by Al Roker
“So you took care of everything?” I asked.
She hesitated before replying, which was yet another worrisome thing. Cassandra is just about the most outspoken person I know. Finally, she said, “I don’t think the power outages were accidental.”
“Say what?”
“I think somebody’s trying to put us out of business.”
Considering that just hours before someone had tried to put me out of business, I was inclined to accept her theory. Still, I felt it deserved a devil’s advocacy. “Three blackouts do not automatically add up to a case of sabotage,” I said.
“It’s not just the blackouts, Billy. Yesterday we had a Ladies in Real Estate luncheon in the big private room. According to the servers, the guest speaker had just been introduced when a couple of gray rats crashed the party. The ladies were not pleased.”
“Rats? This is damned serious,” I said.
“Oh, really, Billy? Let me tell you what serious is: It’s spending an early part of the dinner hour trying to keep our customers oblivious to the fact that in the kitchen, inspectors from the Department of Health and Hygiene are being threatened by a chef wielding a butcher’s knife.”
I groaned. “The real estate ladies called the health department?”
“One of their husbands worked at the health department. Judging by the speed with which the investigators descended on us, he worked very high up in the health department. They went over the building from cellar to attic, which is why they were still at work when the dinner crowd arrived.”
“But they didn’t close us down?”
“No. As you may recall, we’d had an inspection a little over a month ago,” she said. “No sign of vermin then. And they could find no sign of them now, other than the two corpses flattened by Silvio the busboy. We still have our A rating.”
“They uncovered no point of entry?”
“Not even any feces, other than some droppings in the private room. I think the rats were planted, and I think someone has been doing something to our electrical system.”
“Okay. What do you suggest?”
“We need professional help,” she said.
“Do we know anybody that does that kind of guard work?” I asked, mindful of the fact that her fiancé, A. W. Johansen, was the East Coast rep for an international security company.
“What about A.W.?” she asked, indignantly.
“Good idea. Hire him. But make it a barter deal if you can.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean barter. He keeps the restaurant secure, and in return he gets an open food-and-drink tab. Of course, there’s the conjugal use of my manager.”
“Asshole,” she said, and hung up on me.
True. But a funny asshole. No?
Having amused myself, I checked my watch. A quarter to two. I called the desk and asked for a six-forty-five wake-up. Because of my new schedule, I wouldn’t be needed until seven-thirty. My plan was to read Da Mare for a while and then grab at least a four-hour snooze.
Using both hands, I picked up a copy of the massive book and toted it into the bedroom, where, properly pajamaed, comfortably ensconced in crisp, clean sheets and a thin coverlet, I began the usually satisfying process known as reading yourself to sleep.
The chirping hotel phone woke me from a nightmare in which I was lying in a graveyard with a cement headstone on my chest. In the real world, it was two-thirty a.m. and the headstone was my copy of Da Mare, which promptly slid onto the floor as I reached for the phone.
“Turn on the TV, Billy,” a female voice ordered.
“Carrie?”
“Channel eight.”
Still a little out of it, I shifted the phone to my left hand and used my right to grab the clicker. “What …?” was all I managed to get out before the flat screen on the dresser shelf activated with a blinking invitation to watch the hotel’s movies on demand.
“Quickly,” Carrie said. “Damn. Too late.”
I continued to struggle with the clicker, finally working my way to channel 8. Spencer Tracy was talking to Jimmy Stewart about a rubber plantation in Malaya. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why am I looking at an old black-and-white movie?”
“I called you about the news break,” she said. “You missed it.”
“Missed what?”
“The guy who tried to shoot us.”
“What about him?”
“He’s dead. It was just on the news.”
“Yeah?” I was wide awake now, flipping through channels.
“He was wanted by the police,” she said. “His name was Aldanzo, something like that.”
“I’ve got the story,” I said. “Channel nineteen. A mug shot … definitely our baldie.”
The news reader was in the middle of his report. “… of Amos Alanz was found in an empty lot in the 3100 block of West Lake Street. His neck was broken. According to CPD officer George Palaki, there is a strong possibility that the death was gang-related.”
“I just found the channel,” Carrie said. “Did he say ‘gang-related’? My God, is a gang out to get us?”
“It was the dead guy who was out to get us,” I said.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, leading me to think I’d sounded more annoyed than I was.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t take pleasure in anybody’s death, but if somebody had to be murdered, I’m glad it was him.”
“Why was he murdered, do you think?”
“Maybe because he shot a building instead of us.” I yawned. “You always stay up this late?”
“No. But I can sleep in. And it’s morning in Paris, and I was hoping Gerard might … It’s not important.”
“Call him.”
“I don’t want to disturb him. His email yesterday said he’s meeting with his publisher today. And Madeleine sent him notes on the rough draft. I’m sure he’ll write me as soon as he can. Billy, it’s really selfish of me to keep you talking. You have to get up so early in the morning.”
“I’m glad you called,” I said. “But I’d better grab a few z’s before sunup.”
