Chicago Cop Stacey Macbeth had ended Lonnie Huggins’ reign of terror when he sent the vicious criminal to prison. Now, a not-for-profit team of investigators has freed him back into the real world on some trumped up allegations of misconduct on the part of Macbeth. Word on the street is that Huggins is out and looking to settle some old scores, starting with Macbeth. With innocents caught in the crosshairs, Macbeth vows once more to bring Huggins to justice, setting the stage for a head-to-head confrontation where the rule book has been hurled from the window. Both men embark on a collision course in which each is seeking his own brand of Chicago Justice, knowing that this time there will be only one left standing.
Chapter 1
Cabrini at Night
SUNDAY 2230 Hours
Macbeth pulled the bottom of his Kevlar vest away from his stomach and could feel the saturated uniform and undershirt stick to his flesh. Sweat ran freely down and pooled at his waistline, soaking his underwear, even his shins were clammy and his booted feet grew more damp by the minute. The squad car’s air was on high, but he and his partner kept the windows open to listen for trouble.
The city felt like a powder keg. And in Cabrini, Macbeth knew the fuse was lit and burning. It was just a matter of finding out where. Hopefully before everything blew up.
Mike Zito drove. Zito pulled a cigarette from a pack of Kools, lit it, and blew smoke at the windshield. “How the hell.” He took another drag, smoke billowing from his mouth as he spoke. “Did Timmy get the night off?”
“Ask Ryan.” Macbeth missed working with Tim Hagen, his regular partner, but Macbeth and Zito were on a roll. And he really needed something positive right now. The turmoil surrounding his involvement in the death of a Cabrini gangbanger a couple of months ago continued to fester like an open wound.
Clusters of protesters gathered outside of the Eighteenth District with irritating regularity calling for Macbeth’s termination and/or indictment. It didn’t matter that he’d been cleared by IAD and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Nobody cared that the gangbanger had tried to knock his brains out with a two-by-four. It just didn’t matter… cops were guilty until proven innocent in today’s media.
Nothing mattered, Macbeth thought. Nobody, not the protestors, not the media, and not the politicians, was interested in facts. They only wanted to spin things to suit their own agendas. And everybody had one. Unfortunately, those factions coalesced at blaming the police.
The same could be said for Cabrini-Green. The huge high-rises stood like defiant, monolithic gateways to the lawless. Despite all the time, personnel, and money poured into them, they essentially remained a horizontal no-man’s land where police and gangs struggled for control. The good people, with nowhere else to go, were caught in the middle. It was a war zone contained in a few city blocks.
The heat and humidity made things worse. The hot dome that had settled over the Midwest this summer had cranked the temperature and mugginess in Chicago to record highs. Even though the police leadership denied any correlation, every street cop knew that when the mercury rose, the bodies dropped. People were sticky miserable and on edge, and with the robust gang culture permeating the city’s south and west sides, it turned into open season. The cops couldn’t keep a lid on the chaos.
“Eighteen Twenty-Two and cars on City Wide,” the dispatcher droned on the police radio Macbeth had stuck in his vest cover’s pocket. “We got a man stabbed at Nine-Eleven Hudson.”
“Ten-four.” The officer’s voice was familiar. “There an apartment number?”
“Fourth floor,” the dispatcher said. “Fire said they’re not rolling.”
“Ten-four.”
Zito cracked a U-turn and accelerated toward the call. “Fire must be busy, too.”
“You think?” Macbeth rolled up his window.
Apparently Eighteen Twenty-Two had been close. “Twenty-Two, can we get another car here?” The officer’s voice was calm; another voice in the background was anything but. “No emergency, but our victim is drunk.”
“Do you need fire?”
When the officer answered, the background voice had risen in volume, cursing. “No, have the wagon stop by. It’s bona fide, but he’ll tear up an ambulance.”
“Eighteen Seventy-Two.” The dispatcher sent the squadrol.
Zito parked behind Eighteen Twenty-Two on the street, and they half-jogged to the lobby of the 911 North Hudson building and took the stairs. They heard yelling when they passed the third-floor landing.
