The Undertaker

by Brown, William

  Sandy and I stood in the alley next to the car staring at each other.

  “I sure don't get that with my HMO,” I said.

  “I'm not leaving until I know he's okay,” Sandy said as we looked up at the house. “You coming, Talbott? Or am I going in alone?” She marched up the walkway to the house and I quickly followed. There was a large, double-hung window on each side of the back door. Looking in through the one on the left, I saw a small kitchen, complete with lacy pink curtains, striped wallpaper, flowerpots on the window ledge, a formica breakfast table, a stove, and a modern refrigerator, all Penny's catalogue neat and spotlessly clean.

  “Nice,” I whispered. “You ought to ask if they hire out,”

  I looked into the window on the other side. It was a kid's bedroom, decked out with Spider-Man curtains, a bed, a dresser, and a bunch of toys scattered around the floor. There was no sign in either room of Parini, the stretcher, or the four Chinese men who carried him inside. Puzzled, we pushed the door open and stepped inside and I could not have been more surprised. The room I stepped into bore no resemblance whatsoever to the kitchen I saw through the outside window. It had plain white walls, a white tile floor, harsh florescent lights, two desks, file cabinets, shelves with towels and linen, and two glass-front medical refrigerators. There were no homey kitchen curtains, no stove, no kitchen table, and no kitchen refrigerator. An optical illusion? I looked back at the window and found myself looking at what appeared to be a set of sophisticated rear screen projectors that threw holographic images on the window. Very clever.

  Through the open door on the left, I saw a fully equipped medical clinic. As we watched, a white-garbed medical team gently transferred Parini up to an operating table, where busy, gloved hands set to work on him from all sides, putting in IVs and carefully cutting away his bloody pants leg. One of the attendants lowered an oxygen mask over his face, but Gino saw us watching and pushed it aside. He motioned for us to step closer. The Chinese attendants tried to stop us, but Parini growled and they stepped away.

  “What are you two still doing here?” he asked.

  “Uh, look, Gino... “

  “No “look Ginos.” Take the ditz and get the hell out of here. Now!”

  “Go, but where?” I asked as the nurses began to push us out of the room again.

  “Anywhere, so long as it ain't here. Just freakin' go.” Parini coughed. “Besides, you ain't listened to me so far, and you ain't been doing too bad on your own. Take the Lincoln. That oughta to square us up. And take her, too.”

  “But ...”

  “You shouldn't have brought her into this thing, but you did, Ace, and now she's your responsibility. So get out of here, both of you.”

  There was no sense arguing with him. Besides, he was right. I grabbed Sandy's hand and we went.

  Outside on the sidewalk she said, “Those computer flash drives in your pocket are going to put Santorini even deeper in jail, not get him out. And pals or not, when Gino finds out, he's going to come after us, and he's gonna kill us both.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Bumper cars on the Dan Ryan…

  Parini's white Lincoln was sitting in the alley where we left it, with all four doors hanging open. Inside, two elderly, black-clad Chinese gnomes were hunched over in the back seat using rags, spray bottles, and a bucket of water scrubbing away the last traces of blood from the car's leather upholstery. As we approached, they quickly exited, bowing and smiling as they backed away and scurried off through a gate into the next yard. I looked inside. Unbelievably, there wasn't a hint of blood anywhere. The car's interior was showroom clean.

  We both went for the driver's side door, but I got there first. “If you don't mind,” I smiled as I edged her aside and slipped behind the wheel. “You had your turn and I'm not sure I could survive another.”

  “Laugh it up, but you don't know the Chicago streets like I do.”

  “No, but I can read signs. And you're right about Gino,” I finally got up the nerve to say what needed to be said as I drove away. “Between him, Tinkerton, and the Chicago cops, it's not a smart idea for you to stay with me for a whole lot longer.”

  “You don't, huh?” Her black eyes turned hard and angry again. “Well, who put you in charge?”

  “It's too dangerous, Sandy. For all I know, Gino's going to come after me next.”

  “Great! I got a dead hit man lying in my basement, I'm MIA from my job, you've got me riding around the south side in a white pimpmobile, and now you want to dump me.”

