In the law firm office, a receptionist in a tight wool dress and thick-framed glasses took Kelson’s name and asked him to wait. The classical music piping into the room reminded him of doctor offices he’d visited since getting shot, and he said, ‘I don’t like needles.’
As if he’d spoken perfectly sensibly, the receptionist said, ‘Me either.’
Ten minutes later, a short-haired man in a navy-blue suit came from a door behind the reception desk, smiled like an old friend, and said, ‘Mr Kelson?’
They went back to a windowless interior room, lighted by a row of fluorescent bulbs. When Kelson was still a cop, he sometimes put suspects in a room like this and left them until they became jittery, but the lawyer seemed at ease and interested in making Kelson feel at ease too. He offered him a chair and, when Kelson took it, sat across from him and folded his fingers over his belly. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
‘I killed one of your former clients,’ Kelson said.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Sure. You’re Sam Kelson. Ex-narcotics cop. Recently in the news again for a variety of incidents. You met Alejandro Rodriguez in tragic circumstances.’
‘That’s me. Tragic.’
‘For Alejandro at least.’
‘I’m hoping you can give me some information about him.’
‘I thought perhaps you wished to hire me to handle your recent troubles. If so, I would need to turn you down. Conflict of interest.’
‘Because of Bicho?’
‘Alejandro, yes. And an ongoing relationship with family members.’
‘That’s what I’d like to hear about. His family. Especially any funny uncles.’
The lawyer didn’t quite laugh at Kelson. ‘I work for them. I can’t divulge anything.’
‘Not even who they are?’
‘I would consider that a breach, as would they.’
‘I understand his mother’s dead.’
‘That’s true.’
‘And his father too?’
‘OD’d a year before the mother died,’ Chalmers said.
‘So it’s just the uncle and a grandmother.’
He smiled instead of answering. ‘May I ask why Alejandro’s relatives interest you? Are you considering legal action against them?’
‘No, I’m worried they’re trying to rip me apart.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘They’re part of a small circle who might do it. Them and a midget named Hugo Nuñez and a pretty redhead.’
‘I can’t pretend to understand what you’re talking about,’ Chalmers said. ‘But I assure you that Alejandro’s relatives are upstanding members of the community. I believe you would respect them.’
‘I would feel better if I could check them out myself. I’ll trade you.’
‘Pardon me?’
Kelson said, ‘I’ll give you information about Bicho’s death if you’ll tell me the relatives’ names.’
‘I don’t work that way.’
Kelson said it anyhow. ‘I might have shot Bicho first. Before he shot me. That part of my memory is gone.’
The lawyer nodded. ‘I’ve heard the rumors.’
‘You shouldn’t have. It’s whisper-whisper – and only around people involved in the investigation.’
‘Whenever there’s a police-involved shooting, there’re rumors,’ the lawyer said. ‘People wonder, did the cop really sense immediate, life-threatening danger? Did the victim really own the gun found on his body? Or, in your case, did the boy really shoot first? But may I ask another question – perhaps a sensitive one? Are you getting help? Therapy?’
‘Once a week,’ Kelson said. ‘Twice if I need it.’
The lawyer kept his fingers laced over his belly. ‘You should consider taking advantage of everything they make available to you.’
On his way out, Kelson stopped at the receptionist’s desk. ‘Can you tell me his hourly rate?’ he asked. When she told him, he said, ‘That’s a lot for this neighborhood. Does he do pro bono?’
‘You know how you feel about needles?’ she said. ‘That’s how he feels about giving work away for free.’
THIRTY-FOUR
‘The guy’s a creep,’ Kelson told his rearview mirror when he got back in his car. ‘A cartoon lawyer. Stick him on a platform between a plastic elephant and a conquistador and putt golf balls under his scrotum.’ The man in the mirror looked back and said, ‘He’s just doing his job.’ Kelson laughed at the man – ‘Said the executioner.’
