They followed her through the center of the building, along a cool marble floor and under a Baroque white ceiling that looked to Tommy like nothing more than white scoops of frosting.

“Wow.” Don nudged Tommy. “A captain. Sounds serious. This rat, he carrying any weapons? Want to make sure we’re prepared.”

Tonya laughed, too quickly, and moved at almost a trot as she led them downstairs. Her heels trickled down the escalator with the grace of a tap dancer. The sound bounced around in the tight space like machine-gun fire. Don and Tommy couldn’t help but admire the grace in such a tight skirt and followed at a slower speed.

At the bottom, the steel bars and clanking exit turnstiles of the Blue Line Washington Station waited off to the right. Except for a speck of a man on the left-hand wall who looked like he’d been behind that pile of newspapers and magazines since Daley Senior had taught those hippies an important life lesson, the place was empty.

“Where is everybody?” Don asked, his voice echoing around the relative quiet and glaring fluorescent lights.

“Captain Garnes has cordoned off the area. We don’t want anyone getting bit, now do we?” She laughed again.

Definitely nervous, Tommy thought.

Don knew it too. “It’s a good thing you move so fast in those heels,” he said. “These rats, you never know where they might go. Quick too. Squirt around like they was flying.”

“Captain Garnes is right here,” Tonya said, stopping and gesturing at the cops down the hall as if the two Streets and Sans guys had just won a prize.

Captain Garnes looked like somebody had stuck a mustache and eyebrows on a bullet to try and give it a personality. Officer Nabor waited listlessly behind his boss along with several other cops. “It’s down there,” Captain Garnes said and didn’t bother with introductions. That was all.

Don eventually nodded, and they continued along the hallway. Every door was closed, with the exception of the last door on the left. Tommy turned back to see Tonya and the policemen watching from a safe distance. He kept going, shining the flashlight under benches and plants, and feeling stupider by the second.

The last room opened into two long rows of cubicles. Tommy kneeled in the aisle and peered under the chairs and desks of the first pair of cubicles. No rat.

“Fuck this,” Don said, and kicked one of the chairs down the aisle. It crashed into a cubicle wall and ricocheted across into more chairs. Nothing else moved. “It’s not in here,” he said in disgust. “We’re gonna be here all night.”

Tommy edged forward, still searching.

In the next to last cubicle, they found the rat curled into a tight ball in the corner. Don prodded the rat with the pole, but that was just a formality. He put on a rubber glove that went halfway to his elbow. Holding the tail, Don raised it and they gazed at it skeptically. It didn’t look like most of the dead rats they had seen. Wild rats aren’t much more than skin and bones to begin with, but this one was so emaciated it made them feel hungry just looking at it. The lips were peeled back in a grimace, exposing formidable teeth. Flecks of white froth were dotted along the gums and eyes.

“Fucked if I know,” Don said finally. “We’re done. Let’s go get a beer.” He’d fallen off the wagon for the third time that summer. He smiled around the rat. “Let’s go see if I can’t make Tonya move any quicker.”

Neither saw the bug crawl from the rat and work its way up Don’s glove.

Dr. Reischtal grew impatient. The phone had been silent for too long. He wanted to pace, but knew it could be seen as a weakness if anyone came in. He considered the possibilities of a sick rat. Perhaps he had been sitting in the center of this city for these long months, waiting for the occurrence of a virus outbreak among the wrong species.

He was tired of waiting. Tired of avoiding the potential for failure, that his conviction that this would be at least one of the final battles for his world was wrong. Tired of this stealthy battle with the enemy.

He called Audio Specialist Castle. “Any further information regarding the rodent in City Hall?”

“I have three confirmations that a homeless woman released a rat inside City Hall.”

“Any logical reason why?”

“One report indicates that the woman may have wanted to display the rat for the mayor. No further explanation was available.”

Dr. Reischtal hung up and called Sergeant Reaves again. “I want three men. One City of Chicago vehicle, equipped with two animal-remains kits, and appropriate identification, waiting out in one minute. Any vehicle will be fine. We’re only going five blocks.”

Don had it all planned out. He hid the rat behind his thigh as they walked up. When he got within ten feet he was going to hold it up and say, “Hey, does this rat match the description of the suspect?”

Instead, the rat twitched, then came violently alive. It thrashed and curled like a scorpion’s tail, trying to slash Don’s hand and arm with its oversized teeth.

Don flung the rat down. It thumped on the floor and immediately launched itself at his boots. It swarmed up his foot and clawed at his jeans. Don kicked and launched the rat forward. It slid about ten feet, incisors frantically clicking as it found purchase and scrabbled forward, its claws echoing the teeth as they scraped at the marble.

It ignored Tonya and the policemen and darted at Don again. This time, Tommy stepped in front of it. He pulled his aluminum bat out of the sling on his back as his feet found their sweet spot. He brought his hands down almost leisurely, the bat swinging in slow motion behind him. Until time sped up. The barrel whipped down and connected with the front shoulders of the rat the way a freight train connects with a stalled VW Bug.

The rat slapped into the wall with a soft crunch and a smear of red. The ballplayer in Tommy was still very much alive, as he elegantly followed through with the swing, eventually letting the right hand fall away, ending in the pose that had made Kimmy fall in love with him as she watched from the bleachers their sophomore year.

“You can put it on the board.... YES!” Don roared, mimicking the Sox play-by-play man Hawk Harrelson. He slapped Tommy on the back. He yelled down at Tonya and the policemen, “We weren’t kidding when we said we don’t fuck around.” He hung his arm over Tommy’s shoulders as they looked down at the rat. He called back to the group, “Uh, yeah. Clean-up on aisle fourteen. You’re gonna need a big sponge and a bucket to clean this shit up.”

Instead of Captain Garnes or Tonya though, they heard an icy voice behind them. “Do you realize that you’ve just destroyed an extremely valuable scientific specimen?”

CHAPTER 23

3:17 PM

August 11

Ed pulled up behind a uniform laundry van and a Streets and San truck. Sam eyeballed the two vehicles. “Any more and we could start a parade. Busy day in City Hall.”

Inside, everyone was agitated, yelling into cell phones. There was one officer waiting at the front desk. Ed showed him his star and signed in, explaining, “We’re here for a prisoner transfer.”

The cop behind the desk looked skeptical. “They sent a couple of detectives for some old woman? It’s not like she tried to shoot Derrick Rose or anything.”

Ed nailed him with a dead-eyed stare.

Sam, still sore over the bullshit assignment, said, “Fuck you care?”

The cop shrugged. “Fine, whatever.” He picked up the phone. “She’s in the lockup on the county side.”

Ed and Sam moved down the hall. The cop did a good job ignoring Sam’s glare, so Sam stopped, until the cop didn’t have a choice but to look over. Now Sam could be the one to shake his head first, as if dismissing the younger man.