“This is the back way in,” the woman said. “Over there is the front door.”
“Where the hell are we?”
“City hall basement.”
“And what’s with the van?”
“The vans drop us off at our various districts and then pick us up again.”
“Do you have a supervisor down here?”
The girl directed me around the corner to an office defined by two half walls of glass. Sitting at a desk I saw the package courier and the back of a man he spoke to. On the door was the name Dave Robertson. Robertson’s face told me he wasn’t happy. When his eye caught mine, the other man turned. At first, I didn’t recognize Jones’s sickly pale face, but he recognized me and bolted out of Robertson’s office.
I caught up with him just as he opened the door to the city hall corridor and grabbed the back of his shirt collar. He spun around and shoved me hard in the chest, knocking me to the hallway floor and then sat on top of me.
“What’s the matter with you!” he shouted. “You want to get me killed?”
Jones’s thumbs dug into my neck, pushing on my windpipe. The pain and vulnerability of this position was a new experience, as was the associated panic. I managed to turn my head enough to relieve some pressure, but he had my arms pinned down with his knees, and I soon felt the full force of his hands around my throat. The butt of my .40-caliber was wedged against his thigh. In a futile attempt to make some noise, I kicked the ground. Then Jones flew backward across the floor, scrambled to his feet, and sprinted down the hall.
I lay panting, looking up at Robertson’s extended hand.
“I think I know you,” he said as he pulled me up. “You got some bad blood with Jones?”
I coughed a few times. “Water,” I croaked, wondering if there were any more packages around full of cash.
Robertson led me back to his office and poured a glass of water. “On the elevator,” Robertson said nodding. “I remember the shiner.”
We sat in silence as I caught my breath between sips. I took one of his business cards off his desk and left one of my own. I said, “You’re not wondering what I’m doing here?”
“Got a parking question?” Robertson burst into hysterical laughter, just as he had on the elevator.
“What’s so funny?”
“I don’t know.” Robertson shrugged. “I should’ve asked you why Jones was choking you to death.”
“He would have killed me?”
“Probably. Guys all messed up on drugs do that kind of stuff.”
“Cocaine, I assume?”
“Yep. So how can I help you? Got a parking ticket?” More laughter.
“Why is the parking office hidden away like this?” I asked.
“Who’s hiding? You’re here. It’s a public building. The front door is always open. Anyone can come down here if they want.”
“If they figure out where the hell it is. Has Jones killed before?”
“Before when?” Slightly nervous laughter.
“You sure are a happy boy. Department of Revenue lots of laughs?”
“They take care of me. All I gotta do is sit in this office all day, watch over the crew, and let the public bitch at me on the phone. Not much to it, really.”
“Why is a guy all messed up on drugs working here?”
“Rich wasn’t always like that. We’re trying to help him, give him a chance to straighten out. That’s hard to do if we just kick his ass into the street.”
“From the look of him, he’s been introduced to the crack pipe. You think he can survive your straightening-out program?”
Robertson frowned as if I had insulted him. “You got a funny way of thanking me for dragging him off you.”
“I was thinking you owed me an apology, for this dangerous animal you created.”
“Rich’s problems ain’t my fault.”
“What’re you doing for his wife and kids?”
Robertson shook his head. “He don’t got no wife and kids. These guys say anything to get pity.”
“You think he killed the parking officer in Budlong Woods?”
“Killed Jack Gelashvili? Nah. They got along fine. Everyone got along with Jack.”
“Don’t you want to know what I was doing at Vector Solutions?”
Robertson shrugged. “What do I care what you’re doing? Ain’t none of my business.”
“What do you think of that private company—Windy City Meters—writing tickets?”
“There’s plenty of scofflaws to go around. Windy City does their thing; we do ours.”
“You guys don’t work together?”
“We got nothing to do with them. They’re private; we’re public.” Robertson stifled a laugh on the word “public.”
“I saw that well-executed maneuver by the armored car before you delivered the package to Konigson’s office.”
“Yeah, I’m good at that.”
“What do you know about Konigson?”
“Big bucks. Powerful. Knows a lot of people.”
“He’s tight with the Revenue boss, Elon. Your boss, right?”
“That’s what I hear.”
“How much cash was in that package?”
“Who said cash was in the package?”
This time I laughed. “What do you think was in it?”
“I couldn’t even guess, Detective Landau.” Robertson leaned back in his chair and rested his feet on top of the desk.
“Private investigator. Jones told you I’m investigating Jack’s death.”
“You got it. I was kind of expecting you.”
“Who do you think killed Jack?”
“I got no proof. Only hunches.”
“You want to share a hunch?”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re a nice guy.”
Robertson laughed. “Says who?”
“Were you shocked by his death?”
“Sure I was. He was a good man. But what do I know? He kept to himself—you know what I mean?”
I knew, but what did Dave Robertson know? “The cops’ prime suspect, Gordon Baxter, got a lot of parking tickets. Is that why he hated parking officers?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Getting towed would piss me off.”
“Pay your tickets and you won’t get towed. That’s all we ever ask.”
