Calumet City Read Online Free PDF Page B

feet before the Berghoff’s basement door Chief Jesse’s uniformed aide steps into my path and points me toward an idling ’05 Town Car. A driver is standing against the rear fender waving traffic past, pretending he can’t see me or anything else.
    Inside, most of the leather backseat is the superintendent. The windows are up tight. Someone smoked in here then tried to deodorize it, that or it’s a hooker’s perfume. We’ll call that nervous humor—a very strange day is getting stranger. The superintendent of police is staring at me. So I ask.
    "Hi." Not much of a question, but I’m a bit off balance. There’s a personnel file in his lap, and my name’s on it. He nods at me, a habit when he’s displeased; his thick fingers drum on my file. "An interesting day, Officer Black."
    Our meeting doesn’t seem to be about our Democrat mayor or the Assassination Task Force formed
very publicly
yesterday by our Republican governor and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. So this meeting
has
to be about Kit Carson and his chickenshit CR numbers. Instead of anger I feel a shiver that I shouldn’t, a feeling that doesn’t fit, same as when you know there’s something behind the shower curtain but still need to get in naked.
    The highest-ranking police officer in Chicago says, "Our
Republican
governor and his State’s Attorney’s office believe the attempt on Mayor McQuinn is connected to next month’s mayoral election, not an attempt to interrupt the casino license vote…as if the two aren’t interrelated." Chief Jesse shakes his large head and it’s not hard to imagine a headdress. "Either they don’t teach ’follow the money’ in law school or the professors have never been in a casino."
    I sigh relief that I don’t show. Evidently this
is
about the mayor and the casino license, a license that will significantly alter the city’s balance of power.
    "Should there be another attempt before the election, and the assassination is successful, Alderman Leslie Gibbons will become our new mayor as well as our Democratic incumbent in the election." Chief Jesse glances away, investigating Adams Street beyond his window. I follow his eyes and can’t tell any difference from last year, other than Adams is dark and none of my drunk teammates are with me.
    "Alderman Gibbons is black."
Black
hangs against his window; and it should since the alderman’s racial make-up is not new information. "Gibbons would then run against this year’s extremely well-financed Republican challenger. And although there is no assurance that a black candidate cannot be elected again, our Republican opponents believe Gibbons would be significantly easier to defeat than Mayor McQuinn."
    I do the political math.
"The governor hired Rush Limbaugh to hit the mayor?"
    Chief Jesse returns from the window with a frown that flares his nostrils. Obviously I have missed a crucial bit of information. That, or once again, my mouth has outpaced my command of city politics.
    "Republican malfeasance is one possibility." The superintendent’s tone isn’t good, although the picture of Limbaugh on the radio trading his prescription dope for hitmen is pretty funny. I notice no such fantasy on the superintendent’s face and don’t describe the vision.
    "Another possibility is Alderman Gibbons. Alderman Gibbons is from District 6, your district. As is Louis Farrakhan and his bow-tie army of Muslims. While the State’s Attorney’s Office stumbles about with their high-profile task force, would you mind terribly if you were asked to do the same?"
    "Sir?" I’m not following him. I’m still riding the rush, enjoying that this isn’t about Lt. Kit Carson’s hard-on for my
hero move
or the manacles in the wall.
    "My office would like to know,
quietly,
what, if anything, the citizens of your district think is going on. There’s been strong opposition to the mayor’s casino plan throughout the black community. Are members of the black community making