The Fifth Floor (18 page)

J oe’s on Broadway opened at six a.m. and sold cans of beer for a dollar and a quarter. I sat under a sign that hung from the ceiling and read sorry, we’re open. The bar was full with its evening crowd, which meant there were five people in the place. Four of them were talking to themselves, which was okay because that meant they wouldn’t bother me. The fifth was the bartender.

“Yeah?”

He spoke without taking his eyes off the screen. Bob Barker was playing the plip-plop game with an overweight housewife I’d be willing to bet was from Ohio.

“A Bud,” I said.

“Yes.”

The bartender made a fist and pumped it once. Onscreen, the housewife hung on Bob Barker’s neck as he described the recreational vehicle she had just won.

“Isn’t that on during the day?” I said.

“Actually, it’s not on at all. We taped the old shows and watch them back-to-back all night.”

I didn’t have a whole lot to add to that and took my cold can of booze to a stool by the window. The beginnings of a Chicago rainstorm knocked politely against the glass. A homeless woman sat on a bench near the bus stop. I tipped the Bud her way. She shuffled over to the window, stood in front of me, and held out her hand. I walked outside and gave her a couple of bucks. Then I went back inside, took a seat at the bar, and pulled out the booking photo and prints Jacobs had sent me. The picture was more than a decade old, but I recognized the face. Remembered the anger.

I slid the prints and photo back into the envelope and pulled out some notes from my conversation with the volunteer named Teen. I needed to talk to her. But not tonight. I took a sip of beer and wondered if it was too late to call Rodriguez. Probably. On TV, a woman from Pharr, Texas, won Bob Barker’s grand showcase. I toasted her success. Then I took a glass of Irish and another beer. It was warm inside the bar, and the whiskey tasted all the better with rain pounding against the awning outside and washing the streets clean. I decided things could wait until tomorrow and was about to order a microwave pizza when a friend scraped into the empty stool next door.

“Drinking alone. Not good, Kelly. Not good.”

Willie Dawson shook the rain off his shoulders, lifted a finger, and ordered himself a water glass full of Johnnie Walker Red.

“What brings you in here, Willie?”

The bartender measured out the drink and pushed it across the bar. Willie took a taste and smacked his lips.

“Nothing like whiskey on a night like this. Nothing close. But I don’t need to tell you that.”

I waited. Willie took a look around the place and then back at me.

“You spend a lot of time here, Kelly?”

“What’s up, Willie?”

Dawson glanced toward the front windows and beyond. I could see smoke from a tailpipe, a wink of red, and the metallic black flank of a car, idling under the streetlight in front of Joe’s.

“He wants to have a word.”

I wondered how the mayor had tracked me to a dive bar on a Friday night. Even better, why? The former question would probably remain exactly that. The answer to the latter, however, was just a few feet away. I finished my Irish and nodded to the inch and a half of booze left in Willie’s glass.

“Finish up, then. Don’t want to keep Himself waiting.”

A CHIME BEEPED as I opened the back door to the Town Car. The mayor was bundled into a corner, gazing out over Broadway, his face half lit by an interior light. I climbed into the seat across from him. Willie slammed the door shut and got into the front beside the driver. I caught a final glimpse of the back of Willie’s head before a partition slid across, sealing the mayor and me in back.

“Thanks for taking the time, Kelly.”

The mayor talked without taking his eyes off the street. He wore a tuxedo under the cashmere of a gray overcoat, and white calves peeked out from where his pants rode up too high. Or maybe his socks were just too short. Either way, the mayor seemed uncomfortable with the whole lot of it.

“You like wearing the monkey suit?” I said.

The mayor pulled his eyes off the street and flicked at the silk scarf tucked under his chin.

“This fucking thing? Hate it. You want a drink?”

I shook my head. The mayor leaned forward and poured himself a vodka over ice from the minibar at his elbow.

“You think I like any of this shit, Kelly?”

“I think you like being mayor, Mr. Mayor.”

Wilson took a sip of his drink. “You mean the power, right?”

“I think it’s a rush for you,” I said. “Just like it would be for anyone.”

