Blue Avenue

by Michael Wiley

  No one said anything. The man whose throat I’d struck looked unperturbed. He drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh. All four were thick-chested and wore jeans and dark shirts speckled with rain. The man beside me didn’t bother to wipe the rainwater from his cheeks.

  ‘Are you the police?’ I asked.

  The man with rainwater on his face threw an elbow into my ribs, already bruised from Melchiori’s kicks.

  When I got my voice back, I asked, ‘Do you work with Daniel Turner?’

  I braced for another elbow to the ribs but it didn’t come.

  The van drove toward the river until we reached a brown twelve-story concrete tower. It was the PDF, which stood for Pretrial Detention Facility, but mostly we called it the county jail. The van turned into a lane that led through a large metal garage door to the Prisoner Intake. We pulled behind a squad car from which two uniformed officers were struggling to remove a Cuban man.

  At the intake desk the officers unlocked my handcuffs and I emptied my pockets of keys, wallet, cell phone and the magazine from David Fowler’s pistol. When I pulled out the crumpled picture that Terrence had pasted together with Belinda’s face and a doubly-penetrated woman, I said, ‘I need to keep this.’

  ‘Sorry, honey,’ said the woman behind the desk.

  I tried to tear it but the officer whose throat I’d hit grabbed my wrists.

  ‘What are you charging me with?’ I asked.

  He grinned, took the picture from me and said, ‘Sorry, honey,’ as though it was all a big joke.

  They took me to a holding cell, a freestanding, steel-posted, wire-mesh room with a steel bench and a concrete floor. ‘Welcome to the zoo,’ the guard said.

  I sat on the bench and wondered how the police had tracked me to Hemming Plaza and why. The officer at the reception desk on the fourth floor of City Hall had seen me pass but he wouldn’t have known who I was unless he’d been given my photograph and told to look out for me. That seemed unlikely since even I hadn’t known I’d be going to City Hall until a couple of hours earlier. Fowler could’ve called the police as I’d left his office but he’d seemed worried about involving them, so that seemed less likely, and even if he had called, the police wouldn’t have been able to locate Susan’s car so quickly. The van had been waiting for me and the four men inside it had known what to do and when to do it. That made me think that Fowler was right to worry about the police.

  I wondered how Fowler fit into the killings of Belinda and the other women and how the events that he described did. If he’d really told Godrell Graham about his daughter’s death, Graham would have good reason to come after the others at the party, but I’d have thought he’d go after Melchiori and the other men before the women. If Graham wasn’t behind the killings, the men at the party would have good reason to get rid of any witnesses they distrusted.

  I believed that Tralena Graham’s suffocation in a plastic bag had led to the killing of Belinda and the others. But why stuff Belinda in a bag and not the others? Because she’d personally put the bag over Tralena Graham’s head?

  I wondered what Fowler had left out or didn’t know. Belinda and her husband had been friends with Don Melchiori, and Godrell Graham had been a regular at Melchiori’s parties. Could Belinda and Stilman have known Graham before the party where his daughter died? Fowler said that Graham was part of an illegal business, probably involving drugs, and Stilman had brought drugs from the Caribbean through Florida to Chicago. Supposedly he’d retired from trafficking, but he owned a thirty-eight-foot Fairline motor cruiser that could make leisurely trips to the islands. And what about his stepson? My son. Terrence hung out at the Little Vegas club and made obscene art out of pictures of his mother.

  The guard came back and opened the door to the holding cell. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he asked. He took me to an interview room with a metal table and three metal chairs, told me to sit, pulled out a pair of handcuffs and told me to put my hands behind my back. ‘Don’t make this difficult,’ he said with a sadness that I found persuasive. I put my hands behind the chair and he ran the handcuff chain through the back spindles and snapped the cuffs over my wrists.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  The guard left and a minute later Daniel Turner came in. He set a manila folder and a clear baggie with Fowler’s gun magazine in it on the table and sat across from me.

  ‘Hi, BB,’ he said.

