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a move against Mayor McQuinn? An effort to place their spokesman in the chair at a crucial point in the city’s future?" Pause. "Can you accomplish a quiet, informal investigation, Officer Black?"
    "Absolutely, yes, sir."
    "Should there be participation or collusion on the part of those in your district in the attempt on the mayor, you and the unwounded members of your team would be capable of discerning same?"
    I’m recovering a bit. "It would be our pleasure, sir. To serve and protect.
Quietly,
of course."
    "You understand that this means no formal channels, no written reports, no accusations later that the mayor’s campaign strategy or his support of the casino license was racially motivated."
    Knowing the climate and the players,
my
participation in this clandestine fact-finding mission makes less than perfect sense to me, given that Alderman Gibbons is at the moment rallying the ghetto against the GD shootings my warrant and raid caused. The first pickets were already in front of 6 when I finished writing my reports four hours ago.
    I say I understand even though I don’t. Chief Jesse nods, looking away again, then adds, "They ID’d your skeleton."
    "W-what?"
    "The body in the wall. Annabelle Ganz, Calumet City."
    My hands go prickly and pin-lights flash in my eyes. I block most of the name, trying to focus on "city," the only word that doesn’t hurt. It’s been twenty-three years, not nearly enough. I reach for the armrest, try to steady.
    That’s not a name you can say out loud in the dark.
    Annabelle Ganz was my foster mother.
     
     
     

TUESDAY
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
TUESDAY, DAY 2: 3:00 A.M.
     
     
       My cell phone vibrates and I pat blind until I find it.
    I’m under a blanket. Cisco’s talking—I think—still high on painkillers and young blond attention. His voice turns into Sonny Barrett’s—either I’m dreaming or Sonny’s at Cisco’s bedside. I rub my eyes. My room’s curtains are sheer; moonlight silvers the end of my single bed. Where am I? I glance at the door; it’s double locked. My hand bumps my pistol…under the pillow?
    Sonny’s voice says, "Whas up wid da what up?"
    Julie’s upstairs room. I’m above the bar at the L7. Why’s my .38 sleeping with me? Sonny slurs more ghetto-speak—good chance Sonny’s had a few, probably not enough to ask a girl who doesn’t charge for a date, but enough to think he could.
    "I’m sleeping."
    "How you doin’, gunfighter? Hear we got injuns."
    A reference to my meeting with the superintendent. How my sergeant knows this is interesting. "Could be. How’s your patient?"
    "Cisco?
Shit,
Cisco don’t talk right, but he bad, honey; Forty-seventh Street bad."
    This is the first time Sonny Barrett has ever called me "honey" and I have known him all my adult life. In deference to his condition and the loose nature of cell phone transmissions, I’m happy to discuss his attempt at camaraderie or sexual banter, two conditions I’m sure he wouldn’t attempt when sober. "Fuck you,
honey
."
    I hear two men laughing. Sonny burps, says he’s sorry to someone else, then tells me. "Kit Carson thinks you’re an asshole. I couldn’t argue and sound convincing, so—"
    "Gee, that’s news."
    "So I says he should soak his ass in gasoline, see how fucking brave he felt."
    "We could use him as a flare."
    Sonny pauses and I hear Cisco say "ask her" in his modified speech. Sonny clears his throat into the phone and says, "You coming to work tomorrow, right?"
    Julie’s clock glows on the nightstand. "In five hours."
    "But you’re coming."
    I’m too asleep to register how weird that sounds until after I answer. But the question hangs there, like some of the things Chief Jesse in the backseat—
    Calumet City.
Annabelle Ganz
.
    The covers fly off and I jump out of bed; my eyes snap to the door, then the window. It’s not possible, Annabelle Ganz, back again, and in my district, not five miles away.
    Sonny’s voice is tiny and talking to my hip.