by Clark Howard
Jesus Christ, Kiley thought, his eyes slowly sweeping the place, it looked like something out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. He shook his head in slight disbelief. All this belonged to a cheap little punk who would have been a complete and total nothing, a nobody, a nonentity, except for one tiny detail: He got shot from the same dick that also ejaculated Philip Touhy. They were formed in the same womb. Came from the same genetic sperm. Except that part of Tony must have run down his mother’s leg.
Removing his windbreaker and shoes, Kiley began with the living room, working clockwise from the foyer. The first and most obvious place to look, in which he expected to find nothing, he eliminated at once: a small desk just off the foyer. It contained virtually nothing: automobile registration, a few travel folders, apartment lease—the punk paid forty-five hundred dollars a month for the place—and some miscellaneous writing materials. The bottoms and backs of the drawers had nothing taped to them. The sterility of the desk did not surprise Joe; the most common place for ordinary people to keep personal records was the last place a hoodlum would use.
Next he turned to the bookcases: each book, tilting it out, squeezing it to see if it had pages or was hollow, cutout to conceal a hiding place. Then the bar: looking for replica bottles, secret compartments. The paintings: plastic-gloved fingers along the underside of each plane, each angle of the frame, along its sealed seams, from each side an arm reaching under it to the middle—seeking holes, slits, pockets, indentations in the wall upon which it hung. The sofas and chairs: tilted back on rear legs, undersides visually examined, cushions removed, unzipped, inner foam felt, squeezed, probed. The stereo center: between and behind the records, tapes, discs. The video center: behind and beneath the double-track cassette recorder, inside each videotape box—
Here Kiley stopped. Among the commercially prerecorded and packaged movies was a shelf of tapes labeled with female names: Amy, Cynthia, Madeline, Fran, Tina, a score of others. Kiley’s eyes eagerly searched for a label reading Ronnie or Veronica, but there was none. Turning on the VCR and the monitor, muting the sound, he inserted a tape picked at random—Jean—and started it playing. An image came on of a young woman, nude, on her knees at the side of a bed, performing fellatio on a handsome though somewhat vacuous-looking young man who might have been a decade-earlier version of Phil Touhy, except that the hardness of the eyes and the solidity of the expression were not there. Kiley realized that he was looking at the features of Tony Touhy for the first time; he had never even seen a photograph of him before. Now here he was, naked on videotape, his hard-on in the mouth of a young woman who may or may not even have known her performance was being preserved for—whatever. Kiley could easily imagine slime like Tony Touhy entertaining his scum friends with these tapes. He did not even bother checking any of the others; they would be variations of the same. How many naive, confused, wanting young women like Ronnie Lynn had this animal taken advantage of over the years? he wondered.
Replacing the tape, turning off the equipment, Kiley got down on his hands and knees to check along the corner baseboards where the carpet met the wall, looking for any edge that might not be tacked down, that might lift up to reveal a sunken repository of some kind other than a floor safe. Then he checked lamp bases, undersides of tables, stands holding two exotic potted plants: nothing. The last thing he checked was an ovalshaped, mirror-paneled bar in one corner. It was filled with crystal glasses and the best Scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka, and fancy liqueurs that money could buy—but nothing else.
The living room, Kiley felt, was clean. As he explored a hallway off to the right, looking for the bedroom, he noticed that his socks were generating static electricity as his feet brushed the thick carpet. Pausing, he checked for footprint depressions in the fibers, but there were none; the carpet was too expensive, too tightly woven to accept tracks.
The bedroom, decorated in the same motif as the living room, had its own television and video cabinet, a selection of still more personally labeled tapes—Lois, Annette, Rachel, others; but again no Ronnie or Veronica—and a remote control panel next to the bed. Inside the cabinet was another dual tape system. On an enclosed top shelf was a video camera, concealed except for a single half-dollar size hole through which the camera lens focused on the entire bed. Cute, Kiley thought. With one VCR, Touhy could show a porno movie for them to watch during foreplay; with the other VCR, probably unknown to the girl, he could be taping them for his own movie.
