Boystown 7: Bloodlines (23 page)

Owen beeped me at eight-thirty the next morning. I was still asleep and had been for a long time. Of course, I didn’t have a phone yet, so I had to get dressed, take the elevator down ten stories, and walk around the corner to the Melrose where they had a payphone next to the men’s room. When I got Owen on the phone, he told me to meet him in front of Division IV of Cook County Jail in a half an hour. It was tight, but I managed to find my car, drive down to 27th Street and Sacramento, hunt for a parking place—enough of a challenge that I actually prayed to Mother Cabrini—and wait for him in front of the barbed wire gates. He was ten minutes late.

Once he got there, we were able to get passed the bureaucracy rather quickly, and before I knew it we were deep inside the red brick building. It was certainly a lot easier than the last time I’d visited someone in the County Jail. A guard led us to a small room with a wooden table and a couple of chairs. It was a nice room, though. Almost as nice as a conference room in an office. Other than the lack of windows and the harsh florescent light above our heads, we could have been anywhere.

After the guard left us, Owen set his briefcase on the table and rolled his eyes. “I must find out who their decorator is. He’s done wonders.”

“I don’t think their goal is to make you want to stay.”

“True. She’s lucky she’s a woman. Conditions on the men’s side are so much worse.”

We sat. Owen took a legal pad out of his briefcase. We waited.
 

“Why is Madeline here at all. Wouldn’t they grant bail?”

“Bail was set at five hundred thousand dollars. If you use a bondsman they charge ten percent guilty or innocent. Fifty thousand dollars.”

I whistled. “She didn’t have it?”

“She didn’t have that and enough to pay our fee. Our fee on this should run about seventy-five.” Seventy-five thousand dollars for a murder defense. Justice was expensive. I hoped I never needed it.
 

“Her parents couldn’t help?”

“They are helping. But there are the kids to consider. When you’re in prison they pay you like twenty cents an hour for whatever work you do. Hard to raise kids on that.”

We waited. Owen made a few notes on his pad. I grew bored.

“We took Sugar Pilsen to see Sugar Pills the other night.”

“The drag queen?”

“Yeah. I think they fell deeply in love.”

“So that’s why you’re a little green around the gills?”

“Still?” I’d thought the holiday dinner Mrs. Harker fed me had straightened me out. Apparently that, and all the sleep I’d gotten, hadn’t made much of a dent. Before I could say anything else, the door opened and a guard led Madeline Levine-Berkson into the room. She wore a shapeless gray uniform that looked like medical scrubs. She was thinner than she was in the pictures I’d seen in the newspaper. There she was a little pudgy and scattered looking. Here she was sharp-edged and controlled. Her hair was dark and scraggly, most of the blonde had been cut off.
 

When the guard shut the door, Owen said, “Hello Madeline, how are you?”

“Better than I should be.”

“This is Nick Nowak. He’s our investigator. He’s been working on your case.”

“Which is over.”

“He’s been helping me look into what people might say if we let them speak for you.”

She looked at me suspiciously. “And?”

“After talking to people I have some questions to ask you,” I said.

“All right.”

“On your husband’s autopsy—”

“Wait. You just said you were talking to people. Why are you reading the autopsy?”

“People told me your husband was a drug addict. I wanted to see if the autopsy bore that out. He had lesions on his ankles and his—”

“People should have kept their mouths shut. I don’t want any—”

“I understand that Madeline,” Owen said. “The thing is. It’s beginning to sound as if we could have mounted a much more successful defense.”

“You thought your husband gave you AIDS,” I said. “Is that why you killed him?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want to happen,” Owen said. “But it’s better if we at least talk about things.”

She seemed to chew her tongue for a moment then said, “I have no idea if he gave me AIDS. I feel fine.”

“Madeline, can you tell us why you killed your husband,” Owen asked, making his voice sincere and soothing.

“And his girlfriend,” I added.

Madeline flashed me a look. Out of the corner of my eye, I think I saw Owen flash me one, too. She took a deep breath and let it out.

