by Thomas Laird
I walk up to the security man.
“Can I help you?” he says.
“I was just wondering if Pete Parisi lives here.”
“Yeah, he does. What can I help you with?”
The security man looks ex-military to me, like he knows how to handle himself. But he’s not armed, that I can see, unless he’s got a holster at his ankles, under the pants. Apparently Parisi doesn’t want his help to appear obviously heeled.
“This is private property, pal. If you have no business here, you need to move on.”
“I just heard about the house, how big it is. It’s beautiful. I’m from Iowa, and we don’t build ‘em like this out in the cornfields.”
The guard doesn’t see the humor.
“I won’t take anymore of your time.” I smile at him.
Then I walk back to the car, start it up, and drive down the street. None of the other houses remotely resembles the splendor that Pete Parisi enjoys in his manor.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to get inside all that acreage and see for myself if Tommy Costello lurks within a castle in the middle of an upper middle-class hood that houses a murdering greaseball who’s just like his counterpart from San Francisco.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Chicago, 1985
His name is Ben Marquand, and he says he has information about the man who’s been knocking off all those soldiers. He works as a security guard for Pete Parisi, and I immediately wonder why Parisi’s employee is calling the cops and why this Marquand didn’t just pop Evan Azrael at the entry gate where this security hire-a-cop was working yesterday.
Doc and I are seated across from Marquand in one of our interview rooms on the third floor. We don’t call them interrogation rooms because the movies and TV make these cubicles sound like rooms Torquemada would’ve employed to put bamboo shoots under the interviewee’s fingernails. ‘Interview’ sounds more business friendly, Doc claims.
He’s a medium-sized man with a lean look. He might be just under six feet tall, and he right away reminds me of the five ex-Rangers who Azrael put under—and of Azrael himself. He looks like he could’ve been Special Forces, and so I ask him.
“Military?”
“Yeah.”
“Which arm?”
“Marines.”
“Ever do any wet work as a sniper?” Doc asks him.
“A little.”
“You’re not much with embellishment, no?”
Marquand smiles blandly.
“I just wanted you to know that I saw someone who fits the description of the man who supposedly clipped those five GIs.”
“Who helped you to arrive at all this forthcoming?” I ask.
“My boss.”
“Pete Parisi,” Doc adds.
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t be here otherwise?” Doc asks.
“No, I don’t suppose I would be.”
“No sense of civic pride?” Doc smiles.
“You want something to drink?” I ask Marquand.
He shakes his head. Then I show him the photograph that the Army supplied of Evan Azrael—without the disguises or the hair or the cosmetics.
He studies it carefully.
“He had a scar over his right eyebrow,” the security man states.
“Why didn’t you take him yourself?” Doc inquires.
“Because it isn’t my job to start firefights at the gate. I’m just supposed to keep them off the grounds.”
“You know who Tommy Costello is?” I ask.
“I’ve heard of him. He’s a gangster from the West Coast, isn’t he?”
The man shows us a blank face. No recognition, no twitch, no anything. No tell.
“You know this is a homicide investigation and that withholding evidence, in this case lying to us, might land you in the clink,” Doc suggests.
“What evidence might that be?” Marquand replies.
“That, maybe, Tommy Costello is a guest at your employer’s estate?” I tell him.
“I have no idea who Mr. Parisi has over at his place, and he doesn’t share that information with me unless I need to know so I can let them come and go.”
“Azrael killed five ex-Rangers,” Doc continues. “I know you said you were a Marine, but they really were your brothers in arms. Same war you all fought, wasn’t it, Vietnam?”
“I never felt much kinship with anyone. Maybe out in the field or in the jungle or in some firefight, but I mostly looked out for my own ass, and I still do.”
“Have you seen Tommy Costello on Parisi’s premises?” I ask.
“Funny,” Marquand answers.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“Pete has the same last name as you do.”
Marquand finally breaks out with a diminutive grin. Then his face goes back to blank, unreadable. He’s been taught how to withstand interrogations—or interviews, as we call them.
“Yeah, he’s my cousin,” I tell him. “Maybe the next time I see him I’ll tell him how cooperative you were. He obviously wants us to find Azrael. Isn’t that why you said you were here?”
“I told you everything I know, everything I saw.”
“What was he driving?” Doc asks.
“He had some old Chevy parked across the street. I watched him walk back to it and start it up and leave.”
“You make the license plates?” Doc goes on.
“No. He was too far down the block. I’d say it was late seventies, dark green. A beater.”
“One last time, Mr. Marquand. Any visitors from San Francisco on the grounds at Pete’s place?” I conclude.
He doesn’t answer.
“We done, now?” he finally asks.
*
We put out the description of the car and we add the description of Azrael that Marquand gave us. There’s no way of knowing exactly where he is in the city or if he’s in the city at all, but we’ve got a new official release that ought to give the guys in the cop rides a reason to become a lot more vigilant. He’s here, we know, and he won’t linger. He’ll be after Costello and it’s likely that Pete has the West Coast goombah in one of his properties. We set up surveillance on Pete’s Oakbrook mansion, twenty-four seven, so Tommy’s not going in or out. And Doc went down to the office of titles to see the description of my cousin’s big house, and nothing says he’s got underground tunnels coming in and out of the place, so we don’t suppose he’s got any Count of Monte Cristo tricks going on.
