Applaud the Hollow Ghost

by David J. Walker

  Gus stared down into his mug, then looked up. “You know Steve and Dominic were here tonight, right?” He’d changed again, seemed more relaxed.

  “I, uh … I followed them here.”

  “Where’s Rosa? And the kid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He nodded, believing me immediately. “They told me the cops say you killed that priest.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “No. It’s what they told me.” He drank some coffee. “You’re a walking dead man, they say.”

  “The cops?” I knew better, though.

  “Steve and Dominic. They’re hoping they get to you first. Figure they can do the cops a favor. Steve especially. He’s pissed you’re helping that prick that tried to fuck little Trish. But Dominic, too. He’s kinda pushing Steve to do something. I guess ’cause he’s family. And maybe ’cause he likes … excitement.”

  “What about you? You’re part of the family.”

  “But I’m not young and hotheaded like those two. I’m way past the age to give a shit about goin’ after some mope who’s just doing a job.” He sounded sincere enough. You’d think Gus was beyond the age of bloodletting, if you didn’t know better.

  “So, did you call off Dominic and Steve? Tell ’em to let this particular mope slide?”

  “Call ’em off?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “My promise was I’d keep Steve away from your pervert buddy for now. I made no promise about you. Like I just said, I don’t give a shit. Long as they don’t mix me up in anything, which they know better than to do.” He downed the last of his coffee. “You oughta drop this Fleming thing. Cops think you maybe killed Tina … and now the priest. The security guard at bingo ID’d you. Gives Steve an excuse. Him and Dominic get to you first … well … they’re kinda strange, them two. Cops aren’t your big worry. You oughta take a trip or something.”

  “Right.”

  “Except, don’t forget.” He stood up. “I want some word on that Colter broad. Otherwise, your list of problems keeps growing.”

  I followed him to the front door, with Goldilocks not far behind.

  “You got a car somewhere outside the gate?” Gus asked.

  “No. I … uh … hitched a ride. But that guy’s long gone by now.”

  “Too bad.” He opened the door and pointed. “Long as you stay on that road, the dogs won’t bother you. Push the button on the post twice when you get there and wait for the gate to open up. After that you’re on your own.”

  The dogs let me be, although they were never far away, moving through the brush on either side of the road. I walked over a wooden bridge that crossed a stream that was frozen, and eventually came to the iron gate. It was bathed in light and set in a high wall that disappeared into the darkness in either direction. I found the metal post and pushed the button twice, waited while the gate slid open, and then walked out.

  Gus was right. The gate slid closed behind me, and after that I was very much on my own.

  CHAPTER

  29

  GOING TO MY PLACE, or Lammy’s, or anywhere else where someone might be watching for me was out of the question. But then, I had no way to get there, anyway, and only a vague idea where I was.

  My guess was in or near Oak Brook, an upscale suburb the old tax code had spawned out of the polo fields and horse farms twenty miles due west of downtown Chicago. Widely spaced homes hid themselves deep behind fences and trees, with here and there a glimpse of a golf course. There were no sidewalks. The roads were all curves and, with the night sky overcast, it was impossible to know which way I was walking. Whenever I heard the occasional car, or saw headlights approaching, I hustled off the cleared pavement and into the snow and the shadows, thinking anyone cruising about at four o’clock in the morning was more likely than not a cop.

  Gradually it came to me that, if I paid attention, the distant whine of fast-moving trucks could be heard. That sound had to be coming from I-88, which cuts west across Illinois from suburban Chicago to just short of the Mississippi River, where it merges with I-80 on its way into Iowa and then to the West Coast. With the traffic noise as my compass, I managed to extricate myself from the maze of intertwining, gently wandering streets.

  I’d guessed right about being near Oak Brook. With a bag of bagels and a quart of chocolate milk from a twenty-four-hour Mini-Mart, I picked out a motel from a bunch that clustered around an expressway cloverleaf. It was the least expensive, and the rooms opened directly to the outside of the building, so you didn’t have to pass by the desk every time you came and went.

