Lucky Bones

by Michael Wiley

  She wrote two names Jeremy Oliver had mentioned in the short time they knew each other – Zoe Simmons, a friend of Oliver’s since high school, and Rick Oliver, his cousin. ‘They all grew up in Oak Park,’ she said. ‘Maybe you can find them.’

  Kelson said, ‘Let’s say I tell you I’ll do this, what happens to you next? You walk out of here, and these people grab you and put you in a room and hit you some more?’

  She forced a little smile. ‘They won’t find me. I rented a motel room on—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Kelson said. ‘If anyone asks, I’ll tell.’

  ‘You’ll look for the thumb drive?’ she said.

  The pain in Kelson’s head pierced like a needle, from above his left eye back to his left ear. ‘New rules,’ he said. ‘No coming into my office when I’m out. No touching my guns. No lying.’

  She started to object.

  ‘If you can’t tell me something, say you can’t,’ he said. ‘But no lying.’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  ‘And please cut out that quivering, heaving thing. It messes with my brain.’

  ‘I’ve never met a man like you before,’ she said.

  ‘About a hundred fifty years ago, there was a railroad worker named Phineas Gage. An iron rod shot through his head. The rod ripped up his left frontal lobe, but less than a month later he was walking. A few years ago, a kid in Florida got shot through the brain with a fishing spear, but he seems to be fine now. But, yeah, we’re a little club. You don’t want to join.’

  He showed her to the service elevator and explained how to leave through the back of the building. Ten minutes later, he tucked his KelTec into his belt, walked out of his office, and went to his car. He drove out of the city and inched northward through early-evening traffic toward G&G Private Equity. As he drove, he chatted with the radio reporters. When music came on, he sang along with the lyrics he knew. He made up the rest. Then he called Sue Ellen and asked about her day at school.

  She said, ‘I love polynomials now.’

  ‘What did they do to change your mind?’

  ‘Now I hate graph functions. Can I come over to play with Painter’s Lane and Payday?’

  ‘I’m working tonight, honey.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘I won’t have to talk to you.’

  ‘Funny,’ he said.

  Before they hung up, she said, ‘Love you, Dad.’

  ‘Love you too, honey. That’s what hurts, right?’

  ‘Nope,’ she said.

  ‘You’re a smart kid.’

  Kelson pulled into the G&G parking lot a few minutes before six. In the evening light, the late-May leaves on the little trees that dotted the edges of the parking lot looked so green they might burst. The white concrete panels on the outside of the G&G building, shadowed by the lowering sun, looked grimy.

  Kelson went inside and rode the elevator to the third floor.

  The receptionist gave no hint that she recognized Kelson from his last visit.

  ‘Marty LeCoeur?’ he asked her.

  She had a pleasant smile. ‘No one by that name works here.’

  ‘Chip Voudreaux? Sylvia Crane or Harold Crane?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tell them Marty’s friend Sam Kelson wants to talk to them.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘Marty’s friend.’ She dialed into the inner office.

  A minute later, Chip Voudreaux came out in a navy blue suit, pale-yellow shirt, and blue tie. He smiled at Kelson with his too-white teeth and said, ‘Ah, Sam,’ as if Kelson was a favorite client.

  ‘Everyone here seems so happy,’ Kelson said.

  Voudreaux had a chummy laugh. ‘Come …’ He led Kelson to his office.

  A thin-faced woman with expensive blond hair sat on a brown leather sofa against one of the walls. She wore a blue skirt and matching jacket, and the way she crossed her legs made Kelson think she wanted to kick someone.

  Voudreaux introduced them. ‘Sam Kelson – Sylvia Crane.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ she said, without apparent pleasure.

  ‘Don’t kick me,’ Kelson said.

  She made a little square of her mouth and glanced at Voudreaux. Voudreaux asked Kelson, ‘What can we do for you?’

  ‘Let me talk with Marty LeCoeur.’

  ‘I don’t see what good that would do. He’s working on our problem. We’re treating him well. Feeding him coffee. We even gave him a little pillow for his back. He asked for his girlfriend, but we didn’t see how that would help.’

  ‘So you locked him in a room with a computer and you won’t let him talk to anyone?’

  ‘Why would we lock it? We have security personnel to keep him where he belongs.’

  ‘Be careful about angering him.’

