I got out of bed at six, finally, because there was no reason not to. I started coffee, slipped into my yellow rain poncho and stepped out into the downpour. In the faint light of the streetlamps, Rivertown looked like it had been shaken by a furious giant. The ground was littered everywhere with branches, and several trees were down in front of city hall. Rivertown, being Rivertown, would not field a city crew to clear the streets until well past noon. The lizard in charge of municipal services owned one of the tonks on Thompson Avenue, and spent most nights until dawn drinking deeply from his own inventory.
I pushed the end of a spindly limb off the Jeep’s hood, and then ran across the spit of land and Thompson Avenue to buy an Argus-Observer from the blue box in front of the Jiffy Lube. Ducking beneath the eave below the sign advertising full lubrications, it struck me, because my mind so often speeds in unnecessary directions, that full lubrications were the essence of Rivertown. During the day, cash greased the palms of the town’s fathers to ease sticky zoning violations or troublesome brushes with what passed for the law in Rivertown. At night, cash bought lubrication of an entirely different sort, from the sweet-smelling women who worked the darker patches along Thompson Avenue. I gave a mental nod to the red-and-white sign lit bright in the rain; it was a perfect beacon for the town.
I flipped the paper open to ‘Keller’s Korner’ only long enough to be sure he’d led with my words, then tucked it under my poncho and ran back to the turret. The coffee was ready. I caffeinated my travel mug and read what I had wrought.
Keller had headlined his column with his typical hysteria: ‘FEDS AND CHICAGO PD COVER UP SECRET BLACKMAIL MURDER CLUB.’ The smaller print below continued in his usual breathlessness: ‘According to the agent of a well-known local businessman, a secret blackmail and murder society has been operating in the city for over a century. In the past six months, several prominent Chicagoans have been snuffed out after attending meetings in the society’s secret headquarters in a graystone off the Mag Mile. And just one month ago, a private detective who discovered recording machines set up for high-stakes blackmail and worse in the ancient den was killed before he could spill what he knew. Still to be fathomed: another club member, a prominent insurance man with big-big connections to the very top-ola, has gone missing while CPD dithers and Federal boys bungle. Details to follow.’
‘Details to follow,’ was Keller’s signature tag line, and since there were rarely any details to begin with, almost none ever would follow. He was a master at frenzied innuendo, a jester at journalistic integrity. He’d distorted what little I’d given him, used only words that would sizzle in print. He’d not named the Confessors’ Club or its precise location, nor the Federal agency that was involved, the supposed murder victims, or Lamm. He’d written nothing of substance, and he’d done it as magnificently as I’d hoped. Now it was time for tens of thousands of Chicagoans to read ‘Keller’s Korner’ online or in print, and without realizing it, they’d begin to fill in the blanks themselves. Newsreaders abhor vacuums, and in talking the story up in office corridors, over store counters and on the phone from their homes or their cars, they’d add their own little suppositions that they were sure to be true. And by noon, a hundred versions of the story would have spread to half the people in town. It was Keller’s particular genius, setting roaring fires with so few tiny twigs.
I knew, because I’d been burned by those same flames. ‘POWER SON-IN-LAW DETECTIVE WHINES HE WAS DUPED TO CONSPIRE’ had been my bold print when Keller ridiculed me as a stupid schlep that conspired to falsify evidence. That I’d been stupid was true. That I’d conspired was false. But I was the son-in-law of Wendell Phelps, a major Chicagoan, and that got me the big ink. No matter that I’d never met Wendell, no matter that I’d been fooled by some very expert forging. No matter even that the charges against me were piled thick to obscure some very sloppy prosecution. None of that saw print in ‘Keller’s Korner.’ My details to follow, in the form of a full exoneration, never had followed in Keller’s column, and only in tiny print in the back pages of Chicago’s other newspapers.