“It was the insurance policy. He thought he was doing something good for us. I told him it would backfire, that they’d find out what he died of. I refused to go along with it. Then I found out he’d bought the policies anyway. Forged my signature. I could see what would happen. He was going to die. They’d demand a reason. When they found out, they’d accuse me of fraud and it would all come out. Everyone would know. Even if I got off, no one would go to the dentist whose husband had AIDS. The dentist who might have AIDS. He’d ruined everything.”

But why kill him the way she did?
I wondered. Why not try to hide it? Why not make it look liked an accident? The questions began to answer themselves. She didn’t want his illness to be discovered so she couldn’t risk an autopsy without forgone conclusion. The ME needed to see the cause at a glance. Poison would have been too dangerous that way. Hiring someone to kill him had too many risks. Pushing him down the stairs—then it hit me. This had been about the sentencing all along.

“Owen, what’s the sentence for first-degree murder?”
 

“Twenty years to life.”

I looked Madeline in the eye and said, “You knew that, didn’t you? You made it look like second-degree murder so you’d get a lighter sentence.”
 

“I was always a fan of
Perry Mason
,” she said. I decided not to point out that his clients were always innocent.

Sitting back in my chair, I couldn’t help but be a little impressed. She’d manipulated the whole thing so that she’d get the minimum sentence. Owen didn’t seem as impressed. In fact, he seemed not to notice what had just happened.

“I think the best thing to do is to simply let you make a statement and leave it at that. I’m concerned that someone might mention the drug addiction and then the whole thing begins to unravel. If I’d known all along I could have come up with a better strategy, but at this point…it complicates things.” And then he added dryly, “Besides, you seem to know what you’re doing.”

After I said goodbye to Owen, I drove back to Boystown and found a parking place on Buckingham. Then I walked over to the Melrose again, this time to have breakfast. I was so hungry I was beginning to feel nauseated. I ordered the lumberjack breakfast, which could also have been called the eat-until-you-burst breakfast, a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee. I had both papers and planned to spend the next hour eating and reading. Then I’d head back to my apartment and dress-up like a priest.

The
Daily Herald
and
The Tribune
both had articles about something we almost, sort of, kind of, already knew. AIDS was caused by a virus. They’d discovered it and named it. They’d found it in a laboratory and called it HTLV-III. Now it was definite. It wasn’t just rumors or hints being printed in alternative newspapers; it was mainstream so it was real. And more than that, I guess. It wasn’t just some virus, it was now a specific identifiable virus. And if it was something they could indentify, then it might be something they could cure. As I ate my breakfast, I tried not to be too optimistic. It wasn’t something I could contribute to. I wasn’t a scientist. I was just a guy who figured things out. I needed to put the news aside and focus on what I was doing. But it wasn’t easy.
 

Hope was every bit as contagious as the virus.

By eleven o’clock I was back on the Federal Plaza begging money and staring people up and down. I positioned myself on a different corner than I’d worked on Friday, and settled in for a long afternoon. I still didn’t expect to find Prince Charles this way, but…well just but. I watched as people walked by in all sizes and shapes, all colors, all kinds of beliefs reflected in their dress, some with crosses, some with T-shirts that proclaimed an affinity for Led Zeplin or Ronald Reagan or
The A-Team
. Blue suits with red ties were practically popular.
 

My feet were killing me after an hour. The sidewalk and plaza were made out of some kind of crushed granite that had been mixed with concrete. It was hard to stand on for a long time. I wondered if there was someplace nearby that I could go for a pair of insoles or arch supports. The money flowed in faster than it had on the Friday before. Of course, Friday had been Good Friday, and even though it’s not a Federal holiday it was a day that a lot of people took off. Now they’re back and primed to donate by an Easter sermon.
 

What was I going to do if I saw someone suspicious?
I wondered. I should have a plan. I couldn’t exactly throw aside a bucket full of change and run after them. I mean, a priest chasing down a mobster type in the middle of the Loop was almost laughable. I could casually follow someone, but then there was the bucket. No, all I’d be able to do would be observe, make mental notes about appearance and then talk to Jimmy, I suppose. After my phone call with Connors, I doubted he’d let me come down and look at any of the books they had full of known Outfit members. For the second time, I thought I might need one of those super tiny cameras they used in spy movies. Well, I needed one twice a year and that made it hard to justify the cost. That, and the fact that I giggled at the idea of someone chasing after me for the microfilm.