  I shook my head. ‘This isn’t the way you talk to me.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d come in without some help.’ He was wearing a cotton button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows.

  I shook my head again. ‘Give me the picture of Belinda.’

  ‘This?’ He opened the folder and removed Terrence’s cut-and-paste job. Someone had flattened and uncreased it.

  I stared at it and raised my eyes to Daniel’s. ‘Destroy it,’ I said. If my hands had been free I’d have done it myself.

  He looked at the picture. ‘Why did you do this? It doesn’t look good, you making something like this.’

  I spit on the picture. White saliva flecked the fat woman’s breasts.

  ‘That’s disgusting, BB. Really.’ He picked up the baggie with the gun magazine and set it on top of the picture. ‘Where’s the gun that this belongs to?’

  ‘Guns scare me. I don’t own one.’

  ‘I know that and it makes me wonder why you had this in your pocket.’

  ‘How’d you know where to find me?’ I asked.

  He frowned as though I’d disappointed him. ‘A pistol magazine and a pornographic picture of one of the victims – that’s not enough to charge you with anything. But it’s surely enough to start people wondering about you.’

  ‘Why did you pick me up?’

  ‘Two days ago a couple of patrolmen found you with a prostitute behind the old Chevy dealership on Philips Highway.’

  ‘Her name’s Aggie,’ I said.

  ‘No. Her name’s Karen Charleton but she calls herself Aggie on the street. Where is she?’

  My head had started to ache. ‘Ask the patrolmen. Last I saw her, one of them was getting ready to screw her in the back of the cruiser.’

  Daniel reached across the table and punched me in the jaw though he didn’t use much muscle. He said, ‘This afternoon a car pulled up to a bus stop where three girls were hiding from the rain. One of the girls was your friend Aggie. A man waved her over. The other girls said Aggie talked to the man and then tried to go back to the shelter but he pulled her into the car.’

  Something hard and heavy seemed to drop in my stomach. ‘Was he driving a green SUV?’

  ‘What if I told you that the girls identified you?’

  ‘I’d say you’re lying.’

  He stared into my eyes and said, ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I haven’t seen Aggie since I left her behind the Chevy dealership.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said.

  ‘How did you know where to pick me up?’

  ‘You’re worrying a lot of people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Well, to begin with, your wife and son.’

  ‘I’ve always worried them,’ I said. ‘Who else?’

  ‘You send your boy out in your car and trick a rookie into following him, that doesn’t mean that I won’t post someone with more experience at your house so he can tail you when you leave again in Susan’s car.’

  I thought about that. ‘So who’s worried about me?’

  ‘You were at Don Melchiori’s house last night when he got shot,’ he said. ‘He’s not accusing you. He’s too dirty himself to start accusing others and you look like he gave you a beating before you gave him his.’

  ‘Who’s in this with Melchiori?’

  Daniel smiled resignedly. ‘I’m warning you to stop.’

  ‘Is that why you picked me up?’

  ‘I’m warning you, BB.’

  ‘Are you Melchiori’s message boy?’ I asked.

  He c
ocked his fist to punch me again but he held back. ‘I’m releasing you now. But I’m keeping the picture and the pistol magazine.’

  ‘You should destroy the picture,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll keep that advice in mind.’

  ‘Did your rookie arrest Thomas?’

  Daniel looked mildly embarrassed. ‘Thomas shook him after about ten blocks.’

  SIXTEEN

  At seven-thirty p.m. I ordered lamb Torinese at Sorrento’s. We’d driven to the restaurant in Susan’s car, Thomas at the wheel, Susan beside him, me in the backseat. In my pocket, I had David Fowler’s home address, which I’d gotten online. Rain was falling steadily but the restaurant was bright and airy, the walls painted a pale pink that made the place look like it belonged by a sunny Mediterranean beach.

  ‘You’ve got to stop this now,’ Susan said quietly. ‘Otherwise I’m leaving.’