  “That's not fair. I'm worried about you.”

  “Let me worry about me.” She bristled.

  “All I wanted was a copy of those papers of yours, that's all. I don't suppose you'd trust me with them for a couple of days?”

  “Trust you? I stopped buying that line in the back seat of Ernie DeMarco's Ford in eighth grade.” She clutched her big purse to her chest and turned away, clearly furious at me. “Trust you. That'll be the day. Once you get them, they're gone and so are you. And I heard what Gino told you,” she said. “I'm your responsibility now.”

  This line of reasoning wasn't getting me anywhere, besides, she was right, so was Gino. I got her into this and it was my responsibility to get her out. So, I settled down in the seat and drove. I remembered some of the map, so I doubled back the same way we came, driving down Canal until I found Archer, a busy diagonal that bisected Chinatown. I figured it should take me back to Cermack. That might take me east to State Street and the Dan Ryan. Once I found it, I could get my bearings. Hopefully, I could talk her out of the car at a bus stop and I could find the Dan Ryan and get the hell out of town.

  At the red light at Archer and Cermack, I reached for the buttons on Parini's car radio. Unfortunately, all I found were jazz and easy listening stations. I was surprised the Chicago Mafia didn't have their own twenty-four hour all-Sinatra station or, “The Best of the Sopranos.” Sandy didn't wait. Her hand reached out and she punched Seek. This time, the radio stopped on a country and western station and I heard the mournful twang of a guitar. “Touch that button again and I'll break your finger,” she warned.

  “Oh, come on. What's that? Billy-Bob singing about his pick-up truck?” I shook my head thinking State Street couldn't come fast enough. “Okay, but if I hear Achy-Breaky Heart, all bets are off.”

  She tried to keep a straight face, but I saw it crack. “I suppose you can't line dance, either, can you?” she asked.

  “Line dancing? What's an Italian almost-Polish girl from Chicago doing line dancing?”

  “Trolling.”

  I started to smile, but it quickly faded as I looked across Cermack Road and saw two gray sedans and a blue Ford LTD parked right in front of us in the parking lot of a Chinese import-export shop. Bent over a map spread across the hood of the LTD, was none other than Ralph McKinley Tinkerton and four of his goons. He didn't look very happy. The side of his face was badly bruised and his left hand was wrapped in a thick, white bandage. Jacket off, tie down, he waved his arms in the air as he chewed them out. He slammed his fist on the hood and I'm sure he left a dent.

  “Get down!” I grabbed her neck and shoved her down on the car seat, her head landing in my lap.

  “Talbott, I don't do that on a first date,” I heard her mumble.

  “That guy Tinkerton? The one you think I'm paranoid about. Well, he's standing across the street,” I said as I slid lower, trying to hide behind the steering wheel.

  “I want to see.” She pushed my hand away and raised her head enough to peek over the dashboard. “That's him?”

  “Yeah, and Gino was right. Your smart mouth's going to get us both killed.”

  I sat there holding my breath waiting for the light to change, hoping I might melt into the upholstery and vanish before Tinkerton looked our way, but that was wishful thinking. I watched him talking and yelling at the other men, but his cold gray eyes never stopped moving. They swept across the white Lincoln and moved on. Then, they stopped and track
ed back. Tinkerton squinted in the bright sunlight. He frowned as he focused on the white Lincoln and I knew that was trouble. His eyes opened wide. Even from across the street, I felt the wave of hatred and anger wash over me like heat pouring out of the open door of a blast furnace. His arm shot up and he pointed a long accusing finger at me, mouth open wide, as he shouted to his men.

  I didn't wait for the light to change. I pushed the accelerator to the floor, spun the steering wheel to the right, and laid rubber through the intersection. The Lincoln fishtailed out onto Cermack Road, but what the heck. They weren't my tires. I cut between two cars and got ahead of a delivery truck, putting as much distance as I could between Tinkerton and the Lincoln. With its big engine, it could outrun most things on the open road, including police cars and Tinkerton's LTD. In city traffic, it wallowed like an old barge. Still, if I could loose them before they even got started, then the size of the engine wouldn't matter.