  Voudreaux’s smile turned ironic. ‘I think our men can handle him.’

  ‘I’ve never seen it, but my friend DeMarcus says when Marty gets angry, he turns into a bull shark.’

  The ironic smile grew. ‘We’ll take that risk.’

  Sylvia Crane said to Voudreaux, ‘We could hold this one too.’

  Now Kelson smiled. ‘Believe me, I’d annoy the hell out of you.’

  ‘He has a point,’ Voudreaux said.

  ‘Only one way to get rid of me,’ Kelson said. ‘Let me see Marty.’

  ‘Oh, there’s more than one way,’ Sylvia Crane said.

  That made Kelson grin. ‘You’re tough – or you try to sound tough. I like hard women. My ex-wife Nancy’s the toughest person I’ve ever known. She—’

  ‘Stop,’ Sylvia Crane said.

  ‘She could kick your ass,’ Kelson said. ‘And mine. And’ – he pointed a thumb at Voudreaux – ‘she could knock his shiny white teeth out. But you’re faking it. Tough talk. And the way you sit, you look like you want to boot someone. But I can tell.’

  She uncrossed her legs and stood up. Kelson took a step back in case.

  Voudreaux said to her, ‘Maybe we let him see LeCoeur. Put his mind at rest.’

  ‘Why do we want anyone’s mind at rest?’ she said. ‘They need to know what happens.’

  ‘What happens happens,’ Voudreaux said. ‘No harm in easing LeCoeur’s worries – clearing his mind so he can work.’

  Sylvia Crane glanced from Voudreaux to Kelson and back. She looked unhappy. ‘Fine,’ she said.

  Kelson stared at her with a new understanding. ‘You call the shots here?’

  They took Kelson down a narrow hall to a door guarded by a thick-shouldered man in khakis and a black-logoed G&G golf shirt. He had no gun.

  ‘But you don’t look like you’d need one,’ Kelson told him.

  The man nodded to Crane and Voudreaux and opened the door.

  Marty sat at a white table in an all-white room lit by fluorescent ceiling strips. He worked on two side-by-side big-screened laptops. He seemed to have tightened into his small body. As he keyed numbers on to a big field of other numbers, he mumbled, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuuuck.’

  Voudreaux put on his toothy smile and said, ‘Marty, my man, how’s it coming?’

  Marty jerked from the table and stared at Voudreaux and Crane like a feral cat. Then he noticed Kelson.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How’s Neto?’

  Kelson hated to say it. ‘Bad, Marty. Sorry.’

  ‘Goddammit.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He need me?’ Marty said.

  ‘Not much anyone can do,’ Kelson said. ‘The doctor wants to know about his organs. You know, about donating them.’

  Marty shook his head. ‘That boy never gave away anything he could sell – never bought anything he could steal either.’

  ‘The hospital wants your OK before they pull the plug.’

  ‘Hell if they’re getting it. Neto’s a fighter. You watch – he’ll—’

  ‘The doctor says—’

  ‘What the fuck’s the doctor know?’

  ‘He says—’

  ‘Does he know Neto? I know Neto. The kid’s a survivor. I ain’t pulling
the plug.’

  Voudreaux said, ‘Great reunion here – and pity about Neto – but we have zero time for this.’

  Marty stared at Voudreaux’s eyes like he would eat them.

  Kelson stared at Voudreaux’s too-white mouth. ‘Your teeth look like they’d hurt,’ he said. ‘My ex-wife’s a dentist, and she—’

  Sylvia Crane said, ‘Are you making progress, Mr LeCoeur?’

  ‘Fuck if I know. This system you’re using, any halfway smart high school kid with a bag of Cheetos could hack it. You give it to a guy like Neto, and you’re asking for it. I don’t blame victims, but you’re fucked.’

  ‘Just so we’re clear, you recommended Neto for the job,’ she said. ‘We hold you responsible.’

  ‘Why the fuck d’you think I’m here instead of sitting with Neto? But you can hold my fucking balls over a blowtorch, it changes nothing,’ Marty said.

  ‘You’re a colorful individual, Mr LeCoeur,’ Voudreaux said, ‘and under other circumstances, we might appreciate color. Right now, we want results. What do you need to get this done?’

