by Tod Goldberg
“Right,” Jeff said. “Where do you go to school?”
“UIC,” she said. “I just started, and it’s kicking my ass.”
“It gets easier,” Jeff said.
“You went there?”
“Graduate school,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, it’s totally different undergrad,” she said. “Everyone says the first two years are cake, that it’s just basic retard stuff—history, math, comp—and that when you get into your major, that’s when people jump out of buildings from the pressure and all that. So. Yeah. Not looking forward to that if I’m already underwater.”
A small bookshelf by the sofa was filled with books on criminology, forensic investigation, and counterinsurgency methods, and it also held framed photos of Matthew and Nina with their parents from a cruise, everyone posed in front of the ship’s bow. There were also photos of both kids playing lacrosse.
“So, you guys share this place?”
“Yeah, it’s cheaper that way,” she said. “Or, I guess it was. I don’t know what we’re going to do now. I don’t think Matt has anything saved up. His loans are insane.”
Shit.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got some news for Matthew that will help alleviate that,” Jeff said, not even knowing what the hell he meant as he said the words.
“Cool,” Nina said. She got up off the couch then, like she’d forgotten something, and headed into the tiny kitchen. “I’m being totally rude. Do you want some turkey or string bean casserole or something? Our mother sent us this huge care package, and we’ve been gorging on it since last night. We’ve got, like, three different pies, too.”
Before Jeff could answer—he would have liked some string bean casserole—Matthew came out of the bathroom wearing a pair of sweatpants and no shirt, a damp towel in his right hand. No wedding ring on his left.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. He didn’t seem all that surprised, just mildly annoyed.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Jeff said.
“I got fired, did you know that?”
“I had some idea, yeah,” Jeff said.
“You knew ahead of time?”
“No,” Jeff said, “they put me on leave today, so I figured that you got the axe. It’s how I would have done it.” Matthew rubbed at his head with the towel and let out a grunt of exasperation. “Look, I want to apologize. I dragged you into something stupid.”
“You know they didn’t even give me a severance?” Matthew said. “Two weeks short. Can you believe that? Apparently the twenty weeks I spent at Quantico didn’t count.”
“I know,” Jeff said. He’d fired plenty of people like Matthew during his time in the FBI, their positions were at will during their probationary period, and though he always felt bad about it in the abstract, his feeling was that the best severance for these people was that they could put FBI on their resume and land a nice corporate security job. “Look, I have a proposition for you. Something temporary so at least you can pay your bills.” He pointed to the ceiling and then to his ear, let him know people were probably listening, though he doubted the bureau bothered to bug Matthew’s place, since he wasn’t even really an agent yet. Still, it gave the proceedings a bit more weight. “Let me buy you a cup of coffee somewhere we can talk about it.”
Nina came out then holding two plates full of food and handed one of them to Jeff. “Hey,” she said to her brother, and then she went and sat back down on the sofa. “He thought I was your wife.”
Matthew didn’t say anything for a moment, so Jeff took his plate and sat down beside Nina on the sofa and got to work on some casserole. “Give me a couple minutes to get dressed,” Matthew said.
“Take your time,” Jeff said. He was suddenly starving.
The White Palace Grill was one of those places Jeff used to go to all the time when he didn’t have any money. They’d let you sit in a booth all night long for the price of a cup of coffee, particularly if you came in with textbooks, and they’d keep refilling your mug without ever getting snooty about it. It was up on Canal Street, so it had a crowd that was equally mixed with college students, hookers, cops, and the occasional wiseguy.
It had been almost a decade since Jeff had stopped inside, and yet, as he sat across the booth from Matthew, he recognized everyone in the joint. The waitress with the tattoos on her neck; the two detectives sitting by the door, a mountain of paperwork spread between them; the hipsters wearing their sunglasses inside; the young woman in horn-rim glasses sitting at the counter next to another young woman, also in horn-rim glasses, though it didn’t look like they were there together. And then the solitary old folks eating chicken salad and drinking tea. He wondered if they recognized him, too, curious about where he’d been all these years.