Macbeth glanced back at Zito as they approached the fourth floor. “Doesn’t Lacey Bennet live on four?”
Zito shrugged. “He might, and wouldn’t surprise me if somebody stabbed his ignorant ass.”
The black cop from Eighteen Twenty-Two had pinned a black man, in his thirties, standing face against the wall. The man was shirtless, sagging jean shorts revealing red plaid boxers over hi-tops. Macbeth recognized Bennet as they made eye contact.
“Macbeth!” Spittle flew from the man’s mouth, along with the heavy odor of beer as he spoke. “Tell this two-bit Uncle Tom mothafucka I the one called the poh-leece!” Bennet’s hands pressed against the brick wall like he was pushing back against the cop. “I been stabbed, goddammit! Take my ass to the hospital!”
“Calm down, Lacey.” Macbeth shook his head. “We’re going to get you there, just waiting on a wagon.”
Zito ducked into the nearby open apartment door.
“Fuck all that!” Bennet’s head turned quickly back and forth. “You ain’t taking me to jail!”
“Ambulances are busy,” Macbeth said. “The wagon’ll take you to the hospital. Nobody’s locking you up.” Macbeth caught the eye of the cop holding Bennet on the wall. The cop shrugged as if saying he agreed. “But we need you to calm down.”
“Don’t you wanna know who stuck my ass?”
“Sure,” Macbeth said. “But you got to calm down. We can’t have you acting all crazy.”
Bennet seemed to relax against the cop’s pressure and eased forward against the wall. “I got you.”
“Let me see.” Macbeth gave a nod to the black cop, who took his arm down.
Bennet stepped away from the wall and turned to face Macbeth. There were multiple short-width puncture wounds crisscrossing Bennet’s blood-covered torso. All of them oozed red, some worse than others.
Macbeth counted six holes. “They deep?”
Bennet held a thumb up, the other hand covering everything below its nail. Not overly deep, Macbeth thought, but still serious.
“Why ain’t you asked me who cut me?”
“My partner is in the apartment with his partner.” Macbeth pointed at the black cop. “Is whoever stabbed you inside?”
“Hell, no.” Bennet shook his head vigorously. “That bitch ain’t about to tell on her no-account son.”
Macbeth took his notebook from his vest’s other pocket and clicked a pen open. “Who stabbed you?”
“His name Damien Upton.”
“How old?”
“He got to be eighteen, nineteen.” Bennet fingered one of the cuts and blood started running out of it.
“You signing complaints?”
“Goddamned right I am,” Bennet said. “Lock that fucker up, before I beat his ass to death.”
Macbeth heard the other officer ask the ETA on the wagon for transport. The call of the dispatcher rose in crescendo as the wagon crew stepped from the elevator. They stopped a few feet from Macbeth.
The older wagon cop pointed at Bennet. “I don’t see why he can’t take an ambulance.”
“He’s calmed down a lot,” Macbeth said, shooting the officer’s partner a pleading glance. “It’ll be easy, promise.” Macbeth turned to Bennet. “Lacey, you going peaceful with these guys to the hospital, right?”
Bennet stared at the wagon crew, then at Macbeth before blowing out a big breath. “Yeah, I guess.”
The wagon cop spoke again. “Whose job?”
“Mine,” the black cop said. “Be right behind you once I get my partner.”
“Don’t take all day, we want to grab a lunch.” The wagon cop waved at Bennet. “C’mon.” He prodded the bloody man toward the elevator.
“Man, I’m hungry, too,” Bennet said.
“Shut up.” The wagon cop pushed the down arrow.
After Bennet and the wagon crew were on the way down, Zito and the other half of Eighteen Twenty-Two emerged from the apartment, each sweating profusely. Zito cupped his cigarette with one hand and wiped his face with the other.
“Fucking blast furnace,” Zito said.
“What’d she have to say?” the black cop asked of his female partner.
She had the new leather and fresh-pressed look of a PPO and referred to a small spiral notebook as she responded. “Said her boyfriend, this Lacey Bennet, was beating her son, Damien, for coming home late when the kid grabbed a knife and stabbed him a couple of times and ran.”
