Chapter 13 - The Shadow of the Commission
The rain cleared by dusk, leaving the Chicago skyline shrouded in a sulfurous, greasy fog that hung low over the industrial canals of the South Side.
Arthur sat in the rear of the armored Bentley, a secure tablet glowing in his lap, its blue light etching sharp contours into his hollow cheeks.
Sitting across from us was Thomas Gable, the special agent in charge of the FBI's organized crime division, who had been secretly on Arthur’s payroll for seven years.
Gable was not a dirty cop in the traditional sense; he was an pragmatist who understood that a stable kingpin who kept drugs out of schools was infinitely better than a fractured bloodbath between competing cartels.
"Moretti landed at Midway three hours ago under an assumed passport from Milan," Gable said, tossing an eight-by-ten surveillance photograph onto the leather seat.
The photograph showed a man in his late fifties with slicked-back silver hair, cold reptilian eyes, and a tailored charcoal topcoat, stepping down the stairs of a Gulfstream jet.
Walking two paces behind him was someone I recognized instantly—so vividly my stomach dropped into a bottomless void.
"Father O'Malley?" I gasped, leaning forward to inspect the image.
The man in the clerical collar had baptized three of my siblings at St. Jude's in Bridgeport; he had administered the last rites to my mother before the cancer finally took her life.
"He isn't a priest, Norah," Arthur said quietly, not looking up from his tablet. "His real name is Franco Rossi. Dominic's estranged brother. He was planted in Bridgeport thirty years ago to monitor the blue-collar Irish workforce that fed the rail yards."
"My mother trusted him," I whispered, bile rising in my throat. "He was at our kitchen table every Sunday. He sat there while my father died of black lung and took the last twenty dollars from our grocery jar for 'parish blessings.'"
"He wasn't taking it for blessings," Gable interjected grimly. "He was calculating the Vance family's labor margins. And now, he’s the point man delivering Moretti the keys to the transit union."
The realization struck me like a cold blade between the ribs.
The Vance syndicate did not control Chicago through brute force alone; it controlled the city because it owned the logistics hubs where freight trains met the Great Lakes shipping barges.
If Moretti took the transit union through Franco Rossi’s betrayal, Arthur’s legitimate commercial empire would be suffocated within forty-eight hours.
"Where is the meeting?" Arthur asked, his voice dropping into that chilling, flat tone that signaled an impending execution.
"The old grain elevator at Damen Silos," Gable replied, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. "Rossi called an emergency vote with the local union stewards at midnight. They intend to stage a wildcat strike tomorrow morning, freezing every rail line entering Cook County."
"And when the lines freeze, Vance Enterprises defaults on its delivery contracts with the city power plants," I said, following the thread of financial ruin. "The state attorney general steps in, seizes our bonded assets, and Moretti’s holding company buys the receivership debt for ten cents on the dollar."
Gable stared at me, then looked at Arthur with renewed respect. "She’s sharper than your entire legal council, Vance."
"That is why she is running this family," Arthur replied without hesitation.
I turned to Arthur, my mind racing through the blueprint of Damen Silos.
My older brother had worked the maintenance elevators there before the facility was decommissioned in the nineties; I had brought him thermoses of soup when the winter freezes locked the hydraulic cables.
"The silos are a death trap if you go through the main gate, Arthur," I warned. "The catwalks have twenty sniper perches, and Moretti will have men covering the road from Ashland Avenue."
"I am aware," Arthur said, reaching into the console between us and withdrawing two subcompact suppressed pistols, sliding one across the leather seat toward me. "Which is why we aren't using the road."
"The old grain chute from the canal barge slip," I said, a dangerous smile touching my lips. "The intake valves are rusted open, wide enough for a human body to crawl through."
"Can you find it in the dark?" Arthur asked, his eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned away all fear.
May you like
"I scrubbed rust for five years, Arthur," I racked the slide of the pistol with a crisp, practiced mechanical click. "I know how to navigate the dirt."
***
