It all started with a stolen wallet. A boy who lives on the street and a cop who wants to change that.
A slightly different story.
The boy's stomach was growling since he woke up this morning and now by the time of noon the feeling was no longer bearable. The young lad was used to it, it wasn't the first time, he felt like he was starving any minute. Living on the streets of Chicago meant not to have access to food all the time nor to have access to a shower for that matter. It wasn't a game, it was a fight and the young kid knew how to survive it. That is why, he has spent the last 30 minutes with watching people on the Magnificent Mile. He was on the lookout for a victim, an easy target for his pickpocketing. He didn't like to steal wallets from strangers but he had no other option. The days were he could use his puppy eyes to convince people of buying him a hot-dog were long gone. Since he was almost a teenager, things got harder and he needed other options to feed himself. First he started to ask people directly for some coins but they always denied or pushed him out of the way. Thus, he had no other choice but to teach himself how to pickpocket wallets out of trousers, handbags and backpacks. And after some time, he had to admit with some proud, he got quite good at it. Sure, he got caught at the beginning but he could always break away and therefore never had troubles with cops.
The boy has also teached himself a good eye for potential victims. He was always looking for people who distracted themself, preferably by their phone. People these days were so engrossed in their cells that they didn't spend enough attention to their environment. You could get your hand easy on someone's wallet when they were on the phone having an important call. Like the guy in front of him.
The kid's eyes followed the man with the short grey hair, black leather jacket and dark pants the last five minutes and all the time he stayed on the phone, barking orders into it with his rough voice. Jackpot, the boy thought happily. The man was the perfect target. The guy seemed so engrossed that he wouldn't even realize that his wallet was gone. The boy kept staring at the leather jacket man to study his appearance. The fellow didn't look like he could go for a run after the kid if he should indeed realize that he good a victim of pickpocketing. That doesn't mean, that the boy prefered to steal from elderly people, who couldn't chase him down the street, no, if he could avoid it, his targets were never old people. The kid had his own principles he tried to live by and that meant not to steal from old or poor persons. But the leather jacket man should be in his 50's, so the possibility of him going after the kid should be over by two blocks down the street because of his lack of oxygen.
The boy watched the leather man, how he fumbled with his right hand to get his wallet out of the jacket pocket and then giving the owner of a hot-dog stand 10 bugs out of it. Put it in the back pocket, put in the back pocket, the lad was saying over and over again in his head like he could force him with his thoughts. And in fact, the older man put his wallet in his left back pocket and refocused on the conversation he still had on his phone, taking a bite of his hot-dog.
It was now or never, this was the opportunity the boy had waited for. The lad knew exactly what to do, how to approach and bump into the man. He has done it at least 100 times by now. The boy had to act like he was so busy looking around, not caring about the possible obstacles in front of him and just bump into the target. During that collision the boy had to react quickly to grab around the man's waist to get the wallet out of his pocket. And so the property would change his owner. Easy going.
The boy didn't let his target out of his sight as he made his way over to the man. He now had to focus on the task ahead of him. He didn't wanna miss the slightest change just because his stomach was hurting by now. He was determined to get the man's wallet as quick and safe as possible to finally fill his stomach with some food. It all depended now of the perfect timing and his ability to quickly put his hand on the wallet.
As the kid was making his way to the man, he could feel the all familiar anxiety and adrenaline starting to pump through his veins and making his heart beat rapidly in his chest. He was always afraid that someone could hear it. Even if he had done it dozen of times he couldn't get used to the fact that he was about to do something bad. Neither did he steal to feel the rush nor did he do it to impose other people, no, he only did it to survive another day in Chicago.
The leather jacket man didn't move one step away from his previous position and still had his phone clutched to his ear. Both of his hands were busy either holding the phone or the half eaten hot-dog. The boy was only 10 steps away as he started to get his plan into motion. He bend his head to the left to pretend that he wasn't looking but he still could watch the man out of the corner of his eye, hence he knew exactly when the collision was about to happen. Some seconds later the boy bumped with full force into the upper body of the leather jacket man and used the moment of collision to get his left hand around the waist and put a good grab on the wallet. Even though, the lad knew that the collision was about to happen, he was surprised by the firm impact and lightly lost his balance to the left as he grabbed the wallet with him.
"Excuse me, Sir" rolled easily over the boy's tongue as he stabilized himself, the wallet clutched at the outside of his upper left leg shielding it from the man's eyes. „Wasn't looking." And without any other interaction the boy made his way further down the street. The kid was so happy that he finally got some money to fill his stomach, that he didn't even noticed that the leather jacket man was following him hot on his wheels.
