Big Chicago

Big Chicago Part 11...by Samayel


On her eighteenth birthday, Nymphadora Tonks changed her name. Her mother was Andromeda Starchild Tonks, and as much Dora loved her mother…the woman was a hippie of epic proportions. The tail end of the Sixties and the dawn of the Seventies had seen Dora's mother stoned on acid and tripping at concerts around the country, offering up Free Love to anyone handsome enough to merit it. As a consequence, Dora had been raised without a father, first in small communes, and finally in a quiet rural neighborhood in Wisconsin. Her mother had lavished attention upon her, and clearly loved her baby girl, but she hadn't had the first clue regarding what it would be like to enter a junior high school and spend the remainder of her school days nicknamed 'Nympho-Doorknob…everybody gets a turn'.

Dora wasn't really very much like her mother. She was generally a friendly enough person, and cheerful and outgoing in her own way, but the resemblance stopped there. She'd always been more capable of concentration than her mother, and positively hopeless at art and music. For all her mother's best efforts, she never really enjoyed making music with any instrument enough to learn it, or creating via some artistic medium enough to practice. She liked looking at art…or hearing music, but to her mother's utter and complete horror, Dora Tonks had been quite good at math and science, and liked books that were less about fiction and more about facts.

Andromeda Tonks had been so proud of her daughter's scholarship to the University Of Wisconsin, but the choice of majors to study had baffled and frightened her. Dora had gone immediately into a Criminal Justice program, with minors in Psychology and Forensic Science. Her desire to work in law enforcement had been the source of dozens of heated arguments between her mother and her self, always in the same vein. The cops were the bad guys…the Pigs…the Blue Meanies…the Man…and corrupt right down to their socks. Law and jurisprudence were evil incarnate, and part and parcel of every horrifying conspiracy to diminish happiness and the pursuit thereof. This didn't stop Dora one bit.

She'd argued and argued well that, even if it was a bad system, it was because good people had fled from it, and only when people who had a conscience became the majority would anything really change. She at least managed to get her mother to admit that the world could certainly use a few actual good cops, even though Andromeda was skeptical that such a thing could even exist.

Dora Tonks graduated fourth in a class of several thousand men and women, having made the Dean's List every semester without fail, with a grade point average just a hair shy of perfect, and letters of recommendation from three of her professors. Her application for training as a police cadet was accepted immediately, and Andromeda Starchild Tonks' little girl grew up to be a cop. That hadn't been enough by a long shot.

Dora put her time in as a patrol cop, pushing constantly for a crack at a detective slot. She earned it, even when some of the guys claimed it was purely because she was a chick, and though it wasn't her first goal, she accepted a promotion to the Vice Squad. She'd seen an awful lot during that time, and very little of it was happy in nature. Drugs, prostitution, gambling and all the human suffering that came with them. Maybe that was why she'd let herself fall in love. She'd needed to believe in something…anything that said the world could be a good place.

Her husband had been a decent enough man, and good looking as older men go. He was a detective from another precinct, and therefore safe to interact with, and he was very soft spoken and quiet as a rule…except when he drank. Things had slid downhill in just a matter of two years. His drinking had gotten worse and worse, and even though he never hit her, or did the any of the other awful things that men often do, he became cold and distant, and they argued constantly while she tried to get him to quit the bottle. It was a battle she couldn't win, and almost didn't want to before it was over. As ex-husbands went, Remus was pretty okay, since he stayed quiet and out of her way while she got on with her life…and the life of their daughter, Diana.

Diana had been the one constant joy in her life since the day she was born, and though many things had changed in Dora Tonks' life, the joyful leap in her heart when she saw her daughter's face hadn't changed a bit. It had kept her going through working nights as an undercover cop, enduring endless gropings and touches during her time reeling in men for solicitation. She'd seen more than a few dirty cops as well as downright evil human beings in those times, and the overwhelming majority had been men. Could anyone doing that for a living have blamed her turning to women?

Her emergence as a lesbian hadn't been easy, but having co-workers who thought well of you and trusted you could take the edge off of anything. She wasn't the only gay or lesbian detective on the job, but she was the only one ever promoted to the homicide branch of the Organized Crime Task Force in the heart of Chicago. It was the crowning moment of her career, and a job that she truly loved. To top it all off, less than six months after making the Task Force her new home, Dora Tonks had found a lover.

