The Fifth Floor

by Michael Harvey

  He looked across the diner at the college kids and kept talking.

  “Later that day we went downtown and filed papers. Two months after that, we were divorced. I gave her everything. Really, all we had was the condo, but it was no good to me.”

  “Where do you live now?”

  “LaSalle Street. One of those furnished jobs.”

  “How is it?”

  Masters shrugged. “What do you think? Excuse me for a minute.”

  One of the frat boys had made his way to the waitress station. He was wearing a collared shirt under a cranberry-colored sweater and a pair of tan chinos. The waitress asked him to go back to his seat. The kid wanted to talk about an order of pancakes. She told him to go back to his seat again and turned away. He wasn’t used to being ignored. Certainly not by the help.

  He’d just put a hand on the girl when Masters arrived. A cuff to the back of the head knocked the kid against the wall and to the ground. Before anyone could move, Masters had back pressure on the kid’s wrist. He was on his knees and swearing up a storm. Masters increased pressure on the wrist, a practical demonstration in how the cooperation-to-pain ratio worked. The kid wasn’t dumb and decided to shut up. The rest of the frat boys were nailed to their seats. No heroes there. I wandered over. Just in case.

  “These guys pay their bill?” Masters spoke to the waitress, who hovered somewhere between the kitchen and hysteria. She fumbled in a pocket on her apron and came out with a slip of paper.

  “I was just about to give it to them.”

  Masters shooed her along with a wave of his free hand. “Get the money, ma’am.”

  She moved forward. A suddenly sober trio in the booth threw some bills at her. I guess their buddy on the ground was going to get a free meal. Seemed only fair.

  “You got it?” the detective said. The waitress nodded. Masters released the kid, who hadn’t uttered another word. Probably an honors student.

  “Now, the four of you, get your coats on and get the fuck out of here. Not just this place. This neighborhood.”

  Masters shoved a thumb my way.

  “This guy’s a police officer. He sees you around here, it’s in the back of the cruiser. Now get out. And I don’t want to hear a word from any of you.”

  Two minutes later, we were back inside our booth, the frat boys just a memory.

  “They’re okay,” Masters grumbled. “Just young and drunk. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Our check still lay on the table. In a green leather binder with tempo in gilt-edged lettering across the front.

  “Let me get this,” Masters said, and stuffed some money into the binder. The waitress tried to refuse, but the detective insisted.

  “Sorry for the sad story, Kelly. Not sure why that all came up.”

  “You going to be all right?” I said.

  “Day at a time. I remember now why I told you.”

  “Why?”

  “You like being alone?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t think too much about it.”

  “You should. Not something you want to get used to. The judge is a good lady. Something else you should think about.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. The good ones are hard to spot. Even harder to keep. You need to try harder.”

  We walked outside and stopped at the corner. Masters offered me a ride home, but I said I wanted to walk for a bit.

  “Suit yourself,” Masters said, his breath steaming in the early morning chill. “Keep me in the loop. On the City Hall thing.”

  “Gonna pay a visit to the Fifth Floor,” I said. “Take a meeting with Johnny Woods. Probably this week.”

  The detective nodded and unlocked his car. “Just keep me in the loop.”

  Masters pulled away from the curb and drove three blocks, to his furnished apartment on LaSalle Street. He’d lock himself inside and pour out a glass or four of happy morning gin. Day would dwindle into night. He’d read the paper, watch TV, and wonder whatever happened to the girl he knew named Michelle. He might go out for dinner. Probably not. Easier to cook something from a can. Then he’d get into bed, close his eyes, and sleep. Only to get up tomorrow and do it all over again.

  I felt for Masters. Decided I needed to keep closer tabs on him. Then I thought about my apartment. My own life. Maybe not quite as empty. Not yet, anyway.

