Miguel's Gift Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Bruce Kading

  All rights reserved

  First edition

  Published by Academy Chicago Publishers

  An imprint of Chicago Review Press Incorporated

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  ISBN 978-1-61373-628-9

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kading, Bruce, author.

  Title: Miguel’s gift / Bruce Kading.

  Description: Chicago: Chicago Review Press Incorporated, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016029766 (print) | LCCN 2016036244 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781613736258 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781613736272 (pdf) |

  ISBN 9781613736289 (epub) | ISBN 9781613736265 (kindle)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States. Immigration and Naturalization

  Service—Employees—Fiction. | Homicide investigation—Fiction. | Illegal

  aliens—Fiction. | Fraud investigation—Fiction. | United

  States—Emigration and immigration—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3611.A3285 M54 2017 (print) | LCC PS3611.

  A3285 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029766

  Cover design: Rebecca Lown

  Cover image: Shutterstock/IVASHstudio

  Typesetting: Nord Compo

  Printed in the United States of America

  5 4 3 2 1

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part III

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Acknowledgments

  PROLOGUE

  Chicago, 1974

  Dusk came early that day. The clouds had rolled in, cloaking the streets in a wintry gloom. Alarmed by a forecast of snow, commuters fled the city like an army in retreat.

  Agent Michael Landau pulled into heavy traffic on North Clark Street while his partner, Frank Kelso, casually scanned the pedestrians who hurried along, their shoulders hunched against the cold, damp air. Landau checked his rearview mirror as they crossed Foster Avenue. “We just lost Tatum at the light,” he said evenly.

  “It’s OK. He knows where we’re going,” replied Kelso.

  “You said mainly Peruvians at this place?”

  “Yeah, the foreman’s Peruvian. Takes care of his own.”

  They drove on silently for a few moments, and then Kelso said, “Hey, pull over. That guy’s wet.” He was looking at a scruffy young man wearing a faded leather jacket, who was leaning with his back against the brick facade of a bookstore. The man had long, unruly blond hair, and there was a sullen, almost angry look on his face.

  Landau edged the car over and studied the man. “Looks like an addict. What makes you think he’s illegal?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Kelso, already stepping out of the car. “Tell Buck.”

  Landau grabbed the mic. “Buck, we’re going to talk to a guy—half a block north of Foster, east side.”

  “Be right there,” said Tatum, shaking his head. It was vintage Kelso—never willing to ignore a suspected illegal, even if it was inconvenient. When the light changed, Tatum accelerated briefly and then slowed. There was Kelso, talking to a man whose glazed eyes were darting in every direction, looking for a way out. This could be trouble, thought Tatum. As he slid the transmission into park, a quick movement caught his eye—Kelso and the man now struggling, Landau running toward them. Tatum flew out of the car and reached for the handcuffs on his belt. Sharp commands and curses echoed down the street, a tangle of three bodies pitching back and forth, the glint of metal at the center of desperately flexed arms and hands. Tatum dropped the cuffs and pulled the .357 revolver from his shoulder holster—too late. A flash of orange and the dry crack of gunfire. Kelso letting out a deep, wavering moan and falling away.

  Tatum leaned forward, his arms extended, elbows locked, and fired. At such close range the shot smoked a ring of black powder into the man’s forehead, the hollow-point bullet expanding like a grenade on contact—a deadly explosion into vital brain tissue. The man instantly crumpled against the brick wall, his head falling limply to his shoulder, eyes open but lifeless.

  As they waited for the ambulance, Landau held Kelso around his shoulders and tried to comfort him. A nearby shopkeeper offered a towel, and Landau used it to slow the blood surging from Kelso’s chest. Tatum stood over them, waving onlookers away and repeating over and over, “Yer gonna be fine, Frank.” But Tatum couldn’t pull his eyes away from the young man he’d fatally shot. Though he couldn’t place it, the face was hauntingly familiar.

  Frank Kelso lost consciousness and died before the ambulance arrived, just five minutes after the bullet pierced his heart—a bullet fired from his own gun.

  Part I

  1

  Chicago, 1987

  They were to meet outside the pawnshop on the south edge of the Loop. “I’ll pick you up early, around five thirty,” Willis had grumbled. “I’m not gonna wait around if you’re not there.”

  Nick Hayden stood alone in the darkness, feeling a bit lopsided from the unfamiliar weight of the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver on his right hip. Wearing a sport coat and tie, he held his arms across his chest against the cool morning air and listened to the city—the echo of traffic, the squeak and clatter of the elevated train. A patrol car rolled by, shined its spotlight on him, and continued on. Now and then a shabbily clad wino would stumble in or out of the three-story flophouse next to the pawnshop and look Nick over suspiciously. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was nearly six o’clock and was seized by a moment of panic—perhaps he’d gotten the location wrong.

