The Third Rail Page 7

  As usual, the judge had all the right questions. As usual, I had nothing but jokes for answers.

  CHAPTER 20

  Filter was in a section of the city called Bucktown. The neighborhood got its name from the goats Polish immigrants used to tie up in their front yards. Today the goats are gone, replaced by angst-ridden hipsters, spiked goths, and dewy-eyed emos. Pick a label and throw a blanket over them: what you have are a collection of just-out-of-college types, living in industrial lofts bought with what was left of their dad’s cash, specializing in self-awareness and taking it all very seriously. Think yuppies with tattoos and no sense of humor.

  I sat at a table near the window. My waitress stumbled her way across the floor on black platform shoes, wearing ripped jeans stuffed to overflowing and a T-shirt that read WE NEVER SLEEP. She was texting on her cell phone as she set down my cup of coffee.

  “Could I get a pierogi with this?”

  The woman nodded and began to wander away. Then she looked up from her phone and wrinkled her nose.

  “A what?” She spoke in that flat, loud, cringe-inducing tone Americans are beloved for the world over.

  “A pierogi. It’s a Polish dumpling.”

  “We don’t have them. We have carrot muffins.”

  I was about to launch into the history of Poles in Chicago, and pierogis in particular, when the waitress’s cell phone came alive in her hand, bleating out the theme song from Sanford and Son. She beamed at her ring-tone choice as if it were a newborn and then returned to the unappetizing prospect of her job … and yours truly.

  “Listen, sir, I have things to do. You want something else?”

  Hubert Russell drifted into view—baggy jeans, red sneakers, and backpack a perfect fit for the Filter vibe.

  “My friend behind you might want something,” I said.

  The waitress rolled her eyes and flipped open her still-singing phone. “I’ll call you back.” She hung up without waiting for a response. Then she took Hubert’s order for chai tea and moped away.

  “What did you do to her?” Hubert settled into a chair across from me and pulled off a chili-red stocking hat. Underneath was a mop of black hair, tied back in a small ponytail.

  “Nothing. How you doing?”

  “Okay.” Hubert began to unpack what I assumed was a nuclear-powered laptop. He kept his body turned away from me and his head slouched low between his shoulders. I knew there was a problem. Then the light coming through the window shifted and I knew why.

  “What happened to your face?”

  A shiver of anger settled in his jaw. Hubert turned toward me and blinked out of one eye. The other was partially closed and that was the good news. He had a ragged run of stitches holding together the upper half of his eyelid and swelled up into his brow. The left side of his lower lip had caught some thread too, and I bet whatever had happened might have cost him some teeth.

  “Was it just fists or something else?” I said.

  “No offense, Mr. Kelly, but I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Not how things work, Hubert. You look out for your friends. And your friends look out for you.”

  “Maybe I don’t need looking out for?”

  “Really. You take care of the truck that hit your face?”

  Hubert tried to smile, but it looked like it hurt.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said. “You want to live your life like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Scared, ashamed. Pretending whatever it is, it’s not a big deal.”

  “Not right now, Mr. Kelly.” The pleading edge in his voice tugged at the fabric of denial that lay bunched between us.

  “We’re gonna talk,” I said. “Later, for sure.”

  Hubert took a sip of his tea. “Can we do the case now?”

  I shook my head and gave him the bare bones. Most of it he had already picked up from the news.

  “We have one at least solid lead,” I said. “Guy dumped his rifle in an alley after the shooting downtown.”

  “He never would have done that if it could have been traced, right?”

  “You’d be surprised at how careless these guys can get,” I said.

  “Guys?”

  “We think there are two people operating together.”

  “Can you tell me what you got on the rifle?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing yet. No prints. Feds are running a trace.”

  Hubert lifted his one good eyebrow. “Speaking of the feds, what do you think I can do that the FBI can’t?”

  “I know the Bureau,” I said. “They’re running all kinds of scenarios, working up a profile, comparing details of the crimes against other cases. All the stuff you’d expect.”

  “Makes sense to me,” Hubert said. “Use your database to look for patterns.”

  “Yeah, but I’m thinking the guys we’re looking for might not fit any of the normal patterns. On top of that, the Bureau can’t do anything without discussing it for a day and a half. Meanwhile, these guys keep killing people.”

  Hubert didn’t look like he completely bought the logic, but there was enough there for him to be intrigued. “Do they know about me?”

  “I’ll talk to the powers that be. Maybe get you some sort of consultant’s role.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

  Hubert grinned. It might have been my imagination, but it looked like the smile hurt a little less. “Do I get to carry a badge?”

  “No, Hubert. What you get to do is think outside the box. Develop an analysis modeled on factors no one else is taking into account.”

  “And you think that’s where these guys live?”

  “I think it’s worth a shot. You nose around where they’ve been …” I shrugged. “Maybe they left some footprints.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Hubert said. “Let’s get going.”

  “One more thing. Last time I asked you to help, there was no real danger. Not so here. These guys like to kill, and they’re pretty good at it.”

  Hubert didn’t seem impressed. Then I told him the rest of it: the brown package, the Iliad, and my trip into the underworld from the night before.