“You think he got pissed off enough to kill Jack?”
“That’s what the cops think.”
“Why did your office tow him so often?”
Robertson gave me an odd look. “Because he didn’t pay his tickets! I just said that.”
“Whose tickets did he not pay?”
Robertson straightened up in his chair. “What do you mean?”
“Baxter’s tickets were written by Windy City parking enforcement aides, who work for the private company you guys have nothing to do with. And how do you think he got parking tickets all over the North Side while his odometer stayed put?”
Robertson drummed his fingers on the desk. “Maybe it’s broken.”
“Nope. Checked out fine.” He didn’t challenge my lie.
“Here’s the thing, investigator. You assume just ’cause I work for Revenue, I know something. You know damn well the city’s a big machine. I’m just a little part. I need oil just like all the other parts. So when the boss tells me we’re gonna tow this car, we tow the car. I don’t ask why the city’s towing for a private company, I just do it. If I start asking questions, I don’t get no more oil. And when I break down, they’ll replace me. Where’s a guy like me gonna get a job that pays this well?”
“Here’s the thing, Robertson. Two innocent men are dead. One murdered, the other a phony suicide. If you have information you’re hiding, then you’re an accessory—”
“I got nothing to hide! Why do you think I’m talking to you? You asked me if I think Jones killed Jack and I said no. I never saw the package opened, so how do I know what’s in it?”
“How about
an envelope? Ever deliver envelopes full of cash?”
Robertson didn’t like that question. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know a cop who said you gave him an envelope full of cash to forget to keep an eye on a prime murder suspect named Gordon Baxter.”
“Bullshit! Any cop-snitch knows the guys upstairs would put the hurt on ’em.”
“The thing is, the more parts in a machine, the more likely it is to break down. It’s not realistic to expect all the parts to work properly all the time. Sometimes they start squeaking and break. Especially if they’re about to retire.”
Robertson stood up and walked to one of the glass walls. “What do you want to do, investigator? Take down the city?”
“Give me your opinion. How’s that sound? Elon had you deliver Department of Revenue cash to a cop so that Gordon Baxter could be properly framed for murder. The question is: why would the Department of Revenue boss want an immigrant parking officer dead?”
Robertson leaned against the glass and stared straight ahead while whistling. Then he said, “It just don’t make sense—Elon wanting Jack dead. What does he give a damn about parking officers? As long as they bring in revenue, he’s happy. It must’ve happened on someone else’s orders. That’s the only thing I can think of.”
“And a guy as powerful as Elon takes orders from who?”
“Jones told me he thought Jack had a connection to the Russian mob,” Robertson said.
“Jones told me he made that rumor up because it pissed him off that Jack and the other immigrant officers worked cheap. He said if he didn’t recruit immigrants, he would get fired. He thinks your bosses believed the rumor and tried to use him to get in good with the Russians. But Jack found out too much and they killed him.”
Robertson howled in disbelief. “You gotta be kidding! What a wacko. Sure, maybe we was trying to get immigrants to work cheap, but that had nothing to do with Jones. But I’m not so sure he wasn’t telling the truth about Jack and the Russkies. He has some personal experience with them boys.”
“Explain, please.”
“Jones started working for them—”
“Moving cocaine until he started snorting the goods. But what about Jack?”
“One time I said I didn’t think a guy like Jack could be involved with mobsters. So Jones gives me a picture of Jack with some fat baker. Jones says the bakery is mobbed up and the fat guy smuggles in illegal workers. I show the picture to someone else and he tells me not to worry about it—to just forget about it.”
“You still got the picture?”
Robertson rummaged through the top drawer of his desk until he found the photo and handed it over. In the photo Tamar’s boss stood in a rather defiant posture, hands on hips, scowling at the photographer. I wondered if the camera lens had shattered. Next to him stood the profile of someone who looked like Jack, apparently talking to the baker.
I said, “How do you know this guy is Russian mob?”
“Because my sources say so.”
Robertson said I could keep the picture. Maybe the fat baker paid protection money, but human smuggling? Robertson reminded me that his sources knew of what they spoke. I wondered what Tamar could tell me about her boss.
35
On the Brown Line heading back to my office, I tried to imagine the city, the mob, and the Republic Media Group conspiring to murder a parking officer. Too many big fish demanding too much in return for silence. Too many irresistible blackmailing opportunities.
Absorbed in thought as I ascended the third flight to my office, I almost didn’t notice Izzy leaning against the wall in his customary pose, arms folded tightly against his chest.
“You are deep in reflection,” Izzy said as I opened the door. “I see this as a good sign.”
I pretended to ignore him as I entered and sat behind my desk. Izzy remained on the landing. “How long have you been waiting?” I said, not looking up.
“Long enough,” Izzy said strolling in, hands engulfed by pockets. He took the guest chair. “Point is, I’m here, after all—and so are you.”
“As usual, well said.”
“You have much to tell me, I’m sure, and I refer not only to your black eye.”
