‘Cobarde,’ Francisca said.
Rodman made a call, and, an hour after Stevens left, Marty came back, dragging a sheet of plywood up the stairs. Rodman nailed it over the shot-out window and then showed the little man to his and Cindi’s bedroom.
‘Sleep with a finger on it,’ Rodman said. ‘Francisca will let you know if Toselli comes back. If Doreen’s painkillers wear off and she gives you trouble, knock her out however you want.’
The little man slipped off his shoes and lay face up on the bed. He rested a pistol on his belly, looping a finger through the trigger guard. When Kelson and Rodman went out the front door – guns drawn, eyes on every hiding spot below them – Marty was breathing deep and easy, already dreaming of his big girlfriend or whatever a tough little man like him dreamed.
Kelson and Rodman drove north to Nancy’s house. The neighborhood was quiet, her driveway empty. They circled the block before pulling to the curb. While Rodman waited in the car, Kelson went to the door and knocked. No one answered, so he let himself in. Every time he’d come to the house since Nancy kicked him out, the contents seemed to have shifted a little, as if spitting him out bite by bite. The weekend after he moved, Nancy rearranged the furniture in the living room – not that she ever complained about where it was when they lived together. Now he put the sofa back where it belonged. ‘Haunted,’ he said. ‘By me.’
He needed to be sure that all was right, as he needed to check his pistol magazine even when he knew it was loaded, and so he climbed the stairs. Sue Ellen had left her bed unmade, the pink sheet and blanket kicked to the foot, the stuffed animal monkey she’d had since she was two years old face down. He went in, tucked the sheets, and propped the monkey on the pillow. Pencil drawings of Payday and Painter’s Lane were tacked to the wall above the head of the bed – each of the kittens sketched with a sure, steady hand. ‘When did you learn to do that?’ Kelson asked.
He went to the bedroom he used to share with Nancy. It looked just as it did when he last slept there. Even with all the danger and confusion, even with the gaze he’d exchanged with Doreen a couple of hours ago – maybe because of it – he felt a pang. ‘Ouch,’ he said. He went to Nancy’s side of the bed and sat. He opened the nightstand drawer. Along with a box of Kleenex and a bottle of Motrin, there was a hairbrush. Kelson pulled a tangle of hair from the bristles, smelled it, and stuck it in his pocket.
He went to the other side of the bed. The familiar comfort flooded back. He said, ‘What I would do—’ then stopped himself again. ‘For what?’ He opened the nightstand drawer. Like a wave withdrawing and washing in again, nausea rolled over his comfort. There was a man’s watch – a stranger’s – and a box of Trojan Pleasure Condoms – two of the packets, bright as bubble gum, ripped open and empty.
He grabbed the watch. A Movado, nicer than his own. He crammed it in with the ball of hair.
He went downstairs and out the front door. His Dodge Challenger idled at the curb. He climbed in and stared out the front windshield.
‘Anything?’ Rodman asked.
‘Yeah, a mistake,’ Kelson said. ‘And a watch.’ He fished it out of his pocket and handed it to Rodman. ‘I stole it.’
Rodman looked it over, front and back. ‘I could get a hundred for it on the street.’
‘Yeah, do that. Take Cindi out for dinner.’
‘You look sick.’
‘I feel it.’
Rodman considered him. ‘You’re divorced, you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That means she can sleep with anyone she wants.’
‘I know.’
‘You can too.’ Rodman considered him some more. ‘When you first saw Doreen Felbanks, you wanted to, right?’
‘The first time, yeah.’
‘But not now.’
‘That would be pretty screwed-up, huh?’
‘Really? You still want her? Yeah, that’s screwed-up. But there’s no accounting for desire.’
‘She has the eyes of someone who’s seen pain. I’ve seen it too.’
‘So you like her eyes, huh?’ Rodman said.
‘And have you checked out the rest of her?’
FIFTY-TWO
They decided to talk to Dominick Stevens, and so they drove toward his real-estate office. But Stevens beat them to the check-in. Rodman’s phone rang, and Stevens told him, ‘I’ve got a couple more addresses for Toselli.’ He gave him one for an apartment on Diversey at the edge of Lincoln Park and another for a townhouse in Dearborn Park, south of the Loop. ‘I have property records and databases for co-ops and rental properties,’ he said. ‘I got to thinking, if he bought the Edgewater place as Gregory Rodriguez, maybe he bought or rented other places that way.’
