Chicago Stories: West of Western (33 page)

“I'd take my jacket off now, but I don't suppose you want them in your office.”

The vet laughed. “It wouldn't be the first time. I'll have the desk send a can of flea spray home with you. If you don't send it out, spray your jacket and bag it up for a few days and it should be okay. Your babies here are really too young to wean, so I've packed up some formula as well as dry kitten food for later. They'll probably be able to lap up the formula, but they might end up standing in it while they do.”

“I'll run by Pet Smart on my way home and get bowls and stuff.”

“We took blood to test for feline leukemia, feline immune deficiency disease, and parasites. If you call tomorrow, we'll have the results after one. Any questions?”

“What if they do have kitty AIDS or leukemia?”

“I'd recommend euthanasia, before you get too attached to them. With either of those conditions, their lives would be short and painful.”

Seraphy's heart jumped. She stood and reached for the carrier, mumbling thanks to the vet, compelled to snatch her kittens away from this nice woman who spoke of euthanization so off-handedly. How could she have come to love these ridiculous critters so much in just the hour she'd had them?

“I'm sorry, I thought you knew.” Dr. Timmons responded to Seraphy's shock. “Over half the feral cats in your neighborhood have one or both. The kittens are from the alley?”

“Yes. A neighbor took them away from a gang. They'd already stomped the others to death.”

The vet grimaced. “That's my idea of hell, those bastards. I'd kill them myself if I ever caught them.” She looked at Seraphy, holding the carrier against her chest. “Let's hope the tests are negative. These little guys have been lucky already, so maybe they'll stay that way.”

When she stopped at Pet Smart to load up on kitty litter, a litter pan and kitten formula, Seraphy fell into the new parenthood trap and bought, in addition to the basics, two tiny rabbit fur mice stuffed with catnip, a sheepskin bed and a vastly over-priced climbing apparatus. When she found herself seriously considering a device “to produce the soothing sounds of mother's heartbeat” for a mere hundred dollars, she quit her browsing, paid for her purchases, and ran for the Jeep. On her way home, she realized this was the second time in little over a week she'd gone on a shopping binge, and she wondered what was happening to her.

Once home, the kittens refused to come out of the carrying case until bribed with a little formula left in a saucer near the carrier. When she reached in to pet them, the black one, whose name was obviously Black Jack, attacked her tooth and claw and wouldn't let her touch his sleeping sister. The female kitten's name was elusive. Sweetheart? Fluffy? Ick. Maybe she'd wait until the kitten woke up and ask her.

She should put her new kids aside and get started on the drawings for Nika and Peter, if she could just settle to the work. The room she'd chosen for her office overlooked the street. Seraphy stopped to check before settling at the drafting board. On opposing corners, Lobos and Duques postured and preened like fighting cocks before the main event.

Call
Aunt Bennie
. Seraphy had left the note on her espresso machine last night. Damn. She had to make the call. Her mother had alerted Benedicta to expect it. This should be almost as much fun as a dentist's appointment.

“Benedicta Pelligrini.” Wow, no nonsense here. Seraphy checked her posture.

“Hello, Aunt Bennie, this is Seraphy, your niece. How are you? I hope I'm not interrupting anything.”

“Hello, Seraphy. No, I'm just getting ready to start on the next chapter. Your mother told me you'd be calling. I understand you're living next door to Sister Ann?” Right down to business. Obviously Aunt Bennie wasn't one for pleasantries.

“Yes, I am. I've had a couple of meetings with her. She's a little disconcerting and Mom said you could tell me about her.” How was that for understatement?

“Disconcerting?” Aunt Bennie chuckled. “I knew Ann Williams when we were young novices years ago. I think you may have reason to be concerned, but I would rather not do this over the telephone. Could you come here tomorrow for a talk? Wait, tomorrow's Thanksgiving. Friday, then? I have some photos that might interest you.”

“Of course. When would you prefer that I come?” God, she was even talking like one of Bennie's students. Benedicta—she'd kept the name when she left the order and it suited her—could whip Genghis Khan's hordes into shape with one hand. Make that one comment.

“I'll be finished with this section by lunch time. Perhaps two o'clock?”

