Chapter 4 - The Line in the Mud
The rain stopped at eight in the morning, leaving the flat Illinois country under a sky the color of dirty tin.
The long lane leading to the limestone house was a soup of deep, brown mud, filled with water-logged ruts that reflected the gray clouds above.
Two black Ford F-250s came down the lane slowly, their heavy tires churning through the mud with a wet, heavy sloshing sound. They didn't have their lights on. They didn't have license plates.
Inside the limestone house, Voss stood in the shadowed doorway of the second-floor bedroom. He had replaced his coat with an old, dark green canvas jacket that had dark grease stains on the cuffs. In his right hand, he held a short, heavy shotgun with a dull nickel receiver—a gun that had belonged to his father before his father had disappeared into the rumors of South Chicago.
Behind him, Elena was sitting on the edge of the iron bed, holding a small wooden robin Voss had carved out of pine twenty years ago while sitting on the same porch.
"Stay under the bed," Voss told her softly. "Don't come out until Marcus opens the door."
She didn't nod. She just slid down onto the hardwood floor and pulled herself beneath the iron frame, her dark dress disappearing into the dark shadows beneath the blue comforter.
Voss walked down the stairs.
Marcus was standing by the heavy oak front door, a heavy iron crowbar in one hand and a black semi-automatic pistol in the other. He didn't look nervous. He looked tired, the way men look when they’ve spent forty years realizing that the world never gets any cleaner.
"How many?" Voss asked.
"Six," Marcus said, peeking through a three-inch slit in the green steel shutter. "Cruz is in the lead truck. Marcos isn't here. He doesn't come out for the work; he just pays for the gasoline."
"And Jimmy?"
"In the passenger seat of the second truck," Marcus said softly. "Looks like he’s tied to the headrest. Guess they didn't want him changing his mind once he saw where the road led."
Voss walked to the front door, unlatched the heavy iron bar, and pulled the door open three inches. Cold, wet air rushed into the hallway, carrying the smell of crushed oak leaves and diesel smoke.
The two trucks had stopped sixty feet from the porch, their engines idling with a low, rhythmic thrum.
The door of the lead truck opened, and Cruz stepped out into the mud.
He was forty, tall and narrow-shouldered, wearing a expensive leather jacket that was already getting ruined by the light mist hanging in the air. He had a gold chain tucked into his collar and a long, thin scar across his upper lip that gave him a permanent, false sneer.
"Hector!" Cruz shouted over the thrum of the engines. His voice was bright, almost friendly, the tone of a man who thought he held all six cards in a five-card game. "We know you're in there! Save us the mud, man! Just bring the girl out! Marcos said he’ll leave you the West Loop properties clear—no taxes, no trouble!"
Voss stepped out onto the porch.
He didn't bring the shotgun up. He kept it lowered against his right leg, the barrel pointing down at the wet pine floorboards of the porch.
"Cruz," Voss called back. His voice didn't carry panic; it carried thirty miles of empty highway. "You're on private property."
Cruz laughed. It was a short, wet sound that died quickly in the cold air. "Come on, Hector! You're a businessman! What do you care about a Morales kid? She ain't your blood! She ain't your business!"
"She ate my toast," Voss said softly.
Cruz frowned, leaning forward slightly as if he hadn't heard right through the rain. "What?"
"She was hungry," Voss said, stepping down one wooden stair. His boots were dark with rain. "And you put zip-ties on her wrists."
Cruz’s face hardened. The friendly sneer vanished, replaced by the dull, flat eyes of a man who killed people for four hundred dollars a week and a lease on a two-bedroom apartment in Berwyn.
"You're making a five-million-dollar mistake, Voss," Cruz said, his hand moving toward the inside of his leather jacket.
"No," Voss said. "I made a mistake twelve years ago when I let Brennan live."
Before Cruz’s hand could clear his collar, Marcus’s pistol barked once from the dark slit in the steel shutter.
The bullet caught Cruz in the center of his chest. He didn't scream; he just sat down hard in the brown mud, his expensive leather jacket opening to reveal a bright, sudden splash of red against his white shirt.
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The driver of the first truck slammed the vehicle into reverse, the heavy mud spraying forty feet into the air as the tires spun wildly against the gravel.
Voss didn't run. He brought the short shotgun up to his shoulder, stepped off the porch into the cold, gray rain, and walked toward the trucks with the slow, steady rhythm of a man who was simply going to work.
