The Dead Caller from Chicago (29 page)

We came to a forest preserve. Thick old trees lined the shoulders on both sides of the divided highway. Traffic had thinned. Timed right, he could charge up now, if I got slowed by another vehicle, and cut me into a crash. Or perhaps he was simply looking for a clear line of sight for his gun.

His green minivan still filled the same two inches in my rearview. He must have been familiar with the road and known there was a better place, farther up.

I was looking for a good place, too, a spot to do a quick U-turn, but there was too much deep slush in the median. Even in four-wheel drive, I'd sink to the tops of my wheels.

There'd been more colors; the thought slapped into my mind. I checked the rearview again. Sure enough, the green of the minivan had not been the only constant since Rivertown. Two more colors had been there as well, hanging back as precisely from the minivan as Robinson was staying behind me. That's why he'd been hanging back. He knew they were there. No bigger in the mirror than pencil erasers, one was red, the other was dark, perhaps black. Black, like that Impala I'd noticed the day Jarobi first came around.

I could evade the minivan with a U-turn, or at least swerve back into him if he tried to run me off the road. Three cars was a different deal. They were using cell phones to coordinate their moves, waiting for the right time to box me in, one car in front, one in back, to slow me enough for the third man to pull up alongside to shoot. Zigs, zags, and U-turns would buy me nothing. I could not outrun three vehicles.

Too late, I passed by an access road into the forest preserve. There might have been a chance to go off-road in there, between the trees, but not for long. The woods were too thick.

A traffic signal appeared ahead, its light green. I dropped down a gear, to slow the Jeep and to pick up the torque I'd need. The few cars behind me began catching up, but not the green minivan, and farther back, not the small shapes of red and black.

The light turned yellow. If I stopped, they'd come up behind, on foot.

I blew into the intersection just as the light turned red. The intersecting road was much narrower, only one lane in each direction. Nothing was coming from the left, but a white convertible was starting up on the right. I swung left, barely missing the ragtop. A blond woman was driving. She hit the brakes, and then she hit the horn. I didn't look back, but I supposed she got a finger up as well.

The road ahead of me was empty. Except for a couple of driveways, there was nothing. Then I saw why. In the distance, orange striped barricades dead-ended the road. There was construction. The road was closed.

I needed to ditch the Jeep and run. I looked behind me. The white convertible was turning into one of the driveways. There was no one behind her. No one had followed.

I made a U-turn and stopped, looking at the way I'd come. The traffic light remained green, stopping the northbound traffic, stopping them. Escape lay southbound on that same multilaner, if they remained stuck in the tangle of northbound cars stopped by the light.

If I was fast.

I sped back to the intersection, glancing at the congestion to my left only after I'd turned onto the wide multilane highway heading south.

They'd disappeared. All three vehicles were gone.

I didn't dare slow, but I didn't dare believe. Yet I was sure: There was no one back at the traffic light. It was like they'd been sucked into space.

I pressed down on the accelerator, watching ahead, watching behind. They had to show up somewhere.

Fifteen minutes later, I turned east, passed Crystal Waters, and got on the Tollway.

I called Jarobi. “I think Robinson's been tailing me for the last hour. I think I lost him.”

“Green Chrysler minivan?”

“Yes.”

“I imagined he'd be out of state by now.”

“I imagined him dead,” I said. “No reports of gunshot victims on the West Side?”

“There are always gunshot victims on the West Side, but no young adults like you described. No trashed burgundy Escalade, either.”

“Robinson had two friends along today, in red and black cars.”

“That black Impala you keep asking about?”

“I couldn't tell.”

“I'll pass all this on to your county sheriff. Tell you what, Elstrom: I'll put out a bulletin, saying Robinson is wanted for questioning in an art theft.”

“Think any of it will work?”

“To find a green Chrysler minivan, accompanied by two cars of unknown make and model, one red, one black?” He laughed. “Nah,” he said.

 

Fifty-two

Dr. Feldott was puzzled by what I was carrying.

“Flags, or rags?” she asked, smiling.