Preoccupied
with the threat of imminent gang war and distracted by the kittens, it took Seraphy half an hour to settle to plans for Nika's attic, laying out her notes and taping paper to the drafting board. Once started, the work took over and she became oblivious to her surroundings. Only when her back ached and her fingers were numb did she realize it was after eleven and Black Jack was mewing pitifully from the kitchen. Seraphy found him standing in his empty bowl, his whole body rigid, his spike of a tail straight up and quivering with indignation.

“So you got hungry and decided to come out and explore?” She reached down to pet the adorable little black critter. He savaged her hand before scooting back to the carrier.

“Fine, be that way.” She licked drops of blood from between her thumb and index finger. “So it's like that, is it? You got priorities. Bite me, then eat.”

She poured an ounce of formula in the saucer and watched Black Jack slink out of the carrier, head down, ears twitching, then slither over the edge of bowl. Dr Timmons was right, the kitten had to stand in his formula to drink. She waited without moving while he gorged himself. When he looked like he'd swallowed a tennis ball, he slowed down and let his tail droop. She ventured to stroke his back lightly. Replete with warm formula, Black Jack started to purr, then remembered he was fierce and turned to attack.

“Hard to get, huh?” Blood welled along one side of her hand. “Thank God you only have baby teeth.” She incarcerated him in the carrier and gave his sister her dinner. Unlike Black Jack, the gold kitten was sweet and trusting, purring and lifting her chin to let Seraphy stroke her neck before she turned to eat. Dainty and feminine, a powder puff of a kitten, she was hard to put down.

Obviously channeling a Jane Austen heroine, Seraphy mused, her name must be . . . Emily. When Emily finished her dinner and tried to turn around, the cast on her leg threw her off-balance and she fell. Seraphy picked her up and held her while Emily licked a white-tipped paw and washed her face.

“Looks like I've finally settled down,” Seraphy told the kitten, “First Mom sent over Grandmother's chest and the rug, and now I've even got a couple kids. Give me a few years and I'll be just another old lady with cats.” Emily looked up, licked Seraphy's hand and purred.

Looking
over the preliminary drawings, Seraphy brushed a pile of discarded post-its into the trash and slid off the high stool. Rubbing her tired butt, she contemplated her work. Yeah, Nika was going to like this.

A failure of the imagination. What if her thinking about the killers had been just that? Not only she, but everybody—Terreno, Markowicz, Jaimie, Mario, George, Richard and Andre, everybody assumed the shootings were part of the same old gang violence. Lobos or Duques, take your choice, but surely one of the two.

Even though the style of the shootings didn't fit gang violence. Maybe they needed to look for another type of killer, someone cool, organized, professional. Someone with emotions under control, someone clever enough to get close to the victims without a fight. Someone experienced with pistols, someone they'd not considered. Seraphy let her mind free-wheel through the people she'd met in the neighborhood, for surely the killer was local. Richard and Andre, ridiculous, they'd never get so close to the three bangers without alarming them. Diego? An actor? Sure, have to see where he was when they were all shot. George? Jaime? Peter? No, gangbangers wouldn't trust Peter or Mischa enough to let them close.

With that characteristic cop-car engine sound, a police cruiser whooshed past on the street and brought her to the window. Blue lightning flashed from a cluster of police cars up the street near Division, and while she watched, a fire department ambulance added red to the blue.

Shit. Please, God, not another one.

Half-way down the stairs she remembered her jacket and went back. Shit. Joe's jacket was in the bag being de-bugged. She grabbed the old pea coat. Outside, the cold bit at her face as she ran and she pulled up her collar and groped in her pocket for gloves.

A crime scene tech was stringing yellow tape across the street. Too much for a simple accident. At the tape, uniforms kept a growing crowd at bay. Inside the tape, cops and emergency personnel crowded around something on the ground, shielding the scene from the growing crowd. Police cars and the ambulance idled, exhaling noxious exhaust fumes.

“What happened?” she asked a patrolman when she reached the edge of the crowd. He shook his head and waved her away. If she could find a cop she knew, she could find out what was going on. No familiar faces nearby. Seraphy faded back into the crowd and worked her way around to the other side, where standing on the high curb would let her see over the crowd. Two homeless men from Sister Ann's let her past, and she recognized Chico and Berto at the back of the crowd.