  ‘Time,’ Marty said. ‘Luck. What I really need is Neto. The kid built walls inside walls inside walls.’

  ‘What kind of time?’ Voudreaux said.

  ‘Without Neto? Weeks. Maybe a month. Maybe even then I can’t do it.’

  ‘We need it now,’ Sylvia Crane said.

  Kelson looked at her. ‘When you say “now”, do things just happen around here?’

  ‘Almost always,’ she said.

  Kelson said to Marty, ‘We’ve got to get you out of here.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Voudreaux said.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Marty said.

  Kelson said, ‘D’you know what they’ll do if you can’t get their money?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ said the little man.

  ‘Desperate people do dumb things,’ Kelson said.

  Voudreaux said, ‘We aren’t desperate.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Look at you. Those teeth.’ Kelson turned to Sylvia Crane. ‘And you – you know you want to kick me. Everything about this place is frantic.’

  Sylvia Crane said, ‘Do you always make bad matters worse?’

  ‘Always?’ he said. ‘No.’

  For a moment she looked like she would kick him, and keep kicking until the police report read ‘Unidentified Male’ and the lab needed to use partial prints and DNA. Or maybe she’d call in security to do the job. But then she laughed at him.

  Kelson frowned. ‘That worries me more. Do you ever lose control?’

  She turned to Marty. ‘Get back to work. Let us know if you need anything – food, coffee, anything.’ Then she said to Kelson, ‘I’ll show you out.’

  She led him back through the narrow hall and past the receptionist. She walked him to the elevator and waited with him. When the elevator doors opened, she rested her fingers on his wrist and held him for a moment. ‘Some advice, Mr Kelson,’ she said. ‘Next time you think of coming here, don’t. Go to a movie instead. Go out for dinner. Spend some daddy-daughter time with – what’s her name? Sue Ellen?’

  ‘How do you—’

  ‘Shh,’ she said. ‘Be smart, that’s all. You can do that, can’t you?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Kelson went home and cooked spaghetti. He poured a glass of wine and popped a Percocet. He told the kittens about his trip to Emma Almonte’s house in the morning. He told them about Venus Johnson dragging him down to the Harrison Street Police Station. He told them about his visit with Tom Runeski and Runeski’s baby girl in the afternoon. He told them about Genevieve Bower’s reappearance.

  But when he told them about his meeting with Sylvia Crane and Chip Voudreaux at G&G, he added a warning. ‘Be careful. I’ve known people like them. When they get caught, everyone talks about their greed. But the money’s just a side benefit. I think they get off on hurting people.’

  After he ate, he let Payday and Painter’s Lane lick the butter off the remaining spaghetti. ‘Sure, live it up,’ he told them.

  He poured more wine, and when his phone rang, he said, ‘Screw it,’ but caller ID said DeMarcus Rodman, so he picked up and told Rodman about his trip to G&G.

  Rodman seemed distracted. ‘The doctor says Neto should make it through the night, but he doubts he’ll get through tomorrow. Janet’s at the hospital. I came home to shower.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I’ll hit the streets,’ Rodman said. ‘Let’s say Victor Almonte really did blow up the library. The questions haven’t changed. Why’d he do it? Why that library? Why an hour before closing? How’d he get there? Where’d he get the explosives? Who saw him? Who talked with him? Someone always sees and talks. I’ll go out tonight. I’ll go back out tomorrow. We do what we’re good at, right? I’ll find every bastard who knows anything about Almonte. I’m lousy at sitting in a hospital waiting for a kid to die.’

  ‘You’re a good man, DeMarcus.’

  ‘I don’t know about the “good” part,’ Rodman said.

  Ten minutes after they hung up, Kelson’s phone clacked to tell him someone had sent a text. He ignored it and poured more wine. After another two glasses and another Percocet, he checked the message.

  Nancy had texted, telling him she had an early meeting with her staff at the Healthy Smiles Dental Clinic and asking him to give Sue Ellen a ride to school. ‘No need to own me if you can rent me,’ he said. ‘Whatever that means.’ He texted back, Of course.