So he drove back to his office and spent the rest of the afternoon at his computer, searching for a Sioux City girl named Doreen who would be about the same age as Christian Felbanks. The combination of ‘Sioux City’ and ‘Doreen’ got him more than six thousand hits on Google. He figured she might have Felbanks as a last name, though, and so he tried ‘Doreen Felbanks.’ He got nothing – which didn’t mean she had a different last name, just that there was no trace of this one. ‘If the thing with Christian went public,’ he told the computer, ‘she would’ve switched schools and done a presto chango.’ Which gave Kelson another idea. He went to Classmates.com, which archived yearbooks, and he searched Sioux City high schools for the name Doreen in the years he calculated Christian Felbanks would’ve been there. There were four public high schools and a handful of private ones. The four public schools were named after the directions on the map – North High School, East High School, and so on – and he worked his way around the compass. At North High School, he found one Doreen – skinny and curly-haired. ‘Sorry,’ he told her. At East High School, there were two Doreens – one a couple of years older than Christian, the other a year younger – and neither looked like the redhead. The listing for South High School had one Doreen, and Kelson grinned when he saw her last name. Felbanks. He clicked on the file, a picture popped up, and he said, ‘Ha!’
The Sophomore-year picture was black and white. At fifteen, a year or so after she climbed into bed with Christian, she had blonde, shoulder-length hair and a minor acne problem that her lipstick only accentuated. She smiled at the camera with the face of a girl who liked cameras – none of the self-consciousness and irony that Kelson saw in pictures of Sue Ellen lately. ‘Beautiful in your own way,’ Kelson told the picture. A strand of loose hair lay across her forehead, and he felt the impulse to touch the screen to move it from her eyes. ‘When did you become a killer?’ he asked, and clicked on a second link. It brought up a picture of the girls’ volleyball team. There was Doreen Felbanks again, in a middle row, her arms draped over the shoulders of girls on either side. Beaming at the camera. ‘Happy,’ Kelson said. ‘A hundred percent, corn-fed happy. When did you turn to ice?’
He closed the yearbook site and searched for variations on the name Doreen Felbanks – on social media sites, credit history sites, sites offering access to criminal records. He found nothing.
He put away the computer and called Peters. ‘Doreen Felbanks,’ he said to voicemail. ‘That’s the redhead’s name.’ He hung up and said to his phone, ‘He’ll delete it,’ and so he called DeMarcus Rodman. He told him too, adding, ‘She almost definitely goes by a different name now. From Sioux City. Blonde when she was a teenager. Something bad must’ve happened to turn her.’
‘Nice job,’ Rodman said.
‘She played high school volleyball.’
‘A fact I don’t know what to do with.’
‘You get anything?’
‘Nah,’ Rodman said. ‘I just finished talking to a couple of boys who beat up an old lady in a liquor store.’
‘In the meantime, I’m dying.’
‘We’ve all got problems.’
‘I’m just saying, I have less than three days.’
‘Don’t be dramatic,’ Rodman said. ‘It’ll slow you down. I’m going to go back to Mr and Mrs Felbanks and drop Doreen’s name – see what happens when it hits bottom.’
‘I’ll meet you there,’ Kelson said.
‘Let me go solo on
this one,’ he said. ‘I’ll whisper at them, and I’ll bet they’ll talk.’
‘And if they don’t?’
‘Why wouldn’t they with a cuddly guy like me?’
So Kelson went back to his apartment and, as the kittens wrestled on the kitchen floor, boiled a pot of spaghetti. Again, he set dishes of food on the table for them, then served himself.
When his phone rang, he grabbed it. ‘DeMarcus?’
Sue Ellen said, ‘Can I come over and play with Payday and Painter’s Lane?’
Kelson wanted nothing more. ‘Too risky,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Daddy’s gotten himself in trouble.’
‘Again?’
‘Still.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Mom says you’ll never change.’
‘She’s smart.’
‘My therapist says the same thing.’
‘Your therapist is stupid.’
‘I think so too. Can we play Stump Dad?’
