God Makes Them Mean

Chapter 7

'Well?' Jeff asks me. He's been prowling Jay's turf. He's been spying and eyeing and bird-watching. In that place, he's as inconspicuous as a white bear in the middle of the desert. He's talking to me through on of the few phone booths still standing. He had to walk ten blocks just to find one. He has already informed me the place smells of urine, vomit and cheap ugly sex.

'Judge told me to drop it.'

'You should.'

'Jay is involved. I can feel it,' I protest.

'Dude, I love you, you're family, but you'd tie Jay to the Kennedy assassination if you could.'

'Don't be silly, he wasn't even born back then. His Dad must've done it.'

He chuckles. Jeff chuckles are like the sound baby back ribs make when they're snapped. 'Should I go back and take an eye on him?'

'You do that. I'll get into the car and be right with you.'

'Got any plan?'

'I'll think of some. Driving helps me clear my mind.'

It doesn't, not when the traffic is thicker than Prosecutor Tedeschi's head, and slower than one of Jay's buddies' cognitive process. I find myself parked behind a van. We proceed at a snail's pace. Dinah Washington is on the radio. People on the sidewalk are so fast compared to us it looks like they're running in quick motion. They are blurs. Maybe it's just me, I'd like them to be blurs, quickly in and out of my life and never heard or seen ever again. I try to make my mind run as well, but all I can do is rummage through patchy thoughts. I got two tiny men sitting on my shoulders, each one whispering in one of my ears. Contrary to popular tradition, they're not an angel and a devil. I've always imagined one of them looking like Steve Buscemi, the other like John Turturro.

What can I say? Big fan here.

There's no good and evil. There's just bad and mischievous. One suggesting me how to deal with Jay, the other telling me just to walk up to that fucking front porch and pepper him full of bullets until he's so heavy he'd crack the floor beneath him.

'Those are not acceptable long term solutions guys. We have to walk the street and narrow of justice and legality,' I tell them.

Just shoot him one dark night. Just make him spend one day in the cooler, shit can happen once you're locked in. Just give one of the girls a gun, she'll know how to put it to good use. They must hate it him. Everybody knows how to pull a trigger.

The police radio interrupts Dinah, it croaks, it wakes me from my reverie. 'MacCreedy here,' I say, picking it up.

'Where the fuck are you?' Pat asks me. I can extrapolate from his tone that he's positively pissed at me.

'Stuck in traffic.'

'Don't bullshit me.'

'I promise you. Scout's honor.'

'Captain just got a call from Judge Taylor. We're off the case. So I'm gonna repeat myself just once. What the fuck?'

'I asked for a warrant.'

'Without consulting me?'

'I thought it was better if you sat this one out. Not getting you involved and all that.'

'I agree. It would've been nice to be told though. You know, us been partners and everything.'

I change the topic, slightly. 'I talked to Vanessa.'

'I talked to Doctor Bergman as well. Our boy was been serviced when he died.'

'I made the assumption it wasn't love, but bought and paid for sex. I connected it to Jay's girls, who else is not going to have any qualms about blowing a dirty old homeless man in a Santa Claus costume? In the middle of an alley? In a freezing Chicago night?'