Something occurred to me. “Isn’t the First where Commander Stanhope is…who hates us?”
“He doesn’t hateallof us, Kohn, only Jones, since he took all those kids out of his district a couple of months back.”
There had been a raid. Men trafficking kids for child labor and sexual servitude in return for drugs and guns. We were there, and so was the DEA, FBI, and ATF. Somehow or other, CPD got left out of the loop while we did what they called grandstanding. It hadn’t been done on purpose; it was that Miro had been playing it by ear, waiting on confirmation, and when it came, there was no way to alert local law enforcement. The federal part of the task force had the personnel and funding to keep everyone in perpetual standby mode, waiting to go. The Chicago Police Department did not have those same resources, as they were funded by the city, not the federal government. So of course, the moment CPD was told to stand down was the moment it was time to take the small compound in Elmhurst that had not been filled with kids twenty minutes before. Trucks came in and out, the warehouses a waypoint, and there was no other way to make the raid work. As it was such a high-profile case, when we picked up everyone, the press was there to cover us carrying children out.
CPD was not there, left out of the loop due to reasons beyond their control, but as they were always in need of a transfusion of goodwill, it just looked…bad. Added to the shitshow was the fact that the press had made a huge deal out of it, and Commander Stanhope and the First District had come off poorly, and now, since our event was at the aquarium in the First District and we needed their help…
“No, boss,” I assured him. “Stanhope hates all of us, you especially and Miro next.”
“And I care about this, why?”
He wouldn’t, and that was because he didn’t have to deal with fallout at his level. In the heat of the moment, the ranking officer on site could say he was going to go right to my boss, but they seldom did. No one had the balls. But the rest of us had to suffer the cold shoulder directed at my boss. In the case of the First District, that meant that our office was on the shit list. Could we count on them for our safety and for that of the civilians in attendance? Yes. Without question. But would they ignore anything but our imminent safety? Oh, you bet.
“Don’t give Stanhope the opportunity to turn you down.”
Or I could ask someone else to be the go-between. Someone he couldn’t say no to. Unfortunately, I had no idea who that could be.
“The mayor wants protection for the glitterati, but the mayor’s wife is concerned with Senan Weaver, the new principal.”
Having heard the stories firsthand from Cel, I didn’t say a word. Instead, I was going to argue some more about getting an assistant just for this event. I felt that I needed to remind Kage again that I was a deputy US marshal who worked for him and, therefore, busy and with a full schedule, so I needed backup. There were words on my tongue ready to spill out, but right before I fucked myself over big-time, my eye was caught by the man walking by—Miro Jones.
Kage and I were inside the walled-off area outside of Supervisory Deputy Christopher Becker’s office. It was steel from the floor to about four feet and then glass to the ceiling, so there was no way to miss Miro. But I knew that even if I had, Miro would have noticed me about to commit suicide by argument and would have made that same cutting motion with his hand.
“Get it done, Kohn.”
My gaze went from Kage’s hard-eyed, square-jawed face to Miro’s no less chiseled profile, and I swallowed down my righteous protest, snapped my mouth shut, and breathed through my nose. Sometimes the best plan of action was, as my buddy Jer was fond of saying, to just “shut yer damn piehole.”
I realized with an ache in my stomach that the two of us hadn’t talked in three days, which, sadly, was a new record. It was time to go over to his house, sit on his couch, and watch TV or maybe even break down and go bowling. I needed to decompress. Being in the spotlight for the marshals, having a perpetual smile and walking the press through high-profile cases like the death of serial killer Craig Hartley, was proving to be harder than I initially suspected. To always be “on” was taking its toll.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied quickly, watching Miro standing out in the hall, untying and retying a nice pair of black Christian Louboutin lace-ups.
“I’m counting on you,” Kage continued. “I’ll expect reports on a weekly basis.”
I could feel the muscle in my jaw twitching. If I didn’t get away from Kage soon, he’d notice, and the ass-chewing would be epic.
“Yes, sir,” I repeated, feeling like it was all I’d said in the last ten minutes.
“Good,” he rumbled, then left in that way he had where you’d never felt more dismissed in your entire life.
When Kage turned the corner, no more broad back in my line of sight, I made a death rattle in my throat and knocked my head into the glass.
“The hell’re you doing?” Miro barked, suddenly beside me.
He was a good friend, excellent at his job, and one of the only people I knew whom I could actually take sartorial advice from. As the director of Custodial WITSEC, dealing with minors, his job was, in my opinion, the hardest. Some of the stories he told me were heart-wrenching, and I knew I certainly didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with the pressure of his position. Just last week, I’d gone to the hospital to pick him up after Ian called me. Miro, he told me, was there, while Ian was stuck at a hostage situation in Wicker Park. When I found the room where Miro was, he was sitting on a bed beside a six-year-old boy. Both of them appeared to have been beaten up.
“What happened?”
“Miro came through the door and waled on Mr. Bryant when he heard me scream,”the boy had announced excitedly.
I’d turned my attention to my friend.
“This is Conner Wright,”Miro introduced me, and I noted the split lip, the bruises on his face, and the bandage on his right hand. Conner had a cast on his left arm.“Mr. Bryant accidentally fell over the end of his couch and hit his head on the coffee table.”
I nodded.
The kid scoffed.“More like you pounded his face into the table a hundred times.”