The young kid made his way straight to the next well known alley to check the wallet of the needed money. He prefered the quietness of an alley to rummaging through it without any curious eyes on him and then to get rid of it as quickly as possible. So the boy didn't waste any more time and opened the brown, worn out leather wallet and took the bills out when his eyes saw a white business card. His main focus were only the bills itself, he always left the plastic and coins untouched and the other items for that matter. But the business card caught his interest. The small smile, which was plastered on the boy's face since he got his hand on the wallet, freezed immediately as his eyes wandered over the card:
Chicago Police Department
Sergeant Henry Voight
Squad Commander Intelligence Unit
"Shit."
"Shit is about the right word, kid" said a gruff voice behind his back.
And before the boy could even think about to made a run for it, the leather jacket man aka Henry Voight, fricking police sergeant and squad commander, got a tight grip on the kid's shoulder to keep him at bay.
"You're coming with me, kid" All the time, Voight was well aware of the boy's eyes on him. He found it amusing, how the boy studied him for so long, weighing his options. He was interested, if the boy really got the balls of pickpocketing his wallet and gave him an incentive as he bought that hot-dog. Voight had to admit that the kid got some serious skills but he couldn't trick him in the end.
The boy started to struggle vehemently as they stepped out of the alley.
"You better stop it" Voight said with a grave tone and tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder.
"Hey, I didn't do anything, so let go, you ..."
"He said with the stolen wallet still in his hand" Voight said mocking, cutting the boy off mid sentence.
"I found it in the alley …" the boy stopped "where do you even bring me, man?"
"Police Department to get …"
"Hell no … " this time it was the boy who cut Voight off. "I have rights, I …" The boy was taken aback, fear washed over his face as it sunk in that he got caught. Why had he to steal a damnit wallet from a dammit police officer. He needed to get his act together quickly otherwise he would spent the next hours in a cell. Hell no, that wasn't about to happen. His thoughts were going a mile a minute and then it dawned on him.
"This man is trying to kidnap me, help me" the boy yelled out, his eyes were filling with tears. "Somebody gotta help me."
The boy's yelling got immediately the desired attention and the people, who were passing by stopped midway.
Voight put his other hand on the boy's right shoulder to stop the struggling and yelling kid from getting away. He was clearly unimpressed by the boy's acting until a bystander approached him.
"You better get off the kid, man or I'm gonna call the police."
"I am the police" Voight's tone was serious and terse.
"Oh yeah, then show me your badge" the middle aged man demanded.
With an annoyed sigh, Voight's right hand let go of one of the boy's shoulder to show the other man his badge to get rid of him. At this exact moment, the boy used his opportunity to made a run as he threw his elbow in Voight's stomach. Hank, surprised by the boy's attack, lost his grip as the kid pushed the remained hand away easily. Then the boy took of at a rapid space.
The first thing the boy did as he was running, was to think of how to get rid of the evidence. He needed to act quick if the Voight guy was behind him chasing him down the street. The boy couldn't risk to get caught with the wallet again. So the kid looked over his shoulder, while running, to make sure if Voight was behind him or not. To the boy's surprise he could see that Voight wasn't running, he wasn't moving at all, he just barked unintelligible things into his phone. So the boy used the next garbage can to throw the wallet away and took of again.
As he was running down street to get away from the Voight guy, the boy had to look on more time over his shoulder to made sure that he wasn't following him. The moment the kid moved his head to throw a look over his shoulder his body slammed into an older man with a flat cap and pick in mouth. The man got his hands around the boy's waist quickly not only to prevent him from falling on the asphalt but also to keep him at bay.
"Got you" he whispered into the boy's ear.
The boy's chest was rising and falling rapidly trying to get as much oxygen into his lungs as possible to go for the next run. But the kid could feel how the adrenaline started to worn off and his body slowly got tired until he stopped with his struggles and leaned against the man. The older man's hand wandered from around the boy's waist to his upper body to support more of his weight.
"Deep breathes, that's good, kid."
"You got him, Al?" Voight's voice could be heard over the phone, which could also be used as walkie-talkie.
"Yeah, I got the sprinter. Come around with the car."
"Got it, over."
"Well boy, you did an impressive run from Hank" Al said as he was turning the boy around to see his face. He held the kid at an arm's length and studied his features. The boy's forehead was covered with sweat and he was still breathing deep. His green eyes were alert and focused on Al. The kid's face was littered with freckles and made him not look older than 14 years. His Chicago Blackhawks shirt was oversized and the black shorts were dirty and ripped. The once white shoes were shabby, filthy and had little holes inside.
"What's your name, kid?"