Applaud the Hollow Ghost

by David J. Walker

  Besides, I was beginning to get an idea or two.

  CHAPTER

  34

  NO REAL PLAN YET, of course, but a few ideas.

  The first thing was to find Rosa. Only I, and the person who’d gone after Monsignor Borelli, knew that Rosa must have run off with Trish on her own. But why? Was it that phone call she’d gotten at the rectory? The caller was a man and the priest said he assumed it was Steve—so he wasn’t certain. Was it actually Dominic? Had Dominic learned that Rosa told me he was the one who went after Trish?

  Maybe Rosa knew Dominic was coming after them, so she ran away. When Dominic got to the rectory, Monsignor Borelli must have told him he didn’t know where Rosa and Trish had gone, but Dominic didn’t believe him. He went after the priest to make him reveal where Rosa had taken Trish, and in his anger he went too far. Something similar must have happened with Tina, too. Someone—maybe the waiter at the restaurant, or somebody the waiter told—must have told Dominic that Tina had met with me. He was furious, thinking Tina and I were working against him somehow, or trying to make her tell what we’d been talking about.

  If I could find Rosa and Trish, maybe they’d convince Steve that it was Dominic, not Lammy, who deserved his wrath. Who knows what might happen then? Steve might get Dominic off my back—for good. Or Dominic might get Steve off everyone’s back—just as permanently. Either way, Lammy could relax.

  Of course, all this had to be done in a way that convinced the cops that I wasn’t involved in anyone’s murder. On top of that, I still had to satisfy Gus Apprezziano’s curiosity about Karen Colter. And, since I owed the woman my life, I had to do that without revealing what I’d learned—that she was spying on Gus through Dominic, who was loyal enough to go to jail to protect Gus, but not smart enough to recognize Karen as an FBI informant.

  Of course, everything hadn’t come together yet. One big thing didn’t fit at all.

  But I needed some sleep and it was time to put my traveling home to the test, while there were still a couple hours of darkness. I drove a few miles north and west and found a parking place on a quiet residential street on the edge of the city near the forest preserve. With the engine not running, the minivan was going to get cold, so I took off only my shoes, and snuggled into the sleeping bag. The next thing I knew, though, it was way too warm and I was struggling out of my socks and pants, as well. With the tinted windows I told myself I should feel pretty secure. Finally, three hours later—with what seemed like a half-hour’s sleep—I was back behind the wheel.

  Rosa had taken the bingo money when she and Trish went on the run. She was no thief, so that meant she’d been desperate and had no other money with her when she split. So where had she gone to hide? She probably had family in Italy, but her running that far on short notice seemed unlikely. Plane fares were expensive and, if they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, she and Trish would need at least a little luggage—not to mention passports and picture IDs. Besides, the cops, and anyone else looking for her, would be checking airports, railroad and bus terminals, and car rental agencies—assuming she had a driver’s license, which somehow seemed unlikely.

  They might already have talked to her friends, too, but I could think of no other leads. I’d be late for seven o’clock Mass again. But with luck I might catch the end of the rosary.

  * * *

  WRONG AGAIN.

  Bundled up to ward off a bitterly cold wind—and to avoid recognition even though the street seemed deserted—I climbed the steps of Our Lady of Ravenna and read the announcement taped to the locked door. There was no early-morning Mass that day. Monsignor Borelli’s body would be laid out in the church for mourners to view, beginning at eight-thirty. The funeral Mass would be at ten o’clock, followed by a lunch served by the ladies of the Rosary Guild in the church basement, and then a motorcade to Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside.

  Monsignor Borelli’s funeral was about the last place his suspected murderer ought to show up. So I went to a phone and made other arrangements.

  * * *

  WE HAD DECIDED THAT Casey would take Lammy to his own doctor to look at his hand, and then move Lammy and himself to a different motel, still in a western suburb, but an older, cheaper place, where stays of a week or longer weren’t unusual. They’d gotten two adjoining rooms on the first floor, opening onto the parking lot.

