The Talk Show Murders

by Al Roker

  “You’re frightening me with this silly game, Billy. J’en ai assez!”

  “It’s no game,” I said. “For both our sakes, tell me who they are.”

  And Candy Mott picked that perfect moment to return. “Sorry, Adoree. We have to go.”

  “Au revoir, Billy,” Adoree said.

  “I’ll call you,” I said.

  She merely shook her head from side to side.

  And was gone.

  Chapter

  FORTY

  Willard Mitry and I had lunch at Terzo Piano, the antiseptic white-and-gray, sunlight-freshened restaurant located in the Art Institute.

  Thanks to his stockpile of intriguing anecdotes, a lamb burger grilled to perfection and stuffed with goat cheese, and a formidable pile of hand-cut french fries, I had almost recovered from Adoree’s rejection. Not to mention her potentially perilous situation. Especially if Derek Webber was the guy who’d been talking about me.

  Well, maybe I hadn’t recovered.

  “You okay, Billy?” Mitry asked.

  “Fine. I was just … What was it you said about Patton’s murder?”

  “That it’s not even mentioned in the paper anymore. Still, when they find the killer or killers, that’s going to be one sweet story. But it probably won’t be the Trib that breaks it. Hell, it’ll probably be TMZ.”

  “In researching Gangland, Illinois, have you come across the name Giovanni Polvere?”

  He thought for a few seconds, then withdrew a small reporter’s notepad from his jacket pocket. He flipped through several pages filled with tiny crabbed handwriting and paused. “Yeah. He was the Outfit’s unofficial CFO during the eighties, starting with the last half of ‘Joey Doves’ Aiuppa’s stint as front boss and continuing through most of Joe Nagall’s run.”

  “Know when he died?”

  “Eighty-seven, according to my notes. Went up in a fire. Why?”

  “Your research show any direct connection to Patton?”

  “Not direct. But as I think I mentioned, the rumor was Patton and Nagall had something going and Polvere was working for Nagall. What’s your angle?”

  “Suppose Nagall wanted to invest a sizable amount of the Outfit’s coin in some scheme or other,” I said. “Would he have to involve Polvere?”

  “Sizable amount? Probably.” Mitry had his head cocked and was looking at me with a half-smile on his face. “What’s the story, Billy?”

  I was beginning to see what might have happened back then—Paul approaching Venici with one of his cons, then, sensing an even bigger fish, expanding the con and drawing Joseph “Joe Nagall” Ferriola into the net. Ferriola takes the project to Polvere, who’s controlling the big funds. And then what? The fact that Paul was killed without the loot suggests that Polvere saw through the scam and ordered his death. Then why were Venici and his cousin killed?

  Did the Outfit bump off its minions for stupidity? Wouldn’t that have depleted the ranks long before the government did?

  I had the feeling I was just a few pieces shy of the jigsaw puzzle of Paul’s murder.

  “You’re spooking me, Billy,” Mitry said. “Usually the food here is pretty good.”

  “The food’s great, Willard. I’m sorry. Just a little distracted.”

  “It’s Polvere, right? Is there something I should know? For the book?”

  “Nothing right now. If anything develops, I promise to clue you in.”

  “Good enough,” he said. “Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a dessert to talk about on your show, you want to try the gingerbread cake and maple-bourbon ice cream.”

  “Let’s get a couple, and you can tell me why your agent doesn’t trust Derek Webber.”

  The dessert was a dream.

  Mitry’s agent’s report on Webber was, like everything Mantata had turned up, not terribly incriminating and only vaguely supported by fact.

  “Jeb didn’t say Webber was a crook. Just a shark. The reason he wanted to meet with me was probably to pick my brain. And even if he did make an offer to purchase the film and TV rights of the book, it wouldn’t be my talent he’d be buying. It’d be insurance that a rival project wouldn’t get launched.”

  “How wealthy is he?”

  “I don’t know, but he and his partner, Luchek, are up there with guys like Branson and Malone.”

  “If they have all this money, why are they going out of their way to court backers for their movie?”

