The Keepers

by Jeffrey B. Burton

  “You’re right,” I lied through my teeth and looked down at his cowboy boots. “We were waiting there a long time and by then Jack had curled up in my pickup while I sat with Bennie.”

  “So Happy Jack was in the back of your F-150 while you played with Elton John,” Man-mountain said smiling, perhaps letting me know he knew I was full of shit, perhaps letting me know he knew the model of my truck.

  I nodded.

  “I heard you had a golden retriever with you when you helped catch that Eddie Clare prick.”

  The conversation was going from bad to worse. Kippy, Wabs, and I had done research on Superintendent Gerald Callum and his lethal sidekick, and they, in turn, had performed due diligence on yours truly. While we gazed into the abyss, the abyss took notes on me.

  “We were just trying to help.”

  “I heard the tape and you did a shitload more than help,” Man-mountain said. “And your dog started grumbling just like she did the other day.”

  “She didn’t like being there—you know, city streets at night.” I hoped my eyes weren’t as wide open as they felt.

  “Them city streets at night can be damned nerve-racking.” Man-mountain nudged his fedora up a half inch. “I listened to that tape of yours five times, Reid, and after you cooled Bennie’s jets, you started weaseling that drummer boy—getting all friendly and suck-ass to egg him on—leading Clare down the garden path until the dumb fuck confessed. Hell, I thought it was inspiring police work … yet you didn’t get an inch of credit, did you?” He stared down at me. “But I knew what you did, Reid. I knew.”

  “I didn’t know I was so popular,” I said, realizing he knew who I was. The temperature in the cathedral felt like a sauna. “I’m not sure I got your name.”

  “I didn’t give it.”

  “But you’re part of the superintendent’s security detail,” I said. “His driver, right?”

  “I drive Callum sometimes … and sometimes I do other things.” Man-mountain stood at his full height. “I must confess, Reid. I did some checking on you after that disturbance at the park—yes, I did—and I got kind of fascinated by them sniffer dogs of yours. Finding bombs and drugs and dead folk—a guy’d have to be a fartskull not to like that kinda shit. And damned if it didn’t turn out you’re more than a dog handler … you’re a freaking legend. You not only ferreted out drummer boy, but last fall you helped catch that serial killer—the one who filled that pond with all them stiffs. Hell, Reid, they should call you Have Dog—Will Travel.”

  I felt myself begin to blush, and not from his compliment. I waved a hand as though it were no big deal. “Like I said, we just try to help.”

  “The one from Washington Park,” Man-mountain said. “Bennie—she was the same golden retriever that went for the pond-killer, right?”

  A line of sweat formed at my hairline and I nodded slowly, knowing how pathetic my fib about Happy Jack had gone over.

  “I’d love to stop by your place in Lansing some time,” Man-mountain said. “See how you train them sniffers.”

  Callum’s driver not only knew my name and my truck, but also where I lived.

  “You’d be bored.”

  “Not me.”

  “Call first,” I said, wiping the sweat off my forehead. “I’m training a pack of pit bulls from when they broke up a fight ring. I’d hate to think what could happen if someone showed up unannounced.”

  “A pack of pit bulls, huh?” Man-mountain smiled again. “I like you, Reid. You got a lot of spunk.”

  It was then that I caught sight of Kippy standing across the hallway, diagonally from me, monitoring the situation. She must have come searching for me when I didn’t show up on the cathedral steps.

  “I should probably get going.”

  “You got friends here?” He looked over a shoulder. Fortunately, there were still enough attendees buzzing about the church to keep it confusing.

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice at this point.

  Man-mountain turned back and looked me in the eyes. “Did you know Feist?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head again. “I just thought I should come and pay my respects.”

  “You work for the city, right?”

  “A fair amount.”

  “So they got you by the short and curlies?”

  “Huh?”

  Man-mountain leaned in again and I saw his nose had been broken a time or two along the way. “If you piss someone off, the contracts go bye-bye. Then what? Shovel shit at PetSmart?”

  I shrugged. “I really need to get going.”

