Pigs Read online

  Hank’s tearful rage still rang in his ears. Maggie’s father had forbidden him to attend the funeral. He’d left the diner at some point after that, head full of white noise, and picked a random direction to walk. He had ended up in Logan Square without really noticing. A middle-class neighborhood, over an hour’s walk south-west of the diner, past the river and I-90.

  Logan was the middle-class neighborhood he had grown up in. Isaac was hardly even aware he had returned, as if some homing instinct had drawn him here. Some folks in Isaac’s shoes might have been tempted to explore that little bit further, and do a walk-by of their childhood home and neighborhood. Full wistful immersion. Isaac wasn’t wistful. He had enough demons and confusion clattering about in his head right now, and refused to shine any light on his gnarled and twisted roots. The old homestead likely belonged to another family now anyway, and he could only hope that it was less dysfunctional than his own had been.

  His mother Angela had been a nurse and a long-suffering victim of her own depression, her little pick-me-up pills and a neglectful, criminal husband, Stan. Stan had been the antithesis of Isaac in criminality. Where Stan was reckless and impulsive, jumping into any quick-fix burglaries and hold-ups which would keep the lights on, Isaac felt such jobs were amateurish, mere learning curves for young, more adept thieves with the discipline and confidence to handle more rewarding scores. Angela had packed her bags and left her law-breaker husband and bad apple son without so much as a goodbye note when Isaac was twelve, shortly after his first few run-ins with the local PD. Isaac didn’t recall many tears being shed for his spaced-out placeholder of a mother. Didn’t recall many tears for poor old dismissive Stanley either, who had been gunned down sticking up a 7-Eleven like a hot-headed amateur when Isaac was sixteen.

  It didn’t really matter, though, for he had a new family by then.

  The further Isaac ventured, the more he realised he was spoiling for a fight. A mugging. A blessed reprieve from this void he couldn’t scramble out of. Hell, a fatal drive-by of his person would do nicely.

  Maybe Wyndorf and the wolf were circling.

  His whole world might have changed but these old streets remained the same. Some new stores, a renovation here and a paint job there, but largely unaltered. The wind picked up, rattling an old bottle and some desiccated leaves down the sidewalk, but it wasn’t sharp enough to cut through the warmth of his thick flannel shirt. A glimmer of an idea formed inside him. A desperate fool’s hope, clinging on to what he’d lost. He knew where he would go. He continued rambling in his fugue state, angling north-east.

  By the time he reached West Montrose Ave, the gradual ascent into dawn was underway, slowly spinning gold thread into the sparse cloud cover, the sky shining like expensive silverware. With sore feet he shuffled through the fresh scenic parklands of Montrose Fields. It was quiet at this early hour, but he still pictured happy couples and families riding their bikes along the trails, or lounging around in no great hurry to get anywhere, the carefree laughter of a bunch of children capering about Cricket Hill, tearing down the grassy slope with devil-may-care delight. He continued east, past the Corinthian Yacht Dock, Montrose Harbor Office and the Dry Dock with their backdrop of yachts bobbing gently at the jetties in the pink tentativeness of morning.

  A little bit further.

  He reached his final destination, decided on by the unspoken agreement he had made with his looming despair. The Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary. A peaceful haven which played host to over 300 different species across the seasonal cycles, the pleasant unspoilt meadow spreading toward the placid immensity of Lake Michigan.

  Maggie always loved coming here when they were younger.

  And now Isaac sought his solace here. Hoping to capture and bottle some sense of her departed spirit. She had been so fond of this place that it had even started to rub off on him. Him, Isaac Reid, urban lout through and through. It used to be that the only birds he ever liked were plucked, cooked and served on a plate, but Maggie always found comfort in watching them, and before long he had too.

  A white-crowned sparrow swooped down to the meadow to sing in a choir of chirps with its troupe of feathery musicians. A small group of adoring and borderline obsessive birdwatchers and photographers observed the passerines call to one another from shrub and tree. It was a beautiful melody, but without Maggie next to him, their birdsong was simply music out of key.