  My story was ready, about the wife changing the locks on me in the middle of the night and I didn’t want to cause a ruckus with the kids and all, so I’d decided to come to my sister’s and see if she’d help. But the droopy-eyed clerk seemed unfazed—in fact, barely interested by some worn-out guy named Jackson Pollick from Bettendorf, Iowa, checking in about five o’clock in the morning and paying for two days, with cash.

  * * *

  BY NOON I’D GOTTEN some sleep, made some phone calls, and washed down one too many bagels with my chocolate milk. I went out for a walk and purchased a razor and some deodorant, then showered and shaved and sat by the window of my motel room on the second floor, paging through the Sun-Times and the Tribune and waiting for a delivery from Barney Green.

  Years ago, when Barney and I had been brand-new lawyers together, we worked for Barney’s dad, a personal injury lawyer. One of our first cases—and one of my last—was the Lady’s lawsuit after her husband went down in a small chartered jet. When Barney’s dad died before that case was over, Barney and I ran the office. Barney thrived on the pressure and the battle and just about every other part of the practice, except that he worked too hard and saw too little of his family. What he especially enjoyed, though, was coercing insurance companies and corporations to fork over serious cash to badly injured and disabled people who otherwise didn’t have a chance for a decent life. Barney kept at it, and before long he’d become widely respected and financially successful doing a job he loved—not a bad path to travel through life.

  It wasn’t the path for me, though, so I’d quickly gotten out of the personal injury game and into criminal defense work, and that only off and on. A very large bump popped up in my chosen road, though. I lost my license for keeping my word to a client who was destined to come to a bad end anyway—and later on did, with his throat slashed to ribbons in a one-man cell in a so-called maximum security unit. So now I was far from widely respected or financially successful, but often enough got to do things I enjoyed doing—not a bad path either, when you think about it.

  Barney and I saw far too little of each other, but now and then I sent him a client who made him lots of money. So I never felt bad about asking for his help, or accepting it. Like now, at four o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, as I sat and watched a maroon minivan—a four-year-old Plymouth Voyager—pull into the motel lot right behind a shiny red BMW sedan. The Voyager had out-of-state plates and dark-tinted windows all around, so I didn’t get a look at the driver until the minivan slid into a parking slot and a young man got out. With his breath trailing visibly in the cold air, he walked briskly ahead to where the BMW waited. He got in without as much as a look around and the BMW drove off.

  Five minutes later I slipped behind the Voyager’s wheel and plucked the keys from the spotless ashtray. Twisting around, I saw that the rear seats had been removed. At least one extra layer of thick shag carpeting had been laid out, and on that rested an Eddie Bauer over-the-shoulder traveling bag and another bundle, tightly rolled. On the passenger seat beside me was a tag that must have been attached to the roll when it was purchased. The tag described a “mummy” style sleeping bag, extra-long, expensive, and built to keep a backpacker comfortable down to minus-ten degrees Fahrenheit.

  I started the car, saw that I had a full tank of gas, and drove away from the motel. As Gus had said, I was on my own. But now, at least, I had a home.

  * * *
>
  AT THE INTERSTATE, THE Voyager dearly wanted to head for the Mississippi, and maybe even the West Coast, but I wrestled it onto the east-bound ramp. As foolish as that seemed on its face, it was the only sensible alternative. If I ran I’d be running forever, so I had to head right into the center of the storm to put an end to the flight.

  The newspapers were full of how the Right Reverend Monsignor Bonifacio Borelli, pastor of Our Lady of Ravenna parish, had apparently suffered a heart attack when he was slapped around in the parlor of the parish rectory. The perpetrator had fled with the bingo money and, police theorized, had taken a bingo worker, Rosa Parillo, and her granddaughter as hostages. The papers made much of the fact that the granddaughter was little Trish Connolly, recently the victim of a vicious sexual attack, and that the man the police most wanted to question concerning the priest’s death was a local private detective who’d been hired by “highly controversial” attorney Renata Carroway to assist her in the defense of the man accused in the sex case. All very confusing, which meant they had to include additional columns laying out the chronology of events, along with pictures of everyone involved.

