Free Dirty Fire by Earl Merkel Page A

don’t get it, Chaz—this time, there’s no wiggle room left for Nederlander and his people. The Feds are behind this all the way—wiretaps, financial records, immunity offers, even witness protection if it’s needed. It’s everything we wanted— needed —the last time.”
    Trombetta’s face was stony. But the harder I had pressed, the more trapped Chaz Trombetta’s eyes had looked.
    “Chaz, what the hell’s wrong with you? I’m giving it to you straight. It’s going to be the endgame. I want you in on this, man. I need you in with me.”
    He took a deep breath and blew it out hard.
    “You’ve been among the missing for a while, ol’ buddy,” he said, and his voice was hard and low. “You want it straight, here it is: these days, I got just as much to lose as any of the others in there.” His voice dropped. “You understand? Is it crystal clear now?”
    It came too quickly, too unexpectedly for me to have hidden my reaction. My shock showed clearly on my face, and Chaz reacted as if he had been struck. He took a step forward, as if he was ready to swing back.
    “Here’s a thought: why don’t you just get the fuck off my property?” he said, pushing forward until his nose was an inch from my face. His hands balled into fists at his side. “You heard me! Get out!”
    From behind us, Junie’s voice was barely audible.
    “Stop it, Chaz,” she said. “Davey is a friend.” Two green-glass bottles, condensation dripping onto the grass, dangled from her hands. Chaz Trombetta looked at his wife, then back to me. Our eyes locked for a long moment, and the scarlet of his anger dissolved in an inverse proportion to the rage that rose inside me.
    I was breathing hard, my face twisted filled with the force of my emotion.
    “How deep, Chaz?” I asked, my voice tight and distant in my throat. “How deep are you in this now?”
    Trombetta turned away and walked to his wife.
    “Just go, Davey,” Junie said. “Please.”
    I stared at the two of them for a moment, as if I did not recognize either. When I spoke, it was to Chaz.
    “This time, I’m not stopping,” I said. “I can’t. You have to understand that, Chaz. It’s going all the way, and you’ll get hurt. You’ll go down with the rest of them.”
    “You’re not wearing a wire—I checked,” he said, and I remembered the bear hug with which he had greeted me. “Keep trusting the wrong people, ol’ buddy, you’re the one who’s going down. And you won’t get up again, not this time.”
    I looked at Junie, as if in appeal. There was hopelessness written in her posture along with a loyalty that was unequivocal but not blind. Still, she stood silent with her husband.
    I tried one last time.
    “It’s not too late,” I said, probably to both of them.
    “I’m not going to do anything to stop you, J.D.,” Chaz said. “But I can’t stop anybody else from doing what they have to, either.”
    “Then God help you,” I said.
    “God help all of us,” Chaz Trombetta corrected me. “But you’re going to need Him most of all.”

Chapter 9
    I could not remember the last time I had slept well, or easily. Over the past year, even before my arrest, I had found untroubled sleep increasingly elusive. Since then, most nights had been spent like this one: alone in a rented room intentionally kept dark, a tumbler of vodka held loosely in my hand.
    Usually, the vodka worked sufficiently well. It would drug me into a rough approximation of sleep. But in treating the insomnia with alcohol, I found myself plagued with dreams—most of them terrifying, all of them vivid. In the ones I remembered, I was usually alone.
    I reclined on the sofa, occasionally taking a long pull on the drink. The rest of the time I stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, listing to the restless sounds of nocturnal traffic. My father had been an insomniac too, even before he had been dismissed from his job as a Chicago police detective. He had also been a borderline alcoholic, though