by Scott Simon
Sunny sat back, his chair creaking like a twig snapping in the vacant hallways. He began to punch in Rula's number on the blue face of his phone. He had gotten through 7-7-3 when Claudia asked, “Alderman, I know that Ms. Fite”—the city's commissioner of special events—“is handling the mayor's memorial. But I wonder if someone really close to him shouldn't be involved, too.”
Sunny halted his fingers.
“I thought of Alderman Barrow, but …”
“She's busy.”
Sunny stopped to think of people who were close to the mayor; he ran out of names within a moment. Then he brightened.
“Do you have a home number for Mrs. Bacon?”
He pressed in the rest of Mrs. Bacon's number, digit by digit, as Claudia McCarthy inscribed it on the edge of the folded sheet of paper.
Brooks Whetstone, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, sat in a blue vinyl booth behind lane 23 at the Star of the Nile Bowling Lanes on Western Avenue, a blue and red striped tie, a button-down white shirt, unclasped black snow boots, and a tweed jacket. A thread snaked out of his lapel, as if charmed out by a flute. When Brooks stood up, reached out to Sunny and smiled, his teeth shone like a row of runway lights.
Each afternoon, the lanes declared Cosmic Time. All overhead lights were extinguished or dimmed; ultraviolet lights were snapped on. Balls thumped in the dark center of lanes lit in screaming lime green. Luminescent violet-white pins clattered, music videos thumped like baritone jackhammers. Clusters of balls glowed in electric Jell-o colors of orange, green, yellow, and grape. Sunny looked down at his own extended hand to see his cuff buttons aglow, then his shirt buttons, then the stitching in his jacket, as if his own skeleton had been plugged into a wall socket.
“I recognize you from the news,” Sunny told him.
“Same,” said Brooks Whetstone. “And your trustworthy protector. He's really famous.” Sgt. McNulty had taken up a position alongside the glass entryway just below a line of signs about league nights, mixed teams, and Ball, Bag, and Shoe Night.
“Do you conduct a lot of business here?”
“You never run into a lawyer or a reporter,” the U.S. Attorney explained, and pointed to red letters glowing on a sign overhead: WI-FI INTERNET ACCESS.
“Plus that.”
The music videos seemed to be of all varieties, and as Sunny took his seat in the booth, Indian women on the screens overhead spun, swiveled, and shook sultry bare shoulders.
“Do you have any idea—”
“I know about a hundred words of Hindi,” Sunny volunteered. “I can tell you that they're not ordering onion pakodas.”
Sunny and Brooks Whetstone amiably established that they had never met. The U.S. Attorney usually met politicians only in depositions and courtrooms and politely declined invitations to those very civic events—the Polish Day Parade, Cinco de Mayo, the Gospel Music Festival, or lunch with the Reverend Jackson—that politicians coveted.
Under normal light, Brooks Whetstone was shampoo-ad handsome, with sandy hair, silvering gently and curling behind his neck. He sometimes went two or three days without shaving, raising a field of coppery thistles across his chin that, together with his lengthening hair, left a perpetual suggestion of windblown daring.
Brooks was simply driven: unmarried, unmated, and indifferent to all but the law and, occasionally, baseball. He often slept in his office, showering at the New City YMCA, dragging a plastic razor across his chin for five shaves, then not making the time to buy another and lacking the inclination to dispatch a staff member. To protect his appearance for courtrooms and press conferences, every few weeks Brooks's staff would schedule an appointment away from their offices. When he had buckled himself into the rear seat of his official sedan, reminded his driver to observe all speed and parking laws, and not to use his cell phone without an approved headset, his staff would exhale as he buried his nose in an expanding file, and deliver him into a barber's chair.
Illinois's Republican senator had recruited Brooks Whetstone. He believed that an honest, aggressive prosecutor could clean up corruption and, in the bargain, bedevil the mayor's Democratic organization with indictments, prosecutions, and rumors of indictments. Brooks had an outstanding record with the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco, prosecuting the leaders of the Joe Boys Chinese street gang in Richmond, Sunset, and Daly City. (Brooks was known as Butt Boy among San Quentin's residents) His father, a nominal Republican, was a Marin County board supervisor.