  “You said you know the city,” I shouted to her over the engine roar. “The Dan Ryan, it's up ahead, right?”

  “Yeah, keep going straight, to State, then turn south, I guess.”

  We raced across Wentworth Avenue. The road dropped away and the big car soared into a railroad underpass beyond. The Lincoln bottomed out on its axles and roared up the other side without skipping a beat. The traffic soon thickened again and I cut left, crossing the double yellow lines, using the westbound lanes to pass a pokey bus and a delivery van. I looked in the rear-view mirror and still couldn't see Tinkerton's cars, so I eased off the accelerator a tad. There was no reason to commit vehicular suicide, not yet anyway. Up ahead I saw a busy intersection with people walking around. The sign read State Street, so I swung the steering wheel and took the turn on two wheels. The car leveled out and we were on a broad, six-lane boulevard, racing south.

  “Last chance,” I told her. “I can let you out before they catch up and you can disappear into the crowd.”

  “No, I'm staying.

  “We're probably gonna both get killed, you know.”

  “Nah. Maybe maimed and scarred for life, but not killed. Besides, this is fun.”

  “You really are crazy.”

  “Compared to the black hole I've been in the past two years, this is fun, Talbott. You'd be fun too, if you ever let yourself,” she said, as she reached over and lightly touched my arm. “Now drive.”

  I felt a shiver run through me. She was quirky and funny, with sharp edges, but all girl, and I was glad she wanted to stay. I couldn't admit it back then, not even to myself, but I was lonely. I loved Terri and always would, but memories only took me so far. My life had been teetering on the edge since the day she died. I filled it with tequila and then with work, desperately trying to ignore that basic fact, but one light touch of skin on skin had tipped my pat little world upside down and I wasn't ready for that.

  I put the accelerator to the floor and tried to focus on the traffic. On my left lay a fenced, railroad embankment filled with trash, broken bottles, and tall weeds. On my right was a long row of ugly, yellow-brown apartment buildings. My God, I groaned, that was “the projects,” the Robert Taylor Homes. I had spent two days in Chicago only to come full circle to the same south side public housing I passed on my way in.

  I glanced over at Sandy. She had her Pentax out, snapping pictures as I drove. “The camera?” I said. “I don't believe you.”

  “Believe what you want. This is me.”

  Yeah, and you're still there, I thought as I looked into the mirror. We had a nice lead, but the two gray sedans were already closing the gap. I pressed the accelerator down again and the Lincoln responded with a throaty roar, but up ahead the traffic was already backing up at the next red light at 28th Street. The on-coming lanes were filled with cars, but there was no way I was going to wait for the light to change. I cut the wheel and drove the Lincoln up on the sidewalk. There was just enough room between the parking meters and the fronts of the buildings for the Lincoln to squeeze through, so I hit the horn, sending pedestrians scattering into doorways as we roared past. The car's left fender struck a newspaper box and sent it cartwheeling high into the street, scattering the newspapers in the wind as we blew through the intersection.

  “I hope Parini has good insurance on this thing,” Sandy laughed.

  Clear of the traffic again, I cut back into the street and floored it. On our right, the cruel ugliness of the projects gave way to the modern black steel buildings of the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology. I drove on past 30th Street and 33rd Street, weaving in and out, with one eye on the traffic and one on the rear view mirror. We were running out of options. I could never pull very far away from them and they could never quite close the gap. Ties might work in horseshoes, but when angry men with guns are chasing you around, eventually you're going to lose.

  Tinkerton must have realized that too. By the time we reached the big intersection at 35th Street, he had had called for reinforcements. Another sedan, dark green this time, sat sideways across the southbound lanes ahead of us, blocking our way, and there were two men with guns standing behind it, already taking aim. The car might be a different color, but their expressions were as murderous as their pals coming up behind.

  “You got any ideas?” I asked. The only choice was 35th Street, so I didn't wait. I spun the wheel hard right and took the corner on two wheels. The Lincoln rode up onto the sidewalk and fishtailed out into westbound 35th Street. As we accelerated away from the intersection, a bullet punched a fist-sized hole in the rear window of the Lincoln and exited through the left front windshield.

