Boystown 7: Bloodlines (24 page)

I was busy trying to think how long I might be standing there, when a gray Ford LTD pulled up to the curb. It was a boxy sedan. The kind favored by Federal agencies. The doors opened and three people got out. One of the Federal agents I’d been in the elevator with and two other people I recognized. Two people who knew Jimmy. The guy I’d just picked out and was trying to figure out how to tail was nobody. Prince Charles was standing in front of me. But I couldn’t be sure he was a prince at all, or rather which of them was the prince. One of the people with the agent was Jimmy’s granddaughter, Deanna Hansen. The other was her boyfriend and low-level Outfit scum, Turi Bova.

I’d run across Deanna once before. I was looking for whoever blew up my Plymouth Duster, and for a while I suspected Turi Bova of having done it. That was how I learned that Deanna was involved with the much older mobster. It didn’t take much to figure out Jimmy wouldn’t like it. It also didn’t take much to realize I’d be a fool to keep that information to myself, so I forced Deanna to confess her sins to her grandfather. I’d thought that had ended their association, but I was wrong.
 

Deanna hadn’t forgotten me either. Her eyes flared when she saw me. She nudged her boyfriend and Turi looked over at me. Sheer hatred turned his face beet red. It was comforting that there was a Federal agent right there, since it prevented anyone from pulling a gun. Calmly, I walked down into the subway.

Of course, I wasn’t calm. Not even close. I now knew something that I had to tell people. I had to tell Owen and then somebody had to tell Jimmy. I was tempted to tell Owen and then let him deal with Jimmy, but, given that I actually had something to do with this, given that his granddaughter might have had no reason to seek revenge on Jimmy if I hadn’t forced her…yeah, I was sort of, maybe, responsible. I needed to tell him myself.

After I got off at the Belmont stop, I hurried home and quickly changed my clothes. Then I walked around the neighborhood looking for my car. At first I was looking for the Nova, then I remembered I actually had the Versailles and the Nova was now sitting out in Edison Park with a makeshift for sale sign in the window. Remembering which car I was looking for made it a lot easier. I found it on Melrose and drove out to Oak Park.
 

I tried to work out what I’d seen and what it meant. Who was Prince Charles? Turi or Deanna? As far as I knew, Turi didn’t have anything to do with Jimmy. He wasn’t high enough up in the Outfit to know Jimmy’s business. And I couldn’t imagine Jimmy giving him the time of day. That left Deanna. Of course it was Deanna. If Turi was the informant he would have made her stay home. A macho guy like Turi would never let her come along for support. And a macho guy like Turi wouldn’t let her come alone if she was the informant. Deanna was Prince Charles. They’d called her that to throw us of the scent. It had worked.

But that raised an important question.
How did she know so much about her grandfather’s activities?

Jimmy opened the door himself. He wore a white shirt, black slacks and a pair of plaid flannel slippers. His hair was a bit disheveled as though I’d just woken him from a nap. Since it was after dinnertime, I assumed he’d let the maid go for the day. I apologized for showing up so late, though it was only about seven and the sun wouldn’t fully set for another hour.
 

“It’s important, Jimmy,” I assured him.

He led me into a parlor just off the foyer. I’d never been in there before. The room was decorated to look as though it was a British drawing room. Or rather, the American idea of a British drawing room gleaned mostly from movies. There were antique tables with vases against the walls, an unused fireplace, an Oriental rug laid over wall to wall carpet, a comfortable sofa in a floral print, and carved wooden chairs with wide upholstered seats which were probably named after some French king. Jimmy sat on the sofa while I sat on one of the chairs.

“The informant is your granddaughter, Deanna,” I said as simply and directly as I could. Jimmy pushed himself back into the sofa; he looked as though he’d just been hit by a gust of air.

“You’re sure?”

“I saw them get out of a car with a Federal agent on their way into the Federal Building where Operation Tea and Crumpets is housed.”

We were quiet for quite a long time. Softly, he said the girl’s name once, except he pronounced it Dina or Dean-a. Which I supposed was the Italian way. A gold clock in a glass bubble sat on the mantel. I listened to it tick off the seconds.
 