  I cut a bite of lamb chop and put it on Thomas’s plate. I cut another and put it on hers. ‘The lamb’s excellent,’ I said.

  Susan stared at the meat as if it were a scrap left over from a surgery. ‘I’m taking Thomas with me,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ I said and looked at Thomas. ‘How do you feel about that, Champ?’

  He said, ‘Mom’s more dependable than you.’

  ‘Yes she is.’ I drank some wine.

  ‘Why can’t you stop?’ Susan asked. It was a question she’d asked before, first when I’d ridden with Charles after the rape and killing of the six-year-old boy, again eight years ago when I’d ridden with him once more.

  I answered as I’d always answered. ‘I don’t know. I wish I could.’

  ‘What was jail like?’ Thomas asked. As soon as I’d arrived at prisoner intake, Daniel had called to tell Susan that they’d picked me up. The call had stopped her from scolding Thomas, who’d just returned from a seventy-mile cruise around town.

  ‘It smelled bad,’ I said. ‘Like the stale sweat in a public bathroom after homeless people have been cleaning themselves.’ I ate another bite of lamb and he watched me chew. I drank more wine.

  ‘That’s it?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s it.’

  We drove home in the early darkness. The rain had eased to a mist but as we pulled into the driveway, thunder roared overhead and it fell hard again.

  Thomas kicked off his shoes and disappeared into his bedroom and Susan and I stood together in the kitchen. ‘I’m serious about leaving,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve been gone for fifteen years.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘I know how I feel,’ I said.

  She came to me and put her arms around me, her head to my chest. I put my hands on the small of her back. I said, ‘You know that I won’t stop, right?’

  She held me closer. ‘I know.’

  ‘So this is it?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said.

  We stood together for a while, though no matter how long we held each other the pain of being apart wouldn’t diminish.

  She said, ‘I need a drink. You want one?’

  ‘I could use another.’

  She went to the refrigerator and I stared across the counter at the back door and the darkness beyond it. At the same moment I noticed that one of the quarry-clay bowls was missing from the counter, Susan screamed and stumbled back. On the middle refrigerator shelf, in front of a carton of eggs, Fela’s head sat in the missing bowl. Her eyes were as white and opaque as congealed milk. One ear was bent inward. Her feline teeth were as sharp as pins.

  Thomas heard Susan scream and he ran into the kitchen. When he saw the head he tried to stop but ran into me. I held him but he pulled away, went to the sink and vomited his spaghetti. Then he wiped his mouth on his forearm and returned to look in the refrigerator.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said as if I were to blame for Fela’s death.

  He said, ‘If you stop now I’ll never talk to you again.’

  I looked at Susan and she shook her head, then said, ‘I’m leaving and I’m taking him with me.’

  I went to the phone and called Charles. ‘I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,’ I said and hung up.

  Thomas came to me and I pulled him close in a hug. For the first time in two years he hugged me too. Susan glared. I went to her, held her head in my hands and pulled her to my lips. She didn’t want my kiss but then it seemed she did and when I let go she said softly, ‘You bastard.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, and walked outside into the rain.

  The electronic gate at the end of Charles’ driveway was open and when I pulled in front of his house he was standing under the porch light waiting for me. He stepped into the rain and climbed into the car. His calico cat was nowhere to be seen.

  Charles shook the rainwater from his hands and said, ‘Fuck of a night.’

  ‘In many ways,’ I agreed.

  ‘What’s up?’

  I told him about getting picked up by Daniel’s officers and about his warning. I told him that Aggie was missing. I told him about Fela’s head. I told him that Susan was leaving me.

  ‘Yep, a fuck of a night,’ he said, as though these troubles only confirmed what the rain had already told him. ‘What did David Fowler say?’

  ‘He’s scared,’ I said, and I filled him in on all that Fowler had told me about Tralena Graham’s death and the role that Belinda, Melchiori and the others had played in it, as well as the drug-trafficking rumors about Tralena’s father.

  When I finished, Charles nodded. ‘It might be a fuck of a night but you just pulled this thing together.’