Brooks kept his own political convictions concealed. Not just from his staff, but from his mother, father, sister, and old girlfriends, who said that he probably lifted his eyes from a brief a week after they left and wondered where they had gone. No Marin or Stanford classmate, or any officemate, could recall Brooks, who was now forty-four, ever uttering an opinion about abortion, gun control, gay marriage, medical marijuana, or flag burning. Some wondered if he had convictions or merely sought them for others.
Brooks had inscrutable allegiances even in baseball. One of his assistants asked, as he followed a Cub game droning in the late afternoon, “If you don't mind my asking, chief, are you a Giants fan or an A's fan? Any feeling for our long-suffering Cubbies? Or what about—” Brooks halted her with a glance that could have backed up traffic.
“I root for whoever follows the rules,” he told her.
Yet Brooks Whetstone wanted to run for office someday. He had just enough experience in politics to believe he could do better. He had a reputation to spend and access to funds from his family and old school ties. But Brooks's ambitions resided in California, safely removed from those of the senator who had recommended him and from the repercussions of his trials. A prosecutor could make his reputation by sending Chicago Democrats and their donors to jail, but he would find it hard to raise money to support his own run in the same state.
As the mayor once said, “The son of a bitch can't poison the well and expect anyone here to buy him a drink.”
A country video began to play—Sunny had an impression of guitars, cars, and longing—as Brooks Whetstone leaned in to speak over the din.
“I've been here just about three years,” he began. “And I've really gotten very fond of the city. I guess we sometimes think of this as flyover country—landlocked and dreary. But the lake is dazzling. Music, theater. And the politics, I don't have to tell you, is high drama indeed.”
“I'll tell everyone down at the Hall, ‘Good show,’” said Sunny.
“I know you and the council have an important job to do over these next few days. I admire what you did today—talk about drama.”
He paused as if for Sunny to refuse or accept a compliment, but Sunny merely nodded up down, and then sideways—that maddening Indian rain dance, his daughters called it—and knitted his forehead. Brooks Whetstone went on.
“Architects can plant vines,” he said. “Politicians appoint commissions. A group that distinguished might help you keep a lid on silly speculation. It must be difficult when emotions run high. I don't know if what I have to tell you has any bearing. The mayor's death comes at a time when we were taking a look at several things. Let me put it that way.”
Brooks sat back and held his hands a foot apart, as if trying to fathom what would fit into a travel bag.
“You know, alderman, I have my side of the street to work. But I knew the mayor a little. Charming, intelligent. Resourceful. I just wish that he hadn't been such a”—he hesitated over what word to load, only hours after his death—“rascal,” he said finally, and Sunny had to admire the choice. Rascal cast the mayor as a tomcat, innocent to resist his own mischievous nature.
“That's the nicest thing I've heard even his friends call him,” remarked Sunny, and the prosecutor smiled.
“He certainly helped his friends,” said Brooks Whetstone.
“He should have helped his enemies?”
“The law is clear, alderman. Jobs go to the people who are most qualified.”
“I suppose I'd be
comfortable with that, too,” Sunny replied. “If I had gone to Stanford Law School.”
The U.S. Attorney smiled. The zest of contention had led him into law, and Brooks encouraged his subordinates to dispute him. It's an adversarial system, he reminded them; we have to prepare for attack from any quarter. But when junior lawyers did so, their deference—“If I may reluctantly point out, chief …”—could be cloying, as diverting as throwing an old tennis ball against a garage wall.
“You and I will always disagree about this, alderman,” he told Sunny. “History moves on, too, you know. The days are past when the politicians opened bathhouses for the unwashed. People have rights and expectations now. They don't have to depend on”—he hesitated again, probably choosing not to personalize the sentence for Sunny— “anyone for favors.”
“All the people hired have to work hard. It's no favor,” Sunny replied. “Look around. You ever seen a city better run than this one?”
“No,” said Brooks, which was true. “Which is why a man in my position wants to understand how you manage it. So last summer—when your committee gave the Parks Department authorization to hire— what was it—a dozen new employees to pick up litter in the parks and sweep leaves? They were all the most qualified?”
