The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “Which you failed to do, apparently.”

  “I’m sure she’ll turn up. It’ll be all right. But I thought you’d want to know.”

  “You make too many mistakes, Larry.”

  “I do my best, Peter.” Train sounded nervous.

  “Do better.”

  Poe hung up before Train could speak again. He sat very still, then began drumming his fingers again. At length, he hit a button on his desk console that automatically dialed another number. Mango answered on the fourth ring. She sounded a little nervous, too.

  “Is something wrong, Peter? I just left you.”

  “I have some work for the guys,” Poe said. “There’s a girl who works for Larry Train. Her name’s Jill Langley.”

  “Jill Langley. Yes.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Talk to her on the phone sometimes, when I call over there. What’s wrong?”

  “Probably nothing. She’s missing. I want to know where she is. There’s a painting missing from Train’s gallery. One of those that was supposed to go to me. She may have it. One of the special ones. The Red Tower, by a guy named Kirchner.”

  “I remember it. I asked you if it was supposed to be New York. You said it was a picture of Berlin or something. How would she get her hands on it?”

  “Train isn’t sure. It may be on the boat. She may have brought it there, trying to be helpful. Have the boys check it out. If it’s not there, I want it found. The girl, too.”

  “I’ll get them right on it. Anything else, Peter?”

  “No.”

  “You want me to come over?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “What about the—the thing tomorrow?”

  “I thought it over. I still want you to go through with it. I want to get started with this.”

  “All right.” She paused. He wondered if that was an indication of uncertainty. “I’ll get it done. I’m ready now. I can pull it off.”

  “We could use somebody else.”

  “No one you can trust. Not like me.”

  “Okay. Don’t fuck it up.”

  “You’re so goddamned encouraging.”

  “I love you, babe.”

  “I love you, too, Peter. I wish I could be with you.”

  “Time enough for that. Good night, Mango.”

  “Good night.”

  He hit a button, ending the call, then leaned back, swiveling the chair to look out the window at the yellow-orange lights of the city streets, stretching off to infinity. Then he went to his bar and poured himself half a glass of extremely expensive scotch, adding four rounded ice cubes from a dispensing machine he had had built into his bar. He took the drink across to his bedroom. After removing all his clothes in his dressing area, he went to his bed and sat sipping the drink, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling window. He did not feel content. After gulping down the drink, he set down the empty glass and went out into the hall to the small elevator that served all three floors of the penthouse.

  Diandra was in bed, reading. He looked at the cover: Somerset Maugham’s Moon and Sixpence. He’d never read it.

  He continued to stare at the book, until she put it down, noting his nakedness.

  “Now?” she said, without hostility, but also without any discernible enthusiasm.

  He nodded.

  She put the book on her night table, and then her glasses. Hesitating a moment, she then threw back the bed covers and pulled off her nightgown, spreading her long legs slightly.

  In rather a short time, Poe was finished. He held her body tightly a moment, motionless, then pulled back.

  “Are you happy now?” she said. Her voice was soft and musical, and always under perfect control. She could speak to him in this gentle, kindly manner yet manage to keep affection out of every word.

  “Yes.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night, babe.”

  She went back to her book.

  But he wasn’t happy. Returning below, he made himself another drink and went to the long gallery, snapping on an overhead spotlight. It was focused on a large-scale architectual model of downtown Chicago and its buildings, complete with a greensward representing Grant Park. At the northwest corner of the model, on the edge of the city center, was a tall, thin tower, painted a bright crimson, standing higher than any of the other building representations. Unlike the others, it had not been yet built.

  The spotlight was positioned to shine directly upon it. Because the rest of the gallery was in darkness, the red tower was reflected in the gallery’s long window, though the city skyline and lakefront was clearly visible beyond. The effect was to superimpose the tower in the window over the actual skyline beyond.

  But it was in the wrong place. Taking a large swallow of whiskey, Poe lifted the model building and set it down on the other side of the miniature cityscape, placing it on the flat rectangle that represented Meigs Field. It stood there firmly, rising above all else—the Hancock Center, the Sears Tower, everything.

  Poe looked up. In moving the object on the table model, he caused its reflection in the window to shift to where it seemed to be rising from the actual lakefront airport. He went to the wall and turned a knob that redirected the spotlight to the tower’s new position. It stood out sharply, dominating all else, like it was the commanding general, in front of the ranks, and every other structure in the city merely the army.

  “If you pulled this off,” Mango had said when he’d told her his idea, “it would be fucking amazing.”

  It would be more than that. If he could make this happen, he could make anything happen. And everyone in the city—everyone in the whole goddamn world—would know that he could make anything happen.

  He sipped once more. Now he felt content.

