Chicago Stories: West of Western (18 page)

Call the police? Why? The shooters were gone, her fortress impregnable, and all she wanted was to get back to bed. So she did.

Chapter 15

On Tuesday, an
afternoon meeting at the building department downtown adjourned unexpectedly, giving Seraphy a chance to head home early. After days of gloom and damp, the day had turned crisp and clear, and she decided to celebrate by taking a run and exploring Humboldt Park by day. When she stopped in at the bodega for some Poland Spring, Jaime's smile brightened her spirits and banished the remains of the mental fog caused by much exposure to bureaucratic stupidity. If Jaime could just bottle that smile, she thought, he could make a fortune.

Even in the afternoon sunlight, Humboldt Park preserved its mystical border with the city. Once across California Avenue and into the park, traffic noise was muted, lost between rustling leaves and other late autumn forest sounds. Geese honked as they flew south in formation, water lapped against concrete, leaves rustled, reeds sighed in the breeze. A few trees still flew flags of red and yellow. Scuffling through leaves blanketing the paths and banishing everything but sights and sounds and the sharp freshness of the park from her thoughts, Seraphy walked and jogged around the lagoon and under the viaduct, where she slowed to move cautiously past mounded blankets and a grimy sleeping bag left from the night before.

In the distance, a dog and his man played catch with a blue Frisbee. On the edge of the river an elderly woman tossed bits of bread, encouraging the usual evil-tempered Canadian geese who should have flown south weeks ago to hang around for a free lunch. It was good to run. As her body warmed and her mind quieted, she felt better than she had since her first afternoon in the loft. Her garage door would be repainted. Tito's shooting wasn't her problem, she'd never known Tito and could not mourn his death. The cops could handle it. Nothing to do with her.

Harder to banish the dying child from her thoughts. She ran past a tiny beach, turning onto the river path she had followed the night she met Mischa, stumbling a bit when she was caught again by thoughts of Maria. Was there no good way for that to end? Sister Ann was right, Chicago's juvenile care services were no place for the vulnerable, and she had Brother Edwin there to help. But still, maybe she should do something? Like what?

Stopping for a moment to catch her breath, Seraphy let her eyes follow the river landscape, pushing Maria out of her head, making room for Jens Jenson, the visionary landscape architect who designed the park at the end of the last century. Jenson wanted what he called his ‘prairie river landscape’ to restore the worn spirits of nature-deprived city dwellers. Worked for her. Flat lazy river, tall reeds now beige for fall, birdsong and rustling leaves, the occasional duck. Seraphy rested and let the landscape leach the worst of the tension from her bones.

A chilly breeze on the back of her neck reminded her to get moving. She ran on, slower now, to where the river ended in a marsh, then jogged down the boardwalk where she'd met Mischa. At the end of the boardwalk she looked for turtles basking in the sun, but it was too cold and there were none so foolish.

Farther on around the marsh a path branched off to a sunken garden on her left. Seraphy had run almost four miles. She slowed to catch her breath. Maybe just a quick look at the sunken garden? The flowers were gone, but she could find beauty in the patterns of formal plots and the encircling colonnade. But the wind picked up, she was tired, changed her mind, and turned for home. As she ran past the turnoff, a man in jeans and a leather jacket stepped out to block her way

“Seraphy Pelligrini?” he asked, his hands up, palms out to stop her. On her toes, ready to flee, she hesitated, giving him a chance to explain. Now what? For a place that looked so empty, the park seemed to hold plenty of men who wanted to talk to her. She rotated her wrist. Shit. She had to start wearing her knife

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Just to talk. My name is Mario, Mario Morales. I don't mean to frighten you. I just need to talk. Please.”

Late twenties, she thought, neat, black hair, L. L. Bean turtleneck, brown leather jacket, Levis, Adidas, the whole yuppie uniform. So, not a thug, more like a law clerk or some kind of business type.

“Talk to me? About what? Talk fast, it's too cold to stand around.” Was every run in the park going to end like this? Strangers behind every tree? Give her a break.

“About my sister. Half-sister, actually.”

“Your sister?” Seraphy frowned and shook her head.”You've got the wrong person.”

