He was back on familiar ground. Sitting in a car, keeping his eyes open. Waiting. Watching. Not getting bored because boredom distracts you. It’s all part of what you do when you’re setting up a job.
Only now, the job was killing a man. And the waiting and watching were all about the angles. About the numbers. He knew he’d have to take out the shotgun first. That left the other man with the automatic. If you’re lucky enough to get them both, then the third man steps out of the car. Or Harris could be carrying himself. Something small and light. Be a big surprise if he wasn’t.
There’s no shot here, Mason told himself. Not unless I can get him alone.
? ? ?
The Homan Square police facility, or simply “Homan” to every cop in the city, was once a Sears warehouse. It was renovated in the nineties, along with the rest of the old Sears headquarters, and it was the biggest police building in the city, a redbrick fortress that housed all of the Bureau of Organized Crime units—Narcotics, Vice, Gang Enforcement, Asset Forfeiture—as well as Forensics and the Evidence and Recovered Property Section. Sandoval had been there many times, but usually just to drop off evidence, either for storage until a court date or else to be sent out to the Illinois State Police lab.
It made perfect sense that SIS would be stationed in this building, where they could draw from the best narcotics detectives just downstairs or even other OCD units, if they found a strong enough candidate. SIS had their office on the top floor, of course, with the big windows on the east side of the building, facing downtown.
Few Chicago cops ever got the chance to see this place. Today was Sandoval’s chance, but it didn’t make him feel lucky.
He rode up the elevator and found the door at the end of the long hallway. The sign outside the door read Special Investigations Section. He walked into a little waiting area and told the receptionist he was there to see Bloome. She was an attractive redhead—it figured that SIS would even have the best-looking receptionist at the front desk. She told him to wait on one of the benches.
This was a secure police building—you wouldn’t even get to this floor if you weren’t a cop or else a cop was escorting you. But Sandoval still had to sit on the hard wooden bench in the little waiting area like he was an informant off the streets waiting for his meal money. He could see over the half wall into the bull pen of SIS desks, arranged in random clusters. There were a dozen officers walking back and forth between the desks or talking on the telephones. The SIS uniform seemed to be tailored suits with the jackets hanging on the backs of chairs, everyone in dress shirts and ties, a few with suspenders.
Sandoval couldn’t help but notice the energy in the room. There was a testosterone-fueled buzz that seemed to hang in the air like the static electricity before a thunderstorm.
Then Sandoval noticed the one man standing still among all the others. He had his suit jacket on and was over by the big warehouse window, looking out at the summer day.
Making Sandoval wait. Making him absorb the atmosphere of this place, where the best cops in the city did their work.
Sandoval felt his blood pressure rising until finally the man turned and came toward him. Sergeant Bloome had that same imperial walk, those cold gray eyes looking out at the world from somewhere above it. As Bloome got closer, Sandoval could see a small black band stretched across the lower two points of the silver star on his belt.
Everyone in the unit was probably wearing one, Sandoval thought. In memory of Sergeant Jameson.
“Detective Sandoval,” Bloome said, swinging out the half-wall door and holding it open. “This way.”
Sandoval followed him into the bull pen. He took a quick scan of the place, saw three different bulletin boards with photographs tacked on them. Some were mug shots, others were obviously the product of a long-range surveillance camera. All of the SIS cops were giving Sandoval the eye as he walked between their desks, measuring him, forming their own opinions of this outsider who’d been summoned here.
“We’ll talk in here,” Bloome said, leading him into an interview room. Like everything else, it was newer and cleaner than any interview room at Area Central Homicide. Bloome closed the door behind him and waited for Sandoval to sit down on one side of the table. Then Bloome sat across from him.
“I won’t waste any more of your time,” Bloome said, making it sound exactly like it was his time that was already being wasted. “One of my men heard you call in a plate today.”
“A cop calling in a plate. Go figure.”
Even seated, Bloome seemed to be looking down at Sandoval. His expression didn’t change. “Tell me why you’re interested in the driver,” he said.
This guy’s got ears everywhere, Sandoval thought. A one-minute exchange on the radio and he’s all over it. Which makes me wonder how I would have played this if I knew it would cause such a stir.
Hell, probably exactly the same way.