  “Because the first rule any of these moguls learn is: Never use your own money.”

  If Polvere obeyed that rule, that could be the reason he closed down Paul’s scam. Or maybe he hadn’t thought of the money as his own.

  “Know anything about Luchek?” I asked.

  “He’s not as high-profile as Webber, but I gave them both a Google when they expressed interest in my book. Luchek’s family has money. Not as much as he has now.”

  “What’s his father do?”

  “He doesn’t. He’s retired. He was in banking. Mother passed about ten years ago. Alan’s got two sisters, both older. One’s unmarried, maybe divorced, living in the family home in Winnetka. The other’s married and on the East Coast. Philadelphia, maybe.”

  “You got all that from Google?”

  “Google and the sweat of my brow,” he said. “I’m … I was a reporter, Billy. Research is what we do.”

  Chapter

  FORTY-ONE

  Dal arrived at my hotel suite shortly before nine on Thursday night. Kiki, Hiho, and I had just polished off a room-service dinner of pan-fried trout (Kiki); filet mignon burger, well done (Hiho); and T-bone, rare (me), and were having coffee.

  Dal seemed a little jangled and distracted as he passed along Mantata’s instructions to Hiho. “He wants you to go home, get a good night’s sleep, and pick him up at his place at seven.”

  “Why so early?”

  “Beats me. He commands, I obey.”

  Hiho had removed his hat and coat for dinner. He retrieved them from the couch and, almost daintily, put them back on. Standing in front of the room’s only mirror, he adjusted his hat just so, shaping and smoothing the brim with his hand. “You and the boss worked late, huh?” he asked.

  “We had pizza at Uno’s, then I dropped him back at the gallery.”

  “He don’t want me to drive him home?”

  “Said he’d take a cab.”

  “A cab? That seem right to you?”

  “What do you mean by ‘right’?” Dal asked.

  “You know. Funny? He didn’t seem to be acting like himself.”

  “Maybe. He’s pretty shook up about the break-in.”

  “That bastard Oakley,” Hiho said. Finished with the hat, he turned to Kiki, bowed, and said, “A pleasure meeting you, madame.”

  Then it was my turn. “Thank you for dinner, Billy. I will see you tomorrow.”

  At the door, he turned to Dal. “Seven in the morning, huh? My eyes will be major puffy.”

  Kiki left shortly thereafter. “See you earlier than seven, boys,” she said.

  Dal and I stayed up long enough for him to tell me that Claus Dieter Heinz’s private eye license was legitimate, but his address had changed at least three times since he’d been issued his driver’s license, the most recent as yet undiscovered. There had been a one-room office for Heinz Security and Associates on the West Side for eight years, but that had closed over two years ago.

  There was no record of a license for his associate Ashton Killinek. The address on his driver’s license was no longer valid, though neighbors recalled Ashton and his wife, Anne. The couple’s public displays of affection had been either “disgusting” and “lewd” or “really sweet,” depending on the eye of the beholder.

  Hospitals were being canvassed in hopes of discovering a doctor who’d set Heinz’s arm and packed his nose, assuming the broken bones had been attended.

  On that note, I headed off to bed.

  I didn’t hear Dal’s phone chirp. What woke me was the sound of his voice
, sharpened by tension, as he said, “He can’t be! He said he was going home!”

  I staggered from the bedroom into the lighted sitting room. Dal was on his feet, dressed only in his shorts, holding the phone, looking dazed. “Yeah,” he told the caller. “I’m on my way.”

  He clicked off the phone and began searching for his pants and shirt. “That was Trejean. The fucking gallery’s on fire. He thinks Mantata’s inside.”

  By the time we arrived, there was an unnatural glow in the nightscape and smoke in the air, and the CFD and the CPD had the street traffic blocked.

