It took the cops almost an hour to show up. I wasn’t that surprised, shooting in the Shakespeare district, without a dead body, was quite common. And they had another case that was more important and national news story; a wave of kidnapping and murders that targeted families, mostly upper middle-class – and where I lived there were few upper middle-class anything.
The Police had their hands full. Hounded by the public and the media for not getting any results on the big murder case that was all over the national news, a shooting in the Shakespeare district didn’t really rate that high. Especially when no one involved had called it in. Without a body, cases with “shooters unknown” usually fell between the cracks. But if Wilson heard about this, then it wouldn’t be forgotten. He would be here like a bat out of hell! Unfortunately.
This was my second incident in this apartment and Detective Wilson would be mighty angry at me not telling him anything, again. I could only hope that Detective Wilson had just started his shift time this time. And bought some new clothes. The last time I saw him he looked like shit. Must be all those extra hours.
Wilson was like a bloodhound and he knew something smelled. It could be all the bullshitting I was doing, but I believed he had found out something about that amateur that had tried to collect the price on my head. The one who had wound up dead two hours after someone posted his bail. It had been a car accident apparently. If it counts having a car fall on top you from an overpass. No one believed it was an accident, but no one could prove otherwise.
My relationship with Detective Wilson went back about a year. And all of that time he had been obsessed with getting me to talk. It had started after one of my run-ins with some local lowlifes. They had wound up with several broken ribs and some other bones broken as well and I had gotten a deep knife wound on my forearm, bad enough to have to visit a hospital. Going to the ER had been a mistake, but I needed stitches and since I am no Rambo that meant a hospital.
Wilson had been there on some other case, but had homed in on me as soon as I stepped through the door for some reason. That time Wilson had drawn blank since no-one was about to press charges. That didn't stop Wilson though. No, he kept on hounding me and the minute he found out about my background he became almost obsessed with me. Something about me had caught his attention and like a damn pit bull, he wasn't letting go.
It hadn't bothered me much at the time. Since there were no charges pressed, there was no record that anyone could use to find me. That came later. After a hit and run attempt two months after the hospital visit.
That I couldn't explain away. Not with twelve witnesses swearing that it was deliberate attempt to run me over. Wilson had increased his visits after that and that had made me less than happy with him. Something that I had mentioned at least a half a dozen times in less than civilized ways. That did not mattered to Wilson.
One could say that we knew each other better than we liked. Wilson was pissed because I wouldn't talk and I was pissed because he wouldn't give up on getting me to talk. For every visit we were sounding more and more like an old married couple. Wilson knew I bullshitting him and he knew he would never get me to talk with those unannounced little visits. Still, he kept showing up and both were getting angrier by the visit.
That was probably the most annoying thing about Wilson, that once something got stuck in that block of concrete that he called head it was almost impossible for him to give it up no matter how impossible he thought it was.
When Wilson arrived he looked worse than last time. Much worse. I could tell that this incident had Wilson thinking things like Protected Custody. I had a feeling that I was not getting rid of Detective Wilson for a very long time.
Wilson stepped inside like he owned the place. Superior look, gun showing, and his badge attached to his coat. It was Dragnet all over, but with worse clothes, if that is possible.
Wilson gave me his I-know-everything look. It didn’t bother me one bit.
He looked around the apartment noticing everything, nodding to the responding officer. I let them take the small caliber bullets, but I had washed away the blood stains with ammonia and bleach and hid the bullet hole in floor with a rug. I didn’t want them to have John’s blood, because he was almost certainly in the database, and I didn’t want them to have any of mine if I could avoid it.
The thing I really hated was that they took my gun. Well, one of them. I had lots of others. They gave me a receipt, of course, but that was my favorite gun and I had this feeling that it would be a long time before I got it back. Wilson would make sure of that.
Wilson rubbed his bald head and sighed. He was wearing a really grubby coat of an indefinite brown color. Being as pale as Wilson it really made him look like an anemic starving leftover from the seventies. Or perhaps a vulture, since his back was a little crooked. He was so thin I wasn’t even sure he had a backside. He was tall as well. Around one hundred and ninety centimeter something, and he always loomed over me because he believed it was scary. It wasn’t. It was annoying as hell, though. He was like an anorexic Lurch from the Adam's Family.
