Lockington put out his hand.
Natasha Gorky gripped it.
Lockington said, “Odessa?”
“That’s right—Odessa.”
He pulled her to him.
He kissed the hell out of her.
She bit his lower lip.
Hard.
She said, “Sorry!”
Lockington said, “It’s all right—some do and some don’t.”
40
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1431 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: BIRD DOG CONTACTED BY NATASHA GORKY/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1532 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: WHEN APPROACH?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1432 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: LUNCH HOUR/ SQUIRREL’S CAGE TAVERN WEST RANDOLPH ST/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1533 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: PREARRANGED?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1433 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: DOUBTFUL/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1534 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: PREVIOUS CONTACTS?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1434 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: UNKNOWN/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1535 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: REASON THIS MEETING?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1435 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: NO KNOWLEDGE/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1536 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: VISIBLE RESULTS?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1436 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: AFFIRMATIVE/ BIRD DOG IN NATASHA GORKY APARTMENT/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1537 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: HOW LONG?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1437 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: LONG ENOUGH/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1538 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: OPINION ONLY/ HOW LONG?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1439 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: TWO HOURS SO FAR/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1539 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: ALLIANCE?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1440 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: REMOTELY POSSIBLE/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1540 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: CODE GORKY PIGEON/ ASSIGN TAIL PIGEON/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1441 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: UNNECESSARY/ PIGEON TAGGING BIRD DOG/ ONE COVERS BOTH/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1542 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: REPEAT/ ASSIGN TAIL PIGEON IMMEDIATELY/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1443 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: WILCO/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1543 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: MERCURIO & BROWN STILL IN ACT?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1444 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: AFFIRMATIVE/ BOTH PARKED PIGEON APARTMENT BUILDING/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1545 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: GLUE TO BIRD DOG/ MOVE CERTAIN/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1446 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: WILCO/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LINE CLEARED LANGLEY 1546 EDT 5/27/88
41
They’d sat at her kitchen table, conversing over coffee and cigarettes, Lockington realizing that for better or for worse, he’d been sucked back into the middle of something he’d just gotten out of. She’d whetted his appetite for the campaign, not with a pep talk that the battle-scarred Chicago police veteran would have scorned, but by permitting him to show the way, listening to his story of the empty matchbook and the thousand dollars, bowing to his experience and knowledge. She’d given him his head, a subordinate maneuver obvious to Lockington, one that he’d seen no reason to question. In essence, their goals were the same—if Natasha reached hers, he reached his. Lockington had sketched the opening phase of a plan, going no further, because there was no further to go. She’d listened attentively, nodding occasionally, making no comment until he’d said, “I don’t know what we’re looking for, but it’s in the Youngstown, Ohio area.”
Her gaze had been quizzical. “And from there, where?”
Lockington had shrugged. “Damned if I know, but we have to get off of this treadmill, don’t we?”
She’d spread her hands. “All right, then go—you’ll be needing me in Ohio?”
“Yes, but not immediately.”
“How soon?”
“Very, probably.”
“And often?”
“Uhh-h-h—are we on the same railroad?”
She said, “Choo-choo-choo!”
At four o’clock he called Edna Garson’s apartment. No answer. He called the Shamrock Pub and Edna was there—she’d just come in. Lockington talked to her for a couple of minutes and she said, “Well, okay, I’ll do it, but I’m gonna miss you!” She growled deep in her throat. “There’d better not be a woman involved!”
Lockington chuckled an insincere chuckle. He said, “Strictly business.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Just a few days.”
“Hurry back—we’ll make up for lost time.”
Lockington broke the connection and called Moose Katzenbach at the Classic Investigations office. He said, “There’s a thousand bucks under the baseball encyclopedia in the bottom left-hand desk drawer. Put a couple hundred in your pocket and get the rest busted into twenties for me.”
Moose said, “Holy Christ, Lacey, we must be in the black!”
“You’ll find my spare keys in the top drawer. Lock up the office, get over to the Randolph Street lot, and pick up my car. Fill the tank and drive to my apartment—Edna Garson will be there, packing my suitcase.”
“You on the lam, Lacey?”
“Just a little bit.”
“For what—singing tenor?”
“Nothing quite that serious—there’s a matter that requires looking into.” Lockington gave him further instructions and a tight schedule. He said, “Got that, Moose?”
“Got it. You’ll be in touch?”
“You still drinking at the Roundhouse Café?”
“Every night but Sundays.”
“Why not Sundays?”
“It’s closed on Sundays.”
“Okay, if I need you I’ll call the Roundhouse—eight o’clock or so.”
“Which way you headed?”
“East.”
“Devereaux?”
“Right.”
“I knew it, goddammit!”