I walked to the window. Lightning lit the Willahock, heaving and frothing in the storm. Amid a hundred lesser fallen branches, the butchered ash stood as though raging in the rain, angrily thrusting its two contorted, rain-slicked limbs at city hall. I had the hope that other, more human limbs were being contorted farther to the east, in the city. By now, someone at the IRS had read Keller, and had called Krantz in Washington, and I wondered if Krantz would order that I be run downtown for some extended, repetitive questioning, if only as retribution in advance for the ridicule his snail-paced investigation was soon to receive. The Chicago police would be slower. They’d have to play catch-up, frantically call the various Federal offices in Chicago to find the agency that knew who’d made them look stupid. I had no doubt that when they rang the IRS, Krantz’s crew would cough me up in a heartbeat, understanding that the Chicago cops needed their piece of me, too.
So be it. What mattered was that Keller’s words would render the Confessors’ Club toxic to its members. No one would dare go there that evening for fear of Feds, cops and killers. And in the coming days, other reporters, more conscientious than Keller, would dig. The names of the Confessors would be revealed, the house on Delaware would be pictured, and the graystone nest would be poisoned for all time. Nobody would ever return. Nobody would ever again be killed because of what had been recorded there.
Or so I thought, that morning.
FORTY-SEVEN
The first response I got wasn’t from Krantz’s men, pounding on my door. It was Wendell calling, and he was smoked.
‘What the hell are you doing, Elstrom?’
‘Your name isn’t in the column. Neither is mine.’
‘You should have checked with me first.’
‘You walked away from me, remember?’ I paused, then said, ‘What was Jim Whitman doing in your car on the last night of his life?’
He ignored the questions. ‘Somebody at the IRS or the Chicago police is going to track this to you, and then to me.’
‘Too late; the IRS already knows me. That’s why I can’t talk long. I want to be available to make sure they get the spelling of your name right.’
‘You’re a son of a bitch, Elstrom.’
‘Tell me how deep you’re in with Arthur Lamm.’ I needed to tell him more, that there was a cop imposter also chasing Lamm, but he didn’t give me the chance. He hung up.
It was time to make the call I’d been dreading, but she called me before I could punch in her number. ‘The acquisitions committee is meeting at the Art Institute all day,’ Amanda said, her voice amazingly calm. ‘Dinner tonight at five, on the cheap, at the Corner Bakery across the street?’
Even now, after the dust from our divorce had long since settled, she had the power to charm and transfix me, no matter the turmoil. I supposed that would never change.
I went into the would-be kitchen for more coffee. The cabinet that had fallen lay now in pieces on the makeshift counter. It had taken me hours to tap it apart. I’d salvaged what I could, but still it needed new structure. I’d considered scrapping it, making a new cabinet from scratch. But there are times when starting over seems unwise.
Krantz finally called. ‘Care to have lunch?’ he asked, though his tone made it clear I had no choice.
‘I thought you were tied up in meetings in Washington, discussing ways to harass innocent taxpayers.’
‘I’d like to say I flew back first thing after hearing about your friend Keller’s column. But the truth is, I’d already landed at O‘Hare when I got the news.’ He named a Chinese restaurant close to his office and told me to be there at one.
I took a noon train that got me to the restaurant at the tail end of the lunch rush. Krantz was waiting at a table in the corner. A copy of the Argus-Observer lay on the table, opened to Keller’s page.
I set my rolled peace offering on another chair and sat down. ‘No muscle with handcuffs?�
��
Krantz peered through his reading glasses at the newspaper. ‘I love this: “Federal boys bungle.”’
‘I knew you wouldn’t be upset.’
‘About you broadsiding a federal investigation, blowing us wide open before we could assemble all our facts?’
‘You’re not identified.’
He looked over his glasses like I was some sort of exhibit. ‘Actually, I suppose I’m pleased. You’ve speeded things up. As we speak, I have an agent in a judge’s chambers. It won’t take long to get warrants now.’
‘Warrants for what?’
‘To search the so-called Confessors’ Club at Sixty-six Delaware.’
He’d referred to it by name. ‘You knew about it?’
‘Of course. Arthur Lamm writes the property insurance for it, and collects a rather sizable management fee for its maintenance. We’ve known, too, that they gather on the second Tuesdays of even-numbered months. But until now, that’s been no cause to go inside and search.’
‘Tonight’s a second Tuesday.’
‘Your reason for going to Keller was to protect your father-in-law?’ he asked.
