The Fifth Floor

by Michael Harvey

  “Yeah.”

  “What about her?”

  Rodriguez looked up as Rachel Swenson came out of the bedroom. She had insisted on getting dressed in her own clothes before talking to us about anything. I told her Vince had seen everything there was to see when he arrived. She didn’t much give a damn.

  “How’re you feeling?” I said.

  Rachel rubbed her chest where the rubber bullet had struck her.

  “Hurts like hell.”

  “Supposed to,” Vince said.

  “Left a big bruise.”

  “Supposed to.”

  “Stopped my heart.”

  Vince shrugged. “Nothing’s perfect. I got here in less than ten minutes and your vitals were fine.”

  “Thanks, Detective.”

  Rachel sat down and sipped at the hot whiskey I had made for her. I wasn’t sure if she was more pissed at getting shot, being seen naked by one Vince Rodriguez, or having said detective know she and I were shacked up. At least for a night. I had the feeling it was an unhappy combination of all three. Rodriguez turned back to me.

  “I can keep things quiet, Kelly. The question is why?”

  “Let me answer that,” Rachel said. “I’m a federal judge. Maybe you haven’t noticed that, Detective. Probably not a great idea to be found naked, shot with a rubber bullet, at three a.m. in the home of a private investigator. Agreed?”

  Vince nodded toward the judge. “Agreed, ma’am. None of this goes any further. And I’m sorry. Now, let me ask you this. Either of you get a look at the guy who broke in?”

  I shook my head. “Only thing I know is that he was big. Six feet. Maybe a little more. Carried what looked like a revolver in his right hand.”

  Rodriguez looked over at Rachel, who shrugged.

  “All I know was he shot me.”

  “Either of you cut yourself?” the detective said. Neither of us had.

  Rodriguez picked up a couple of small yellow envelopes and held them in front of his face.

  “I pulled a print off the sill. And a smear of blood. Guy must have nicked himself running out of here. Probably not enough points on the print for a legal match. But there it is.”

  “What about DNA?” I said.

  “If you want to run it, yeah, you could get a profile. Problem is, you don’t have a suspect.”

  Rodriguez slipped the envelopes into his pocket and waited.

  “Whoever he was,” I said, “he thinks I have something valuable. And was willing to take a risk to get it.”

  “Which means what?” Rachel said.

  “Which means,” Rodriguez said, “Kelly thinks he has someone on a hook. Just needs to reel him in. Of course, there’s always the chance Kelly’s the fish that winds up in the bottom of the boat.”

  Rachel held the mug up close to her cheek as she spoke. “Enlighten us, Michael. What, exactly, are you trolling for these days?”

  I sipped my coffee. Rachel jiggled her foot and waited.

  “Whatever we talk about stays here,” I said. “At least for now. Agreed?”

  The judge looked at Rodriguez, then back at me and nodded.

  “Just a guess,” I said, “but it probably has to do with the body on Hudson.”

  “What body?” Rachel said.

  I looked at my friend the cop, who picked up the thread.

  “We asked Kelly to help us out with a death we’re investigating.”

  “A murder?” Rachel said.

  Rodriguez held his hand flat and then tipped it back and forth, ever so slowly. “Could be. Probably.”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Guy’s name was Allen Bryant. Looks like he was drowned. Then had his mouth filled with sand.”

  I jerked my head in Rodriguez’s direction. “These guys are getting a lot of heat from the Fifth Floor to bury the case. Vince and Dan Masters asked me to step in and take a look. Unofficially.”

  “Which brings us back to tonight,” Rodriguez said. “And the reason why people feel the need to break into your home and shoot the judge here with a rubber bullet.”

  “Yes,” Rachel said, and took a sip of her whiskey. “I’m all ears.”

  So I told her what I knew. About Janet Woods, her husband, and the boxing match they called a marriage. About Johnny Woods’ trip to the house on Hudson and the missing Sheehan’s. About the Chicago Historical Society and the curator who wanted to be a star. Then I pulled out a copy of the article I had copied, originally published as an April Fool’s prank. Rachel read through the clip, handed it to Rodriguez, and turned back to me.

  “You think there’s something to this?” she said.

  “I spent Friday afternoon in the County Building. Pulled some land records from 1871.”

  “They go back that far?” Rachel said.

  I nodded. “Title abstracts. Still a little foggy, but it appears a lot of the land around O’Leary’s barn was owned by a corporation with the initials J.J.W.”

  I could hear Rodriguez click his teeth together. The judge leaned in as she spoke.

  “J.J.W.? As in John Julius Wilson?”

  “Very good, Your Honor. Unfortunately, any corporate records were destroyed in the fire.”

  “No way to figure out who the principals were?”

  “No,” I said. “I also spent some time with the reporter who wrote this article thirty years ago. Guy named Rawlings Smith. Claims the piece spooked the Wilson clan. Bought Smith a one-way ticket out of town.”

  “And you believe him?” Rachel said.

  “I believe I do.”

  Rachel shifted her eyes to Rodriguez. “Detective?”

  Rodriguez’s face was cast in shadow, but I could still see his hands, long, veined, impassive, folded together loosely and draped across his knees.

