CHAPTER 6

The dead boy wouldn't shut up.

So far, Officer Elena Cruz's day had been lousy, and she didn't have a sense it was likely to improve. She'd spent a good chunk of the night trying to tune out the thumping music of the club downstairs. By the time her radio kicked on with the latest casualty figures from Iraq, news of a bombing in a mosque, and the President's monotone promise to stay the course, she'd managed barely three hours of sleep. Mint Nicorette tasted better than the regular stuff, but couldn't compare to that first drag off that first cigarette.

And now the dead boy.

Talkers drove Cruz crazy. In the movies, victims whispered a crucial clue, gasped out a name. Then they coughed two dots of blood and politely rolled back their eyes.

Her years on the street didn't match. Instead, mostly the talkers wanted to tell you how much they loved they mama. Twenty minutes ago, she wouldn't have heard anything about his mother. She'd have gotten cold eyes and hard posture. A glance fixed on her crotch, maybe a lick of his lips.

To transform him into a good civilian and dutiful son, all you had to do was kill him.

Of course, he didn't realize he was dead. But Cruz knew better. After five years in a South Side beat car, another three kicking in doors on the tactical team, and eighteen months with Gang Intelligence, she'd gotten pretty good at reading the faces of the paramedics. This had been called in as a shooting, but she gave it ten minutes to graduate to a proper homicide.

"Can you hear me?" She leaned over the boy. Judging by the zits pocking his face, he was about seventeen. She repeated the question in Spanish, and his eyes focused. "¿Como te llama?"

"Teo." His voice was faint.

Not Six-Pack, or Choco, or T-Dog, or whatever his street name was. Now that it was too late, his name was Teo. She'd've laughed if it were funny. "Teo, I'm here to help." She put a little extra accent into her Spanish, let him know they were of the same blood. "Who did this?"

He stared back. "Where's my mother?"

"She'll meet you at the hospital. Right now, I need you to tell me what happened."

He shook his head and coughed. A lot more than two drops of blood spattered his lips, the copper smell strong.

"Officer." The paramedic was young, his hands fast on the gurney straps. "We've got to roll."

She nodded and stepped back, took in the scene.

A typical Crenwood corner. Rows of sagging two-flats dotted with brick bungalows, metal security gates covering the front doors. The sign for the elementary school on the corner read "Believe and achiev!" People gathered on the stoops and porches, enjoying the show. Business as usual in the 'Wood.

"You know what I'm thinking? Suicide." Sergeant Tom Galway ran his hands through his neat salt-and-pepper hair. "I'm guessing our boy had been pondering the inequities generated by geopolitical gamesmanship, got so depressed he went and shot himself in the back. Four times."

She rolled her eyes at her partner. "Geopolitical gamesmanship?"

"Heard it on NPR this morning." He looked over her shoulder. "Uh-oh."

"What?" She glanced, saw the detective in charge of the scene walking toward them. "Shit."

"Go easy, partner." Galway put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't be starting anything."

"Me?"

Galway shot her a look that said, yeah, you. Then he straightened and smiled.

The detective was a veteran with a gut and too much aftershave. He stepped around a pool of Teo's watery vomit, folded his arms, and looked at her coldly. "Aren't you supposed to be driving a database?"

She decided to take it in good humor, pretend he was being playful. "I wanted to get some air. What's the story?"

He shrugged. "Victim was walking with his girl, kid rounds the corner, opens up. Weapon's a nine-millimeter. Nineteen shell casings, clustered, with four hits."

"Four for nineteen?" Galway shook his head. "Lousy shooting."

Cruz ignored him. "Nineteen casings from one weapon? Somebody's got an Uzi."

"Or an MP-5, or a MAC-11, or Christ knows what else." The detective dug in his ear with one finger. "Remember the good old days when kids killed each other with knives and baseball bats?"

"The girl have anything to say?"

"Nah."

"Neighbors?"

"I've got uniforms knocking on doors. But you know," he made the hand signal for jerking off. "Nobody-"

"-saw nothing." Cruz finished the mantra. Old story. If Teo had gotten popped in Lincoln Park, they would have had twenty-five people lining up to share every detail. But down here, everybody had vision problems. "You mind if I look around?"

"You mind blowing me?"

Her eyes went wide, and she felt her pulse kick in her chest. "Excuse me?"

"I said," the detective curled one lip, "go back to playing with your computer, and leave case work to people who earned their jobs without spreading their legs."

Fire flowed up her neck, and her fingers bit into her palm. Unthinking, she started forward, cocking one hand back, ready to lay this tubby chauvinist flat on his ass.

Galway moved fast, stepping between them and grabbing her shoulders. "Easy, Elena. Easy!" Over Galway's shoulder, the detective winked. She bucked against her partner, knowing he was right but not caring, just wanting to deck the guy so badly she could taste it. But Galway's grip on her arms was steel. "You're already in the shit." He hustled her back, met her eyes. "Hitting him isn't worth losing your job over."

He was right, and she knew it, but that didn't make her like it more. Cruz shook her arms free, then spun on one heel. Behind her she heard the detective laughing, but just squeezed her fingers into her palms until her arms trembled. Galway followed her.

"Goddamn boys club bullshit," she said, stomping toward the car. "One mistake, one, and ten years don't mean anything. Like I'm some secretary who got promoted."

Galway sighed. "You don't make it easier on yourself."

"Whatever." She patted her pocket for her smokes, remembered she'd quit. Cursed and tore open a piece of gum, flicked the wrapper to the curb. "He's an asshole."

"That comparison," Galway said dryly, "is unkind to your average asshole."

She snorted and dug for her keys.

"Listen," he said, "don't let it bother you. It'll pass."

"Easy for you to say." She glanced down the block to where a ghetto-roller vibrated with bass. "It's been a year already."

Galway shrugged, smiled at her. "It'll pass when somebody else gets caught doing something stupid."

He was right, as usual. Cruz took a deep breath, then shook her head and laughed through her nose. "Tell them to screw up quickly, would you?"

"You got it, babe. Need be, I'll do it myself." Galway took a napkin from his suit pocket and mopped the sweat on his forehead. He folded the tissue, then squinted up at the sun. "You saw Teo's ink?"

She nodded. "Latin Saints." The set had been feuding with the Gangster Disciples for a long time now, with bodies dropping on both sides.

"You know who didn't?"

It took her a minute, but when she got it, she smiled. "A certain overweight detective."

"Yep. A day late and a dollar short. Close the case out from under him, it'll hurt more than your right hook."

Her smiled broadened. "I feel like chatting with the Disciples. You want to come?"

"This one is all you. I got a date." Galway patted his stomach. "Pompeii, bowtie pasta with garlic." He made a pistol of his right hand and shot her.

The department's Ford smelled of cigarettes. She rolled the windows open and jammed the AC on, hot breath blasting in her face. What she should do was go back to the station and put in another couple hours of data crunching. This was only a gang-on-gang shooting, and closing it wouldn't matter enough to anybody to get her out of her chickenshit assignment. But revenge was its own reward.