“The diary is real, isn’t it Jimmy?” That was the only way Deanna would know anything about her grandfather’s activities unless—

“Yes. I kept a diary,” he admitted.

“Why did you lie to me about that?”

“It’s a very dangerous book. I can’t have people knowing it exists. You can’t ask people about it, do you understand?”

“I won’t say anything to anyone. But your lawyer should know.”

He shrugged.

“You still have the diary, don’t you? Deanna just made a copy, right?”

“No. She stole it.”

“You’ve known that all along.”

“I knew it was gone. I didn’t know my granddaughter took it.”

“Who did you think took it?”

“My driver. The maid. I got rid of them.”

“You fired them?” I asked hopefully.
 

He looked a little offended. “I wouldn’t do more than that without proof.”

“According to the files, Prince Charles–Deanna–has told them, repeated conversations the two of you have had. Is that true?”

“Cautionary tales meant to put the girl on the right track.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

He shook his head. “She wants to come next week.”

“She’ll be wearing a wire. Or at least she would have been. They saw me, too.”

“She won’t come then.”

I thought about the situation for a moment. I had to think of something constructive to suggest. “If they indict you, the Feds will have to provide your defense with a copy of the diary. But they’re going to do their best to stall. You need to try to remember everything you can about what you put in that diary. My guess is that your lawyers will want to find inconsistencies, things that aren’t true. If they can cast doubt on some of what’s in the diary then all of it becomes suspect.”

“Why would I write things that aren’t true?”

“Jimmy, you’ll never admit that you wrote it. If we find anything in there that doesn’t fit, then we’ll be able to say that you didn’t write it.”

He thought for a moment, then nodded.

Not sure I wanted the answer, I asked, “Does this mean you did order the death of the Perellis?”

He just looked at me. It was a look that made me a queasy. But what did I expect, really? That Jimmy was secretly a Girl Scout?
 

“Getting Nino Jr. to say his father confessed would be close to the truth?”

“No. It wouldn’t be. The Nose didn’t do the job.”

I was afraid to ask who did. Somehow this would all be worse if Jimmy killed them himself. It didn’t matter though. Operation Tea and Crumpets was wrong. They were just making things up and pushing people around until they agreed. Wasn’t that every bit as wrong as what Jimmy had done? If they got away with doing something like this to Jimmy, then what would they do to innocent people? I was rationalizing and knew it. But it did make me feel better for a moment. But only for a moment.
 

“What does it say in your diary about the Perellis?”

“That N took care of the Ps.”

“Who is N?” If it wasn’t Jimmy, I could ask.

He shook his head. I decided not to press him. A minute later he said, “I don’t believe she did this to me.”

“The people we love can do terrible things.”

He looked at me as though he’d made it to his eighties without ever suspecting this.

Driving home, I turned it all over in my head. The pieces fit. I wasn’t sure if they fit because they belonged together or because they’d been stubbornly jammed together like pieces of a puzzle with too much sky. But I couldn’t think of any reason for Jimmy to lie to me. He was very likely going to prison, sent there by his own granddaughter. I put the whole thing out of my head and drove. I’d done my job. I’d found the informant, and I could relax. I didn’t think Jimmy would try to “persuade” his own grandchild. The girl was safe and the best that could be hoped for was that Cooke, Babcock, and Lackerby would find a technicality to get him off. And, hopefully, I’d keep getting paid to make that happen.

The sun had just set and I was nearly home when my beeper went off. I looked at the number and didn’t recognize it. I was close to the Walgreen’s, so I stopped at the pay phone they had outside near the entrance. I plunked my quarter in and dialed the number. After one ring a man answered. He didn’t bother with hello or any other niceties.
 

“Nowak. You didn’t quit your job like you were supposed to.”

“No. I have this weird addiction to paying my rent.”

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll quit the job.” And I’d just been hoping it would continue for a long time.

“Your name’s Devlin and you’re harassing me. If you don’t stop I’ll report you to the State’s Attorney.”