  Seconds later a battered green van, its tailpipe coughing a trail of black smoke, came to a stop at the curb. Hayden at first ignored it—no way could that wreck be an official Immigration Service vehicle—but the loud honks got his attention. He stepped closer and could make out the stern visage of Joe Willis behind the wheel, puffing a cigarette. Nick slid into the passenger seat.

  “Morning, sir,” he said.

  Saying nothing, Willis jerked away from the curb, took a sharp right turn at the corner, and pulled into the four-lane westbound expressway. The van shuddered and teetered from side to side, while Hayden gripped the armrest for support.

  A crosshatched metal screen separated the front seats from the cargo area, where wooden bench seats ran the length of each side. Peering through the screen, Nick spotted a reddish stain on the metal floor, but in the faint light he couldn’t tell if it was dried blood, vomit, or salsa. He sniffed the air, thick with the fetid vapors of sweaty prisoners who’d ridden there.

  “You’ll get used to the smell,” Willis said. “The openings in the screen are the real problem. Last month one of the wets pissed all over a detention officer’s shoulder.”

  Willis wore a brown polyester suit with leather patches on the elbows. His head was completely bald, and his nose was covered with an intricate network of blue and scarlet veins. Thirty years of unfiltered Lucky
Strikes had taken their toll: his voice was gravelly, his teeth heavily stained. Though he appeared older than his fifty-four years, a feral energy pulsed through his wiry frame.

  “Sometimes we cram twenty wets in there and they’re pressed up against the screen,” said Willis. “Farting, belching, upchucking huevos rancheros—you name it.”

  “You always drive this vehicle?” asked Hayden.

  “No, but detention claimed they were shorthanded today. Been happening more and more lately.” Willis took a final drag on the Lucky, flicked it through the open window, and glanced at his sandy-haired new partner. Though Hayden appeared physically capable, Willis saw callowness in the young man’s brown eyes.

  “I hear you didn’t go through the Patrol,” said Willis.

  “No.”

  “Figures. Those geniuses at headquarters don’t have a fucking clue.”

  The sun rose in a dramatic burst, unfurling like an amber carpet over the city. Willis weaved through the traffic, cutting off several vehicles as he skipped from lane to lane. Whenever they honked or flashed their lights in protest, he let out a chuckle, as if provoking a reaction was cause for celebration. They soon passed the city’s tightly packed office and apartment buildings, exited the expressway, and entered a vast, partially developed industrial park, where most of the warehouses were two-story brick structures separated by fields of prairie grass.

  The fuzzy snap of the police radio came through the speaker on the floorboard, followed by the amused voice of Sam Payton. “We’re almost there, Joe. Seems like we had a little problem last time.”

  Willis grabbed the mic from under the dash. “You’ve got a gift for understatement, Payton. I’ve still got boot prints on my face. Maybe you can do better this time.”

  “If thirty wets come at us, it’s gonna be the same thing,” said Payton. “We’ll do what we can.”

  Nick listened intently, hoping to glean something useful. He still had no clear idea what to expect during this, his first field operation, or how to respond if things went awry. Though he’d been given a badge and assigned to area control—the unit responsible for rounding up illegals in the Chicago area—he’d not yet gone to the academy for training. The day before, after a fifteen-minute orientation session with the district firearms officer and half an hour of firing off practice rounds in the basement range, he’d somehow managed to shoot a qualifying score and been issued a .38-caliber revolver.

  Journeymen officers who, like Willis, had started their INS careers as Border Patrol agents had offered a frosty reception, many of them barely willing to acknowledge Hayden’s presence. Now he was hoping his crusty partner would fill him in on what to expect, but Willis’s attitude toward Hayden seemed to fluctuate between indifference and outright hostility.

  “This is my first field operation, Mr. Willis,” Hayden finally ventured. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? For me to tell you exactly what to do, so you don’t have to think for yourself. Well, it doesn’t work that way. In this job you have to think on your feet, and there’s no book that tells you how to do it.”

  There were a few moments of stony silence before Willis spoke again: “How many sets of cuffs they give you?” he asked, softening his tone a bit.

  “They said you’d have some.”

  Willis grunted and pulled his jacket back to reveal five sets on his belt.

  “Here, you can have two of mine. Just start grabbing bodies when they take off and wet ’em down.”

  “Wet ’em down?”

  “Get ’em to admit they’re illegal—mostly Mexicans at this place.”

  “What if—” he began, but Willis cut him off.

  “It’s the place with the loading dock in front,” he said, pointing to a warehouse about a hundred yards away. Seconds later a dozen or more brown-skinned men wearing T-shirts could be seen running from the rear of the building into the surrounding fields.

  “Shit, somebody saw us and called the plant,” hissed Willis. He grabbed the mic. “Payton, head off the wets flying out the back!”

  As Willis brought the van to a skidding stop beneath the front loading dock, a large metal door opened and about ten men exploded from inside, jumping from the dock to the pavement. One of them sailed from the dock onto the top of the van, clomped across the roof, and jumped off the back. Willis swung his door open as a runner was passing by, striking the man’s arm and sending him flying to the ground.

