by Joseph Flynn
“Is there an arrest warrant out on him?” Zeke asked.
Aaron had told him never to get between the cops and somebody they wanted to pinch.
Roberta shook her head. “No, not yet anyway.”
“So why’d you come to see me, take the chance Dawson might slip away on you?”
The reporter sighed. “Well, I was counting on one of the three guys involved in this corrupt bridge-painting deal to turn state’s evidence against the others. Now, Campos is dead and Callas has vanished. That leaves Dawson, but his dropping out of sight isn’t a crime. The cops want to talk with him, but they don’t have anything on him.”
Zeke thought about that as they walked. “So your story’s slipping away from you. You want to know what my interest in Dawson is. Maybe it’ll bring your story back to life or give you a new one.”
“In a nutshell, yeah, that’s it.”
Zeke respected her honesty. She was a working pro, trying to do her job.
Roberta asked, “You heard from A.J. Price, saying I’m okay, didn’t you?”
“Hold on, let me see.” Zeke took out his phone and checked his voice mail. He found a message from Price saying he could trust Roberta. “Okay, you’re good.”
“Tell me something, will you? How come you sent me to a basketball writer?”
Zeke laughed. “A.J. thinks b-ball players are the best athletes in the world. He paid me his highest compliment. Said if I wanted to get back into big-league sports and not break my neck again, I should try the NBA. I have the talent to make it, he said. He’d love to see me crash the boards.”
A gleam came into Roberta’s eyes, but Zeke wagged a finger a her.
“You’re not a sports writer, and I’m not going to play pro basketball.”
“I get excited,” Roberta said. “That’s the way I am about my job.”
“You’re very lucky then. So now you want me to give you something else to geek you up.”
She nodded. “If you’d be so kind.”
“My kindness comes with conditions.” After Roberta accepted his terms, he told her Paulette Mallory’s story, including the recovery of Pamela Keller’s accounting ledgers.
“That’s freaking amazing,” Roberta said. “God, what a story.” And then her face went slack with disappointment. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“Any of that shit Dawson pulled back when he was a cop, ripping off drug dealers, he can’t be prosecuted for it. The statute of limitations has run out.”
“I thought about that,” Zeke said.
Roberta told him, “You can’t get around the statute.”
“Maybe not to lock him up, but I did some reading on Dawson. He sued the city, right?”
“Took City Hall for a bundle.”
“Well, then, if we were to expose his fictitious business, Dawson Window Replacement, he’d have to explain where all the money he ran through it came from. Even if he didn’t face a criminal prosecution, the city could countersue him for the money it lost and more. After all, if it turns out Dawson was a thieving SOB, he knew it. So he also knew the claim that he’d been defamed was false. His law practice would probably suffer, too, don’t you think?”
Roberta looked at Zeke in wonder. “That’s brilliant.”
“Yeah, people forget I was an academic All-American, too.”
“Dawson will be ruined. God, this is great.”
“If he’s not filleted first.”
“What do you mean?” Roberta asked.
Zeke’s mean streak moved front and center. “I mean, there are people Dawson stole from and did business with who don’t believe in any stinking statute of limitations. People who’d be interested in doing a lot more to him than turning him into a disgraced pauper. Once the city goes after him in court, the message will be clear that any political protection — and probably the gangland cover — he might currently enjoy is gone. Then it’ll be open season on his ass.”
The Trib reporter looked at Zeke and felt the fear many a football opponent had known.
You got on the wrong side of this guy, you were trouble.
Zeke drove into the city to make two stops.
The first was to see Aaron Levy.
“You find out who the lone survivor of Jonas Dawson’s gang of crooked cops was?” he asked.
“Stephen Zimmerman, more commonly known as Stevie Z.”
“He’s still locked up somewhere?”
Aaron shook his head. “He served his full sentence. Usually, when you commit a crime while in prison, like killing another inmate, you end up serving more time, a lot of it. But when Stevie wasn’t killing the guys who attacked him, both deemed clear cut cases of self-defense, he was a model prisoner. Rather than risk another attack on him, the powers that be decided to let him take his chances outside. He’s been out six months. He was released under a new identity, and I haven’t been able to find out what that name is or his location as of yet.”
“If he has family and friends in town, do you know where they are?” Zeke asked.
Aaron handed him a list.
“What about his appearance? Back in the day and anything more recent.”
Aaron slid two photographic prints across his desk.
“The first is from his graduating class at the police academy; the second is as the computer software imagines him to be currently.”
Zeke took the photos, too.
“I take it you’ll be able to solve our client’s problem,” Aaron said.
“Oh, yeah,” Zeke told him.
With Sugiyama-san as his only company in the dojo, Zeke asked, “Do you believe in reincarnation, Sensei?”
“Do you believe in God?”
“More often than not. What I worry about is whether God believes in me.”
A man not given to mirth, the master martial artist smiled nonetheless.
Zeke counted that as one of his major accomplishments in the dojo.