  Dal found a parking space on the periphery of the activity, and we worked our way along the sidewalk through the acrid night air, past a scattering of gawkers, some of them in robes and pajamas, a paparazzo or two, camera crews on the dog watch from local channels, yawning uniform cops and a weary firefighter trying unsuccessfully to keep a hastily dressed man at arm’s distance. The man was demanding to know the extent of the damage to his shop, which I gathered was next to the main fire.

  A cop stopped us before we got too close to the gallery, but we were able to see its display window blow out, sending sharp glistening shards into the street over the fire engine and firefighters handling the hose.

  I remembered seeing a building burn a couple of years ago, recalled how loud the noise was, not just the roar of the fire but the creaking and cracking of the structure as it gave in to the heat and flames. That fire was set to cover a murder and to get rid of evidence in a case that launched me as a reluctant amateur sleuth.

  Suddenly, the flames grew brighter. The firefighters on the ladder started shouting at those on the ground. As the earthbound members of the crew rushed back and away, the roof of the building seemed to cave in on itself, sending up a spray of burning embers.

  “What a fucking mess,” Dal said.

  “Mos’def.” Trejean had moved behind us.

  “You sure he was in there?” Dal asked.

  Trejean nodded. His eyes were wet, maybe from the smoke. “He call me. Say to come and drive him home.”

  “How long did it take you to get here?”

  “One half the hour.” He scanned the area, regarding the police with some apprehension. “Too much law. No place to be. Mi step out, yah.”

  “Let’s step out to my car,” Dal said. “I need to get a fix on all this.”

  The once bright yellow gallery was now a scarred skeletal framework. The firemen gave up on it and concentrated on saving what they could of the neighboring buildings.

  “Tell me exactly what Mantata said to you.” Dal made it more of a command than a request. He and I were occupying the Z-car’s front seats. The Jamaican was in the rear.

  “De ole man say: ‘No trust cabs. I need you heah, to delivah mi to ma home.’ ”

  “How did he sound?”

  “What you mean? He soun’ lak Mantata.”

  “Was he happy? Was he sad? Angry? Nervous?”

  “Not happy. Mebbe sad. Oh, yeah. He say: ‘It time I be goin’ home.’ ”

  Dal and I exchanged glances.

  “There are less painful ways to go home,” I said.

  Dal nodded. “What was going on when you got here, Trejean?”

  “Street empty. I see fi-ah in the window. Smoke. I stop car, run to doe-ah. Key no work. I run to back doe-ah. Key no work theah.”

  “We’d changed the locks.”

  “I bang on doe-ah, shout for Mantata. Then I run back to car an’ phone him. All the while, the fi-ah grow biggah. Flames cover the wall. Mantata voice ansah, but not him, a record. I stop that, dial nine-one-one and tell them about the fi-ah. Then I drive away and park. I call you. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “You didn’t tell ’em your name?”

  “Hail, no! An’ mi speaky-spokey, like an American. But de ole man …”

  “Not much else you could’ve done,” Dal said. “The poor bastard.”

  Trejean made the sign of the cross.

  We sat in silence for a minute.

  “You finish wit me, Dal?” Trejean was staring at a policeman walking past the car.

  “Yeah.”

  “Than mi step out, yah.” He waited until the cop was well past, then opened the door and exited, melting into the night.

  “We should step out, too,” Dal said, and started up the Z.

  Driving away, he repeated, “The poor bastard. Sitting up there on the third floor with all that flammable crap beneath him.”

  “There must’ve been fire alarms in the gallery,” I said.

  “And a sprinkler system. But from what I could see, the sprinklers weren’t operational.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning I guess we know now why those guys broke in this morning.”

  Dal was understandably silent on the drive to the hotel. When we were in my suite, I asked, “Isn’t there stuff you’ve got to do?”

  “You mean like find another gig?” He was sitting on the bed made from the foldout couch, holding a water glass half filled with the Glenfiddich we’d picked up on the way.

  “I mean about Mantata. Somebody will have to arrange for the funeral. There must be business things.…”

  “He’s got family for that. A sister, I think. And there’s a lawyer. I was just one of his employees.”

  “I got the feeling you and he were pretty close.”

