Capone had his tommy guns, John Gotti had cement shoes, but these guys had unrivaled ruthlessness born of relentless suffering in a failed communist economy.
Efforts by U.S. politicians to rein in the R.M.O. largely failed because no campaign finance reform laws were strong enough to keep mob money out of the democratic system. Not that the police are eager to go after the R.M.O. Not only are such encounters usually fatal for Chicago’s finest, but the arrests made rarely end in convictions, at least not for the mob kingpins, because the Mafiya maintains a careful balance of legitimate businesses and criminal activities.
I’ll never forget seeing the R.M.O. slaughter four Chicago police officers who’d thought they were invincible with their SMART uniforms. Sgarristas torched the officers. The flames danced right through the cops’ invisible bulletproof shields. They had all died of burns. And that was old technology. The Sgarristas were said to have new weapons not even the military had yet.
I was thinking about the Sgarristas when Marco and I left Lola’s building. In fact, I was doing more than thinking. I knew someone was out there.
“Hold it,” I told Marco just before he opened the foyer door to the sidewalk. A weird feeling made my shoulders quiver with a chill.
He looked at me. “What?”
I swallowed hard before I said what I couldn’t possibly know but knew nevertheless. “Someone’s out there waiting to nail us.”
Marco’s eyes glittered unkindly. “Is that what Angel the Soothsayer says?”
I was too spooked by the hair standing on my nape to be irritated by his sarcasm. My heart banged like a drum pulled too tight. I could almost feel death waiting for us beyond the door. What was going on here? I’d always been the intuitive type, but this is ridiculous. Someone is out there.
Where could we go? The inside door that opened to the tenants’ mailboxes had already closed and locked behind us. Marco didn’t have a key. The only place for us to go was outside this ten-by-ten-foot outer foyer.
“What’s the matter?” he said impatiently. “You have nothing to worry about. There’s a patrolman waiting for us outside.”
“He’s gone. He left.” I propped an arm on the door and leaned heavily against it. I had to think.
“You’re not a suspect in this murder case. You don’t have to create a scene here to impress me, or throw me off the scent.”
“Pardon me for saying so, but I don’t think you have a scent. And this isn’t about you or me. Someone is out there. If you’re so sure I’m wrong, then go ahead. When they run out of bullets, I’ll follow. Gentlemen first.”
He narrowed his eyelids as he studied me with a curious mix of amazement and amusement. “I can’t believe you’re serious. Fine, I’ll call ahead.” He pulled his cell radio clip off his belt and called to the car. Silence. “Crappy equipment,” he muttered, staring at the black device in his hand.
I nodded and gave him a gloating smile. “Your line has been jammed. Typical R.M.O. tactic.”
He glared at me, for a moment considering my case. Then he shook his head. “No, this thing has been on the fritz all day. Department budget cuts.”
Nevertheless, he reached into his suit coat, tucked away the radio and pulled out a Mortal Taser, setting it to Kill.
“Now we’re talking the same language,” I said, glad that he was armed. I’d left my Glock at home.
“That’s a first,” he muttered.
In spite of the danger I was sure awaited us, I couldn’t help but notice how gracefully his hands cradled the weapon.
“Hey, Baker.”
I looked up and almost gave a start when I saw how penetratingly he was staring at me. “Yes?”
“When we get outside and you see you were wrong, you’ll have to buy me a beer.”
I grinned. “And if I’m right, you’re buying.”
He moved toward the door, then halted, letting out a breath of relief. “Look. I told you.”
I followed his gaze, which focused on a pulsing red light that throbbed through the cloudy etched glass embedded in the upper half of the old-style oak door.
“So what?”
“Those are called lights,” he replied, sarcasm fully restored. “They put them on squad cars. My backup is there. You’re good, Baker. Very good. You almost had me convinced.”
He walked out of the door like Gary Cooper in High Noon. What a jerk, I thought. Then irritation turned to absolute panic. The vague danger I’d sensed turned into a sharp, sizzling sound in my head that made me nauseous. I saw bricks just inches from my face. They looked like they were burning. I didn’t know what it all meant but I just knew something very bad was about to happen.
“Don’t!” I shouted, but he was already outside. Like a tornado, I flew out the door and smashed into his legs, tackling him. He crashed into the cracked concrete sidewalk. His taser flew from his hand, skittered into a street drain and vanished down through the iron slats.
“Damn it, Baker,” Marco cursed.
At the same time a company of bullets sprayed the glass and brick wall where Marco had been a second before. By the sizzling that followed in the eerie silence, I knew the bullets were acid eaters—a favorite of the Mafiya. It wasn’t enough to roto rooter your insides with SMART bullets. The R.M.O. wanted to burn away your internal organs with chemicals, just to make sure you were really dead. With a chill, I realized I’d heard the same sound a moment before in my mind. I looked up from the ground and saw acid fumes curling up from the bullet holes in the redbrick wall. That must have been the smoke I’d envisioned.
“What the—?” Marco growled as he yanked his legs from my embrace and twisted up from the trash-littered sidewalk. He stopped as soon as he saw the bullet holes. In unison we glanced hopefully to the flashing red light.
Unfortunately it topped a street cleaner parked across the street, not a squad car. I had been right. The patrolman was long gone. The street looked like a ghost town.
“Let’s go!” He reached for my hand and together we scrabbled to safety around the side of the building. Panting, we both stood and flattened ourselves against the wall. “My taser—”
“Forget it,” I rasped, still clutching his hand. “It’s gone. Useless anyway.” From my experience, the hard-core mobs would outgun you every time. Hand-to-hand combat was the only useful weapon against mobsters, if you were lucky enough to get close. Sgarristas didn’t usually train in martial arts. They didn’t need to. So it was the only weapon that worked against them when your back was up against a wall, so to speak.
“Guess I’m not buying that drink,” I said. I pulled my hand from his tight grip and clutched the rough wall. “Don’t worry, Marco, I’ll handle this.”
“Like hell you will. I’m not going to let you get killed.”
I gave him an incredulous look. “For your information, Marco, you’re not letting me do squat. I’m going to save my butt and yours in the process.”
“Do you always have to be in control, Baker?”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me, Marco. You should have stuck to head-shrinking back at headquarters. You’d be dead by now if I hadn’t—”
I heard a rustling noise and the squeak of a rusty wheel, and fell silent. We both looked at ourselves mirrored in the plate-glass windows of the storefront across the alley. In a distorted reflection created by a bright rainbow-colored billboard on the brick wall over our heads, we saw a stooped figure pushing a rickety grocery cart.
“A free-ranger,” he whispered, his face visibly relaxing. “An old lady.”
Free-ranger.