That cracked him up. He was still laughing when he hung up. I stood there for a moment with the phone still to my ear. He was probably right. The idea that the State’s Attorney would take any action against someone working on Operation Tea and Crumpets was a joke. I had to do something, though. I had to take some action to keep Devlin from making good on his threats. I hung up the phone and reversed my course.

A few minutes later I was in my office. I opened up the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out my Sig Sauer. For years I’d worn it everywhere I went. Hell, I wore it fucking a few times. But then after I killed Joseph Gorshuk I stopped feeling that the danger was outside of me. Most of the time, I was the most dangerous thing in the room, and I knew it. Carrying a gun only made that feeling worse, so I stopped. I slipped the gun into my pocket and left the office.

I headed back to Belmont and walked toward the lake, walked under the Drive, and headed toward the Rocks. The Rocks are a seawall made of enormous terraced stone blocks that are now covered in sometimes-clever graffiti. In the summer it’s the place where gay boys put on Speedos to sun themselves and flirt. That night it was dark and the lake seemed restless, rising in waves to beat against the giant stones. I jumped down the rocks to the lowest terrace, took the Sig Sauer out of my pocket, and with as much strength as I could muster threw it out into the lake. I wish I could say it was the first time Lake Michigan had claimed a gun from me, but it wasn’t. There was a nice Smith & Wesson Model 28 that had once belonged to me floating around somewhere near Foster. So now Lake Michigan held two of my secrets. I wondered how many other guns were floating around the bottom of the lake. I wondered how many thousands of secrets the lake hid.
 

I tried to decide whether I should call Connors and tell him I’d been threatened again. I wasn’t sure that was necessary and actually thought it might be better if I stayed as far away from him as I could. He’d tampered with evidence and I didn’t think there was any way he’d admit to it. Since the evidence was no longer in my possession the most logical thing to assume was that it was lost in the property section. Somewhere there was a record of Connors submitting a search on the gun’s ownership. If that came to light, it wasn’t good for either of us, but it wasn’t terrible. I could say I lost the gun before Gorshuk’s death. The fact that the gun ended up in the same cemetery where the man who killed my lover died is just one of those amazing coincidences that happen. As was the fact that Connor’s requested an ownership search on a gun that belonged to his partner’s lover. But that’s all that anyone would ever have. A couple of amazing coincidences. No one could place me in the cemetery. Gorshuk had not been shot so there was no bullet to connect to my gun. In fact, I could argue that if I was in the cemetery with Gorshuk why
didn’t
I shoot him? I could argue that it might have been Groshuk who
stole
my gun in an attempt to incriminate me. An attempt that went wrong. My trail of logic made me feel a bit better. I was safe as long as Devlin didn’t begin to fabricate evidence. If I didn’t know they were completely capable of that, I’d have felt great.

The next morning as I walked over to my office, I stopped at the Walgreen’s payphone and called Devlin’s number. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I did want to find out how the phone was answered. Did they say, “Operation Tea and Crumpets?” Or had they made up some faux company name like “Acme International?” The call was picked up almost immediately and a recorded voice said, “The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and try again.”

That was creepy.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Life went on. My bed was delivered. I rented a truck, and Brian and Franklin helped me move my big stuff over from my office. I shoved it all in the middle of my place, covered it with some old sheets and painted the walls a slightly darker gray than my apartment on Roscoe had been. The phone company came and installed a telephone. I chose the beige desk model. They didn’t come in gray.
 

 
Ronald Reagan went to China so that he could look like a diplomat and help his chances for re-election. Most everyone thinks he will get re-elected because America hates details and loves photo opportunities.
Thriller
was replaced as the number one album by
Footloose
, a movie soundtrack. I didn’t bother seeing the movie. A town where they banned dancing seemed too ridiculous even for Middle America. Of course, for all I knew it was based on a true story.

Madeline Levine-Berkson spoke in her own defense at her sentencing. She was the only one who spoke. The jury gave her the minimum sentence of four years probation, which is sort of like saying, “Hey, as long as you don’t kill anymore husbands everything will be fine.” The judge, though, didn’t buy it and gave everyone in the courtroom a stern lecture, but apparently that was all he could do.