If Tommy’s in there, he’s stuck inside, and if Azrael wants to take a crack at assaulting the place to get at Costello, there are cops outside and Pete’s Outfit gunmen inside, not to mention the ex-Marine at the gate. I have a feeling that Marquand was no ordinary member of the Crotch. They have guys who do special deeds for them, but they don’t get the publicity that an ordinary combat soldier in the Marines gets. They have quiet killers who do things that aren’t meant for the media. The Seals are the most famous of their elite troops, but the landlocked grunts are just as deadly as the Navy specialists.
If Marquand is working for Pete, he’s got special credentials, I’m supposing. He could’ve placed one of his brainless street guys at that post in front of the manor, but my cousin is brighter than that. He’s likely paying big bucks for the best there is, and those elite ex-military are in high demand as security specialists.
We asked Marquand before we sat him down if he was licensed to carry firearms, and he casually flashed the correct, legal paperwork at us. I knew then that he was no ordinary hired help. He was too professional, too clever. Street hoods give you attitude that is unmistakably their own. You can tell an Outfit greaser from a great distance, the way they dress and talk, the way they carry themselves physically. The body language is uniquely Outfit.
Marquand isn’t a blood member of the tribe. He’s an outsider, an associate, but he’s expensive. He has unique talents. That’s why he didn’t get ruffled when Doc baited him. Pete sent him to us so we’ll get Azrael before his people
have to, and killing a civilian, whether he’s an outlaw or not, is bad business. There’s too much publicity, and Pete would rather not get his picture in the newspapers again, nor would he enjoy media exposure on television.
If Costello isn’t in the Oakbrook castle, then Pete knows where he is. So Doc and I ask the Captain to ask a judge for a tap on my cousin’s phones. We go to the phone company to see what other numbers come under his name, and there are fourteen, including all his titty bars and other “businesses.” The taps will take twenty-four hours to be completely installed, so the search for Costello and Azrael will be a matter of eyeballs on the street until the electronics are up and working.
*
We drive over to Steven James’ residence again, and we hear from Steven that his lady love is living with him. He’s still in the Academy, and graduation won’t be until June. This is late March. Two weeks have passed since the security guard talked to Doc and me. His apartment now reflects a feminine presence. His ex-therapist has worked her magic on him, and it looks good. James smiles more often while we talk to him, and his fiancée comes in and lays out a tray with coffee and cookies. I’m not a coffee drinker, but Doc takes a cup. I leave the cookies alone because I’ve gained seven pounds since Rita broke it off with me. Probably it’s an instant gratification thing, since we came apart.
We sit in the living room, the three of us. The fiancée is doing something or other in the kitchen of their apartment.
“You wouldn’t want to think about going somewhere until we catch Azrael, would you?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“I’ve got graduation in a few months, and I’m going through with it. I’ve come too far to break it off. And we’re getting married in June after the Academy graduation. We’re settled in here, Jimmy. It won’t make any difference where I live. He hunted down the other five without much trouble.”
“We’ve still got surveillance on you twenty-four hours daily,” Doc says.
“You better catch him quick, then. I already heard how money comes into play when someone’s being watched over, like me. And I don’t think you guys offer a witness protection thing because I’m not really a witness. The only thing I did witness was the reason Azrael’s after me in the first place.”
“You should be okay,” I tell him. “We’re counting on the fact that he’s a lot hotter for Tommy than he is for you. And it’s been so long since he nailed McIntosh and the others… But who knows what he’s really thinking.”
Steven takes a sip of his lady’s coffee.
“He was always odd—the way I told you a long time ago, Jimmy. Azrael never got close, never allowed himself to. The only thing I remember him telling me in confidence was that stuff about his old man and Iwo Jima. I figured Azrael thought he was unworthy or some shit, and that complex or whatever forced him into becoming a Ranger. You know, just to show the old man. Then he saw us waste that little village and he snapped, I guess, and when he came back to our Outfit, he just boogied out into the jungle, like as if he expected a tiger to eat him up. Maybe he just thought the goddam jungle would devour him.”
“It doesn’t matter much what reason or reasons he has for going after all of you,” I say.
I break down and grab a cookie. I can hear her shuffling something out in the kitchen, and I remember the way it was when Erin was alive and when I’d just watch her move around doing something or other in the house. I used to enjoy it when she’d be swallowed up in some task and then suddenly a wisp of hair would fall onto her face and she’d try to blow it away with a puff of breath.
“It’s past all understanding, I suppose. Who the hell knows why he decided to become judge and jury over you. Who knows why he started doing hits for the Costellos. He could’ve just left the war, could’ve just come home after his tour and done anything else. What makes one guy crack and another guy learn to slide it back down inside himself, way deep, where it only comes out to haunt you when you’re asleep.”
Doc looks over at me and smiles.
“You have a piece, I assume?” my partner asks James.
James nods his assent.
“Keep it loaded,” Doc tells him, and then he stands up.
