Corrine and I sat some more and watched him breathe, then stood and slipped out of the room.
The corridor was white and gleaming and quiet. A red line was painted down the middle of the white tile floor for busy times when the staff needed to divide the corridor into lanes.
Mom was standing outside Jason’s door with a cup of tea.
I touched Corrine’s elbow and said, “Give me a minute, okay?”
Corrine walked to the nurses’ station. Mom looked up at me and said, “I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said. “You were right. I was feeling bad that I wasn’t here for Jason, so—”
“I know,” she said.
“He’s looking good. Thanks for taking care of him.”
She smiled as if to say, What else would I do?
For a moment, we stood without talking. “I’m going to get a cup of coffee with Corrine,” I said.
Mom nodded. “Tell me that you’re innocent.”
She knew I wasn’t, not in the bigger sense. I said, “I’m innocent.”
She said, “Is this over?”
I didn’t like to lie to her. “Yeah, it’s over,” I said.
“Don’t lie to me.”
I said, “I’m trying to clean things up.”
She looked at me long as though there might be something inside me that she’d missed. She said, “Your father was a policeman for twenty-seven years, and one thing I learned was that some things don’t get clean. Some things it’s better to walk away from.”
I nodded. “You’re a smart woman, Mom.”
“Walk away.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll try to.”
“It’s not hard. People do it all the time.”
* * *
CORRINE AND I RODE the elevator to the basement cafeteria, got coffee, and sat at a table. She had a calm look that I knew not to trust. She said, “Where the hell have you been?”
The cafeteria was empty except for two women in blue surgical scrubs and a man off in a corner reading a book. No one who would cause me trouble. So I told my story again, including my meeting with Bob Monroe and the memorial service at Daley Plaza, but leaving out the bottle of bourbon, The Spa Club, the Russian girl, and Lucinda.
Corrine sighed when I finished. “Yeah, you’ve got to fix this. You’ve got to make it right.”
I felt a weight lift from me. “I do?”
She frowned and shrugged. “You can’t just turn your back on it, can you?”
I leaned across the table and kissed her. “No, I can’t,” I said.
She sat back in her chair and cocked her head to the side. “Why didn’t you call when you got out?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“I know this is hard,” she said, “but it can be hard with me or without me. With me, it might be a little easier.”
I nodded.
“Tell me what you need.”
I said, “I will.”
She put her hand in mine. “I want you if you want me,” she said.
“I want you.”
She looked down at the table, then up at me. “Could we go somewhere for awhile?”
I said, “That would be good.”
* * *
WE DROVE TO HER house and went up the front stairs. Until our divorce, her house had been our house, her bedroom ours. The rich smell of sleep in the bedsheets was still the same. The photographs on the wall—three black-and-white sixteen-by-twenties of staircases, the middle one with a woman on it—were the same too. Corrine had brought the photographs into our house and had kept them when I moved out. The other pictures that we’d had, framed photos of the two of us together, were long gone, into storage or out with the trash. She’d bought new night tables. I wondered how many other men she’d brought home to her bed.
Then she came to me and we kissed and I stopped wondering. She pulled her mouth from mine and unbuttoned my shirt, stripped it off my shoulders. I unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall. She kissed my chest, ran her fingers over me, scraped my nipples with her fingernails.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
She put her mouth on me again, nibbled, and answered, “Biting you.”
She nibbled some more. I whispered, “Why?”
“It will feel good.” She bit harder.
“Ouch.”
“Relax—”
“Ouch!”
She pulled away. “I don’t think you’re giving this a chance.”
I lifted her face to mine, kissed her, and said, “I’ll give you a chance.”
I did.
We did.
Twice.
TWELVE
AT 2:30 IN THE afternoon I drove back to The Spa Club. The valet in front of the building was new and didn’t recognize me, but when I told him my name and said I was there to see Bob Monroe he tipped his head respectfully, opened my door, and said he would park my Skylark in front so it would be available when I needed it.
I fished a five-dollar bill from my wallet but he said, “Not necessary, sir.”
I eyed him. “Do you curtsy?”
He said, “I do anything Mr. Johnson and Mr. Monroe pay me to, sir.”
I rode the elevator to The Spa Club.
The lounge outside the elevator door was empty except for a table where a fat man in a white shirt and dark tie was eating a late lunch. A new hostess stood at the desk. She smiled and looked me up and down like she was measuring me for a new suit or a bed. So I looked her up and down, the same, and said, “I’m here to see—”
“Mr. Monroe,” she said, still with the smile. She tilted her head toward the private hallway that extended from behind the desk. “He’s in Mr. Johnson’s office. Through the hall, the door on the right.”
“It’s good to be recognized,” I said.
A door on the left was open to an office with a desk and computer. The door on the right was closed. When I raised my hand to knock, it swung open and the Russian girl stumbled out. Raj had called her Tina when he’d offered her to me. She wore a man’s shirt, yellow, unbuttoned except at the bottom, and nothing else. She had glazed eyes and her lips were bent between a grin and pain. She brushed past me like she’d never seen me before.