Luna was frighteningly similar to Dora's mother at times, and yet oddly better grounded at the same time. She was, of all things, an artist whose mediums were oil, watercolor, acrylic, and charcoal, and she was hanging her new display in an upscale coffeehouse on Halsted St. when Dora had nipped in for a latte. It was the gay friendly end of town, part of the long strip that made up Boystown, but despite the patriarchal name, more than a few shops there were owned, staffed and patronized almost exclusively by lesbians. The art was beautiful, and she hadn't been able to keep her eyes off the slim neck and shoulders of the young woman hanging canvases on the wall. Staring turned to conversation, and conversation to dates, and dates inevitably led to something oh so much more.

Luna made a marvelous lover. Thoughtful, sweet, and perfect with little Diana, and even Andromeda had fallen for the smiling, earnest young woman that was almost more akin to her than her own child. They'd made a nice life for themselves here, and Dora could call herself truly content at last. If they could be said to have an occasional conflict, it would have to be over some of Luna's wilder theories about the way the world worked. Dora could barely bite her tongue through some of them, and every now and then she lost it and just laughed out loud, which always pissed Luna off to no end.

One month it was the Freemasons, another it was the Templar Knights. It could be the TV networks, or the big corporations, or the Tri-Lateral Commission that ran the world and made it full of bad things, but every week it was something new. Area 51 was full of dead aliens and their technology, black helicopters were mutilating cattle for government experiments, and the genetic modification of food was a secret plan to control the world…if the stuff they put in the water to clean it for drinking didn't turn everyone into zombies first. Sometimes it was a bit much, but when someone worries over you when you work too much, raises your child with you, and in every little way brightens your life, you can forgive an awful lot.

Remus hadn't been any trouble. She suspected that, deep down, he was glad it wasn't some other man, and he could comfort himself by saying that she hadn't wanted a man at all. Maybe he was even right, but as long as he was content to leave Dora and their daughter alone and untroubled, who cared what he believed? She really just hoped that he'd get it together someday and have a better life of his own. He'd never been much for taking help or charity from others, and he wouldn't admit that he was self medicating for depression and anxiety. He was clearly not violent, and with a little help, she could see him having the life he deserved. Still, at the end of the day, her attention was focused firmly on the things that mattered most. Her family, and her work.

Dora's partner was another oddball in a profession dominated by white males. Kingsley Shacklebolt. The man had a heart of gold, and Dora was glad she'd been assigned to work with him from day one. He was well over six feet tall, black as coal, and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, none of it fat even now, and he was past forty years old. Kingsley had played football at Duke University, and earned every honor he'd ever received. Once again, the blue collar boys loved to say that he'd gotten his job just for being black, and maybe that hadn't hurt, but the man was brilliant, energetic, hard working and just damned good at what he did. There was no doubt in Dora's mind about how he'd gotten his rank.

Kingsley had been nicknamed Shaq, against his many protests, since he couldn't play basketball worth a shit, but that was what the boys in the office called him anyway. Not that he didn't enjoy watching it, but his bulky size had all been channeled into football, and he'd been outstanding in his day. He was well read, polite to a fault, funny, and tolerant of most other people's bullshit. For a nervous lesbian newly assigned to a very demanding job, Kingsley had been a godsend. He was happily married, had two children he adored, and treated his partner with complete respect, occasionally even sharing their personal lives. Kingsley and his wife Deirdre had enjoyed dinner at Dora and Luna's, and vice-versa, several times over the last three years, and Dora's partner was quite truthfully one of the best friends she'd ever had.

Today, they'd started early with a review of the penitentiary documents and interviews, going back over the mish mash of wild rumors and eerie silence that surrounded the whole case. Nothing productive had turned up in almost a week. Word of mouth testimony from prisoners, which couldn't be trusted, claimed that a man named Harry Black had started it all, but there wasn't a shred of paperwork left on the mystery man who supposedly provoked the riot. The computers had nothing on him. Only a couple of guards had anything worthwhile to say, and one of them turned out to be a raging lush. Everyone else agreed that it was a war between rival gangs, which broke out because of agreements that had been dishonored and because of threats that couldn't be ignored. Again, rumor placed the blame on a new arrival, and the only lead they had on that man's whereabouts was a flimsy story about his being transferred to the SuperMax facility a day after the riot. No prisoner ever arrived at the SuperMax facility matching any description they had available.

It was looking a bit like they'd have to call it a mystery or hand the case off to the feds. The local impact was chilling. Tension had flared between the criminal organizations whose members had been killed in the riot. No violence yet, but a lot of ugly chatter on the street. The last thing anyone wanted was for someone to light the fuse on this powder keg of emotions…and then someone did. This morning as a matter of fact.