“You say that like you’d exclude yourself,” the mayor said.

I shrugged and felt his eyes measuring me from across the car.

“My mother’s maiden name is Sviokla.” Wilson washed his mouth out with his drink. “Polish. Southeast Side.”

“The old steel mills.”

“That’s right. Ironworkers and Old Style. People who worked paycheck to paycheck and knew when it was time to die.”

“Excuse me?”

The mayor bared his teeth and laughed like a horse. If a horse could laugh, that is.

“A lot to be said for knowing when to die, Kelly. Heart attack, stroke. Whatever the fuck it is, get on with it when you hit sixty-five and make some room for somebody else. You know what I’m talking about?”

I nodded, just because it was interesting as hell.

“Today people want to live forever,” the mayor said. “Expect it, for chrissakes. But here’s the question. Who’s gonna pay for it all?”

“The government?”

Wilson dropped his head and grunted into his chest.

“That’s exactly right. The fucking government. I’m a Democrat. Don’t get me wrong. But let me ask you, how does a city pay for all that? People can’t live until they’re eighty, ninety years old. It just isn’t natural. You don’t want a drink?”

I shook my head no. The mayor freshened his own.

“Anyway, that’s me. Still live in the bungalow neighborhood I grew up in. Sure, it’s a bigger house than the rest of them. But still the same neighborhood. Same tavern at the end of the street.”

“It’s your power base,” I said.

“And I won’t stray too far from it, right?”

“Why would you?”

Wilson shrugged. “Know where I was tonight?”

“Fund-raiser?”

“Kid’s name is Jeffrey Dobey. Has MS. Muscles like fucking Jell-O. Tough life, right?”

I nodded. The mayor took another sip of his vodka.

“So I run into this kid fourteen, fifteen years back, at a campaign stop. One of those meet-and-greet deals. Jeffrey’s mom is in front with the kid. No wheelchair ’cause they can’t afford one. Instead, the kid has braces on his legs. Like you see in those pictures from the fifties. Remember those pictures?”

“Polio,” I said.

“Exactly. That’s what I was thinking. Those braces. Where the hell did the kid get those braces? And why is he propped up against the building with his crutches and his mom at one of my rallies? Jeffrey is a black kid. Did I tell you that?”

“No.”

“So I had one of my aides go over and get his story. Turns out the mom has seven kids, four different fathers. Lives in the Green.”

“And Jeffrey’s dad is long gone.”

“As are all the others. Anyway, long story short, I pull a few strings. Get Jeffrey into the Rehab Institute. Get rid of those fucking braces. Get him a wheelchair and some doctors who give a damn.”

“After you talked to them.”

“Excuse me?”

“They all give a damn after you talk to them, sir.”

The mayor blinked. “Tonight, I spoke at a ceremony for the Collegiate Scholars Program. Honors our top public school kids. Jeffrey was the highest ranking senior. Spoke before me. Know what the best part of his speech was?”

I shook my head.

“He walked across the stage to give it. Kid walked across that stage, and I helped. Not a lot. Not as much as his mom or his doctors. But I helped a little bit. That’s a good feeling. Good thing about this job.”

The mayor sat back and pushed his eyes out the window again. No one in the media or the public had ever heard of Jeffrey Dobey. Never would. That’s because Wilson didn’t do it for the press, or the politics. He did it because he cared. About the kid. About his people.

“Nice story, sir.”

“You think so.” Wilson stretched his neck as he spoke. “I pulled some strings. Threatened some people. Cut corners. Hell, I probably booted some vet out of a bed at the Rehab Institue to make room for this kid.”

“Still, the kid walked.”

“That’s right, Kelly. The kid walked. And that’s the bottom line. In life, everything has its price. Or maybe you already figured that out.”

“Every day is an education, sir.”

The mayor’s shoulders bounced under their cashmere cover as he chuckled. Just once and stopped.

“Cheeky motherfucker. Just think about all that. The good and the bad. Not so easy to tell the difference sometimes.”

We hadn’t moved from in front of Joe’s, which told me that whatever else Wilson had to say was going to be on the short and, hopefully, sweet side. I figured now was as good a time as any.