  CHAPTER 23

  The fifth floor of City Hall looked a lot like the fourth and even more like the sixth. The difference lingered in the shadows. There you could catch a glimpse of ambition, the faintest whiff of avarice, and the footsteps of those who curried favor. Sometimes lost, sometimes won, but always curried. Because that’s what the Fifth Floor was all about. A court of intrigue, inside a building of stone and a city of red blood and muscle. At its center sat the only door along the entire hallway that mattered. A plain and simple door. Brown and wooden. The exact same door closed off the Office of the Bureau of Planning on the fourth floor and the Assistant Commissioner of Water on the sixth. Here on the fifth floor there was no such ornate title. Just simple letters, gold leaf, five in all, hammered into the wood with tenpenny nails. Five letters that spelled mayor. Anyone who needed any more of an introduction to this door need not bother stepping through its crooked portal.

  I got off the elevator and turned left, away from the door and down the hall. There, if you knew how to find it, was an archway of sorts, leading into a cubbyhole that was more hole than cubby. A green metal desk was pushed up against a beige wall. The desk’s occupant had his back to me and was leaning over a filing cabinet.

  “Hey, Willie,” I said.

  The mayor’s unofficial assistant straightened up and spoke without turning. “It’s not who I think it is.”

  “Turn around,” I said.

  “Be happy to. Once I hear your boots backing down the hallway.”

  I took the only seat available, a folding job with one leg that was missing its rubber stopper, and tilted back.

  “Nice chair, Willie. Come on. Turn around. You know I’m not going anywhere. Or maybe you’d rather I pay Himself a visit.”

  Willie Dawson turned and looked. Not in a way that made me feel fuzzy and infused with civic warmth.

  “Kelly.”

  “Willie.”

  I hadn’t seen Willie in more than a while. Time had not been unkind. Mostly because it didn’t need to be. Willie Dawson was somewhere between forty and dead. His skin was black to the point of shiny and stretched tight over his skull. He was mostly bald and specialized in dandruff, a blizzard of white flakes drifting down onto his shoulders, desk, and environs. Environs now including me.

  On most days the layer of scurf only enhanced Willie’s wardrobe. Today was no exception. His suit was light brown, of the leisure variety, and worn through in all the proper places. His shirt was yellow, although I doubt its hue was of natural origin. His tie smacked of maroon, with little yellow figurines on it. I squinted and the figurines morphed into Marilyn Monroe. For the first and probably last time during my visit, Willie smiled.

  “Sure it’s Marilyn. Like it, huh? Actually I can plug it in and she takes her clothes off. But, you know.”

  Willie looked around. I nodded. Willie actually wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, he was a good guy. Good as in connected. In fact, if you dressed like Willie did, there was more than bad taste behind it. It was Willie’s way of telling all the Giorgio Armanis to park their asses and pay attention. Simply put, if Willie could dress like that and still carry water to the mayor…well, Willie could carry water to the mayor.

  “What’s the problem, Willie?”

  Dawson gave his head a shake and turned back to his filing. “You know what’s the matter. It’s been what—two, three years and he can’t even stand the mention of your name.”

  “When has my name been mentioned?”

  “Never.”

  Willie turned around and leaned across his desk. The smell hadn’t gotten any better. Cheap cigars, bad teeth, and something like Vitalis
. If they still made Vitalis. If not, Willie probably had some stashed away.

  “And it’s not going to get mentioned,” he said. “Not by me, anyway.”

  “Got an election coming up.”

  “Thanks for the news flash. Mayor got eighty-six percent of the vote last time out.”

  “Mitchell Kincaid wasn’t the other name on the ballot.”

  Willie chuckled and shuffled some papers. “Mitchell Kincaid. Fuck Mitchell Kincaid. He’s a nobody.”

  Willie Dawson was black. Mitchell Kincaid was black. Kincaid, however, didn’t sign Willie Dawson’s checks. The mayor did.

  “Is that what you came up here for? Talk to me about Mitchell-fucking-Kincaid?”

  “No, Willie, this isn’t about Kincaid. Just a feeling I got.”

  Willie had stacked and restacked all the paperwork he could find. Now he sat down, propped a pair of green Converse high-tops on his desk, and stared out a window he didn’t have.

  “A feeling, huh?”