Somewhere around two in the morning, an unknown man had walked out of a small bar and bistro in an Italian neighborhood, leaving behind six dead men. Four 'soldiers', one capo and a courier. The Italians were keeping quiet about everything, but secretly blamed the Russians, who had lost one man in the riots compared to the Italian's three. The other death in the prison riot was from a Chinese Tong, and they were harder to get a word out of than the Italians.

There were no solid answers at the scene. There were no witnesses left alive from the massacre in the backroom, and it looked like a professional revenge hit had taken place. When mobsters tired of a competitor, they usually kept it quieter than this, or sometimes just shot it out with smaller numbers. One problem, one target. Not here. Every man in the room had been killed by one of two guns used at the scene, both nine millimeter pistols, likely silenced. There were no significant pieces of evidence left, and it was almost certainly because some employee of the place had opened in the morning and called his boss, who quickly got people down there to remove any evidence of illegal activity. The names of the victims were all known, and there were no questions as to whether or not they were in the mob, but the 'image' of honesty had to be maintained. There was no telling what clues might have been missing by the time the cops became involved.

Kingsley was pulling the video records from every ATM in the area, and from several of the surrounding stores and gas stations. Anyone who had a view of the nearby streets and might have seen the killer before or after the crime. Dora herself was picking apart the scene with tweezers and gloves, while the crime scene photographer prepped for his second round of pictures.

'Creepy' Creevey was a pasty-faced, skinny, whiny pain in the ass, but he took good pictures, and he could develop them carefully enough to pick out details that most people would miss. Given his skill, people forgave the fact that he was annoying as hell, but that didn't mean they liked working with him, and Dora was no exception. There was just something wrong about a man who passionately loved photographing murder scenes.

"Looks like I'll be raking in overtime if this keeps heating up! Second set's finished, Detective. Any ideas on who might have done what?"

Dora answered quietly. "Not really. And stop sounding happy about this, Creevey! This is the last thing anyone wants. This could easily bleed over into public shoot outs. There's nothing to be cheery about here…so pipe down!"

Today's largest annoyance had been the total absence of any staff for the bar. Whoever had opened the place probably had some warrants out for his arrest on something minor, and he wasn't showing his face anywhere. No one had heard shots, and no one living nearby had seen anything out of the ordinary. It was normal for people to keep quiet after something like this, since they didn't want to get involved or draw the wrath of already angry mobsters, but the complete lack of information was still frustrating.

Kingsley slipped back in through the door of the office, a cup of coffee in one hand and a handful of videos in the other.

"Guess what?"

"Bad news?"

"Is there another kind? You won't believe this shit. There was a power outage. A 'flicker' that lasted eight minutes. Guess when?"

"Oh shit! Somewhere near two in the morning, right?"

"You got it, hot stuff. Two twenty-three until two thirty-one in the morning. There wasn't a worthwhile image of anything on this entire grid during those minutes. I'm thinking this is no coincidence."

Dora soaked in the reality of what Kingsley had just said. "Sweet Christ! They hacked the city power grid just to make sure there were no cameras in operation at the local gas stations and ATMs. What the hell kind of outfit are we dealing with here? The locals never do it that clean. They haven't shot the city up in decades. I knew something was weird about that prison riot deal! I hate to admit it, but we're going to have to call in the feds."

"You're reading my mind. This is bigger than us…an' we ain't small, sister. Shit…cell phone again. Can you hold the tapes?"

Dora took the small stack of CD's and VCR cassettes from Kingsley while he fumbled with his cell phone.

"Detective Kingsley here…how can I help you? What?! Where? We can be there in ten minutes. Thanks."

The cell phone snapped shut and Kingsley sipped his coffee deeply before he smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Bad just got worse. We got two dead Russians and a Czech national with no papers in a trailer behind a warehouse west of here. Looks like the lid is off Pandora's Box, and it ain't hope at the bottom of it. We gotta roll. You finished here?"

Dora Tonks stood and peeled off her gloves, pocketing her forceps and sighing.

"Yeah. I've got my statements and the reports from the local beat cops. It's enough for now, but we'll have to backtrack and check up on a few things later. You know…I love this job, but I kinda hoped I'd never see an all out mob war. A lot of people could get hurt in this, Kingsley."

"I know…I know, kiddo. Nobody wants something like this. I'd rather bust pimps and dealers and bookies any day, but it looks like we drew the short straw. 'May you live in interesting times' is an ancient curse for a reason."