  I got there about three o’clock that afternoon. The rooms were clean and worn around the edges and smelled like thirty years of cigarette smoke. Casey wasn’t back yet, so I’d have some time alone with Lammy. He was sitting on one of the beds, wearing a white V-necked T-shirt and the same dark pants he’d worn to Renata’s office the day he ran away. His eyes were still ringed with leftover bruising, but there was a much smaller bandage on his hand. He’d piled some pillows against the headboard and was reading a very large book Casey bought for him. It was somebody’s History of War in the Balkans, weighed probably five pounds, and had a four-dollar sticker on it from a discount bookstore.

  We’d agreed that I’d be the one to tell Lammy about the fire and the dismissal of his case, or at least answer his questions if he’d already heard about them, which Casey said would be unlikely. Lammy wasn’t big on watching news on television and, although he did read the papers, Casey would avoid buying them that morning.

  I started with the fire. Lammy hadn’t heard about it, and I gave him no details. Just that there’d been a fire, and that the two-flat was a total loss.

  Lammy thought for a moment in silence. “Good thing my ma wasn’t home,” he finally said. Then he thought a moment more before adding, “Guess Elaine’ll just have to keep ma there with her, in Cicero, and I’ll have to find my own place.” Maybe there was a hint of hopefulness in his voice, or maybe that was just my imagination.

  Lammy’s other comments were a concern as to how he’d pay for new clothes and a relief that he’d returned all his library books. He actually spoke more words than I’d ever heard him say before at any one time. One thing struck me—he didn’t appear very concerned about where he was going to live from now on.

  Nowhere near as concerned as I was.

  About that time Casey came in the door, with fried chicken and soft drinks and a half gallon of frozen strawberry yogurt. “You guys probably haven’t had lunch,” he said. “And I didn’t have much, either. Just a couple funny little sandwiches.”

  The three of us sat at a small round table in one of the motel rooms and ate chicken with slippery fingers and cole slaw with plastic forks out of little paper cups. Having no home to go back to didn’t seem to have hurt Lammy’s appetite, but it was Casey who divided the food, and when I tried to even out the portions he stopped me with a hard look and it hit me that he had Lammy on something of a diet. By the time we got to the yogurt it was soft enough so Casey could almost pour it out onto the same three paper plates we’d used for the fried chicken. Too soft, actually, for my taste, since I like to pretend it’s ice cream.

  I waited until then to tell Lammy that the case against him had been dismissed. “S.O.L.’ed,” I said. “Their excuse was that the victim, their only witness, is missing. Technically, the case can be reinstated if they find Trish.”

  “I saw in the paper about her and her grandma being missing,” Lammy said. “About Monsignor Borelli, too, and that the police were looking for you.” He swirled the yogurt around on his plate with a plastic spoon and, head down, said, “It wasn’t … I mean … you didn’t—”

  “It wasn’t,” I said, “and I didn’t.”

  “But they’re still looking for Mal,” Casey said. “So we have to be very careful. No one’s found Trish and her grandmother yet.”

  “I hope they find them.” Lammy had abandoned his spoon, and just sat staring down at his plate. “I mean, I guess I hope so, even if it means I have to go back—”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not letting you go back to jail. But you still have to stay hidden.”

  “Because of her dad, an
d the neighbors, right? But if the case got thrown out, maybe nobody still thinks I did it anymore.”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “That fire at your place wasn’t an accident. Your house was burned down deliberately.”

  Lammy’s eyes widened. “But—”

  “And earlier in the evening,” Casey said, “there was about a dozen people outside—yelling and throwing eggs at the windows.”

  “Well,” Lammy said, “I can’t go home anyway, ’cause it’s burned down. So I guess…” His voice trailed off. Then, without looking up, he said, “Why are you guys doing all this? I mean, you don’t hardly know me, and I got no money. So why are you helping me?”

  When I didn’t answer, Casey said, “Well, I’m just helping Mal, and I think Mal’s trying to—”

  “Maybe we can talk about that later,” I said, “when it’s all over. Okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” Lammy nodded.

  “Anyway,” Casey said, “let’s clean up.”

