High Chicago (10 page)

T
echnically speaking, I still had an appointment with Rob Cantor that afternoon. But I saw no point in keeping it. He’d have nothing to say to me, and I needed more proof—something, anything—before confronting him further. Maybe once I’d spoken to Will Sterling, I’d have what I needed.

I stopped at the New Yorker Deli on Bay Street and picked up sandwiches, potato salad and coleslaw and drove back to the office. I figured Jenn would be hungry and I certainly was, since Hollinger had commandeered my cupcake.

I parked in back of our building and took the stairs up, carrying two bags of food. The front door of our office was locked and I wondered if Jenn had gone out. I gripped the bags in one hand and unlocked the door. There was no one in the front room.

“Jenn?”

There was a pause before she said, “Back here.”

“I’ve got lunch,” I said. “And news.”

I went into the back office and saw Jenn sitting stiffly in her chair. A thirtyish man in a hoodie and jeans too tight for his thick build was standing behind her, his fist curled in her hair. His other hand held the edge of a hunting knife against her throat. The door closed behind me and I saw another man,
older, more my age, in a leather coat pointing a gun at me. His jet-black hair was greased back from a widow’s peak halfway down his forehead and he wore a thick gold cross on a chain that hung down to his sternum.

“What’s for lunch?” he said.

Eidan Feingold had taught me ways to take a gun away from a man. But the lessons had never included a scenario where your partner was being held at knifepoint.

“Put the bags down,” he said. “On the desk.”

I set them down. “There’s roast beef,” I said, “or tuna salad. Take your pick.”

“Shut up,” the gunman said. “We’re all going to go out that door now. Down the hall to the stairs, quiet as mice. Out into the parking lot and into the car on a drive. You got that, lunch boy?”

“Crystal clear.”

“You act nice, you won’t get hurt. We’ll go somewhere, we’ll talk to some people, then we’ll let you go.”

Sure they would. And a fairy godmother would pave the way back with candy.

“You do anything stupid,” he said, “and Blondie’s gonna get sliced.”

“I’ll cut her fucking tits off one at a time,” his buddy said. He had angry red blotches on his face and bad teeth that showed when he grinned. He slipped his free hand inside Jenn’s blouse and cupped one breast. “And wouldn’t that be a shame. She has nice ones. A real handful,” he said and squeezed her breast hard. She grimaced and bit her lips rather than let him see her in pain.

“Where we going?” I asked.

“Does it matter?” the gunman said. He stepped back and levelled the gun at my chest. “Don’t even think about it.”

“No thinking,” I said. “Not me.”

He opened the door and backed out into the anteroom. His partner took his hand out of Jenn’s blouse and stood her up roughly.

“Walk,” the gunman said to me. He backed his way to the front door and felt for the handle. “Just remember what happens if you fuck around.”

He kept the gun on me as he opened the door. I tried to keep the surprise out of my eyes.

Eddie Solomon was standing there with a tray in his hands. It held a steaming carafe and three coffee cups.

“Ahem,” Eddie said.

When the gunman wheeled, Eddie threw the tray in his face. The gunman screamed as the hot coffee splashed over him. The heels of both hands went up to his eyes and it was easy for me to grab his gun hand, turn the arm toward the floor, pivot and drive my opposite knee down into it. It broke with a lovely snap, better than I could have hoped for. The arm wouldn’t move again till spring. The gun fell to the floor. I grabbed it before it could bounce and turned to point it at his buddy.

No need.

While he gaped at his partner going down, Jenn pinned his knife arm against her chest with both hands, leaned back into him, lifted her heels and brought them down hard on the thigh of his front leg. He howled, charleyhorsed but good, and fell to the floor on his back. The knife clattered away and as he writhed on his side, she rolled onto her knees and socked him hard where his jaw met his chin, all her weight behind it. His eyes closed and his mouth formed an oval. When he tried to stand up she put her boot on his shoulder and sent him sprawling into the chair she’d been in.

“Who’s the bitch now?” she asked him. “Who’s the bitch now?”

“Jonah!” Eddie cried.

I turned to see the gunman barge past him and run for the stairs, cradling his broken arm. I could have shot him, I suppose. But the carpet was already stained from Eddie’s spilled coffee.

“Lock the door,” I said to Eddie. “And get behind the desk.”

“You know how much that coffee cost a pound?” he moaned. “That was the Javanese monkey shit.”

I picked the knife up off the floor and placed it on the desk in front of Eddie. I checked the load in the gun and handed it to Jenn. “If he tries anything,” I said, “shoot him in the balls.”