“How old’s the kid?” her partner asked.
“Fourteen. But she said he’s big for his age.”
“Beat him, like how bad?”
“She said he laid into him with ’lectric wire, whatever that is.”
“Extension cord, more than likely,” Macbeth said. “She say where he might’ve gone?”
“Had no idea,” the PPO said.
Macbeth looked at the black cop. “We’ll take a spin around, see if we can locate him. She say what he was wearing?”
“Cubs shirt, black shorts,” the PPO said.
They were about to step off when something occurred to Macbeth. “Do you guys know this kid?”
“No,” the black cop said. “The name doesn’t ring a bell for me.”
“Same here. Maybe he’s a good kid. If we find him, we’ll bring him to the hospital so we can figure it out.”
The black cop nodded. “Thanks.” He patted the PPO on the shoulder. “C’mon.”
All four of them walked down the stairs. The wagon was gone by the time they left the lobby.
An hour later it was still well over eighty as Zito and Macbeth cruised through Cabrini-Green, with an eye out for Damien Upton. The streets were crowded. People were outside to escape the sweltering heat of the oven-like buildings.
Zito slowed the car by the basketball court at Hudson and Locust. Several teenage boys were playing a pickup game. There were no nets on the bent rims of the steel backboards, and a light at the top of a pole cast long, darting shadows across the court.
Zito nodded at the kids. “See that?”
“Yeah,” Macbeth said. “Let’s go.”
Zito spun the wheel and guided the unmarked Chevy up over the curb. They crept to the basketball court and stopped. They got out, keeping their eyes on the game. The boys were shirtless and wore shorts of various lengths.
Zito whistled. The game halted suddenly and the ball bounced away until it was swallowed by the darkness. The players sauntered over to the cops. Seven boys stood apart from them, some breathing heavier than others. All of them were sweaty, their various skin hues glossy in the weak light.
“How old are you guys?” Curfew was ten p.m. on weeknights. Not that Macbeth cared, it just gave him probable cause. When no one spoke, he shined his flashlight, starting with the kid on the left.
The kid shrugged and said, “Sixteen.”
Macbeth pointed at the next one. “Fifteen.”
The third. “Fourteen.”
“Fifteen.”
“Fourteen.”
“Thirteen.”
“Fourteen.”
The last kid, who stood a little farther from the others, was taller than the rest and thicker too. He was no less sweaty than the other boys, but he had drops of blood spattered on his sweat pant cut-off shorts and his legs were covered in long elliptical welts. Macbeth motioned for him to follow. The kid’s eyes darted from Macbeth, to Zito, to their car that was still running and finally to the nearest project building, but it was over a hundred yards away.
“Bad idea,” Macbeth said. “We’re not in the running mood.”
The kid shrugged and stepped over. Macbeth saw he had a swollen eye that was discolored and his lip was split and a dried trail of blood flacked under his nose.
“What happened to you?” Macbeth did a quick pat down.
“Got my ass kicked,” the kid said.
“By who?” Zito asked.
“Momma’s boyfriend.”
“Before or after you stabbed him?” Macbeth asked.
“That’s why I stuck his ass.”
“Why’d he beat you up?” Zito asked.
“His drunk ass don’t need no reason, just ’cause.”
“You come in late?” Macbeth asked
“Know how hot it is up in that ’partment?” Damien wiped his nose. “Course I did. I didn’t wanna listen to him and my momma… you know.”
“I get it,” Zito said. “How bad you hurt?”
“I’m a’ight,” Damien said. “He ain’t gonna die or nothing like that, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Macbeth said. “But we want to have a doctor look at you.”
“That’s okay.” Damien stooped and lifted his blood-stained shirt from the grass.
“Wasn’t a request, Damien.” Zito lit another cigarette.
“Y’all gonna lock me up?”
“Don’t think so.” Macbeth turned for the car. “C’mon.” He shepherded Damien to the car’s back door, opened it, and had him take a seat.