Kelson and Rodman headed down the lakefront to a wide seven-story building. The redbrick front was scrubbed clean, though AC units stuck out of windows like warts.
Kelson pulled into a loading zone, and he and Rodman got out. The glass front door was locked and secure. Kelson rang the buzzer for the super.
A man’s crackling voice answered through the intercom, and Rodman told him they’d come to make an inquiry.
‘What kind of inquiry?’ the super asked.
‘The confidential kind,’ Rodman said.
The super said he had no time for confidential inquiries.
‘Do you have time to fix the glass in your front door?’ Rodman asked.
The super said nothing, so Kelson hit the buzzer again and asked, ‘Does Gregory Rodriguez live here?’
The lock clicked, and they stepped into a bright foyer. Then a door at the far end of the lobby opened, and a thick-legged man came out wearing green coveralls. He was about half Rodman’s size but didn’t look intimidated. ‘What do you know about Gregory Rodriguez?’ he asked.
‘He’s a bastard,’ Kelson said.
The super glanced from one to the other and decided on Rodman. ‘What do you want with him?’
‘We need to talk is all,’ Rodman said, gentle, ‘if you’ll let us up to his apartment. He rents here, doesn’t he?’
‘He did. Third floor, rear. When’d you see him last?’
Kelson started to answer, but Rodman talked over him. ‘He moved out?’
The super shook his head. ‘Apartment fire last night. Burned the walls. Burned the carpet. Holes in the ceiling. No one hurt, but it’s a miracle.’
Kelson and Rodman exchanged a look.
‘How’d it start?’ Kelson asked.
‘That’s what I want to ask Mr Rodriguez,’ the man said. ‘The fire inspector does too. Rodriguez has rented here for three years, and you know what? When the fire started, the apartment was empty. Just some metal shelves. Nothing in the kitchen. No toilet paper unless it burned.’
‘He’s cleaning up after himself,’ Kelson said.
Rodman said, ‘We need to see.’
The super shook his head. ‘Fire marshal closed it. Plywood over the door.’
‘You can nail it back up when we’re done,’ Rodman said.
‘You’re a funny man,’ the super said.
Rodman went to the elevator and pushed the button.
‘Should I send the police up?’ the super asked. ‘’Cause they asked me to call if anyone came around about Rodriguez or the fire. They should be here any moment.’
Rodman scratched his chin with a big finger.
Kelson shrugged. ‘Could be lying. Probably telling the truth.’
So Rodman said to the super, ‘Been nice talking to you.’ He and Kelson went out through the foyer.
They drove around the corner, crossed through a parking lot, and pulled into the alley behind the building. Scorch marks licked up the brick side from a broken third-floor window. ‘He’s scared,’ Rodman said. ‘He could’ve burned down the place. Could’ve killed a lot of people.’
‘That doesn’t seem to be a problem for him,’ Kelson said.
They drove downtown then, expecting more ashes at Toselli’s Dearborn Park townhouse. The Dear
born development covered an old train yard south of what once was Dearborn Station. It included high-rise and mid-rise apartments and little streets lined with bleak concrete two-story cubes the developers sold as single-family units.
Kelson and Rodman drove into one of the paved courts leading to a cluster of single units and pulled into a parking spot outside the address Stevens gave them. White lace curtains hung over long rectangular windows in front. A spring wreath hung on the door.
‘Huh,’ Kelson said.
‘Yeah, me too,’ said Rodman.
They got out, Kelson with the KelTec in his belt, and walked around the building to the back. More long rectangular windows with lace curtains faced a gated terrace. On one side of a set of French doors, there was a little tiered fountain. On the other side, there was a garden statue of a frog on a lily pad.
‘He doesn’t strike me as the kind,’ Kelson said.
They went back to the front and knocked on the door. Kelson kept his pistol in his waistband but touched the grip under his jacket. Rodman stepped back to the front walk and watched the windows.