The waitress with the tattoos on her neck came by and dropped off their food and drinks—Matthew had ordered a strawberry shake and french fries, figuring, he said, that he didn’t need to worry too much about staying in shape now, which sounded like fairly wise, if shortsighted, counsel, so Jeff ordered chili-cheese fries and a chocolate malt.
Jeff had spent the better part of the previous twenty minutes explaining to Matthew his plan . . . a plan he’d developed mostly on the fly, as he spoke, but the nut was simple: He was going to find Sal Cupertine. Wherever he was, he was going to track him down. And if Matthew wanted in, he was willing to pay him for his services.
“So, you’re gonna pick up my whole salary?” Matthew asked after the waitress left.
“No,” Jeff said. He wasn’t sure how much GS-10s made these days, but whatever it was, Jeff couldn’t afford it.
“So, I’m hourly?”
“I haven’t really worked it all out yet,” Jeff said. “But don’t you worry, if your wife and kid need a place to stay, I’ve got a guest room at my place.”
“That’s funny,” Matthew said.
“Not as funny as you telling me you had a wife and kid,” Jeff said.
“I never told you that,” he said. “I told Jennifer Cupertine. You just assumed I was telling the truth.”
“The ring was pretty convincing.”
Matthew leaned forward. “All my life, I worked toward getting a job at the FBI. When I got there, I didn’t want a bunch of guys like you calling me kid-this and kid-that, asking me if I was too pussy to go out drinking with them after work. So I bought myself a simple gold band, and all of a sudden, I’m a guy with a bit more going on than just the job. And you know something? Maybe it worked too well, since now I’m sitting here with you and you’re not trying to provide me with teachable moments.”
“I said I was sorry,” Jeff said.
“No you didn’t,” Matthew said. “You said, ‘I want to apologize.’ That’s not actually saying you’re sorry. Let’s just agree that you went out there and did exactly what you wanted to do with Mrs. Cupertine and didn’t take into consideration that maybe I’d lose my fucking job because I was I dumb enough to go with you.”
“Fine,” Jeff said. “We’re in agreement.”
“Great,” Matthew said, and then he sat back in the booth and spread his arms across the top of the banquette and seemed to notice the restaurant for the first time. “How did you find this place?”
“I used to come here,” Jeff said.
“A mile from my apartment and I’ve never even noticed it,” he said.
“Hiding in plain sight,” Jeff said.
“That a metaphor?”
“Unintentional,” Jeff said, “but probably true.” Jeff had spent the last several days going over everything he could find on Sal Cupertine, all the transcripts, all the witness information, even put a feeler out to an old Family CI named Paul Bruno, who was now living in Milwaukee and selling real estate but who’d grown up with the Family and who probably still had a couple skeletons, actual skeletons, in his closet. He was going to drive out to see him on Saturday, see what he could glean about Cupertine’s habits, see if Bruno had heard any gossip. What Jeff had already gleaned on his ow
n, however, and what he told Matthew, was that he couldn’t imagine Cupertine being holed up in some safe house somewhere, at least not forever. If the Family felt it was important enough to keep him alive, then there had to be a tangible purpose for his continued existence. If Sal Cupertine was alive, and Jeff was sure he was, he was working.
And it wasn’t just because that made the most organizational sense. The FBI profile developed on Sal Cupertine was extensive: He was a professional, a workaholic even, who had a sociopathic view of violence, but only as it related to his business, which suggested he wasn’t a true sociopath, though his freelance work suggested his morality had a price. The death of his father, who was murdered in a coup within the Family, and which Sal Cupertine supposedly witnessed, likely had a disassociating effect on him from a young age . . . but, really, who knew? He might have just liked killing people, though Jeff didn’t believe that was true. It was his job, and almost everyone hates their job.
Thing was, no one had ever even been able to question Sal Cupertine. He’d never been arrested. The only time he’d ever left prints at one of his killings was at the Parker House. Everything the FBI had used to develop Cupertine’s profile was based on supposition and secondary evidence, which was usually enough to catch a serial killer, since serial killers were often insane, which made it easier to catch them since their insanity usually fell along predictable medical lines. A sane person was much more difficult to figure out.
