's thin white shins peeking out where his pants parted from his socks. He hadn't moved.

No sign of Jenn.

Just a walkie-talkie on the ground, its indicator light off.

"In back of you," a man's voice said.

We turned and saw Tom Barnett standing about fifteen feet in back of us, leaning against the cab of a backhoe. He held Jenn in front of himself. His powerful right arm was around her throat, with her Baby Eagle resting in his hand, its muzzle resting casually against her head. His own piece was pointed at us: yet another Beretta, the place lousy with them.

"You know the routine," he said. "Put the guns down. Both of you, now! Drop them easy and kick them this way."

I put the Beretta down, kicked it across the ground toward him. It would have made it all the way but it tripped up on a rut three-quarters of the way there and stopped. Ryan threw his Glock to roughly the same spot.

"They have any more guns, Francis?" Barnett rumbled softly.

"The dark guy, Ryan, he has my Beretta in a shoulder holster. And an Eagle in an ankle holster."

Barnett told Ryan to unbutton his jacket and open it. Saw the butt of the gun. Told Ryan to take it out slow with two fingers and lay it on the ground. Made him lift his pant leg and ditch the Eagle. "Now step back."

Ryan stepped back.

Curry stooped to pick up the guns.

Barnett said, "Uh-uh."

"But that's-"

"I said, uh-uh."

Curry said, "Tommy-"

"Step back. Both of you. I want all the guns first. Then we'll talk. You, Geller. You don't look as tough as your friend. Take the guns and toss them over here. Carefully. I been on this job too long to say 'or the girl gets it.' But that's the general drift."

When he had all the guns in his possession-and Curry's killing gun stowed in his own holster-Barnett shoved Jenn toward the trailer and covered us with his service piece and her Baby Eagle. Avi moaned on the ground, gripping his injured leg; if he was looking for sympathy from any of us, he'd wait till he dried up like a bird carcass.

I said to Barnett, "If anyone saw or heard Birk fall, you've got little to no time. You need to make a decision and there's only one that's going to save your neck and let you walk out of here a hero."

He looked at me with interest-too much for Curry's liking. Curry said, "Who you going to listen to, Tommy, this gaper here or your old partner?"

"The facts on the ground, old partner, are a little different than what you told me they'd be. I was supposed to put the arm on some broad named Charlaine. I not only find a fucking crowd scene when I get here, but everyone's armed to the teeth, even Angel Face here, plus that seems to be Simon Birk mashed into the fucking ground there, Francis, with no pulse. So I say to you, old partner, what the fuck did you just get me into?"

"Do things my way," I said, "and you'll keep your badge. Hell, you'll probably get promoted. You listen to Curry, there's going to be a bloodbath. A body count you won't be able to take."

Barnett said, "How do you know what I can take?"

"My way, you can close half a dozen major crimes. His way, you have to cover up ten murders."

"You're delusional."

"Count them, Detective. You'd have to kill everyone here," I said. "Five of us."

"I count four."

"There's a security guard tied up in the trailer. He's tied, gagged, deaf and blind, but Curry would have to kill him too because he spoke to him on the phone tonight. That's five. Birk makes six. Then there's Chuck Belkin-you remember Chuck, shot to death after Birk's robbery. Add three homicides in Toronto that a very good sergeant is handling, that's your ten killings, all open and active, any one of which could connect with another one, then boom, you've sunk everything you've worked for. You know there's only one way out for you. If you're not seeing it, it's not because you're not smart enough."

Curry said, "Let me help you, Tom."

"You know what you have to do," I said to Barnett. "The only question is, Can you do it?"

"You're so damn sure," he said. He knew exactly what I meant, and that I was right because there was only one way out of this for him-to kill Francis Curry on the spot.

"It's the only story you can sell," I said.

"What are you talking about?" Curry said. "What story?"

"Ever see The Maltese Falcon?" I asked.

Curry said, "Sure." Frowning. "Everyone's seen that one."

"Remember they need a fall guy at the end, someone to give to the cops for the murders. They settle on Wilmer, the little guy in the coat with the two big guns. You can see his eyes getting wider and wider as he realizes Sydney Greenstreet is going to sell him out. We need the same ending, Curry. We need a fall guy. If it's you, Barnett gets the guy who killed Simon Birk and at least three others."

"Where does your story start?" Barnett asked.

"Birk brought Avi Stern-that's him moaning there-up to the top of the building to show him what the view would be like. Curry was blackmailing Birk over the phony home invasion, Birk threatened to cut him off, he followed Birk and attacked him up there. Pushed him over. Stern tried to stop him and was injured. Curry was fleeing the scene when you arrived and when confronted by him, you shot him dead."

"I just happen on a scene my ex-partner's involved in?"

"Doesn't have to be. You were following him. You always suspected the Birk home invasion was an inside job. You had no proof but, dedicated cop that you are, you couldn't let it go. Now you can finally close the case that haunted you. Birk admitted it all in front of a lawyer."

"Yeah, listen to it on tape," Curry laughed. "You can hear Geller winging bolts at Birk while he screams his fucking lungs out."

"Remember the broomstick Curry broke off in some guy's ass?" I said. "The one that got him kicked off the force? This is another stick of his, Barnett. You want to be the one left holding it?"

He was looking at the guns in his hands, the Baby Eagle barely visible. "So you're saying Francis gets shot fleeing the scene."

"The alternative is shooting five in cold blood."