“Tina?” I said.
Nothing. Not a twitch.
I knocked.
The door swung open again.
I recognized the man who opened it. He’d loaded a spool of copper wire into a van at Southshore Village just before the shooting started.
“Hey, come on in,” he said.
This office was four times the size of the one across the hall. It had a brown leather couch, a brown leather chair, an Oriental carpet between them, and a large dark-wood desk, also with a leather chair.
Bob Monroe sat in the desk chair, Raj sat in the other chair, and the man who’d opened the door joined another guy from the Southshore robbery on the couch. They were having a party.
Monroe looked me over. “You’re sober today.” Like that surprised and didn’t completely please him.
“True.”
“Want a drink?”
“I always want a drink.”
“Bourbon?”
I nodded.
He picked up the telephone, punched a button, and said, “A Heineken, a couple shots of Maker’s Mark, and a glass of water.”
When he hung up, he leaned forward and said, “Ready to get started?”
“Sure.”
“We’re holding an organizational meeting tonight. Representatives from twelve of the city’s gangs will be there—El Rukns, Latin Kings, Black Gangster Disciples, La Raza, Vice Lords, and a bunch of others. The Asians have refused to participate but they’ll come around. We’re not bothering with the small gangs at this point.”
“Where’s the meeting?”
He ignored the question. “Earl will do the talking and the rest of us will be there. Rules are, no weapons, no flashing signs, and no more than two representatives from each gang. We wanted just one but some of th
em said they wouldn’t come alone. As much as possible, everyone drives in on separate streets. If we all play by the rules, the meeting should go fine. But these guys never saw a rule they didn’t break. Your job and mine will be to make sure no one gets shot and no one gets in a fight that spills back into the neighborhoods. Earl’s job will be to tell the gang representatives what we expect them to do and what they can expect in return. They keep violence to a minimum and cough up their money, and we let things slide when we can. We make money and they make money. They stay alive and out of jail and we make more money.”
“Who could object?” I said. “Will we have guns?”
“Officially, no. But we’ll stash a couple in the room just in case.”
“Why not meet with the gangs separately?” I asked. “Seems like it would be a lot safer and easier.”
He shook his head. “We need to set an example of what happens if the gangs don’t pay. We don’t want to have to set twelve separate examples.”
Raj said, “That would be too much blood, too much anger.”
I said, “What are you planning to do?”
Monroe shrugged like it was no big deal. “Just enough to scare the fuck out of them.”
I didn’t like any of it. “Where’s the meeting?”
“Neutral ground. Raj will pick you up at your office at eight.”
Fingers tapped at the office door and Tina came in, still in the yellow shirt, carrying a drink tray. She put a highball glass, half full of whiskey, and a glass of water on a table next to me, then took the bottle of Heineken to Monroe.
He reached under her shirt and put his hand on her ass. “Thanks, Tina.”
I drank about an ounce of bourbon off the top. When the first burn faded, I said, “Do I also get a cut of the copper sales?”
Monroe tilted his Heineken over his mouth and drank a third of it. “You get a cut of anything you put your hands on.”
“Good.”
“Next time we find a place with enough metal, we’ll arrange something.”
I said, “How about the warehouses? They seem like more money for less work.”
Monroe looked confused. “What warehouses?”
Bill Gubman’s papers included false information about robberies that Earl Johnson supposedly committed at three warehouses. I drank more bourbon, then named two of them, as if to catch him in a lie. “Thompson Metals on Elston? National Brass and Copper on California? I was looking into you guys long before Southshore. I’ve probably got better records of what you’ve been up to than you do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Of course he didn’t. I put anger into my voice. “Don’t try to cut me out—”
He patted the air. “Take it easy,” he said. He grinned, like all was good in the world. “So you’ve kept records on us?”
I grinned too. “Records, pictures, numbers.”
“And you haven’t given them to your Southshore client?”
“Ex-client,” I said. “No.”
He looked happy at that. “Pictures at the warehouses?”
“Sure.”
“Who’s in them?”
I shrugged. I needed him to work to bring down Earl Johnson.
He said, “Well, it sounds like we need to be more careful about who’s watching.”
The office door swung open again and Johnson came in. He scowled when he saw Monroe at the desk and me talking with him, but he caught himself. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Then to me, “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”
Monroe said, “I’ve asked him to come to the meeting tonight.”
Anger flashed across Johnson’s face. “Why the hell did you do that?”
Monroe looked at him level, a big man comfortable in his skin. “After Southshore, we’re short numbered. Raj and I talked about it. Anyone acts up tonight, it’ll be good to have another man on our side.”
Johnson’s voice dropped low in disbelief. “You and Raj talked about it?”
Level. “Yes.”
“And where the fuck was I?”
“We didn’t know where the fuck you were. That happens a lot lately. We don’t know where the fuck you are.”