I recapped the days since we last spoke. Izzy appeared to listen intently while leaning forward, elbows on knees, chin resting in hands. When I stopped talking, he remained in that position several moments longer. “Damn it!” I said. “Are you even listening?”
“I have something I want to show you.” Izzy took some folded sheets of paper from his back pocket, unfolded them and put them on the desk. “This will be published in tomorrow’s Partisan.”
Reluctantly, I reached for the pages. My stomach clenched as I saw an Ellis Knight byline with the title “When Gordon Baxter Went Off His Meds.”
As he did with my first murder case, Knight stretched the definition of journalism to include an omniscient narrator revealing the motivations of all involved, interspersing his fictional thoughts with rhetorical questions.
“Picture Farragut Avenue on the last day of Gordon Baxter’s life, where he sits on the bed in his basement studio apartment located in a four-story brick cube as ordinary as Baxter’s life is pointless, balancing his daily pill dispenser on his thigh, calmly deciding how many of the taupe pills he will swallow, little round tablets he assumes are the same meds that for most of his life have tamed the electrical forces crashing through his brain like a constant procession of suicide bombers. Picture Gordon Baxter, sans meds, a terrorist….”
Knight’s rambling narrative of facts affixed to conjecture and assumptions first told the story of an immigrant tragically colliding with a schizophrenic who periodically stopped taking his medication. The story appeared sympathetic to the official conclusion until Knight’s sudden ghetto slang about-face. “…But let’s break it down and quit buggin’, dig a little deeper, see there’s nothing but a busta-crew who don’t give a damn….”
While I read, Izzy rose from his chair, stood next to my desk, hands back in pockets, waiting for my reaction.
I said, “You’ve been feeding Knight information?”
Izzy shrugged. “So what of it?”
“Because you don’t show the world what cards you’re holding! Because then perpetrators cover their tracks!—wait a second. How the hell do you know Knight?”
“That you did not figure this out right away I find astonishing. At our first meeting I said the article in The Partisan had made me aware of your talents. Then a mangled corpse the authorities don’t care about shows up in my backyard. Who else would I trust to feel my outrage but the journalist who wrote that article?”
“Knight put you up to this. You’re paying me with his—”
“Knight put me up to nothing! We are partners in a common goal. The money is irrelevant and none of your business.”
I had trouble seeing two strange personalities like Knight and Izzy cooperating, regardless of the circumstances. “Knight gets his article, I get paid to solve another murder. Tell me again what’s in it for you?”
“How many times must I say this? Nothing is in it except to know why a man is dead, although now I can confirm that corporations and city machine politics have life-and-death control over us. That a man who knows too much is much feared and often dies prematurely.”
Izzy waited for a response. To escape his scrutinizing stare, I closed my eyes and massaged my eyebrows with the tips of my fingers while praying Izzy would leave. When I opened them again, there he stood, gazing at me with an expression of intense curiosity.
“Are we done?” I said.
He remained looking at me several more seconds before taking something from his breast pocket. “Here,” he said handing me an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Twenty-five hundred,” he said. “A balance of twenty-five hundred remains.” Without another word, Izzy walked out.
36
The key had barely touched the lock when the doo
r pushed open to reveal the wreckage of what had been my couch, coffee table, bookcases, and contents of the kitchen cabinets and drawers. My bedroom had suffered the same fate, with the addition of dried blood smeared across the floor.
I called Punim’s name repeatedly while piling up the pieces and tried to prepare myself for her body when I turned over the larger chunks of debris. After the dread had welled up through my abdomen and stuck in my throat, I sat on the floor and leaned back against the wall opposite my opened door. It was times like these when one appreciated friends. I thought of calling Tamar, but fear of sounding vulnerable to a woman I had just slept with stopped me.
I shouted for Punim a few more times and then thought of what Tamar had said three nights ago while cooking dinner: how I was without family, without blood relations. Two nights ago she had described feeling so alone just standing next to me and said that I exuded loneliness. I wondered if Frownie sensed a pathetic lonesomeness or even thought of me as forsaken somehow. I wanted to ask him, and it hit me hard that I would never ask him anything again. Tears spilled out of my eyes. Punim, my roommate, my house companion, was missing. Just ten pounds covered in cottony fur, a living, breathing being who acknowledged my existence, if only by her choice to stay with me, had met with violence of an unknown nature. Why? Because my cash was in a safe deposit box instead of a shoebox? Because destroying my apartment wasn’t enough? Then the sobbing began, slow at first but gradually engulfing me in loud, heaving convulsions, turning me into someone I had never met. Who was this boy sitting on the floor, alone, feeling as if the world had deserted him?
A black-and-white cat sat calmly watching me from the space between the wall and the edge of the opened front door. Instantly, my grief subsided. I crawled toward her and she allowed me to pick her up and run my hands over her body. I found no signs of trauma nor did she react as if injured, although I did notice the white tips of her paws were stained pink and a crusty substance resembling dried blood stuck to her claws. I put her down and watched as she began meticulously cleaning herself. My furry friend had made sure the perpetrator had not escaped unscathed and, perhaps, had even been scarred for life.
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