"True enough. Let's go…the local boys can handle the clean up."

Dora trudged toward the car, fishing her cell phone from her pocket. She'd have to call Luna while they were driving to the next site. It looked like this would be the first of many late nights in the office.

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Remus Lupin cracked his eyes open at ten in the morning and stared at the cheap ceiling fan swinging above him. Round and round. Just like him…except that it served its purpose. What did he do that was worth anything?

'Get up. Get up and take the fucking pills, Moony. Take the pills. Dora would want you to. Diana would want you to do this. Just get up off the bed…take the fucking pills…and you'll be alright.'

Remus was a shabby little man, in a shabby little room, in a shabby old suit. The only thing that distinguished him from the type that people called hobos was the worn out private investigator's badge he carried. That and his old .38 revolver. A lot of guys on the force had switched to the new nine millimeters and loved them, but Remus had refused to part with the service revolver he'd had since he was a beat cop on nights almost twenty years ago.

It was tough to get a gun with a condition like his these days, but a lot was possible if you were a likable ex-cop who still had a few friends in the right places. Remus knew he had problems, but he'd never once thought of hurting others. Only himself. Dora had thrown around words like cyclical depression and anxiety, along with the usual smattering of comforting remarks about how normal it was and how easily it could be treated. He had problems even more significant than those. Remus hated doctors…and the only thing he hated more than doctors…was taking pills. Even vitamins had made him break out in a cold sweat when he was kid. It wasn't a rational fear, but it was his, and he was comfortable with that fear.

Sometimes the anxiety would hit harder than usual. It felt like the walls were closing in. People were always too loud and too fucking close and his heart wouldn't stop pounding until he'd had a half a fifth of whiskey to take the edge off of it. Sometimes the depressions were just as bad. It was a fight just to get off the bed and make it out the door, much less shave and shower and make the rounds looking for work or getting jobs done. Working as a PI gave him a certain freedom, but with his reputation in the shitter, good jobs didn't often come his way.

Remus didn't have an office. He had a motel room, a pocket full of business cards, and a cell phone. On the bright side, he knew all the right people in this town, and he had resources in the police precincts that a lot of guys in the same line of work just didn't have. He had a laptop computer, several cameras, and a little black book with so many informant numbers and contacts that it wasn't hard for him to dig up dirt on cheating husbands or insurance frauds. It wasn't exactly a noble cause, but the pay was just enough to keep the clerk at The Lucky Ace Motel from throwing him out.

'You can get it over with quick if you hurry. Take the pills. You'll feel better fast if you just knock 'em back quick, Moony. You can do this. For Diana. You can see your baby girl again if you just take the fucking pills.'

Remus rolled off the rumpled sheets and lurched to the bathroom. He'd left two pills on the counter beside a glass of water, same as every night. He snatched them up and dropped them in the water, then sucked the whole thing back a second later, trying to gulp them down while his gag reflex rebelled against the knowledge of what he was doing. It hurt every time. He'd got them down, but he'd been painfully conscious of every second that the horrid things had been crawling down his throat. He couldn't explain it, but he knew it made his skin crawl to even think of it.

The man in the mirror was unkempt and red-eyed, with eyes that had bags under them that you pack and travel to Europe on, and a mustache as streaked with gray as the rest of his thinning brown hair.

"Attaboy, Moony. Now let's go photograph some adulterers in action, cause it's time to pay the rent, fucker."

Remus splashed some water on his face and ran his wet hands through his hair, slicking down the unruly bits and lamenting the few hairs that always came away in his hands. Christ. He wasn't even forty five years old. Why did he have to be the one who started balding at thirty? Dora had liked him anyway, but he'd fucked that up…just like everything else in his life.

A hasty morning leak and a quick check of his equipment, and Remus Lupin was tucking a small camera, his black book and cell phone, and his notepad and pens into his coat. He locked up his room behind him and headed for the bus stop. It was a lucky thing he looked more like a hobo than a PI. In this neighborhood, if people thought you had money, they took it from you however they could.

He was already late, but hey…if the jerk he was tailing lately would just conveniently give in and fuck his secretary instead of his wife at the right time, this would all be over and Remus could score a fat payday plus expenses. In the meantime, there was a greasy spoon diner where the Greek waitress liked him, and he could get a cup of coffee and a second to go for a buck.