“You don’t actually think he’s in Chicago, do you?” Matthew asked after Jeff shared his thoughts.
“No,” Jeff said. “I doubt he’s even in Illinois.”
“Canada?”
“Maybe,” Jeff said, “but I can’t see Sal Cupertine fitting in with the syndicate in Windsor. They’re all white-collar fraud these days. Tech stuff. Mortgages. Not a lot of violence, just a lot of money. They don’t have a good reason to harbor an international fugitive. It would bring too much heat on them. Even if he went to Toronto or BC, it’s a different kind of Mafia. For one thing, they speak Italian.”
“Cupertine doesn’t?”
“No,” Jeff said. “And I don’t see him picking up French, either.”
“But he’s smart, right? Isn’t that what the files said?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. “Or at least he has a good memory. They called him Rain Man.”
“Nice to know even the Mafia goes to the movies,” Matthew said. “So maybe he just moves to Canada and lives a nice humble life.”
“He doesn’t have any skills,” Jeff said. That was the problem with all the mob guys Jeff had ever managed to get into witness protection. They never knew how to do anything but rip people off. He heard Sammy the Bull was already back into the game in Arizona. Just asking to get killed.
“Mrs. Cupertine, she was believable to me,” Matthew said. “Perhaps that makes me naïve. But I feel if Sal Cupertine is within a couple hundred miles of her, there’s no way he’s not already back in town.” He pulled the straw out of his milk shake and gulped down half of the glass and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He is a kid, Jeff thought, there wasn’t any way of disputing that. That wasn’t a bad thing; perhaps he could look at things with a fresh perspective. “What about Vegas?”
“Too hard to keep him hidden,” Jeff said. “There’s a mob gossip columnist in town. He covers the comings and goings of the families like they’re members of a boy band.”
“Don’t you think Ronnie Cupertine knows where he is?” Matthew said.
“I’m going to guess he’d say he’s in the landfill, right where we found him.”
“That’s bullshit,” Matthew said. “Why doesn’t someone grab him, put him in a dark room, and spray him with a fire hose until he gives up the information?”
“Because we’re not the CIA,” Jeff said. “Or the KGB.”
“I bought my car from him,” Matthew said.
“You and half of Chicago,” Jeff said. “That’s part of the problem.” Ronnie Cupertine wasn’t just connected in the mob sense, he was part of the very fabric of Chicago—benefit lunches with the mayor, golf with Gold Coast politicos on both sides of the aisle, luxury suite to see the Bulls, black-tie events at the Field Museum, the entire city driving his chop shop cars. Word was he had a deal with an Albanian syndicate in Canada for the high-end rides, but there was never anything solid on that.
That Sal Cupertine was still alive was all thanks to Ronnie Cupertine; Jeff was sure of that. A savvy businessman, he’d figure out a way to get the most out of his cousin Sal. Jeff really wanted to sit across from Ronnie Cupertine and have a conversation, but that wasn’t going to happen. At least not yet. Ronnie Cupertine was the kind of guy who knew his rights, the kind of guy who kept lawyers on his speed dial, the kind of guy who wasn’t going to get suckered into admitting the sky was blue.
“I’m going to need at least two thousand dollars a month,” Matthew said then, “plus expenses.”
“What expenses?”
“How should I know?” Matthew said. “I’ve never been a private detective before. Between that and unemployment, I’ll be fine for a few months. Keep my sister off the streets.”
“I don’t think it will take a few months,” Jeff said. “I feel like we’ll be able to track him down before Christmas.”
“What gives you this confidence?” Matthew asked.
Jeff had no idea why he thought this. With no leads—the FBI having announced he was dead didn’t exactly cause the tip lines to light up—and not even a solid clue as to where Sal Cupertine might be, Jeff would be starting from below ground. But Matthew was right: Someone knew where Sal Cupertine was, and if one person knew, two people knew. And if two people knew, there was a pretty good chance four people knew. A criminal organization requires a hierarchy—there was no way Ronnie Cupertine was going to have blood on his hands, literally or figuratively—and that meant there were probably several moving parts between Sal Cupertine killing four men at the Parker House and the charred body found in the dump.
