Chi-Town Blues

by D. J. Herda

  “Hey, wait a minute!”

  She turned back and raised her brows.

  “You never did tell me what we were celebrating last night. Remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right.” She crossed the kitchen and led me back into the bedroom where she maneuvered me onto the bed, opened her mouth, and slipped her tongue between my lips. I let out an instinctive groan as she ran her hand across my shorts. “I got a promotion at the bank. And a raise. I start training for my new job Monday morning. Isn’t that incredible?”

  “Wow. Yeah,” I said, reaching out, swiping at her and coming up with an armful of air. She blew me a kiss—actually blew me a fucking kiss, can you believe it?—and turned toward the door. “Hey!” I called as she reached for the knob. “What new job?”

  “Oh. Meet the bank’s new analyst for Internal Affairs. Security Division.”

  The rest of that day, Saturday, was just exactly perfect. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Prayed for anything more. I was now the proud diddler of the bank’s new security officer. Suffice it to say I did not go easy into the night. I couldn’t take my mind off her for a moment. And it wasn’t good. Was her promotion at the bank just a coincidence? Was she just kidding around with that Internal Affairs Security Division stuff? If so, why, how? That would have meant she’d found out about my scheme and was toying with me, seeing how far she could string me along before dropping the big one. Whatever that might turn out to be.

  But why would she go to all that trouble instead of just confronting me? Just laying everything right on the line?

  To cut herself in on the deal, I thought. That’s why. To rattle my cage just enough to make me feel I had to take her in as a partner. As if I have no choice.

  But what would have been so wrong with that? I’d already considered the idea of inviting her along with me. Mexico was a big, cold, strange place on your own. Two people together would make it a lot cozier. What difference did it make who thought of it first ... or how much she may have learned about what I was up to?

  And then that possibility played a number on me. Because if she has figured it out, just how perfect a plan could it be, and how long would it take before someone else at the bank figured it out, someone who hadn’t just fucked my brains out, someone who maybe had a solid reason for whistleblowing on me? Someone else with Internal Affairs?

  And then I realized I was being foolish. She couldn’t have known what I was up to, she couldn’t have. Even if she’d gone into the computer room right after I’d left and somehow managed to check out what I’d been up to, she couldn’t possibly have found out anything that would have tipped her off. Sure, she might have noticed Mrs. M.’s change of address, but that would have been highly unlikely. And even if she had, so what? Even if she saw the old lady’s new identification card, how could that tie me to anything out of the ordinary?

  No. No. It was all just a coincidence. She’d been working at the bank longer than I had. She was probably just due for a promotion and a raise, and Internal Affairs just happened to be the next available position. Internal Affairs’ Security Analyst. Big fucking deal. So she was a trainee. Starting Monday. No, that’s not why she asked me to dinner and then came back to my apartment to fuck my brains out. That wasn’t the reason at all.

  But, then, what was? How could someone I’d seen nearly every day of my life for the past six months suddenly come steamrolling along, panting after me like there was no tomorrow? And why last night of all nights? What was it about last night? Why hadn’t she made her move sooner? Why wait until after I’d pulled the I.D. switch? Another coincidence?

  And how was it that she handled herself as if she’d planned everything in advance to be absolutely perfect? Everything she did, everything she said. All rehearsed. Thought out. Ordained.

  Are you kidding me? If she’d been a German Panzer tank during World War II, the allies would still be fighting to liberate Europe.

  Yes, I’d hit upon something. She knew. Exactly what she knew, I wasn’t sure. But whatever it was, it was too much for my own good. Unless I took her in on it with me. That was a possibility. But if she decided not to come along, then what? It would be like a signed confession. “I, Mr. Joseph Darling, do hereby confess to attempting to swindle Mrs. Josephine Martinowicz out of her entire life’s savings and would have done so, too, except for my own stupidity.”

  She had to know. She just had to.