After thoroughly checking the unit for anything hidden, Kiley turned to a bookcase the lower half of which had a set of doors enclosing the lower three shelves. The doors could have been locked; there was a desk-type lock on them; but Kiley found they were not. Opening them, he saw a matched set of eight blue leather photograph albums. Removing the first one in order, he opened it to page after page of explicit photographs of various females engaged in sexual activity with a man whose face was never seen; either it was out of the picture because the figure was standing up during fellatio, the figure’s back was to the camera during intercourse, or the face was turned away or buried between the woman’s legs during cunnilingus. Kiley went through every page of the first three albums—the other five had nothing in them yet, although Tony Touhy apparently had definite expectations, having bought a set of eight; but Kiley found no photographs of Ronnie Lynn, and he now had, from close contact with her twin Alma, a better image of her in life than he had seen in death. Kiley did find, however, two double-page spreads, each in a different place, where photographs had obviously been removed. He did not even have to pause in his search to figure that one out: one removed set was the pictures Touhy had, intentionally or accidentally, given to Ronnie Lynn; the set that Dietrick and Meadows by now probably had taken into evidence along with Wally the janitor’s padded gloves. The other set—those had to be the pictures of Ronnie Lynn, which Tony Touhy must have done something with after learning of her death. Phil probably told Tony, before he got him off to Ireland, to get rid of anything he had connecting him with the dead dancer. There was always the chance that Tony had destroyed them, but Kiley did not think so. More likely, Tony had transferred them to a hiding place somewhere in the apartment. Tony Touhy was a trophy collector, that much was clear: the videotapes, the photographs; he was a hunter of women, and those were the heads he had mounted in his den. Joe Kiley was now more certain than ever that somewhere in this luxury high-rise apartment he was tossing, would be found what was now Tony Touhy’s ultimate trophy.
Moving farther into the bedroom, still in a clockwise pattern so as not to overlook anything, Kiley came to the bathroom door and went in, beginning a clockwise path in there also. Opening the medicine cabinet, he saw that Touhy had an array of pills: uppers, downers, opiates, hypnotics, painkillers of varying strengths—all legally prescribed and in pharmacy-labeled containers. Kiley quickly took everything out, removed the glass shelves, and with Touhy’s own fingernail clippers removed the two screws that held the cabinet into the wall. Lifting it out, he set it on the closed toilet seat, and with one hand felt all around the inside of the opening into which it fit. Nothing. He replaced everything, wiped some plaster residue off the wall with a tissue, and put the tissue in his pocket. Under the sink, he checked two drawers—inside, outside, underside—and a small cabinet of bath supplies. He felt under, around, and in several stacks of thick, monogrammed towels. Removing the lid of the toilet tank, he checked for a waterproof container commonly marketed underground for use by drug dealers; but the tank was clean. As was the light fixture, the mirror attachments, the hair dryer, the shower head—a popular place to hide a single key; although Kiley had yet to come across anything that Tony kept locked.
Out of the bathroom, Kiley’s path took him immediately to another door: entry to a walk-in closet. To Joe Kiley, with the sense of cleanliness, neatness, orderliness instilled in him by his mother, it was a thing of consummate beauty, impeccable, flawless, everything arranged as a haberdashery might have it displayed for sale. To Kil
ey’s left, suits: two dozen or more; sport coats and slacks, another dozen; all hung by color, and within each color by style; all in custom suit bags, a clear panel in front for viewing. Kiley unzipped every bag, checked every pocket, sleeve, trouser leg, waistband. Nothing.
Shoes next: again arranged by color, on racks, fitted with cedar shoe trees. Kiley checked every shoe, every tree, behind and under the racks.