Jeff thought about his savings—the twenty grand he’d stashed away. If he caught Sal Cupertine, Jeff Hopper could write his own ticket, even if that meant he just went back to eastern Washington and sat around in his underwear all day.
“Look,” Jeff said, “give me three months, that’s all I’m asking. If after three months we aren’t any closer, you go your way, I’ll go mine, and I’ll pay you another two months’ salary as severance.”
Matthew picked up a french fry and blew the salt off of it before putting it in his mouth. “What if we catch him?”
“Same deal,” Jeff said.
“So you’re going to give me ten thousand dollars whether or not we catch Sal Cupertine?”
“I need your help,” Jeff said. There was no way he could take this on by himself. And in a more tangible sense, he needed Matthew physically—if it came down to a fight, Jeff Hopper felt like he could do what needed to be done, could still handle himself with a gun, but there was no denying that having someone qualified for assault team duty as his backup wasn’t a bad thing.
Matthew ate another fry and finished off his shake. “This is insane,” he said.
Jeff agreed.
“We do this, we get him,” Matthew said, “do you think I have any chance of getting picked back up?”
“No,” Jeff said. “Not by the bureau. Maybe NSA will like the self-determination angle, but who knows. I’ve got some contacts in private security, guys doing paramilitary and intelligence jobs on contract, things like that. That’s where the real money is.”
“It wasn’t about the money for me,” Matthew said.
“I wanted to be a superhero, too,” Jeff said, “and here we are.”
Matthew shook his head. Jeff couldn’t tell if it was in disgust or resignation or just simple frustration. Maybe it was something else all together. Either way, he followed it up with a brusque laugh and said, “What time do we leave for Milwaukee?”
The first time Jeff H
opper met Paul Bruno was in late 1995. Bruno had just been released from county—in fine Chicago form, he’d done two months after getting picked up for assault after trying to collect on a gambling debt, and then pled down to a minor racketeering charge, a term that didn’t even exist until 1927, when the Employers’ Association of Greater Chicago coined it in response to the constant shakedowns from organized crime figures in the Teamsters—and came sniffing around the bureau for opportunities to snitch once he realized a jail cell was not a place he ever wanted to visit again.
He wasn’t a made guy in the classic sense—as in, he’d never been made part of the Family—but he had a foot in their business interests in that he was good with numbers. He helped run a couple of books by setting spreads and the like, and since he worked with his father, Dennis, at the family butcher business—Bruno’s Fine Meats—he knew his way around dead bodies.
Paul Bruno had two problems, however: The first was that he was a closeted homosexual, which wasn’t exactly a great secret to have while trying to be a tough guy. Not that he wasn’t tough, but it opened him to blackmail by other syndicates or anyone else who might want to hurt him or his business interests, which was primarily with the Family. Paul was smart enough to realize this himself, which is why he kept himself outside the lines as much as possible. Sure, he’d aid and abet, provide a few key services, even; he just wouldn’t saddle up all the way. That made him even more valuable, since he’d been able to befriend guys up and down the chain of command. It helped that he’d grown up with them.
The second problem was far less pronounced, or at least was until Bruno landed in a jail cell: He had claustrophobia, which led to anxiety, which led to panic attacks, which led to crying, which led, every time, to vomiting. Jeff knew of Bruno’s first problem long before Bruno landed in county and revealed his second issue, though that revelation was the impetus for putting a CI into the cell with him for the last few weeks of his sentence to put some ideas into his head.
For the next year, in exchange for getting his record expunged and for financial help with tuition toward his real estate license, Paul Bruno provided information to the FBI, though because his operational knowledge was slight—he’d helped teach some Family members the art of cutting up bodies and knew the Family had cut up some bodies but didn’t know who those bodies actually were—what he knew about the books was practically common knowledge, so that was largely worthless. So Jeff tended to use Bruno for insight on the men themselves, find out their peccadilloes, their habits, interesting things about who they were outside the crimes they’d perpetrated. Bruno became a good CI because he was so secretive and low-key in his normal life that becoming a snitch was easy work for him.
