by Thomas Laird
“Yes,” she says and she lowers her face. “But life does go on. One more year of art school, and I have a scholarship in Paris.”
“Well, congratulations! Wow. Big news.”
“Yes,” she beams. “And there’s something better.”
“What could be better?”
“I’m in love.”
“You are? Who’s the lucky dude?”
She laughs.
“He’s a fellow student at the Art Institute…Don’t tell my mother, but we’re going to get an apartment in Paris and live together. If things go right…”
“You might do the traditional thing and get married?”
“I don’t know if we’re that traditional, Lieutenant.”
When the bill arrives, she scoops it up before I can grab it.
“This is on me. To celebrate my scholarship, Paris, and Evan.”
“His name is Evan?”
“Yes,” she smiles with a face full of glow.
Back on Nine One Two, I had my doubts about the future—mine and the future of the world. It struck me then that it was time for God to instigate a brand new flood. In the Old Testament when people got too out of hand, he sent plagues and pestilence. I thought the terrorists were that pestilence and plague, and I thought our future was the Book of Revelations. You know, Death rides in and Hell follows.
That was the way it felt on September 12, 2001. Two days in a row we suffered the horrors of the end of days.
But I was in error. The drought of this summer ended with two weeks of rain in August. The brown began to become green before the fall set in. The buds of April showed up right on time, as well. We are an amazingly resilient crew, after all.
I look at Nadine’s youthful face, and I see the same hope that I see in the faces of all those kids at the Academy. It’s the rush of spring that I see in my own children’s faces.
Then when I remember the eleventh and twelfth of September, anger surges toward my temples. I become flushed with rage.
Who are these people? Who do they think they are that they can try and blunt the future of all these innocents?
It makes me furious, so furious that I don’t want to go off to some corner and die, like a geriatric pooch. I want to strike out at them and purge them from this earth. The plague they are needs to be eradicated once and for all.
Then I come down from my righteous soap box. I’ve been trying to deal with terrorists all my professional life. All murderers are indeed terrorists. There is nothing more terrifying you can do than to steal someone’s life. Grodnov stole about a thousand at the Anderson Building with the help of Hansen and Crealey. He almost robbed Mrs. Grant—her name is Elaine, Nadine tells me after all this time—of her time on earth, and he nearly blunted Nadine herself from partaking fully of life on this planet.
But he failed. Nadine and Elaine survived him. Natalie and I and Jimmy Junior outlived the threat of Karin Vonskaya.
We’re still here.
“If Your Evan ever needs a best man or an usher, you know where I live, Nadine.”
After she’s paid the check and after we’ve walked out into the chill of November in Chicago, this beautiful girl embraces me and plants a warm wet one on my left cheek. There are happy tears filling her eyes. I take her face in my hands. Then I kiss her on the forehead as if she were one of my own.
*
“So you got a girlfriend,” I tell him.
We’re sitting at the bar at White Castle. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon on Friday. I’ve just finished with a class on finding blood on the crime scene, and Tommy is taking his lunch break or dinner break, whatever it is on this shift.
“Nadine’s got a big mouth.”
“She’s very fond of you.”
“She told you that, Jimmy?”
“In so many words, yes.”
“I started going to the hospital after the father did himself. I was scared she’d do the same thing, and then it’d be Nadine’s turn. I thought it might be a chain thing, and I couldn’t let it lie. So I started visiting her at the hospital every weekend.
“She didn’t talk to me at first, but her eyes were on me and I knew she could hear me. When she began to get better, she started talking to me too. First it was just hello and goodbye and a few words in between. But then it all began to rush out of her, and we would talk for hours.
“I was afraid she was leaning on me because of what happened to the old man, but then it occurred to me something was really going on between us…You know, that connection they always talk about on the afternoon talk shows. Well it got real for Elaine and me after a month or so.”
“You intend to proceed, Tommy?”
“Absolutely…If she still wants to. But we’ll have to go slow. She’s still got to see the therapist as an out-patient twice a week. She’s not all the way out of the woods just yet.”
“Did the doctor say it was all right for the two of you…”
“Yeah. Her shrink encouraged contact with other people, especially men. I made myself available, now we’ll see what happens, Jimmy.”
He gobbles another cheeseslider. I’m thinking he needs a wife if for nothing else so that she can get him to eat something green occasionally.
“You still not coming back?” Tommy asks.
“No…Not now anyway…But I had something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“What’s that, Lieutenant?”
“Wade S. Hansen.”
“He’s history, no? Disappeared into Witness Pro, yes?”
“Anybody can be found.”
Spencer grins.
“Now Lieutenant, you’re not proposing that we have a whack done on Mister Hansen, are you?”
“Of course not. That would be immoral and illegal. I have something else in mind.”
*
Gina Ciccio turns dark in the face the minute she sees us at her husband’s old titty bar. Gina has taken over Carlo’s enterprises, and she still obviously blames me for her husband’s demise.
“What in the hell are you doing here?” she demands.
“I like how you’ve re-done the place,” I tell her.