  CHAPTER 2

  The service for Hannah Curland was held on the back lawn of the Lake Forest house, the chairs for the two dozen or so family members, friends, and acquaintances arranged just below the terrace wall, facing toward the lake. Both the Curlands and Albrechts had long been at least nominal Presbyterians, and the minister from the local church had been asked to officiate, a token gesture to accommodate whatever spiritual belief Hannah may have harbored, though little was suspected. The minister was a surprisingly young man—one Matthias’s mother had hardly known. He read, in somewhat timorous voice, from appropriate passages of the King James Bible, then recounted the deceased’s fondness for flower gardens and animals and her love for church and husband and children—portraying a woman who had pitifully little in common with the once-wild North Shore party girl whose eventual loss of beauty to age and dissolution had driven her to fits of hysteria, numerous infidelities, and a penchant for terrorizing everyone in her family. She had been a quite popular person in the community, but that had to do with charm, not goodness—and she’d used her charm like money, paying it out for what she wanted. Her intolerable behavior as an old woman was part of what had driven Matthias to acquiesce to his wife’s demands to move away to the East, and from there to his exile in France.

  He had forcefully emptied his mind of all these dreadful memories and thoughts of his mother—even during the late hours of the previous night, when he had relentlessly paced the terrace like some solitary, sentimental ghost. Now they came rushing back, uninvited. He sought distraction by glancing over his shoulder at the mourners in the chairs behind him, wondering if Jill Langley might have come to the service. Christian had been so sure that she wouldn’t, but Matthias felt somehow that she would be there.

  She wasn’t. Instead, he was startled by the sight of Sally Phillips in the last row. She was a little thin and careworn, but still had the same sleek, dark-haired, neatly turned out beauty he had remembered, sometimes even when lying in another woman’s arms.

  She quickly caught his eye and gave him a quick glimmer of a sympathetic smile. He looked away, regretted that rudeness, and, attempting amiability, turned back, but found her then gazing fixedly past him at the young minis
ter.

  Christian came up, a drink in his hand. “I see you’ve noticed Sally.”

  “Hard not to,” Matthias said.

  “Jill’s not here.”

  “You said you didn’t invite her.”

  Christian gave him a strange look, then moved away.

  After the service, as well-wishers filed inside, Sally lingered on the terrace. Matthias took that as invitation. He approached her slowly, giving her opportunity to evade him. She didn’t use it.

  “Hello, Matthias,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “We’re all calling it a blessing.”

  “I liked her. We got on well.”

  “You were fortunate.”

  Seen close up, though perfectly groomed and very carefully dressed, Sally did not look her best. The youthful freshness had faded and her beauty turned fragile, almost brittle. There were small lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. He wondered which had been worse, her divorce, or marriage.

  “You’re still living in France?”

  “So to speak,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll be going back.”

  “Then you’ll be here for a while?”

  “For a while. Family business to attend to.”

  She smiled, pleased. “Are you staying here in Lake Forest?”

  “In the city. We still have the house on Schiller Street, for the moment.”

  Her silence indicated she knew all about his family’s financial predicament. All of Chicago must.

  “I live in town myself,” she said. “I have a little apartment, and a job. I run a little shop in Water Tower Place.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Well, I’m managing. I have to work.”

  She said this so distastefully it amused him. But he was concerned about her, and curious. Her ex-husband must have caught her in some indefensibly compromising circumstance, or else gotten his hands on a corrupt divorce court judge. Perhaps both. The latter had always been easy in Illinois.

  Matthias noticed that a few people were waiting to speak to him. Beyond them, Christian, bloody Mary still in hand, stood with Annelise by the terrace railing. His sister held the silver urn containing their mother’s ashes.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he said to Sally. “Can you wait?”

  “For a little. I left my daughter with a sitter. It’s a long train ride back.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  He said that on impulse. It would mean taking his father’s ridiculous Rolls-Royce, as he wanted nothing further to do with the Jaguar on loan to Christian from his middle-age amour. He’d have to be very careful with the Rolls. The car, and much else, might yet have to be sold.

  “That would be very nice. Thank you, Matthias.”

  “Give me a few minutes.” He nodded toward his brother and sister. “We have a ceremony to perform.”

  She turned and saw the urn. “Are you going to a cemetery?”

  “No. Just down to the bottom of the bluff. To the water’s edge.”

  “Was that her wish?”

  “Her wish was to live forever, as a beautiful girl. No. This is our decision. This bit of shoreline was her favorite place. We’ll scatter her ashes on the rocks; make her part of the lake.” He paused. “It’s not as if she’s vanishing without a trace. She’ll remain behind, in that portrait Chris did of her.”

  “The one that was in your Schiller Street house?”

  “Yes. It’s still there.”

  “It’s a lovely painting.”

  “It’s ingenious.” He touched her shoulder. “Go get a drink, or something to eat. This won’t take long.”

  The old log steps cut into the side of the bluff had not been well maintained and the trail was dangerous in places. Hannah’s three grown children left their frail, elderly father to cope as best he could with the funeral guests in the house and made the precarious descent on their own. Annelise, leading the way, managed it best. Matthias, carrying the urn, followed at a slower pace. Christian, stumbling several times, was last. They had to wait for him after reaching the shoreline rocks.