We said our good nights. I replaced the receiver, clicked off the TV and the lights. If I had even a hint of curiosity about Amos Alanz’s murder, I didn’t let it keep me up. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. And unlike the late, unlamented Mr. Alanz, I would still be getting up in a few hours.
Chapter
TWENTY-FIVE
The only thing worse than going on camera after four and a half hours of sleep and a pre-breakfast consisting of two cups of black coffee, two jelly doughnuts, and a Slim Jim is doing all that and then having to interview Elvita Dawes Hart. Ms. Hart was the spokesperson for the WBC reality series Naked Housewives of Wilmette. I guess you’d say she was the Barbara Walters of the show, though, at roughly eight-seventeen in the a.m., thankfully more or less clothed.
In her fifties, with hair the unnatural color of pitch; a face that bore the traces of Botox, a tanning parlor, and some nipping and tucking; and a body that had probably gone from voluptuous to overflowing without her noticing, Ms. Hart was not exactly the best advertisement for her show. Which may be why she’d brought along Lurleen Applegate, a petite platinum blonde wearing a thong and what looked to me like a Day-Glo tether reining in her surprisingly robust chest.
“Alas, Lurleen is about as naked as this network allows,” Ms. Hart said, “but during our stage performances we really let the dogs out, so to speak.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Maybe you could tell our viewers some of the other differences between the TV and stage shows.”
“Oh, it’s like apples and grapefruit, Billy,” Lurleen said, moving closer until her bare thigh brushed against me. “Here’s the thing. We’re not nudists. But we believe that a certain amount of nudity releases us from our inhibitions.”
“That’s right,” Ms. Hart added. “When we and our guests discuss a topic—like our country’s dependency on oil from the Middle
East—we get a much freer-flowing conversation if we’re down to thongs and pasties. Or, in the case of the guests, who are all male, by the way, jockeys or briefs.”
“I bet we have a sling just your size,” Lurleen said. She smelled of vetiver oil.
I stayed game, finished up the interview, bid the housewives a forever farewell, and departed for the tent I was using as a dressing room/office. Kiki was seated at a makeshift desk. She was not alone. J. B. Kazynski, lady private eye, was occupying a campaign chair, talking on her phone.
She was dressed in what I assumed to be her working outfit, a dark gray suede jacket over an antique Cubs T-shirt, tight denims, and leather boots. She stood and held up her free hand with index finger raised, an indication, I assumed, that she would be only a minute.
I didn’t care if she took ten.
“What’s next on my schedule?” I asked Kiki.
“You’ve a meeting at eleven with Lieutenant Oswald, who’s supposed to have some new information on the monster’s murder.”
“That ‘monster’ stuff may be a little harsh, now that the man’s deceased,” I said.
“Po-ta-toes, po-tot-oes,” she said. “Here’s where you’ll find the lieutenant.”
She handed me a yellow note, which I stuck in my pocket.
“Stay as sweet as you are,” I said, and headed out.
“Hold it!” J.B. yelled, fumbling her phone shut. “We’ve gotta talk.”
“About what?”
“A shooting last night.”
“A shooting?” Kiki asked. “Who got shot?”
J.B. was staring at me. She raised her eyebrows in an “It’s your call” gesture.
“C’mon,” I told her. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“Damn it, Billy, who got shot?” Kiki yelled after us.
The restaurant I’d picked was called Heaven on Seven. There are other Heaven on Sevens in and around the city, but this is the original, located on the seventh floor of the Garland Building on Wabash, offering breakfasts and lunches strongly influenced by chef/owner Jimmy Bannos’s tour of duty in the kitchens of such New Orleans legends as Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse. Jimmy had been on our morning show several times, demonstrating his specialties of the season.
The last time I’d been in Chicago, the place had been closed for kitchen renovation, so it was one of the pleasures I’d promised myself this trip. I hoped J.B.’s presence wouldn’t interfere.
Sitting under a George Rodrigue Blue Dog painting, she gave me a bored look and said, “I already had breakfast with my landlord, Mr. Kazanachas.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Mr. Kazanachas is a retired elderly gentleman, wise beyond even his advanced years, who watches over you as if you were his daughter.”
“You know him?”
“No, but it seems quite a few of you hard-boiled gal gumshoes have father-figure landlords.”
“Yeah? Well, it makes sense. Our lives are lonely enough. It’s good to have somebody we can rely on and talk to.”
“And it helps the exposition,” I said. “Well, if you’ve already had breakfast …” I signaled to the waitress.
When she arrived, I said, “The lady will have … what? A cup of coffee?”
“Well, yeah. But I also want an order of bananas Foster French toast. No, make that pecan French toast.” She stared at me defiantly. “If that’s all right.”
“Fine,” I said, and ordered poached eggs on crab cakes with creole sauce.
“I have a very active metabolism,” J.B. said, when the waitress had gone. “Mr. Kazanachas’s breakfasts are pretty basic.”
“I think your metabolism will love the French toast here,” I said. “Okay, you called this meeting.”
“I’d like to know about what happened last night after that dog-and-pony TV show.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
“Last night you and the blond boopsie actress almost caught your lunch on the way to Derek Webber’s mini-mansion. Am I right?”
