The Color of Fear Read online

  There are perhaps fewer than a dozen customers in this well-lit coffee house with us. The waitress was quick and she has left us alone.

  “You’re thinking you might like it better if I weren’t black.”

  “No. I never thought that.”

  “You were thinking that if I were any other color you might consider walking over that line. Maybe you’d take yourself off my boy’s case if you had to. Because it’s been a long time since you were close to anybody even if it’s only been three and a half months.”

  In my business it’s a sin to let interviews get out of my control, but that is where I am and there is no use denying it to myself or to Celia Dacy. But there are appearances.

  “If I’ve made you feel awkward, forgive me.”

  That’s the best I can come up with.

  “So it is the color of my face, isn’t it.”

  “It is not the color of your face!”

  The outburst comes over me like a squall out of nowhere.

  Now she shows me her perfect white teeth. There is genuine pleasure in her visage. I have a mad desire to reach over and touch her hand.

  Instead she reaches out and covers my hand with her own.

  “I understand. This kind of thing happens when you’re alone. I know all about it, Lieutenant Parisi. I’ve been alone a lot longer than three and a half months. And now I got nobody left at all.”

  She squeezes my hand warmly and tightly. I can’t stop from mimicking the gesture. The next thing I know I’m lost somewhere in that zone between her full lips and her perfect dark brown forehead. It’s like hypnosis. Mesmerism, perhaps. I’m wondering if this is part of her act. Like she’s some female version of Svengali and I simply have to break away from her stare.

  “Why don’t we take a drive downtown? I’ll do my fifteen minutes of business with my partner, and then we can finish our talk. If you’ve got the time, of course.”

  “I’ve got a week before I start my new job. And there ain’t anything waiting for me back at that apartment.”

  We still have our hands together. It seems as if it’s up to me to break the grip. But I find myself immobile. I can’t seem to break away, and neither can she.

  After checking in with Doc, I run back to the Taurus in the Downtown Division’s parking lot. She’s still there when I return. I had a very strong notion she might disappear before I returned, so I’m relieved when I see her sitting shotgun, the way I left her.

  I drive over to Michigan Avenue and park in the City Underground lot. It’s the cheapskate in me. She laughs when I apologize for making her walk farther than we really had to.

  We spend an hour in the Art Institute looking at the Van Goghs and the rest of the French Impressionists. She tells me she’s studied them in a college course she took en route to her R.N.

  There is nothing to say as we wander from gallery to gallery. It’s a sparsely attended museum this late in the afternoon, so we are left alone in a small grotto-like area that houses Matisse.

  Before I can change my mind, I’m kissing her.

  “Jesus,” I whisper.

  Her face is warm and close and I approach again.

  There is nothing to whisper this time. She kisses me back. We’re embraced like two actors who are awaiting the “Cut!” command from some director off-camera, but no one blunders into our gallery and the kiss lingers longer than I can count.

  We finally break apart for oxygen.

  “This can’t happen, Celia.”

  “I understand.”

  “If you want to call my Captain and make a complaint, I’d understand—”

  “Don’t say it. Who you think has been standing here kissing you right back? Who do you think was looking at you just the same way you were looking at me when we first stood in the same room together?”

  “I’ll have to remove myself from Andres’ case right away.”

  “The way I hear it people in the police think you’re as good as they’ve got.”

  I don’t answer.

  “Are you as good as they’ve got?”

  “I’m competent, Celia.”

  “And that other po-lice. Doc, you call him.”

  “My partner.”

  “He know his job pretty good, too?”

  “He’s the best. No debate about it.”

  “Then that’s who I want to find the murderous bitch who kill Andres. Nobody need to know about you and me. Unless you tell them. It won’t be me.”

  “It’s unprofessional. Unethical.”

  “What about the animal who shot Andres? Did he worry about all that morality business when he pull the trigger? You want me, Jimmy? The way I want you?”

  I spin around and shoot my fingers through my hair.

  “Jesus, Celia. Jesus.”

  “Do you?”