  No more than five yards from where he stood, a brisk wind lifted the low stems of a shrub, revealing a secretive and delicate little yellow bird with black stripes. Isaac had the feeling life was openly mocking him now. Or rewarding him? It was a LeConte’s sparrow. Maggie’s favorite. The whistling wind passed and the shrub dropped its limb back to the grassy ground, ferrying Maggie’s tiny messenger away from him. Isaac’s throat felt raw and dry, choking back the tears.

  With a parting glance, he left the birdwatchers to their hobby, their shadows slowly shrinking under the mauve sky. He followed the short trail to Montrose Beach, treading the sandy planks past parasols and strewn lanterns, and slumped on an outdoor table at the Dock. The restaurant wouldn’t be open for hours yet, filling the air with smells of grilled fish and tacos, the sounds of conversation and laughter of happy people. For now, he had solitude to watch several sailing boats slowly drift along the water like models which had escaped their bottle prisons. He dug his thumb and index finger into his eyes, massaging them to the point of pain.

  Coming here had been a mistake. Dredging the past only served to evoke more hurt, like cutting one’s fingers on the broken frame glass of a treasured photograph. If only he had changed course earlier like he had intended, he could have prevented this. It would have spared him the shame of having to watch his son grow up from blanket-swaddled newborn to fresh-faced, shy boy, with his mother’s eyes and his father’s chin, from the other side of a glass partition. Every time they had left the visitation room he’d wanted nothing more than to be walking out of there with them, Maggie on his arm and his free hand on Will’s shoulder. If he’d eschewed his criminal leanings it would have spared him, and them, from ever meeting Michael Wyndorf.

  Was he himself prepared to seek out and settle the score with Wyndorf? How far was he willing to go? Violence? Murder? Killing never came easy to him. At most he would get rough, but only if absolutely necessary. He was a professional thief, not some cruel thug. But one way or another, through his own actions or those of the obsessive Wyndorf, he knew they would cross paths again. Could I kill again? Breaking the oath he’d made to Maggie to live by society’s rules. Proving that Hank was right about him. That he was nothing but bad news. Burning his second chance.

  But he had already done all the harm he could to them. Being a pacifist at this stage could only result in his own death and the continued existence of Wyndorf.

  A flash of Wyndorf’s sadistic glee scorched Isaac’s temper.

  Welcome home, Isaac.

  “I’m sorry Maggie … Will,” he whispered in lament. “I can’t let him get away with this. I can’t. He needs to die. Please, please forgive me.”

  Fatigue was pulling him down. He pushed himself off the bench and started to retrace his steps.

  Another LeConte sparrow took flight overhead, her song guiding him back to the cold, hard city.

  Junkyard Diamonds

  The dark blue Mazda gently dropped its speed on the approach to the corner of East 47th and South Michigan Avenue, easing to a stop opposite the Laurent Boutique jewellery store. The vehicle’s soft and exact movements during the parallel parking were an exercise in restrained calm. Inside, though, two men and a woman sat quietly in a static fizz of tension, readying themselves for what came next. The hit and run.

  That’s where Fitzy came in. A precise and skilled getaway driver, he had a pretty good résumé of heists and favorable recommendations from hardened bank robbers and others who travelled the secret byways of the criminal underworld. That was why Roach had snapped him up in the first place, despite h
is garrulous tendencies.

  Fitzy’s burly frame huddled behind the wheel, his short, fiery copper hair stuffed beneath a baseball cap, his trim ginger beard flashing like gold fibres from the sunlight. He chewed a fat wad of gum like a cow chewing cud, using it as a pacifier, keeping his loquacious manner in check whilst letting him operate on autopilot, attentive to their street surroundings and the police scanner chatter coming from the dashboard. The nearest Chicago PD building lay only a mile and a half north of their current position, so it paid to monitor every nearby twitch of the tautly strained blue line of law and order.

  Roach spared a fleeting glance at the boutique. It was an attractive mark. All faux-gold lettering and elegant cursive script in frost-white decals upon spotless glass. Inside, a couple of smartly dressed clerks fussed about, restocking merchandise cases or wiping away imaginary imperfections on the glass cases.

  Roach’s big hands flexed in their black leather gloves. This was old hat to him, a 41-year-old veteran of armed robberies and occasional leg-breaking. His pulse was smoothly thumping away, experienced and primed for this, keeping his head clear and composed. “Same old story. You both ready?”