  I was happy that my own photo was an old mug shot, a frontal view taken back when I was sent to Cook County Jail for contempt of court. The shot was taken after I’d been “interrogated” again, this time for about four hours, by a series of understandably angry and frustrated police officers desperately looking for a cop killer. The photo had that chin-up-in-the-air, hair-disheveled, wild-eyed look that corrections facility photographers strive for and—in my optimistic opinion—didn’t look enough like my present well-groomed self for the picture to be of much help to the reading public.

  Weaving my way through east-bound traffic, I contemplated a growing list of unanswered questions, and finally chose Where the hell is Lammy? as my place to begin. He must have missed his court appearance with Renata earlier that afternoon, and the cops would be looking to lock him up, too. It didn’t seem possible that he could figure out how to stay hidden even as long as he had.

  When I got closer to the city, I pulled off the expressway and looked for a restaurant. I really wanted a couple of beers, but chose a Denny’s for supper because they didn’t serve alcohol. Once the waitress took my order, I went right to a pay phone.

  Renata Carroway’s office was closed. I tried her home, but she hadn’t gotten there yet. She’d probably just have blamed me for Lammy not showing up in court and complained that now I was making things even worse by getting mixed up in the death of the priest.

  I called Casey at Lammy’s place.

  “Have you talked to Lammy?” was the first thing he said.

  “Damn, I was hoping maybe you had.”

  “Nope. But his lawyer called this morning. Wondered if you’d found him. Sounded like it was very important she talk to him today. She seemed very worried.”

  “He was supposed to appear in court with her this afternoon. The judge probably issued an arrest warrant when he didn’t show up. The cops’ll be looking for him.”

  “They didn’t come here,” he said. “They called, though.”

  “You tell them you didn’t know where Lammy—”

  “Hell, they didn’t ask about Lammy. They’re looking for you. You’re a suspect in Bobo Borelli’s death. They called twice. Better not tell me where you are, ’cause—”

  “I know. You don’t wanna lie.” I paused. “Any ideas where Lammy might be?”

  “Not a clue. He’s got no money, although he might have a credit card. I don’t think he has any friends. Except maybe somebody at his job?”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “He’s probably the world’s most conscientious employee, and every single one of his co-workers still thinks he oughta be locked up forever. They figure he’s been accused, hasn’t he? Doesn’t that make him guilty?”

  “Yeah. Most people do think that way,” Casey said.

  “Anyway, there’s the local librarian, who likes him but who’s only slightly more likely to let him hole up in her house than his sister is. Otherwise, I don’t know if he even knows anyone.” Just then an idea crept into my mind. “Except…”

  “Except who?” he asked.

  “The waitress just went by with my supper,” I said. “Gotta go.”

  All the way through my breaded pork tenderloin and into my lemon meringue pie and coffee, I wondered whether Lammy did have a credit card, after all. And whether he was up to a little interstate travel.

  Back in the Voyager, I rerouted and headed north. It was a clear, dry night, with rush hour winding down and expressway traffic light. Chances were better that even I was wrong, but I’d slept all day and was ready to take some action. And this was the only idea that cropped up.

  I thought of calling ahead, but that might just scare him away.

  * * *

  THREE HOURS LATER I signed in at the desk, took the elevator up two floors, and knocked on the door.

  “Man, am I glad to see you,” Jason whispered. He slipped his tall body through the narrow opening into the hall and closed the door behind him. “Dude’s drivin’ me crazy, man. I mean, I got no roommate so there’s an extra bed for him, but the dude’s gotta be almost as old as you, man, and he still makes me feel like I’m in charge of him or something.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I asked.

  “Because I promised I wouldn’t when he first showed up, which was stupid, but then I couldn’t go back on my word. Except I been giving some serious thought to doing that all day. Especially now when I see the Chicago papers and—”

  “Just play along with me,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  I reached around him and shoved open the door. “I don’t care what you say, Jason,” I said, raising my voice louder than necessary. “I looked everywhere else and I wanna see for myself if Lammy’s here.”