  She lasers my focus onto her own.

  “Yes. Christ help me. Yes.”

  She stretches up toward me again, but this time our lips are separated by a touring party of teenagers from some north side high school. They’ve just had a load of Renoir and Manet and Monet, and we hear them complaining they’re ready to go to the Water Tower to have some real fun. We pretend to study the portraits and scenes on the wall, but we dare not steal a glance at each other until the kids leave the gallery.

  Then we turn toward each other at the same moment.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Captain says I stay. The Captain says he’s had a call from the victim’s mother who insists he retain me and Doc as the lead investigators. The Boss also says that I control myself and keep my hands off Celia Dacy or he will bust my ass toward the beat on the street. He asks me if I have a problem understanding the point of his lecture and I respond that I do not.

  Our leader is a redhead, and this time the stereotype works. He has a quick temper. He was a Ranger in Vietnam and he was used to shooting disagreeable people. On both sides. So there is no dialogue with him. There is no getting out of Andres Dacy’s case.

  I can see Celia Dacy telling him that the NAACP would be interested to hear that the Chicago Homicide’s most experienced detective (Doc) and second most experienced investigator (yours truly) were removed from a case involving an inner city black boy. She’d lay shit on the redhead about priorities, and Celia’d be cute enough to threaten going to the media about the PD backing down on a killing of a little African American child because the brass thought Andres wasn’t ‘high profile’ enough. I can hear her now, laying the wood to him. Taking no shit and no survivors. And I thought our Commandant was a badass. I almost wish I’d overheard the phone call.

  “If I eat one more polish sausage, my gut’s going to collapse. Just like a fucking lung,” I moan.

  “Tomorrow I’ll take you to Nick’s for pizza.”

  What a relief. More methane.

  “There is Chaka and Creel and Antoine. I got the feeling that Antoine is the only punk of the three who’s using his real name.”

  “Yeah, Doc. And as I told you before, finding them is the challenge. They got to be lodged near the projects. They do business for this Abu Riad guy. This born again Muslim who does all the supplying for the dockers in that hood. We know all that. But dislodging the bastards’ll take us and tactical weeks. Maybe even a lot longer than that. Then we get them. Now what? We have to get their piece too. Match the gun and the bullet and now we have some hard evidence.”

  “Fuck motive.”

  “There it is. We already got that. They were aiming at Ronnie Jackson. They got a hardon too quick and Dacy and kid are in the middle. End of scenario. Premature ejaculation. Andres takes the fall for Chaka’s impatience. Chaka pops open Ronnie’s lock and puts him into the long endless slumber. Antoine and Creel are nothing but backup, but they go down for murder one also.”

  “You think the Candyman downtown will go for them if we get the weapon and if ballistics matches up.”

  “Indeed I do.”

  “It’s nice to feel confident, Jimmy. I’d still like to
feel certain that those three witnesses’ll finger him in open court.”

  He knows how to make my gassy stomach growl. He throws in that seed of doubt that Chaka’s future attorney undoubtedly will hurl toward a jury. They’ll try to intimidate our witnesses. Rashaan Abu Riad will doubtless hire the finest mouthpiece in Cook County to defend his own people. He will also go to great lengths to insure that nobody speaks up against his people in open court. The Candyman is the prosecuting attorney in Cook. He doesn’t like to go into court with loose ends. We’ll have to pull everything together before he will pursue these three pricks who murdered Andres.

  “We got to catch them first. Then we have to find that Uzi. That’s move number one. Letter ‘A’ in the list of steps. One thing at a time.”

  He smiles and pops me on the aim.

  Lunch is over. Time to go to work.

  *

  On the ride toward Cabrini, I conjure it:

  Three black, knee-length, leather gangbanger coats. I see the waist belts flapping at their sides. They’re wearing shades even though it’s a near blizzard out. Snow is flying at them and is sticking to the lenses of their sunglasses. They’ve thrown their hands deep inside their coats and they’re not wearing gloves — Except for the shooter, Chaka. He’s wearing driving gloves. The fancy fingerless kind that you use when you’re tooling around the hood in a boosted sports car that some dumb motherfucker parked a little too close to the outskirts of the Rush Street district. I see them bobbing along in a dude walk across a litter-strewn prairie — A prairie is an old fashioned term for a vacant lot, here in the city.

