CHAPTER 53 – CHICAGO

Holy Thursday, early morning.

Lynch saw Johnson drinking coffee in a booth by the window when he got to the McDonald’s on Western just north of Pratt. Her condo was on Lunt, just a bit east. Lynch picked the McDonald’s. It was close to her place and it was public. His phone beeped. He checked it. Text from Paddy Wang. Wang wanted a sit down. He forwarded it to Ferguson along with a time.

“You’re running late, Lynch,” Johnson said as he walked up. “I’m the one working on no sleep here.”

“Bus was slow.” Lynch was carrying a nylon messenger bag over his shoulder.

Johnson paused a count. “Bus?”

“Hard to follow a guy on a bus.”

“Things that bad?”

“Probably worse,” Lynch said. “C’mon, let’s take a walk. Little park near here. It’s kind of nice.”

“Let me guess. It’s hard to follow somebody in a park, too.”

Lynch smiled. But he also nodded. They grabbed some crap at the counter, walked up to Indian Boundary Park.

“What kind of name is Indian Boundary for a park?” Johnson asked.

“This was the line between the US and Pottawatomie land, some treaty after the War of 1812.”

“How long did that last?”

“I dunno. Week and a half maybe. I only know about it because they’ve got a historical marker up by the corner there. Had to check out a body next to it once, back when I was in uniform. Just some drunk, passed out one night, middle of January. Froze to death.” Lynch shrugged the bag off his shoulder held it out to Johnson. “This is for you.”

Lynch ran down what he knew. The Hurley murder-suicide back in 1971, his father’s murder, the Fishers, father and son, Clarke’s involvement, Ferguson, Chen, how they needed the press to push in this, needed her to push it, all of it.

“Jesus,” Johnson said. “My god, your father?” She stopped, turned to face him.

Lynch just nodded.

“And you never knew?”

“Still don’t know, not for sure. Not everything.”

Johnson started to say something, but Lynch held a hand up, cut her off.

“Listen, part of me didn’t want to give you this. Didn’t want you in this. These people, they’ve got no boundaries. Nobody’s off limits. Nobody. But it’s a big story, important story, and that’s what you do. So it has to be your call. Somebody’s gotta do it, but nothing says that has to be you. I don’t want it to be you. But that has to be your call.”

She stopped, turned to face him.

“You know I’m going to run with it. I have to.”

“I know.”

Another pause, then walking in silence again, Johnson talking first.

“This going to be a problem for us?” she asked.

Lynch shook his head. “You grew up with cops, you knew the risks, hell, you’ve seen me get shot. You’re still here. What am I supposed to do? Tell you to stay home and bake cookies? You love somebody, nobody says you get a free ride, that you’re gonna like everything. Can you do me a favor though?”

“What?”

“Don’t get greedy, try for some kind of exclusive on this. Spread it around a little. Make sure your editor’s up to speed, maybe loop somebody in on the TV side. You start poking and these guys think they can stuff the genie back in the bottle with one bullet, they’re gonna take the shot. You get enough people involved, then they’ll know it’s too late for that.”

Johnson nodded.

“Too much for me to handle alone anyway. I don’t have DC contacts, I’ll need the help. And trust me, I’m all about not getting shot.”

They passed the small zoo at the back of the park, most of the cages empty now, budget cuts. A lone goat looked up for a moment, went back to picking at the long grass that grew up along the edge of the fence.

Johnson nudged the bag that hung from her shoulder now. “What’s all this got to do with the killings now?”

“This Zeke Fisher? His kid went into the spook business, but he’s gone off the deep end. He’s on some kind of redemption mission.”

“Killing people’s children? Grandchildren? What kind of sense does that make?”

“Guy’s a nutjob. Only one it has to make sense to is him.”

Quiet again for a minute.

“The children he wants to kill. You could be one of them,” she said.

Lynch nodded. “Good thing I haven’t been to confession in thirty years.”

Johnson smiled. “I tell you what, big boy, you promise to stay out of the confessional until this is over, I’ll make sure you’ve got something really juicy to confess.” She reached down, squeezed his ass.

Lynch smiled. “Deal.”

Johnson took his hand and they walked quietly for a while, both with the sense that this could be their last good moment.

“Après cela, le déluge,” Johnson said.

Lynch let out a short laugh. “The reporting is one thing, Johnson. But you start in with the French and I’m dumping you.”

They both laughed, more than they should have, stopped at the corner at the northwest edge of the park. Lynch looked at his watch.

“Need to catch your bus?” Johnson asked.

Lynch shook his head as a black sedan pulled up. “I got a ride.”

“Your new friends?”

He nodded.

“Where are you headed?”

“Going to see Paddy Wang,” Lynch said. “He says he wants to talk.”

Johnson looked at the car, looked back at Lynch.

“The only way these people know how to solve things is to kill people, you know that, right?” she said.

Lynch nodded.

“Please tell me you’re not OK with that.”

Lynch shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

“What are you going to do about that?”

“I wish I knew,” Lynch said.

CHAPTER 54 – CHICAGO

Lynch and Paddy Wang, alone in Wang’s office.

“Young Lynch, in current circumstances, you are likely suspicious of all motives, but I mean this sincerely. Ever since the unfortunate passing of your father, I have had a kind interest in you.”

“That’s great, Paddy. You help Hurley and his punks kill my old man, or help cover it up, or at least know about it and say nothing, and you tell me what a kind interest you have in me. I’m all choked up.”

“I understand your anger, young Lynch.”

“Keep up that condescending bullshit, and I’m coming across this desk. You’ve got no fucking idea about my anger.”

“At losing a parent unfairly? My parents were killed by the Maoists. I was, well, present for that. Whether you choose to believe it or not, I had no prior knowledge of your father’s death, and saw no benefit to anyone – most particularly to you or your sister or your mother – of exposing what I knew later.”

“And I have no way of knowing if that’s true or just more of your crap.”

“As with all our demons. They drive each of us in all we do, and yet have no currency outside our own souls.”

“Look, Paddy, you got down here for some reason. Can we just get to it?”

Wang just looked at Lynch for a moment, his eyes hooded.

“Have you ever heard the theory that a man is great in proportion to those who take an interest in him?” Wang asked.

“No.”

“By that measure, young Lynch, you have always been a great man. The Hurleys, of course, have an interest. Your uncle has an interest. I, too, have an interest. And now I hear that the President of the United States has an interest.”

“It’s an interesting world.”

“I have always found it so. But perhaps a different world than you imagine.”

“More than is dreamt of in my philosophy?”

Wang chuckled. “Ah, young Lynch. I truly do wish you would visit more often. Yes, yes. Far more.”

“Paddy, you got a point to get to here? Every time I talk with you, I feel like I’m going to end up farting smoke for a week.”

“I’m afraid that my Eastern proclivity for circuitousness and your Western preference for straight lines will always leave us at odds. Very well, to the point. You believe that you are a champion in a great contest between good and evil and that, as a result of your current actions, power will be shaken to its foundations, yes?”