Windy City Knights

by Michael A. Black

  I took in a deep breath and suddenly wondered how we’d gotten to where we were. I certainly hadn’t planned on it. Maybe it was inevitable once I asked her to stay at my house instead of the hotel. Or had she asked me? I couldn’t remember. Chappie had been right, giving me his evil stare and lecture. But hell, how could this be any more tiring than that ball busting workout he’d put me through this morning?

  Shade, the seducer of innocents, I thought. Then Laurie stirred and I felt her breasts press against me. The stirring in my groin started again.

  No, it had been her just as much as me. That goddamn massage. Almost like she’d practically engineered it. Or maybe things just sort of happened. Kind of like in Casablanca, when Bogey embraces Ingrid, even though he knows he shouldn’t. And where he didn’t know what he was going to do right up until the end. I remembered reading that the actors themselves hadn’t even known how the movie would turn out due to the constant rewriting of the screenplay. And that spontaneity helped make the movie so great.

  Laurie’s hand rubbed over my chest. She was awake now too.

  “Mmmm,” she said. “Can’t you sleep?”

  “I was just thinking about you,” I said.

  Her hand traced down my stomach.

  “Oh? Let me see.”

  Laurie, I thought, in my best Bogey imitation. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. But I also remembered something else…something that I’d learned from my own experience. Just like with me and Paula, once two people have crossed the line into intimacy, nothing is ever quite the same between the two of them again.

  CHAPTER 20

  Out of guilt as much as dedication, I got up at six and went for an abbreviated run. Abbreviated because Chappie had told me to scale it down to three miles a day this week. And also because the accumulated snow made it feel like I was running through cement. It was Saturday, and traffic was fairly light. I tried to stay on the road as much as possible, except the few times when I was forced by an oncoming car to jump back into the drifts alongside of the streets.

  But the temperature was definitely on the upswing. I could feel it in the air. And with each step. The snow was heavy with moisture. Good packing, we used to say when we were kids. Children would be making snowmen later on when they got up, as reluctant daddies fired up the snow-blowers. I resisted the temptation to stop and toss a couple of snowballs at an obnoxious driver who tooted his horn at me. I just kept raising my feet up high as I went along.

  When I got back, Laurie was up and dressed, standing with a cup of coffee and a cigarette on my back porch. She smiled brightly at me and said she’d fix breakfast while I showered. Mornings after can be difficult sometimes, but this one wasn’t tempered by the overindulgence of alcohol to mitigate any regrets.

  No, this had been two mutually consenting adults sliding purposefully down that slippery slope toward intimacy. At the time it had seemed completely natural, aside from the condoms, of course. Spontaneous. But as I stripped out of my running clothes and tossed them in the clothes basket, I found myself wondering if it had been the right thing. I’d sort of compromised my Private Investigator’s Canon of Ethics in getting involved with a client, but, hell, I’d done that before. But this time the edginess ran deeper. Maybe because I’d known Laurie from before. But the little pigtailed girl of my past certainly wasn’t the same mature woman that I’d held in my arms last night, right? Or was I just deceiving myself, trying to rationalize that I’d made still another bad move in a history of missteps?

  I stood naked under the nozzle and twisted the faucet, letting the ice-cold blast hit me in sobering fashion until it transformed into the warming spray.

  When I finished my shower Laurie had a fresh stack of pancakes ready for me, as well as coffee, orange juice, and wheat toast.

  “What’s our plan for today?” she asked me.

  “We’re just going to have to wait to see what George can come up with on those phone numbers,” I said. “If we get another lead, I can check it out through a friend of mine, but I’m sort of hoping that something will pop up that will attract George’s attention.”

  “So we really can’t do much then?”

  “Laurie,” I said, taking her hand, “I told you at the onset that this ain’t like TV or the movies. Sometimes all I can do is poke around the edges and try to overturn a rock to get the police interested.”

  “I know you told me about not being too hopeful,” she said, looking down at the tabletop. “I guess I’m just too anxious.”

  “Unfortunately something like this takes time to develop.”

  “What have you got planned for this morning?” She glanced back at me with a smile.

  “Well,” I said, picking up my mug of coffee, “I’ll have to go out and shovel the walk, then do some laundry. I probably should go in and take a light workout at Chappie’s. The fight’s coming up in just six more days, so I have to stay sharp. Want to come along?”

  “I think I’d better go through the rest of Paula’s things,” she said. “I’d like to mail them off today. I should try to find some movers, too. But I’ll help you shovel the walk first if you want.”

  “Nah, that’s okay. Good conditioning exercise.”

  By the time I got the walk done, it was getting close to nine. I figured to hit the gym and then get hold of George in the early afternoon. I hadn’t had the chance to ask him yesterday about checking on that Smershkevich character either, but that was on the back burner anyway. I stowed the shovel in the garage and came back inside.

  Laurie had cleaned up the kitchen, and had several of the bags of Paula’s clothes on the floor. She was opening the stack of envelopes that Turner had given us. I told her not to throw anything away until I’d had a chance to look through it. Before she could say anything, my beeper went off. It was George’s work number with a 911 after it. I went into my office-room to call him back.