“Why can’t you give me a name and let us do our job? You know that sooner or later there will be a body and I hope it won’t be yours, but since whoever is after you is being this persistent I believe they’ll get you sooner or later. “
I shrugged. It wasn’t much else I could do.
“What I don’t understand is why you won’t do security work here?” Wilson switched topics trying to get me to talk with him. “You got all the licenses and permits needed, but you’re doing what this month? Roadie work?”
“Working the docks,” I said without a smile.
“That can’t pay much,” Wilson noted. “You have all the permits, FOID, and the firms here would hire you in an instant with your credentials. I mean, working the docks, it can’t pay enough for someone like you.”
He was fishing, but I didn’t mind giving him the answer to the unstated question. “I don’t know what you mean with someone like me’, so I can’t answer that. I’m also an acrobat. I work some of the parks.” All of this was true. He could check that out easily enough, but my guess was that he already knew.
Being a street performer also gave me opportunity to pick up information that only the transients would know. When the real tough guys shows up, the lowest of the low often knew when and where. It was also a way to learn new moves and tricks.
Wilson did not understand that.
“Street performer? I’m going to…” Wilson reigned in his temper” Alright, can you tell me who attacked you?”
“Nope.”
“You mean you have no idea why someone tried to kill you? Or you don’t know who?” Wilson was like a bull in a china shop.
“I could take a guess about the former, but I wouldn’t care to guess about the last. I think someone doesn’t like me.”
“No? Really? And you wouldn’t care to make a guess about who would want you dead?”
“No, I wouldn’t care to make a guess about that.” Now that was strictly true. I didn’t have to guess and I didn’t care to either. I knew only too well who wanted my head and why.
“No? Someone tried to shoot you and you’re just sitting there saying ‘no’. This is the second attempt that I know of and you’re all calm and relaxed. You were the first time as well. Either you’re a cold son of bitch or, you’re involved in something much more frightening. Maybe I should take you in for questioning? Maybe I should check in on you more often?“
Wilson should have known better than to threaten me. And with those lame threats as well. He had tried it last time as well, and that had ended with the same result; me sitting there staring at him.
I didn’t really want to spend any time in hold-up. But if Wilson were going to take me downtown to sweat it wouldn’t be now. He had too little and nothing that would stick even with the most creative prosecutors. He couldn’t keep me in jail for more than seventy-two hours, but that could be enough. Mike had way too many crooked cops on his payroll. Probably not up here, but the one the ones he had on his payroll might know a name or two in the Chicago Police Department that would remove annoying problems for a price. Even in jail. The threats were more serious than Wilson could have known.
Wilson always tried bullying and threats first, if he didn’t get what he wanted. He must have had some serious results with that because whenever he talked to me he started out with that. He did it every time and all I could do was to roll my eyes, sigh, and hope he got the picture.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Right now, he couldn’t do anything to me and we both knew it. He didn’t have anything but the suspicion that I was holding out on him.
“If you come visit me more often, you might as well move in, Detective. But I really can’t help you.” I said apologetically.
I liked Wilson, in some weird self-punishing way since he did nothing but annoy me and screw up my life. He was stubborn as hell, but somehow I never felt like he was other than honest and that he cared. Maybe that was why he was so thin; frustration and sleep deprivation. He would continue to try and pump me for information. Follow me, when he could, hoping he will catch me doing something. Maybe even pick me up for some bogus reason or another to see if I would crack or slip up and say something. He would make my life a living hell as soon as the kidnap-murder case was solved or the case got cold. If I could have given him something I would. If only to get him off my back in the future.
“If I could, detective, I would. Believe me…” I shrugged again, since it seemed to annoy him. I wasn’t in a good mood and I was taking it out on Wilson.
Wilson looked at me. I met his eyes calmly. “Perhaps I should take you downtown, just to get your statement? Street performer, my ass!” Wilson still didn’t believe me. Not about anything, I’d guess.