“Most qualified to spear tin cans, spent condoms, and paper cups from the grass?” Sunny asked almost wearily. “Let's just say we don't see a lot of resumes from Stanford men. It's the job you try to get when you can't get any other, shit-shoveling included. So we post the job, and say, ‘First come, first hired.’
“And then you make sure the people you want to hire are lined up by six a.m.—before anyone else can get there?” Brooks remembered at the last instant to lift his voice into a question.
“We reward initiative,” said Sunny. “They work hard, and they're accountable.”
“Especially to put up posters during election campaigns.” Brooks made no effort here to leave the impression of a question, but Sunny was prepared.
“We don't discourage citizen participation, if that's what you mean.”
Brooks Whetstone smiled, as if turning the page of a treasured book to a favorite section.
“You have a campaign fund….” he began.
“Of course. I'm a politician. Not a rich one. I can't just have my father-in-law write a check.”
“I don't need a local phrase book to translate that,” said Brooks. “Your fund has—”
“Something like two hundred forty-five thousand dollars. We declare it to the dime.”
“A lot of money to run for alderman.”
“And not enough to buy a broom closet on Lake Shore Drive,” Sunny answered and stopped. It was the equivalent of declining to take a new card in a game of chance.
“Those prices are crazy,” the U.S. Attorney agreed. “You know, alderman, we have people go over the quarterly campaign reports. The way the CIA goes over satellite photos.”
“Then I'm sure you found nothing out of order.”
“Absolutely not. Ab-so-lutely not,” Brooks emphasized, shaking his head as if to empty it of all suspicion. “But a few interesting items. Do you know Avi Cohen for instance?”
Sunny wrinkled his forehead, arched his brows, and held his chin in a frown, as if he'd been asked about an old, abstruse German philosopher.
“The name …”
“He's twelve,” Brooks explained helpfully. “Seventh grader at the Ogden School. Imagine—deposing a twelve-year-old. He's so bright, knows all fifty state capitals, though he sometimes forgets Columbia.”
“South Carolina.”
“Not Missouri?”
“That's Jefferson City,” Sunny told him, a bit too proudly. “A common mistake. But you remember such things when you have to take a citizenship test, instead of taking it for granted.”
“Avi gave seven hundred fifty dollars to your campaign,” Brooks informed him.
“He sounds like a splendid young man.”
“Do you know Billy Leavitt?”
“Politicians know lots of people.”
“Billy is thirteen. He's a crossing guard at Morgan Park Academy. He gave seven hundred fifty dollars too.”
“Do you know what some thirteen-year-olds spend on baseball cards?” Sunny asked, but Brooks Whetstone had already proceeded.
“And there's a sixth-grade big spender named Joy Wassell on your donors list. She's in accelerated math at Francis Parker. Geometric probability and theoretical and experimental probabilities—amazing what they teach youngsters these days. She gave seven hundred fifty dollars.”
“And to think,” said Sunny. “That's seven hundred fifty dollars she could have spent for drugs on the playground.”
“Do your young contributors get to bring you in for show and tell?” asked Brooks Whetstone, and both men sat back a few inches from the edge of the small tan table between them, glad to laugh.
“Every campaign wants the youth vote,” said Sunny. When Brooks continued, his tone had grown softer and less pointed, as if he were speaking distractedly about the fine print in a car rental contract.
“So if Billy Leavitt gives you seven hundred fifty dollars, his mother gives you seven hundred fifty dollars, and his father, David— don't want to forget him, he owns Leavitt Tube—”
“Him I know,” Sunny interjected.
“—gives you a thousand dollar contribution, suddenly the Leavitt family has given you twenty-five hundred dollars. Which is above the legal limit for individual giving to a congressional campaign.”
“But eminently legal for three members of a family,” Sunny pointed out.
“Still, if that kind of thing got into the papers …”
“Yes, I might have to volunteer to give it back,” Sunny said with a show of indifference. “Leaving my campaign fund with what—two hundred forty-five thousand dollars? People give money in their children's names to build libraries and museums. You act like making a political contribution turns kids into child soldiers,” said Sunny. “Bloody hell,” he said, fighting a smile—he must tell Rita and Rula that their argot had become infectious.