Sugiyama-san said, “Tibetan Buddhists are more given to believe in reincarnation than Japanese Buddhists. As for me, I am inclined to think there is more to life than just our time in this world. What exactly happens next I can’t say. I only hope that I will be able to accommodate whatever it is.”
Zeke thought about that. “Among the people you know who do believe in reincarnation, how do things work?”
“The term rebirth is preferred to reincarnation. Whenever a person dies, a new personality is born. Not into the material world but on a spiritual plane. This is followed sometime later by an earthly rebirth. This cycle continues indefinitely. It always involves suffering until all mortal cravings are banished and nirvana is achieved.”
“What kind of cravings?” Zeke asked.
“In Buddhism, these are greed, hatred and delusion.”
“I see none of those in you, Sensei.”
Sugiyama-san said nothing, only rose from where he and Zeke had been sitting in the seiza style. He went to the utility closet, took out a broom and began to sweep the spotless dojo floor.
Zeke joined him.
Chapter 10
Zeke, Reggie, George and Paulette sat around a card table in the dining room of the mansion on Sheridan Road. Light came courtesy of a portable work fixture. The crown molding, baseboards and window frames were covered with painter’s tape in preparation for the ceiling and walls to be painted the next day. All the power tools, though, were silent for the night.
George said, “Zeke and I are gonna furnish the place a little nicer than it is right now, but we need some advice on the drapes.”
Reggie laughed and Paulette managed a smile.
Having warmed up his audience, George continued, “Guess who’s going to be the newest sports broadcasting personality in town.”
Zeke said, “You’ve got a job?”
“I do. SportsAmerica Chicago loves my charm, eloquence and dashing good looks.”
The happy news earned George a peck on the cheek from Paulette and a sock on the shoul
der from Reggie. George looked at Zeke for his reaction.
“I’m happy for you, man,” he said. “Your ratings ever need help, I’ll drop by and do an interview with you.”
George laughed. “That’s real big of you, but I’ll try to struggle along on my own for a while.”
Zeke intuitively understood why. “You’re going to start out covering college sports not the pros, and these days most people identify me with the Bears.”
George looked at Paulette. “You’ve got a real smart guy working for you.” Looking back at Zeke he asked, “You got any more insights, Swami?”
Zeke nodded. “You’ll cover Northwestern’s teams as your lead, and that’ll flow into reporting on the other university teams in town and throughout the state.”
“The man is a detective,” George said.
“Speaking of which.” Zeke turned to Paulette.
He told her of his conversation with Roberta Lane. Paulette took it all in with a poker face. At the moment, she seemed almost indifferent about the fate of the man she feared might want to kill her. Her impassive demeanor escaped no one’s notice.
“You all right, Paulette?” George asked.
She bobbed her head. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Roberta would like to interview you,” Zeke said. “I told her I’d ask you and whatever you decide she has to respect. I made it clear there was to be no pestering.”
Paulette reached across the table to take Zeke’s hand.
He enclosed her hand in both of his.
“If you’re having second thoughts about making sure Dawson is out of your life, don’t,” he said. “He’s a genuine bad guy. Whatever happens to him, he’s got it coming.”
Paulette asked Zeke, “Do you want to know what my problem is? I feel sure that I was my Aunt Pamela and that Jonas Dawson killed me … but when I say that to someone else or even to myself, I can’t help but think it sounds crazy.”
“Nothing wrong with having a screw loose,” George said. “Anybody who steps onto a football field has to be a little nuts. Just look at Zeke and me.”
“And they’re pictures of mental health compared to me,” Reggie said.
Paulette looked at each of them, ending with Zeke.
“What really scares me? I’ve started thinking maybe this isn’t where my problem ends. If I’ve lived before, maybe I’ll live again. And who’s to say Dawson won’t be there waiting? How’s that for crazy?”
Zeke released Paulette’s hand and sat back.
“If things do link up that way,” he said, “maybe all of us will be right there with you.”
“You can bet I will,” George told her.
“If I can spare the time,” Reggie said with a shrug.
“So what do you say?” Zeke asked. “We’ll take things one life at a time?”
Paulette looked at each of them, firmed her chin and nodded.
“Would you look at that place?” Paganini said as he and Chopin cruised north on Sheridan Road. “It’s a damn mansion.”
Bigger than the big boss’s place, he thought but didn’t say.
“What’d you expect a couple of football stars to have?” Chopin said.
“Yeah but they were just rookies, didn’t even finish one season.”
“It’s the signing bonus they get; that’s where the big money is. Plus, if they get hurt in a game and can’t play anymore, I think the whole contract gets paid off. They might even get some kind of insurance payment for all I know.”
“Jesus, and people think we’re the criminals.”
“We are,” Chopin reminded his partner.
“Yeah, but shit, nobody steals like those big name jocks.”
“Those Wall Street assholes do.”
“Yeah, okay, them, but who else can you name?”
“Those computer hacker assholes.”
“Okay, okay,” Paganini said. Sometimes Chopin got on his nerves. “Makes me wonder if we got into the wrong line of work is all.”
“Money’s fine, but there’s job satisfaction, too.”
The two killers looked at each and grinned like hyenas.
“Yeah, there is that,” Paganini conceded.
They hadn’t driven up to Evanston to ply their trade. That decision had yet to be made. Due diligence, however, demanded they lay the groundwork should things break that way. They’d already pushed through the emotional barrier of whacking a hometown athletic hero. Hell, if the guy wasn’t going to play anymore, he was just a washed-up bum.
The killers made three slow passes by the big house, noting and discussing possible points of entry, the kind of firepower they’d need to stop a couple of giants who could probably run through brick walls and other demands of the job.
They were deep in their discussion of tradecraft when flashing blue lights appeared behind them: cops. What the hell had they done, the killers wondered. Paganini was a law-abiding, defensive driver — unless he was running someone over on purpose. And their car, a new Lincoln MKZ, fit right in with the neighborhood.
Paganini started to pull to the curb, but the cop got on his loudspeaker and said, “Don’t stop. Follow the patrol unit ahead of you.”
Paganini glanced at Chopin. “What patrol unit?”
Looking over his shoulder, Chopin said, “That one.”
A second cop car pulled out in front of them.
“What the hell is going on here?” Paganini asked.
“Follow the patrol unit,” the cop behind them ordered, putting more steel in his voice.
Paganini did as he was told, grinding his teeth. Neither of them ever brought a gun or any other weapon with them when they were only doing prep work, and self-restraint was the bedrock of their professionalism. Only chumps lost their tempers.
Even so, Chopin could see Paganini was losing his cool.
Didn’t like being led around like a little kid getting sent to his room.
“What they’re hoping,” Chopin said, “is we’ll do something stupid. Like, maybe, make a quick turn and try to run away and hide from them. But we’re too smart for that, right?”
Paganini took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, we are.”
In a matter of minutes, though, even the possibility of an escape was eliminated. Cop cars pulled up on either side of them. They were stuck in a rolling box. By now, even Chopin was steamed. But neither of the killers was suicidal. They kept driving south on Asbury Avenue, heading back toward Chicago.
The procession stopped just north of Howard Street, the dividing line between Evanston and the big city. A black cop with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves got out of the patrol unit in front of the killers. He walked back to the Lincoln and gestured for Paganini to lower his window.
Before he said a word, he took a picture of each killer with his cell phone.
Neither Paganini nor Chopin had ever been arrested; no booking photos of them existed. But they knew their likenesses were in any number of law enforcement databases as “known associates” of guys who had been arrested plenty of times. Even so, it stung to be stopped on the street and photographed by a cop.
Paganini started to object, but the cop held up a hand.
“You want to get all formal about things, we’ll have to take you in. So just listen first before you make your choice. You were seen behaving suspiciously in the vicinity of the home of two prominent Evanston residents. You’re never going to do that again or you will be arrested. If that happens, you’ll think of tonight’s experience as a joyride. If anything unfortunate were to happen to those two residents, your photos will be forwarded to the appropriate jurisdiction.”
The sergeant cocked his head to the south.
Two CPD patrol units were waiting on the opposite side of the intersection.
“Do we understand each other? No need to speak, just nod.”
Grinding their teeth, Paganini and Chopin inclined their heads a millimeter.
Sergeant Charles Manley raised a hand and the lead patrol un
it boxing in the killers moved aside. A moment later, the traffic light turned green and the killers crossed into Chicago. Manley called after them, “Drive safely.”
Interesting night’s work, he thought.
All courtesy of a heads-up call by Ms. Regina Green.
Zeke Edison was a lucky man, he thought.
Here are the photos and the phone number you need, the text from Zeke to Roberta Lane read. She sat in her modest, no-color, all-but-invisible Korean-built compact car parked across the street from the newly constructed townhouse in Lincoln Park. Place had to be worth millions, she thought. Her parents had owned a two-flat nearby when the area was middle-class; it was the home where she’d spent half of her childhood.
Then Mom and Dad had decided the suburbs would be a better environment for her and sold out cheap. Talk about making the wrong real estate move. They’d be sitting on a seven-figure property, too, if they’d hung on. Roberta wouldn’t have minded if she’d had to spend three-quarters of her salary on property tax, if she’d inherited the place.
She couldn’t help but feel emerald green envy every time she passed through the area.
In her more unkind moments, she wished misfortune on those who currently lived in Lincoln Park. That night, ha-ha, she’d actually have the chance to help move somebody out of the posh locale. That enormous asshole, Jonas Dawson, was going somewhere as far from Lincoln Park as she could imagine.
Now that she had Dawson’s phone number, she could pounce.
She made the call. Her phone was company property. Chicago Tribune came up as the name on the call recipient’s ID screen. It was answered on the third ring. Dawson had taken a moment to think about things and decided to pick up. “I have nothing to say to your newspaper. If any allegations are made against me and you print them —”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that line of bull before. This is Roberta Lane calling.”
A sneer entered Dawson’s voice. “You calling for a date, Lois? You’re a little long in the tooth and short everywhere else for me.”