  Fitzy nodded once, his fingers slowly undulating like jellyfish limbs on the wheel.

  “Yeah-yeah, let’s go,” the younger female voice railed impatiently. Having grown up in the Englewood district, Grace was no stranger to rough stuff, for much of it was a necessary evil, a means to stay alive. At twenty-three, she would be considered young in some parts of the world. In Englewood, no birthdays could be taken for granted. Yet despite a harsh, gang-blighted upbringing, she hadn’t lost her animated exuberance before a big job. Grace grabbed the ski mask bundled atop her braids like a beanie and yanked it down over her youthful, almond complexion.

  Roach did the same, and flipped his dark hood over his head to hide his short, knotted ponytail. “Go.”

  Fitzy watched the both of them spring from the vehicle and rapidly pace toward the boutique, leaving him in the company of the squawking garble of the police scanner.

  Roach pushed through the shimmering glass door, hearing the startled gasps of the two staff members. He was a big man, six-two and wide in the shoulders. And now he had a black balaclava and a concealing coat. He charged straight toward the dark-suited security guard. Roach whipped out a small bottle of pepper spray, quicker on the drawer than the guard, neutralising him with its eye-burning toxic stink.

  Grace had already pulled her semi-automatic pistol and allowed it to take charge of a man she assumed to be the manager. He must have been in his sixties, with a loose neck wattle and a nest of ivory hair. “Please, pops, let’s all go home without regrets.” Grace guided him and his co-worker, a thirty-something dark-skinned woman, away from the counter and any potential—likely—silent alarms. Her barrel shepherded the pair to the corner of the store’s entrance, opposite the purple-faced, coughing guard.

  “No heroes, no bodies,” Roach decreed, pulling a resin-coated lump hammer from his bulky coat. “It’s that simple.”

  “Face down,” Grace added to the shaking staff, sounding thankful that neither of them had tried anything stupid, which would have in turn made her do something stupid. She heard the first splitting shatter of glass behind her. Convinced by their timidity and terror-stricken stares that neither of them was going to test her marksmanship, she carefully backed away, slipping her gun down the back of her jeans and pulling out her own hammer and sack from the deep front pocket of her gray hoodie.

  Roach and Grace swept through the place like emaciated vultures stripping the flesh from a carcass, their loot sacks bulging with precious metals and stones. The watch on Roach’s arm beeped. Their window had just closed.

  Fitzy quickly shot out of his parking spot and spun half a donut, aiming the nose of their ride south and away from the police station now at his back between East 35th and 36th. Roach and Grace sped out of the boutique like the building had caught fire and flung themselves into the Mazda. Fitzy stamped down on the pedal and sent them southbound like a bullet, the police scanner now alight with an urgent dispatch to Laurent Boutique.

  “Some good-hearted citizen called it in.” Fitzy waved to the street, where a gaggle of concerned pedestrians were cautiously watching the events unfold. His jaw muscles rapidly working on the tasteless mound of gum, he cut into openings in the traffic before sliding into the fast lane and hitting 50mph.

  Roach decided to keep his mask on. “Then you need to get us six miles without getting shot.” He placed his tied bag of swag in the passenger footwell and kept a firm hold on his gun.

  Grace’s eyes thrummed with electrical tension behind her mask, constantly bouncing from side windows to rear in anticipation of flashing lights.

  “Keep your head down,” Fitzy snapped at Grace, wanting to glimpse more in his rear mirror than her swivelling neck. He had cleared a mile so far without incident, but could hear the threat of the sirens rising and falling somewhere close by. “S’long as we don’t get picked up by a bird we got this.”

  “Shit’s goin’ easier than the last one,” Grace said naively.

  Fitzy swung the car onto East Garfield Boulevard, the rear tyres smoking on the asphalt, and made to charge headlong across the busy intersection. A responding police cruiser heading in the opposite direction found itself on a bumper-to-bumper collision course with them. Roach took a sharp breath, tensing up in his seat. Just as he made eye contact with the surprised cops, Fitzy wrenched the steering wheel, narrowly sliding them out of the cruiser’s path and then boosting them across the fresh stop light, barely missing the sweep of traffic. A blaring honk admonished in their wake, followed quickly by the unmistakable bang and crunch of car on car. Roach and Grace both turned. The front end of a bus had crumpled the side of the police cruiser like a beer can, both vehicles choking the grid of traffic in a streak of skid marks and broken glass.