  “This guy actually set you up?” Hubert said.

  I nodded.

  “And shot at you?”

  “That was the general idea I got, yes.”

  “Wow. Are you going to report the body?”

  “If they don’t find it soon enough, I’ll make a call.”

  “But, for now, you want to keep the package to yourself?”

  I smiled. “It was sent to me. I’d like to figure out what it means. So, yes, the package stays between us.”

  I pulled out the cardboard cutout of the black train over yellow. “This was in there along with the book and the map. I’m thinking it’s some sort of logo, but I can’t place it.”

  Hubert picked up the cutout and studied it. “Mind if I hang on to this for a while?”

  “So you’re still interested?”

  “I said I was.” Hubert kicked at the pile of documents I had stacked under the table. “Now, when are you going to tell me about all of this?”

  I pulled up the files I’d gotten from Jim Doherty. “You’re a smart kid.”

  Hubert had his eyes fixed on the files. “Yeah, yeah. So what surprises do we have here?”

  CHAPTER 21

  I’d just opened one of the files when Rodriguez walked through Filter’s front door. I waved him over. “I told the detective to meet us here.”

  Hubert shrugged. “Cool.”

  Rodriguez slid into the booth beside Hubert. “What’s up, kid? Whoa, what happened to the face?”

  I thought Hubert might just get up and leave. He smiled instead. “Hi, Detective. How are you?”

  Rodriguez looked over to me and back to Hubert. Then he noticed the old files piled up at my elbow.

  “What are those?”

  Hubert began to type on his laptop. �
��That is Mr. Kelly’s backstory and the reason why we’re all here this morning. Would you like to listen now or do you need coffee first?”

  Rodriguez got his coffee from the waitress, who wasn’t any nicer to him, badge and all. Then he turned his attention to me.

  “None of this goes to the task force,” I said. “Not until we figure out if there’s anything worth looking at.”

  Rodriguez waved a hand. I tipped open a file and kept talking.

  “Thirty years ago, an L train crashed in the Loop. Four cars derailed and wound up in the street. Eleven people were killed.”

  I threw a spray of old news clips onto the table. Rodriguez picked one up and began to read.

  “The anniversary date was yesterday, February fourth,” I said. “The crash happened at the corner of Lake and Wabash, site of yesterday’s sniper shooting.”

  Rodriguez looked up. “You been saving all this?”

  “I got a pal, retired cop named Jim Doherty. You know him?”

  Rodriguez shook his head.

  “He was a rookie in ’80. Worked the tracks as they pulled bodies out of the cars. Everyone has a case that stays with them. For Jim, this was it. Keeps in touch with the families. Remembers the anniversary. All that stuff. We used to talk about the case when I was on the force.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Rodriguez said. “Why would anyone start shooting up the L thirty years after the fact? And how does Southport fit? Most important, why put the bull’s-eye on you?” The cop took a sip of his coffee. “Too many loose ends.”

  “There’s more,” I said and pulled out another news clipping. It was a shot of the Lake Street elevated, moments after the crash. Below lay a tangle of fire trucks, ambulances, and cops surrounding four derailed cars: one lying on its side on Lake Street; one crushing the roof of two parked cars; the other two dangling in that rarefied air, halfway between the tracks and street below.

  “I never told Doherty about this.” I shrugged. “Not sure why, but I guess I never told anyone.”

  “Told anyone what?” Rodriguez said.

  I tapped my finger lightly on the faded photo. “I was in that one right there.”

  THE TRAIN TOOK the curve and I felt it in my stomach. I’d never felt that before, not on this curve, and my nine-year-old brain told me something might be wrong. Wheels chattered high and tight against the steel tracks as the weight of the car fought to swing out over Lake Street. An old lady near the front fell into the aisle with a crack that might have been her wrist. She screamed and someone else screamed to echo her. A man moved to help the lady on the floor. I watched him grasp her upper arm and then they both looked up. I pulled my eyes up, too, just in time to watch us barrel into a second train sitting immobile at the very center of the curve.

  The noise went on forever, a grinding and tearing of metal on metal. This was what a crash sounded like. From the inside out. I slammed into a steel post and rolled across the floor. I blinked away the blood and felt the rip in my forehead. It hurt to stand up, but I did and climbed back toward my seat. Most everyone else was still on the floor. I was sure they were hurt, but there was precious little room for thought as our train continued its climb up the back of the first. Then the noise stopped. Whispers of pain began to bleed through the shock. I looked back toward the thin man. He was out cold, a small gash near his temple and a smear of blood against the window. I grinned to myself. Even at nine, I knew a silver lining when I saw one. I stepped back into the aisle just as another surge of power ran through the train and up into the soles of my sneakers. Once, twice, five times in all, our train seemed to buck and actually accelerate into the train it had already mangled. Each time the accordion effect caused the car we were in to bend and flex. The fifth time was the charm. Our car popped off the tracks, pitched to the left, and fell over the side, toward the street twenty-five feet below.

  “HUH.” Rodriguez looked at me and waited.

  “I was just a kid,” I said. “There were a lot of people inside. A few of them died. Most of us got out okay.”