  ‘Not all the way. We still don’t know who’s doing the killing.’

  Charles said, ‘Let’s go see David Fowler.’

  I pulled the address from my pocket. ‘I thought you might like to talk with him.’

  He shook his head. ‘The hell with talking.’

  Fowler lived in an old, pale blue, wood-frame house on Powell Place. A single light was on in a front room and the driveway was empty. I parked on the street and we ran through the rain to the front steps. When I knocked on the door no one answered. Without saying a word, Charles went to work on the lock.

  A minute later we stepped into the front hall. Fowler had spent a lot of time and money rehabbing the place. The wood floors gleamed and he’d painted the baseboards and ceiling-molding light colors to set them off from the walls. The furniture in the front room was modern with a lot of brushed nickel and bright fabrics.

  I called, ‘Mr Fowler?’

  No one answered but something bumped against the floor in the back of the house.

  ‘Hello?’ I said louder.

  Again, no one answered.

  I turned for the door as soft footsteps approached from the hallway, but Charles stood where he was, then stooped and held a hand palm up toward the darkness. An old beagle with gray muzzle whiskers, its tail wagging low between its hind legs, plodded into the light and sniffed Charles’ hand.

  ‘Hey, boy,’ Charles said gently, ‘where’s Fowler?’

  The dog finished sniffing, plodded to a wall and lay down against it.

  We searched the house thoroughly. Fowler seemed to live alone. The furnishings suggested that he had more money than he would make as a city events coordinator but nothing indicated that he’d gotten the money illegally. Nothing even indicated that he’d ever done anything that would embarrass him. We found no porn DVDs. We found no souvenir bag of pot from Jamaica. It seemed unlikely that anyone lived so clean.

  ‘He scrubbed his house because he expected someone to search it,’ Charles said.

  Then he got two slices of bread from the refrigerator and fed them to the dog and we let ourselves out.

  ‘What next?’ he asked.

  ‘D’you want to look around Melchiori’s house?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  As we drove I asked, ‘Did you talk with your friend at the DEA?’

  He nodded. ‘The lady I know says Jerry Stilman cooperated with them at least s
ome of the time for the last three years that he was in Chicago and continued to help when he and Belinda moved here. She also says that when he left Chicago he cut himself out of most of the trafficking business but he never left it completely.’

  ‘The DEA let him keep dealing?’

  ‘If he wasn’t in the game he couldn’t tell them who the other players were.’

  ‘Can you ask her if Godrell Graham was one of them? Did Stilman know him?’

  ‘Sure thing,’ he said.

  ‘Did she say whether Belinda was involved?’

  ‘They had nothing on her.’

  ‘Terrence?’ I asked.

  ‘Him either.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything else?’

  ‘She said Jerry Stilman’s heart attack wasn’t natural.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He said, ‘Someone shoved a shank through his chest while he was sleeping in bed.’

  A few minutes after ten p.m. we broke through Melchiori’s front door. A security alarm blew an electronic whistle until Charles tore the plastic facing from it and disconnected the wires. I followed him to the living room. Melchiori’s blood and mine had stained the white carpet, and the room smelled of Charles’ urine. Charles went to the marble fireplace and removed a steel poker from the fireplace set. He swung it and smashed the mirror that hung above the mantle. He carried it to a double set of built-in bookshelves and smashed a glass clock, a ceramic statue of a laughing Buddha and an empty vase. He inserted the tool end of the poker behind a row of books and swept them to the floor. He did the same with two more rows of books. Then he raised the poker over his head and swung down, demolishing one of the wooden shelves.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  He flung the poker at the fireplace. Its spear end penetrated the fireplace screen and the handle protruded into the room.

  ‘I don’t particularly like this man,’ he said.

  ‘It seems to me you’re using more energy than he deserves.’

  He shrugged. ‘Seems to me just right. You want to search upstairs and I’ll search down?’

  ‘As long as you don’t destroy the stairway while I’m up there.’