Calumet City (32 page)

The mayor’s wife.

Why her?

Voodoo. She’s gangster legend Dean O’Banion’s granddaughter.

Roland’s boxes. Animal parts, watches, nuggets…don’t think about the manacled hands; don’t look at your wrists.

So what if she’s Dean O’Banion’s granddaughter?

Watches, rocks, and bones. And manacles. I open the watches box.

Those three gunshots were at her, Mary Kate, the mayor’s wife. Chief Jesse lived in Mary Kate’s building at Gilbert Court. The mayor, her husband, appointed Chief Jesse—a street cop—to superintendent. The watches box looks different here than it did in the desert. I fingertip each watch and stare, still wondering if it’s a dead person, still expecting one to talk, to tell me how to find the monster hunting my son.

Thirty-one watches, not fifty, and none talk. None are running either.

Mary Kate O’Banion McQuinn.

Casino license.

Gangster’s granddaughter.

So what?

I check the clock. The G and the U.S. Attorney will have their warrant in twenty hours; Le Bassinet opens in nineteen. That will be a gunpoint showdown with Le Bassinet’s two codirectors. Scaring the shit out them will be simple; getting out before a secretary calls the Evanston police won’t be. I’ll have to "calm" my way inside, then get in to see—

Shit, that’ll never work. The first secretary who sees me will 911 with both hands. Parking lot. I’ll grab Codirector Marjorie Elliot when she exits her car. Except I don’t know what she looks like. And what about Pinkerton? Didn’t Ms. Meery say they open the lock with her, or do they just have an emergency override?

I try to remember and can’t.

The mayor’s wife is from where? The Northside, like her gangster grandfather Dean?

Okay. Plan B. I’ll grab the other director, Mrs. Trousdale, hop in her car when she pulls into the parking lot. Stay there with her until Marjorie Elliot and/or Pinkerton opens the vault. When they leave, Mrs. Trousdale and I will walk in, smile for the cameras and secretaries, and hit the vault. Ten years in Stateville, minimum.

Yeah, but if I can get out of Evanston, it’ll work long enough to warn John—

A reality moment jumps in. But if EPD can stop me or come close, John won’t be warned…I don’t want to think about outright failure or a police confrontation where I have to choose between an officer and my son. My plan just has to work.

I glance at the TV. The Cubs are down one run in the third. The mayor and his wife gotta be at Wrigley.

What the hell is it about her?

My phone vibrates. I recognize the number but can’t place it until my thumb slides off the screen’s corner: 602. Delmont Chukut.

"Patti Black."

"It’s my pleasure, Ms. Black. Delmont Chukut. I’d like to talk to you."

Relief. It’s not Roland’s voice. "About what?"

"There’s a matter of an inheritance. Money owed you if I can confirm you are the correct Patricia A. Black." He doesn’t sound like an Indian, although I have no idea what Indians sound like.

"Gee. That’s great." I don’t bother asking who died, since the story’s bullshit and we both know it. "Where are you? I’ll be right over."

Delmont laughs too smooth, like the street pimps do, like his boy Harold J. J. Tyree did. "It’s customary that I come to you, verify your address, your phone, electric bills, bank statements—all the elements that make up an identity in the modern age. A birth certificate, your Social Security card, voter ID, that type of thing."

"I’m not at home. Maybe I could pick up that stuff—it’s all in my locker at the station; we could meet there."

"No. I don’t think that will work. I need to see your home, verify the meter numbers match the bills with the name, things like that. Why not pick up the papers and bring them home. I’ll meet you in…an hour?"

I take the deepest breath I can, trying to drive the anger toward my feet and away from my mouth. It doesn’t work. "Here’s the deal, Delmont. In three minutes I can have every cop in this city looking for you. I’ll recap this conversation as part of a long list of violent felonies we’re currently investigating. When I’m done my fellow officers will believe that you intend to kill me. This will dramatically reduce your chances of surviving the arrest."

I give Delmont a chance to respond that he doesn’t choose.

"Then I’ll call the U.S. Attorney at home—she and I are chums—that’s one-stop-shopping for the FBI, DEA, ATF, and INS. Should you escape our city, Phoenix and points south won’t be where you’re going."

He clears his throat. "All that because I want to help you collect your inheritance?"

"We both know what you want. We’re gonna trade, you and I, in person and right now. Like I said, when I hang up it better be because I’m headed your way."