  “Yeah, a feeling.”

  The first line of sweat decorated Willie’s upper lip. He wiped it away, pulled his feet to the floor, and angled closer.

  “Your last feeling, half the sheriff’s office went upstate.”

  “Six guys, Willie. There were a lot more should have been with them.”

  “Six was enough, Kelly. Six senior guys. Joe Dyson, two months from retirement. You know what he’s doing now? Let me tell you.”

  Willie’s chair creaked and his voice dropped to a hiss. “He’s pissing through a tube and crapping into a bag. Know why? He had a stroke. Second month in the joint. A stroke. Paralyzed. No bodily functions. Doing his five years in a fucking prison hospital. Not that it matters.”

  I’d heard about Dyson. Even felt bad about it. But not bad enough. The back of my neck began to burn a bit. I pulled a pen and a pad of paper from across Willie’s desk and began to write.

  “This is the address of Kim Bishop. She lived over on the West Side. Henry Horner Homes. Joe Dyson sat her husband, Ray, on a radiator. Inside a prosecutor’s office. Ray confessed to three separate murders. Hell, he would have confessed to killing Jesus Christ himself. See, Willie, his flesh was cooking. And it was going to cook until he talked.”

  I pushed the pad back across the desk.

  “I was there when they gave Ray the needle. So was Kim. The needle for three murders Ray had nothing to do with. Thanks to Joe Dyson, a cop who just wanted to get ahead. You go tell Joe’s story to Kim. Maybe you two can go to church together.”

  Willie ripped out the page and threw it into a wastebasket under his desk. Then he turned his back on me again. The burn subsided, the pulse slowed. I had overplayed my hand.

  “Listen, Willie, I don’t expect any warm welcome up here. I’m just telling you, there’s something going on you want to know about. You didn’t listen last time. I’m telling you now.”

  Ever so slowly, the chair turned. Willie was nothing if not shrewd. He didn’t have to like me to be that.

  “Could be bad, Willie. Worse than Dyson. Could be flat-out murder.”

  “Coming out of the Fifth Floor? Murder? What, the mayor is whacking people now?”

  “Willie, listen.”

  “No, Kelly. You listen. What is it with you? Every time you come around, you got a hard-on for the mayor. What did he ever do to you? You think you lost your badge ’cause of him? Wrong. You brought that on yourself. He didn’t necessarily want you out. That was the county’s call.”

  “He didn’t stop it.”

  “Not the fucking point,” Willie hissed. “So you do have a hard-on for the mayor. You know what, get the hell out of here. You could be wearing a wire right now, for all I know. Murder. Get the fuck out before I call downstairs.”

  Willie stood up. I had worn out my welcome, which wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

  “I need to see Johnny Woods,” I said.

  “So go see him. He’s not my fucking problem.”

  “Where’s his office?”

  Dawson gestured down the hall.

  “Thanks, Willie. I’ll see you around.”

  I left Dawson in his cubbyhole, head again deep in his filing cabinet. Willie’s mind, however, wasn’t on his paperwork. He was thinking about murder. An election. And the mayor. Pretty soon Willie would start talking. Probably about all three. Sometimes, that was all it took to get things going.

  CHAPTER 24

  I was halfway down the hallway when Johnny Woods came around the corner and nearly ran into me. He was carrying a folder in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. A small woman, curly brown hair, perfume, and curves, followed in his wake. Woods stopped short and saved his coffee from spilling on both of us.

  “Whoa, sorry about that, fella.”

  Johnny gave me his best guy smile. I gave him one right back.

  “That’s okay, Johnny. I was just coming to see you.”

  Woods gave the woman a quick nervous look. “We know each other?”

  I offered a hand. Out of reflex, the mayor’s man grasped it.

  “No, but we have some mutual friends,” I said. “Name’s Michael Kelly.”

  I could see Woods trying to place the name. Then he did. And didn’t like it at all.

  “What can I help you with, Mr. Kelly?”

  “Maybe we could go into your office?”