  “Close? All the guy did was rag on me and demand that I be at his beck and call and … Aw, hell. I loved the son of a bitch more than I did my old man. He believed in me more than my old man. Do me a favor, Billy, and leave me the fuck alone right now.”

  I went into the bedroom and shut the door. But I could still hear him weeping in the other room.

  Chapter

  FORTY-TWO

  “How much was Mantata paying you to watch my back?” I asked Dal during the short drive to Millennium Park the following morning. Neither of us had been able to shower away all of the smoke odor, and its lingering presence did nothing to lift the melancholy mood.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to keep doing it, and—”

  “I’m paid up through the end of the month, Billy.”

  “I’d still like to—”

  “I’ve been paid,” he said, ending the discussion.

  He stopped the car at the park’s entrance on Randolph. “I’d rather not sit around for the next three hours while you do your thing,” he said. “There’s stuff I should take care of. If that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Don’t do anything dumb, like wandering off from the park on your own.”

  “I’ll be good.”

  I had one foot on the ground when he said, “Billy?”

  I ducked down and looked at him.

  “You think it’d be all right if I talked to his sister? I met her once, a while ago, but she may not even know who the hell I am.”

  “I think it’d be fine.”

  “I’d like to straighten her out on that crap that was in the paper.”

  The morning’s Chicago Trib coverage of the fire had reported that “Its only victim is thought to be the gallery’s owner, an octogenarian reminder of this city’s wide-open and corrupt past. Born Byron Gaines on March 4, 1925, he became, at the age of twenty-three, one of the South Side’s most powerful gangland figures, operating houses of prostitution, gambling dens, the sale of narcotics, and other forms of vice, virtually untouched by the forces of law and order. It was not until the mid-1960s that he officially assumed the single name Mantata, an African word meaning dangerous. He was that and then some.…”

  “My guess is his sister won’t be surprised by anything in the article,” I said.

  “I just want her to know the stuff that wasn’t in the paper. He wasn’t an angel, but he was a hell of a lot better than some of the people that fucking rag praises for their civic duty. A hell of a lot better than the bastards who roasted him alive.”

  “You know who set the
fire?”

  “What?” His face paled. “How could I? But I know somebody set it. According to the fucking paper, a fire lieutenant says it was arson.” He scowled. “You’re gonna be late. Call me when you need me.”

  Before the show began, I asked Kiki to keep track of any news releases about the fire and its victim. Then I marched onto the set for seven minutes of bright cohost repartee, before the show switched to D.C., where our evening news anchor, Jim McBride, had risen early to interview a congresswoman who’d just introduced a bill that she felt would cut a fair amount of the nation’s budget by allowing indigents and the terminally ill to end their lives legally.

  With tongue in cheek, Jim had suggested the possibility of saving even more money by selling their remains to pet food companies.

  The congresswoman, who was quite beautiful, by the way, considered that and said, “Perhaps, if we can come up with a fatal drug that would not affect animals.”

  I was considering the intelligence level of the voters who’d put the lovely congresswoman in office when Kiki cheerily reminded me to get ready for my segment with the sausage king of the Midwest.

  It was a stove-top interview with a guy as round as he was tall and who spoke with an accent thicker than Schwarzenegger’s. Fourteen minutes later, weary from straining to understand what the guy was saying and feeling totally stuffed from scarfing down three or four very tasty sausages, the best of which was the one stuffed with Gouda cheese and apple, I left the set only to be approached by Trina.

  “What do you know about rap?” she asked.

  “What do you know about the Planet Zorg?” I replied.

  “Well, fortunately, I’m not going to be interviewing a Zorgean by satellite in seven minutes.”

  “There’s no rapper on my schedule.”

  “There is now. Li’l Beatcakes. He’s got the number one record in the country, but our favorite entertainment hostess refuses to talk to him.”

  “Isn’t that what she’s paid to do?”

  “She claims his name is demeaning to women.”

  “Beatcakes? What does it mean in rap lingo?”

  “Fucking doggie-style,” Trina said.