It was the start of another shitty day, and it was one of many that were just the same as the ones before them, but he'd already had three little victories. He was still alive…it was his fifty-third day without a drink…and he'd taken the fucking pills every morning this week. Dora would be proud. But first…he really needed that cup of fucking coffee.

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Johnny Wu loved his life. He ran a string of girls for his boss, and collected 'insurance' from a small section of Chinatown businesses. It was an easier job than some had, even though the girls were a pain sometimes. On the bright side, he could afford any girl he liked, and new girls always provided him with nice distractions if they wanted a steady clientele or a good location to ply their trade. That's what brought him out tonight.

He left his two bodyguards in the car, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, savoring the knowledge that he always got the most premium girls as often as he liked. Waiting upstairs and down a hall was a nineteen year old from Shanghai that had been in the U.S. less than three months, and had worked for him for less than three weeks. Without bad habits or a long history behind her, she was still pretty, but had just enough experience to do all the right things. She wasn't any better or any worse than any other girl Johnny visited, but she was new, and that made her a refreshing change of pace.

The upstairs hall was empty as always, and the old couple that ran the restaurant downstairs was already asleep. Johnny popped a key into the lock and entered the room, already half-hard with anticipation. The little apartment was basically a bedroom, a mini kitchen, and a bathroom with a shower, but it was good enough to keep new arrivals in until it was time for them to start working a little on their own. The TV on the floor was flickering static, then suddenly shut off entirely, along with the clock next to the bed. Even the streetlights had gone out. Fucking city power. Useless fucks. The set of mattresses that served as a bed was in the center of the room.

Johnny stepped in and closed the door behind him, taking the nice watch he always wore and his good rings off and slipping them into his coat pocket. She was sleeping on her stomach, black hair braided long and down her back, a coil of midnight against pale and silky skin that he knew well. The tattoo of his gang was fresh on her right shoulder, and stood out starkly in the moonlight from the window.

"Hey. Wake up! Time to earn your keep…lazy girl!"

Johnny slid his coat off and dropped it onto the floor beside the bed, kicking off his shoes while he spoke. The lazy cow didn't move at all. She was sleeping like she actually worked for a living, instead of humping a few tricks a day. He'd remind her that she could be fucking fifty tricks a day if he wanted her to, as soon as he enjoyed himself first.

He prodded her ass with his foot. The worthless bitch didn't even budge! He'd had other girls who got onto drugs, and while they did what they were told to get their fix, it was often as much of a pain in the ass as if they were sober. Had the silly little thing gotten her hands on some dope? He rolled her over and slapped her face just hard enough to wake anyone up, then peeled her eyes open. As he'd half expected, she was as high as a kite, but who the fuck could have gotten her drugs without his permission? Someone was fucking around with one of his girls, and Johnny Wu didn't take that lightly. That's when the loud click behind him registered in his brain.

The bathroom. Someone else was here, and that click could only mean one thing. Johnny raised his hands slowly, hoping negotiation might buy him some time while he turned slow to face the intruder.

"Easy there. No trouble. No gun on me either, man. We can talk about this…work something out. Girls, some money…I know people…we can make you pretty happy, you know?"

The man behind was dressed almost entirely in black, and the gun in his gloved hand had a silencer on it. He looked more like a commando than anything else, and even in the suit and tie he looked like a pro. Johnny's stomach flipped when he looked into the green eyes of the stranger. Disgust, loathing, contempt…but nothing remotely like mercy.

"Nothing personal. I'm a messenger…you're just the message…but the fact that you're a piece of shit makes this a lot easier."

Johnny almost got a word out before the soft chuff of the silencer preceded the explosion of his skull. The body hit the floor only a second before the man left the room, and in the street below, the two men waiting for Johnny Wu never even saw the shadow that slipped from around a corner and unloaded a half dozen quiet slugs through the open windows of the car, tearing through their necks and skulls with brutal efficiency.

Six minutes later, the streetlights came back on, and alarm clocks blinked in every apartment for a block in any direction. The man in black was already long gone. When the girl in the bed came to, she panicked, frightened by what she saw on the floor, but she had enough sense to grab Johnny's fat wallet and leave fast, taking her chances anywhere but where she'd already been. She knew better to stay in a place where a stranger in a black hood and gloves had shoved a funny smelling cloth into her face until she passed out. Johnny Wu was dead, and there was no telling what would happen to her when Johnny's people came looking for him. One bus ticket later, she was long gone and headed to places she'd never heard of, but anywhere was safer than what she'd left behind.

TBC!!!