“Thanks for all the hospitality. Just keep your eyes open. We’ll keep on watching long enough to haul Azrael in. Your war’s over, and his is going to be, soon.” I smile at him.
*
“Jimmy. How are you? I mean, really?”
We’re sitting within the confines of the Home of the Sliders, White Castle. It’s yet another midnights’ shift, the worst shift of the three. Any factory worker, hell, anyone who works three different tours of labor will tell you the same thing. You never know what time it is, even if you’re wearing a wristwatch or if you’re sitting under a clock. There’s a timelessness to it, almost like being in a Southeast Asian rainforest where there is always and only one season—until the monsoons arrive.
“Not so good,” I admit.
“Because Azrael and Tommy Costello elude us?” He smiles tiredly. “How many of these pieces of crap have remained just beyond our fingertips before? Can you even assign them a number?”
“It isn’t just the two of them.”
“Is it this Rita you were seeing?”
I nod at him.
“Turn the page. You have to.”
“I know. But she’s not the only page in this.”
“I know it hurts to lose your wife. I mean I never had one die on me, so I don’t have the history to know exactly the way you feel. But losing people is losing people. Even if they drift off on you, it eats at you like that cancer that ate up Erin. It takes away what you used to have, and those missing pieces don’t grow back. Jimmy, shit. I wish I had some real pearls for you, but I’m all out. Loss is part of this, and there it is.”
“Yeah, there it is.”
The sandy-haired young woman who has to go six-two and who sports light-brown freckles on her face in contrast to the pale yellow mop she sports on top brings us our requisite half-dozen cheesesliders, my Coke, and Doc’s coffee.
We look down at our order, but neither of us goes for the burgers or the drinks. We’re sitting in a booth in an empty fast-food restaurant at four-fifteen in the morning and it’s drizzling again, and the only good news on this late March morning is that the temperature outside is forty-six degrees and that means no goddam ice. We’re several days into official spring, but you’d never know it by looking outside the window next to us.
The Cubs and the Sox are supposed to play their openers in a little over a week, and they’re still forecasting freezing rain tomorrow and for the day after.
We finally figure the food’s getting cold, so we reach down and grab our poison.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lyons, Illinois, 1985
My face is getting too well known at this motel where I’ve been staying for three days now, so it’s time to move again. I can’t get near Pete Parisi’s place in Oakbrook because I know the Italians will be all over the grounds and the police will be watching the streets around his grand manor. There’s no way I can work myself through all that manpower, so if I want to get Costello, I’m going to have to endure until I figure Tommy’s bored enough and until he feels secure enough to venture out from his guardian black angel, Parisi.
I can’t stay here, and I can’t hang onto the ride that got me here from San Francisco. The guard at Parisi’s certainly saw the model and color and make, so the police will be looking for my temporary ride. I’ve got to ditch it immediately, so I grab all my belongings and my one weapon, the .22, and I go out to the Chevy and take off for a remote little ‘burb called Orland Park.
It’s growing, this suburb, but it’s still out in the weeds, far southwest of the city line. When I get to 149th and LaGrange Road, I see a dink-assed used car lot, and I look around on the lot until a salesman sees me. I can see he’s not much impressed by my blue jeans and my Grateful Dead tee shirt, but when I tell the balding, short, fat
man that I’m carrying cash, he seems to brighten to his task of screwing me as much as he possibly can.
I’m in no position to barter with this fat little loser, but I’m not going to let him screw me as bad as he thinks he’s going to. I see a Ford Fairlane—white, an old man’s ride—and I offer him the Chevy and five hundred. The sticker on the Ford says a grand. He counters with my car and eight hundred, so I smile and let him have his small victory for today.
I drive off the lot in the white Fairlane, and the license and title have my newest name, Matt Carson, on the papers. Greenberg’s IDs are always first rate. I never get an argument with them.
I stop at a gas station on the corner opposite the car lot, and I pick up one of those little town newspapers and I search in the apartments’ section. I find something not six blocks from here—I know the location of the apartment building because I ask the gas jockey where it is.
There are fast-food places on the stretch of LaGrange Road on the next six blocks, and then I’m supposed to turn right and go to 155th and Highland Avenue, where the apartment building is. I notice the restaurants because they’ll be convenient from where I’m hoping to stay.
The manager of the three flat building lives on the bottom floor, and it’s a fifty something woman who looks like she’s still got mileage left on her. She has honey-blonde hair and an impressive set of headlights. The breasts are outstanding because she’s not at all overweight. As I say, she’s well preserved, and the only telltale marks on her are the lines, the striations, on her face. But that’s just telling me the wine, like the woman, is still prime.
I ask her how much she wants, and she says the top-floor apartment goes for $550 a month. It sounds more than reasonable to me, so I take five hundreds and a fifty out of my wallet, and now the busty blonde is a bit more impressed with me.
We’re standing in her living room. She never got around to asking me to sit. I figure her initial reaction to me was that I was some dirty-assed hillbilly who’d try to float a bad check at her for the upstairs flat, but now that I threw the green her way, all my sins are apparently forgiven. She even begins to look me squarely in the eye when she talks to me.