  “Officially, no comment. Unofficially…no comment.”

  “You’re a big help.”

  “Your Honor?”

  “Best I can see, you put him onto this wild-goose chase.”

  “Vince had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I found the body at Hudson. I decided to help out. On my own.”

  “Blundered into the whole mess,” Rachel said. “And now you figure whoever killed Mr. Bryant thinks you have whatever it is they want. Shot me tonight to get it.”

  “It is a circle full of circumstance, Your Honor,” Rodriguez said.

  “Fuck off, Detective.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  I held up a hand. “That’s not exactly what I think, Rachel.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No. The person who killed Allen Bryant wasn’t the guy who shot you. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Explain.” That was Rodriguez, sitting up now, curious.

  “The person who broke in tonight carried a gun with rubber bullets,” I said. “Why? If it was Bryant’s killer, he’d be packing the real thing. After all, what’s another life? No, this was a different guy. A thief, yes. Just not up to the job of killing.”

  “Which means what?” Rachel said.

  I got up and stretched. “Which means there are at least two groups involved in this. One is willing to take a life. The other is still working up the courage.”

  “Does that bring us back to the mayor?” Rachel said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. But if my great-great-grandfather burned down the city and lined his pockets in the process, I’d be worried. Maybe even worried enough to kill.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Rodriguez left my flat at a little after five-thirty. Rachel and I sat in the living room. I listened to the wind blow through the hole in my window. Rachel hugged her knees to her body, drank my whiskey, and stared straight ahead. After a few minutes, I got up, went into the bedroom, and got dressed. Rachel had her coat on and was waiting by the door when I returned. I drove her home. It was still quiet on the streets. Even quieter in the car.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” I said.

  Rachel wasn’t crying. Too tough for that. She was, however, close.
And that probably made things worse.

  “What the fuck, Michael. Jesus Christ. I’m goddamn naked, out cold on your living room floor, and you decide to have your cop buddy over.”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  There wasn’t much more to say so I drove. We pulled up to her house, a Gold Coast graystone a block from the lake. It was still mostly dark out. I turned the car off and listened to the engine. It didn’t have much to say either.

  “Good night, Michael.”

  “Good night, Rachel. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For tonight.”

  “Don’t be. Just pretend it never happened.”

  “Including the date?”

  “None of it.”

  “That what you want?”

  She looked out the window in a way that would give any man pause.

  “Maybe this is a bad idea,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Fair enough.”

  An awkward hug later, she was out of the car. I waited until she got inside her front door, cursed at the empty street in front of me, and pulled away. Halfway down the block, I saw a rust-colored Dodge Monaco parked in front of a hydrant. I pulled up alongside.

  “Following me, Detective?”

  Dan Masters was blowing on something hot in a Styrofoam cup. He spoke without looking at me. “Get in the car.”

  I parked, legally, behind him and slipped into the passenger seat.

  “You watched her get in the front door,” he said. “That was nice.”

  “You think so?”

  “I think it was a good idea.”

  “Makes her feel safe, right?”

  Masters snorted and turned the engine over.

  “Is that what you were going for there, Kelly? How about the ‘she just got shot while she was naked and left for dead in my apartment’ feeling. How about the ‘I better do anything I can possibly fucking think of or I’ll never see this woman on whose radar I don’t belong in the first place ever again’ feeling. Think you might want to be addressing any of that, lover boy?”

  The detective shook his head, took a sip of his joe, and slapped his lips together. Then he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

  “Rodriguez told you what happened?” I said.

  “Sure, he told me. I was checking out the block while he was inside with you and the judge.”

  “Find anything?”

  “A guy getting a blow job in an alley.”

  “Is that supposed to be interesting?”

  “He was a Chicago alderman.”

  “Okay.”

  “The married kind. His date was a working girl.”

  I looked over at Masters, who sipped and smiled. “I got him a cab home.”

  “Nice chit to have.”

  “Yes, sir. You need some breakfast? I need a breakfast. Let’s go over to Tempo.”

  Tempo’s been around for a lot of years. Its business plan is simple. Stay open all night and be within staggering distance of Rush Street. Folks coming out of the late-night bars aren’t too picky about what’s on the plate. If it’s not moving, put some ketchup on it and eat it. We got a booth near the front. I ordered scrambled eggs. Masters ordered toast and another coffee.

  “You aren’t eating?” I said.

  “Nah. Lost my appetite.”

  The detective played a toothpick across his teeth and looked out the window. The last of the taverns had flushed an hour earlier, and the street was filled with the wretched refuse. Four frat boys stumbled to a corner and headed our way.

  “Nice lady,” Masters said. The waitress brought our coffee and the detective’s toast.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your friend there. Judge Swenson. Nice lady.”

  “About that. We need to keep tonight quiet. Especially the part about Rachel. Totally quiet.”

  “Mum’s the word, Kelly.”

  Masters buttered some toast and let his coffee cool. The frat boys shuffled into our diner and began asking for a table. One waitress brought me a plate of eggs while another took the college kids into the back. Masters watched them settle in and then returned to our conversation.

  “The Bryant murder.”

  “It’s a murder now?” I said.

