The Windy City Engine members sat in chairs around a coffee table. The smell of marijuana was strong and the floor was littered with several empty beer cans.
“Spike! What are you doing here?” Nance asked. He didn’t stand.
“Hello, boys. How are things? You remember my partner, Suzanne?”
“We were in the middle of a band meeting, Spike,” Nance said. “Did we have an appointment or something I forgot about?”
“No, I just decided to drop by. Sorry to interrupt your meeting, but I have some more questions for you guys.” He sat on the piano bench and straddled it. “You mind?”
The three musicians looked at each other. Nance shrugged. “Have a seat, Spike. You, too, Suzanne.”
Prescott sat on a stool near Berenger.
“Okay, I’ll get right to the point. I believe you’re all hiding something. It’s about Sylvia Favero. What is it? Why is this woman going around killing off Chicagoprog musicians and saying she’s the ghost of Sylvia Favero? There’s a rational explanation to this and I think you guys know what it is.”
Nance’s already pink cheeks turned red. “What the fuck? How dare you come in here with an accusation like that!”
Suzanne said, under her breath, “That was tactful, Spike.”
“It’s true, isn’t it, Joe? Why are you so defensive about it?”
“It isn’t true!” Nance spat. “We don’t know a thing about her or what happened to her!” He turned to Brill and Rodriguez. “Isn’t that right?”
They nodded and murmured in agreement.
“Come on,” Berenger said. “I know bullshit when I smell it. And frankly, I think I stepped in it coming in here.”
Prescott said, “Hold on, you guys… Spike had a couple of martinis before coming over here, and it looks like you’ve been dr—”
Nance threw a half-full beer can across the room. It struck the wall and sprayed a foamy mess all over it and the carpet below. Then Nance stood, ready for a fight.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, coming in here and talking that way to me? I’ve just lost my brother, for Christ’s sake! What’s the matter with you?”
Berenger stood to face him. “I’m sorry for your loss, Joe, but I’m trying to save your life!”
“Goddamn it, I’ve told you everything I know! We all have!”
“What is it, Joe? Did you and Stuart come to blows over her? You wanted her for yourself? He wanted her for himself? Whose girlfriend was she? Or maybe you didn’t like it that she was everyone’s girlfriend!”
Nance couldn’t maintain control. He threw his weight at Berenger and they both tumbled over the piano bench, fell hard onto the floor, and began to pummel each other.
“Spike! Joe!” Prescott shouted.
Fists flew as the two grown men wrestled like animals until Rodriguez and Brill jumped up and intervened. It took both of them to pull Nance off of Berenger and throw him onto the sofa. They held him down as he struggled.
“Get him out of here!” Nance shouted. “Get out of my house!”
Prescott helped Berenger stand. There didn’t seem to be any harm done aside from bruised egos.
“I want you off the case, Berenger!” Nance said. “Zach isn’t around to pay you. We don’t need you sticking your nose into our lives anymore. Either the police will catch this woman or ghost or whatever the hell she is—or they won’t! Now get out!”
Brill said, “Better do as he says, Spike. I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” Rodriguez added.
“Don’t apologize to that fuck!” Nance yelled.
Lucy Nance entered and took in the sight of the two band members restraining her husband. “Joe? What’s going on?”
“We’re leaving,” Berenger said to her. “I’m sorry for the trouble. Come on, Suzanne.”
Prescott whispered to the woman that she was sorry as well and followed her partner out the door. Berenger stormed outside, got into the rental car, started it, and waited for Prescott to join him.
“That certainly went well,” Prescott mumbled as she got into the passenger seat.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Berenger pulled the car out into the street and sped away.
18
Angel of Death
(performed by Thin Lizzy)
On Tuesday, Berenger and Prescott met for breakfast in the hotel and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Didn’t Sylvia Favero have any other friends when she lived here? Someone had to have known her.”
Prescott told him about the other girls in the photos she’d seen at Callahan’s house but that he couldn’t remember who they were.
“Probably the only guys who’d know aren’t talking to us. Clayton is brain-fried and Nance is just an asshole,” Berenger said.
“What about Manny and Harrison? Will they talk to you if you get them away from Joe?”
“Maybe.” He pulled out his mobile, scanned his address book, and dialed Rodriguez’s number. After it went to voice mail, Berenger hung up and reported, “Manny doesn’t answer. I’ll try Harrison.”
Brill picked up on the third ring. “Hello?” The man sounded sleepy.
“Harrison, it’s Spike Berenger. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Brill groaned. “You did.”
“Sorry, man. Listen, I’m also sorry for last night. I’d had a few drinks and I was a little frustrated with the way Joe was acting.”
“What do you want?”
“I was hoping you’d talk to me. I’m trying to find out more about Sylvia Favero. Do you know where she lived? Did she have other friends? Where did she go when she wasn’t hanging out with the band? How did she support herself? You know, things like that. There’s got to be some history other than the fact that her mother lives—or lived—in Italy.”