  But, no, I decided. She couldn’t possibly. I’d been too careful, too cautious. I’d planned out everything down to the tiniest detail. It would be impossible for her to know. I was being paranoid. She was who she was, period. No pretense, no illusion.

  So, by the time Saturday evening rolled around, I’d pretty much run all my wildest fantasies through the wringer and put my suspicions to bed. There was no conspiracy, there was no advanced knowledge. There was only us. Just the two of us. It was kismet or something. Just one of those things that happens, just one of those crazy, incredible, unfathomable, inexplicable, intoxicating, mesmerizing, infatuating, mind-boggling things.

  Damn!

  I sank into an old, tattered chaise lounge that had been making people squirm uncomfortably since 1822 and switched on a lamp by my side. Quarter to six. The last rays of the sun slipped behind the brownstones lining the street across from my new digs. And as I picked up the pair of panties I had placed next to me, I sniffed them once more, reliving a night I’d not known for a long, long time.

  As in forever.

  I hoisted my attaché case onto my lap and opened it. From an inside pocket, I removed the stack of withdrawal slips. In the open space marked, "Amount Withdrawn," I carefully printed the figure, $9,000 on one of them and tucked the rest back inside the case. It was not an arbitrary amount, nine grand. I knew from experience that withdrawals of $10,000 or more triggered a teller to fill out a Federal Transfer Form before the withdrawal could be authorized. Federal forms meant more bank scrutiny, more bank signatures, and more bank witnesses—none of whom I was particularly anxious to invite to the party.

  Moving my pen across the slip, I stopped at the space marked "Address" just above the signature line. I printed "Six Playa del Real, Acapulco, Mexico." I checked the box marked "Non-cancellable Bank Transfer," slipped the paper into a pre-addressed and stamped envelope, and sealed it. Within a few days, I would be nine thousand dollars richer. Within two weeks ... well, it was easy enough to calculate. I could probably have grabbed it all, drained the old lady’s account, and left her with nothing, but there was no sense in being greedy. Besides, I didn’t have anything against her personally. But, when my ex and I had split, the bitch had left me with a headful of erotic memories and a handful of debt. No, I was going to stick to my plan and take just enough to allow me to live the way I’d hoped to grow accustomed to living for the rest of my life. Give or take a year or two. And if that meant spending the rest of that life as an ex-pat in a foreign land, so be it.

  When I had first gone to work at the bank as an assistant vice president, I was clearing $500 a week. Which, you understand, is not horrible. But, with eight other full- and two part-time officers on the payroll, advances were sure to be slow ... if they came at all. And I am not big on spending my days rusting in the rain.

  The idea of running a grift on Mrs. Martinowicz had come only after I'd told her where I worked. Why, that's where I bank, she said. On a hunch, I followed up. Now, that alone wasn't enough to stir me to action. But, when I found out the old lady was a widow with no family in the world that she knew of, I would have been a fool to let it ride. After all, at 76 years of age, her days were numbered. She’d never spend all that money. And who better to benefit from her financial fortunes than her darling new tenant, Mr. Joseph? Her cat?

  So, I slipped on my coat and hat and went outside to the mailbox. I felt like kissing the envelope goodbye before dropping it through the slot but instead slipped it into the hole like any average person mailing a check to the telephone company or paying of
f his bookie.

  By Monday morning, the bank would receive the withdrawal slip and run it through the computer. The giant machine would shoot a shower of sparks around the room before determining that there was more than enough cash on account to cover the withdrawal.

  Next, the slip would be routed to Internal Security, where someone—maybe even Marge—would run the paper through the scanner to compare the signature line to the one on file. The two "J. Martinowicz" lines would be identical—I had made sure of that.

  Finally, the slip would wend its way to Auditing, where a non-cancellable bank draft for $9,000 would be issued to the account holder and the funds, transferred to a bank account I had opened in the name of “J. Martinowicz in Acapulco. Once I received word that the money had arrived and been deposited in my account, I’d be ready for the next test, a transaction transferring $270,000 to Margaritaville. I'd over-ridden the computer's log so that monthly statements would no longer go to Maple Street but instead to Acapulco, where Mrs. Martinowicz had recently purchased a retirement villa and planned to relocate permanently.