“I don't think so. Come, there's a seat out of the wind. Just up here a bit.” He gestured toward the river and turning, led the way. Her curiosity pushed her to follow. A short path led down to the waterside, to a tiny clearing in the tall reeds where a stone bench faced the water. Disturbed by the interlopers, a pair of ducks abandoned the bench and flapped noisily away.

“There's always somebody fishing here in the summer,” Mario said, “but not after it gets this cold.” He sat, opening his jacket as if to show her he had no weapon.

Seraphy perched on the other end of the bench, leaving two feet of no man's land between them. The stone felt like ice and even out of the wind, the air seemed colder, more penetrating here by the river. She shivered and pulled her jacket up around her ears.

“It's going to have to be a short conversation,” she said, “or you'll have to pry me off this seat with a crowbar.” Surprised by the image, Mario laughed, a sudden bending-over-and-gasping-for-breath laugh, while she watched him and thought it hadn't been that funny. Maybe he was nuts. Maybe she should leave.

“I haven't laughed like that in months,” he said when he recovered, red-faced and breathing hard. He shook his head.“I don't know why I did that. You took me by surprise.”

Somehow the laughter had reassured her sense of the stranger. Not an enemy, then. What? “You were waiting for me? How did you know I was running here? I didn't see you following me.”

“How did I know?” Mario stood up, stretched, rubbed his chin and walked over to the river. He turned and watched her as he said, “My people told me your name and that you came to the park. I was up on the hill and watched you. When you took the river path, I ran around the other side of the hill and back around the end of the river and waited for you.”

“Christ! Following me?” Seraphy jumped up. “What does that mean, your people? Who the hell are you?” Who was this guy who had ‘people’? Why should she care?

“You know, the old ladies who watch your place from across the street? Like them,” Mario explained, sitting down on his end of the bench, gesturing to her to do the same. “Some of the old people like to sit out, or sit and watch from windows. Sometimes I give them a little money to help out. Sometimes a cell phone. They tell me things.”

“Kind to old folks, how commendable. You mentioned a sister?” Her heart skipped a beat. He had ‘his people’ watching her? For what? Creepy. “Why me? I've only lived there a few days. I know almost nobody here. I don't know your sister, whoever she is.”

“You do know her. Her name's Maria Aconto.”

Holy Christ. Seraphy's mind went blank and she sank down onto the concrete bench. Maria's brother? But he said his name's Morales. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, buying time to think.

”She's fourteen and sick and she's living in Sister Ann's apartment,” Mario sat down again, looked at the water. “I saw you go in there. And that monk, too, from St. Luke's.”

Mario's words brought images of Maria, her mouth full of ulcers, trying to choke down formula for the sake of a baby who'd never survive to be born, the sad gray room, the worn sheets. Her nose tingled with remembered stink. She looked at Mario's jacket, butter-soft and obviously expensive.

“If you're her brother, Mario,” she said, spitting out the name, “why the hell is that child dying in a squalid hole with only a crazy old woman to care for her?” He started to answer, but she gave him no chance. “Why don't you get her out of there, take her to a doctor, get her on anti-virals? Do you
know
what's happening to her? What's wrong with you? Some brother.” He flinched as if she'd slapped him and curled over, his face in his hands, hiding from words that slashed. “What the hell kind of brother are you?”

“She's dying? Are you sure?” He spoke through his fingers, shook his head. “I can't help her.”

“She's dying—slowly, painfully.” Seraphy spat the words at him. “She has ulcers in her mouth and can't eat. Cancer, Kaposi's sarcoma, is eating her from the inside out. Her organs are failing. And she's carrying a dying baby.”

Mario shuddered, his face still buried in his hands. She saw the tears run through his fingers and his shoulders heaved, but she could feel no mercy for a yuppie asshole who would abandon his sister to die.

“If you really are her brother, I have a hard time believing you can't help her, you wearing that yuppie uniform and all.” Her arms crossed, Seraphy sat rigid and stared out across the water. “You're obviously not poor.”

“You don't understand.” Mario turned to look at her, tugging at her sleeve to get her to turn and listen. White lines appeared around his mouth. “You think I have a choice?” His eyes grew huge, bottomless. “Listen, I was ten when my father died and my mother married that fucking bastard, Agosto Aconto. Maria was born the next summer.” His eyes softened, shiny with tears. “From the very first, a kitten, an angel. So beautiful, always laughing.” His face relaxed as he remembered, then hardened again.