The silence lasts thirty, forty seconds, a long time when you’re bluffing.

Delmont says, "Do you know the Lamplighter Inn on Lincoln?"

"Sure." I don’t.

"Room 121, on the far end. Wait out front in your Celica. I’ll be by."

I’m squared up on Tracy’s TV like it’s an oblong Delmont. "You’re kidding, right? In sixty seconds you’re gonna be a citywide."

"You tell me, then."

I look out the window at Lincoln Park, which you’d think was on Lincoln Avenue but isn’t. "Try a coffee shop full of people."

Delmont takes a moment, then, "Should I have a problem, or be arrested, or assaulted at this meeting,
none
of your inheritance will find its way to you.
None,
if you get my meaning."

I assume "my inheritance" means John and want to strangle Mr. Chukut instead of the phone.

He says, "A houseboat, docked in slip E26, Diversey Harbor. The Yacht Club there’s full of people. The
Schofield’s Too
. Come alone, no follow cars, no radios. We’ll talk, see if there’s a way to work this out for everyone."

I’m almost positive he was playing toward this from the beginning. And if he’s running a game on his employer, Delmont will have someone else there who’ll either explain where I fit in the scam or tell me where Delmont really is, so Delmont can explain. That or they’ve wired the boat, prepping for this: I step aboard and BOOM.

"When?"

"Four o’clock. No negotiation. Alone." Pause. "Could be I have someone for you to meet."

Click.

Click? I’m still bracing the TV.
Someone for you to meet,
my ass. Wait till four o’clock? Guys don’t hang up on you when you have the upper hand. I notice the Cubs score, we’re tied, Soriano’s up. Four o’clock. Maybe I don’t have the upper hand.

Instead of watching Alfonso’s at-bat, I google "Diversey Harbor." In three clicks I produce a map. Diversey Harbor is at the other end of Lincoln Park, twelve blocks from where I’m standing—close. God loves me today.

Tomorrow will be different.

Before I go to hell, I need a plan, a way to survive this meeting in order to reach the one that matters. That will require some sort of Lincoln Park yuppie disguise. I mount Tracy’s stairs two at a time and hope I don’t get lost in her closet.

Rummaging through what would be a decade of cop salary on hangers, I hear a
creak,
then the
whoosh
weather stripping makes on an expensive door when it’s opened quietly. Too quietly to be an owner. I visualize Delmont Chukut and Idaho Joe, rubber restraints, their employer grinning—my Smith’s in my hand. I spin 360 for an exit: bathroom window—too small, big window in the bedroom. And twenty-five feet to the street. Trapped—only one stairway to this floor. If whoever’s downstairs has a machine gun or shotguns, I’m already dead. The door downstairs closes and something hits the floor. Nobody yells; it’s too soon for the BASH game to be over. I hold my breath and listen to movement. It stops, or hesitates. A stair creaks.
Here they come
. My best chance is to shoot through the wall—

"Patti?" Tracy’s voice wavers, like it might sound if she had a knife at her throat.

I soft-step to the doorway but don’t peek. "Up here."

My gun hand trembles. The stairs creak, fast like two at a time, not how you’d feel after you’ve played against BASH, win or lose. I duck out the doorway into the hallway’s blind corner, brace fast into the stance, ready to shoot whoever has her. The fast footfalls keep coming; Tracy’s face speeds around the corner like she’s been pushed, sees nothing but gun barrel, and yells,
"Jesus!"
She ducks and slides sideways past me into a small table. I step past her to the corner, aiming chest-high at whoever pushed her.

"I’m alone.
I’m alone
."

The stairway’s empty.

I lower the Smith, exhale, lean my shoulders into wallpaper, and glance at her piled in the hallway and wide-eyed. She’s still in shorts and jersey and asks, "What…happened?"

"Talked to Delmont." My tone’s dry, not I-almost-shot-you. "Shouldn’t you be playing?"

She jumps to standing. "Julie kept calling your cell and you didn’t answer."

"
You
left the match because I didn’t answer my phone? This story
must
be a Pulitzer."

"The FBI was at the pitch. An ASA, too.
And
a rep from the mayor’s office. Couldn’t focus, kept thinking about Mary Kate—"

"
You
couldn’t focus on BASH? Mary Kate beat you in a pageant or something?"

Tracy uses both hands to artfully restrain red hair. "The only way it could be better than Mayor McQuinn’s wife is if it’s Hillary Clinton."

