Free We All Fall Down by Michael Harvey Page B

guessed to be Jae Lee lay on his stomach, with at least two bullets in the back of his head. Out of habit, I squatted and felt for a pulse. The skin was still warm. Lee hadn’t been dead long.
    The store was tiny to the point of claustrophobic, especially with a dead body in it. There was an interior door to the right, partially open, and a light beyond. I eased the door open a little farther with my foot and stared down a flight of stairs. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone.
    “What you doin’, five-oh?”
    Whoever he was, he moved like smoke, a presence more felt than seen in electric light from the alley. The gun was a big one, but he carried it easily, casually, finger comfortable around the trigger, muzzle tickling my ear.
    A second shadow slipped in from the street. His body was stripped to bone and muscle, his skull, shaven. All in all, he looked like a black ball-peen hammer.
    “Where’s your badge?” the shooter said.
    I couldn’t see his face yet, but could hear my death in his voice. I figured I had twenty seconds before anticipation became fact.
    “No badge,” I said.
    The shooter eased into a shaft of light. His eyes traveled to the dead man on the floor.
    “You pop the Korean?”
    I shook my head. “Check my gun.”
    The shooter nodded to his pal, who took my gun and pack.
    “You a cop,” the shooter said.
    “Used to be a cop.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Kelly. Michael Kelly.”
    “Ray Ray.” The second man had dug around the Korean’s body and come up with a package of dope. Looked like a kilo bag. The man named Ray Ray took it in one hand and tested its weight.
    “What you know about that, Michael Kelly?”
    “Nothing.”
    Ray Ray’s eyes floated over to the basement door, still ajar. “Why you here?”
    “Got nothing to do with a bag of dope.”
    Ray Ray pressed the gun to my temple. I could feel the other behind me and knew this might be the killing moment. Then Ray Ray motioned to the open door.
    “Let’s go downstairs.”

CHAPTER 17
    They sat me in a chair in the middle of the room. Ray Ray sat across from me. Three more had joined us. All kids. The first was heavy lidded, with a long mane of dreadlocks held together by a green rubber band and decorated with white beads. Another was tall, thin, and tentative. The third was the youngest. He was wrapped in a Sox hoodie and carried a gun half the length of his leg tucked into his belt.
    “Marcus.” Ray Ray turned his head, and the kid in the hoodie came down off the stairs.
    “You want to shoot him for me?”
    The piece looked like a howitzer in Marcus’s hand. He wrapped a skinny brown finger around the trigger. I could read the DNA of a killer in his smile.
    “How old is he?” I said.
    “Thirteen.”
    I let the baker’s dozen hang in the air between us. Ray Ray studied my face.
    “He’ll do it,” the gang leader said.
    “I believe you.”
    Ray Ray touched the kid at the shoulder. He melted away.
    “You got two minutes,” Ray Ray said. “Tell me what you doin’ here.”
    I nodded to a door Ray Ray’s crew had discovered at the very back of the basement. “Does that lead to another room?”
    Ray Ray shook his head. “Tunnel. Probably hooked up with the Korean’s safe houses.”
    “So Lee was bringing in your dope?”
    “You got one minute.”
    The cellar was filled with flat brown boxes, stacked to the ceiling and shoved against a wall. I gestured to one of them. “What’s in the boxes?”
    There was movement behind me, but I kept my eyes on Ray Ray.
    “I’m guessing Lee was getting his product from a cop,” I said.
    The lift of an eyebrow told me I’d bought myself another minute.
    “How you figure that?” Ray Ray said.
    “The kilo you found upstairs. Still had a scrap of orange on it. Evidence sticker used by Chicago PD. Someone lifts it out of the locker. Brings it to Lee. He sells it to you.”
    Ray Ray nodded. “Probably something like that.”
    “And today the Korean was getting cut