A Safe Place for Dying (6 page)
Read A Safe Place for Dying Online
Authors: Jack Fredrickson
I turned away to clear my eyes as I fumbled in my wallet for my credit card. This was not funny; this was war. I bought six sets.
After Mabel's, I went to a hardware store for clothesline, clothespins, and Rit Dye. Back at the turret, I boiled water on my hotplate, mixed the dye, and became Michelangelo. As a kid, I'd tie-dyed all my T-shirts once, in a quest to become a ten-year-old hippie. That had been decades before, but I hadn't lost my touch. I transformed the panties and bras, big enough for prizewinning pumpkins, into bright, psychedelic works of what could be called art. I spread them out on my table saw and over the plastic chairs, and when they were dry, I set them on top of my new coil of clothesline.
They would be the battle flags of my war against city hall.
The second reception was the same as the first: umbrella tables, colored lights, eighty-proof chatter, and the same two saxophones, sounding like they'd wasted not one minute on practice. As the last of the sun disappeared from the sky, the combo went silent, just as it had during the first reception. Only this time, I was behind the turret, tensed for the first shrieking notes of
2001.
2001.
A minute passed, then another, and then both saxophones bleated into the night air, fighting to approximate the same note.
The four spotlights hit the turret with white light.
I started feeding my flags onto the clothesline I'd strung on the property line facing city hall.
I played them out slowly, letting the bright colors unfurl with their own drama. By the time the second pair of tie-dyed 6X pantiesâthese scarlet, gold, and Kelly greenâhit the white light and started flapping in the night breeze, the cocktail chatter next door had dissolved into shrieks of raucous laughter. The band stopped, confused, as the people roared, louder and louder. I fed two bras, the first one magenta and yellow, the second neon green, onto the line. The people clapped and cheered.
And that brought Elvis.
He stormed across the lawn, chasing his own shadow made long by the spotlights behind him. He wore a greasy powder blue dinner jacket that had the look of something discarded after a prom.
“You got a woman living here, Elstrom,” he screamed, his face contorted, his hair wall glistening in the glow of the floodlights. A hundred yards behind him, the well-lubricated contractors and developers shrieked, drunk enough to think this was a skit, done for their amusement.
“This is not underwear, Elvis,” I announced. “It's art.” I clipped a bright purple and orange bra that I was particularly proud of onto the line. In the shadows of city hall, the developers hooted and clapped, a hundred happy hands.
That infuriated him further. “It's underwear, damn it.” Bits of spittle bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “Get her out here so I can throw both of you out.”
“There's no woman, Elvis.” I smiled and bent down to my laundry basket for something pink and yellow.
“When I catch her, you're gone.”
At that point, someone must have cued the combo, because they took off into their approximation of “Fly Me to the Moon,” each saxophone flying in a different key. It made further discussion
impossible. I closed my mouth and beamed at Elvis, mellow as a panda on Percodan.
impossible. I closed my mouth and beamed at Elvis, mellow as a panda on Percodan.
Across the lawn the people kept clapping, and the drummer began singing about Jupiter and Mars.
Elvis wasn't done. He leaned to within an inch of my nose. “What the hell do you want, Elstrom?” he screamed, spraying spittle into my face.
“Change my zoning to residential or commercial. I'll sell and leave,” I yelled back, waving at the still-clapping crowd behind the glare of the floodlights.
“No can do,” he shouted. His lips gave a final twitch, and he stalked off. Someone at last thought to kill the floods, and the developers gave a final burst of applause.
My stunt was stupid and childish. That night, I slept better than I had since I'd moved into the turret.
The lizards held two more receptions. They didn't risk the floodlights again, but the ambient glow from the colored Christmas bulbs was enough to light up my undies, and the effect was mostly the same. Each time I'd start stringing my flags, the crowd would roar, and Elvis would march over, his oily face shining red above the pale blue of his prom jacket.
“Change my damn zoning, and I'll leave,” I'd yell.
“No can do,” he'd scream back.
And the drummer would sing about Jupiter and Mars.
That was how July died. Every evening I ran up my flags, to remind the lizards that I was twitching for a fight. But after the fourth reception, no more were scheduled, and that was just as well. My little battles were just diversions, things to keep my mind from circling around what I was really doing, which was holding my breath, waiting for Gateville.
So I felt a sick kind of relief when, at the steaming beginning of August, I answered the door just after lunch and found Stanley
Novak standing outside, clutching another tan envelope. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The sweat on his face said it all.