“It violates the spirit of the law,” Brooks pronounced slowly.
“I didn't know you could prosecute spirits,” Sunny said. “It must be difficult to keep handcuffs on them.” He began to stand, suddenly thirsty, to signal a server, his hands liquid and wobbly.
“You put roadblocks up on a highway,” he told Brooks Whetstone from his feet, “and you can't blame people for finding side streets. Do you want anything? To drink,” he stressed.
A young woman in glowing blue-white pants came over with a tray, the blond highlights in her pigtails flashing light like foam in a waterfall. Brooks ordered a Diet Dr Pepper. Sunny would have preferred a beer—he had been up a long time, and all signs indicated it was a specialty of the house—but he was not about to order one in front of the U.S. Attorney; so he merely seconded the motion. When their waxed cups had been thumped down in front of them, Brooks inclined his toward Sunny so that their plastic lids glanced against each other.
“To the mayor,” said the U.S. Attorney. “To the city. And good luck over these next few days.” They sucked at their straws briefly, bubbles gurgling.
“Alright then,” Brooks asked finally. “A strictly social question. Do you smoke cigars?”
Sunny permitted himself to look annoyed, put upon, and amazed.
“As far as I know, you can still light up in the middle of Montana at three a.m.,” he said, then added, “Only every time the Sox or Cubs win the World Series.”
Brooks Whetstone chose to share Sunny's chuckle.
“I'll mark that as ‘rarely.’ You have friends—two ladies—who run the Love Muffin.”
“Marti and Terri Gieger-Soriani.”
“Sisters?” asked Brooks. Marti was dark-haired, round-faced, cream-complexioned, and decisively Irish. Terri had sienna-reddish hair and an oblong face, freckled and markedly Italian. Sunny didn't care for Brooks's profession of blank-fac
ed naiveté.
“Halsted Street marriage has become the term. They're a few blocks down from my ward office on Broadway. They've opened an adjoining restaurant next door, too, called Martina Serves. If you ever want a good marinated tempeh with broccoli rabe. If that's possible.”
Brooks Whetstone pursed his lips into a sour smile.
“They applied for a liquor license last year.”
Sunny smiled back in recollection.
“And yes, there was a problem. They rented a storefront that used to be Li Kim's Marmara Sea Diner. Li never served alcohol. Marti and Terri wanted to. But the door of the restaurant turns out to be within ninety-four feet of the Yeshiva Anshe Lwow. It's against state law to serve liquor within a hundred feet of a house of worship. So they came to me. Rabbi Zemel at the yeshiva didn't mind the restaurant. Marti and Terri keep him in pumpkin carob chip muffins. ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘all those tough girls in leather jackets keep the neighborhood safe.’ I told them all, ‘What a farce—a law nobody wants for a problem that doesn't exist. In the old days, a couple hundred dollars in a handshake would have made everybody happy.’ Yes, I said that. Maybe you've heard; I'm known for my disarming wit. So we drafted a special bill to exempt the space from 4801 to 4819 on Broadway from that provision of the liquor laws. It was for everyone's benefit. It's what an alderman should do.”
“They were grateful?” asked Brooks
“They care about their community.”
“A thousand dollars' worth?”
“They usually care the legally maximum amount. I accept it humbly. I like to think I'm an effective representative of their interests. Theirs and a lot of other people's.”
“Indubitably,” said Brooks, turning his head down as if in contrition and shaking it from side to side. “Did they express their gratitude in any other way?”
“They run a muffin shop,” said Sunny, more sharply. “A bakery and a forty-seat restaurant. Do you think that's a fast track to riches? It's month-to-month. It's five a.m. to eleven p.m. I know. Most of their money is tied up in organic flour, for goodness sakes. They always have dried dough under their fingernails. They have to worry about mice eating the inventory. Do you think they have a private plane on call to whisk a raft of politicians away for a weekend of don't-ask-don't-tell debauchery at the Kentucky Derby? Sorry. That's your Stanford mates.”