Lockington hung up, glancing at his watch, then at Natasha. “We’ll leave here in an hour.”
She nodded. She’d been perched on the arm of the sofa, watching, listening. She said, “You’re highly efficient. When will you contact me?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Where can I reach you?”
“Why not here?”
“Not a chance—your phone will be tapped by then.”
“And yours?”
“You can bet on it—our little get-together will rattle some cages.”
“All right—I know a nice old lady on the fifth floor. I’ll give you her number. I’ll spend the afternoon in her apartment.”
“Can you get the name of the owner of the house in unincorporated Leyden Township—the place where Rufe Devereaux was staying before he went to Miami?”
“Three thousand North Onines—I’ll have it in the morning.”
“By the way, what if your lady friend isn’t home?”
“Then how will you get in?”
Natasha Gorky smiled at Lockington.
Put to a top-echelon KGB operative, it’d been a stupid question.
42
At 5:34 Natasha Gorky’s black Mercedes-Benz sedan purred through the late afternoon heat, pulling to a halt on the south side of Belmont Avenue, directly in front of Mike’s Tavern. Natasha squeezed Lockington’s arm. “Take care!”
Lockington nodded, getting out of the car, pausing briefly at Mike’s doorway to look westward. Four automobiles had stopped less than a quarter-block behind the Mercedes—a pair of black Ford Escorts, a white Cadillac, a green Pontiac Trans Am. The big parade, Lockington thought—strike up the band.
He entered Mike’s Tavern, glancing around, spotting Mike at the far end of the bar, pouring a glass of wine for an elderly man wearing a straw hat. At 5:35 Lockington took a stool near the door, availing himself of an unobstructed view of Belmont Avenue traffic. Mike Kazman sauntered over in Lockington’s direction, yawning. He said, “The cops told me that we was having one helluva fine time the other night.”
Lockington said, “It must be true—I heard the same thing.”
Kazman lowered his voice. “The TV weather guy said it was gonna hit ninety-five today, so first thing this morning I went down in the basement and turned on Nellie Carson’s heat. Let the old crocodile call the fucking police about that!”
Lockington nodded approvingly. He said, “Is your alley door unlocked?”
“Sure—hell, some of my best customers come from the alley, you know that. Why?”
“On account of I’m operating on a theory which says nobody will be expecting lightning to strike twice in the same place.”
At 5:39 a rattling old blue Pontiac Catalina approached, passing the window of Mike’s Tavern, headed east. Right on time. The Pontiac swung south on Kimball Avenue and Natasha Gorky’s Mercedes whipped away from the curb to follow it. One of the black Ford Escorts shot into view, closing fast to trail the Mercedes by no more than twenty feet. Lockington waved so-long to Mike Kazman, hustling through the rear door. Moose Katzenbach was waiting, the Pontiac parked in the beercar-cluttered single-lane alley, its motor running. Moose bailed out, leaving the door open. He said, “She’s full of ninety-two octane and your suitcase is on the backseat.” He stuffed a roll of currency into Lockington’s shirt pocket. He said, “Forty twenties.”
Lockington said, “Thanks.”
Natasha Gorky’s Mercedes had stopped in the alley close behind the Pontiac, the black Ford Escort had screeched to a tire-smoking halt behind the Mercedes, blocked. Lockington grinned at Natasha. Natasha blew Lockington a kiss. Lockington got into the Pontiac. A big man in a dark blue suit was clambering out of the Ford Escort, waving his arms frantically, shouting something at the top of his lungs. Lockington didn’t catch all of it, just the dirty-rotten-motherfucking-cunt-lapping-no-good-asshole-cocksucking-sonofabitch-bastard part. Moose said, “Luck, Lucey!”
Lockington nodded and pulled away, throwing gravel.
It’d been relatively easy.