Novak standing outside, clutching another tan envelope. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. The sweat on his face said it all.
I'd been varnishing, and Stanley didn't look like he could survive the fumes, so I led him down to sit on the bench by the river. I took the new freezer bag out of the envelope and read the note on the child's paper through the plastic: NEXT TIME SOMEBODY DIES. FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND SUNDAY NIGHT SAME PLACE. The perfect pencil lettering, the computer printing on the envelope, and the Chicago postmark were the same as the first letter's.
I looked at Stanley.
“It came this morning. Mr. Chernek wants it analyzed to make sure it's the same guy before he pays.”
“It's the same, Stanley; you can tell just by looking at it. What I want to know isâ”
He stood up. “Please, Mr. Elstrom, have it analyzed. Then we'll talk.”
I didn't waste the words. He was a blind pawn on the chessboard, like me. I walked him up to his station wagon and told him I'd have it checked right away.
I drove to Leo's. Up on the porch, television sounds came through the window screens. I knocked, waited, knocked again. After five minutes, Ma opened the front door against the chain, her head still aimed at the T.V. in the living room. People were grunting. Leo was in L.A., she said, but would be home that evening. I passed the envelope in, and as I did, Mr. Jack Daniel himself came wafting out through the crack in the door. Cocktails had started early. I made a polite grab to retrieve the envelope, but she was already shutting the door. The grunting inside had reached a fevered pitch. I let it go. I could only hope she'd drop the envelope on the hall table as she teetered back to her chair.
Leo had told me she only drank when he was out of town. As long as he kept his trips to one-nighters, he'd said, he didn't worry. He even brought her back the disposable plastic hotel cups she
buried at the bottom of the kitchen garbage so she could think she'd left no visible evidence of her drinking.
buried at the bottom of the kitchen garbage so she could think she'd left no visible evidence of her drinking.
I called Leo's cell phone before starting the Jeep and told his voice mail I'd left another note with Ma but that she'd been vaguely disengaged. He'd understand. Hurry home, Leo.
It was two o'clock. The turret would feel like a cage until Leo looked at the letter and I could press for a meeting with the Bohemian.
I drove west, meandering, wrestling with the last words on the note: SAME PLACE. Words that meant the Bohemian or the Board already knew where to drop the money, words that meant there had been other communications, letters, maybe even phone calls they hadn't told me about. Fair enough. I was the document guy, hired to be a cog, not the whole wheel. I didn't need to know.
But need and want are two different things.
I swung over to Thompson Avenue and headed west to Gateville. If I showed up unexpectedly, I might be able to open up Stanley Novak about what had happened in the past.
From the crest of the hill, Gateville once again looked like paradise: green lawns, big houses, shading oaks, all nestled inside a protecting wall in its own little valley. I drove down the hill.
A stake truck loaded with plastic flats of flowers was stopped diagonally in front of the wrought-iron gate, blocking the entrance. Its engine was off, but its driver was still behind the wheel. I pulled onto the shoulder across the street and shut off the Jeep's motor.
Two masons in white overalls were tuck-pointing the outside wall, troweling small amounts of mortar from wood pallets into the brick joints. It looked to be slow, painstaking work, pushing in the little amounts of mortar and then smoothing the joints with a jointer. One tuck-pointer sang to himself, his lips moving softly.
Two pale-blue-uniformed guards came out from between the white pillars, waited for a break in the traffic, and crossed the street toward the Jeep. Each wore a gun belt, something the Gateville
guards had never done when I'd lived there. The retaining straps of their holsters were unsnapped.
guards had never done when I'd lived there. The retaining straps of their holsters were unsnapped.
It was good. The landscaping truck blocking the entrance and the slow-moving tuckpointers were security. The one tuckpointer hadn't been singing; he'd been speaking into a microphone to alert the guardhouse that a Jeep had stopped across the street.
I put both hands on top of the steering wheel where they were easily visible. One guard came up to my side window as the other moved to the front of the Jeep.
“Dek Elstrom, working with Stanley Novak. Would you like to see a driver's license?”
The guard nodded.
I kept my right hand on the wheel and extracted my wallet with my left. I thumbed it open, slid out the license, and passed it out. The guard bent down to compare my face with the photo, then backed away from the Jeep to use his cell phone. After a minute he came back and handed me my license.
“Mr. Novak said if you need to speak with him, to call him at home.”
