Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“You look like shit,” Kowalski apprised me, his raised eyebrow daring me to contradict him.

“I’m fine,” I muttered, going back to eating even though I wasn’t that hungry.

“Oh fuck,” Kowalski groaned after the bell on the door jingled, bumping Kohn with his elbow. “It’s this shit again.”

Turning in my seat, I was surprised to see Norris Cochran, along with another guy I’d never met, walking toward me.

“He can’t eat in peace?” Kohn barked at Cochran as he closed in on us.

Cochran gave him his arrogant cop grimace that didn’t hit his hazel eyes, and when he reached us, grabbed the chair beside me, turned it around, and flopped down. The man I assumed was his new partner took the seat on the other side of me so I had to lean back to keep an eye on both of them.

“The fuck do you want?” I asked my ex-partner.

“Nice,” Cochran said, forcing a chuckle. “Didn’t I tell you he loved me, Dor?”

The guy to my right nodded.

“Miro, this is Dorran Barreto. Barreto, my first love, Miro Jones.”

We didn’t shake hands. I didn’t offer and Barreto didn’t either.

“What do you want?” I asked Cochran again.

“You ain’t even gonna ask after my kids?”

“Your wife and I are friends on Facebook,” I informed him. “I know how the kids are.”

That surprised him. I could tell from the flicker of annoyance and the trace of something else crossing his face. But it had been a long time since I’d been around him, so I was out of practice reading him. Not that it mattered. We weren’t friends.

“So what, detectives stalk marshals now,” Kohn baited.

Cochran glanced over at him. “If you had just told me when he was coming back instead of giving me the runaround, I wouldn’t’ve had to do that.”

“And I told you,” Kohn replied fiercely, leaning forward, pointing at Cochran, “that we are not in the habit of giving out personal information to people who are not family or friends of members of our team.”

“I’m his ex-partner and I’m a cop.”

“And cops in the city are, of course, to be trusted,” Kohn scoffed.

“Yeah, maybe not, huh?” Kowalski rubbed salt in the open angry wound that was the ongoing Justice Department investigation of the Chicago PD. “I’m not sure any of you fuckers know what procedure is.”

Before things escalated, I got up and headed for the door. Cochran was no more than a half a step behind me.

Outside, I rounded on him, already annoyed that my food was getting cold, and he took a step back so he wouldn’t run into me.

“What do you want?” I growled, venting every bit of irritation, not caring, not bothering to filter as I would with practically everyone else.

“A gun,” he answered flatly, crossing his arms, his gaze locked with mine.

“Explain.” A demand, clipped and cold.

“It’s about Oscar Darra.”

Everyone knew the story. “The ex-mob enforcer?”

“Yeah.”

I had to think. “I thought he was dead.”

“Yeah, so did a lot of people, but he turned up last week in a routine sweep of a Turkish bath down on Cicero.”

“No shit.”

He shrugged.

“Where the hell’s he been all this time?”

“He’s been laying low down in Springfield with some cousin.”

I grunted, leaning back against the wall of the diner. November in Chicago right before Thanksgiving wasn’t arctic yet, but it was cool. I was glad I had on a hoodie under my leather jacket. The wind would have blown right through me. “What does any of this have to do with you being here?”

“I—”

“Is this gonna be a long-ass story?”

He didn’t answer, just coughed and put his shoulder against the wall so he was facing me. To anyone walking by, we looked like two buddies out shootin’ the shit.

“Fine,” I sighed. “Talk.”

“Okay, so after we pick him up and get Darra back to the station, he starts telling us that if we agree to cut a deal with him, he’ll tell us where the gun is that was used to kill Joey Romelli.”

I shook my head. “You lost me.”

“You don’t remember Romelli?”

“I remember Vincent Romelli, who was in charge of the Cilione crime family, but he’s been dead awhile. Who’s Joey?”

“His son.”

“He had a son?”

“‘Had’ being the operative word, yeah.”

“And how’d he die?”

“Well, according to Darra, he was shot by one Andreo Fiore.”

“Who?” I could feel myself getting annoyed all over again. I hated playing name the thug and I especially didn’t want to do it with Cochran.

“He was Vincent Romelli’s muscle back in the day.”

“Okay, so lemme get this straight,” I began, turning to face him. “You guys pick up Darra because he’s in town for whatever reason, and when you grab him, he wants to give up this Fiore to cut a deal.”

“Yeah.”

“And you care about this why?”

“Well, we don’t at first. Barreto and I figure it’s bullshit, right? But we go to where he says he’s stashed the gun and—”