  “Got your beep,” I said, when he picked up. “What’s up?”

  “A couple of things.”

  I heard him sigh.

  “First off,” he said, “I got the results back on that blood test I asked the doc to run at the morgue. On Paula.”

  “Yeah?” I could feel the tightening in my gut.

  “She was clear. Nothing at all.”

  I felt a wave of relief, even though I’d suspected as much.

  “But there’s another problem. That guy. Peeps,” he said slowly. I could tell from his tone that something was wrong. “I started nosing around, and it turns out he was a homicide victim. From the looks of it, he was killed a day or two ago.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah,” he continued. “They found him in his office yesterday. Ron, exactly when did you say you talked to this guy?”

  “It was Thursday.”

  “In his office?”

  “Right.”

  “What time?”

  “Late afternoon.” I explained that I had to get to the vet’s, pick up The Beater, and get to the hotel by six fifteen.

  “Did you tell me before that you roughed him up?” he asked.

  “Not really. He took a swing at me, so I just gut-punched him and twisted his arm a little. Persuaded him to give me the file of pictures that he had of Paula. Why?”

  “I made a couple of discreet inquiries. One of the uniforms in the First District told me it looked like he was worked over real good.” His voice sounded grim. “Do you think your prints are gonna be showing up at the crime scene?”

  The familiar twisting grabbed hold of something inside my gut again. I tried to think what I’d touched and what I hadn’t touched.

  “What are you saying, George? Am I a suspect or something?”

  “Look, goddammit, I’m just trying to get a handle on this fucking thing,” he said. “Think about how this looks for a minute, will you? I’m doing you a favor, nosing around about this guy and suddenly he turns up whacked. It left a computer trail right back here. Now I gotta explain why, you know? A
nd if your fingerprints are all over the place, how do you think that’ll look?”

  “Well, for Christ’s sake, don’t you think if I did ice the bastard I’d have wiped the place down before I left?” I said, my voice rising. Laurie dropped the envelope she was holding and came to stand beside me, her brow crinkling.

  “It don’t matter too much what I think,” he said angrily. I heard him blow out a breath, then he said, “Look, Ron, before we go assuming the worst, let me get a hold of the investigating dicks over at Area Four. They already called here checking because they seen that I ran Peeps’s name on the computer yesterday.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You gonna get back to me then?”

  “I’ll beep you. Maybe it’d look better if we went up there, and you made a preemptive statement.”

  “What ever you want,” I said. “But should I bring my lawyer?”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he said, his voice still tight.

  I tried to laugh. It came out sounding more like a weak cough.

  “Say, did you get anything back on those phone numbers I asked you about?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah,” he said. I heard the sound of papers being rustled. “The one turned out to be a new cellular account registered to Peeps. Just opened a few days prior to that call. The Mail Boxes, Etc. on that Regis guy’s card came back with an address for some outfit called Lothar Industries. It’s another P.O. box.” He read it off to me. “Oh, that cloned cell phone you give me was entered in the computer as being stolen, too.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” I said. “Give me a beep when you find out what’s up.”

  I gave Laurie a quick rundown of what George had told me. She looked like somebody’d gut-punched her.

  “Oh, God, it’s all my fault, getting you mixed up in this,” she said.

  I put my arms around her and gave her a gentle hug.

  “Hey, I’ve been there before,” I said. “It’s sort of an occupational hazard with me.”

  “Really?” she said. “You’re not worried?”

  “Nah, I ain’t got anything to be worried about. The cops aren’t really out to frame innocent people, despite what O.J.’s Dream Team would have had us believe. When you get to be a full-fledged lawyer you’ll know that.”

  She smiled weakly.

  “Now I’d better get my ass into the gym or Chappie will go ballistic.” I slipped on my jacket and picked up my gym bag, trying to look more self-assured than I felt. “You okay?”

  She stood and put her arms around my neck.

  “You’re so special, Ron,” she said, kissing me softly. “All this trouble swirling around you, and you’re more concerned about me than yourself.”

  At the gym Laurie’s heroic perception of me gave me one more thing to wonder about. Did I want this unexpected relationship to develop into something serious? With all the past history we shared, I suddenly wasn’t quite sure. But I did know that I really liked her, and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was hurt her if it turned out bad. Like it had for Paula and me. But we were two different people, weren’t we? Or would Paula’s ghost somehow intrude? The questions kept flipping over and over in my mind, as I was starting to begin to regret what had happened last night.

  Luckily, Chappie was putting me through an easy workout doing some sit-ups, medicine ball, a little on the bags, and a little with the focus mitts. He seemed almost subdued as he took me through the paces. When we took a break, he asked me how I was doing.

  “Fine. Why?”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Still attached.”

  “You seem distracted.”

  “Nerves.”

  He nodded and grinned.

  “I know the feelin’,” he said. “Ain’t no cure for them. Not till you step inside them ropes and get it on.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “But you ready, I know that. You in great shape, and you got the fight plan down, and you done did it before. The only thing different this time is that it be for the championship.”

  I smiled and he told me to hit the steam for a little while.