“I just saw him a couple of hours ago. Is he ill?”
“Not him. His wife.”
“Nothing serious?”
The guard shrugged. “Call him at home if you need him.”
He motioned to his partner, and the two guards walked back across the street. I watched them disappear between the white pillars and thought about another time.
Nine months before, in the black of the night of Halloween, Stanley Novak had escorted me out from between those same pillars, at the direction of my ex-wife.
It hadn't been an acrimonious split. We'd only been married for a few months, not long enough to build up a big list of hatreds. Instead, our divorce had been a last, loving gesture of Amanda's, a veering away, before my unraveling of my life caused us to despise each other.
Driving her to O'Hare on that gray drizzling October day, Amanda told me in a soft voice to take whatever time I needed to move out. She wouldn't be back from Europe for six weeks. I told her I was going to get my life back together so we could try again. She kissed me good-bye at the international terminal like she believed me.
I drove back to Gateville, packed what clothes I hadn't given away in two black plastic garbage bags, and piled them inside the front door. But the next step, the one that had me turning the doorknob, throwing the bags in the Jeep, and driving away, was too big. I mixed a weak whiskey and walked slowly through the empty rooms of her enormous house. I didn't want to stay; I didn't want to go. An hour went by, then the afternoon, then the next day. And then the rest of that October passed, as I shuffled from empty room
to empty room, pausing only to mix watery whiskeys just strong enough to keep a veil over my thoughts. I microwaved things on occasion, and slept, sometimes on the bed, sometimes on the carpet. But mostly I paced from room to room, a ghost of something I'd been, looking at nothing at all.
to empty room, pausing only to mix watery whiskeys just strong enough to keep a veil over my thoughts. I microwaved things on occasion, and slept, sometimes on the bed, sometimes on the carpet. But mostly I paced from room to room, a ghost of something I'd been, looking at nothing at all.
I came to life, sort of, on Halloween. In the middle of the afternoon, I put ice in the sterling silver bucket that was a wedding gift from the mayor of Chicago, filled Amanda's grandfather's Baccarat punch bowl with fun-sized Snickers, and set out a fun-sized quart of Jack Daniel's for myself. I settled in one of Amanda's antique white Louis XIV reproduction chairs to wait for princesses, goblins, and Harry Potter.
But nobody came. Not a gremlin, not a goblin, not a Spider-Man or a Superman. At dusk, I levered myself out of the chair, pulled back the brocade drapes, and looked outside. In the glow of the landscaping lights, the smooth emerald lawns were empty, save for a few errant leaves that had had the nerve to fall since the twice-a-week lawn crews had last been by.
There were no trick-or-treaters, not in Gateville. They must have been hurried inside when I wasn't looking, home from some organized function where they'd been supervised by nannies, au pairs, and specialists at conducting controlled Halloween parties.
It was wrong.
What the hell was Halloween without trick-or-treaters?
I aimed myself back to the chair, had more whiskey and fun-sized Snickers, and reflected on that. And, at about nine o'clock, I had an inspiration. None of the kids in Gateville knew how to trick-or-treat because they'd been raised too stuck-up-the-ass rich to go out to grub for candy.
I'd show them. I'd be the Pied Piper of tricks and treats.
Fueled by the whiskey and, by then, half a cut-glass punch bowl of fun-sized Snickers, I got up and started hunting around the house for a mask. Of course there was no mask, but it did take
some time, many overturned drawers, and four torn-apart closets to conclude that. And every time I stepped through the center hallâcarefully, one foot in front of the other so as not to spill a dropâWendell Phelps, who I didn't suppose would like me one damn, mocked me, unseen but not unfelt, from his place on the other side of the wall.
some time, many overturned drawers, and four torn-apart closets to conclude that. And every time I stepped through the center hallâcarefully, one foot in front of the other so as not to spill a dropâWendell Phelps, who I didn't suppose would like me one damn, mocked me, unseen but not unfelt, from his place on the other side of the wall.
After the fourth or fifth such pass, I went into the dining room to confront Wendell Phelps, key Democrat, C.E.O. of Chicago's largest electric utility, and advisor to senators, congressmen, and other people like himself. I stared at the portrait. It was life-sized, but just of his head. Amanda had said it was a good likeness. Wendell Phelps was all head.
The liquor and the sugar had not drained me of all my resources. After staring at the portrait for several moments, I had a second inspiration. I would go trick-or-treating as the great man himself, Wendell Phelps, C.E.O., counselor, knower of everything worth knowing.