‘Not this evening, honey, OK?’
‘How’s a bowl of baked beans like a swimming pool?’
‘Next time, OK?’
‘If you fart in it, you make bubbles.’ She squealed with laughter.
‘That makes no sense,’ Kelson said.
‘Maybe my therapist is right,’ she said, and hung up.
A moment later, the phone rang again, and he snatched it. ‘Hey, honey, I’m sorry—’
But another voice spoke. ‘Dominick Stevens was on the five o’clock news – at a groundbreaking for new public housing.’ It was the redhead.
‘All publicity is good publicity,’ Kelson said.
‘Not good for you,’ she said.
‘Not good for you either, Doreen.’
‘True.’ She didn’t deny the name – didn’t seem surprised. ‘Mengele hoped he’d see you in the crowd at the groundbreaking. Maybe taking care of business right there on camera. At least looking for a good way to get to Stevens.’
‘I won’t touch him,’ Kelson said. ‘I’m coming after you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you something about myself. I’ve been gone for a long time. The girl I once was? I haven’t been her since I was seventeen. You’re looking for the wrong person.’
‘What happened to you?’ he asked.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘Worry about what’ll happen to you and your family.’
‘Isn’t it the same thing? Whatever happened to you, that’s why this is happening to me – at least partly?’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said, her voice shaking, and, like Sue Ellen, hung up.
‘Gotcha,’ Kelson said.
He waited through the evening for Rodman to call and, when his phone stayed silent, tried calling him. Rodman’s phone rang and rang and didn’t go to voicemail or a machine. After the eleventh ring, Kelson hung up. ‘Huh,’ he said.
That night, he talked to the moon. It was yellow and so full it looked swollen. He stood at his window, the lights off in his apartment, and told the moon his problems. The moon didn’t seem to give a damn.
THIRTY-FIVE
In his dreams that night, Kelson was whole – never shot by Bicho, living with Nancy and Sue Ellen in a single house, feeling at one with his split personality as an undercover cop. Whole and content. He woke in the early-morning light with Payday purring on his chest and Painter’s Lane draped over an ankle. ‘Whole and content,’ he said.
He got up and checked his phone. Rodman hadn’t texted him overnight. There was no sign that Kelson was anything but alone in the universe. ‘Except for the kittens,’ he said. He took a picture of Payday on his phone, then one of Painter’s Lane. ‘So damn cute,’ he said. He took another picture of Payday. He made breakfast for the three of them, showered, and then followed the kittens around his apartment, taking more pictures. At nine fifteen, as he took his hundredth shot of them, someone buzzed from the lobby.
He ran to the intercom and said, ‘DeMarcus?’
A girl’s voice answered. ‘Me.’ Sue Ellen.
He buzzed her up.
‘You should be in school,’ he said when she was standing inside his door, her tie-dyed knapsack hanging over one shoulder.
‘Yup.’ She scooped Painter’s Lane into her little hands.
‘You’re playing hooky?’
‘Yup. What happened to your face?’
‘Someone kicked it. Does your mom know where you are?’
‘Nope.’
‘You can’t do this.’
‘Why not? You do.’
‘I don’t play hooky,’ he said. ‘I’m always here, always doing my job – always.’
‘Always here for your eleven-year-old daughter who loves you very much?’
‘Don’t make those eyes at me. When the kittens do it, it’s bad enough.’
‘Let’s go to the zoo.’
‘No.’
‘We’ll take Painter’s Lane and Payday. Introduce them to their relatives.’
‘No.’
‘Let’s buy a horse.’
‘I’m taking you to school. Now.’
‘I’d rather play with you.’
‘I have work to do.’
‘What were you doing before I came?’
‘We’re not playing Stump Dad.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Taking pictures of the cats.’
‘Let’s see.’
He handed her his phone, and she scrolled through the pictures.
‘Jesus, Dad, this is weird.’
‘Don’t swear,’ he said.
‘Why did you take so many?’
‘They’re so damn cute.’
