Windy City Knights

by Michael A. Black

  I excused myself and went to the bar. I ordered my usual club soda, and got a diet soft drink for Laurie. I put the drinks on a table near Kathy’s piano, and told her I’d be right back. As I walked over toward the main desk, Kathy started singing that Shania Twain song, “From This Moment On.” I wondered if that was the song that Laurie had requested.

  I used my passkey to open the door behind the front desk and told the switchboard operator to page Marsha. She picked up her walkie-talkie and talked into it. Marsha’s voice came on a few seconds later, saying that she was en route. I leaned against the wall and waited. When the door opened, Marsha came in and gave me an exasperated look.

  “So you really know whose key this is?” she asked, going toward the file cabinet where we kept the lost and found items. She took out her ring of keys and slid one into the oval lock. The drawer came open with a rasping sound, and Marsha reached in and pulled out the key, which was still taped to the Christmas coaster. “Well, tell her all the problems she caused me by sticking it in the toilet paper dispenser,” she said, handing it to me. “Why the hell did she do that, anyway?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out myself,” I said, smiling. I studied the key again, more convinced than ever that I had found a major piece of the puzzle.

  After thanking her I went back to the bar. Kathy was just finishing up another song. Laurie saw me coming, took one last drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out just as I sat down, and took a sip of my club soda. She turned her head and blew the smoke away from me. A few people applauded Kathy’s song.

  “Wow, she sounds even better in person,” Laurie said, glancing up at Kathy.

  “She sure does.” I looked at her. “Are you about ready?”

  “Yeah. Where we going?”

  I exhaled slowly before I spoke.

  “I think I may have put a couple of things together,” I said. “But I’m not sure exactly where it’s gonna lead. I’m starting to get sort of a strong hunch, but I’m not totally sure I should be taking you along at this point.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I told you before this whole thing might turn out…” I shrugged as I searched for a word.

  “Ugly?” she said. “You’ve only mentioned it about a hundred times.”

  I nodded. “But I’m probably not going to be able to proceed without your help.”

  She reached out and wrapped her fingers over my hand and squeezed.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I told you before. I can handle it.”

  She talked a good game, I thought. But now it was time to walk the walk.

  I told her to finish her drink.

  The office next to the high cyclone fence was brick, as were the rows of squat-looking buildings behind the fencedin area. I’d laid the key on the counter and the older guy behind the counter scrutinized it while Laurie related the long sad tale about Paula. The wall behind him contained a panel of glowing lights, buttons, and several television screens depicting the various lanes of the storage facility. I glanced up and saw that we were being videotaped, too. The old guy’s eyes went from the key, to his file, to the copy of the death certificate, to Laurie’s ID. Finally he shrugged and pushed his glasses up on his rather bulbous nose. The base of it was streaked with a network of broken blood vessels.

  “Well, my condolences on your loss, Miss,” he said, looking at Laurie. “My record shows that she was last here on December twenty-seventh at nine forty p.m.” He rubbed his nose, then set the file card back down on the counter. “If you want to sign the card, it’ll put you on the access list.”

  Laurie leaned forward and signed it. Her writing looked very similar to Paula’s. That might come in handy later, I thought.

  “Ron, why don’t you sign it too,” she said, handing me the pen.

  “You want him on it also?” the old man asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  The old guy shrugged again and watched me sign my name. “Fill these out, please,” he said, shoving two file cards across the counter. “Just so there’s no mix-up the next time.”

  The cards requested the standard information like name, social security number, etc.

  “So I take it that other fella’s not allowed on the sign-in roster?” he asked.

  “What other guy?” I said.

  “A couple of weeks ago,” he said, scratching his jaw. “This guy came in asking about this locker, but he didn’t have a key. Told me it belonged to his wife, and asked if I could help him out. He mentioned your cousin by name, and claimed to be her husband.” He licked his lips. “I thought something was funny when I asked him for ID, and right away he started hedging. Then he said he wasn’t really her husband officially, but her fiancée. Couldn’t give me any of the identifiers, like mother’s maiden name, or anything, so I told him to bring her back or have her call. He got kinda irate with me till I threatened to call the police. Then he left. Ain’t seen him since.”

  “What did he look like?” I asked.

  The old man pursed his lips.

  “Kind of a big guy, but not big as you,” he said. “Older too. Maybe around fifty. Had gray hair and a mustache.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Did he have an English accent?”

  “Come to think of it, he did talk kinda funny. Started off sounding normal, then, once he got excited, he did sound sort of like a Limey.”

  Peeps, I thought.

  “Do you remember the date he came in?” I asked.

  His lips curled up again as he pondered. “It was after the twenty-seventh,” he said. “Maybe the next day or the day after. Before New Year’s though.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m glad you’re so diligent at doing your job. That guy was a crook, trying to take advantage of the tragedy. An old ex-boyfriend.”

  The old man nodded with satisfaction at the compliment.

  “You want us to sign out when we leave?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he said. “Just toot the horn twice when you’re ready and I’ll open the gate.” He reached over and pressed a button. “This one deactivates the electronic locking system for that unit,” he said. He pushed a second button. “And this one the alarm.” He punched a third button and outside the heavy metal gate began to slide open. “You see, we have a state-of-the-art security system here.” He grinned.