  When he slept, he dreamed of the seventeen-year-old named Bicho who shot him in the head during a drug bust, gunfire ringing off the alley walls of an icy February night. In the dream, Bicho ate dinner with Kelson and Sue Ellen at Taquería Uptown. Bicho ordered a margarita and became angry when the restaurant wouldn’t serve him. When Kelson explained that the counterman was showing no disrespect – the restaurant just didn’t have a liquor license – Bicho wouldn’t hear reason. He pulled out a black revolver and threatened to shoot the counterman. But then Sue Ellen kissed Bicho on the mouth, and he put away the gun and ate his sopa de mariscos.

  Kelson woke from the dream in a panic, but after doing his breathing exercises, he closed his eyes again and slept peacefully.

  At eight a.m. the next morning, his ringing phone woke him.

  ‘I thought you were picking up Sue Ellen,’ Nancy said when he answered.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he said.

  ‘Bad answer,’ Nancy said.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he said.

  ‘Dammit,’ she said.

  Eleven minutes later, Kelson pulled to the curb at Nancy’s house. Nancy and Sue Ellen were waiting on the front porch.

  Kelson jumped out. ‘I’m sorry. I—’

  ‘Daddy.’ Sue Ellen grinned as if he could do no wrong.

  Nancy glared at Kelson and said, ‘Go.’

  After dropping Sue Ellen at Hayt Elementary, Kelson drove to Rodman’s Bronzeville apartment. Rodman, just back from talking with men and women who owned the streets and city parks after midnight, came to the door from the kitchen. His girlfriend Cindi, after a nightshift at Rush Medical, sat on the couch under the portrait of Malcolm X.

  Rodman gave Kelson a mug of coffee, brought a cup of tea to Cindi, went back to the kitchen, and scrambled a half dozen eggs. When the three of them sat together at the dining table, Rodman forked a bite into his mouth and said, ‘Emma Almonte lied.’ He washed down the food with coffee. ‘Two blocks from her house, there’s a strip of auto body shops, a metal casting company, and a hair salon. A couple men sleep under the awning at an empty warehouse. A couple more drink all night in an alley next to the warehouse. The drunks said they never saw Victor Almonte. So I bought them a bottle of Smirnoff and hung out awhile. Then they said maybe they saw him some nights – maybe they drank with him sometimes. But Emma Almonte told us he liked to be alone – locked himself in his room. So I shook the sleepers awake and asked them about our man. Sure, they said, they knew Victor. One of them – a skinny guy – said Victor spooked him, ta
lking about what he did in Afghanistan, what he’d seen, what he wanted to do to people who hated veterans. But the other guy said Victor was cool – he just had issues like everyone else. Point is, Victor went out and made the rounds, even though Emma Almonte told us he’d gone a hundred percent homebody.’ Rodman paused to eat a piece of toast. ‘Next I went to Rogers Park, by the library,’ he said. ‘Around the corner, there’s a school with a playground – great place to get high at three in the morning on a spring night. Two guys and a girl I talked to never saw Victor Almonte. But they pointed me to someone else. So I went over by the railroad tracks a block from the library, and I kicked around in the weeds and bushes on the embankment until I found a little camp. The guy there must’ve been about a hundred years old, but he was sharp, real sharp. Nine-to-five, regular as a banker, he shakes a can for nickels outside the library. He said he saw Victor Almonte twice, once on the day the library blew up and once about a week before. He remembered because the first time Victor stuffed five bucks in his can, and the second time he gave him a twenty, a one, and a pocket of change – the old guy figured it was everything Victor had. The first time, Victor poked around outside the library, went in for a few minutes, came out, and poked around again. The second time, he went right in and didn’t come back until the paramedics wheeled him out on a gurney.’

  Rodman poured another cup of coffee and said, ‘That’s it.’

  ‘So he did it,’ Cindi said.

  ‘Looks like,’ Rodman said.

  Kelson said, ‘But, as you said, why?’

  Cindi looked tired. ‘He comes back from his tour hurt. More in the head than the body. He can’t sleep – spends too much time alone – sneaks out now and then when his sister’s in bed or at work. Maybe he goes on the internet or watches TV and sees something that angers him in Rogers Park. Or maybe a girl from Rogers Park broke his heart once. Don’t overthink it, ’cause maybe you’ll never know. Every night at Rush, we get patients who’re so broken inside, the stitches we sew them up with and the pills we give them for the pain don’t even start to heal them. If we ask for their story, they take us to crazy places. Sometimes we’re afraid to ask. Sometimes we don’t want to know.’