I can’t help a small laugh that feels better than it sounds. "Julie’ll make you suffer if we lose."

Tracy smiles and now I’m sure she and the mayor’s wife have pageant history. She says, "I told Julie I couldn’t let you face this alone."

Right;
Meryl Streep couldn’t make that line believable in Tracy’s mouth. Tracy rights the table she knocked over.

"Ever consider we might be friends? Like you and Julie; like me and Julie?"

I stare, pistol still in hand. "Uh…no?"

She frowns. "Well, you might," and walks into her bedroom. Her walk is nonchalant but her voice isn’t. "So, what did Delmont say?"

I follow and stop at her doorway. She strips en route to her bathroom. I hear the shower and she yells over it. "Delmont say anything about Mary Kate?"

Her closet’s in the bathroom, forcing me to walk past the steaming glass to resume sliding hangers for my disguise. "He’s meeting me at Diversey Harbor."

"Five minutes. I’m going with."

Sure thing. Five minutes will be forty-five. And safe in the shower "she’s going." Once we take a brief reality walk, she’ll be doing something else of equal import that doesn’t require murder or suicide.

The shower quits and the door pops behind me. I hear, "What’re you looking for?"

Miss Centerfold is wrapping a white towel. A small Pink Panther logo finishes perfectly above her left breast. If I were a guy, she would own me at this instant. I can’t tell if this is a move, an invitation, or an accident.

I turn back to the hangers and my search for a disguise; she keeps standing there, toweled up in white like Sharon Stone. "You’re going through my closet?"

"Yeah. Sorry. Need a coat and hat, something that looks yuppie."

Tracy frowns. I explain:

"If I make it past the harbor meeting, I’ll do Le Bassinet next; need to look like I belong here instead of Seventy-ninth Street."

"Where in Diversey Harbor? The sky over the lake looked pretty ugly. Another storm’s coming."

"A houseboat."

She steps in front of me, grabs pants first, then a blouse, and on her way out a sweater. Over her shoulder she says, "All the coats and hats are downstairs, the closet off the kitchen. What slip number?"

I say, "E26" and turn for the door, toward the stairs, the stairs that were life-and-death minutes ago. Funny how things change.

"Great." She drops the clothes on her bed and reaches for a hairbrush. "A gentleman friend has a cruiser in F21. We can get in and on the dock using—"

"I’m a cop; we get in and out without a ’gentleman friend.’" My tone sounds like a third grader and Tracy makes that matching face as I pass.

Bitch,
now I want her to come. I’m halfway down the stairs and hear: "It’s more than one gentleman, actually. It’s five."

Two
third graders at the water fountain. I say "Fuck you" only loud enough for me and focus on searching the kitchen closet. Inside, it has two leather jackets—one is dead-on if I were an Outfit guy wearing a black shirt and neck chains. There’s a serape or wool cape, four long coats for winter, a letterman’s jacket from Northwestern she probably won on her knees.
Jesus,
she has clothes. More jackets and ten pairs of boots underneath. I want the Outfit jacket—natch—but go for the serape since I’d never wear that. Need a hat. Above the coats is a hat rack the length of the closet, triple pegged, and stunning in its selection. How much freakin’ money can you spend on this stuff?

"That’s a surprise." Tracy is bug-eyeing the serape. "Looks…nice, though. Try the leopard print," and points at a something she calls a "Russian round hat."

Tracy’s playing dress-up, I’m sure with the intention of making me look as stupid as possible. I grab the hat anyway; she grabs boots with heels and holds them out, nodding a silent leer and floating her eyebrows.

"I’m not gonna fuck the guy, I’m gonna kill him."

Miss All-Everything personal shopper stalls. I said it honest, matter of fact, not a hint of bravado. It’s so obviously true that she steps back.

"Delmont Chukut? Not Roland?"

"Delmont Chukut if he’s stupid, and that’s eighty-twenty. Roland Ganz for sure, and anyone else who makes me."

The boots drop but she doesn’t move. "For real?"

"Murder One, honey. At least once."

"I’d be an accessory, like you said."

I smile. The Pink Panther finally gets it.

"You can’t do that and save your son."

"It’s the only way I
can
save him."

My new serape brushes her as I pass. She’s behind me but silent. I find my gym shoes in the living room. They’re dry, a bonus I didn’t expect.