  “Impressive,” I said.

  We went out and drove The Beater through the gate.

  The aisles had been well plowed, showing black asphalt around bases of concrete. The smaller lockers were in the first two rows, each looking to be about the size of a large closet, judging from the size of the doors. Hooded cameras sat watch on steel poles at each juncture. I was going to have to remember to ask him how long they kept their videotapes. Perhaps they still had the late Mr. Peeps trying to gain access. But at this point I wasn’t sure if that would be useful.

  The next row of structures increased to the size of small brick garages with corrugated metal overhead doors. Number 1427 was emblazoned above the door frame in block style. A crust of snow covered the bottom of the door, indicating that it hadn’t been open recently. I hoped it wasn’t frozen shut. We got out and I slid the key that Marsha had given me into the lock on the jamb. It went in kind of rough. I twisted, but the lock wouldn’t turn.

  “Oh no,” Laurie said. “Is it the wrong one?”

  “No,” I said. “Give me your lighter.”

  She dug a plastic disposable out of her purse and I adjusted the flame to high and held it up to the lock. After a few seconds of applying the heat, I tried the key again and this time I felt the lock turn. I reached down and gripped the handle and then pulled up the door. It raised fairly easily, despite the cold weather and disuse. Inside, the storage compartment was about ten by twelve. It was practically empty except for four suitcases and a black leather traveling case. A single bulb was attached to a fixture on the ceiling. The switch was on the wall near the door.

  I turned on the light and l
ooked at the suitcases. They were all identical. Full sized, light blue plastic. The scuffs and scratches along the sides told me that they’d made more than one trip somewhere and back. There was no heat and the wind whipped inside the compartment like the sides weren’t even there. I went over to the door and pulled it down.

  “Careful. Don’t lock us in,” Laurie said.

  “I won’t,” I said, watching the door as it went down. “Anyway, you have to turn the key in the lock outside to secure it.”

  She pretended to smack herself on the head with her palm.

  I went back and grabbed one of the suitcases, flipping the catches up. It popped open, exposing a lot of female type undergarments. All lace and nylon. There were a few skirts, blouses, and bikinis rolled up along the bottom. I closed it and opened the second one. Same thing. Undies, slacks, shorts, blouses, a pair of pumps in a plastic bag. The other two were practically identical.

  “She certainly had enough underwear,” Laurie said.

  “Is that about normal?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s a lot more than I would need, given the amount of regular clothes in there. I mean, she could have changed three times a day.”

  I closed the last suitcase and went to the travel case. It was black leather with a zippered top and several compartments on the side and heavy enough to tell me it was full. Opening the top one first, I pulled the sides away, exposing stacks of cash. I pulled one of the bundles out and looked at it. All twenties, rubber-banded together. Probably around a thousand, I estimated.

  “Is that all money?” Laurie asked incredulously.

  I nodded, replaced the sheaf of currency, and opened the side compartments. Paula’s IDs, ATM card, safety deposit box key, credit cards, and passport were all inside. I thumbed through the passport and found the pages littered with visa stamps. Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Jamaica.

  Laurie looked at me, the space between her eyebrows furrowing.

  “What does all this mean, Ron?”

  I sighed, slipped the passport back in the case, and zippered it closed.

  “Let’s load this stuff in my car and we’ll look it over at the house,” I said, pretending my shiver was from the cold. “We’ll make sense of it there.”

  But I already had a pretty good idea.

  CHAPTER 28

  In my gut I knew what it all meant when we were still in the storage compartment, but didn’t want to tell Laurie just then. I figured it would be better at the house. Maybe she had it figured out too, because she didn’t look very surprised when I got some tools and began taking the lining out of one of the now-empty suitcases. With the hollow sides and bottom, they had been able to fit a substantial amount in each one. I didn’t bother taking each one apart. I just dumped their contents and tested their weight against the one I’d already emptied.

  “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

  I smelled one of the packages. It was bitter and acrid even through the plastic.

  “Heroin probably,” I said.

  “But wouldn’t those narcotic dogs smell it through the suitcase?” she asked. “They show them walking through airports all the time on TV.”

  “What they don’t show are the tremendous crowds that go through O’Hare every day,” I said. “Plus, after September eleventh, most of their efforts have been on checking people getting onto planes, not off. There’re so many people, they’d need to put a dog at every corner. So they usually operate less conspicuously. Certain types of people who seem nervous, or fit a certain profile. Then they bring in the dog. If Paula was cool, calm, and collected…” I stooped and picked up some lacy underpants. “And what customs agent is going to spend a lot of time fingering through this stuff looking like a pervert, when some ninety-two-year-old grandmother is standing next in line watching?”

  “And all the money?” she said, her face looking ashen. “Is that where it came from?”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. She shook her head, her mouth compressing in on itself. “That idiot,” she muttered. “That stupid, stupid idiot.” But in another moment the tears welled up in her eyes. I gently patted her back and walked her over to the couch, sat her down, and got her some tissues. She thanked me and blew her nose. Her face was red and puffy around the eyes.