  They’re dude-bobbing along, noses straight into the scent like three wolves emerging out onto the clearing where the prey is munching on the local vegetation, unaware that death is arriving. I see them from the backside, their figures dark in relief against the gray sky. The snow billows down and swirls when they’re two blocks from the scene of the killing. It’s only a little ways to that boulevard.

  They feel at ease with the task ahead. They know exactly how to handle it. Mosey on up to within feet of the target, Chaka whips out his Uzi, a quick spray, and Ronnie Jackson is a footnote in the obituary. Ronnie went bad with a crack debt. Can’t have that in your territory. Bad credit means you die. There’s nothing to be confiscated from Ronnie Jackson. Nothing but his life.

  Then you come upon the boulevard. Visibility is poor. But you catch sight of Jackson’s ride — some old beater of a Chevy or Ford. You recognize the car and you see a figure trying desperately to get on board, get inside, and take off before the growing-in-size trio arrives and pulls out the piece that is undoubtedly inside somebody’s jacket. And then somebody gets wasted. The world is short one motherfucker who couldn’t make good on the debt. Abu Riad doesn’t accept excuses or Mastercard or Visa. He expends lead from one of his three employees. They are dispatched and so are you, motherfucker. Simple process. Everybody gets paid or laid to rest. No choices other than the above.

  Water drips off the sunglasses. It looks like Chaka and Creel and Antoine have tears running down their cheeks. But no one is emotional in this pack.

  Chaka goes to his coat as Ronnie Jackson can hear screaming inside his own head. Celia Dacy and her son suddenly appear in the boulevard and Chaka’s line of fire is interrupted. But he doesn’t halt the inevitable because he doesn’t give a shit if this bitch and her kid go down with Ronnie Jackson. It’s nothing personal. She’s just in the wrong place at the wrong motherfucking moment and shit does happen.

  The Uzi is out and it only sounds like three or four pops even though the burst contains more shots than can be heard. It happens so fast that no one hears Ronnie Jackson peel away from the curb. It erupts so quickly that Celia Dacy doesn’t have time to swing about and see anything but the black blurs of the three thugs retreating in a slow, dreamlike exit from the scene. Then Celia turns back to pick up her son who’s almost slipped out of her grip. She picks him up and walks determinedly into the Green as if nothing has happened. As if nothing could have possibly occurred that quickly or that meaninglessly. Certainly no one could have intended to shoot Andres. He was a child she did her very best to protect. She walked him to his schoolbus. She attended to him as he was released from the daycare he went to while she was in the classroom finishing her nurse’s training. Celia never left him alone to do things on his own. He was no latchkey child who had a tv set as a guardian. Andres was cared for and accompanied and sheltered the very best Celia could.

  But now it was all for nothing. She walked into that lobby and she didn’t scream until it all came to her that her best wasn’t nearly good enough. There wasn’t enough of Celia Dacy to go around. Mother, student, babysitter, teacher, role model. Whatever she might have thought she was to her son, it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t be a bodyguard too, could she?

  The three of them don’t run away from the crime scene. They lope away almost casually, the wind behind their backs. There’s nothing to hurry about. The po-lice won’t arrive on scene for twenty minutes or more. That’s what Chaka anticipates as he strolls away from the boulevard. He knows how fast coppers answer calls in this neighborhood. There’s no particular rush.

  “What’s the matter, Jimmy?”

  I look over at Doc and my concentration’s broken.

  “Nothing. Nothing, Doctor.”

  “You look like you’re all flushed. You got a fever coming on?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He looks at the Green, in front of us now. He pulls to the curb.

  “You try to stay cool with this woman, Jimmy. Honest to God, I’m not trying to hold you back from doing what comes naturally —”

  “It’s all right. It’s under control.”