‘Don’t swear,’ she said.
‘That’s it, you’re late for school.’ But before they left, he gave her a key to the apartment. ‘In case you play hooky again,’ he said. ‘Don’t. But in case you do and I’m not here.’
In the car, she stared at his bruised face and asked, ‘Is someone trying to hurt you again?’
It came out. ‘Yes.’
She had tears in her eyes.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t know.’
After dropping her off, he drove to his office. Rodman was sitting in the desk chair, eyes closed, feet kicked up on the desk, head tipped back, a gentle snore rumbling from his enormous chest.
But when Kelson closed the door, the big man’s feet slid from the desk, and, as he opened his eyes, he reached for the gun on his hip. Then he saw Kelson. ‘Ah,’ he said, with his mild smile.
‘I don’t know why I bother to lock the door,’ Kelson said.
‘I don’t know why you use such a lousy lock. You know how easy it is to pop?’
‘Yeah, I heard. Doreen Felbanks came through it a few days ago.’
‘For a guy who values his life, you could do more to protect it.’
‘Why didn’t you call last night?’
‘The Felbankses are gone,’ Rodman said. ‘When I went to the condo, I got no answer. So I let myself in there too. There was blood in the bathroom sink – not like nicked-myself-shaving, more like slit-my-wrists or took-a-knife-in-my-ribs. I went looking for them. The hospitals have no records, no surprise. A car parked up the street from the condo is registered to them.’
‘Which means someone took them.’
‘Seems like it,’ Rodman said.
‘So why are you here?’
‘I didn’t want to interrupt while you took your girl to school.’
‘You were outside my apartment?’
‘Since four this morning. If someone went after the Felbankses, maybe you’d get it next.’
‘I didn’t see you.’
‘You seemed distracted,’ Rodman said. ‘An army could’ve surrounded your building and you wouldn’t’ve seen it. You had something on your mind.’
‘Kittens.’
‘What?’
/> ‘Any idea what happened to the Felbankses?’
Rodman gave him a sideways look. ‘None. But I got another lead. D’you know how many strip-club buffets it takes to fill a man my size?’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘The answer is five. Five strip-club buffets. Cocktail weenies. Burnt slivers of pizza. Chicken nuggets. But a man’s got to eat. So, after leaving the condo and checking a couple hospitals, I decided to ask around about the escort lady who picked you out of the lineup. I started at the Pink Monkey on Clinton. They had calamari and wings – not bad – and a bunch of skinny blonde girls strutting their monkeys on the stage. I asked the bartender if he knew any skinny blonde dancers who part-time as escorts. He gave me this look like, You’re in over your head, black man. So I told him the name Barbara Lisle, but I’d already lost him. Next, I tried Renegade’s Gentlemen’s Club – pepperoni pizza. Same thing as at the Pink Monkey, more or less. Repeat that twice more. Finally, I went to the Lucky Horseshoe on North Halsted. That one’s a gay club and I figured the odds were low, but I was still hungry. Good-looking bartender with pierced nipples said he’d never heard of Barbara Lisle, so I gave him the name I should’ve tried at the other clubs – Raba. The boy lit up. Oh, yeah, everyone knows Raba. She mostly does the escort thing now, he said, which I already knew, but she sometimes dances for the truck drivers at a place by the Wisconsin border, which I also knew, and – get this – she also dances at the Pink Monkey. Long story short, I went back to the Pink Monkey, and they said they hadn’t seen Raba in a week.’
‘That’s a lead?’
‘That’s dinner and a lead. One of the other Pink Monkey dancers told me Raba’s got a boyfriend just over the Wisconsin border, which is why she dances up that way, even though the truck drivers are shit tippers, and when Raba disappears for a week, that’s where she goes.’
‘Huh,’ Kelson said.
‘I should say so. I also know about a place in Kenosha that makes a hell of a chili and cheese omelet, and it’s already past breakfast time, so unless you’ve got a better idea?’
Trouble in Mind Page 14