“I was brought up by two acrobats, Wilson. From the age of three ‘til I was twenty I trained six days a week and at least four hours each day when I wasn’t working. I’m really good at this! You know this, ‘cause I know you did a background check on me and you found out who my parents was and read their files. We have had this discussion before, so don’t try, Detective.”
I don’t go around talking about my past much, but Wilson already knew some of it. He had probably pulled my files from Phoenix to Kathmandu just to be sure. Understanding my background would be another thing.
What I said about my childhood was true though, I had been brought up by two acrobats. Two crazy Italian brothers raised me. They were former acrobats, thieves, and a lot of other things and none of them legal. They brought me up accordingly. The only thing my dads wouldn’t do, was killing for money. They had killed in self defense and for revenge, but they wouldn’t take money for settling someone else’s score like that. If they had they would probably have been very successful, like they were in everything they had done, but they didn’t think there was any honor in settling other peoples’ scores in that way. And dead people can’t pay up. In other words they were Italian in the Sicilian kind of way.
Now you think they were Made Men, mobsters, Omerta brothers, La Cosa Nostra members, Goodfellas, and all the other bullshit names for it – but you would be wrong. They were connected, but they were never on the inside. I had inherited some of these connections, but because I had more scruples than my dads, the only way I would be of any use to the mob was things like burglary, bodyguard work for the younger members of the family or associates – which I had declined the last four years because of my own problems, industrial espionage, hacking into corporate networks, and so on. Being a girl with my skills did give me bodyguard work for female Family members. Funnily enough, Me being a lesbian also gave me a lot of work for the younger male members.
The Mafia is conservative, so me being a part of the lehgehbehtiqua didn’t score any points. My fathers’ reputation got me my first jobs, but my skills and ethics made me in demand. I kept my mouth shut and did my job, and they knew it. I have heard things that I would rather I hadn’t, but I was never involved in any real mob activities. That said, I had roughed up people because it needed to be done, and I had used blackmail to make people back off, and a lot of other shit not technically legal. But so far, I hadn’t killed anyone. Semantics I know, but that is due to my upbringing. My fathers’ had peculiar morals, and some of them rubbed off on me.
I had to work hard to get into the security business. I had to better than the men, smarter than the men, and I sure as hell delivered on that. I worked solo from the age of 16 to twenty-five, and had built my reputation bit by bit. Working close protection from 16 for children from organized crime families opened my eyes more ways than one. I was in demand for CPO work in my younger years, because no one expected a teen girl to kick your ass or shoot them when they came for the kids.
I graduated from guarding kids to guarding women, and not only the young women. I guarded sisters, wifes, and grandmas. It was good work, and I got along with most of them. Some of them would have wanted to get along more, but I never crossed that line.
CPO work wasn’t the only thing I did. Cracking and breaking building security and things like that were in my skill set as well. But I was never sworn in, never on the inside. This meant I was of limited use to the mob. I wouldn’t do simple goon things or kill for money. Poitr and Lou had loved doing the muscle work and strong arm stuff, but they had been more elemental than me. And the mob had enough people to do all those things, so my services weren’t much in demand.
I actually started out with all the normal scruples. Maybe just because I wanted to rebel, but I did believe in it once. I had all the good intentions in the world at first, but my morals was slowly eroded by seeing money meaning more than the law, seeing justice being bought and paid for. Justice was just another merchandise for sale for those who knew how to get it. After a few years of that, a little industrial espionage or hacking corporate networks didn’t really bother me that much.
What bothered me was that it didn’t bother me anymore.
I had promised myself that I wouldn’t become like my foster parents, but now I was closer to that than I ever imagined. Funny how life turns out sometimes.
As for my real parents, I had no idea. And it seemed no one else did either. My fathers never spoke about how they came to raise a girl they had no blood relation with. I had tried everything to get them to talk, but they never gave me any answers to my questions about my biological parents. It used to eat at me, but it didn’t anymore. Piotr and Lou had been my parents in every way that counted.
“I know. I have read their files. You could kill a whale with those files, by weight alone.” Wilson looked at me. “With such extensive records and with the connections that your parents had, it’s kind of scary when we don’t have a single thing on you. No youthful mistakes. Not even a parking ticket on you, Maria. There’s nothing on you from Phoenix to Chicago. Not even a suspicion of doing anything illegal. That makes a cop like me very nervous.”