“What do you need from me, Mr. Mayor?”

“You think I need something?”

“I think you tracked me down for some reason. Wanted to deliver a message. Wanted to do it personally. And I don’t think it was just about Jeffrey.”

Wilson creaked forward in his seat. Close up, his face was pitted and raw; his eyes, dead as ever.

“It’s never personal, Kelly. Understand that.”

“Okay.”

Wilson leaned back again. “It’s about your friend. The judge.”

“You mean Rachel Swenson?”

“Nice lady. Not my cup of tea politically, but, then again, she probably feels the same way about me.”

A small smile nipped at the corners of the mayor’s mouth and I wondered if he wasn’t sitting in my flat a week back, listening to all the bad things Rachel had to say about him. Of course, he wasn’t. But the mayor knew, anyway.

“What is it you want to tell me about the judge?” I said.

Wilson placed his drink on a little ledge that had popped out from a panel in the car door. Blunt fingers circled the contour of cut glass as he picked out his words and fashioned them into a threat.

“Rachel was involved with a man. This was maybe eight months, a year ago.”

My ears grew suddenly full with the thunder of my heart, beating a tattoo in the hollow of my throat. I searched for words between the echoes.

“She was engaged to this man,” the mayor said. “Thing is, there were some problems.”

A small black folder materialized from a seat pocket by the mayor’s feet.

“Take a look at this, Kelly. Between me and you.”

I ran a hand across the folder but didn’t open it.

“Man’s name is Sean Coyle,” the mayor said. “Irish fuck from Indiana. Feds swept him up last month in a sting. Seems the guy’s been buying up flophouses in Cicero and Berwyn for a dime on a dollar, burning them out, and collecting on the insurance.”

Wilson flicked his fingers toward the folder. “It’s all in there. Three or four dummy companies, couple of adjusters on the take. Guy even hired muscle to make sure none of the buyers got cold feet once he made his ‘offer.’”

“Let me guess,” I said, my voice tight and small. “Coyle was doing all this while he was involved with Rachel.”

The mayor nodded again toward the folder. “Coyle might have dropped her name in a couple of spots, but it doesn’t seem like she knew about any of this or was personally involved. We’re all hoping it stays that way. Feds are going to keep Coyle’s name out of the press. In return, he’s giving them the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“The muscle Coyle used came from Vinny DeLuca.”

“So the feds think Coyle’s operation was being run by the Outfit?”

Wilson shook his head. “Who can tell? But you know how it goes. Feds hear DeLuca, they want to take a look. Anyway, Coyle gets his deal and it all stays quiet.”

“Especially for the judge,” I said.

Wilson offered up a gaze that was prairie flat and just as interesting. “Just thought you’d want to know, Kelly.”

He didn’t need to tell me the rest. I was shaking the Wilson family tree, looking for connections to a fire that burned Chicago to the ground. If I somehow succeeded, somehow hurt the mayor or his own, the folder I held in my hands would find its way to someone like Fred Jacobs. And Rachel Swenson’s career on the bench would be over. I thought about the toll it might take on her personally. That seemed even worse.

“Thanks for the update, Mr. Mayor.”

“Not a problem. Like I said at the office, I like you. Want to keep you and your friends happy. Safe.”

I held up the folder. “Can I keep this?”

Wilson waved a hand. “Take it. That’s why I brought it here.”

“That it?”

“That’s it. Glad we found some time to chat.”

The mayor offered two fingers’ worth of handshake. I stepped out of the car and watched it slip from the curb. Then I took the folder back into Joe’s, ordered another beer, and thought things through. I didn’t like being on a hook with the Fifth Floor, even less when that hook had Rachel Swenson’s name on it. I drank some more beer and was about to get angry when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and then my watch. It was a little after eleven.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Kelly, it’s me.”

“Taylor?”

“You need to come. Right now.”

“Where are you?”

“You need to come now.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s here.”

“Put her on the phone.”

“I can’t, Mr. Kelly. Please.”

“Tell me where you are.”

Taylor did. I told her to stay there. Then I drank off the rest of my beer and headed out into the night.