  “Whatever. Rodriguez told me you think this Chicago Fire connection is legit?”

  “The more I look at it, the better it gets.”

  The detective poured sugar into his coffee. Did it the old-fashioned way: held the spoon over his cup, filled it up with sugar, and then dropped it in. His hand holding the sugar shook a little. The spoon was worse. He finished with the coffee, stirred three or four times, and took a sip.

  “Seems like you might be stepping on some toes downtown, Kelly.”

  “That bother you?”

  “Not at all.”

  The detective’s response came too fast. Fear does that to a person. Does it to old reporters in Joliet. Does it to tough detectives in Chicago. The waitress wandered over and gave us a refill. Masters waited until she left before continuing.

  “Thing is, I’m a year and a half from my twenty. Full pension. Wouldn’t want to screw that up.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Do you?”

  “I think so. You don’t have to be in this, Masters. Same for Rodriguez.”

  The detective gave a single nod and looked away. His face was still old-school. Square jaw, blue eyes, and a wire-brush police academy haircut. A cutout from a police recruiting poster circa 1970, one that had been put up on a wall and left there too long. Now it was curled at the corners and yellow, torn in too many places to count, and held together with pieces of dried-up tape.

  “How you feeling, Dan?”

  “I look like shit, right?”

  I shrugged.

  Masters slid a look across the booth. “What did Rodriguez tell you?”

  “He told me you were going through a tough time.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “He seemed a little worried.”

  That earned me a laugh. “Good.”

  Chicago had passed a no-smoking ordinance for all its restaurants. I guess that didn’t include the detective’s Marlboros. He lit up and cupped his cigarette in his hand as he drew the cup of coffee to his lips.

  “How’re the eggs?” he said.

  “Awful.”

  Masters nodded and exhaled smoke through his nose. It floated across the table in soft pillows. I inhaled as much as I could. Surgeon general be damned. I loved smoke: firsthand, secondhand. Didn’t matter much to me.

  “Rodriguez didn’t tell you my story?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Rodriguez knows,” Masters said. “One of the only ones who does.”

  “We don’t need to do this.”

  It was too late. Dan Masters was ready to talk. And I was ready to listen. Whether I was ready or not.

  “It was maybe six months ago.” Masters grimaced at the date and showed me all of his teeth for the first time. Middle-of-the-road caps, gums receding, edged in black.

  “Actually, it was six months, four days, and”—the detective glanced down at his watch—“about four hours ago. I was supposed to work a double shift. At least, that’s what I thought. We have this duty roster for detectives. Swear the fucking thing is from the sixties. A bunch of colored magnets on a metal board. Tacked to a wall. Tells us our shifts. Sometimes the magnets don’t work so well. This was one of those times. A yellow magnet fell off and I thought I was doing a double. Working straight through till nine in the morning. I really got off at one.”

  “So you got home earlier than you thought.”

  “Earlier than my wife thought.”

  Now I knew where this was going and liked it even less. Not after all that had already gone on. Not in the Tempo restaurant. Not at six in the morning.

  “We had a nice place in Lincoln Square. One of those new developments near Well
es Park. You know the place?”

  “Sure.”

  “So I got home at a little after two. We lived on the second floor. I figured Michelle would be sleeping so I was quiet coming up the stairs.”

  Masters took another sip of coffee. The waitress came by with the bill. He waited for her to leave.

  “You know what I remember most, Kelly?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You remember your wife, the wife you’ve had for twenty-two years. Saying some guy’s name. Saying it like she meant it. That’s what you remember. That’s when you step outside of yourself and realize your life will never be the same. Realize this’ll be it, the sounds, the smells, the moment by which everything else will be reckoned. Your life happened before or after this moment. Nothing else matters. Everything else pales.”

  The detective twisted a wedding ring on his left hand. Except there was no ring there. Just a patch of pale white skin where the gold used to be.

  “What’d you do, Dan?”

  Masters took a final draw on his cigarette, until the red cinders scorched his lips. Or at least it seemed that way. Then he dropped the remains into his cup.

  “That’s what Rodriguez asked me. ‘What’d you do?’ Must be a cop thing. Thinking about the gun.”

  Masters thumped his weapon onto the table. It was a heavy thing, forty caliber, blue steel, covered in a rich coat of oil. A weapon that was cared for, ready to go.

  “I stood in the kitchen,” Masters said, “and listened. Michelle and the guy were still in the bedroom. I had the gun in my hand. Looking at the door. Thinking about going through it. Then I just got cold inside. Walked back down the stairs. Sat in my car until he left. It was a little after five in the morning. I gave her another ten minutes and then I went in. She took one look and knew. Never said a word. Just started to cry.”

  Before I could respond, there was another noise. The college kids again. Screaming for their orders. Masters closed his eyes. He had a couple of days’ growth of gray coloring his cheeks. A small muscle twitched along the line of his jaw, and he opened his eyes again.

  “I sat down at the kitchen table and put my arms around her. She still loved me, but that wasn’t going to carry the day and we both knew it. After a while, she stopped crying. Asked if I wanted any breakfast. I said no. She asked if I wanted to sleep. I said no. Never went in that bedroom again.”