The woman who opened the door looked sixty-five, maybe older. She wore blue jeans and a gray sweater embroidered with a daisy. Her short hair was fading from blonde to white. She gave Kelson a pleasant smile and asked what he wanted.
‘That’s a long list,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry?’
He said, ‘Are you a relation of Greg Toselli?’
‘Of course,’ she said, eyeing him warily. ‘I’m his mom. Are you his friends?’
‘That’s complicated. Fifteen years ago—’
‘Stick to the task,’ Rodman said. He scanned the front of the house.
‘Greg doesn’t live here,’ the woman said. ‘He has a house in—’
‘Schaumburg,’ Kelson said. ‘Not anymore. The cops raided it yesterday.’
With that smile, she might invite him in for cookies. ‘You’re mistaken. Greg’s a policeman.’
‘Not for long,’ Kelson said.
The woman seemed amused, and that should have tipped Kelson off. But it didn’t matter – at that moment, Rodman charged toward the door, shouting, ‘Upstairs window.’
The woman moved to the side, out of the way. But then she had a revolver in her hand – where she got it Kelson couldn’t say. It was a little .22, but big enough to stop Rodman if she fired it. Kelson slipped the KelTec from his waistband and stepped inside. Before the woman could shoot, he held the gun barrel against the side of her head.
He said, ‘Don’t.’
As Rodman reached the upstairs landing, glass shattered from a window. Shards rained on the pavement outside where Kelson had stood seconds before.
Then a man jumped from the window, hitting the concrete, rolling, and staggering to his feet.
Kelson shouted at him, ‘Toselli.’
Toselli spun. He held a big, black automatic, something between a pistol and a rifle, with a short barrel and big magazine. He aimed at Kelson.
But Kelson pulled the woman close, shielding himself.
For a long moment, they stood frozen, Toselli pointing his gun at his mother and Kelson, Kelson holding his gun against the woman’s head.
Then Rodman started down the stairs.
And Toselli turned and ran.
The woman squeezed the trigger and shot at no one in particular, the bullet going into the ceiling. So Kelson smashed the woman’s wrist with his pistol grip, and her little revolver clattered to the floor.
Kelson and Rodman ran to the front door.
Toselli was gone.
FIFTY-THREE
Kelson made the woman sit at the kitchen table, and Rodman hovered over her. Her wrist was swollen, but she didn’t seem to mind. She dropped her cookie-baking smile and looked as hard as a street thug or beat cop. When Kelson started asking questions, she admitted Toselli let her live in the downstairs half of the townhouse, while he kept the upstairs bedrooms locked and off limits.
So Rodman went back upstairs and kicked in a locked door. As in the Edgewater co-op, metal shelves lined the walls, full of prescription opiates and plastic-wrapped packs. A half dozen cartons of drugs lay on the floor.
When Rodman came down, Kelson was sitting across the table from the woman. Rodman turned a kitchen chair backward and straddled it, holding his big, gentle face a foot from the woman’s. His eyelids hung half-closed. He asked, ‘Where’d he go?’
‘Piss off,’ she said.
That made Rodman smile. ‘My friend here is kindhearted,’ he said, ‘a real gentleman. But he gets distracted. If it was just me, I would make you eat your gun.’ He spoke softly. Nothing could be more terrifying.
She said, ‘You don’t scare me.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Scared people make bad decisions. They’re squirrels on a highway. We want you to think clearly. Add it up. How far can your boy run with us coming after him? Do you want him hurt bad – or worse? The sooner we get him, the better.’
‘Piss off,’ she said.
Rodman rose from the chair. He balled a fist and cocked his arm back ten inches or so – he would need no more to crush her skull. His chest seemed to swell, and his gentle face became fierce.
She spat at him.
He let his eyelids fall closed, as if to meditate the possibilities the situation offered. Then he opened them and said, ‘You’re a tough chick.’ He grabbed her by the sweater and lifted her from her chair.
Suspending her in the air, he said to Kelson, ‘Check the rest of the place.’