“One at a time?” she asked. “Or both in one shot?”

“Depends how little they are.”

“One should do it.”

“Give me your wallet,” I told the guy. He fumbled it quickly out of his back pocket. I shoved him back into Jenn’s chair and looked at his driver’s licence. His name was Sonny Tallarico. “Okay, Sonny,” I said. “Who sent you?”

“Man, I can’t tell you that.”

I said, “Let’s try that again,” and drove the palm of my hand into the bridge of his nose. Not quite hard enough to break it, but it drew both blood and tears. When he brought his left hand up over his nose, I grabbed his wrist and cranked his ring finger back and counter-clockwise.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”
he screamed. “You broke my fucking finger! You broke my fucking finger, you motherfucking prick!”

“I did not,” I said. “I dislocated it. And as soon as someone pops it back in, the pain will go away.”

“Do it,” he panted.

“Do what?”

“Pop it!”

“Me?”

“Come on!”

“Who sent you?”

“Christ, man, they’ll fucking kill me.”

“You think we won’t?”

“You touched my tits,” Jenn said. “Without asking.”

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned.

I grabbed the ring finger on his other hand. “You want the two-for-one special?”

“No!” he screamed. “Don’t! Don’t, please.”

“We’re listening.”

“Just a guy we know.”

“What guy?

“I can’t.”

“Last chance, Sonny,” I said. “I do both hands, you’ll need someone else to hold your dick when you piss.”

“Lenny! Lenny’s his name.”

“Lenny what?”

“Corazzo.”

“And who is Lenny Corazzo?”

“Just a guy we do stuff for.”

“Yeah? What else did he ask you to do this week?”

“This week? Nothing, man.”

“He didn’t tell you to beat up a guy?”

“What guy?”

“A blond guy. Martin Glenn.”

“No,” he panted. “No blond guys.”

I started to bend his finger back but he just closed his eyes in anticipation of the pain. I had to believe he was telling the truth. I let go of it. Jenn looked disappointed.

“Please,” he said. “Put my finger back.” His injured hand was trembling like a morning drinker’s; he had to clutch it in his good hand to make it stop.

“One more thing.”

“Come on, man. You promised.”

“This isn’t Boy Scouts, Sonny. What’s your partner’s name?”

“My partner—”

“The guy with the gun. The one whose arm I broke.”

“Oliviero,” he groaned. “Sal Oliviero. Sally O he goes by.”

He’d volunteered something. It told me he wasn’t holding back.

“What do they call you?” I asked.

He looked down.

“I’ll find out anyway. Don’t prolong this.”

“Sonny the Gun,” he said.

Jenn hooted. The best revenge.

“All right,” I said. “Stay still.” I took hold of his shaking hand and told him to look away.

“Away where?”

“Anywhere but your finger, Einstein.”

He looked down at the ground, then closed his eyes and sucked in his breath. I grasped the injured finger. Fixing a dislocated finger is not as easy as it looks in televised sports, where they yank it, tape it and send the guy back in. You have to bend the finger backwards, like you did in hurting it, grip it from behind and push the base forward. In lay terms, it hurts like fucking hell. I told Sonny to count to three and at two and a half I put his finger back into place. His eyes went wide and a guttural sound escaped his clamped jaws. Pain ran through his body like a tremor.

I took all the cash out of his wallet and handed it back to him.

“You’re taking my money too?” he whined. “After what you did?”

“For the coffee stains,” I said. I told him to stay seated and used a digital Nikon to take his picture, then told him he could go. “Ice your finger and take a few Tylenol,” I said.

“Fuck you,” he mumbled.

“I could just as easily have done your thumb,” I said. “Then you’d need a surgeon.”

“Fuck you again.”

Some people. You just can’t please them.

Once he was out the door, Eddie said, “Things were a lot quieter when there was a photographer here.”

I said, “Who’s the hero now?”

Jenn came over and put her arms around Eddie. He was a foot shorter than she was and his head nestled nicely against her breasts. She patted his back and held him there.

“Jenn?” he said.

“Yes, Eddie?”

“You going to shoot me for this?”

“No, Eddie.”

“Not that it matters,” he beamed.

T
he lunch trade at Giulio’s had ended and the restaurant was closed as the staff prepared for dinner. As I sat in Dante Ryan’s small office, the smell of tomato sauce, garlic, frying onions, simmering broth and sizzling meat filled the air. I had never gotten around to the lunch I’d brought back to the office and regretted it now as the fragrant smells had me all but salivating.