  Meet Mrs. Martinowicz.

  Of course, such a significant transaction would trigger the Federal Funds Transferal Act and require a form be filled out and signed by Mrs. Martinowicz in the presence of an officer of the bank before that officer mailed a copy of it to the Feds for their records.

  Meet an officer of the bank.

  I mean, why leave such a mundane, time-consuming task to someone as old and slow-witted as Mrs. Martinowicz when I could save her the effort. I hate seeing old people exposed to undue duress. I really do.

  As soon as I received word that my Mexican account was swollen to the tune of more than a quarter million dollars, I’d pack up my gear and hop a plane for the land of milk and honey. Or cervezas and senoritas.

  Whatever.

  By then, I'd have an account tipping nearly $280,000 before Mrs. Martinowicz ever woke up and smelled the kolachki and realized something had gone wrong. By then, I’d be hell and gone from my Maple Street digs, from the bank, and from the good ol’ U.S. of A.

  And Mexico, I was careful to have checked in advance, has no extradition treaty with the United States for any crime short of murder.

  So, as evening pooled its resources, I girded myself against the onset of one more Saturday night alone in Chi-Town. I walked down the street, turning north on Rush where I let my eyes feast on the full-color girlie-show placards and the flashing neon lights of the strip bars and the black-and-white cutouts outside the blues clubs, each of the buildings dark and depressing on the outside and blazing on the inside with only God knew what. I stopped only once to chat briefly with Fat Max, who worked for one of the nudie dance clubs as a "grabber."

  "Hey, man. Doncha be walkin' on by like dat. Don' you know what beautiful dings is wigglin' an' a-wrigglin' just inside dees doe? Come on, my main man. Gib yoself a treat, Homes. No cover, no 'mishon. Jes you an' duh li'l ladies doin' what cum natchel, dig?"

  I dug, smiled, and slipped him a buck, I don't know why, and then I wandered on down toward State Street and a small burger joint I'd visited a couple times before. It wasn't exactly what I had a taste for. But with less than a hundred bucks and a one-way ticket to Acapulco in my billfold, it would have to do.

  And then, before I realized it, it was Sunday. And there she was, just as she’d said she’d be. She was wearing neatly pressed white slacks, appropriately scuffed tennies, and a white linen shirt that did little to conceal the fact that she was braless. A red, white, and blue nautical belt and expensive-looking earrings completed the ensemble. I felt myself begin to pant and regretted the fact that we weren’t alone.

  “Hey,” she said. “Right on time.”

  “Hi. You look fantastic.”

  “You, too. Here,” she said reaching down to the chair next to her. “I brought you something.”

  “You did? What?”

  She grabbed a Sunday paper, still unopened. “Chicago Tribune.”

  I laughed. “So I see.”

  “Don’t laugh. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to bring the Trib or the Sun-Times. But I finally figured you for a broadsheet man.”

  “And just how did you come to that conclusion?”

  She thought for several seconds. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  I smiled and reached out to squeeze her hand. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  She laughed, loud and guttural. “I just knew someone hung like you could never be a tabloid man. I’ll bet you like to look beneath the fold, too.” She laughed again, loud enough so that several people turned to look. She lowered her voice. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” I stretched my palm toward hers and peered into two eyes peering back. “God, I missed you.”

  She paused only briefly. “Me, too.”

  I took a feigned breath. “So, how was your lesson?”

  She cocked her head. “What lesson?”

  “Your tennis lesson. Yesterday morning.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t go?”

  She squeezed my hand tighter. “Yes, I went. But I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think of anything but you.” She leaned forward, her nipples straining against the cool thinness of the fabric, my organ struggling to keep pace.

  “Oh, my God,” I said softly.

  “What?” she asked, tilting her head toward me.

  “This could get complicated.”

  “I think it already has.”