  The waves were gentle, sloshing between the bigger stones, but not over them. There was little wind. When Christian, clutching a nearly empty glass, finally joined them, Matthias stepped up onto a large rock that extended farther out into the water than the others. Carefully he removed the lid from the urn.

  “Not all of it,” said Annelise.

  “What?”

  “Don’t put all the ashes in the lake,” she said. “Leave some in the urn.”

  “That’s like cutting her in half,” Christian said.

  “No, it’s not,” said his sister. “Part of her should be here. But there should be something left to bury.”

  “What about her legs?” said Christian. “Maybe they still have them in the body parts bin at the hospital.”

  “Shut up!” said Annelise. For an instant, Matthias thought she was going to hit him.

  They stood in awkward silence for a moment. Matthias could think of nothing ceremonial to say. The minister had uttered all the ritual words. The three children had their private thoughts, none that should be given voice. Ultimately Matthias found a trace or two of remembered love for his mother in the turmoil inside him. Perhaps that would suffice. Leaning forward, extending the urn over the blue-green slosh, he slowly tilted it. The ash fell in a spray, a thin spatter on the water’s surface, quickly gone.

  Matthias straightened the vessel, then peered inside it. He’d poured out about two-thirds of its contents. There was a tiny triangle of bone in the ash at the bottom. Swiftly he replaced the lid.

  Annelise, to his surprise, was crying.

  As Matthias stepped down, Christian hopped up in his place. He lifted his glass to the hazy sky, then emptied its meager contents with a tiny splash.

  “Sacrifice,” he said.

  The old Rolls’s engine made an objectionable clatter but chugged along unfalteringly. As the day was warm and he wished to experience his reclaimed surroundings as fully as possible, Matthias had put the top down. He drove rather slowly, not wanting the wind to snatch away their words. He wanted to talk to Sally very much. He wasn’t sure when there would be another opportunity. She’d been his first love. Whatever had happened to her—to them—that fact endured. It wasn’t love he felt now. Simply loyalty, and regret. It sufficed for a bond, for some kind of reconciliation.

  They were following the weaving course of Sheridan Road as it wound through the ravines and bluffs of Highland Park and Winnetka. It would take them a good hour or more to reach Sally’s apartment building.

  She leaned back in the weathered leather seat, tilting her face toward the sky and stretching out her arms.

  “How many times did we make this drive, you and I?” she said.

  “The last one wasn’t my favorite.”

  “Nor mine. Now that I’ve had a few years to think about it.”

  She straightened. The passing trees loomed large overhead, reaching down as if wanting to touch them. They were very old. He wondered if any had been growing before there had been houses here.

  “So you’re divorced,” he said.

  She waited a long time before answering. “It happens,” she said. “It was for the best.”

  For all her studied manners and carefully elegant dress, Sally was very much a girl of the middle class, the suburban commuting class. Her father had been an executive with a wall coverings manufacturing company, pushed into increasingly responsible and better-paying positions more by his wife’s ambitions than any of his own. Sally had been born on the North Side of Chicago and spent her early childhood in Lincolnwood. A fortuitous promotion had enabled her father to move his family to an address in West Lake Forest when she was fourteen, and her mother had taken over from there, getting Sally into a good private school and pushing her into relationships with likely young men whose social backgrounds the mother had carefully scouted.

  Because of the Curlands’ high p
rofile in Chicago cultural and civic affairs, the mother was initially thrilled when Matthias and Sally had begun dating. She carried on as if Karl Albrecht’s big house on the lake was some feudal manor and Matthias a noble who went with it. But she had investigated the Curlands as she had all her daughter’s young men, and had been thunderstruck to learn how little money they had outside of what was tied up in the museum, and how much Matthias’s father owed. After that, she began obstructing the relationship’s progress in all manner of unpleasant ways, neglecting to take Matthias’s telephone messages and committing Sally to social engagements that interfered with their dating.

  Acquiring the allure of something forbidden, their romance had only flourished. Sally had already lost her virginity to one of her mother’s eligible young finds by the time she’d begun dating Matthias, but she gave herself to Matthias with all the flushed innocence and awkward passion of a virgin. Glancing at her now, he thought of the first time she had opened her blouse to him, in the seat of an open car much like this.

  For all that, her marriage to someone like her ex-husband was inevitable. Though divorced and much older than was considered suitable, he was everything else her mother had desired—rich, well connected, a member of the Chicago and Casino clubs, active enough in Republican politics to know the governor and be recognized by name by the president at fund-raising dinners, a man mentioned frequently in both the society pages and the business pages.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?” It was a rebuke.

  “This isn’t how you should have ended up.”

  Sally frowned, then sighed. She rubbed her temples with the heels of her hands, then glanced about, as if there was some way she might escape this situation. Finally, folding her arms, she fixed her gaze forward out the windshield. “I should never have married him. If it weren’t for having my daughter, I’d hate my mother for pushing me into it. I suppose I do anyway.”

  “Did he give you that bad a time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he get violent? I was worried about that, from what I know about him.”