RAT, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [young adult books to read .txt] 📗

RAT

Brian R. Lundin


PROLOGUE:

Chicago. City of big shoulders. City that’s works. A city sitting on the eastside of
Lake Michigan where magnificent, expensive high rise buildings are reflected in the cool blue waters. A city of lush green parks for lovers, friends and children. A city of sidewalks cafes and lakeside outdoor concerts. Chicago a city of neighborhood that speaks twenty-seven
different languages and twenty-one neighborhood police
departments. Suddenly the summer rains come and the infamous Chicago wind,
the sidewalk cafés empties the peaceful waters become ten foot high waves
and Officer Cecilia Went run with her six year old son to her car, drop him at
Farren Grammar School at 51st South Wabash and drive the two blocks to the
2nd District Police Station for 2nd Watch roll call. In police circles there is nothing more detested than a “Rat,” a police officer that
informs on other police officers and violate the “blue code of silence.” If an
officers get caught with his hands in the pickle jar he is expected to take his
punishment and not tell on whose else hands were in the jar, he is expected to be
a “stand up guy.” Cecilia didn’t know that morning that in a few years she would
be a “Rat!”


ONE

Ricardo Ricks grew up in the black gambling game called “POLICY.” His mother Lucy Flowers owned and operated four policy stations on the southside of Chicago all in the 2nd Police District located at 51ST South Wentworth Avenue adjacent to the Dan Ryan Expressway. The 2nd District is one of the most crime-ridden districts in the city with prostitution, drugs, wine joints, pimps, pool hustlers and gamblers. It was said in police circles that a rookie police officer could learn more about police work in a week then some officers working in “nice” districts could learn in years. Some of the police officer hustled traffic violators, some mostly the white police officers hustled overloaded trucks barreling down the Dan Ryan Expressway. Some hustled the prostitutes by getting sex freebes when working the midnight shift, some hustled the drug dealers but everyone hustled the policy stations. When Ricks was five years old he would accompany his mother and her boyfriend Johnny Dollar to her policy stations twice a day to pick up the money receipts that most days were over a thousand dollars. In the late sixties Johnny was killed in a botched robbery after leaving a “skin card game” and when Ricks got older he became his mother’s partner. Five years after Johnny’s death Lucy died from breast Cancer and Ricks became the man in the policy game.

TWO

Cecilia Went was an attractive light brown –skinned woman in her early thirties and had been a police officer in the 2nd District Police station for five years and worked a beat or patrol car. Commander Ronald O’Shea the District Commander was a fifty-five, overweight Irish captain that loved black women and had made subtle advances towards the black female officers in the district. Commander O’Shea father, Charles O’Shea was a precinct captain in the Mayor Daley 11th Ward and he and the mayor were classmates and good friends both had attended DeLasalle Grammar and High school. As a young police officer, O’Shea served on the Mayor’s Body Guard Detail and advanced rapidly in the department; in five years he was a captain and a year later was promoted to District Commander When the commander’s secretary retired he assigned Cecilia to the job. The district secretary works closely with the District Commander. She makes up the watch duty roster, assign days off and the vacation list. In the past if an officer had a part time job and wanted to stay on a specific watch or if an officer wanted certain days-off or a certain vacation the officer would drop a $20.00 bill into the secretary’s open drawer. If he refused to pay he was assigned to a watch that pre-vented him from earning the extra money but Cecelia was honest and would attempt to accommodate the officer for no charge.