  He looks at me but doesn’t try to remonstrate. Doc gets out of the Taurus. I wait two beats, and then I’m out there with him.

  *

  I see her as she walks out the front door of the hospital. I left my two kids at their grandmother’s (my mother’s). Told her that I’d be late on this Friday evening because I had to turn a double shift. I felt very uncomfortable lying to her.

  Celia is in the middle of the sheet, heading my way, when she lays eyes on me. I look at her with my palms up, at my sides. I don’t know what in the world to begin to tell her by way of explaining what the hell I’m doing here.

  We go to dinner at a near north Czech restaurant that is dimly lit and where it is impossible that I’ll meet anyone who knows me.

  “I can’t read the menu,” she smiles.

  “I’ll order for us. Trust me.”

  She smiles at the ‘trust me.’

  “Why should I trust you?” she grins.

  I tell her about the three suspects we’re looking for. Her face clouds, but then she lightens hurriedly.

  “You brought me here to talk business. Your business.”

  I feel like nodding, but that’ll make me pretend I’m here for legitimate reasons.

  ‘Legitimate.’ Maybe she’s right. Maybe if she were white we’d be eating Italian at some northside pizzeria and I’d be buying beers for all the off duty coppers there and they’d be reciprocating for me and my lady in attendance.

  Celia’s a lady. I tell myself those very words. She’s not a lover. She’s not a date. She’s not some mistress who’d be a passing dalliance. Celia’s something beyond what I ever considered when I thought about someone in my life after Erin.

  Maybe it’s senility. Maybe it’s a second childhood. More likely it’s sheer stupidity.

  “What do you want me to say? I’m here because I had to be. All you got to do is say the word and I’ll take you out of here. Just say it, Celia, and I’ll drive you home.”

  She looks at me soberly and then places that same warm hand over mine.

  “Is this because you’re missing your wife, Jimmy?”

  “Yeah... No. It’s not just that. It’s more. It’s much more than just being lonely. I don’t know how to explain it to you. I want to tell you wha
t I feel but I’m so deep in shit that I can’t begin to tell it to you.”

  The food comes and we begin to eat in silence.

  “It’d be easier if you were white. That’s the truth and I can’t lie to you about it. I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m prejudiced. But it’s true. I want to bring you home to meet my kids. My mother. The whole shot. I’m not ashamed to be with you. It’d just be easier if we were both the same color. I wish I could deny it but I can’t.”

  I lay the fork down next to the half eaten plate.

  “It would be easier. You’re right,” she tells me. “Nothing in my life ever came easy, Jimmy. How about you?”

  I pick up her right hand and it seems like it’s rising toward my lips with a will of its own.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The spring comes hard in northern Illinois. It comes grudgingly. It’s as mean and unrelenting as the hawk of the wind that whips off the shores of Lake Michigan. We’re not so far away from the water here at the Green.

  We canvass the project and the surrounding neighborhood trying to locate Chaka and Creel and Antoine, the three pistoleros who did Andres. No one talks. D and D prevails. Deaf and dumb. It’s down to talking to the man himself. Rashaan Abu Riad. The Muslim gangbanger who hides behind his religion. He’s a crook and a killer who now has his dirty work done by people on his payroll. Rashaan shows up at public events to appear for photo ops. He is big in Midnight Basketball. That kind of public eye stuff. He supplies the powder and he supplies the weed and the crack cocaine and anything else you can inject, sniff, or swallow. The man’s got the scent of his piss on the borders of his boundaries. Rashaan is the man around here. Tactical and Narcotics have tried to pin his dick to the wall for going on fifteen years. He’s well-connected and he knows who to grease downtown. That’s another fact of life for coppers in the inner city. Stay the fuck away from connected motherfuckers. White, Hispanic, or Black. Connected motherfuckers will get you disconnected.

  Doc and I were dumb enough to canvass on our lonesome, so when one of Riad’s folks answers the door, the dude looks at us as if we’re the AMWAY guys.