“Mr. Smith's dress clothes.”

She pursed her lips. “That's a shame.”

“I thought they might trigger a memory or two.”

“Why not? I'm afraid we've tried everything. We can only be patient. He doesn't speak much, but we hear him whispering when he's alone. Patients sometimes do that; it's a means of trying to communicate, if only to themselves. He smiles a lot, though. We think he's happy.” She motioned for me to go in first.

Leo wore a white shirt and tan trousers and sat at the small desk. He swept something small into his lap.

“Do you know me?” I asked.

He gave me a nod, of sorts, but his eyes had been drawn to the magnificent songstress on the CD. I set it on the desk.

“Would you like a player for that?” the doctor asked. She'd followed his eyes.

“Oh yes,” he said.

She nodded approvingly and left. It was progress.

I spilled the clothes out on the bed. Holding up one of his most atrocious Hawaiian shirts, a bright orange number decorated with red pineapples dangling from palm trees with pink fronds, I asked, “Excite you at all?”

He frowned. “Bright.”

“Excellent,” I said. “A lack of enthusiasm for this garment is surely a sign of a correcting mental attitude. You might become better than new.”

His brow wrinkled. “Huh?”

“This is one of your favorite shirts.”

He winced and turned to the CD on the desk. A leer spread across his pale features. “This is mine?”

“Yes.”

“I like this,” he said.

I sat on a chair next to the bed. “I came to tell you a story.”

“Good.”

“Once upon a time, in a crooked little village not so very far away…” I began. Then I stopped. “No, forget that. This isn't funny.”

I began again. “Years ago, a young thief named Snark Evans worked at the Rivertown city garage for a man named Tebbins. He also worked for Tebbins after hours, helping to install residential security systems. One day, Evans stole some jewelry and a painting from a house where they were installing a system.”

Leo's eyes had remained on the CD.

I cleared my throat loudly. He looked up.

“The painting belonged to a Chicago mobster named Rudy Cassone,” I said.

He showed no reaction.

“OK so far?” I asked.

“OK.”

“Almost immediately, Snark realized he'd stolen from a wrong guy, so he decided to get out of town quick.”

“Quick?”

I nodded. “The jewelry he could take with him, to hock later. He decided to leave the painting behind, maybe because it would be difficult to fence, or maybe because he thought it wasn't worth much. He gave the picture to a friend, for safekeeping.”

I watched his face. Nothing changed.

“The burglary victim, Rudy Cassone, confronted Tebbins about the theft,” I went on. “Tebbins knew nothing about it. All he could tell Cassone was that Snark had taken off. So Cassone went away. Later that summer, Tebbins, or his boss, a man named Robinson, heard that Snark Evans was dead. But maybe Snark faked his own death, to throw Cassone off his trail. He could have changed his name and begun a new life somewhere far away.” I paused. “Until just a few days ago.”

Leo's thick eyebrows rose, like always when he was surprised. This time, though, there was no crinkling around his eyes to show that his mind was keeping up with his eyebrows.

“Enter a couple of Hollywood types named Bennett,” I said.

“Types named Bennett,” Leo repeated softly.

I was speaking simply. His words were even simpler, childlike … and chilling.

“Henny Bennett is a very successful producer of B-grade horror movies. As near as I can tell, Mindy, his wife, was successful mostly at being beautiful, at least until recently. Sadly, like us all, she's gotten older, so I think Henny started casting around for a younger model. He found one, and now he's divorcing Mindy. Each of them, Henny and Mindy, wants that painting that was stolen from Cassone so many years before. OK so far?”

“OK so far,” Leo repeated in a monotone. He'd dropped his eyes back to the CD. I was losing him.

“The painting is called the Daisy, and it once belonged to a Nazi. Actually, it might still legally belong to his descendants.”

“Nazi?”

“Do you know what that is?”

“OK.”

“The Daisy has not been seen since before World War II. Both Henny Bennett and Mindy Bennett are willing to pay huge dollars for the Daisy because each wants it for his or her collection.”