Brill grumbled for a moment and then answered, “Spike, I’d love to help you but I don’t know jack shit. As far as I know, Sylvia made a living selling drugs. She may have had another job, but I just don’t know.”
“Would she have turned tricks or anything like that?”
“No, I don’t think so. She may have been wild and she was a party girl, but she was into free love, if you know what I mean. Taking money for it would have been reprehensible to her, I think.”
“What about girlfriends? Didn’t she come to concerts with any friends?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember who they were!”
A woman’s voice behind Berenger spoke. “I was one of her friends.”
Both Berenger and Prescott whirled around. Lucy Nance stood alone, dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt. She appeared as if she had just rolled out of bed, thrown something on, and come to the hotel. Her hair appeared to be redder than usual.
“Harrison, I’ll get back to you,” Berenger said and hung up. “Hello, Lucy.” He stood and offered his hand. Hers felt cold and fragile. “Would you like to sit down?” She nodded and took one of the chairs as Berenger reclaimed his own seat. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Breakfast?”
“Coffee would be nice.”
Prescott waved for the waitress and told her what they wanted.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Lucy said. “Joe would kill me if he knew.”
“I’m glad you came, Lucy,” Berenger said. “You say you knew Sylvia?”
She nodded. “We went to high school together. We were friends. We were both into music. We both discovered The Loop at the same time.”
The waitress came by and poured coffee in all three cups. After she left the table, Berenger said, “What can you remember? Please tell us… anything.”
Lucy took a deep breath and sipped her coffee. “Sylvia had an Italian father and an American mother. While Sylvia was in high school, they lived in Wrigleyville, not far from where I grew up. As soon as she graduated, her parents moved to Italy. Her father had some kind of merchandise sales business. Sylvia didn’t want to go. She wanted to pursue her music, maybe go to college… she just di
dn’t want to leave Chicago. Her parents, of course, wanted her to come to Italy—so she moved out of the house. She was eighteen by then and could do what she wanted. Sylvia was definitely a free and independent spirit. So her mom and dad finally accepted her decision and they left the country without her.”
“Where did she live once she moved out?” Prescott asked.
“She lived in a communal house with several other individuals of like-minded lifestyles. I guess you’d call them hippies. It was a real ‘peace and love’ type of environment. Lots of drugs, of course.”
“And she was still your friend?”
“We weren’t as close as we were in high school. It’s funny how that changed almost overnight. As soon as she adapted the hippie lifestyle, things changed between us. Mind you, I was no prude. I was into that stuff, too, but I still lived at home.”
“Did you already know Joe?”
“I knew who he was. I liked the band. I discovered them early on, too. But I didn’t start seeing Joe until much later… maybe ten years later. In the mid-seventies. I actually got married in seventy-one, but that didn’t last. After my divorce in seventy-six, I went to see a Windy City Engine concert and Joe remembered me. We started talking and then he asked to see me socially. And that’s how it started with us.”
“I see. So tell me more about Sylvia. Do you have any idea why Joe and the others think it’s her that has a vendetta against the band?”
“Something happened. Something bad. I don’t know what it was. But the band members do. Joe never talks about it but over the years I’ve gotten a tiny piece here, a little kernel there. Whatever it was that happened caused Sylvia to leave in nineteen-seventy. She left and never came back.”
“Do you think she’s still alive?”
Lucy sighed. “I’d like to think so. I do believe that she was the type of person who, once they’ve decided to make a change and leave a past life behind, and then she’d burn her bridges and never look back.”
“Interesting. Do you think she went to Europe? Italy, perhaps?”
“She did go to Italy in sixty-eight for about ten months.”
Berenger nodded. “We know she left for a period of time that year. You say she went to Italy? To visit her folks?”
“That… and to have a child.”
Berenger and Prescott shared a glance.
“A child?”
“She was pregnant. She went to Italy to have the baby. I know this because we ran into each other a couple of weeks before she left. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year and we did some catching up. You know, it was just like high school for just a few hours. Suddenly I was her confidante and best friend all over again. So she told me. She was pregnant and she was going to have her mother take care of the baby. I don’t know how many weeks or months she was, but she wasn’t showing yet. She left and didn’t tell anyone else where she was going. Maybe she gave the baby up for adoption. I really don’t know. But after about ten or eleven months, Sylvia came back to Chicago and resumed her former life as a hippie, Joni Mitchell-wannabe, and number one groupie for The Loop. We lost touch after that.”
“That’s astonishing,” Berenger said. “I’m beginning to get a clearer picture of who this woman is… or was. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you happen to know who the father was?”
“Sylvia’s father?”
“No, the father of the child.”
“Oh.” Lucy pursed her lips. “Sylvia told me it was either Joe or Stuart Clayton. She didn’t know which. But she also said it could have been any of the other members of the band!”
“Jesus,” Prescott said quietly.
“But she was pretty certain it was one of those two. She spent equal time in both of their beds.”
Berenger’s cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but he answered it anyway. “Berenger.”
“Hello, Spike,” Sylvia said.