Around two, I decided to take a break and go over to the French Bakery to see if Brian was there. I was still full from breakfast, but I might just have a cup of soup or something light. The lunch rush was well over by the time I walked up the steps to the restaurant on the second floor of the storefront on Madison and Dearborn, passing the real French bakers they had behind a window making croissants for the next morning. People knew me there, so no one bothered to stop me as I walked through the restaurant to the extra dining room in the back where the waiters had lunch after their shift. Brian sat at a small table with the bartender I liked, Lu. Lu had red hair cut into a punk mullet, a few chunks artfully cut out of her ears and a voice like back alley gravel. After we said hello, I asked Brian, “Did you see the paper?”

“The virus?” he asked.

“Yeah, they found it.”

“I know. I talked to Sugar before I came in; she’d already been on the phone for two hours. She talked to a couple of doctors. They don’t think we should get too excited.”

“Why not?” Lu asked. “It’s seems like great news.”

“It’s a virus. No one’s ever cured a virus.”

“What about the flu?” I asked. “There’s a vaccine for the flu.”

“It takes years to develop a vaccine. Sometimes a decade. And it’s not a cure. It’s a prevention.”

So we were shit out of luck. This news didn’t help Ross. It didn’t help a lot of people. Possibly not Brian. Possibly not me.
 

As though he’d read my thoughts, Brian said, “I tried calling Ross this morning. They wouldn’t let me talk to him. They said he was getting better. That if he talked to me he might relapse.”

“That sucks,” Lu said. “I don’t know why he had to go down there. We would have taken care of him.”

“They promised to save him. It’s hard not to believe that when it’s all you’ve got.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The afternoon was deadly dull and I let my mind wander. I imagined myself as Charles Bronson swooping down on Normal, Illinois, and dragging Ross out of his parents’ trailer to bring him back where he belonged. I knew I wouldn’t do any such thing, but it felt good to fantasize about. I wondered what Harker would think of my apartment? Would he like it? Or would he miss living in the basement? I knew he’d hate what I was doing for Jimmy. He’d be afraid I was becoming the Outfit’s guy. And maybe I was. But I didn’t think Jimmy had killed the Perellis, so the task force shouldn’t just get to pin it on him. Maybe if I thought he killed them I’d be a little more squeamish about the whole thing.

Around five forty-five, foot traffic was thinning out and I noticed a middle-aged man come up out of the subway. He had a heavy beard, wore a rumpled leisure jacket in gray, a blue polo shirt, and polyester plaid paints to match the shirt and jacket. He had an unlit cigar in his mouth. My heart sped up when I saw him. Maybe this was going to work. I watched as he headed toward the lobby entrance on the Dearborn side of the building. I hurried to the entrance near me, clutching my plastic bucket of change to my chest. I was closer to the elevators; he had to walk across the spacious lobby. I hurried around and stood on the side of the elevators he was heading toward and stood there with my bucket out. If I could get him to drop some change in, I’d also get a damn good look at him.
 

I stood there nervously. An older woman with a pill box hat and half veil stood in front of me like a time traveler from the sixties. She opened her white patent leather purse and began a search for change. I wanted to yell at her to hurry-the-fuck-up, but couldn’t break character. I was a priest, after all. She was still poking around when the guy walked by me without a glance. I tried to memorize his face. Heavy brow, eyes so brown they were almost black, a nose that looked like it had been broken a half dozen times. Just as the woman finally plunked some money into my bucket, he was at the elevator, stepping in a car, disappearing. I wished for a moment that we were in one of the older buildings that told you what floor the car was on. I could watch the numbers change until the car stopped. Newer buildings like this didn’t work that way. I had no idea what floor he was going to.

Briefly, I considered jumping into an elevator and going to the twenty-third floor. I wouldn’t get there in time. If he were going there he would beat me to it and be safely tucked behind the office door of the task force. I’d have no idea if he was in there or not. I decided the smart thing to do was to go and stand by the subway entrance. Sooner or later he’d come out and then I could follow him home. I stood there wondering who the guy was. He was a good thirty-five years younger than Jimmy. Was he someone Jimmy had mentored? Was he on Jimmy’s crew? How long would he be in there? If he was Prince Charles he could be in there for hours being questioned.