The canvas of his portrait, despite being stiffened by layers of crusted oil paint, was surprisingly flexible. Wielding a sharp razor knife with great care so all could be put back as it was, I excised his face from the portrait, cut out his eyes so I could use my own, poked holes at his ears, and tied on a rubber bandâwhich took some doing, being that deep into the Jack. But, after a time, I had my mask. I filled my glass to the brim, as a soldier does his canteen before a long march, and went out trick-or-treating.
Stanley's guys got me before I could pound on the door of the second house. They did not believe I was Wendell Phelps. They took me to the guardhouse and called Stanley at home. He told them to call Amanda, which took a while because she was in Portugal. When they did get through, she was in no position but to approve my eviction, what with nine point eight million dollars' worth of colored oil hanging on her living room walls and me with a razor knife and the potential for more inspiration. By that time,
Stanley had gotten there and eased me into his station wagon, and out I went, flushed gently through the big white pillars of Gateville, with a fading buzz and my clothes in garbage bags following behind in the back of my Jeep, driven by one of the guards.
Stanley had gotten there and eased me into his station wagon, and out I went, flushed gently through the big white pillars of Gateville, with a fading buzz and my clothes in garbage bags following behind in the back of my Jeep, driven by one of the guards.
I managed to tell him to take me to Rivertown, because it was where I was from, and it was what I was. I slept at the health center the rest of that night, in a Lysol-drenched room that had just been vacated by somebody who had died in his own vomit. The next morning, with a banging head, eyes recoiling from the white of a too-bright November sun, and the certainty that I had, at last, sunk to the bottom of the pond, I moved into the turret.
Nine months ago, I'd finally come full circle. I was back in Rivertown.
I was asleep in the shiny blue vinyl La-Z-Boy, twelve bucks truly used at the Salvation Army store, when Leo called at ten o'clock at night. He'd just gotten in and told me to come over. Ma answered the door, said with minty breath that Leo was in the basement, and sat carefully back in her chair. Naked people were getting acquainted on the television. I went through to the kitchen and down the stairs.
Leo, still in his gray business suit and wearing white cotton gloves, was hunched over his light table, peering through a Luxo magnifier at the second note. His face was ghoulish in the green underglow. Astrud Gilberto sang about Corcovado from the cheap boom box on top of a file cabinet, but too softly to drown out the lustful things the man and woman were saying on the television upstairs. I knocked on the raw wood of his office doorjamb.
“Same sender?”
“Same old, same old,” he murmured, continuing to peer at the note. I leaned against the jamb and tried to shut out the drama going on above my head. The man and woman had stopped talking and were communicating now with squeaking bedsprings, as Astrud
sang softly of love, oblivious to the lust going on just above her head. Mercifully, Leo finished his examination, switched off the magnifying light, and turned around.
sang softly of love, oblivious to the lust going on just above her head. Mercifully, Leo finished his examination, switched off the magnifying light, and turned around.
“When did this arrive?”
“This morning.”
He slipped the note and the envelope back into the freezer bag, brought it to his desk, and pulled off his cotton gloves like a doctor after surgery. He sat down and I dropped into the overstuffed chair.
He held up the freezer bag by its top edge, pointed to the last two printed words on the note, and arched his eyebrows.
“Same place,” I recited.
The bag and his eyebrows stayed up.
“They've dealt with him before,” I added.
He waited, his face coaxing. I hadn't yet said the magic words.
“I've got a no-win choice: the cops or my career?”
“Ah,” he said, as his face relaxed. But there was no humor in his eyes.
I didn't sleep.
Leo and I had kicked around my options until the middle of the night, looking for good ones, but they kept boiling down to one of two bad alternatives: Tip the cops to what was happening, watch the news ruin the people at Gateville, and find another line of work. Or keep my mouth shut, like a good employee, and wait for people to die.