  The surprise on Jason’s face had already turned to understanding. “I told you, man,” he yelled, “the dude ain’t here, period. You can’t just come bustin’ in like this.”

  He stepped aside as he spoke and I went in. Lammy was already standing, panic in his eyes and ready to run. But there was nowhere to go. Jason came in behind me, pulling on my arm and telling me how I had to leave or he’d call security.

  “Sit down, Jason,” I said. “And you too, Lammy.”

  Lammy sat down on the narrow bed beside him, but Jason grabbed his coat from a tiny closet that had no door. He said, “I’m late for practice,” and was gone. It was nine o’clock at night. Very late for practice.

  If Lammy noticed that Jason hadn’t called security, and had given up the fight pretty easily, it didn’t show in his face. What showed was still fear, but maybe some anger now, which actually made me feel good. “Why don’t you leave me alone?” he said. There was just the hint of a real challenge in his voice, and that made me feel good, too.

  But as soon as I opened my mouth to answer, his anger went south, and left him only afraid, with tears rolling down his cheeks. He slumped lower onto the bed, then flopped over on his stomach and lay there. Pretty soon he was sobbing, hardly making a sound, his whole rounded body heaving beyond his control. He was trying to say something, too, and when I leaned closer to listen it sounded like, “Just go away. Just go away.”

  That did it. Suddenly I was angry, so mad I wanted to pick him up off the bed and throw him on the floor. “Damn it, Lammy. What the hell’s wrong with you? You oughta be goddamn fucking happy that I—” And then I remembered the nurse in the hall outside Lammy’s hospital room, how she’d recognized my stupidity and didn’t even blame me for it.

  So I shut up and sat there on a hard wooden chair between the two beds and watched the numbers on the digital clock-radio on the desk flip forward for a while. Then I went to the door and opened it and looked out. There was music—or something that passed for music—vibrating down the corridor, and the mixed odors of stale cigarette smoke and beer and marijuana. I turned back and looked at Lammy. He’d stopped s
obbing, but now his breaths came in a strange combination of deep sighs and hiccoughing gasps.

  I closed the door again and went back and sat down. “Lammy?” His breathing was becoming more regular, but he didn’t answer or turn over to look up at me. “I … ah … I’m really glad I found you. I was worried, you know … that something bad might have happened to you.”

  “What … what do you mean?” he said. His voice was muffled because his face was still down in the bedspread.

  “I mean,” I said, “you might have have had an accident, or—”

  “No.” He moved, turning onto his side and looking at me, then looking away again. “No,” he repeated. “I mean what do you mean by you were worried? Why’s it make any difference to you?”

  “I don’t know why. I just care about what happens to you, that’s all. I was worried and I came looking for you and I found you. I’m glad I did.”

  “So then why did you just holler at me?”

  “I don’t know that, either. There’s lots of things I don’t know.” I paused. “Why don’t you sit up?” He did, and he moved to the other chair.

  Inside a tiny refrigerator on the floor of the closet, I found two Pepsis, an orange soda, and a wrinkled brown paper bag. Jason wasn’t stocking any beer, which made me happy even though I could have used one just then. I took out the bag and it smelled like rotting beef, so I put it on the floor out in the hall and closed the door again.

  “You want Pepsi or diet orange?” I asked.

  “Jason likes orange. He got the other stuff for me.” I took one Pepsi and handed the other to Lammy. He set it on the desk beside him, unopened. “I bet Jason’s glad you came. He doesn’t want me here. He doesn’t like me.”

  “You’re mistaken,” I said. “Maybe you make him nervous. But he doesn’t put up with things or people he doesn’t like. I know Jason. If he really didn’t like you, if he wanted you out, you’d be gone.”

  I was stretching things a bit. But Lammy seemed to accept it, because his eyes filled up with tears again.

  I reached over for his Pepsi and popped it open. “Here, drink this,” I said. “We need to talk over my plan for what to do next.”