“You don't know Agosto Aconto. He's a monster. He runs that storefront church on California. Christian, he calls it. Hell is more like it. I ran away when I was fourteen. Here, I'll show you.” Mario turned and yanked up his jacket and shirt. The honey-colored skin on his back carried a lattice of white scars.

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? When you left your ‘angel’ with
him
? The man who did that? You didn't even call the police?”

“My people don't call the police. I never thought he'd hurt her. I wasn't his, she was. When I was there he treated her like a princess. I didn't know.” He was pleading for her understanding. Not good enough.

“Apparently there's a lot you didn't know. Like you didn't know Maria was being raped by that gangbanger, Tito, or that he got her pregnant, or that he gave her AIDS. And where were you when Aconto threw her out?”

Mario paled even more. Suddenly he lunged forward, his hand over his mouth, and ran to the edge of the reeds to bend over, vomiting. Seraphy watched and didn't care. When he was done he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and stood, pulling himself together. Finally he shook himself and tucked his shirt back in his jeans.

“I didn't know,” he said when he returned. He sat slumped over, his head on his chest.

“How could you not know? You know everything—you told me so yourself. Hell, everybody around here seems to know everything, except me. What about your old ladies?”

“I wasn't here when it started,” he said, trying to explain. “After I ran away from Aconto, I went to live with my
abuela
up north, old-school, very strict. I worked at a grocery store after school, went to Lane Tech, then the U. of I at the Circle, got my degree in business, then an MBA, did everything right. All that time, I was out of the neighborhood. I thought Maria would be all right and I knew if Aconto caught me before I turned eighteen he'd call the police and try to turn me over to Juvie.

”Once I turned eighteen, I tried to see my mother and Maria. Mama took out a restraining order against me. My own mother. Aconto,” he spit the name out like an ice-covered ball of hate, “turned them both against me. What could I do? I was still a kid. I gave up.” He shrugged. “I graduated, I got a job with Standard Oil, got my MBA, my grandma was proud, all that.”

“That explains your accent and your clothes. I wondered where you learned to talk like that. You don't sound like a Clemente High boy.”

“No. I worked hard for that, to act and sound white.” He saw her frown.“You don't like that? It's what we call you—White People. My grandma died two years after I started working. I moved into Lincoln Park, bought a condo on Racine, dated white girls. I thought I'd made it.”

“And?”

“And then,” Mario sighed, “without my grandma at home, I gradually realized how foreign that life was to me. I did everything right and it wasn't right at all. I wanted to hear my language, I missed my food and my music and being able to relax with people who like the same things.” Mario looked to see if she understood.

“Been there, done that.” Homesick. “So?”

“So I sold my condo, quit my job and took the money and bought a four-flat on Cortez. I looked for a job closer to my people.”

“And now?”

He stared at her. “You really don't know, do you?”

“Don't know what?”

Mario stood and looked over the river, jacket pulled open by his hands on his hips, his back to her, then turned. His head came up. “Now I am El Duque.”

“So? El Duque? What does that mean, El Duque?”

“The Duke.” Mario turned to face her. “It means, Seraphy Pelligrini, that I am the leader, El Duque, of the Duques gang.”

“You?” The Duques? The gang to which Tito belonged? What was she supposed to do, bow down and kiss his feet? Curl up in fear? Sucks to that. “You don't look like a gang leader. Where's your hoodie? What about the gang colors?”

“There's no dress code for El Duque. I wear what I like. I came back to the neighborhood and the guys I'd gone to school with were all Duques and they were a mess.” Mario shrugged. “I knew the guys from before. Tomás was the leader and they were all over the place, messing with drugs and girls, getting picked up, arrested, ripped off by the Lobos, losing what money they had gambling and in bad drug deals.” His face stilled and she could see him remembering that time. He shrugged.

“I needed a job and I offered what I had. I offered to put the gang on a business basis, and did. Then Tomás died robbing a 7-11 and I took over. End of story.” He sat down and waited for her to comment.