‘Ex-father-in-law,’ I corrected, ‘but no, he’s not involved. I did it to make sure nobody got killed tonight.’
‘We’ll be watching the place to make sure,’ he said, ‘along with the Chicago PD.’
‘The word’s out?’
‘Maybe not about everything,’ he said. ‘A private detective was murdered?’
‘Eugene Small, hired to do surveillance on the members.’
I had the sense Krantz already knew about Small, like he knew all about the Confessors’ Club.
I took the thin roll of paper I’d brought and put it on the table. ‘Small’s desk calendar. It details the dates, hours and initials of his surveillance targets.’
‘How did you get it?’
‘Someone dropped it on my doorstep, anonymously.’
Krantz frowned. ‘Who hired Small?’
I looked around for a waitress, any waitress, to let me veer away from the questioning by ordering lunch. Only one was in sight, and she was coming toward us carrying two small brown bags.
‘I already ordered for us.’ He leaned forward across the table. ‘Same guy who hired you?’ he repeated.
‘I don’t know who hired Small.’
‘I’m going to interview your client as soon as I can.’
‘Debbie Goring?’
‘Don’t be a smart-ass. You’re in this because Wendell Phelps hired you. Phelps is a prominent guy. So is his business partner, Arthur Lamm.’
‘Not business partner, Krantz. Wendell invested in a couple of real-estate ventures with Lamm. Rich guys do that. To them, it’s just playing Monopoly.’
‘I’ve only just started looking, Elstrom. I’ll learn more.’
I told him about Delray Delmar, the young cop imposter.
He didn’t seem all that surprised, but I supposed by then he wasn’t surprised at any of my fumblings.
When I finished, he asked, ‘The supposed cop really told you, with a straight face, that his name was Delray Delmar? Wasn’t that enough to tip you the guy was a fraud?’
The waitress stopped at our table and set down the two bags. ‘To go, so you don’t starve,’ Krantz said, smiling.
FORTY-EIGHT
I understood the moment I stepped out to the sidewalk. Two Chicago police detectives sitting in a dark sedan waved badges, motioning me over.
The driver gave a smiling Krantz a thumbs-up as he walked away with his little bag of lunch. He’d saved them the legwork of finding Keller’s source, even reeled me in by summoning me downtown. Such was his revenge for my calling Keller.
‘Mind if I check out your IDs?’ I asked the two cops, giving them what I hoped was the intelligent smile of someone newly smart about such precautions.
‘Might be a good idea, considering,’ said the cop behind the steering wheel, showing me his wallet ID. His name was Pawlowski. The cop riding shotgun was Wood.
I moved a few steps away and called the Chicago police main number. In seconds I received emailed photos of Pawlowski and Wood. I walked back to the car.
‘So now tell us,’ Pawlowski said, gesturing with his thumb at the back passenger door.
I told them just about all of it, in the car, by the curb, excepting anything about Wendell.
When I finished, Wood sniffed the air. ‘We’re missing lunch,’ he said to Pawlowski.
‘You need to work with our artist,’ Pawlowski said. ‘As we drive, you can give us a better description of this Delray Delmar.’
Wood turned his bulk to look at me sitting in back.
‘Chinese,’ I said, handing my brown bag forward. Wood opened it, took out the chopsticks, and began eating sweet-and-sour chicken from the white container. He was remarkably agile with the sticks, dropping little as we hit potholes that likely wouldn’t be repaired for months, since most tax money, by court decree, was now being given over to replenish the city’s looted pension accounts.
I described Delray’s thin build and boyish looks for Pawlowski.
‘A damned preppie?’ Pawlowski asked.
‘Right down to his polished Weejun loafers.’
‘You ever see other cops dressed like that?’
I couldn’t see Pawlowski’s tie, but Wood’s had a fish on it, right below a fresh speck of sweet-and-sour sauce. ‘I took Delray to be typical of your fine fashion expertise.’
Pawlowski glanced at the chewing Wood. Cops have heard most things, from fools, at least twice.
As we headed south across the Congress expressway, I asked, ‘How did you two happen to catch this case?’