A built-in bureau with glass-doored shelves and a dozen drawers held fifty shirts, every color of the spectrum, laundered, folded, stacked; underwear, socks, handkerchiefs, belts, jewelry. Kiley was not surprised that there were scant few empty spaces, did not even bother to ask himself what Tony Touhy had taken to Ireland with him. A six-piece set of matching Hartmann belting leather luggage was on a shelf near the ceiling, with no room for missing pieces. Tony had probably gotten on that plane to Shannon with a suitcase full of big brother Phil’s clothes, to hasten his timely departure.
Kiley was beginning to tire; although he was relatively free from nervousness, he was nevertheless tense, his stomach was becoming nettled at the effrontery of denied rest, and his feet were cold, Still, he worked efficiently, almost by rote, his rubber-gloved fingers—still the first pair, no snags yet—worming inside all the folded shirts, shorts, undershirts, socks, lifting up drawer liners, feeling along drawer sides, bottoms, backs—
It was on a top drawer used for cuff links, tie tacks, and watches, that, when he bent his fingers over to feel the rear of the back, Kiley encountered a surface softer than the wood he should have felt; a surface that was as smooth as the enameled built-in, but one which nevertheless caused his covered fingertips to drag. Like rubber against rubber, or plastic against plastic.
Swallowing, wetting his lips, Kiley felt more carefully, his mind polarized on detecting what his fingers were feeling. It was, he decided, a plastic bag of some kind, like a sandwich bag, a freezer bag, the zip-loc kind. And it was not taped or mounted to the back of the drawer in any way; it was hanging, from two small screw-in hooks that he could feel. Kiley half smiled. Tony Touhy, the son of a bitch, had gone to a little trouble to do this: to put the bag in what he determined to be a secret, safe place—and yet be able to remove it and replace it very conveniently, without the nuisance of using tape. All Kiley had to do was use thumb and forefinger to unhook the bag in both places and it lifted right out—
Joe did not even have to open the clear, plastic bag. It contained a set of probably eight Polaroid photos, the top one being of a nude Ronnie Lynn, so clear that her freckles were distinguishable, lying on her back on Tony Touhy’s bed—on sheets that matched a comforter Kiley could see, through the open closet door, on the bed at that moment; her head propped up against several pillows, her plentiful breasts, which should have spread over her chest evenly, instead cupped up by her with each hand, pushed up to globular shape to make a nest for Tony Touhy’s scrotum which lay partly between them, the glans of his erect penis hidden by the circle of her lips.
Under the pictures, in the palm of his hand, Joe felt something else: heavier, harder. Even as he turned the bag over to look at it, he knew what it would be.
He was right.
It was Tony Touhy’s ultimate trophy.
Nick Bianco’s detective badge.
Sixteen
At noon on Saturday, Kiley got in his car, drove to the far South Side, and turned onto the Indiana Expressway. When he got to Gary, Indiana, he found a state highway, Route 41, that followed pretty closely the “Line”—that ruler-straight boundary between Illinois and Indiana—and started downstate, through a series of busy little town-square type towns with names like Lowell, Morocco, Boswell, and New Market. There was an interstate he could have taken, but he was in no particular hurry, and having to slow down going through the small towns was a pleasant respite for his overworked mind.
He had only decided to even go just two hours before starting, after sleeping until nine o’clock. The previous day, Friday, he had gone through the motions of the day like a zombie, walking around with Nick’s badge in his pocket—he didn’t know why, only that he had not wanted to leave it behind when he went to work that day, as if he had some inexplicable reason to fear it would not be safe in his apartment. He thought maybe it was something subconscious; after all, it hadn’t been safe in Tony Touhy’s apartment. Without mentally debating it, he had simply put the badge in his pocket.
There had been no hesitation on Kiley’s part to take the badge from Tony Touhy’s closet. Even if Touhy were never brought to justice for Nick’s killing, Kiley was not going to let the scum-sucking son of a bitch keep his trophy of cop-killing to take out and admire when his twisted pleasure desired it. Kiley had taken the entire plastic bag, Polaroid photos included, and had even unscrewed the two hooks that were fastened to the back of the drawer. Then he had switched the drawer with another one from down at the bottom, very carefully transferring their respective contents, so that there would not even be any screw holes on the back of the top drawer now. Let the asshole figure that out. Maybe it would drive him crazy, trying to figure out what happened.