  “Take an easy run tomorrow morning, then we’ll meet over here and just do another light one,” he said as we walked toward the locker room. “After that, we can slip over to my place and watch the football game. Darlene gonna fix something real good.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “You can bring your new girlfriend, too, if you want,” he said. “What’s her name? Laurie?”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  “Just be sure you get a good night’s sleep Thursday night.” He paused and glanced up at me. “You know what I mean. Then rest all day Friday, okay? We in agreement on that?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  “You sure nothing else bothering you?” he asked, squinting slightly.

  “No, I’m okay,” I said, not wanting to burden him with my latest extraneous array of problems. “It’s just nerves, that’s all.”

  I tried to put the Peeps problem out of my mind as I sat in the steam room. It would eventually be clear that I had nothing to do with his murder, but I was also sure that his death was connected to all this somehow. But how? The scattered pieces of the jigsaw puzzle seemed to loom in front of me again. I just had to figure out how they all fit.

  I tried putting it all in chronological order, going back to my seeing Paula that first night. The airport shuttle bus had just arrived. Red was dragging her out and they were in some kind of an argument. What the hell had he been saying to her? I strained my memory but couldn’t remember exactly.

  He’d claimed that she was his girlfriend, which Paula denied. And she said she didn’t know him. Also probably a lie. So they were associated with each other in some way. What way? And what about the message she’d left on my machine that morning? She’d said something about being in a jam and wanting to stay at my place…And there was something else…That she was picking up her car. But the Lincoln Estates cops had told me that the car had been towed as abandoned. The trunk punched. It was cold. Maybe she couldn’t get it started…Or maybe somebody like Red had been waiting for her….

  I got up and stood in front of the shower nozzle, doused myself with a blast of cold water, then sat back down as the heat engulfed me again.

  I thought back to that night. Paula not wanting to go home…Did she really want to go with me, or was she just trying to avoid Red?

  I exhaled, jumping to the morning after. Me out running. Paula awake and using my phone. She calls a taxi…No, she calls Peeps at his place first, then she calls a taxi. Then writes down the number for his cellular phone…8AM….

  I suddenly realized that I had it wrong. It wasn’t an eight, it was a hastily scribbled “S.” SAM, for Samuel Peeps. But why write down this number if she knew his other number by heart?

  George had said that it was a relatively new cell phone, issued a few days prior. That meant that she didn’t know the number. So she’d probably been out of contact with Peeps for a couple of days. Out of contact…Out of town? The shuttle bus…Was she coming in from the airport? I remembered seeing some airline luggage stubs in her purse when the cat knocked it over. Paula had apparently left her car at the Lincoln Estates Holiday Inn, which a lot of people do when they’re taking the shuttle bus to the airport. There’s no parking fee, and you can take the bus back out to the hotel when you return. But there were a lot of hotel stops much closer to her apartment. Why come all the way out to Lincoln Estates from the city instead of choosing someplace nearer? What had Red said? Something about Paula not thinking that he’d be able to find her. And what the hell happened to her car? Who broke into it, and why hadn’t she picked it up? That’s what she’d said she was going to do on that message she’d left on my machine. She’d also hinted that she was in some kind of trouble.

  The steam was starting to get uncomfortable, so I got up and went outside. I cooled down, took a couple of drinks of water from the fountain, and went in the sauna booth for some gentler hea
t.

  The pieces of the puzzle still swarmed in front of me, almost coming together to make some kind of sense for a moment, then jumbled again.

  If I assumed correctly that Paula and Peeps had been mixed up in something, and that she’d been out of contact with him for at least a couple of days, that’s why she’d written down the new cell phone number. She’d come to the hotel on the airport shuttle bus. But I still didn’t know why she’d go way out to Lincoln Estates when she lived in the city. To pick up her car? Or maybe to meet Peeps? And how would Red know where to trace her? He must have known she’d be coming from the airport…Been expecting her…She didn’t show up as planned, so it would be a simple task of checking the shuttle bus routes. She could have just as easily taken a taxi, but the bus was more public and less traceable.

  I blew out a slow breath. The sauna heat was starting to feel hot now, too. Standing, I pulled open the door and went to the showers. My ruminations continued: I leave a message on Paula’s answering machine, and then my place gets burglarized a couple of hours later. So does hers. Somebody looking for something…Red was involved somehow, leaving that clone phone with old Mr. Turner to keep tabs on Paula’s place. But something was still missing. And what ever it was, Red wanted it bad. Peeps too. Both of them taking elaborate measures to try and find it. Something that Paula had. Something that he figured she might have left with me? And I still had no idea what it was.

  I was missing too many pieces of the puzzle. It was like trying to catch steam with your hands. Or maybe I just wasn’t looking at the whole picture in the right way? My gut told me that I was getting close. And what I’d eventually find, I probably wouldn’t like.

  CHAPTER 21

  My session in the steam had given me a clue for at least one part of the puzzle that I could check on. After getting dressed, I went up to Chappie’s office and looked up the number for Island Cab Company in the yellow pages. A bored-sounding dispatcher answered, and I asked for the manager.