I got home at three in the morning, no closer to knowing what I should do. I didn't bother with my cot. I went straight to the blue vinyl of the La-Z-Boy, shifted into full recline, and watched the insides of my eyelids for a couple of hours. I nodded off a few times around four o'clock, but it was only to dream, in bursts, of big houses disintegrating into fireballs. And, strangely, of snakesâred, lavender, green, black, and white snakesâwrithing on their tails,
twisting together in the orange light of the burning houses. Over and over I dreamed of those snakes until, exhausted, I gave it up at five thirty. I made a pot of coffee, filled my double-sized travel cup, and took it and my cell phone up to the roof. I keep a folding lawn chair up there for nights when old times come to haunt and I go up to wait for the sun.
twisting together in the orange light of the burning houses. Over and over I dreamed of those snakes until, exhausted, I gave it up at five thirty. I made a pot of coffee, filled my double-sized travel cup, and took it and my cell phone up to the roof. I keep a folding lawn chair up there for nights when old times come to haunt and I go up to wait for the sun.
I sipped coffee and thought about the snakes in my dreams. Endora, Leo's girlfriend, says everyone knows dreams are the mind's way of resolving the unresolved. Leo laughs and tells her that's got to be true with me, because my daytime mind is too weak to power both motor and cognitive functions. Leo jokes that I should concentrate only on eating and walking when I'm awake and save my thinking for my dreams.
Screw Leo. But he's more right than I'll tell him. During the weeks when my reputation was being trashed, my business was collapsing, and my marriage was destructing, I learned to trust my dreams to work through what I couldn't make sense of during the days. Or didn't dare.
Up on the roof, though, I couldn't figure the snakes.
I drank coffee and listened to the night. A mile away, long-haul trucks on their way to Indiana and Wisconsin rumbled over the corrugated rub strips on the toll road. Closer, the bells at the railroad signal started clanging. Long-haul trucks and railroad trains made sense to me. Dreams of snakes did not.
I picked up the cell phone and then set it down. It was only six o'clock, too early to call the Bohemian.
To the east, the sky was getting lighter over Chicago. It seemed impossible that, just a couple of years before, when I lived downtown on Lake Shore Drive and was full of enthusiasm for such things, I'd get up early to watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan. August dawns were the best, because the moisture rising off the lake would sometimes combine with the early heat to create incredible colors.
But now, drinking coffee on the roof of my grandfather's aborted dream, the day's first reds, oranges, and yellows licking at the blue-black of the night sky reminded me only of the snakes that had twisted and contorted through my dreams.
At seven o'clock I called the Bohemian's office number. He picked up the main line himself.
“Vlodek. I was just going to call you,” he schmoozed. “The note is from the same sender?”
“Surprise, surprise. How about I drop it at the copsâ”
“âVlodekâ”
“âon my way to your office. We need to meet. You, Stanley, and I.”
“About what?”
“The first payoff. The one you haven't told me about.”
The oil went out of his voice. He told me he'd have Stanley Novak in his office at nine.
I got in line inbound on the Eisenhower Expressway behind a grayprimered Chevy Caprice with a wired-up back bumper. At eight in the morning, the traffic crawling east into Chicago is thick with rattling old cars. More and more, the good stuffâthe high-end imports, the sixty-grand S.U.V.'sâis across the elevated tracks, going the other way, aimed at suburban offices from the rehabbed Chicago lofts, renovated row houses, and brand-new city communities of red brick, black wrought iron, and green sod that have popped up, like God's own blooms, over what used to be hardscrabble urban blight, glinting of ancient cinder and broken glass.
The Bohemian's office was just west of downtown, in one of the first rehab districts. His were the only offices listed for the top floor of a ten-story, yellow-brick former factory that towered over everything around it. I punched the button and was admiring my khakis, blue Oxford cloth shirt, and navy summer-weight blazer in the elevator mirror when I noticed the splotch of dried ketchup on
the coat sleeve. I was still scratching at it when the elevator chimed at the top.
the coat sleeve. I was still scratching at it when the elevator chimed at the top.
The door opened right into the reception area of Chernek and Associates. The room was dark and discreet, lit softly by green glass-shaded lamps. The six high-back chairs and two Chesterfield sofas were upholstered in dark green leather that was lightly creased, like old money. I crossed the burgundy oriental rug to the black walnut desk. The receptionist was young and blond and upholstered in red silk. The only crease I could see on her was one perfect inch of tanned cleavage.
“Dek Elstrom to see Anton Chernek.”
“Of course.” She smiled and touched a button on her telephone console.
A dark-haired older woman with a helmet haircut appeared almost instantly at a side door. She wore a blue suit with a white blouse buttoned to the neck and had the pinched-face demeanor of someone wearing tight underwear. Certainly her cleavage had never seen the sun. I recognized the British accent when she told me to follow her. She was the Bohemian's secretary.
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