THREE

During the dreaded Chicago winters the streets in “Bronzeville,” are nearly deserted and the few people on the streets are rushing to get somewhere warm but all that changed when the weather warmed up usually in late April that’s when the streets come alive, especially 47th Street the heart and soul of “Bronzeville.” To Chicago’s ethnic whites, the area known as the “Black Belt,” for it’s mainly black population, but to the thousands of blacks who live, work and die there it was proudly called “Bronzeville,” a thriving, vibrant and self-contained Mecca of political and economic power seated in Chicago’s 2nd, 3rd and 4th wards on the southside of the city. “Bronzeville,” boundaries were 35th Street north to 61st Street south, from State Street on the west to Cottage Grove Avenue on the east. The people made “Bronzeville,” a city within a city, that had it own hospital, banks, hotels and self-supported businesses that comprised the black community it even had its own elected mayor. Most of the black civic leaders, politicians and businessmen lived in the magnificent greystones building and mansions on South Parkway Boulevard later renamed Martin Luther King Dive and was the home of Provident Hospital, located at 51st and Vincennes Avenue where the first successful open heart surgery was performed by black Doctor Daniel Hale; Jesse Binga built America’s first black-owned and operated state bank and Rube Foster founded the Negro Baseball League. Many of the black political bosses lived in “Bronzeville” as well as doctors, lawyers, dentists and respected Pullman Porters. South 47th street, from State Street on the west to Cottage Grove Avenue on the East, was the black downtown, there were fine restaurants serving mainly soul food, but many of the restaurant also served gourmet foods, fine steaks and chops. There were over four hundred taverns that featured blues on the juke box and a blues band on week-ends. Most of the taverns in “Bronzeville,” were small neighborhood bars where the people in the neighborhood could walk to them and where everybody knew everybody. These small bars didn’t make much money just enough for the owner to get by. The drinks were cheap and the owners allowed his customers to run a “tab,” that allowed them to buy drinks and pay later when they got their welfare or pay checks. The owner and his wife generally worked the bar thereby eliminating a salary. Very seldom was there any trouble because the owner knew too many calls to the police could put his liquor licenses in jeopardy. A few of the bars were known as “police bars,” usually owned by a former police officer or relative of a police officer. Police officers are clannish and prefer to socialize with other police officers. Top name black entertainers performed at the Regal Theater located at 47th South Parkway Boulevard. Clothing stores, barber-shops, gambling dens and poolrooms lined the street and the night sky was illuminated with the bright lights of the jazz and blues clubs. The hustlers drove late model cars and were finely dressed as they went to the blues clubs or dinner with their girl friends or wives. The hustler ruled the strip, the Policy men, gamblers and pool sharks all called 47th street home. It was said that you could get anything you wanted on 47th street from girls to drugs, which was mainly marijuana and heroin.

FOUR

Ricks is sitting in one of his stations at 4714 South Prairie Avenue playing chess with Sonny Johnson of his players and waiting for the runner to deliver the previous evening drawings or policy slips when two white uniform policemen entered. The door to the policy opened and two white uniformed police officers entered. The younger of the two was maybe five feet eight and very thin, the other officer was taller with a beer belly. Ricks didn’t know them but he noticed the patch on the sleeve of their uniform shirt that showed the district they were from was missing.
The older officer asks “Watsup Ricks?”
“I’m cool, whatsup up with you?”
“We’re your beat officers and we thought we would come in and get acquainted and get our ends!” the young officer said.
“I thought Rogers and Rings were my beat officers.”
“Yeah, but they’re off today and we were assigned,” the older
officer responded.

Ricks looked at the two officers. One was about twenty-five and the other
a lot older.
“That’s odd they just left ten minutes ago.”
The younger officer pushed past his partner.
“Listen nigger we ain’t got time for your nigger bullshit, now throw us out or I’m going to kick your black ass!”

Sonny who was over six feet and two hundred pounds got up from the chess table.
“Get to kicking mutherfucker!”
The young officer looked at Sonny and put his hand on his weapon.
“Let me tell you something young man, this is 1965 and it ain’t slavery times when we were scared of your white asses. If you’ve would have come to me like a gentleman I might have thrown you a few buck, but now with your racist attitude, fuck you!” Ricks said.
The officer faced turned a beak red as he looked from Ricks to Sonny.
“And another thing you don’t even work in this district, I know all the cops here so fuck off or do your worse.”
The officer looked around the room and saw three other large black men starting to gathering around, their hands in their pockets
“Fuck it, let’s split!” the older officer said.
The young officer looked around the room again and they both backed out the door.
“Get to steppin’ you white Mutherfuckers!” Sonny yelled.

FIVE

Sergeant Albert Romano was forty-one, Italian, five-feet- eight inches tall, fat, balding and had a thick black mustache and grew up in the “Little Italy,” neighborhood on the southwest side of the city. Sergeant Romano uncle, Domonick Rocko was collector for the local mafia loan shark and helped Romano get on the department.
“Remember Albert with the right connections you can do anything in this
city and there is a lot of money to made on the police department.”
Albert always recalled those words from his uncle and after graduating from the academy he was assigned to the “Country Club,” the 16th District near O’Hara Airport. The district was known as the “Country Club,” district because the volume of calls was low and there was very little reported crime. Many of the officers assigned had no high ambitions and were content to spend their entire careers in the district, but Albert Romano had no such intentions. As soon as he was off probation he requested a transfer to the 11th District. Unlike the up-class mainly white citizens in the 16th District most of the citizens in the 11th District were all black and poor and the crime rate was the highest in the city. Drunkenness, killings, traffic violations, alcohol and drug abuse was rampant among the uneducated blacks. Albert was aggressive and after only a year in the district he led the district in traffic citations and felony arrest that resulted in many of the officers refused to work with saying he was too dangerous and he was going to get himself killed or another police officer, that was fine with Albert who preferred to work alone. At this early stage in his career Albert had