  His heart pounding, Nick leaped from the van in pursuit of two panic-stricken young men racing toward an adjoining field. They were slender and fast but were soon slowed by the tall, wet grass. One peeled off to the right, but Hayden stayed locked on the other.

  The Mexican thrashed desperately through the waist-high grass and cattails, while Hayden steadily gained ground until they both sank into a shallow, muddy ditch. Holding him by the shirt, Nick clumsily pulled out his badge.

  “Soy de Inmigración. ¿Tiene papeles?” Hayden gasped. “You got papers?”

  The Mexican, winded and disheveled, shook his head and looked down at the mud covering his shoes and pants. Hayden took a moment to catch his breath before cuffing the man’s wrists together. He then walked him back to the parking lot, pleased that he wasn’t returning empty-handed. Willis and the other agents were gathered next to the van with a dozen handcuffed Mexicans.

  “When I told you to wet ’em down, I didn’t mean throw him into a fucking lagoon,” crowed Willis. The other agents laughed but not with the relish of Joe Willis. Hayden managed a sheepish grin, knowing he’d passed a minor test.

  “All right, get ’em into the van. Let’s get outa here,” said Willis.

  The van hung low under the weight of the prisoners as it sped toward the office. The Mexicans laughed and talked cheerfully among themselves as though nothing much had happened. Surprised that the Spanish he’d learned in school and while traveling abroad was holding up pretty well, Hayden listened as one of the Mexicans regaled the others with stories of his previous arrests along the border and in Chicago.

  Ten minutes later they pulled into the basement of the Federal Building, where agents were transferring prisoners to green-uniformed detention officers. The Mexicans found themselves dwarfed by fourteen burly Poles, arrested at a construction site. Hayden and a detention officer escorted the illegals into an elevator equipped with a large compartment behind metal bars and another smaller space for the accompanying officers.

  It was quiet except for the sound of breathing and a low mechanical hum as they were whisked up to the third floor. The tight quarters and metal bars had sobered the prisoners, and there was a palpable feeling of defeat among them, their plans and dreams at least temporarily obliterated. They stared at Hayden with looks of resignation, sadness, and something else—a measure of respect, the kind of respect that borders on fear. Nobody had ever looked at him that way before. A curiously pleasant feeling of power swept over him.

  A steady procession of vehicles continued through the morning, agents unloading their prisoners like fishermen unloading their catch.

  * * *

  The atmosphere of the area control squad room was grim but functional. Thirty gunmetal-gray desks were arranged in tight rows, each with a vintage Smith-Corona typewriter and a straight-backed chair. There were no dividers for privacy, no family photos or other personal items, and no wall decorations. Even when sunlight penetrated the grime on the floor-to-ceiling windows, the room had a dingy, impersonal feel that was vaguely depressing. Black metal filing cabinets lined the pale green walls and an earthy scent, reminiscent of a men’s locker room, permeated the air.

  A corpulent young woman, smacking gum and looking bored, listened to the scratchy radio transmissions from agents announcing their arrest totals, destinations, and estimated times of arrival. In response, she repeatedly muttered “ten-four” into the desktop microphone, while making entries on a log sheet.

  Hayden led the young Mexican he’d arreste
d toward an empty desk next to Willis amid the chatter of typewriters and buzz of conversations. Several agents interviewed a group of young men from Pakistan, who had entered the country as students and were found working as cabdrivers. The “Pakis” were dark-skinned and thin, their eyes roaming nervously around the room. The Mexicans sat quietly, their hands folded between their legs, responding softly to agents’ questions.

  Standing out like flashing neon signs were five transvestites from Central and South America, arrested the night before at a club where they did impersonations of well-known female entertainers. They all had fake eyelashes, flaming red lipstick, and long, brightly colored nails. The hulking Poles on the opposite side of the room grunted terse responses via interpreters and stared at the transvestites, as if trying to decide whether they were repelled or attracted by them.

  There was a sense of urgency in the air because buses would be leaving that night with those Mexicans who could be persuaded to sign “voluntary departure” agreements. A Greyhound bus destined for Juárez was already waiting in the basement.

  Hayden rolled the standard report form into the typewriter and began collecting biographical information, but he found the pandemonium distracting. Willis, unfazed, methodically rapped out the forms using his index fingers, hardly acknowledging the silent figure seated next to him. After thousands of arrests and interviews, there was little need for talk. He already knew the answers.

  Willis noticed that Nick had stopped typing and was watching the little dramas playing out around him. “We don’t have all day, Hayden,” he snapped. “Get moving.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t call me ‘sir.’ I’m not a supervisor, thank God.”

  Only a few of the agents noticed that Lou Moretti’s door had swung open at the far corner of the room. Moretti, chief of area control, had a thin layer of oily hair combed over his large head and a red, alcohol-ravaged nose. He wore a cheap, snap-on tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Moretti, who rarely left his office when things were going well, stalked out with an angry gleam in his eyes.