|
Story No. 5 |
|
VOL. 3, No. 40 |
|
|
 |
 "...it’s Latino night judging from the hot salsa music blasting out..." |
DON'T DANCE |
 |
|
 |
Two gunshots...and the Aragon's 'Salsa Night' loses another two celebrants
of TheColumnists.com
“God is in His dwelling. He will give a home to the lonely, He gives power and strength to all His people” Psalm 67:6-7,36
It’s August, another hot evening as the sun ducks behind the factory walls. All the cars have left the employe parking lot of the Chicago Foundries. Unless you count the unfortunate group of characters who make up the bottle gang under the CTA elevated tracks, soon this industrial area will be deserted. These bleary-eyed souls panhandled the sidewalk lunch crowd and received hand outs enough to purchase their choice of mood altering beverages, anything to get them through another night in the Chicago great outdoors. To get as wasted as possible seems to be their only goal.
I’m the cop on the beat here, working third watch, 4 to 12 midnight. As I drive slowly past the bottle gang, they hardly notice the squad car, mainly because I’m like a fixture in this area. I know most of them and they know me. I always take a visual note of how many have assembled each evening and how their “party” is looking. Oh sure, there’s the usual assortment of petty arguments over things, like who took the longer pull on the bottle or what Mayor Daley said about this or that. Mostly, they get along as best they know how, living by whatever wits they have left. I feel sorry for many of these people who are so rapidly decaying. While my definition of a lifestyle and theirs is very different, we manage to enjoy a relationship based on mutual respect. I’ll check on them later, I thought, but now it’s early dinnertime for me before it gets busy.
Pulling into Ruby’s diner, I see my favorite waitress is at it again, whisking a drunk out the door in the direction of my squad car, his feet barely touching the ground. I yell to Carol, “Not here, babe! I’m going to eat–steer him that way.” I point in the direction of the Salvation Mission.
Back inside, Carol takes my order. Same as last night: Roast turkey, green beans and mashed potatoes. Sure I know it’s only turkey cold cuts, but the hot, brown, Greek gravy makes it taste like the real stuff.
Carol tells me about her
on-going bad husband problems--“Bastard’s out of work
again”--and she’s “pulling a double shift in this
greasy spoon to pay the bills.”
“Hey, this is my dining room,” I tell her, trying to
lighten her mood. “If Gustavo did anymore decorating, why
I’d bring the wife in for a fine meal.”
This line of baloney always puts a smile on Carol’s kisser.
“Funny,” she says. “Eat your turkey. Watch out
for the roaches; they’re all over tonight.”
She’s funny, too.
Back on patrol, I answer a few paper jobs, write some reports for long gone stolen car batteries and tires--both are theft items of choice in this low rent district.
It’s almost 9 p.m. now, time to check on my bottle gang. As I pull up under the tracks, I flash my spot light around. No sign of any of them. This is not good. Their absence usually means someone has either died of natural causes, or I have big trouble, like a knifing or worse.
I’m on foot, flashlight in hand, looking at all the makeshift seating--old boxes, torn car seats, and the rusty frame of an old car. The loud elevated train speeds by, sending its spark of light down on me. Soon I spot the trouble. A pair of feet coming out from behind a cardboard box slab. Checking the area around the body, I see the ground is wet, soaked by some fluid, making it muddy. I see some deep foot prints in this mud, carefully I approach the body. It’s “Red,” a very large freckle-faced black man with sort of reddish colored hair. He’s well over 300 pounds, I know the wagon guys won’t like lifting him. I see his eyes are still open, and his chest & belly have at least two holes that have now stopped leaking the puddles of blood he's laying in. It appears to be Red’s blood that is making the mud mixture on the ground. Looks like two small entrance holes pumped his blood out. There might be bigger exit holes on his backside. I hear some small noises coming from the rusty car frame, but it’s only the four-legged rats that were sizing up Red for their meal, which I obviously interrupted.
I radio the murder in, notify the Coroner’s office, and get the crime lab evidence tech team en route. Returning to my squad car, I focus my lights on the crime scene, grab my own camera and start shooting my photographs. I shoot the footprints in the bloody mud. Seems there’s an interesting criss-cross designed sole with a very pointy toe, not the popular type of shoe worn by your average wino. This shoe looks like an elevated heel, perhaps a leather shoe. About a size 9 is my guess. This kind of information will surely eliminate Mickey Rooney & Shaquille O’Neil as suspects! I also spot a book of fresh matches from the Green Mill Lounge at Lawrence & Broadway, only a couple of blocks from the old Aragon Ballroom Dance Hall. All very interesting, I thought.