  We rinsed the yogurt off the paper plates in the bathroom before putting them in the wastebasket.

  “I bet you can’t guess the one thing I really miss, Father,” Lammy said. He and Casey were washing and drying the plastic forks and spoons.

  “Nope,” Casey said. “Can’t guess.”

  I thought I knew, but Lammy wasn’t talking to me, so I kept out of it.

  “The shelter,” Lammy said. “I really miss taking care of the dogs. Cleaning up and talking to them and all, you know? I like dogs, and they like me, too. I can’t wait to get back to the shelter.”

  “Won’t be long,” Casey said, “and you’ll be back there again. Right, Mal?”

  “That’s for sure.” My guess had been dead right, but I didn’t really want to lie about him ever going back there. “Maybe the shelter,” I added, “or maybe someplace even better.”

  It was time to find out what Casey had learned, if anything, at Monsignor Borelli’s funeral. On top of that, it was time to decide just how far to let Lammy in on what was happening.

  “Well, Casey,” I said. “We need to talk.”

  “Right,” Casey said. He pulled a chair back to the round table, while Lammy scooped up his huge book on the Balkan wars and headed for the open door into the adjoining room.

  “Hold on, Lammy,” I said. “Remember that stuff the other night, about us all being in this together?”

  He turned. “Uh-huh.”

  “So … maybe you should sit in on this. I mean, if you want—”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

  I knew right then, by his tone when he interrupted me, that I’d made the right choice. Of course, I also knew it was a choice, like some others I’d made recently, that I might well regret—at least in the short run.

  CHAPTER

  35

  “PRIESTS’ FUNERALS ARE GREAT,” Casey said.

  “Great?” He’d caught me off-guard. Even Lammy looked a little surprised, and he generally showed no expression at all.

  “Yeah. They’re great,” Casey said. “I love ’em. Definitely upbeat. Lots of talk about rising from the dead, eternal life. That kinda stuff.”

  “You believe all that?” I asked.

  “Hell yes,” he said. “Why not? Beats the crap out of the alternative, doesn’t it?” He paused. “Anyway, Bobo Borelli got a great send-off. Big crowd. One of the bishops gave the main talk at the Mass, which was okay, you know, kinda bland. But then one of Bobo’s priest friends and this other guy—a cousin of Bobo’s, or something—got up and they told a few stories about Bobo’s life. Some funny episodes, and a couple of real tearjerkers.”

  “I get the picture,” I said. Casey was enjoying himself, and I thought he might even start repeating the stories.

  “Then, after the funeral Mass, the ladies of the Rosary Guild served lunch. Not much food, though. And after that, this huge motorcade, with police cars and all, out to the cemetery. I didn’t go to the cemetery, of course.”

  “How come?” Lammy asked, and it seemed significant that he was participating in the conversation.

  “Because I stayed after and helped the ladies clean up. Wipe off tables, wash dishes. They loved me.”

  “Right,” I said. “We know. Why don’t you get to—”

  “Anyway, I’m gabbing with ’em, the ones who speak English, anyway, and I find two pretty good friends of Rosa Parillo, ones who pray the rosary with her after Mass every day. I ask about Rosa and they say they’re worried about her and the child being missing, but to me they don’t seem all that worried. So I say I heard they were kidnapped and might even be dead, and they say, ‘Yes, terrible, terrible.’ But they’re pretty bad liars, maybe because they’re talking to a priest. Tell you the truth, I think maybe Rosa called one of them. They seem to know she’s all right.”

  “But do they know where she’s hiding?” I asked.

  “Hell, I couldn’t just come out and ask them. So I say maybe she escaped and she’s hiding with Trish somewhere. They nod their heads and say that’s what they’re praying for. I ask if she has any relatives or friends where she might have gone.” He paused. “I hadda be careful, even though they loved all the attention I was giving ’em, and obviously love to gossip. So it took longer than this, you know, to—”

  “Yeah, we know. Get on with it.”

  “Anyway, the answer’s no. I don’t think they have any idea where she is.”