  The scanner continued to issue urgent updates to the pursuit, the situation quickly catching fire. Fitzy made the engine work overtime, screaming the vehicle westbound at 80mph. They tore like a rocket past the Schulze Baking Company, toward the junction of Garfield and South State, when another cruiser skidded in behind them, almost barging them onto the grassy central embankment.

  “What’s the play, boss?” Grace asked Roach, shooter in hand, the wailing cop car enthusiastically trying to force them off the road and onto the tree-lined grass.

  “Do it,” Roach acquiesced. Opening fire on the police was strictly a last resort.

  Grace leaned across the back seat and aimed through the rear window at the cop car’s front tyre. She waited a moment, taking a breath, allowing the high-speed slalom to level out. She squeezed the trigger. The cruiser’s tyre blew out with a shriek of rubber, the loss of traction incapacitating the driver, who was powerless to stop the runaway car from colliding with the steep concrete curb of a railway bridge, wrecking the bumper in a shower of paint flakes and sparks. Grace kept a keen eye on the car and its occupants. They’d both live.

  “Ha-ha,” she cackled in jest. “So long, po-po.”

  “Nice shot, kid.” Roach kept listening to the scanner and checking the sky, praying that no police chopper was in the vicinity. So far the sky was clear and the safe zone was near.

  “You know I earn my paper.” Grace was enjoying the ride.

  “Ah, shit.” Fitzy punched the wheel. The next intersection of West Garfield and Wentworth was a small blockade of stalled traffic and pulsing red and blues, three cruisers circling into position to block the six lanes.

  Roach and Grace’s knuckles were turning white but they had faith in Fitzy. He zigged and zagged through the bottleneck, cars and vans angrily skidding aside at the sound of the mechanical banshee wail of the Mazda. Fitzy found his alternative route and jumped the central reservation, tearing up grass and dodging skinny trees. The defensive wall of squad cars was already disbanding, reacting to their quarry’s improvisation and trying to box him in. Fitzy sailed off t
he grassy reservation, squeaking past the electrical junction boxes and swerving back onto Garfield. The closest patrol car growled and hit them in the rear, angling them toward the concrete wall of the overpass and aggressively trying to keep them pinned there. I-90’s rushing stream of cars flashed past below them, the windshields and waxed bodies throwing up an endless dazzle of a hundred reflected suns.

  Roach leaned out of the passenger’s side and joined Grace in a desperate salvo of lead, punching hole after hole into the hood and tyres of the cop car. With a deep crunk Fitzy fought free of the cruiser’s wall grind, leaving the car leaking oil on the bridge.

  “Lose these assholes, Fitz. We got less than three miles.” The chase was getting a bit too close to the knuckle for Roach’s liking.

  “Ah, shit, why didn’t ya say so?” Fitzy snapped. In his wing mirrors he saw the remaining two cars racing up to flank him. He knew what came next. The inevitable Pursuit Intervention Technique.

  The right-hand car was moving in, nosing toward his right rear tyre. Fitzy braked sharply, dropping back, then accelerated, throwing the needle into the red, and performing his own surprise Pursuit Intervention Technique, causing the right-hand car to fishtail across the Mazda’s path and straight into that of the second vehicle on his left flank. The pair of cruisers skidded uncontrollably as if the pavement had become black ice, slamming to a harsh stop opposite the Citgo gas station.

  Grace applauded wildly, looking back at the two heaped cruisers shrinking in the distance. “That was tight. Shit, that was tight. Don’t do it again, though.” Her mask hid her smile.

  Roach slapped Fitzy on the shoulder in congratulation, then returned his steely attention to the cloudy sky.

  “We’re good,” Fitzy reassured, letting out a tight breath. He hung a left onto West 57th Street and disappeared into the towers of crushed and rusted-out cars of their scrapyard rendezvous.