  “Oh, Ron, how—how could she?”

  I searched for something profound to say, but came up empty. I muttered that I didn’t know and put my arm around her. We sat like that for awhile until the phone rang. I gently extricated my arm from her shoulders and went over to answer it.

  “I found Alley,” Chappie said. “He down at Cook County.”

  “What?” I said. “Jail?”

  “No,” he said. “Hospital. I couldn’t understand him no way, so a nurse got on and talked to me. That Russian priest got beat up real bad. Might not make it. Alley’s been down there praying.”

  “Ahhh, shit,” I said. I saw Laurie glance over at me. “What room’s he in?”

  The walls were painted a dingy shade of green, and the white polyester curtain that had been pulled around Father Boris’s bed like a make shift wall did little to shield the conversations of the people talking to the patient in the next bed. A loud TV blared some sitcom, and the canned laughter came at regular intervals.

  Father Boris had tubes coming out of his nose, more tubes coming from under the sheet, and casts on both of his arms and on one of his legs. The dark bruises under each of his eyes were turning purple, and from the swelling of his nose, I knew it was broken too. He swallowed dryly and said something to Alley in Russian.

  Alley, who looked like he’d been in a train wreck himself, seemed to protest, but the priest only closed his eyes and softly repeated himself. Alley stood, tears welling up in his eyes as he looked at Laurie and me, and left.

  I watched him go out the door, then heard Father Boris say, “I told him to go get something to eat in the cafeteria.”

  “What happened, padre?” I asked.

  He swallowed again, and licked his lips.

  “If you could get me a sip of water,” he said. Laurie went to the nightstand and fitted the straw from his water bottle to his lips. With much effort, he seemed able to pull up a trickle of liquid. Then he nodded and managed a weak smile. “I went to Smershkevich myself,” he said. “Like a fool, I thought I could reason with him. Appeal to his sense of Russian compassion.” He exhaled softly. “When that didn’t work, I tried to imply a threat of going to the authorities.” Boris closed his eyes and his face seemed to quiver slightly. I realized that he was trying to laugh. “Obviously he was not intimidated.”

  “Did you make out a police report?” I said. “He can be arrested for this. I got a buddy on Chicago PD. I can call him if you want.”

  Father Boris shook his head slightly, his eyes still closed.

  “He did not do this himself,” he said. “He has many hired thugs to do his bidding. Anyway, he made it clear that they would harm Allyosha if I called the authorities.”

  “But you can’t let him get away with this,” I said.

  “Mr. Shade, he already has.”

  We stayed for about fifteen more minutes, then a nurse came by and said that visiting hours were ending. Father Boris made me promise to talk to Alley and convince him not to try to go after Smershkevich himself. I said I’d do my best, and when Alley came back up the priest told him to go with me. Outside the temperature had continued to warm up, but a cold, drizzly rain had begun to fall. We ended up driving Alley to his night maintenance job. He sat in the back seat looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. I asked him if he’d had any sleep, and he shook his head.

  “Tomorrow you sleep,” I said. “Then call me.” I gave him one of my cards.

  He nodded and put the card in his pocket. When we dropped him off, he shook my hand and tipped his hat respectfully at Laurie.

  “Oh my God, Ron,” she said after he’d left. “He looked awful.”

  “Which one?” I as
ked, swinging The Beater back out into traffic.

  “Both of them. What are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping that George might be able to get something on that Smershkevich guy, but this sorta ups the ante.”

  “I’ll say.”

  We rode on in silence a few more blocks, listening to the windshield wipers squeaking across the glass. Then she said, “What about our case?”

  “Well, it’s pretty clear that Paula was mixed up with some bad people,” I said. “We have to establish a tie-in to them and the drugs we found, then I can turn it over to George and let him make the arrest.”

  “But what about the Peeps thing?” she said. “Aren’t you worried that the police are after you for that?”

  “It’s obvious that Peeps was in on it. Otherwise, how would he know to show up at the storage facility? My guess is that him and Paula had some kind of side deal going. Red, or Regis, was after Paula that night I bumped into her. He probably caught her the next day.” I paused to let the obvious sink in, then said, “He probably killed Peeps too, looking for the stash.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Laurie said, shaking her head. “That she’d do something like that.”

  “Well, she must have fallen in with the wrong crowd,” I said. “And the financial motivation was obviously very good. Those kind of people like to find young women who are susceptible to the lure of easy money so they can take all the risks. They offer them three, four, maybe even six grand to fly to Bangkok, the Philippines, or maybe even Puerto Rico, pick up a suitcase or two, and bring them to a rendezvous place in the States. It’s pretty tempting.”

  “But why did they have to kill her?” Laurie asked.

  I hesitated before answering, then figured I’d have to tell her my hunch sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.

  “I think, from the looks of it, Paula wasn’t exactly a neophyte in all this,” I said. “The amount of cash in that bag shows that she made more than one trip. We don’t know what we’ll find in her safety deposit box. Maybe she and Peeps planned to keep the money and the dope this time and split.”