A gawker she didn't recognize gave up and wandered off, and she took his place at the front of the crowd. Now she could make out the edge of a coat on the ground. No paramedics kneeling next to the victim. Seraphy looked for them and found them sitting in the ambulance looking bored. No need for their expertise, not anymore. Up on her toes, she craned her neck for a better view, and made out the edge of the coat collar. No gang hoodie. Maybe just a street accident?

Patrolmen moved through the spectators, opening a space for the medical examiner's van. As the crowd was pushed back, Seraphy caught her first clear view of the body that lay in the street like a bundle of discarded clothing. A ragged coat, running shoes with the soles duct-taped together, a head of dirty gray hair and matching scraggly beard. Something vaguely familiar about the man. Feeling guilty at her relief the man wasn't a gang member, she shrugged and turned to go.

“Fucking shit! Watch where you're going, Chickie.” The blow pushed her off balance and she stumbled off the curb. Sister Ann fell past her into the gutter, swearing and trying to use crutches to stop her fall. Seraphy grabbed her arm to help her up.

“Outta my way. I gotta—oh, shit,” the old woman pushed Seraphy away, lunged to her feet and hopped toward the man on the ground. “Shit, Manny. Let me through, I gotta identify this guy.” At first, a young patrolman held up a hand to stop her, when she struggled, he held her arm while he called for instructions.

“Let me go, I said. Take your dirty cop hands offa me!”

Standing over the body, Markowicz looked up and motioned for the officer to let the woman pass. Seraphy slipped in behind her. Sister Ann maneuvered around the medical examiner and detectives, leaned down for a quick glance, then pulled herself upright.

“That's Manny—Emmanuel Washington,” she said to no one in particular and turned to leave. “He lived upstairs at my house. You can come by there if you want more. I'm an old woman and my shoulders hurt.” She turned and stumped toward the tape. Markowicz nodded at the cop to let her go

“Sentimental old witch,” someone in the crowd muttered.

When
Seraphy got home, her phone was flashing. A message, the number blocked.

“Fin. Here. Mischa. Dankovich. O-kay. Delay. Unavoidable. No. Further. Investigation. Needed.” Not one for chit-chat, Fin. Seraphy erased the message. Curiouser and curiouser. Apparently somebody closed down Fin's investigation. Must have been somebody pretty high up. Now she was really curious about the Ukrainian self-described contractor.

So the killer wasn't Mischa, nor Mario or his Duques. That pretty much left Chico. As much as she'd like to believe that, she couldn't. Or one of her wild cards, George, Diego or Jaime? Somehow she'd have to find out which, much as she hated the thought.

Chapter 29

Thanksgiving, midnight. Seraphy
stood at the window with the lights off, watching the street below. She'd come home from a family feast, candles, a fire, a close and friendly family, turkey and all the trimmings at her brother's house, to find the streets cold and empty. An hour later, she heard the first of the cars.

They'd been at it for an hour now, each gang circling its territory, crossing paths on the common border, Rockwell Street. For the Duques, starting at Augusta, four to a car, north on Rockwell, Haddon, Campbell, Augusta, Rockwell again, around clockwise, loop after loop after loop. The Lobos, also four to a car, circled in the opposite direction: west on Augusta, Washtenaw, Haddon, south on Rockwell, Augusta, ignoring one-way signs, intent on the ritual. Rockwell was the crucial stretch, the common border where the loaded cars passed one another. Duques drove north, Lobos south. Seraphy had a grandstand seat.

She could almost see the invisible center line separating the sworn enemies. Cars cruised past each other, each pass leaving less space between opposing cars. Each round they speeded up. Like the chicken she and her brothers played on country roads, she thought, except these guys had guns and wanted to kill each other. Urban chicken. Jesus.

Aside from the cars, the streets were empty, families hunkered down away from the windows, children bedded down in bathtubs. Waiting. Waiting for the screech of colliding SUVs, the firecracker sound of handguns, the stutter of MAC-10s.

Even the dogs were silent.

The riders, though, weren't. She cracked a window to listen, shied back from the angry hate-filled rap blaring from the cars, and slammed the window closed again. Below in the street the parade went on. Cars circling, circling. Windows down, rap blaring, packed with angry bodies, faster and faster, closer and closer.