“But it's the Nazi's.” His brow had wrinkled, but that could have been from squinting at the Brazilian goddess.

“Or his family's. Still, each of the Bennetts is willing to buy the painting, no matter who legally owns it, no questions asked—”

He sighed and stood up. He walked to the bed and began taking off his white shirt.

I went on, though I was now talking to myself. “Snark Evans, who's been living under another name all these years, read of the battling Bennetts in a magazine somewhere. That made him remember the painting he'd stolen and given to a co-worker that summer.”

A tiny noise came from the chair where he'd been sitting. I looked at him. He hadn't heard it. He was putting on another of the shirts I'd brought, this a purple, orange, and yellow combination of trees, fruits, and birds wearing sombreros. He began buttoning the shirt.

“Snark Evans wanted that painting back, because it was so valuable, and so he called that long-ago co-worker…” I stopped to look at the chair. The low hum had come again.

“I've confused you?” I asked, standing up. I eased over to the chair and looked down. A cell phone lay on the seat, vibrating with a new message.

“Dr. Feldott says she hears you whispering when you're alone,” I said.

He put on the orange slacks I'd brought and stepped to the mirror on the wall. His white teeth split his narrow head in two, smiling like he was breathing pure oxygen.

“Ah,” he said to his image.

“Damn it,” I said.

He spun into the ridiculous small dance he always used when he'd put something over on me.

“Samba,” he said.

 

Fifty-three

He sat down, still grinning a hundred-tooth grin. “Endora,” he said, glancing at the number that had set the phone to vibrating. “We mostly text.”

It was why she hadn't been angry when I'd told her she had to remain away from Rivertown. She knew Leo was well and coherent.

I started with basics. “How did you get the phone?”

“Are you carrying your usual five bucks, or do you have more?”

“As a matter of fact,” I said, struggling for a preen, “I've got three hundred, though my prospects have returned to being grim. The phone?”

The door opened, and the doctor came in with a boom box. “How are we doing?”

Leo smiled at her vacuously. I told her we were getting along just fine.

She set the boom box on the desk and smiled approvingly at Leo. Apparently, she saw his purple shirt and orange pants as progress toward better mental health. I could only question whether professionals like her knew anything at all.

“I asked one of the teenaged girls who helps out around here,” he said, after the doctor left. “I told her I was hiding out from a gang of evil thugs. She's such a sweet young thing, all innocence. She brought me a Walmart cell phone and says she'll carry my secret to her grave.”

“What nobility.”

“I had to promise two hundred for the phone and the silence.”

I peeled off ten of my dwindling twenties. “You texted Endora?”

“I knew she and Ma would be worried sick. Don't worry; I refused to tell her where I am, and I specifically forbade her from returning to Rivertown until you said things are safe.”

“Things aren't safe. You have to remain here.”

“Who's paying for this?”

“I'm paying for part; the Bohemian's covering the rest.”

“Delightful. Then I'll only have to reimburse Mr. Chernek.”

“Tell me what you can.”

“You found out I was hiding down the block?”

I nodded.

“My memory stops when I went back to my house one night to get food.” He arched his formidable eyebrows. “Do you know what set off my trauma?”

“I found you disoriented. Maybe you hit your head?”

He made a show of feeling the back of his skull. “There's no bump,” he said, his eyes steady on mine.

“Tell me a story, Leo, before I inflict real trauma on that head.”

He shrugged, letting it go. “Shall I talk real slow, like you just did for me?”

“Begin with Snark Evans at the garage that summer.”

“You got most of it right. Snark was pinching small stuff from somewhere and peddling it out of his locker. I worked some side jobs for Mr. Tebbins at first, and you could see Snark's eyes widen when we went into a new house. It was no mystery where he was getting some of his inventory. I think he kept his grabs small, so nothing much would get noticed. Still, I worried about getting my future wrecked, so I told Mr. Tebbins that I had studying to do at home and couldn't work side jobs anymore. Mr. Tebbins knew what I was really saying. He was wise to Snark, because a couple of times, I saw him and Mr. Robinson checking Snark's locker when he wasn't around.”