  “No relatives? No—”

  “Sounded like her friends are just those ladies, and maybe a couple more like them. And the only living relative they know about—besides her two sons-in-law, who the ladies can barely stand to mention without spitting—is her brother. Guy named Gustavo. I guess he’s older than Rosa and treats her like he’s her father, even though they say he’s a bad man and Rosa’s ashamed of him and prays for him all the time. Sounds to me like he might be—”

  “Yeah, he is,” I said.

  “Is what?” Lammy asked.

  “Connected with organized crime,” I said.

  “So,” Casey said, “the answer to whether they know where Rosa and Trish are is no. Sorry. Guess I won’t be getting my private detective’s license anytime soon.”

  “Don’t be too discouraged. That’s the way the game is played,” I said. “You just have to keep on asking, even if the answer’s usually no.”

  “What the hell,” Casey said, “you sound like me … giving one of my sermons about prayer.”

  * * *

  Two rings. A click. “Leave a message.” Beep.

  That was it. Just, “Leave a message.”

  So I did. Then I lay on the bed in the room I’d rented on the southwest side near Midway Airport, in a motel that offered a “quiet nap rate.” That meant you could rent the room for as little as four hours. The rate was the same whether the quiet nap was for one person or two. I’d considered a two-hour motel, too, but it looked a little sleazy.

  It may not have been smart to call Karen Colter, but my hopes for getting Lammy and me out of our respective tight spots were riding on Rosa, and I’d used up all of my smart ideas for finding her. I had to trust that Karen wouldn’t blow the whistle on me. She’d had other chances to do me in, and hadn’t. Besides, from her comments that night in the van outside Gus’s house, I knew she thought Rosa was right about Dominic attacking Trish. Karen liked Rosa, and she’d helped Rosa reach me. Maybe she’d help me reach Rosa.

  A half hour later, Karen called back, obviously from a public phone in a busy place somewhere. She was willing to meet me. Seemed almost eager, in fact—maybe too eager for my own good.

  I chose a Bohemian restaurant on Cermak Road in Berwyn, in the dining room on the second floor. The same huge portions were heaped onto the same wide plates as downstairs, with the succulent dumplings and rich gravies just as full of fat. But the upstairs room was smaller and quieter, and the booths—with their high, cushioned backs—offered more privacy. On top of that, it was unlikely there’d be a soul in the place who knew me except the o
wners—and they owed me big time.

  So I was waiting in one of those upstairs booths by a front window, drinking cheap white wine, when I saw Karen arrive in a cab. I didn’t see anyone behind her.

  The first thing she said, after she tossed her leather coat onto the seat and sat down beside it, was, “How’d you get my phone number? It’s a spec— I mean it’s unlisted.”

  “I’m a private investigator, remember?” Actually, Herb Gatsby’s people had finally gotten it for me, and I didn’t know how. “Anyway, you’re Rosa’s friend and Rosa needs my help and I need Rosa’s help. So I need you to put me in touch with Rosa.” So much for small talk.

  “And you take for granted I know where—”

  “Try the roast pork,” I said, as the smiling waitress came up, “with dumplings and red cabbage. Or sauerkraut, maybe. But here I’d go with the red—”

  “I’d like a half pound, lean beef patty, well-done,” Karen told the waitress, “and some cottage cheese and lettuce.” She reached across and sampled my wine and made a face. “And bring me a dry white wine that costs about twice as much as that one.”

  “And you, sir?” The waitress was tall and thick and dark-skinned and, I decided, wild-looking like a gypsy—but a friendly gypsy.

  “I’ll go with the roast pork, and—”

  “… dumplings and red cabbage,” the gypsy said. “I know. More wine?”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll stay with this stuff, though. Cheaper wine has fewer calories.”

  The gypsy left and Karen stared at me. “It’s not true, you know,” she said.

  “Are you sure? I thought I read somewhere that wine—”

  “I mean it’s not true that I know where Rosa is,” she said. “But I can find out, I think. And…” The gypsy was back already. She set two full glasses on the table, scooped up my empty, and hustled off.

  “And?” I said, reaching for my glass.