The smug, smiling face of a male anchor filled the screen. “Thanks, Cecilia. And now over to Tad Schilling, in Weather Center One. So tell me Tad, when are we going to get a break with this heat?”

Sam paid and borrowed a tray. He put all the shot glasses on it and carried it back to their table. “Just saw the news. They’re brushing it under the rug as we speak. By tomorrow, it’ll be forgotten.” He passed out the first three shots and said, “Salute.”

They downed the shots and sat in silence a while longer.

“So what now?” Ed asked. “We go back to Arturo. We tell him there’s something going on with the rats. Some kind of disease. Shit. I can see the look on his face right now.”

“No,” Sam said. “We call the TV stations. Tell them what’s going on. Get some footage of those dead rats.”

“And you think they care about dead rats?” Ed asked.

“Shit. They don’t care about folks killing each other, as long as it stays on the South or West sides. What makes you think they gonna care about dead rats?”

“We need to pray to the good Lord for some guidance,” Qween said.

Ed and Sam pretended they hadn’t heard her suggestion.

Qween said, with a little more conviction, “I said, we need to pray.”

“If that helps,” Sam said, “go on ahead and pray.”

“What’s your religion, Mr. Sam Johnson?” Qween asked.

“I don’t think that has any bearing on this case,” Sam said.

“I think it has a whole lot to do with this case,” Qween said. “Answer the question. If you want any more help from me, answer the question.”

Sam took his second shot. “Okay. My folks were Jewish. I grew up in Skokie. Reform, I guess you’d say.”

“Be straight. You Jews, you don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Not in the way you believe, no.”

“Okay, then. I ain’t hold that against you.”

“Good to hear it.”

“But you ain’t got any bearing on this, so shut the fuck up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Edward Jones. What’s your story? Don’t break my heart. Tell me you’re a Baptist from Down South. Please, boy. Please.”

“Ma’am. Don’t take this personally.” Ed picked up his shot glass and held it, waiting until Qween held hers and they clinked the glass together. “I don’t believe in God.” He knocked his shot back. “Sorry. Your Bible, it’s just myths and legends. No different from any other culture on Earth.”

She surprised them and gave Ed a grin that displayed how few teeth she had left. “Don’t you worry. Jesus Christ doesn’t judge. He understands.” Qween knocked back the Jameson, slammed the shot glass upside down on the wood. “You need to get yourself to church. Make sure it’s Baptist. None of that Pentecostal foolishness. Shit, when I want to speak in tongues, I just drink Sambuca. Now, excuse me.” She wriggled her bulk out of the booth. “All this quality whiskey goes right through me. I expect at least three more on the table when I get back.”

When his cell phone rang, Lee was grateful for the interruption. He’d been sitting in a back room at a shithole of an Italian restaurant on the Near North Side and his throat hurt from all the laughing he was having to fake at all the stupid jokes. They kept shoving sausage and pasta on his plate; it wasn’t like he could refuse to eat, so training tomorrow was going to be brutal. And it didn’t help that he was sweating his balls off. Christ, what was it about these old fucking goombah types that they needed to keep the heat going in August?

Still, he was careful. The last goddamn thing he needed was for one of them to suspect he wasn’t being sincere when he laughed. They’d turn on him like starving dogs. Forget his career. He’d be lucky not to end up as another “suicide” in the river.

Even though some of the older men frowned when his phone went off, he checked the number, saw that it was his uncle, and apologized profusely, saying, “It’s Uncle Phil.” The old men understood the importance of family, more specifically, the importance of getting a call from an elder in the business. Lee excused himself and slipped into the alley.

“What the fuck, Phil? These guys, they take it personally if you answer a phone in their presence.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have called, but we got bigger problems. You see the news? Hear about the rat loose in City Hall?”

“If this is your idea of an emergency, then I’m gonna have these guys cut your nuts off.”

“Watch your mouth and listen close. Somebody’s reaching out to you, and they’ve got enough juice to know to contact me first.”

“So what?”

“Somebody from the CDC wants the names of the two employees that were in charge of catching the rat.”

Lee’s mind spun. “What the . . . why the fuck?”

“I have no idea. Only something big, bigger than us, is here, and they are serious.

“You need to find out who the fuck was downtown today and give them up quick. These people, they aren’t fucking around. They got a hard-on for this rat and I don’t want to know why.”

CHAPTER 27

12:09 AM

August 12

The owner kicked the detectives and the homeless woman out when closing time rolled around. Qween took her cart and disappeared in the shuddering roar and squealing sparks from an overhead El train. Ed and Sam barely noticed.

Ed said he’d walk home and Sam hailed a cab. Vague promises were made to follow up with Qween the next day, but they both knew it was bullshit. Sam fell into the cab and promptly fell asleep.

Ed told the cabbie Sam’s address and knocked on the hood. He headed east, crossing Wacker, then the Chicago River. He lived in a condo on Clinton that overlooked the diesel-choked Metra and Amtrak train yard, the only reason he could afford the mortgage.

His girlfriend, Carolina, had been working the early-morning shift at a pancake place up on Belmont while Ed dropped her son off at his middle school. She would pick him up in the afternoon, spend time with him in evening, and if Ed was on duty, her mother would take over while Carolina went to law school at night. Ed whispered good night and gave Grandma a peck on the cheek and slap on her ass as the grinning woman left.

His wife had died years earlier and his own children were grown with families of their own, scattered out around the suburbs. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and went to sit on the patio. At night, the train yard wasn’t so bad. Only a couple of trains rolled by every half hour. He sat back, trying to focus on the reflections of the lights on the oily surface of the Chicago River—a dizzying array of spectral rainbows—and hoping he wouldn’t have any dreams about the subway tunnels, he fell asleep.

The cabbie woke Sam up and said, “Eighteen-fifty, please.”

Sam gave the guy a twenty and crawled out. He stood on the sidewalk and realized he didn’t want to go inside and sit in the darkness and listen to the drip in the sink, the whine from the air-conditioning unit in the bedroom window, and nothing else. Around three, the dripping would be overshadowed by the muffled industrial noises from the dry-cleaning business downstairs.

He checked the time as the cab left. He knew of a liquor store about six or seven blocks away and set off. The night was cooling off and the air smelled decent. After walking a block, he felt good. The nap in the cab had really paid off. It was the first real sleep he’d had in a week, at least. He bought a pint of vodka, walked another half of a block, and ascended the Western Brown Line station. He sat in the shadows and cracked his bottle, drank deeply.

After a while, the next inbound El came along, so he stowed the bottle and boarded. He got off at Belmont and watched the traffic for a while. He took a few more pulls from the bottle. The next southbound train was nearly empty. In his car, there was only a Latino couple whispering and giggling and an older Asian guy trying not to fall asleep. Sam took a seat in the back. No one else got on at Fullerton.