43
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1755 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: HARGAN REPORTS BIRD DOG LOOSE/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1856 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: HOW?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1756 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: USED TURKEY WRINKLE/ IN FRONT DOOR TAVERN OUT BACK DOOR TAVERN INTO CAR/ GONE/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1857 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: WHOSE CAR?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1757 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: HIS/ 78 BLUE PONTIAC CATALINA ILLINOIS PLATES ZN940/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1858 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: YOUR STATION WARNED BIRD DOG MOVE IMMINENT/ NOBODY LISTENING?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1759 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: BIRD DOG ASSISTED/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1859 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: BY WHOM?/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1800 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: PIGEON/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1901 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: SON OF A BITCH/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1801 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE ILLINOIS APB BIRD DOG/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1902 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: NEGATIVE/ NO COPS/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1803 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: UNDERSTOOD/ INSTRUCT NEXT MOVE THIS STATION/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LANGLEY-CHICAGO / ATTN CARRUTHERS/ 1904 EDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: TAP PIGEON PHONE ASAP/ CONTACT LANGLEY 0900 EDT 5/28/88/ END TEXT/ MASSEY
CHICAGO-LANGLEY/ ATTN MASSEY/ 1805 CDT/ 5/27/88
BEGIN TEXT: WILCO/ END TEXT/ CARRUTHERS
LINE CLEARED LANGLEY 1905 EDT 5/27/88
44
Leaving the alley, Lockington had cut south, away from Belmont Avenue, then west to Pulaski Road, south again some half-dozen miles to the Eisenhower Expressway, and west on the final leg of his run to Route 294. Chicago’s rush hour had reached its saturation point and the Eisenhower Expressway hadn’t been dubbed the world’s longest parking lot for nothing. The sun was lowering in the west, blindingly bright, the traffic was bumper to bumper, moving at tortoise speed, and before Lockington reached Route 294, his decrepit Pontiac was running in the red.
He slid into 294’s southbound torrent and with the return of circulating air the engine heat dropped back to normal. Within forty-five minutes he was plucking his ticket from the slot of the gadget at the Indiana Tollway gates and at that point he reckoned that he was slightly under four hundred miles from Youngstown, Ohio. He herded the Pontiac into the righthand lane, wound it to sixty, held it there, and leaned back to watch dusk begin to stain the western Indiana countryside purple.
A nondescript eastbound dump truck rumbled ahead of him from an entrance to his right, its tailgate sporting two bumper stickers. The sticker to the left was white on blue—YES, JESUS LOVES ME! The sticker to the right was red on white—GOD’S WILL BE DONE. Lockington pondered the right-hand sticker. As a wide-eyed, highly impressionable youngster, he’d been given to understand that God’s will is always done, that the sun wouldn’t come up if God didn’t will it to come up, that the family car wouldn’t start it God didn’t will it to do so. Every hurricane, every earthquake, every flood was willed by God, as was the budding of every rose, the daybreak song of every bird, the twilight rustle of every leaf. Which brought Lockington to the core of one of his countless doubts. If God indeed willed all, then it followed that a man’s ascent to the glories of Paradise, his descent to the horrors of Hell, had been ordained long prior to his first stirrings in his mother’s womb. The blind acceptance of the theory that God’s will is always done led invariably to God having willed the Hitlers and Stalins to slaughter millions of innocents, and if God had willed these crimes, why should he punish their perpetrators? If we are God-controlled, God-destined to be what we are, to do what we do, a truly just God wouldn’t be sitting in judgment on anybody.
Such thoughts had blurred the Indiana miles and Lockington found himself paying his toll, crossing the line to the Ohio Turnpike entrance, getting Youngstown directions from a woman in a booth at the gates. Ohio Exit 15, she told him, then pick up Route 11 South. He was down to less than a quarter-tank of fuel, probably enough to get him into the vicinity of Toledo, he figured. He’d stop there, fill ’er up, grab a sandwich and a cup of black coffee, and he’d be rolling into Youngstown about three o’clock on Saturday morning, having lost an hour to Eastern
Time.
Darkness had set in and in his rearview mirror Lockington could see headlights closing rapidly. He was holding at a steady sixty and he estimated the speed of the vehicle at upwards of eighty. The headlights pulled close behind the Pontiac, then dropped back, turning onto the shoulder to stop and fade from view. Probably an unmarked state police car, he thought—Ohio was noted for its unmarked state police cars. Then, five minutes later, here came fast headlights again, nothing behind them, nothing between them and Lockington’s car. Fifty yards behind the Pontiac they swung into passing position, pulled alongside, then slowed, keeping pace. The car was a Cadillac, it was white, and Lockington felt a cool spray sting his cheeks—glass, and he knew its meaning. He jammed the accelerator to the floorboard, spinning the Catalina in the direction of the Cadillac, watching it give ground, swerving onto the north shoulder, gaining speed to draw clear of the threat, its JESUS SAVES bumper sticker bright in the glare of Lockington’s headlights.
He’d righted the Pontiac, the crisis was behind him, the Cadillac’s taillights were twin red pinpoints in the distance, and bullet holes, three of them, were clustered in the window glass inches to the rear of Lockington’s head. Not bad marksmanship considering that it’d hailed from a moving vehicle—if it’d been any better, he’d never had known what hit him. He’d heard no shots—a silencer. Major league equipment for the killing of a minor league private detective.
Lockington backhanded sudden cold sweat from his forehead, drawing a raspy deep breath. He was alive, wondering why Billy Mac Davis had opened fire on him, concluding that it’d been God’s will.
The Devereaux File Page 12
