“I understand,” I said, wishing I could get him to stop.
“No, you don’t. You wouldn’t do it. You’d protest something or punch someone or something. Me, I gotta put up with it for my kid. And then you ask me to look into some hotel like I got all the time in the world—”
“It’s for my kid,” I said quietly.
That stopped him. Sinkovich thought the world of Jimmy.
“He get in trouble?”
“He might have,” I said.
“With someone in a by-the-hour hotel?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Shit, that kid. What’re you teaching him?”
“Before you judge, you need to hear the full story.”
“Oh, yeah, like I got time. I don’t leave now, I don’t get a parking spot, and I have to use one of them cop parking signs you put on your dash which’ll get me in even more hot water with the department. You say this is an emergency?”
I wouldn’t put it like that, I nearly said, then stopped myself. It had been an emergency yesterday, and if Voss were still around, it might’ve been one today.
“It’s pretty urgent,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll have something for you end of the day whenever the hell that is. I’ll get in touch with you. Can I leave a message with the kid?”
“Only that you called. You can’t tell him what it was about.”
“Got it,” Sinkovich said. “Pray for me and my ass. We’re about to have a long day.”
“Thanks, Jack,” I said, but he had already hung up.
I ran a hand over my face. The fact that he hadn’t heard of the Starlite meant nothing. More than three million people lived in the city of Chicago, more than 228 square miles, and the police force of ten thousand couldn’t begin to know everything, even if it patrolled the South Side, which it mostly did not.
I knew all of that extremely well. I had learned all of the statistics so that I could keep myself calm when I got angry because I assumed someone should have known about some crime or another. Or some place like the Starlite.
Sinkovich would find out what he could from a desk in the precinct after his long day.
I needed to find out a few things as well. Early morning was probably the best time to do so.
I finished my coffee, shut off my desk lamp, and went to work.
SIXTEEN
I PUT ON A SWEATER, some old pants, and a pair of thick socks. Then I grabbed a pair of tattered shoes. If I hadn’t been so worried about blood spatter from yesterday, I would have kept the shoes I was going to toss out. I took an old scarf that I wore last year, and grabbed an old green parka of Franklin’s that he had given me for my first winter here. The parka didn’t fit well and it had lost some of its warmth, but it would do until I got a new coat of my own.
I grabbed a hat, my wallet, my pick, and my keys. Then I headed down to the van.
I slid in and looked in the back seat. The garbage bag was still there. I pulled it toward me and checked the interior. It didn’t look like anyone had touched the clothes.
First, I needed to find a suitable dump site away from here. Then I had to go to the bank and get my backup gun from my safe-deposit box. After that, I would go to the Starlite for a little reconnaissance. I just wanted to see what the exterior would tell me.
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was barely 8 a.m. The bank wouldn’t open for an hour, and by nine, the Starlite might actually have some signs of life. I would be better off going there after I dumped the clothes.
But I didn’t like going unarmed. I found that ironic, because two days ago I wouldn’t have given my lack of a weapon much thought at all. Even with the Blackstone Rangers nearby, I had never felt the need to carry a gun.
I shouldn’t feel the need now. I just wanted to walk the outside and see what I could learn from the exterior of the Starlite. Technically, I wouldn’t need a gun for that.
And, given my mood of the last twenty-four hours, it was probably better if I didn’t have one.
I took the usual route to the school. Halfway there, I made a slight detour into an alley behind two bars and a seedy restaurant. Nine garbage cans sat on top of an iced-over snowdrift. I got out, opened one of the garbage cans, and winced at the stench rising from it. Broken-down boxes, the scraped remains of plates, and empty liquor bottles filled half of the can.
I dropped the bag on top and closed the lid, resisting the urge to wipe at my nose.
Then I got back into the van and drove to the end of the alley. If anyone had seen me, they probably wouldn’t remember me. And even if someone found the clothes, no one would connect them to Voss’s death, or to me.
I resumed the route to school. The streets in this neighborhood were relatively empty at this time of day. I passed only a few cars.
I parked a block north of the Starlite, at the end of the block. I didn’t go near the school at all. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I didn’t even know it if I saw it.
But I wanted to look at the Starlite and the rest of the block closely. I was angry that I hadn’t done that before. Maybe if I had seen exactly what was here, I would have made some different choices.
Or maybe I would have taken Jimmy more seriously when he talked about Lacey.
Although I doubted that. No matter how much I tried to rewrite history in my own mind, I couldn’t do it. I had screwed up. I hadn’t listened. And now Lacey was paying the price.
I sighed, grabbed a stocking cap, and pulled it over my head. Then I wrapped the scarf over my mouth and nose like a good Chicagoan did in below-zero temperatures. I tugged the edges of my gloves under my sleeves, then got out of the van.
Even with those precautions, the cold seeped in. The air felt brittle, and the slightest sound echoed. There was no wind. The sun had been up less than an hour, and it still hadn’t crept over some of the buildings.
Not that it would give much light when it did. At least the streetlights were off.
I had been right: This street was quiet at this time of day.
