Savage Lover: Chapter 26

Officer Schultz is on top of the world. He’s getting another commendation for his bust of the MDMA lab on Mohawk Street. Levi Cargill is sitting in a holding cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, along with four of his dealers.

Schultz is out celebrating with about twenty other cops, in a little pub called Frosty’s.

Nobody parties quite like an off-duty cop. You can hear them hollering and singing from two blocks away. Not that drunken singing is anything unusual in Cabrini-Green.

Even the top brass stops by, including Commissioner McKay and Chief Brodie. They buy a round for all the officers, then leave the pub together, climbing into the back of a limo headed for the Celestial Ball at the Planetarium.

Papa will be there, along with the Griffins. Drumming up support for our South Shore project, which we now have ample funding to get rolling.

Not me, though. I got the money—they can get the permits.

I hate tuxedos, and I hate bullshit schmoozing.

I’ve got my own deal to make tonight. No tuxedo required.

I drive over to Schultz’s apartment on Kingsbury Street.

It’s not very high-security, as far as a cop’s house goes. It only takes me about eight minutes to break in, scaling the fire escape and forcing the lock on his window.

Then I poke around the place for a bit. Honestly, it’s pretty depressing. Schultz lives alone—not even a cat or dog or budgie to keep him company. No roommate or girlfriend.

He’s got a pretty clean apartment, if you’re only considering tidiness, and not the fact that he probably only vacuums about once a quarter. His dishes look selected at random and there’s basically no decorations anywhere.

He’s not a total psychopath though—I see a couple sparks of personality.

First, there’s a bunch of battered baseball gear in the closet. So he’s probably on some kind of rec league. And he really is a Cub’s fan—about half the shirts in his closet have some kind of cubbies logo on them. The one and only photograph in the apartment is a picture of blonde boyish Schultz at Wrigley Field with his dad.

I recognize Matthew Schultz immediately. He looks exactly like his son, only a bit slimmer. Same square jaw, and same Captain America set to the shoulders.

It’s Logan Schultz who looks different in the photograph—he’s grinning so hard that he can hardly see, holding up an autographed baseball in triumph. He looks absolutely joyful, without any of the bitterness of the adult cop I’ve come to know.

That’s the only sentimental item in the whole apartment. That, and his father’s old badge, stuffed in the top drawer of his nightstand, right next to the bed.

I take a beer out of Schultz’s fridge, pop the cap, then sit down to wait.

It’s another hour and a half before he stumbles home. I hear his keys scratching in the lock, muttered swearing, and then Schultz himself shuffling into the apartment. I wait for him to take off his service pistol and lay it on the table, before I make my presence known.

“Congratulations,” I say, snapping on the light.

Schultz jumps like a startled cat, grabbing for his gun.

“Relax,” I tell him. “This is just a friendly visit.”

“You know I could shoot you right now,” Schultz says, scowling. “Or just arrest you for breaking and entering.”

“That wouldn’t be very hospitable. Considering I’ve brought you a gift.”

Schultz has his hand curled around the stock of his gun. He pauses, then stuffs the pistol into his waistband instead. He crosses his arms over his chest, fixing me with a bleary stare.

“What is it?” he says.

“Well . . . maybe gift is an exaggeration. More like, an item in trade.”

“Trade for what?”

“Camille Rivera.”

Schultz gives an irritated snort.

“You gonna try to pretend you give a shit about her?” he says.

“Oh, I give a lot more than that,” I say, quietly. “Camille is mine now. You’re not going to come near her again.”

“Or what?” Schultz sneers.

“Or the next time I break in here, you’ll wake up to a blade severing your vocal cords.”

He doesn’t like that. I see his right hand drifting down toward his gun again.

I don’t give a fuck. I’m deadly serious. This is Schultz’s one and only chance to leave Camille alone. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. I’d take down the whole Chicago PD if I had to. I’d murder every man in this city, one by one.

Deliberately and slowly, so he can’t misunderstand, I tell him, “You don’t look at her. You don’t talk to her. You don’t come within a hundred feet of her. She’s done being your CI.”

“Oh yeah?” Schultz scoffs. “Then you better have brought me something pretty fucking fancy. Like maybe whatever you pulled out of Raymond Page’s vault. Oh yeah, I know that was you. Page knows it, too. He saw you on camera, taking your little field trip down to his vault with his daughter.”

“Let me worry about Raymond Page,” I say.

I hold up the present I’ve brought for Officer Schultz. It’s a VHS tape with a handwritten label. He stares at it blankly, like he forgot about that piece of technological history.

“What the fuck is that?” he says.

“It’s the tape from the security cameras on Jeffrey Boulevard. Taken the night of April 18th.”

Schultz goes pale beneath the ruddy hue of his tan. It makes him look almost yellow in color. All intoxication fades from his eyes, and they burn brighter than ever.

“That’s impossible,” he says.

“Not impossible,” I say. “Just difficult to get.”

Schultz looks at my hand, holding the tape. He sees my knuckles, swollen to almost twice their normal size, scabbed over and bruised.

He licks his lips convulsively.

“Give it to me,” he says.

“I will,” I tell him. “But first your promise. You leave Camille alone.”

“Yes,” he snaps.

“Permanently.”

“YES!”

I hold out the tape. He snatches it out of my hand, clutching it as if it really were one of the gold bars from the bank.

He narrows his eyes at me, saying, “This changes nothing between me and you.”

“Obviously,” I say.

His knuckles are white and he’s almost shaking with anticipation. He can’t help himself from asking me, “What does it show?”

“The shot came from inside the car, not out. Your father wasn’t alone.”

His jaw tightens, like he already suspected that.

“Who?” he says.

“Daniel Brodie,” I reply.

Schultz is perfectly still, eyes wide and unbelieving.

“You know they were partners,” I say.

Now Brodie is the head of the Organized Crime Division—Schultz’s boss. He was toasting Schultz just a couple hours ago, at Frosty’s.

Schultz has been sitting just a couple of desks away from his father’s murderer all this time.

“What you do with that information is up to you,” I tell him. “But I’d be very careful. Internal Affairs is not your friend. Your father trusted them—and look what happened to him.”

I shrug, standing up from Schultz’s chair.

“That’s your business, though. All I care is that you stick to our deal.”

Schultz is still rooted in place, paralyzed by the bomb I’ve dropped on his head.

He doesn’t move at all while I brush past him, heading out through his front door.