  Woods gave a halfhearted nod and led the way. His office consisted of white walls and a blue carpet. His desk was standard issue, gray gunmetal. The credenza behind him was filled with pictures of Woods and the mayor, signing bills, cutting ribbons, breaking ground. All the usual bullshit stuff politicians take pictures of. I sat on a metal chair with red padding. Woods had a nice leather one and eased himself into it.

  “I assume you’re the same Michael Kelly who got himself booted off the force a while back?”

  “I’m a private investigator now.”

  “I know. You took down Bennett Davis last year, if I recall.”

  “You recall well.”

  “That was quite a high-profile thing.”

  “Murder usually is. Especially when the killer is also a county prosecutor.”

  Woods straightened some papers and adjusted a silver picture frame facing him on his desk. I caught a glimpse of Taylor. She was holding what looked like a good-size muskie. Woods had an arm around his stepdaughter. Seemed like a man who liked his life. At least, for that moment in time. Then the snapshot disappeared and the city fixer cleared his throat.

  “So tell me, Mr. Kelly. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about a house on Hudson. Number 2121. Lovely place, turn of the century, stained glass, wooden floors, and a dead guy hanging off the second-floor railing.”

  The blood in Woods’ face drained into his feet. He looked past me to see if his door was closed. Fortunately for him, it was.

  “Ring a bell, Johnny?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Maybe this is something I should take to the police. Or, better yet, the press.”

  I dropped a small black memory card onto the desk between us.

  “Know what that is, Johnny?”

  Woods didn’t say anything. Just looked at the card. I thought he was having one of those out-of-body moments they talk about on Oprah, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “That’s a memory card from my digital camera,” I said. “It’s got about nine shots on it. Time-stamped. Of you walking down Hudson. Into the house and back out again. I’m afraid you look a bit rushed on the way out.”

  The card was actually empty. Johnny didn’t need to know that. He’d been inside the house on Hudson and knew it. Now he knew I knew. That was all that mattered.

  “What do you want, Kelly?”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why the house on Hudson? Why Allen Bryant? What the fuck does the mayor’s hatchet man want with
all of that? And murder on top of it?”

  “Jesus, Kelly. Enough already. The boss is five doors down.”

  “I assume this was a job for him.”

  “Don’t assume anything. That’s rule number one. As for murder, like you said, I was as shook as anyone when I walked into the goddamn house. Christ, I’d never seen anything like that.”

  Woods reached for a pitcher of water on his desk and poured himself a glass.

  “Never seen a dead guy, Woods?”

  “Honestly? Outside of a funeral home, no.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “About me being inside Hudson? Nobody. Not yet. Been trying to figure it out.”

  I figured Woods was telling the truth. At least, as far as he went. There was more, of course. There was always more.

  “Have you talked to the police?” Woods said. “No, you couldn’t have. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. What is this? Blackmail? Jesus Christ, I got nothing.”

  “I’m not here to blackmail anyone, Johnny. If I wanted to do that, I’d take my memory card five doors down. I told you what I want to know. Why did you go to see Bryant in the first place? What’s the connection to downtown?”

  “I can’t get into that.”

  “No, huh?”

  Woods shook his head and gave me the look of someone who didn’t know what he was made of inside and was deathly afraid of finding out.

  “Let me explain something to you, Johnny. When you walked into that house, you walked into a murder. When you fled the scene—and you did flee the scene. I have some great shots of you getting into a Checker. Even got the tag number so we can track down the cabbie. Anyway, when you fled the scene, you became suspect number one. By my count, there is no suspect number two. What does all that mean? Even you can figure it out. Whatever you were doing there, it won’t matter. I go public and the Fifth Floor drops you like a bad habit. Police arrest you and it’s over. Your career, your life. Everything except your picture on the front page and a steady diet of prison sex. They’d enjoy a beefy guy like you, by the way. That’s your future, Johnny, and it’s all just a phone call away. So you figure out if it’s worth it to play the stiff-upper-lip routine for the mayor. Of course, maybe he’ll stand by you when it goes bad. What do you think?”