Maybe that was one of the reasons it hadn’t worried me. I drove here only in the very early mornings, and sometimes in the middle of the afternoon. Streets like this didn’t become fully active until dark.
I shoved my gloved hands into the pockets of the parka and walked to the sidewalk. It had been shoveled sometime in the not-so-distant past, but not well. Ice had formed over what had been a layer of slush, freezing dozens of footprints into place.
Some of those prints were child-sized, but most were men’s shoes. There were some high-heel prints—the telltale triangle followed a few inches later by a tiny dot in the snow. Those clearly did not come from boots, even dressy boots.
In a neighborhood like this, without a high-class restaurant or a nightclub, those high-heel prints should have been a clue. But I wasn’t sure I had ever walked on this part of the street. Not even when I had my encounter with the Blackstone Rangers months ago. All of my interactions with this neighborhood had occurred near the school.
My feet crunched on the ice. No one had sanded or salted this walk, either. The businesses at the end of this street—two bars and what appeared to be a pawn shop—had shoveled off their stoops, but little else. They looked closed. The pawn shop might have been abandoned. I couldn’t tell without going up to the window, which was frosted over.
I walked toward the Starlite. It dominated the far side of the block. The hotel rose seven stories and had probably been impressive in its day. Its day was at least forty years ago. The stonework had gaps and the neon sign running down the north side of the building looked like it had been attached as an afterthought. As I got closer, I saw a lot of rust along the connecting metal.
An awning, which I had noticed the day before, hung over the entry. The awning did not have the hotel’s name on it. Nor did it look like anyone ever bothered to close up the awning in a windstorm. The edges were tattered and worn.
Terra-cotta designs covered arched windows on the t
op floor. The windows were recessed, though, and hard to see. From the ground level, the roof looked flat, but I doubted it was. It probably had peaks that I couldn’t see from below.
The school wasn’t visible until I approached the awning proper. Then all I saw was the mesh fence and the wire around the top. It had always bothered me that the school looked like a prison, but I had accepted the six-foot-high fence as part of the price paid for having inner-city schools.
I had truly thought that the fence would keep the kids safe, keep most of the bad elements out, and give the school a protected space. The presence of Blackstone Rangers hadn’t surprised me because they recruited their younger brothers and sisters all the time.
But the appearance of unattached male adults bothered me a lot. Even though, if I walked on the school grounds at the moment, I would be one as well. I acknowledged the irony with a half grin.
Just beyond the hotel’s entry was the restaurant, the Starlite Café. In the light of day, it became clear that the café was not part of the original building. The café had been built twenty years ago as an addition. It was two stories in a 1950s supper club style butted up against the hotel, maybe in a bid to bring more money to a dying business.
The café didn’t look like a supper club any longer. It looked like an eatery that had seen better days. The windows were smudged, their exteriors covered with road dirt and grime from a dozen winters. I shuddered at the thought of what their kitchen looked like.
I resisted the urge to find out. It would be easy enough to do some reconnaissance inside, at a solitary table or the counter, talking to a lonely waitress. But I’d do that when I had some real questions. Right now, I still wasn’t sure what to ask.
I rounded the corner and stopped. The school stood to my left; the restaurant to my right. The hotel towered over the restaurant, looking like the separate building it was.
From here, I couldn’t see inside the school. What faced me was the windowless brick side of the building pressed up against the fence. There was enough space between for snow to gather, but not enough for someone to think it important to shovel the snow away.
The restaurant had only a few windows on this side, most of them closer to the main road. It was as difficult to see the restaurant from the schoolyard as it was to see inside the school.
No wonder I hadn’t thought the restaurant much of a threat.
The sidewalk on the school side was well shoveled. Early and late in the day, buses pulled up in the parking lot. There was a small break in the fence back here that the children who got bused from more remote areas walked through.
You couldn’t see that from the sidewalk, either.
When Voss targeted Lacey, he had done so intentionally. And if he had gone onto school grounds like Jimmy said, he had to have gone through that small opening, which should have been locked during the day.
My fists were clenched inside my pockets. Tension made my shoulders feel like rocks. I wanted to immediately confront the principal, but I knew he was probably still reeling from the dressing-down that Franklin would have given him.
Besides, I wasn’t dressed properly for a confrontation with an authority figure. I wanted the principal to respect my position, not to fear me.
I made myself take a deep breath. The frigid air went deep into my lungs, making my entire chest ache. I held my breath for a moment, feeling the air warm inside of me, and then I released it. The scarf caught most of it, making that little fog of breath almost invisible.
Calmer. I was superficially calmer.
That was all I needed.
I walked to the edge of the alley and turned to my right. The alley went behind the restaurant and the hotel. I could see all the way to the end of the block.
Someone had plowed the alley all winter long. I could see gravel underneath a sheath of clear ice. I walked carefully.
There was an empty lot to my left. Through the snow, I could see the remains of a burned building, the edges of the foundation visible. That building had burned last summer while school was out, and the Defender had reported some kind of gang-related cause.
The buildings beside the burned-out one were attached, like stores that shared a back. Old words had been painted above the doors, but those signs faded long ago, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the buildings were abandoned.