I kept my face professionally blank.
“I wouldn’t call Derek’s mansion mini,” I said.
“C’mon, Billy, give. What’s going on? How does the joke go? Getting involved in one murder could be bad luck. Getting involved in two murders is just plain careless.”
I thought she was referencing not a joke but Oscar Wilde’s famous quote, “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” But I didn’t think it was my job to enlighten her. Nor would she have appreciated it.
“What two murders?” I asked.
“Well, three, if we count Pat Patton,” she said. “But that would be something of a stretch. I mean, Patton and Larry Kelsto seem to have been killed by the same guy, but you more or less discovered Kelsto’s body and you weren’t that connected to Patton. Or were you?”
“Patton is becoming the Kevin Bacon of corpses,” I said. “Everybody’s connected to him, including you. So if we don’t count him, who’s the other murder victim?”
“Amos Alanz.”
“Who he?”
She gave me a look of profound disappointment. “Is this the way it’s gonna be? Alanz is the dirtbag hit man who shot up a section of Schiller last night in an apparent effort to put bullet holes in you and the Sands woman. And then, in the early morning hours, he turned up dead in an empty lot on the South Side with his head twisted around farther than the kid in The Exorcist.”
“What makes you think Carrie and I were involved?”
“He tried to shoot you, but you got away. You went to Webber’s, where the actress is staying.”
“This is common knowledge?”
She gave me another disappointed look. “Of course not. The media reported the shooting on Schiller and the fact that Alanz’s body was found. But as far as I can tell, the cops are clueless. They don’t know about you and the actress. And they haven’t tied the shooting on Schiller to Alanz.”
“How’d you find out?” I asked.
“It’s what I do, Billy.”
“And you’re interested because …?”
She didn’t immediately answer. Eventually, she said, “If Alanz was trying to kill the boopsie, then it’s part of something I’ve been hired to investigate.”
“Tell me about that,” I said.
“Maybe later,” she said.
And our food arrived.
The eggs and crab cakes were exceptional, almost to the point where I was able to enjoy them without wondering what the hell J.B. was up to. To look at her, she was just a young woman attacking French toast with a dedication beyond mere hunger.
“That … was … fantastic,” she said, when she’d worked her way through the carbo and syrup mound down to empty plate.
“It’s supposed to be,” I said.
She gave me a long look. “I’m hoping you can do more than give good breakfast.”
“Depends on what you’re after.”
We both waited while the waitress refilled our coffees and removed the dishes. Then: “How well do you know the Onion City guys?” she asked.
“About as well as I know you.”
“Yeah?” she said, as if she didn’t quite believe me. “Well, here’s the situation. My nephew, Louie Zielinski, was one of the original computer geniuses Derek Webber hired for Instapicks. A couple years ago, he got married. His wife, Vicky, was an ASA, an assistant state’s attorney, for Cook County. A real shrew, you ask me. Louie’s this sweet guy, who melts into a puddle at the first hint of confrontation. A year ago, he let Vicky browbeat him into quitting and cashing in his Instapicks stock. That gave them the financial independence to do something she wanted to do: teach.”
“You faulting her for that?” I asked.
“Let me finish. She got jobs for both of them at the University of Wisconsin—she’s at the law school, he’s teaching advanced classes in computer science—and everything has been copacetic … until several months ago, when the never satisfied little Vic
ky began getting on Louie’s case again.”
I sipped my coffee and wondered what Cousin Louie’s situation had to do with Onion City or me.
“The thing is,” J.B. said, “Vicky may be a shrew, but she’s a shrew with an uncompromising honesty. And she’s worried about their nest egg.”
“She saw Pat Patton’s blog about Onion City being financed by the Outfit,” I said.
“Close enough. She saw a reference to it in the school newspaper. Then she looked up the blog. She began quizzing Louie about Instapicks. Now, I can tell you this about my cousin: Joey Doves Aiuppa and Wings Carlisi could’ve been cooking garlic pasta sauce in the next office at Instapicks and he’d never have smelled a thing.”
“I’m still trying—”
“If the Instapicks cash is black money, Vicky wants my cousin to give back the fortune he’d made legitimately from selling his shares in the company.”
“Wow. She shouldn’t be teaching, she should be running the FBI.”
“She’s honest, but not to a fault,” J.B. said. “She digs their present way of life. So she convinced Louie to part with some of that possibly tainted cash to put me to work checking out Patton’s claim. And that’s how I’ve been spending my time.”
“What have you found out?”
“That Patton was a loudmouthed, vindictive old coot who was not adverse to stretching the truth when it came to people he disliked. And he disliked a lot of people.”
“Derek Webber?”
“You tell me,” she said. “You have any idea why Patton would have disliked Webber enough to make up a lie about him?”
“As I said, I barely know Webber. What about attacking the problem from the other end? You’ve been on this for a while. You find anything to substantiate Patton’s claim?”
She shook her head. “Just the opposite. Webber’s start-up money came from a relatively small inheritance, when his father died. He and his buddy Alan Luchek worked on Instapicks in his garage.”