Kelson ransacked it. Ever since Bicho shot him, he hated messes, but this wasn’t his mess. ‘Feels … weirdly good,’ he said. He emptied drawers and cabinets on to the floor, kicking around the contents as he looked for information about Toselli. In a drawer by the phone in the TV room, he found a tattered address book. In a cabinet under the TV, he found three photo albums. He left behind piles of notepads, bills and receipts, spent batteries, ballpoint pens, playing cards, Bic lighters, the souvenirs and garbage of a lifetime. Upstairs, he emptied more cabinets. He upended cardboard boxes from a closet. He pulled down Toselli’s metal shelves.
When he returned to the kitchen, he set the address book and photo albums on the table. He paged through the addresses, expecting little and mostly getting it. Under I, though, he found an old address and phone number for Inez Rodriguez. He showed the woman the entry. ‘Your daughter, right? It’s got to hurt,’ he said. ‘You don’t erase a name like this. You don’t cross it out. That would be like burying her again.’
She gazed at it but said nothing.
‘Greg loved her,’ he said. ‘Too much or too little or in the wrong ways. He couldn’t save her or Alejandro.’
The woman reached as though she would caress Inez’s name, but she tried to snatch the book from his hand.
Kelson jerked it away.
Under R, he found a listing for Henrico Rodriguez. He showed her again. ‘Who’s this?’
When she still said nothing, Rodman told her, ‘Fight the fights that matter. This isn’t one of them. Who’s Henrico?’
She gave him a hard look and said, ‘My first husband’s brother. I haven’t talked to him in ten years.’
‘Would Greg go to him if he’s on the run?’ Kelson asked.
Nothing.
He tore out the page and put it in a pocket with the hair from Nancy’s brush.
When he finished the address book, he leafed through the photo albums. The first included pictures of the woman’s own childhood, teenage years, and early adulthood, ending with shots of her, a brown-skinned man, and a baby girl. He showed her a picture of the baby. ‘Inez?’
Nothing.
The second album continued from the first. It included pictures of the woman with another man – a short-haired, stocky white guy with a mischievous smile. In two shots, he wore a police uniform. After the second of those shots, she’d pasted a Tribune article about the death of Doug Toselli nineteen years ago when a car crashed int
o his cruiser at a stoplight. Next to the article she’d pasted the dry remains of a pressed white rose. ‘Yeah,’ Kelson said, ‘it always hurts.’
The pictures of Greg Toselli in the album showed him from the time he was a baby until he was about twelve years old – crawling on a rug, grinning at a birthday party, playing baseball, chopping wood outside a vacation cabin, riding a bike on a suburban street. ‘Yep,’ Kelson said, and opened the third album. The woman had abandoned it about halfway through. At that point, Toselli looked sixteen or seventeen, old enough to sit in the driver’s seat of a green sedan. Most of the other shots of him seemed to come from the cabin where he had chopped wood in the earlier album. Shirtless and wearing cut-off jeans, he pulled the ripcord on an Evinrude outboard on an aluminum fishing boat. He suntanned on a dock. He chopped more wood.
Kelson showed the woman the one with him by the woodpile. ‘Where’s this?’
Nothing.
‘Kind of a getaway, right?’ he said. ‘A vacation house? A place to escape to when life’s crazy?’
She stared at him.
‘Maybe somewhere you’d go if the game you were playing turned against you and you needed to hide?’
‘Piss off,’ she said.
‘Now, now,’ Rodman said.
‘Piss off.’
So Rodman lifted her from her chair once more and said to Kelson, ‘Try again?’
Twenty minutes later, Kelson returned with a deed to a property on Keshena Lake two hundred miles north in Wisconsin. Kelson told the woman, ‘You can let Greg know when you talk to him that the cabin is out if he’s running.’
Rodman said, ‘Funny in a country as big as this, there’re so few places to hide.’
‘Piss off,’ she said, the only advice she seemed capable of giving. But as they left the house, she shouted after them, ‘I lost his daddy and Inez and Alejandro. I won’t lose him too.’
FIFTY-FOUR
As they drove back through the Loop, Kelson said, ‘Poor woman.’
Rodman gave him a long, flat look. ‘Next time you want to sympathize with someone like that, take away her gun first – before she shoots it.’
Trouble in Mind Page 21