“You’re not welcome here, Jimmy, so say what you have to say and get out.”
“The guy responsible for Carlo’s death was Alexei Grodnov, not me. Grodnov’s dead. Some kid splattered him in the street, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Yeah? And?”
“Alexei’s partner was Wade S. Hansen, who got Witness Pro for spilling on Grodnov, even though he never got the chance to squeal in court.”
“What’s this got to do with me?”
“Carlo supplied Hansen and his dearly departed wife with nose candy. They were very regular and large customers.”
“I don’t do illegal shit, Jimmy. Get out of—“
“Wait a second, Gina. Listen. You can’t get at Grodnov because he’s already fried and gone. You can’t get any of his lieutenants because they are likewise dead. You can’t get at his live-in bitch because my wife flattened her face and sent her to the hoos gaol. But you can hand out some justice to the one remaining prick who has walked away clean from the Anderson Building and from Carlo’s death.”
“They strapped him like a hog to that nigger bitch.”
“He was still your husband. You still loved him. He had other affairs. You’re no schoolgirl, Gina. You know how they are with women.”
“He was my husband, yes.”
“I never wanted any harm to fall on him. You need to believe that, Gina. I tried to talk him out of the life more than once. One of the times I tried to get him out was just before they murdered him.”
She’s got angry tears in her eyes.
“What makes you think we can locate Hansen? He’s re-located by the Feds in their program, no?”
Gina has a few too many pounds on her hips, but she’s still attractive. What some might call voluptuous, even.
“He had a thing for cocaine. He was a large user. I’m betting he’ll contact you for a b
uy. I don’t think he’ll trust any new contacts, because if he commits a felony, all bets are off with the Feds—it’s in the fine print. I read the contract, Gina. Every fucking word of it.”
She stares at me.
“I meant to tell you how sorry I am for your loss, but you wouldn’t talk to me at the funeral.”
“I loved him, Jimmy. Nobody deserves to die the way my Carlo did. No matter how unfaithful he was, nobody deserved to go that way…
“What did you have in mind for Wade S. Hansen?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jimmy Parisi was there when they dismissed Elaine Grant from the Elgin Mental Facility. The staff threw her a little party before she left. Nadine and Tommy Spencer were also present, along with Evan Keller, Nadine’s ‘friend.’
After Parisi and Nadine and Evan took off, Tommy took Mrs. Elaine Grant back to her old home in Palatine. It had been unoccupied since her husband had moved to Wisconsin and subsequently killed himself there. Nadine and Evan were coming over to dinner with Spencer and Elaine later on, about eight, but it was only four in the afternoon and Mrs. Grant could not bear the thought of occupying an empty house by herself.
When she unlocked the door in Palatine, she had Spencer go inside first.
“There are no ghosts in here, Elaine,” Spencer told her after he stepped inside.
“I know,” she replied. “But I wanted you to go first. I’m still a little shaky.”
“It’s all right. Come on in.”
“I missed this house…I missed the life I used to have. He stole everything I had.”
“You still have Nadine.”
“Thank God. I don’t know how she’s stayed this strong after what he did to her on that island. And then he showed her—“
“I know what he did, Elaine. I saw it. It was part of the job. I’m sorry I saw it. I’m sorry you lived through it.”
“But you’re here, aren’t you.”
“Looks that way, don’t it.”
“When am I ever going to crack that hard guy exterior of yours?”
“I told you. I’m not the marrying type.”
“Who asked you to marry me, Detective?”
“I thought I might, some time or other.”
“Sure. You just said—“
“That’s now. Who knows what might happen.”
“Yes, Tommy. Who knows?” she smiled.
She didn’t show her gorgeous teeth very often when she was at Elgin. She rarely smiled, a few months ago, but she never laughed.
Now she laughed on occasion when she thought something was genuinely funny or amusing. Elaine knew it was Spencer. She couldn’t avoid laughing at some of the crazy things he said to her. He was authentically humorous, a natural comedian. And her therapists all said he was doing her all kinds of good by visiting her regularly. Elaine didn’t need the shrinks to tell her. He wasn’t just her personal clown—she had fallen in love with him, she thought, about six weeks ago when she became entirely lucid and shocked all her doctors by her emergence back into the world.
“I love you,” he told her.
“You never said that before.”
“I didn’t?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well then I’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”
Spencer took her close and kissed her. She trembled, and he let her go.
“Don’t let go of me, Tommy. Don’t ever let go of me.”
He took her near and kissed her again. This time there was no trembling.
“I want you to live here with me,” she said.
“Wouldn’t you rather live in my Clark Street hovel with my loud-mouthed bird?”
“I want you to live with me here.”
“I can be packed by midnight tonight. I travel light. But the bird goes with me.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way. He can occupy any room but the bedroom.”
“Why not the bedroom?” Spencer asked.
“Because that’s our room, and that smart-mouthed bird is off limits where we sleep. My only house rule, okay?”
“Sounds fair.”
He kissed her again.
“Is this all you got?” she grinned.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked.
“He didn’t steal my life, Tommy. I didn’t let him steal my life.”