  Sandy's eyes went round as saucers. “What the hell?” she exclaimed as she swung the camera back on the blue car and began clicking away. “They shot at us! When I get this stuff printed, my photography class will never believe it.”

  “Get down!” I shouted at her but she wouldn't listen, so I put my hand on the top of her head and pushed her down below the top of the seat again. “I mean it this time.”

  “Hey, I'm into soft and tender now, Talbott, enough with the rough stuff.” She tried to squirm away as another bullet punched through the rear window.

  “They've got more, you know.” What was left of the rear window broke up in a lacy pattern and a thousand shards of broken glass crumbled into the back seat.

  “Okay, maybe I'll stay down here for a while.”

  Up ahead I saw LaSalle Street, the service road that ran along the east side of the Dan Ryan Expressway and I knew exactly where we were. The green car, the two gray cars, and Tinkerton's big LTD were turning into 35th Street behind us, coming up hard and fast. We were quickly approaching the Dan Ryan, but Tinkerton and the cops already knew that. Coming straight at us down 35th was another of Tinkerton's gray sedans accompanied by two Chicago police cars, their sirens screaming and blue and white light bars flashing, blocking our way, while two other police cars had the entrance ramp to the Dan Ryan shut down. Bad form, Ralph, you brought in the locals. That means he's getting desperate. Maybe he's worried I might actually get away again.

  That only left LaSalle Street, a three lane, one-way service road that ran back north along side the Dan Ryan.

  “Right, turn right,” she screamed. I reached the intersection before the white sedan and the two cop cars, but the Lincoln's speedometer was topping one-hundred as I hit the brake and spun the steering wheel. The tires squealed. The big sedan heeled over and slid through the intersection on two wheels, leaving a black arc of shredded rubber behind us as we swung north onto LaSalle. Not bad driving for an amateur, but Tinkerton's goons were closing fast and they were probably a whole lot more experienced at this than I was. They had chased us east, south, west, east, and now back north in an ever-tightening circle. No matter how fast I drove or how much rubber I laid, it was only a matter of minutes before they brought cars in from that direction too, blocked the road, and had us trapped.

  Sandy pointed down at the expressway median. “Hey, there's the El. If we can get down there.�
��

  On the other side of the curb was a sidewalk, a six-foot high chain-link fence, and a long grassy slope. It ended at a three-foot tall concrete barrier next to the Dan Ryan's three northbound local lanes. Beyond that stood another concrete divider and the four express lanes, followed by a third, even taller concrete divider, that separated the expressway from the gleaming El tracks and then the 35th Street Station. I remembered passing it on my way into town. It was a long slab of elevated concrete with a roof and a covered staircase that led to the 35th Street overpass high above.

  “No problem,” I answered, without a whole lot of time to think about it. “Hang on.” I spun the steering wheel left. Parini's white Mafia war wagon hit the curb, bounced up, flew across the sidewalk, and hit the fence. Chain link and a couple of metal posts were no match for a ton and a half of Lincoln Town Car. It flattened three sections of the fence and roared down the grassy slope toward the expressway. I hit the brakes and let the big car slide sideways downhill, its radial tires digging into the soft turf like a battleship turning in molasses, leaving four deep furrows behind us and bringing the Lincoln to a halt six feet from the first concrete barrier. I pushed my car door open and grabbed Sandy by the hand. “You staying or coming?” I asked.

  “Oh, I'm coming, God, am I coming!”

  “You're sure.”

  “Oh yeah, I'm sure,” she laughed. “Miss this? You gotta be kidding?” She held onto me with one hand and her camera and shoulder bag with the other and scrambled out the car door after me.

  Behind us, Tinkerton's blue LTD and two of his gray sedans slid into the intersection from the east, following my skid marks, just as the other gray car and the Chicago police cruiser came racing in from the west. Unfortunately for them, they had all been watching the white Lincoln, not each other, and we heard the crash of metal and the sound of breaking glass as they all collided in the middle. The LTD made it through unscathed, but one of the gray sedans hit a cop car and flipped. It slid across the street on its top while another cop car careened away and bounced off a telephone pole and another slid into the side of a Budweiser delivery truck.