  I paused, breathed in and out for real this time, and shook my head. “If only you knew.”

  We spent the rest of the morning wandering the crypts of the museum, stopping for lunch at Terzo Piano and topping it off with a chocolate truffle tart and espresso. If breakfast hadn’t turned the trick, lunch had.

  “Did you know,” she said, leaning into me with her most conspiratorial tone, “that Pissarro was an Impressionist until he transformed himself into a Neo-Impressionist at the age of 54?”

  “No.”

  “It’s true. He was so brilliant, Cezanne regarded him as a father figure; Gauguin referred to him as a genius. Even Renoir claimed he was a genuine artistic revolutionary, which is true. Of course, he studied under Seurat, Signac, and the other great Impressionists of the time and took the best of each of their techniques to weave into his own artistic tapestry.”

  I stared at her half amused, the other half stunned.

  “I just thought of it,” she said, running her finger across her plate and painting a layer of chocolate across her lips, “because of Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte. You remember the huge painting? The one he created using pointillism?”

  By the time we got up to leave, I was overwhelmed. What set out as little more than a devastatingly stunning woman with a vivacious sexual libido had turned out to be a walking enigma of science, history, art, and only God knew what else. Who would have guessed?

  We caught a cab back to Francie’s to retrieve our cars, and I followed her to her brownstone on North Wellington. After nuzzling with her in the kitchen, she opened a bottle of Rioja, and we made love for the rest of the afternoon to a backdrop of Bogie and Bacall. As the darker side of midnight crept upon us, I knew I was in trouble.

  All the way home, I kept replaying in my mind my questions to her. Why? Why now? Why us?

  And replaying her replies.

  “It just wasn’t right before. I was involved with someone else. It’s against bank policy. I didn’t want to get hurt.”

  And when I reminded her that, if anyone saw us out together, she could still lose her job, she said she’d risk it.

  That’s when I knew.

  The next few days were excruciating, like being in a candy store owned by your dentist. Marge spent all day working her main job and breaking in another girl while training for her new position at night. A few telltale smiles here and there, a sexy glance now and again, but no touching, little talking, nothing to tip anyone off to anything seri
ous going on between us.

  I understood. Pretty much. I mean, it wasn’t only our jobs at stake. If anyone found out I was planning on taking off for good and bringing her along, my entire world would come crashing down around us.

  Me.

  By the time the following Thursday evening unveiled itself, I was a frayed bungee cord ready to snap. My stomach turned cartwheels. My head whirred.

  Nerves. Or maybe that fucking Philly cheesesteak sandwich with those greasy fries I inhaled for lunch.

  Either way, I couldn’t let it slow me down. I had less than twenty-four hours to finish stuffing my suitcase with everything I owned in the world, catch some shuteye, and grab a cab out to O'Hare for my flight in the morning. Then, just four hours later, I'd be home free.

  And then the thought struck me. How? How would I be home free? And home where? In Acapulco? Without her? I could still invite her, of course. Maybe afterward. Maybe a couple of weeks later. Or a month or two. Once all the dirt that was bound to blow up had died down. But a month or two without her ...

  And then another thought struck me. Why not just stay put. Don’t go anywhere. Get the money back from Mexico and replace it in the account. Make it look as if it had never left. I had the know-how and the opportunity to do it.

  I couldn’t believe what I was thinking. My perfectly crafted plan was unraveling like a giant ball of twine. What had started as a lark had turned into a nightmare. The harmless little theft of a few thousand dollars that no one would miss had suddenly become my life flushed right down the toilet.

  Could I give her up? I mean, if I told her I wanted her to join me and she said no? Could I go ahead with my plans anyway? Would I be able to function without her in my life? Could I be really satisfied alone?

  Damn straight I could! I didn’t plan this thing for the past two months only to watch it all wash down the drain because of some sexy little skirt, some empty-headed dame with more cutes than common sense who can turn me on with the flash of a smile. Uh-uh. No way, mister. Get over it.