  “You know anyone who was in the car with you?” Rodriguez said. “Anyone who might hold a grudge?”

  I held up a finger. “I knew one person, but he’s dead.”

  “You sure?” the detective said.

  I nodded and half smiled. “It was my old man. He was a conductor on the car that night.”

  I WOKE UP in darkness, staring down at a strip of white crosswalk painted across Lake Street and crosshatched by a tangle of girders. I tried to stand up and realized that wasn’t going to be easy. My feet were above my head, which was jammed into a corner near the rear door of the train. I pushed myself slowly away from the gash that had opened up in the floor and began to crawl up the aisle, toward the back of the car. Two seats away, the thin man was slumped forward now, his body silhouetted by a splash of light sifting down from the tracks. I crawled a little closer. His forehead was caved in, long nose split to the bone. There was a soup of blood and tissue pooled on the seat and his mouth creaked open at the jaw. I looked to the back of the car. There was no one there, just a connecting door standing open and an empty seat where my father had been sitting. I moved toward the door, looking for my own way out. Maybe I moved too fast because the car began to groan in the wind. I froze and the train settled again. I could hear sirens in the distance and then a voice, close by and behind me.

  “Help.”

  I SHRUGGED and took a sip of coffee. “They lifted me out of the car and put me in an ambulance. Never talked to my old man about any of it—that sounds strange, but you had to know my old man. Never saw anyone else from the train, none of the passengers, ever again.”

  Rodriguez scratched his chin and picked through the old files. “And you’re thinking this is too much coincidence?”

  “Once the killer drew me into the case, yeah, that’s exactly what I thought.”

  “But you have no actual connections to what happened yesterday? No one that’s alive, anyway?”

  I glanced toward Hubert, who was watching closely. “That’s where the computer kid comes in. He’s going to develop a program that assumes I’m the target and analyzes the data accordingly.”

  The detective looked up. “What in hell does that mean?”

  “It means,” Hubert said, “that I take all the information in these files, plus all the current case information you can get me, and see if any of it ties into Mr. Kelly. Compare names, dates, cases he worked. Things like that.”

  Rodriguez sighed. “Seems pretty thin.”

  “It’s a hunch,” I said. “Nothing more.”

  Rodriguez finished his coffee just as the check arrived. “How long will you take to get up and running?”

  “I already am.” Hubert smiled. “I hacked into the task force data bank last night and sucked up most of your initial data. Police reports, all that stuff.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  “Thanks, Detective. You guys leave me alone and I might have some ideas for you this afternoon.”

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Take care of those files, Hubert.”

  The kid nodded and was already tapping away on his laptop as we left.

  CHAPTER 22

  Rodriguez put his car in gear and slipped into the morning rush. “What’s up with the old files?”

  “You don’t buy it?”

  “I think there’s more than just a hunch behind whatever it is you’re thinking.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t give me too much credit. Like I said, the feds got all the conventional angles covered.”

  “And you’re just rolling the dice?”

  “From my talk with the mayor, sounds like that’s what he wants.”

  Rodriguez pulled up to a red light. “What the mayor wants, Kelly, is no more bodies and a bullet in the head of whoever the fuck is behind this.”

  The light turned green and Rodriguez pushed through the intersection. “So your old man was on the train with you?”

  “That’s right.
”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  Rodriguez grunted and took a left on Ashland. We drove in silence for a few blocks.

  “Where we headed?” I said.

  “I told you. Lawson wants us to meet her at the Southport L.”

  “Are they opening it up today?”

  “Wilson insisted. Business as usual.”

  I turned on the radio. The first words I heard were “CTA sniper.” I flipped to another channel and found a woman talking about the CTA “war zone.” I flipped again. CNN was promoting its special, “A City under Siege.” Wolf Blitzer would broadcast live from the scene of the sniper shooting downtown. I turned off the radio. “Business as usual, huh?”

  “You know the rules. If the mayor says the sky is purple and the earth is flat, hell, let’s make the best of it. By the way, what happened to the kid’s face?”

  “Got beat up,” I said.

  Rodriguez glanced over. “You want me to check it out?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I can touch base with Hate Crimes.”

  “I’m guessing their plate’s full.”

  “You got that right. I’ll take a run through their open files. See if anything looks familiar.” Rodriguez took a right onto Belmont and then a left onto Southport. The L tracks loomed overhead. “Here we are.”

  The detective slotted his Crown Vic at an angle to the curb, ass end taking up almost half the street. I climbed out of the car and noticed a guy in a Beemer behind us. He looked like he was going to roll down the window and start something. Then Rodriguez popped his blue flashers and slipped out the driver’s side. The guy swallowed the half dozen or so “fuck you”s he had lined up and maneuvered his car around us. Rodriguez took no notice.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The detective walked toward the L station. I followed. Life could be good in Chicago, especially when you carried a badge and a gun.

  CHAPTER 23

  The Southport L station was nothing more than a box of wood with a couple of turnstiles, machines where you could buy a train pass, and a small booth for the CTA lifer, who was typically skilled at yawning and looking bored. Today was no exception.