  “Let me give you a ride to your truck,” he said. “Least I could do.”

  “I’m good,” I said. I got the distinct feeling if I left with him, eternity would be lonely at the bottom of Lake Michigan, swaying in the undercurrent, feet shrouded in cement.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m good,” I said again, gulping air.

  “You’re not one to take lightly,” he answered back, “are you, Reid?”

  I took his query as rhetorical and kept mum.

  Then Man-mountain twisted sideways, as though dismissing me. His aw-shucks grin returned—spreading broadly across his features—but all I saw were teeth. I began orbiting around his bulk when he spoke again, “Be seeing you.”

  * * *

  Without glancing in her direction, I walked past Kippy and headed for Holy Name Cathedral’s front entrance hall.

  “Wabs went to get the car,” Kippy whispered as she followed behind me.

  I went outside and spotted Wabiszewski’s Dodge Charger sitting curbside. Wabiszewski had to be wondering what the hell was taking us so long. I walked down the steps, crossed the sidewalk, and opened the passenger door for Kippy who was about ten paces in back of me. I opened the rear door and slid into the Charger’s back seat. As Wabiszewski pulled away from Holy Name Cathedral, I looked back.

  There he stood. Man-mountain positioned at the top of the cathedral steps, watching as we drove away.

  CHAPTER 23

  It took me three vodkas straight-up and two beer chasers to work my way through the five stages of grief and arrive at acceptance. I waved for the bartender and announced, “I’m moving to Alaska.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mace,” said Kippy. “We should not have dragged you along.”

  Wabiszewski had driven us to some old-man bar in West Town called Russell’s. The place was dark and smelled of cigarettes. A couple of geriatrics, who I assumed were regulars, sat at the bar. Somewhere a jukebox screamed Bob Seeger.

  “Then I wouldn’t have known they were on to me till I woke to find that big guy wrenching my head around.”

  “He wants you to keep your mouth shut is all,” Wabiszewski said. “That’s why the threat about canceling your city contracts.”

  “He wants me quiet, all right, long enough to figure out the best way to get rid of me.”

  “Another vodka?” The bartender, possibly Russell the proprietor himself, stood at our booth.

  “Have you ever heard of Barrow, Alaska?” I asked. “North of the Arctic Circle—they get night for two months each winter.”

  The bartender shook his head.

  “Barrow it is.”

  “More vodka?”

  “I think we’ve had enough,” Kippy interjected.

  “Just coffee,” I told the bartender. “I’ve a long night of packing ahead of me.”

  Kippy and Wabiszewski shared a long glance.

  “What?”

  “Tell him,” Wabiszewski said.

  “Tell me what?”

  “About two and a half weeks back—actually, the night before they found Jonny Whiting’s body—a real estate investor by the name of David Siskin was murdered in his downtown Chicago office. You might have heard about it, but Whiting’s demise blew Siskin’s death and just about everything else off the front page. Sure, his homicide made the papers but it was played up as an office burglary gone awry, that Siskin had been working late at night and st
umbled onto a team of thieves stealing laptops and petty cash,” Kippy said. “What didn’t make the papers was the extent of Siskin’s injuries. If you interrupt a burglary in progress, maybe you get shot, maybe you get stabbed or smacked in the head with something blunt. That’s not what happened here. Siskin got beaten to death; or, more precisely, kicked to death. But it didn’t end there. Siskin’s killer or killers continued stomping on the poor guy after he’d died. They shattered both bones in each of his forearms—the radius and the ulna—and the tibia and fibula bones in one of his legs.”

  “These were compound fractures, bones through skin,” Wabiszewski added. “That’s no small order. And most of the man’s ribs were kicked in, too … evidently for good measure.”

  “Much of this activity,” Kippy continued, “appears to have been postmortem bruising. That means many of the injuries were inflicted promptly after Siskin’s death, thank god. Forensics was able to determine that because significant bruising ceases after a person’s been dead for several minutes due to the lack of a heartbeat and blood circulation. However, as in Siskin’s death, great violence can produce a form of bruising for up to three hours after death. And the homicide detective I spoke with said David Siskin looked as though he’d been hit by a steam locomotive.”