Drive him crazy if he lived long enough, that is. Kiley still intended to see him dead.
Joe had not slept at all after getting back to his apartment just at sunrise Friday morning, following a drive out to the Northwest Side to drop the two keys into Bernard Oznina’s mailbox. He was physically tired, his eyes burning with strain, and his stomach by then churning up acid like a geyser; but his mind had kicked into such an uncontrollable overdrive that he could not even sit still, much less lie down and sleep. Now that he knew—really knew—that Tony Touhy had done it, or ordered it done, or been there when it was done, there were dozens of new questions that now began to plague him: questions he had not bothered addressing until he had his proof. Such as: Did Touhy actually pull the trigger? Did he personally take Nick’s badge? Did he somehow know Kiley was on his way to back Nick up; is that why Nick’s body was left there instead of being taken away and dumped somewhere else less conspicuously connected to the Touhy family? Who among the names Kiley now had from license plate registrations was actually present at the killing? Who—and what—and why—and—? It seemed that each question generated another, each speculation on his part bore the fruit of an additional, “Yeah, but what if—?”
As the sun rose, Kiley had paced his little apartment first with a double shot of gin to slow down the mental rush he was experiencing, then paced it some more with a glass of icy milk, and finally paced it with a mug of hot, black coffee to jolt his coming-in-second body back to pace with his brain. Finally, at seven, he had headed downtown to the Shop.
Friday he had spent on the telephone and at a computer terminal expanding the information he had received on Harold Paul Winston from the police departments in Detroit, Michigan, and Dayton, Ohio. Winston had said he was “from” Detroit originally, but had “gone to high school” in Dayton. Kiley had a dozen reports from both cities: There was nothing to indicate that Winston had ever even been in either of them. He’s working me, Kiley thought, just like I’m working him. Sneaky little son of a bitch. Except—Kiley knew he was now one up on old Hal. Because Kiley had only told Winston one insignificant lie, about his father being a retired cop living in Florida; and he had subsequently recanted that lie and told Winston the truth. So that Winston was probably thinking that while Kiley had leveled with him now, Winston himself still had lies to Kiley in the hopper—and that, Kiley suspected, was going to wear on him. Kiley could not, of course, confront Winston with the information from Detroit and Dayton, because then Winston would know Kiley was still checking on him—after Kiley had assured him that his file was inactive. It was a cat-and-mouse game in which the roles continually changed.
Kiley had spent as much time at a computer terminal as he could on Friday afternoon, hoping that the long period of staring at the screen—long, monotonous period, actually, because he developed nothing of any significant use regarding either Nick’s killing or t
he bus bombings of Winston—but he hoped the time spent at it would tire his eyes, mind, and back muscles sufficiently to dictate an early-to-bed night. It did. Along with the lack of sleep the previous night when he’d tossed Touhy’s apartment, Kiley’s Friday activities left him wiped out and dozing on his couch, after a TV dinner, by eight-thirty. Just before falling asleep, he had roused himself enough to call Gloria Mendez.
“I just wanted to let you know: I’ve got proof now that Tony Touhy was involved in Nick’s killing. I found Nick’s badge in his apartment.”
“The son of a bitch,” Gloria said quietly. Then: “How’d you get a warrant?”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.” She sighed quietly. “So he’s still in the clear.”
“As far as prosecution, yeah. But not as far as the department—or you and me. I’m going to take the badge to the chief Monday morning, tell him the whole story. I think it’ll take you off the hook with OCB. You can admit to the chief that you were working with Nick and me. I think the fact that we were right will carry a lot of weight with Cassidy. He’s a good cop. I think he’ll be a Chinaman to both of us, and let IA and OCB know it.” Gloria knew what Joe meant. In the department, a “Chinaman” was someone in a position of high authority who looked after the interests of a cop on a lower rung of the ladder.