I was getting cold, so I decided I wouldn’t walk up front to check; I would simply drive by.
I knew that farther down that block, the neighborhood became residential. A lot of Jimmy’s classmates lived that way and walked to school. I also knew a lot of them got harassed by the Blackstone Rangers, and some did some errands for the gang, even though none of them were older than twelve.
The back of the restaurant was fenced off, with garbage cans in their own little walled-off area, easily accessible through the alley. A dozen cans stood there, many completely full. Garbage hadn’t been picked up this week, but it was due.
The kitchen door was open, and through it, I could hear the banging of pans and the chatter of voices. Someone laughed, a braying sound that grated on me. Faint music threaded with the noise.
Beyond the restaurant, the back of the hotel loomed. A small parking area, probably for employees, stood in place of grounds. But I stopped and looked up, a bit surprised at what I saw.
No fire escapes, not on this side of the building. And even if there had been, they would have done no good. The windows were boarded closed, most from the outside—including those on the upper floors. That had been done with ladders or scaffolds and a lot of deliberation.
I knew Chicago building codes backwards forwards and inside out. I knew that inspectors could be bribed, and I was certain that was what happened here, just like I knew that the hotel had been grandfathered in on zoning so that it could stand next to a school.
“Hey, you!” a man yelled.
I turned toward the voice. It was coming from the restaurant. A burly man in a suit one size too small strode out of that open kitchen door.
“Yeah,” he said, when he saw me looking at him. “You. What the hell are you doing here?”
I decided to play stupid parent. “My kid said he dropped his keys back here. I was looking for them.”
“Kids don’t come back here,” the guy said as he walked closer. He had to be cold. He wasn’t wearing a coat or a hat or gloves. He had hurried out here the moment he saw me.
“Well, I’d love that to be true,” I said, “but this was where my kid pointed when I dropped him off at school this morning.”
“You heard him wrong,” the guy said. “We chase kids out of this alley.”
I looked at the ground regretfully, as if it had deliberately hidden the keys from me.
“My kid doesn’t lie to me….” I said in that whiny tone that I’d heard other parents use when they were trying to convince themselves of something that they knew wasn’t true.
The guy actually chuckled. I loved the sound. It meant that he believed me.
“Oh, man,” he said. “You’re gonna get a rude awakening some day.”
I lifted my head and frowned as completely as I could, knowing he could only see my eyes and eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
“It means your kid wasn’t back here. You shouldn’t be either.” He crossed his arms. His muscles strained the sleeves of that suit coat.
I nodded, like the frightened parent I was pretending to be. “Okay. But if you find a set of keys, will you drop them in the principal’s office? I’d really appreciate it.”
He glanced over at the school. “We don’t go there. I find anything, I’ll leave it at the front desk of the hotel in an envelope. Okay?”
He meant it. And that made me want to smile, but I restrained myself.
“Thank you,” I said, and scurried out of the alley, deliberately slipping a bit on the ice so that I looked more scared than I was.
I could feel his gaze follow me. When I reached the sidewalk, I glanced over. He hadn’t moved, arms stil
l crossed, a frown on his face.
So they not only didn’t want someone behind the hotel, they actively monitored the alley. I didn’t like that either.
Voss’s Us was making a lot more sense.
Something was going on here. Something worth protecting.
Something I already knew I wouldn’t like.
SEVENTEEN
I FELT VERY UNCOMFORTABLE as I walked back to the van. A parent looking for keys wouldn’t have parked at the end of the block. He would have parked in the school lot and backtracked.
But I figured the burly guy was the only person who had heard my reason for being in that alley, and he had watched me until he couldn’t see me any longer. I had probably reached the intersection before he went back inside.
If I were him, I would have sprinted back in. It was too cold to stand outside without a coat for longer than five minutes. Even though he had his arms crossed and had his bare hands tucked against his chest, he was probably shivering by the time I vanished from his view. He would have gone in, and then he would have to make his way through a busy kitchen and into the restaurant if he wanted to monitor my progress.
I was betting he wouldn’t even go to that much effort. He had believed my goofy key story after all.
Still, I hurried around that corner, picking my way as quickly as I could across that ice-covered sidewalk. I didn’t want to look like a man in a hurry, even though I was a man in a hurry.
The street was still pretty empty, and the hotel looked closed. But I wanted to put it behind me, at least for now.
I made it to the van in probably half the time it took to walk down the block. I unlocked the door, crawled inside, and turned the key in the ignition. I resisted the urge to put the blower on, knowing that it would just hit me with cold air.
But I was shivering, too.
I had been outside for forty-five minutes, which was too long in this weather.
I put the van in gear and headed out. By the time I got to the bank, it would be open. I could get my second weapon out of the safe-deposit box. Then I needed to figure out a way to get another backup gun. I hated to think of the expense, but I didn’t want to explain to anyone I knew what had happened to my original weapon. I couldn’t even say I was buying the gun for Franklin, because he had made it very clear to all concerned that he didn’t want weapons of any kind in his house, not with the children nearby.
Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 9