She took his hand and showed him the way.
*
It took Wade S. Hansen a few months to miss his cocaine habit, but the urge for the recreational drug found him about four months into Witness Protection. Johnny Adams had made it very clear that Wade could not commit another felony with immunity. If he was caught breaking the law, he was just like any other citizen.
So Wade didn’t trust the dealers in Prescott, Arizona. He wanted to deal with people he knew and trusted, even if it meant taking a private jet to O’Hare to score the white powder. He called the Ciccios, but he had to deal directly with Carlo’s widow, Gina. She was the head of the familia, now that all the men in the crew were in jail or were dead. Gina set up a meeting in a motel near the airport. Everything had to be done quickly because Wade was not supposed to return to Chicago. He was supposed to stay put in Arizona. Wade did not trust any of his underlings to cop the cocaine without dropping the veritable dime on him, which in turn meant he’d be tried and convicted and sent to prison. Something the feds would love to see orchestrated, since Grodnov had the discourtesy to die in the street. The FBI was bitter that they received nothing from the agreement they’d signed with Wade.
Wade wore a custom wig of auburn hair over his own blond hair. He wore a fake mustache of matching color, and he wore large aviators to cover the upper half of his handsome face.
He arrived at the Wellington Arms Hotel at 5:15 AM., exactly at the appointed time. He was to pick up the powder and immediately hustle back to the airport to board his private jet.
Gina wasn’t there, nor was any of the other Ciccio family. But Carlo’s wife never said she’d be there herself, so Wade didn’t feel too shaky at first.
There was a man sitting at a table. He wore shades that were infinitely less classy and expensive as Wade’s dark aviators. It made him a little more wary than he’d been, but he figured somebody from Ciccio’s crew wouldn’t have a notion of class anyway.
“Where’s the money?” the cheap sunglasses demanded. There were four other goons standing behind him. Wade only had Frank, his personal assistant, and Frank was gay and non-violent. He was big, and that was why Wade used him in the role of bodyguard. No one threatened Frank because he was six feet seven and three hundred pounds. No one would ever guess it was six and a half feet of tweety bird they were looking at. Frank was a gentle soul, but you’d never know it by looking at him, and no one had ever challenged him, out in the street.
Wade produced the brief case. He slid it across the table to the cheap sunglasses, who proceeded to crack it open. Then the Ciccio crew member smiled. He nodded for someone behind him to approach Wade and Frank. He handed Wade S. Hansen a gym bag.
Wade unzipped the bag and found the powder inside.
“You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”
Wade looked up and smiled at the cheap sunglasses at the end of the table.
“Very fucking funny,” Wade smiled.
“Surprise surprise,” the man with the discount shades smiled back.
Then he showed Wade S. and Frank the light-loafered giant his badge.
“DEA, motherfucker. Surprise surprise.”
*
“Twenty years. That’s all they gave him. Crossing a state line or two helped. The amount he purchased helped. They hung a conspiracy to distribute on Wade too, since the package was as large as it was—it would’ve made all of Arizona very alert and happy, Jimmy,” Spencer said.
The two men sat in Spencer’s cubicle. It was December 22, 2002.
“So you’re all moved in with Elaine,” Jimmy said.
“It’s not the first
time I ever cohabited with a lady, James.”
Parisi snorted. Spencer never called him James. No one else ever did either.
“I’m not complaining or ragging you, man,” Jimmy laughed.
“I might even marry her…But we’re taking all this slow.”
“How’s she doing, really.”
“She’s doing great, paisan. You know what she told me when she asked me to move in?”
“What?”
“She told me she wasn’t going to let that son of a bitch steal her life. And she hasn’t…I never met a stronger woman in my life, I don’t think, Jimmy.”
“Good for you, Spence. Good for you.”
“Nadine’s conspiring to get us married too. Suddenly she wants everything legal—in spite of the deal about living with lover boy Evan in Paris.”
“You’re adults to her. Different rules.”
“Right…But who gives a shit. I’ve never been happier in my life.”
“I’m glad, Buster. I’m really happy for you. Maybe now you’ll start eating right.”
“We’re going to have the reception at the Fullerton White Castle, if we ever really get married,” Spencer grinned.
“Elaine’s too high maintenance.”
“That’s what I thought…She wears my black socks around the house. With one of my dago tees, and no panties.”
“Stop. I don’t want to know. Too much information.”
“We were talking high maintenance? She likes domestic beer. Hates all wines.”
“You have a treasure, you do.”
Spencer looked out his window at the covered-with-snow Lake. Six inches had fallen last night, and a white Christmas was a sure thing.
“Heard from Mike?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah. I told you he was accepted by the Rangers, right?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing…Except we know the kinds of shit they’re into.”
“It’s what he volunteered for.”
“I know. I just hope…”
“Me too, Tommy. Me too.”
The sky was blue and clear and the air was frosty outside. It wouldn’t get above twenty today, Parisi remembered.
“Twenty years for one thousand murders. Not exactly justice,” Jimmy told his partner.