“No cuffs?” Zito asked.
Macbeth shook his head, waving off his partner’s concern like it was a fly.
It was after midnight when Macbeth and Zito pulled into the Eighteenth District lot, having been called in by their sergeant, Ron Ryan. They climbed the stairs in the back of the station to their office, where Macbeth found Ryan typing on one of the office’s two computers. Ryan stopped and looked up at him.
“You could’ve called.” The sergeant leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
“Mike’s taking a leak.” Macbeth sat on the corner of the desk in front of Ryan. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to get a rundown on what you guys had. Heard you had someone in custody for aggravated battery.”
Macbeth laughed. “It’s complicated, but someone is getting locked up, just not the stabber. In this case, the stabbee, Lacey Bennet.”
“Do tell,” Ryan said.
“He beat his girlfriend’s kid with an electric cord until he got stabbed.”
“Injuries?”
“Bennet has a bunch of superficial cuts and the kid’s got a bunch of ugly welts. They’re both okay.” Macbeth yawned. “Eighteen Twenty-Two is handling, we’re just assisting.”
The phone rang. “Eighteen Tac, Sergeant Ryan.” He listened. “I’m looking at him. I’ll send him right down.” Ryan hung up. “Apparently, you have a visitor at the desk. Expecting anyone?”
“Not me.” Macbeth stood. “Tell Mike I’ll be downstairs.”
The station was active, with a number of locals lining the small lobby vestibule since the city had declared a heat emergency, and all police stations were identified as cooling centers. Macbeth stepped up to the desk, but didn’t see anyone he recognized. One of the officers behind the counter waved and then pointed. A middle-aged black woman was huddled by the front doors with two small children clutching her legs, and a teenage girl leaned against the wall next to her.
Macbeth walked to them. The kids weren’t crying, but they seemed uncomfortable. A visit to the police station did that to people. The teenage girl had headphones in her ears and was staring at the street through the front doors. The woman was patting the kids’ backs and making soothing sounds.
“Hi,” Macbeth said quietly. “You’re here to see me?”
The woman looked at him. “You Macbeth?”
“Yes,” he said.
She looked around, suddenly apprehensive. “There someplace we can talk?”
“Sure.”
She told the teen to watch the kids and then she followed Macbeth out the back of the station into the garage. It was empty, with two garage doors open to the parking lot. The overhead lights were on.
“You was always good to my daughter,” the woman said.
“I’m sorry, but…”
“Latricia Gibbons.”
“Oh.” Macbeth instantly recognized the name. She’d been his informant that’d been killed a couple of months ago by a Mickey Cobra enforcer, who was her babies’ daddy, after his release from prison.
“She always told me you was respectful and concerned for her and these kids a’ hers.”
Macbeth nodded. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” the woman said. “We leaving. But I thought, after all you done to try and help Latricia, I should warn you.”
“Warn me, about what?”
“People be saying that monster getting out.”
“Who, Huggins?” That couldn’t be true, he thought. Huggins had violated his parole and was awaiting trial on a felony gun possession case.
“Him,” she said with a venomous hiss. “Word in the building say he getting out. Some fancy lawyer getting him a new trial.”
Stunned, Macbeth shook his head. “I don’t see how.”
“I got these two grand-chillren to raise and we leaving,” she said. “But I thought you ought to know.”
“I’ll look into it,” Macbeth said. “You want to give me a number to call when I find out what’s really going on? Rumors being...”
“No,” she said. “No need to tell me nothing. We’re gone. Car’s packed up outside. Watch your ass.”
With that, the woman turned and walked out of the garage.
Zito passed her at the door. “Making friends and influencing people, I see.” He smirked.
Macbeth shook his head. “That was Latricia’s mom.”
“Crispy critter Latricia?”
Macbeth nodded, pushing the image of Latricia’s charred, rent flesh from his mind. “She said Huggins got a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“No fucking way.” Zito waved, a dismissive gesture. “Don’t believe that shit.”
Macbeth took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Pure bullshit, he thought. It couldn’t be true, could it?
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