“Oh, hi!” He whispered, “Excuse me a second,” to Lucy, stood, and walked away from the two women. “Uhm, how are you?”
“I’m great. How are you?”
“Okay. Just sitting here with my partner Suzanne and Joe Nance’s wife, Lucy. You remember Lucy?”
“Of course I do. I doubt, though, considering the circumstances, that she would care to hear from me. So don’t tell her I’m on the line.”
“All right.”
“Have you thought about what I asked you, Spike? Are you ready for those CDs?”
“I have and I am. I’ll do my best to get the CDs heard by the right people and do everything in my power to see that the album gets distributed.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“So how do I get the CDs?”
“Meet me here at midnight tonight.” She gave him an address that he didn’t recognize. “Enter the building alone. Don’t tell the cops about this call or everything is off. And bring a flashlight.”
The call switched off. Berenger pulled a small notepad from his pocket and jotted down the address. He then tried to redial Sylvia’s new number but got a busy signal. Then, he did the same thing he did the previous day—he called Tommy Briggs in New York, gave him the number, and asked him to get the records.
“How’s the research going?” Berenger asked him.
“Slowly. But I’ve found a couple of things I’ll go over with you as soon as I get some confirmation on some details.”
Berenger told him what he’d learned about Sylvia Favero.
“I’d like to find out who her child is, if he or she is still alive, that sort of thing. If Sylvia had the baby in nineteen-sixty-eight, then the kid would be an adult now.”
“I’ll see what I can find out, boss.”
Berenger hung up and went back to the table, only to discover that Lucy Nance had left.
“Where’d she go?”
Prescott answered, “She said she had no more to say. She hoped the information was useful. But she wanted to get home before Joe woke up. She asked that you keep her visit confidential, especially to Joe.”
Berenger sat down to finish his breakfast. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
The address Sylvia Favero gave Berenger was that of an abandoned building south of Cermak Road, on the edge of Chinatown and near the I-55 overpass. Not a residential area, the street was a relic of Chicago’s past. Long-closed Chinese storefronts marred by graffiti lined the short block and there was not a soul in sight. A complete absence of street lighting only served to make the place even more uninviting.
At 11:55pm, Berenger parked the rented Subaru across from the building and turned it off. Prescott said, “This is creepy, Spike.”
“A little.”
“You’re not really going in there, are you?”
“I’m not even sure I can get in. The place looks locked and forgotten for decades.”
“How do you know she’s in there?”
“I don’t.”
“What if it’s a trap?”
“It probably is.”
Berenger checked his Kahr to make sure it was fully loaded, and then shoved it back into its holster. He reached across Prescott’s lap, opened the glove box, and removed the sets of In-Ear devices. These not only worked well for musicians to monitor themselves while performing on stage, but when used in combination with hands-free microphones they were also great communication tools for a security team.
“Here you go,” he said, handing her one and placing the other in his own ear. After testing the signal and volume, he was good to go.
“Hand me the flashlight, will you?”
She reached into the glove box and gave him the heavy duty model they’d purchased earlier. Berenger flicked it on and off to make sure it worked fine.
“Okay, Suzanne, you stay here in the car. If you see anything weird, let me know. If I see anything weird, I’ll let you know. If I get into any trouble, you come running.”
“I’m not armed, you know.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay, if I get into trouble… call the cops.”
He opened the door and got out. He quickly scanned the street and saw no sign that a human being had been in the vicinity since the end of the 20th Century. Prescott gave him the thumbs-up and he nodded. Berenger walked across the street to the front of the building and examined the door. Faded Chinese characters identified the place, but he had no idea what they were.
A padlock had been split open, most likely with a bolt cutter. Someone had recently been inside.
Berenger carefully lifted the broken lock off the door latch and set it on the ground. He then slowly opened the door—which was rusty and squeaky—and peered inside.
Pitch black.
He flipped on the flashlight.
The front room of the building was completely empty of furnishings. It was just a vacant, old space with a rickety wooden floor and millions of cobwebs. Berenger stepped inside and let the door close behind him. He was shut off from the outside with just the flashlight beam to keep him company.
“Hello?” he called.
Silence. He thought he might have heard the scuttling of a mouse—or a rat.
“Anyone here?”
He took a few steps forward. The floor creaked as his weight moved across the boards. An archway led to the rest of the building. Berenger figured the place was once a business of some kind. The front room was a reception area. Beyond that was a short hallway leading to a closed door. Two rooms that may have served as offices were connected to the hallway. Berenger cast the light around both spaces; one room was empty and the other contained a very old desk. He moved slowly into the office and examined the furniture. The top was thick with dust and cobwebs stretched from the sides to the floor. No one had touched the thing in ages, so he didn’t bother looking in the drawers. Berenger turned and went back to the hallway.
“Suzanne, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“You’re right. This place is creepy.”
“What’s in there?”
“Nothing so far. It’s just me and the spiders and rats.”
The Rock 'n Roll Detective's Greatest Hits - A Spike Berenger Anthology Page 42