The brass, crime lab and dicks arrive on scene. There's the usual chit-chat and soon it’s a wrap. Red’s body is on its way to the morgue. I head over towards the Green Mill Lounge, just because my instincts tell me to.
As I pass the Aragon Ballroom I see there’s a show going on there tonight. I’d say it’s Latino night judging from the hot salsa music blasting out of the old building's pores. It’s so loud, some kids were dancing to it on the street. I park my squad in front, head for the men’s room to wash the crime scene off my hands.
As I get into the john I smell the familiar odor of weed. It’s so thick I might be high by the time I chased them out. The weed crowd makes their fast exit as they spot the uniform. I settle in to washing my hands and automatically glance towards the stalls. Was there still someone in there? I see one shoe on the ground, is there a one legged guy in there? At a dance yet? Well, unless he’s double jointed, he’s not sitting down and his foot is facing the wrong way. I just have to check this out.
Gun drawn, I snatch the door open and see the guy's other foot is up on the toilet. With wet paper in hand he’s cleaning off his shoe. Quickly I have him grabbing wall and I got him spread, holding him like a rat by the back of his neck, his face pressed into the white marble tile like a pancake. He looks like a distorted picture in a fun house mirror. I got him frisked and as I cuff him, I’m seeing his shoes are muddy…No rain tonight, no puddles, not even a pissed bathroom floor could do “mud” like that. Where’d he get mud on his shinny leather shoes?
My back up cops arrive and soon I’m doing the shoe salesman bit as in taking off his shoes very carefully. As I turn one over, there’s the criss cross pattern. He’s mine! I’m breathing faster, he’s looking like my murderer, but where’s the gun? His name is Domingo Rodriquez, 22 years old, pointy size 9 shoe fits him just right. His rap sheet reveals temper crime arrests, assaults, battery’s, resisting, etc.
Who’s got the gun? I learn Domingo had a date he was taking to the dance. A call to her mother told me all I needed to know on this score. But where was she now? Did she even get to the dance? Domingo tells me she went off with “Chico,” an old boyfriend of hers, and that she gave him the big adios. Domingo tells me that Chico has a gun, says it’s got a white handle and looks like silver, and he’s most likely still at the dance. I’m not so sure. Domingo is too willing to talk to me about “Chico.”
I always like to double back on crime scenes. I’ve been lucky in the past doing this. So back to my bottle gang location I drive. The heat’s off now, so they’re back. I question my shaken gentlemen of the road, and learn the following; That a car pulled up–two occupants having a shouting match. The guy’s in a rage, he’s hitting the girl, she jumps out of the car, runs to the bottle gang, hides behind the biggest guy she sees there: Big “Red.”
The boyfriend is out of the car after her and he’s got a gun. Most of the winos see it and run like hell, but not big Red. He’s got his bottle turned skyward as he enjoys his last taste on earth, just as the boyfriend lets go with two shots. Red catches them both, one in his chest and one in his massive belly. The bottle gang quickly relocates their party. Nobody knows what happen to the girl, but one drunk thinks he heard two more shots as he ran off. The others all argue with him that he is wrong. One drunk states, “A train was clacking overhead man, how could you hear shit!” I leave them to their lively, boardroom discussion.
Walking on beyond them and the rusty car frame and into the knee high weeds, my flashlight picks up something white. God please let it be old paper or something. As I get closer, I see she’s on her belly, her face is turned as if trying to see who’s behind her, as she fell in to the weeds. She’s a teenager, maybe 18 or 19 is my guess. The dark watery fluid has all but dried on the back of her white tube top. The side of one brassy earring is dancing on my flash light beam. My eyes and light search the surrounding area, and there it is, about eight feet from the body, a white pearl handle on a silver-plated 32 Colt snub nose.
I quickly thank my bottle gang people for proving what my policeman father told me long ago, “that a cop is only as good as his information.”.
Evidence lab tells me clearly the mud/blood on Domingo’s shoes matches up with my double homicide crime scene. While someone tried to wipe the prints off the gun, enough was left that belonged to Domingo to positively identify him as the shooter. There was no “Chico” at the dance. Clearing a case like this just goes to show that any citizen can help to make their community a better place in which to live, even a bottle gang flop under the tracks.
And it’s all too obvious that the dead don’t dance--at least not on the Aragon Ballroom's salsa night.
© 2002 by Andy Murcia.
The illustrations are from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895
Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
|
of his wife, actress Ann Jillian. He writes the "Murcia's Law" column for TheColumnists.com. This is his first published short story. |
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |