Dirty Fire

by Earl Merkel

  In all likelihood, he would pull the plug on the investigation.

  I recognized how selfish I was being. I wanted Nederlander badly; I wanted him badly enough to barter everything I possessed and almost everything I was.

  But I did not want the responsibility Kay was asking me to take.

  “Kay,” I said, slowly, “I believe this is a real threat against you. Somebody’s trying to pressure Gil by implying that you can become a target.”

  She nodded, a hint of impatience in the gesture. The significance of what her husband was involved in obviously had not escaped her, nor had the implications of this tape, sent anonymously to him.

  “Gil would do anything to protect you,” I said. There was a cautionary tone in my voice; I did not say it to provide comfort, and she knew it.

  “You mean he might withdraw from this investigation,” she said, and it was not a question. I nodded.

  “He’s told me some of what’s going on, Davey,” Kay said. “Maybe more than he thinks he has. I know how important all this is to everyone involved.” Her eyes took on a sudden new intensity and looked piercingly into mine. “Especially for you.”

  I felt a sudden sharp emotion and recognized it as shame.

  “Kay, Gil should know. Whatever…whatever the consequences.”

  There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch forever. Then Kay’s posture changed, and she shook her head.

  “No, Davey,” she said. “Not now. Not yet.” She looked at my face, and I understood part of what Gil must have seen the first time he met her.

  Before I could speak, she did.

  “Try not to look so guilty,” Kay said. “I’m doing this because I think it is the best thing to do.”

  “Kay, I don’t know what kind of protection I can arrange, but I’ll—”

  “Finish all of this, Davey—finish it quickly,” she said. “That’s the best protection any of us have.”

  I nodded and rose to leave. “The people who did this. We’re going to get them, all of them. I promise you. And when I do, somebody is going to be very, very sorry.”

  Kay Cieloczki looked at me with eyes that saw more than I wanted to reveal.

  ‘Davey,” she said, “have they tried something like this against you?”

  I shook my head.

  “There’s nobody that I—”

  I stopped short, the words stillborn in my throat.

  From her seat across from me, I saw Kay’s face furrow with sudden concern; her lips moved, but I no longer heard her voice.

  Instead, in my mind I heard Ellen’s voice, tinny over the cellular phone she had taken to carrying, making an appointment with me that I thought she had not bothered to keep.

  Chapter 37

  Lenny Washburn once told me that he approached the writing of his books as if they were construction projects. Assemble the needed tools. Procure the nails, lumber, the trim. Clear the time and write the goddam thing.

  There were no flashes of deep insight, no nuances of writing style to carefully hone, no painstaking seduction of the muse. Washburn was a craftsman, not an artist. He knew this, accepted it and had even come to revel in the fact that his books were built on story, not style.

  In his writing, Washburn was aggressively nonjudgmental: he laid out the facts with the precise accuracy of a master craftsman, and the facts communicated the only story they could possibly tell.

  But every craftsman knows that there has to be a blueprint. All the corners must square with each other, and every structure must exist in symmetry and logic. The best craftsmen have a sixth sense that triggers alarm bells when a design—even one that, on the surface, looks rock-solid—somehow fails to make sense.

  That was the problem with the story that was, by now, dominating his every waking moment.

  What I had known, the facts that I had given him—to the author, they felt loose, sloppy, at best incomplete.

  And that troubled Len Washburn deeply.

  Which was why he was seated on a bench upwind of Buckingham Fountain, watching the less wary of the midweek tourists and midday office workers try to dodge the swirls of chilly spray shed by the choreographed, synchronized water jetting high into the air. The sun, high in a cloudless sky, warmed the back of his neck.

  Had he turned his head slightly to the north, he would have been rewarded with one of the most impressive cityscapes in the world. If he had turned to the south, the broad greenbelt of Grant Park would have directed his eyes to the classical architecture of the Field Museum of Natural History, the world-famous Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. And directly behind him, had he looked, the broad-shouldered heights of the Sears Tower soared high above the gritty hustle of the South Loop and its Sullivan-era historic buildings.

  But that was the direction from which his source would approach this prearranged meeting site, and Washburn knew the strict protocols the man insisted the writer follow. He had even specified the bench on which Washburn now sat. It faced east, where the expanse of sparkling water that is Lake Michigan touched the horizon in three directions. In the foreground, a river of vehicles streamed past, their exhausts layering a shimmer over the clear April airs.

  His source was late. Washburn was no longer accustomed to waiting for tardy sources. In normal circumstances, he might have blown off the appointment: he had done it before with other tardy informants. But these were not normal circumstances, and this was not a normal source.

  “Mister Washburn,” a deep voice intoned from behind the writer, a mild chiding evident in its tone. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your…what? Should I call it a ‘summons?’”

  Washburn felt the bench settle heavily as his source sat beside him.

  “Call it a cry for help,” Len said, staring at the swaying masts of the sailboats moored in the Grant Park basin. “I need your reaction to two words: Operation Centurion. And just so you understand that I’m not just on a fishing expedition, I already know it’s an investigation to root out corrupt cops.”

  Silence, heavy as a secret sin, settled on the two men.

  “Not my operation,” the deep voice finally said.

  “But you know whose it is. In fact, you’re working with him these days, aren’t you?”

  Again, there was a momentary pause.

  “You’ve been talking to some people you shouldn’t.” There was a measure of amusement in the words. “Or more likely, they’ve been talking to you.”

  “Operation Centurion,” Washburn repeated. “It’s targeted on the mess in Lake Tower, isn’t it? You know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. Since when is Ron Santori concerned with busting dirty cops out in the suburbs? Somebody get demoted, or what?”

  The bench shuddered slightly, rhythmically. Washburn was surprised; his source was quietly laughing. Then the shaking stopped, and Washburn waited with an unaccustomed patience.

  “You’re skating pretty close to interfering with an ongoing Federal investigation. Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “Not much,” Len shot back. “What worries me is a government agency that uses people like they were Kleenex. One that plays fast and loose with the judicial system and suborns perjury when it’s convenient. One that dicks around in a case where people are getting tortured and murdered—just to protect an ‘ongoing investigation.’ That kind of bullshit worries me a helluva lot. I thought it worried you.”

  Again, there was a pause. Then the man seated beside Len Washburn sighed deeply.

  “I was around when we used to do black-bag jobs, breaking and entering, planting illegal mikes, building files on the sex lives of political radicals,” he said ruefully. “Now I start growing a conscience.” Then he laughed, with only a slightly bitter edginess to it.

  “Look,” Washburn said. “I’ve been researching this almost since the start. I was in the courtroom the day the judge dismissed charges against John Davey, and I’ve been around too long not to smell a case that’s been fixed.”

  “Y
ou’re asking me to maybe blow an important investigation.”

  “I haven’t asked you to do anything you didn’t offer when you first talked to me,” Washburn retorted. “If I was out to screw you, or the FBI, I’ve had a year and a half to do it. I’m going to write the book on this Lake Tower thing, and I’m going to write it straight—but I’m convinced it’s not the book I started. Things have gone wrong, gotten out of control. And I think you know it.”

  Washburn’s voice rose in irritation. “I’ve talked to Davey, so I know a little of what going on now—at least, what he thinks is going on. Hell, thanks to you guys he’s ready to start shooting at shadows.”

  “Davey. Yeah, you might say he’s a little rattled. I reached under a car seat the other day and found a little tape recorder he had planted—he’s all the way to bugging FBI vehicles now.”

  There was a heavy silence for a moment. “What do you think you know, exactly?”

  “I know about the Russian Mafiya going after some kind of rare paintings. I know about the rich couple who burned up in that house. I know Nederlander is mixed up in it, up to his neck—and I know this is bigger than a probe aimed at crooked cops. This Operation Centurion of yours.”

  Both men fell silent as a pair of young women walked by, one of them pushing a baby stroller.

  “Centurion isn’t aimed at corrupt cops,” the man said, when the woman had passed beyond earshot. “Oh, if we find a few when we turn over the rock, fine. But Operation Centurion is designed to hunt bigger game, Mr. Washburn.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Centurion’s whole objective is to identify whatever crook is highest on the ladder. And, of course, pull him down. Hell, why do you think the Bureau has spent the past two years on the damn thing?”

  Len nodded solemnly.

  “And of course, even a police chief wouldn’t be high enough on the pecking order to justify that kind of investment.”

  It was not a question, and the writer expected no answer. For that reason, he was surprised to get one.

  “Maybe not,” the voice replied, softly. “But the guy he’s working with might be.”

  For the first time, Len Washburn turned to look up at the outsized man on the bench with him.

  “I think maybe it’s time I got all the facts, Charlie,” Len Washburn said.

  “Yeah,” said Charlie Herndon, “I do, too.”

  Chapter 38

  I tried to sound patient. It was, I sensed, an effort I would soon abandon.

  “You want I should page him?” the police dispatcher asked, as if he had been asked to explain quantum physics. “Yo, I’ll give it a shot. Wait one,” he said.

  I waited, listening to the slight crackle of static over the radio patch.

  “They tell me he’s in the building, but I can’t track down where,” the dispatcher said when he finally came back online. “But I know he’s hot to talk with you. He wasn’t happy about you deciding not to leave a number, neither.”

  Beside me, Chaz looked as if he was fighting down an urge to laugh out loud.

  “Must be nice,” the dispatcher continued, taking my silence as an invitation to converse. “Seems like everybody decided to take some time off today. First you go ten-seven, out of service, then Chaz Trombetta calls in sick after lunch. And Nederlander’s been among the missing all morning. Is there, like, a holiday somebody forgot to tell the rest of us about?”

  I grunted. “When Gil checks in, tell him I’ll be back in an hour.”

  I imagined I could hear the dispatcher scribbling it down, probably inaccurately.

  “Okay, if you say so. Any explanation I should give him?”

  I pondered for a moment.

  “Personal emergency. Whatever it is can wait for me to get there.”

  As it turned out, I could not have been more mistaken.

  • • •

  “I can take it through midnight,” Chaz Trombetta told me. “Later, if you need me to. Hell, it’s just babysitting, you know?”

  The dashboard clock said it was quarter to two—ten hours to midnight, and a long watch by any standards. Trombetta was ready, even eager, to rack up the penance he was so certain that he deserved.

  I must have looked doubtful because Chaz underscored the offer.

  “Hey, I’m serious—just gotta call Junie if it goes late.” He thought for a second, then grinned. “And I think I better call her now, tell her not to let on to anybody that I’m not sick in bed at home. I can imagine what she’ll do if somebody from the shop calls and tells her I checked out with stomach flu. She’ll think maybe I’m stepping out on her.”

  We were sitting in Trombetta’s car—his personal auto, not the city-issued unmarked vehicle assigned to him. When we had confirmed the threat to Kay, Chaz had wasted little time.

  He immediately called in sick—his act, complete with graphic descriptions of the stomach cramps he was experiencing, was Oscar-caliber. From his trunk he withdrew the tools that equipped his auto for the mission, tools selected on the basis of years spent waiting and watching from parked cars.

  He pulled out a pair of binoculars, the kind with the extra-wide aperture that made low-light surveillance easier. I noted the paper sack that I presumed was filled with candy bars and chewing gum, good for frequent jolts of high-energy fructose. There was also an oversized vacuum bottle of coffee, and the empty coffee can—complete with tight-fitting plastic lid—to be used as necessity required.

  “It shouldn’t go that long tonight,” I said. “Gil’s been working late hours, but he’s usually home by eleven thirty or so. I’m more worried about tomorrow, and every day after that until this thing is over.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “We’re staffed a bit thin for this kind of bullshit.”

  “I tried Santori again. His line still is there’s no real threat involved. Says as long as Kay didn’t want to take it any further, there’s no need to tip Nederlander about how much we know.” I shook my head in frustration. “Herndon wants to help, but he’s locked into some kind of stakeout, himself. I’d call somebody at County, except then it’s certain to get back to Gil. Hell, Chaz—I should just tell him. If he decides to bail, that’s his right.”

  “Sure,” Chaz said. “‘Course, that kinda leaves a few other people hanging their bare tushes in the breeze. You, whenever the tax boys get the urge. Me. Maybe I’ll get an adjoining cell, since I’ve copped to every kind of crooked-cop shit there is.”

  “They won’t use that against you—”

  “Right,” Chaz said with sarcasm. “You think Santori is gonna feel charitable after we’ve fucked up his big investigation—for the second time? Grow up, J.D. We do that, he’s going to come down with a convenient case of amnesia. He’ll forget any promises and stick it to whoever he can.”

  “There’s no—”

  “He’d do it, just to keep his own career from going down the toilet. Oh, yeah—no matter what else, Nederlander will walk. You can forget about bringing down the lowlives who killed the Levinsteins and that insurance girl. Do you get it, J.D.? Stack all that against the fact you feel guilty about wanting to keep the investigation rolling.”

  He glanced at the Cieloczki house, half hidden by the parkway trees.

  “From what I hear, Gil Cieloczki is an okay guy,” Chaz said. “He’d want to do the right thing. Let him. His wife knows it, J.D. She made the decision not to put him in a position where he’d feel he had to bail. Don’t you put him there, either.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but my voice carried no conviction.

  Chaz’s words were spoken low and tight.

  “I’m talking from experience here,” he said. “A guy thinks he’s protecting his family, he’ll do whatever he’s got to do. Even if he knows it’s not the right choice. Then it eats him up inside, every damn hour for the rest of his life. And maybe he never gets a second chance to try to make it right.”

  He raised his head and locked eyes with me.

  “Look,” he said, “let’
s us just handle it for a couple of days, okay? See how it plays out then, right? Posson should be out of the hospital by the end of the week. Maybe she can take a coupla days’ sick leave, log a little stakeout experience off the clock. That is, if you trust her now.”

  “I think she’s with us, solid,” I replied. “Yeah. I’m sure of it. Too bad we can’t use Mel, with his shoulder and all.”

  Chaz shook his head. “Bird hears what we’re doing, he’ll raise hell if you don’t bring him in. Hate to admit it, but I kinda like the little prick.”

  My mind had already moved away from the long-term logistics of bird-dogging Kay Cieloczki and back to the immediate problems it entailed.

  “Well, for God’s sake stay out of sight,” I cautioned. “You don’t want any of Nederlander’s people spotting you out here.” I took a deep breath, blew it out. “And that goes for Cieloczki, too. If he makes you as some kind of watcher, the whole game could go up for grabs.”

  My former partner looked at me from under his impressive eyebrows. “Uh-huh,” he said. “You ever know anybody to spot me on a stakeout? Ever?”

  He flapped his hand in an exaggerated, effeminate gesture.

  “You run along now, dearie,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on the fire chief’s wife. I need anything, I’ll be in touch.”

  • • •

  At that moment, as I would find out much too late, sixty miles to the south Orval Kellogg was hanging up the telephone at the attendant’s station outside Intensive Care.

  “They’re still tryin’ to find your guy,” he said, his eyes not meeting those of the man leaning against the wall nearby. “Suppose to be back in an hour, their dispatcher says.”

  The guard glanced into the ward through the half-closed curtain that did not quite surround Sam Lichtman’s bed twenty paces away. A form moved under the light blanket, but with only a feeble effort. “Too much longer, he’ll save hisself a drive out here.”

  “Well—nobody should die alone,” Ron Santori said, but he did not sound as if he believed his own words or cared to conceal the fact.