‘Lots of people caught this case. You made us all look stupid.’ Pawlowski stopped the car at a nondescript office building a block down from Buddy Guy’s blues club. I used to go there, back when I was young, cool and financially stable, and had to look elsewhere to find the blues.
‘This is a police station?’
‘We’re using a freelance sketch artist. Ours got cut back to part-time.’
We got out, went through a tiny, brown-painted lobby to a door marked ‘Art School of Chicago.’ Adjacent to it was a door marked ‘Hair Salon School of Chicago.’
‘Budgets,’ Pawlowski said.
Looking sorrowful, Wood dropped the empty white food container in an open trash barrel, wiped his hands on his pants, and pushed open the door. The foyer had been converted into a break room, and we took a moment to select those scuffed orange plastic chairs that contained the smallest residues of dried colas.
‘I’m still not understanding the fuss about these Tuesdays, and Barberi, Whitman and Carson,’ Wood said. ‘Heart attack, self-administered overdose, hit-and-run.’
‘All three men died after getting together on second Tuesdays,’ I said. ‘That can’t be coincidence.’
‘You’re saying where?’ Wood asked.
I hadn’t yet mentioned the Confessors’ Club by name, though I figured by now everyone in law enforcement knew it, since Krantz had said it at lunch. He’d also said there would be a heavy police presence there that evening.
‘An old graystone at Sixty-six West Delaware,’ I said, to be sure. ‘You need to have people there tonight.’
‘This private dick you mentioned – Small?’ Wood asked. ‘Who hired him to watch these rich guys?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said, ‘You should send a guy up to sweat information out of Lamm’s caretaker, a guy named Herman Canty.’
‘And this young punk cop imposter, the one you’re going to help us draw a picture of, who hired him?’
‘I think Small did. Then the kid started working for himself.’
‘He’s a killer, this kid?’
‘He could have killed Small.’
‘Why?’
‘To get Small out of the way, so he could shake down someone, likely Arthur Lamm.’
‘The kid tricked you into finding this Delaware Street meeti
ng place?’ Wood grinned.
‘Only the outside. I tricked him back by not finding out much else.’
Pawlowski shifted on his chair, fixed me with the beady eye they teach at police school. ‘What’s Wendell Phelps, your father-in-law, going to tell us?’
For sure Krantz had passed along Wendell’s name. I gave Pawlowski my own beady eye back, the one I practice in the mirror. ‘Ex-father-in-law,’ I corrected.
‘Come on, Elstrom.’ Pawlowski smiled. ‘What’s Wendell Phelps going to tell us?’
‘Same thing he tells everybody: his daughter is well-rid of me,’ I said.
FORTY-NINE
The sketch artist, an instructor at the art school, finished a passable cartoon of Delray at four-thirty. Pawlowski and Wood took it and disappeared out the door without offering to give me a ride. I didn’t object. The Corner Bakery, where I was to meet Amanda, was just a few blocks away.
Jenny had called while I’d been inside. I returned her call once I got out.
‘A huge story is coming out of Chicago,’ she said, right off. ‘A secret society in a creepy old mansion, and dead rich guys exactly like your father-in-law.’
‘Ex-father-in-law,’ I corrected.
‘Is this the case you’re working?’ she asked fast, still in a rush.
‘I blew the whistle.’
‘You didn’t call me?’
‘You’re in San Francisco.’
‘This story is going national.’
‘Conflicting obligations,’ I said. ‘Old father-in-law.’
‘Ex-father-in-law,’ she corrected, laughing.
We were well. I told her everything, on deep background.
‘And Amanda? You’re protecting her, too?’ she asked, when I was done.
‘Of course.’
‘Are you wearing the purple bow tie I sent you?’
‘Not at this moment, but I’ll put it on when I get back to the turret.’
She said she had to take another call and that we were not done.
‘I hope so,’ I said.
I walked north. I wanted to feel good. I’d rung the alarm bell, alerted everybody to the danger up on Delaware Street. Cops would soon mobilize there, and every one of the Confessors, wherever they were, would be on guard from now on. Arthur Lamm might be on even greater guard, too, though for different reasons. I still couldn’t fathom why that exceedingly rich man would resort to killing for insurance money, if indeed he had. But that was for cop minds to determine, not mine.
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