“Okay,” he said. “Let me just double-click … here we go.” Up came a photo I had emailed him of an unsmiling Sonny “the Gun” Tallarico. “He said he worked for Lenny Corazzo?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t tell you who he is?”

“No.”

“I’d have gotten it out of him, you know.”

“Even if he didn’t know it?”

“Even if. And the other guy was Sal Oliviero.”

“That’s what Sonny called him.”

He stared at the photo a little longer then shook his head. “Let me make a call,” he said.

“Okay.”

He looked at me.

“What?”

“I can’t make it with you sitting here.”

“Oh.”

“Take a seat outside a minute. You want a plate of something? Mimi can probably scare up some cannelloni or something.”

“I could manage cannelloni.” Manage it? I’d eat anything put in front of me and the plate it came on.

“Mimi?” Ryan called.

An attractive, dark-eyed, young woman poked her head in the doorway. “You bellowed?”

“Mimi, darling, fix my friend Jonah up with some cannelloni before he drools on my computer. Spinach and ground veal okay with you?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

Ten minutes later, Mimi brought me a plate with four steaming pasta rolls smothered in a rich tomato sauce. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“A glass of water would be fine.”

“Sparkling or plain?”

“Sparkling, thanks.”

“Perrier or San Pellegrino?”

“Whatever’s open.”

“Natural or flavoured?”

“You’re killing me, Mimi.”

“It’s just you’re a friend of the owner’s,” she said. “He said to treat you real good.”

“Plain San Pellegrino is fine.”

By the time she returned with my drink, two of the cannelloni were history. The other two had joined them by the time Ryan summoned me back into his office.

“Close the door,” he said.

I did.

“You piss someone off in construction lately?” he asked.

“Entirely possible.”

“Lenny Corazzo is a son-in-law to a guy named Mike Izzo.”

“As in Izzo Construction?” The trucks working the site at the Birkshire Harbourview had all been emblazoned with his orange and black logo.

Ryan nodded.

I couldn’t believe it. Rob Cantor had sicced goons on us. And if he was capable of that, maybe the horrible thought that had been crowding my mind—that a man could kill his own daughter to protect his business—was also true.

“Listen, Jonah,” Ryan said. “Everything that went down last summer, everything you did for me, you remember what I told you? I said I owed you and you could call on me for anything, anytime. You remember that?”

“I do.”

“Now construction, as you may know, is a rotten fucking business. Mobbed up, I mean. Doesn’t matter where you’re talking—here, New York, Chicago—any big city, it’s the same. Every truck that rolls, every load of soil dumped, every ton of concrete poured, there’s a tax. Sometimes ten per cent of the total cost. The Gambinos, the Bonannos, all the big crews and their affiliates, they’ve been mixed up in it since forever. So if Mike Izzo doesn’t like you, don’t think he’ll stop with those two low-lifes. What I’m saying, I guess, is that even though I’m technically retired from the life …”

“Stay retired,” I said. “You worked hard to get out, I don’t want you going back in on my account.”

“I could make a call or two. Find out how big a hard-on Mike has for you.”

“All right. And maybe one other thing.”

“Shoot.”

“You may want to rephrase that.” I took out the gun that Sal Oliviero had dropped in the office. “Can you get rid of this for me?”

He examined it closely. “You kidding? A Beretta 92FS? That’s one fine pistol, man, replaced a lot of revolvers on a lot of police forces. The army didn’t like them ’cause they sometimes broke down under extreme conditions, but for the streets of Toronto they’re just fine. This one is already broken in but not abused. The guy you took it off will be kicking himself.”

“That’s fine. I only got to kick him once.”

“You should keep this, you know.”

“I already have one I never carry.”

“The Cougar I gave you?”

“Don’t give me that look.”

He hefted the pistol, turning it back and forth, letting light play off its chrome finish.

“You sure you don’t want it?” he said. “One at home, one at work kind of thing?”

“I’m sure.”

He took a ring of keys off his desktop and opened a drawer, from which he extracted a grey metal strongbox. A second, smaller key opened this. He took out an envelope full of hundred-dollar bills, counted off five and offered them to me.

“That seem fair? Brand new, it retails about six bills in the States.”

“You’re the expert,” I said, taking the bills. Found money for World Repairs.

“Doesn’t make sense to me, giving up a fine weapon like this,” he said. “Why don’t you give it to your partner?”

“We’ve managed without them so far.”

“
Managed
,”he said. “The woods are full of people who manage. Most of them in shallow graves.”