“You have some, Wilson. OCTF have information on me,” I said.
“The Organized Crime Task Force has nothing but pictures of you doing your job guarding mob children and the like. And those are over four years old. They have nothing else. But I will find something!”
I cast Wilson an irritated glance. “Just because you can’t find anything on me to confirm your prejudices, you threaten me? You’re a nice cop, Wilson.”
The sarcasm must have hit him, because Wilson threw me a look of pure anger and his face turned scarlet.
“Normal Joes doesn’t have professional hitters after them. That only happens if you’re involved in something shady or you know something that could seriously hurt shady people. If you’re the first, you need to be locked up. If you’re the second, you need to be protected. Either way it would be better to have you locked up!”
I didn’t think anyone used the word “shady” anymore. It sounded like something out of a fifties movie. “You do that, Wilson, and I’ll get Peter Criss to defend me. Now get out!” The name of the famous Mob attorney turned Wilson’s face almost purple.
“The first guy was an amateur, but he wasn’t bad at what he did according to the grapevine. This one got off a few rounds as well, but got away from you, and that says something about the level we’re talking about here. You’re going to get killed or you’re going to kill someone.” Wilson threw me his cold look. “I don’t like either it either way.”
Someone were exaggerating the first guys skill. And John’s skill? If he only knew what level he was talking about. I almost laughed out loud thinking about John’s level of competence. “It could have been a burglar,” I said to annoy Wilson.
“You're starting to irritate me.” Wilson snapped.
“So?” I answered . Wilson didn’t scare me in the least and it showed.
“If we didn’t have everyone on the kidnap-murder case...” Wilson looked at expecting me to say something. I kept quiet. ” I’m not totally convinced that this is unrelated to the kidnap-murder case.”
“You couldn’t sell that to your superiors no matter what, Wilson. If you’re done here? ” I wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t care. I think the lack of response made Wilson really angry.
Wilson gave me his cold look again and left. It said that this wasn’t over. Not that I expected him to give up. I knew that sooner or later he and I would clash and then it would get ugly. I would probably still have a soft spot for him, but I had to protect myself and those who knew me. There wasn’t a thing Wilson could do to help me. If I had no one else to think about, I might even have considered talking to the police just to fuck things up. But I still had friends that could be hurt if I did.
Wilson stepped out in the hallway. Through the doorway I could see my nosy neighbors standing in the hallway, sucking it all up. This was prime time drama, and in their building no less. This time the gossip would take some time to die out.
Getting angry with the police isn’t the smartest thing to do, but Wilson really pissed me off. I had no problem being polite as long as I was treated the same way. When people piss me off, my brain shuts down and I go absolutely cave-girl. Fight-or-flight usually becomes fight-or-fight for me.
Having annoyed Wilson made me feel a little better though. He was usually the one who was annoying, so it felt good giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Since I didn’t have a door anymore I needed to take my stuff somewhere. Thank god the landlord was across the state. He wouldn’t believe my bullshit this time around. And I was pretty sure that this time he would keep my deposit.
John’s attempt on my life really screwed things up. I would have to move – again – and make sure that no one could track me down. I hoped I could stay out of Bert the Landlord’s way until I had someplace to stay. He had a bit of a temper, and my lies would definitely send him ballistic. I decided I had better make myself scarce for a while. At least until I had a lead on a new place.
The only place that I could think of where I possibly could get a lead on an apartment at four o'clock in the morning was Tony’s Groceries
Tony was a really good friend and he had a lot of connections all over the city. He would probably know someone who knew someone who had heard about an apartment in the neighborhood. I liked the Shakespeare district and West Belden, so I’d go for something not too far away. Perhaps not the smartest thing, but I was getting tired of running anyway.
I packed my guns and electronics in two bags. Anything else I could re-buy if it got stolen. My guns and electronics were worth about forty grand, and I wouldn’t have the money to replace if it was stolen. Being on the run had drained my resources.
The streets were pretty dark this time of the year. And the constant wet light fog made life easy for the muggers. I wasn’t afraid of the streets, since the local gang leader Shaun and I had an understanding.