  “Siskin’s death was anything but the result of an interrupted burglary; it was a statement,” Wabiszewski cut to the chase. “Now who do we know that looks like a steam locomotive? And who do we know that sports pointed-toed cowboy boots?”

  In response, I reached for my vodka glass, wishing it wasn’t empty. “Callum’s driver.”

  “Right, and I bet you a nickel that big bastard has them steel-tipped as well.”

  “We didn’t dare poke about Peter Feist’s autopsy, didn’t want any red flags popping up.” Kippy looked at me. “Did you notice anything else beyond Feist’s broken neck?”

  “The way his head was jerked backward kind of stole the whole show,” I said, thinking back to that morning in Washington Park, “but before Vira and I were instructed to vacate the crime scene, they were examining Feist’s body, had lifted up his windbreaker and shirt to look for additional injuries, and one of the investigators said it looked as though Feist had been knocked about. Not like that investor guy you’ve been talking about, but enough to take the fight out of him so the perp could do that thing to his neck.”

  “So they were talking antemortem bruising? Discoloration of the skin before death?”

  “They didn’t get that far into it before Vira and I were told to leave the area.” I shrugged. “Our job was done at that point.”

  “A kick or two by Callum’s driver would take the fight out of Mike Tyson.”

  “Can they match ante- or postmortem bruising to a guy’s boot?” I asked.

  “Forensics can pull rabbits out of any hat these days,” Kippy said. “I would think pointed-toed cowboy boots, especially steel-tipped ones, would leave a distinct mark. It shouldn’t be hard for a medical examiner to determine wound patterns.”

  We remained silent while the bartender set a cup of coffee and small pitcher of cream in front of me.

  “So you’re thinking Man-mountain may have screwed the pooch by giving Feist a kick or two to take the fight out of him or move him along,” I said after the bartender had left, “then maybe Feist becomes linked to Siskin’s death via some corresponding injuries as well as the murder weapon—his cowboy boots—and the spotlight then goes to what? Siskin’s business ventures?”

  “Siskin is from Minneapolis, but he does business in Chicago,” Kippy said. “He and some other investors were putting together an upscale Italian restaurant with a nightclub across the street—both of which would feed each other—as well as a nearby parking ramp for all the traffic.”

  “Okay.”

  “Remember our homework on police corruption?”

  I nodded.

  Kippy tossed a forefinger Wabiszewski’s way, cuing him. It was now his part of the duet.

  “Obviously, we can rule out Superintendent Callum forming an allegiance with street gangs. That’s a nonstarter; the man’s a dirty cop, not a fucking idiot. And the shift in policy has been to reduce the homicide rate by going after the gangs that cause the bulk of the killing—over drugs, turf battles, initiation kills, drive-bys, you know, the usual bullshit.”

  Kippy added, “He’d never get in bed with them.”

  “So that leaves the Chicago mob—remember, the Outfit. New York has their five families, but Chicago has only one. The Cappellis. And the head of the crime syndicate in Chicago—the capo di tutti capi, boss of all bosses, or whatever the hell they call him—is Frank Cappelli Senior. Now, it’s been whispered, but it’s impossible to prove on account of how most folks tend to value their lives and the lives of their loved ones, that Frank Cappelli Senior forces entrepreneurs into doing business deals with him.” Wabiszewski thought for a second. “I guess it’s trending in the underworld to worm your way into legitimate businesses and properties with big cash flows such as—guess what?—restaurants and nightclubs and parking ramps in order to launder dirty money. They seek to turn their proceeds from their less savory ventures—drug trafficking, loan sharking, bid rigging, gambling, and prostitution, whatever piece of the pie they’ve got their fingers in—into legitimate funds by developing legitimate commerce and establishments.”

  “And if someone like a David Siskin from Minneapolis says no, or, worse yet, begins working with the State’s Attorney’s Office,” Kippy said, “wouldn’t it be sweet to have someone at the highest level of law enforcement in place to cover your back?”