"Nicely argued, Geller. Nicely done. If this was Toronto, someone would probably give you a gold star. But me and Francis," he said, "we go back too far. He broke me in, didn't you, Francis. Taught me what it was to be a cop in this city. Then he helped me learn about people like Birk." He took out Curry's Beretta and handed it to him. "Francis," he said, "your weapon."

Curry gave me a smile as cold and lethal as black ice. Eased the safety off the gun.

Barnett said, "Police, drop the gun."

Curry looked up.

"I said, drop the gun!" Then he fired three shots from his service pistol into Curry's chest, fast as firecrackers, sending him staggering back, his arms going like pinwheels. He fell onto his back, his head smacking hard against the cold ground, but that didn't matter-he was already dead. The pistol lay close to his hand. Barnett kept us covered, got his body between us and the gun.

"Talk fast," he said to me. "What does the security guard know?"

"He saw Jenn. Briefly. Could be coaxed into giving a very generic description. He heard Ryan's voice and talked to Curry on the phone. Curry told him to go home. Which works with the idea Curry was planning something."

"All right. Get into the trailer," he said. "All of you."

"We should get out of here. Someone's going to report the shots you just fired."

"I said, into the trailer. Now."

"You're halfway out of this, Barnett, don't turn back."

"I can't just let you walk out of here."

"Barnett-"

"What do I know about you people? How do I know who can keep his mouth shut? That one's a lawyer, for Chrissakes."

"We have no interest in pursuing you," I said. "As far as we're concerned, you're Chicago's problem. Not ours."

"And him?" Meaning Avi.

"He's in enough shit as it is." I squatted next to him and pulled his face up by the hair. "Aren't you, Avi? You'd like to get out of this with your life intact. Right? However much you hate me, you're not going to bring your family and practice down in flames too, are you?"

"No," he muttered.

"Okay, Barnett? Let us get out of here, now, and leave you to tell what happened. One teller, one story. Far less room for screwing up."

"No one's going anywhere."

"You could kill us all?"

"I'm a Chicago police detective," he said. "Tell me what I can't do."

"I'll tell you," said a voice above him.

Barnett looked up into the night sky.

Something metal fell and struck him in the face. A lunch box. He dropped without a word. He lay dazed, bleeding from a cut above his right eye, while Ryan stripped him of his guns, including a.25-calibre belly gun tucked in an ankle holster of his own.

There was a rustling sound on the roof of the trailer above where Barnett had been standing. Then quiet, then a thud as Gabriel Cross dropped to the ground, wiping his hands of some dirt.

"I told you not to come here tonight," I said.

"I know," he said. "But I'm working on not listening to white men so much." We hammered it out quick and dirty outside the trailer. With Ryan's gun nuzzling his ear, Barnett had little choice but to nod and accept our terms. Jenn and Ryan would start the drive back that night and I would fly out on the first morning plane, to stay consistent with our means of entry; three tourists going home after enjoying ever too briefly the wonders of Chicago, the Great Lakes' finest city. Avi would go back to a life that seemed entirely predictable on one level-the good Jewish lawyer, the father of three lovely kids-and beneath it his seething hatred of me, this grudge he'd nursed all these years, this idea that if I had never come to Har Milah, he'd be happily married to a lush beauty, instead of living in clenched misery with a wife as dry as a crumbling leaf. That was his life. Let him go back to it. Neither he nor Barnett could ever implicate the other without destroying himself.

Barnett would finally solve the Birks' robbery. He would close the cases on Simon Birk, Chuck Belkin and Charlaine Teal, the woman who played the role of evil chambermaid, whose death he'd also ascribe to Curry. He'd even rescue Henry, the loyal night watchman.

Gabriel Cross, of course, had vanished before Barnett regained his senses. As far as the official story went, he was never even there. Just like the rest of us. As if that night had never happened. If only. Back at the hotel, Ryan and Jenn loaded their few things into the car, got directions to the northbound I-94 and sped off.

I booked a flight on my laptop, leaving O'Hare at 6:35 the following morning, then fell back on the bed and worked on slowing my breathing, getting it right with the rhythm of my heart and body, instead of the Riverdance thing it was doing.

Advocating a man's death the way I had, so cold and logical about it-yes, I did it to keep the rest of us alive, one life to trade for five. And it was probably a conclusion Barnett would have come to on his own. Curry had sealed his own fate the minute he threw Birk to his death. But there I'd been, like Iago whispering in Othello's ear, a low baritone urging murder to keep the peace.

Not exactly the kind of world repairs I had set out to make.

I didn't think I'd want to be back atop a tall building for a long time. No more CN Tower climbs for charity. No going out on observation decks. Being so high atop a building with another man-someone you deeply feared or mistrusted-gave you an unsettling sense of power: you could end his life with the slightest shove. Birk had clearly felt it, ordering me out on the beam, chucking bolts at me as I clung to a girder below him. And I felt it when I forced him to walk out there. When I threw a bolt at him, making him drop to his beam and cling to it like a frightened child.

I lay there in a T-shirt and shorts. The king bed was more than big enough but I knew I wasn't going to sleep for a while, so I appreciated that the ceiling was in good overall repair: no flaking paint, no cracks, no spiderwebs. A chandelier free of dust. The chambermaid had done a good job. Got into the corners. Got the place fresh. Hadn't slipped in with a knife so far. This hotel was all right with me. I wasn't so all right with me.

Maybe that would pass once I had done the last thing I needed to do to close Marilyn Cantor's case.