“I’m out covering your ass while you’re here making stupid decisions,” Johnson said. He crossed behind the desk and stood near Monroe. Monroe was sitting in his desk chair. For a moment, Monroe stayed where he was as if Johnson might go away. When he didn’t, Monroe stood and moved easily around the front of the desk. Johnson sat in the chair. He gestured at me. “Who’s this guy other than he killed Dave? Why should I trust him? Why should you?”
Monroe was wearing an untucked black silk shirt that hung over black pants. He was a big man, and when he sat on the corner of the desk he was the most impressive man in the room. He said, “Joe’s got nothing to gain by working against us and everything to gain by working with us. Also, he’s good at what he does.”
“Yeah?” said Johnson. “Like how?”
“Like he was just telling me about his investigation into us before Southshore. Says he kept records.” Monroe was casual but he kept his eyes on Johnson. “Says he has pictures of us at the construction sites. Other pictures too. What did you say they were? Thompson Metals and National Brass and Copper?”
I nodded.
If you weren’t looking close you might’ve missed Johnson flinching at the mention of the warehouses. But I was looking close. So was Monroe.
Then Johnson glanced away like I was a minor distraction. “Now that you’re involved with us, you might want to burn the photos.”
I looked at him. “Am I going tonight?”
He looked back. He was barely tolerating me. “Sure. If it turns out you’re fucking with us, we’ll turn the gang reps loose on you. They’ll tear you apart.”
THIRTEEN
YOU CAN’T BUY A gun legally in Chicago. You’ve got to drive into the tree-lined suburban streets. There, between a dry cleaner and a 7-Eleven, you can get a SIG SAUER pistol with a night sight or an M16, anything short of a rocket launcher.
But Theo’s Pawn and Coin in the southwest Loop kept a small stock under the counter. If the owner knew you, she would sell you something from her illegal collection. She had few choices but she kept the guns well oiled and clean.
I stopped by Theo’s on my way to my office.
Theo died in the early 1990s and his wife Susie ran the store. She was a tough, short, wide-faced woman in her fifties with flat brown hair that she kept in a ponytail. She wore short-sleeved T-shirts year round. A large tattoo peaked from under her right sleeve. The tattoo said Love in large looping letters. The rumor was she’d killed Theo to get the store.
“Joe!” She grinned as I came in. “Long time.”
A dozen acoustic guitars hung on the wall behind her. Next to them were three violins, a banjo, a drum set, and a stack of stereo tuners. Power tools hung in the front window. A long glass case held jewelry, cameras, and watches. A sign on the wall said, merchandise sold as is. no returns, no refunds. cash only. checks accepted. deposits not refundable. have a nice day.
I was the only customer in the store, which made my life easier.
I went to the counter and Susie leaned against it on her elbows. She looked in my eyes like an old lover.
“What can I do for you?” she said.
“I need a gun.”
She frowned. “I was afraid you’d say that. You know I can’t help you. You’re on TV, and I don’t sell high-risk. The cops find a gun on you and trace it to me, and I’ve got to go into early retirement.”
“I’ll pay twice what you’re asking.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jesus! Do you think I’m that easy?”
“Yeah, usually. I’ll pay whatever you’re asking.”
“Wow,” she said and she looked at me, worried. “You’re hungry for a gun.”
I admitted I was.
“You know, if you find yourself a girl for a night, that can sometimes take care of
the itch, and it’s a lot less dangerous.”
“I’m not planning to shoot anyone. I’m trying to keep from getting shot.”
She stared at me awhile and then flipped a wall switch behind the counter. I’d seen her flip that switch before. It automatically locked the front door. Anyone who wanted to come in now would need to hit a buzzer.
She reached under the counter and removed a small Ruger .38 semiautomatic. The grip had some wear but the gun looked like it would shoot just fine.
“It holds six, plus one,” Susie said. “I’ll charge you three-fifty. I could ask for more.”
“You got anything else?”
She looked irritated. “Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it. And a box of fifty rounds.”
I paid cash, which she slipped into a pocket in her jeans. She slid the gun into a soft case and handed it to me. “Happy shooting,” she said. “Or not.”
“Thanks, Susie.”
I turned to go.
“You sure you don’t need a girl?” she said.
I turned back. “I’ve got all I can handle right now.”
She leaned on the counter. “Tell.”
I smiled at her. “Another time.”
* * *
LUCINDA HAD LET HERSELF into my office. When I walked in, she was sitting at the desk, working at the computer.
She’d set my mostly empty bottle of Jim Beam at the edge of the desk to make it conspicuous. She’d also fished through the desk drawers. The Baggie of cocaine was propped against the bottle.
It was an accusation.
I went to the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and took a drink. The Baggie fell to the floor and I left it there.
“You bastard,” she said without looking up from the computer.
I drank again.
She said, “I don’t work with drunks or cokeheads.”
“Good policy.” I took another drink.
She spun from the computer, her eyes full of fire. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Where do I start? I shot a cop because I figured that if I didn’t he’d kill some innocent men. Then the innocent men threw me in jail for three days. For trying to save them, I guess. When they let me out they convinced me to join up with the guys who were shooting at them. Why would anything be wrong?”
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