  “It’s funny how you never hear of any local pressure being put on the Cappelli family. Sometimes the feebs show up and give them the federal equivalent of a jay-walking ticket, but that’s about all she wrote.” Wabiszewski finished his glass of beer, placed it on the table, and looked at me. “Kippy feels you need to know something else, too. So, in the interest of full disclosure, we’re going to tell you about Cappelli’s son—Frank Cappelli Junior.”

  “What about him?”

  “Well, for starters—Frank Cappelli Junior is a raging psychopath.”

  “Of course he is,” I said. Any soothing effects from the vodka had worn off. “I would expect no less.”

  Wabiszewski shrugged. “These are more whispers, gossip from people in the know, although no one’s ever come forward and Junior has never been arrested on account of folks valuing their lives and their loved ones, but little Frankie gets his rocks off using a punch knife.”

  “A punch knife?” I said. “What the hell’s a punch knife?”

  “You know brass knuckles?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Picture a pair of brass knuckles, only with an inch-long spike sticking out the front.”

  “Jesus.”

  Wabiszewski added, “Two years back, the ex-husband of one of Junior’s girlfriend’s wound up in the morgue with a half-dozen stab wounds to his solar plexus, rib cage, and his throat indicative of a punch knife. And last year a union negotiator wound up in the morgue with similar stab wounds—only more of them, many more. He’d been dumped in a warehouse, and the warehouse had been set on fire. Rumor had it he’d run afoul of the Cappelli family. As a rule, enemies of the Cappellis tend to disappear. So these hits were likely not sanctioned by Frank Senior, as he wouldn’t leave a dead union negotiator lying about and he’d certainly not waste his time capping the ex-husband of Junior’s girlfriend.”

  Something tickled in the back of my mind. “Was that warehouse fire with the union guy in the Fulton River District?”

  “Yes.”

  “Last summer, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ve seen his work.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That union negotiator was an employment lawyer, right? His name was John something or other?”

  Kippy and I watched as Wabiszewski worked Google on his iPho
ne.

  “John Averbeck,” he said, looking up. “What are you talking about, Reid?”

  “We got called to that warehouse to search for any homeless people who may have died in the fire. Instead, Sue and Delta found Averbeck’s body.”

  If I were I ten, I’d have started to cry. Instead, I beckoned the bartender.

  “You don’t need more booze, Mace,” Kippy said.

  “Booze? I’m getting the check,” I said, feeling numb. “And then I’m grabbing the dogs and getting the hell out of Dodge. Not only is the head of Chicago PD and his sidekick—Man-mountain—on my ass, but, evidently, the head of the underworld’s son is coming for me with a gut knife.”

  “A punch knife.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a punch knife,” Wabiszewski corrected, “not a gut knife.”

  “What’s it matter?” I said. “I’ll be just as dead.”

  “It is a lot to take in,” Kippy said after a moment, “but you need to consider two points: Mayor Weeks and the feds.”

  “Mayor Weeks and the feds?”

  “If we point Mayor Weeks and the FBI in the right direction, they take down Police Superintendent Callum and Frank Cappelli Senior.”

  “And if the press catches wind, which I somehow know they will,” Wabiszewski said, “they’ll push a story like this to the ends of the earth; they’ll drive it home like there’s no tomorrow.”

  “The mayor, the FBI, and the media?”

  “Yes,” Wabiszewski replied, nodding. “Marinate in that for a while.”

  I marinated in that for several moments and then said, “That could work, but how do we suck in the mayor and the FBI?”

  “My aunt volunteered on the mayor’s campaign, not only because she believes in Carter Weeks, but because her best friend and old college roommate, Becca Drake, was a major fundraiser for him. She took a leave from her ad agency to lead his direct-mail campaign. Becca’s a political animal, and she’s known Carter Weeks for years,” Kippy said. “I even spent a weekend canvassing for him during the campaign.”

  “You did?” Wabiszewski gave his partner a crooked stare.