"We All Fall Down" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harvey Michael)

CHAPTER 2

Donnie Quin’s dad had been a Chicago cop. His dad’s dad had been a Chicago cop. The family knew how the city worked, who to take care of, and how to get things done. Because that’s what it was all about in Chicago. Take care of the people who count and fill your pockets with whatever else you could grab every chance you got. Donnie ran his squad car down Halsted and took a left on Randolph. Twenty years ago, the five-block stretch had been full of fish factories and produce trucks. Then the restaurant developers came in-guys with juice downtown-and the lights all turned green. Code violations and licensing issues disappeared; zoning variances, rubber-stamped. Property that wasn’t for sale changed hands for a song. And the building began. Permits for whatever you might need flew through City Hall like the proverbial crap through a fat, greedy, happy goose. ’Cuz that’s what City Hall was: a fat, greedy, happy goose, taking in soft money at one end and cranking patronage deals out the other. Donnie smiled. Beautiful fucking thing.

He rolled his car to a stop in front of the first restaurant, a sushi place that charged thirty dollars for a wooden plate with five chunks of fish on it. It was just past six in the morning and still dark. Donnie flashed his lights. Thirty seconds later, a small Hispanic man in a red valet coat bundled himself up and came out of the restaurant. Donnie cracked his window, and the valet shoved an envelope through.

“For all six.” The valet gestured to the sushi place and five other joints strung down the block. “This weekend and next, too.”

Donnie adjusted his belly over his belt and weighed the package in his hand.

“Next week, too?”

“ Si, next week, too.” The valet nodded.

“How do you know how much you’re gonna do next week?”

The valet stamped his feet. “We know.”

“We’ll see.” Donnie rolled up his window and hit the gas. The valet jumped back into the street. In his rearview mirror, Donnie saw the little spic give him the finger and run for warmth. The cop loved it. Hatred, mistrust, and plain old fucking greed. Kept everyone on their toes.

Donnie stuffed the envelope inside his jacket. The restaurants paid for the privilege of parking their customers’ cars illegally on the side streets around Randolph. If they didn’t pay, Donnie and his pals pulled out the ticket books. And made sure it hurt. The skim was done on the honor system. Well, sort of. The valet companies gave the cops a count of how many cars they moved each weekend. If the cops thought the count was short-or just felt like bumping up their take-out came the ticket books again. If that didn’t work, there were always traffic stops, not to mention a DUI, to top off a customer’s night on the town. Donnie felt again for the envelope’s bulk inside his jacket. He didn’t like the idea of payment in advance. Well, actually he did like that idea, but it complicated things. The cop shook his shoulders, craned his neck, and felt his heart oscillate in its layers of fat. Donnie coughed to get the thing back in rhythm and wondered, not for the first time, if Joe Six-Pack realized how stressful it was to be a cop on the beat.