by Neil Turner
I nod dumbly. Is Brittany’s lifeless corpse lying somewhere more remote than Independence Park?
“Even though nobody has contacted you with a ransom demand, we’re now treating this as a kidnapping,” Jake says. “The FBI has been notified and are taking over.”
But demands have been made.
“They should be by to see you….” Jake’s voice trails off as his eyes lock on mine. “That’s correct, right?” he asks sharply. “No demands?”
What the hell do I do now? Joe will assume I’ve called the FBI despite his warnings not to involve the cops. Then what? Bobby’s already dead. If they haven’t killed my daughter yet, they will now. “Jesus God,” I groan before I pound the table with both fists. “Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!”
Jake’s eyes pop wide open. “Tony?”
My eyes touch on his as my mind careens wildly in search of a solution, seeking anything solid to grasp onto. God, this is all so fucked up! What should I have done differently?
Jake leans across the table and grabs my forearm. “Get a grip, Tony!”
My eyes finally focus on his face. His lips are moving, but no sound seems to be coming out. Should I tell him everything? Jake’s proven himself to me time and again, but Joe will surely find out if I talk to him. I know he will. Then he’ll kill Brittany if he hasn’t already.
“The FBI can throw resources at this that I can only dream about,” Jake is explaining when the roaring in my skull abates enough for me to tune him in again. “They have more bodies, more technology, more of everything. If anyone is going to bring Brittany home safely, it’s the FBI.”
Do I drop everything in Jake’s lap?
He inches right up to the edge of the table and stares hard at me until he’s sure he has my full attention. “No holding anything back when the FBI get here, Tony,” he says firmly. “They’ll have a much better shot at bringing her home safely if they know everything.”
That’s probably true, but.
Jake gets out of his chair and walks around the table to kneel beside me, then grasps my shoulders, turns me square to him, and gets right in my face. “You’re making a big mistake holding things back from us, Tony. A big mistake.”
I stare back into his eyes. So, he’s figured me out. Not the details, of course, but he knows I’m keeping secrets. I look away and sigh heavily. He allows me ten seconds to come clean. Then his patience runs dry.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asks sharply. “A teenage boy is dead, and you still think you can manage this on your own?”
His outburst is like a slap in the face. My eyes refocus on his. Anger and exasperation are there, yes, but compassion and concern are present, too. And fear. Our eyes remain locked for a few long seconds before my resistance evaporates in a huge, shuddering sigh. Apparently recognizing that he’s broken me, Jake walks back around the table and resumes his seat. He folds his hands on the table and listens intently while I tell him about Joe. I leave nothing out.
“That’s everything?” he asks when I stop talking.
I nod, feeling as if I’ve just wrestled a massive anvil off my chest. He walks me through it all again with notebook in hand while he takes copious notes.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he mutters angrily after we finish. He thinks things through for a minute or two, then visibly relaxes and catches my eye. “I’ll make sure the FBI gets this pronto, Tony. This is information we can act on immediately.”
“Okay,” I mumble.
“Where did this Joe guy sit when he was here?”
“Papa’s La-Z-Boy.”
“Which you’ve been sitting on every day since?”
I nod.
“Did he touch anything else? A glass maybe?”
“He had a glass of bourbon the first time he showed up.”
“Where’s the glass?”
“I ran it through the dishwasher with everything else,” I reply sheepishly.
He nods without comment, then his eyes drift to the front door. “Have you seen anyone watching the house?”
I shake my head. “Not for lack of trying.”
“How about when you’re out and about? Anyone tailing you?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“This Joe guy has you spooked, huh?”
“Damned right he does, Jake. He’s got my daughter. He killed Bobby, for Christ’s sake!”
Jake holds his hands up. “He’s a gangster, man. Scum. You should be afraid of the guy, Tony, but here’s the thing. He’s just a fucking gangster. He’s not Superman. He can’t be everywhere at once, and the Lucianos don’t have the manpower to keep watch on anyone twenty-four-seven, let alone someone like you.”
“So, I shouldn’t worry about surveillance?”
Jake sighs. “Yeah, you should, but don’t think they’ve got you staked out around the clock the way cops would.”
“Should I have the house checked for bugs?”
He thinks on that a moment, then shakes his head. “That’s not really their style. It’s a lot tougher to do that effectively than people seem to think, but I’ll send someone by to check if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll send a fingerprint technician out to dust around the La-Z-Boy. You never know… sometimes we get lucky.”
Of course, the chances of getting lucky would be far better if I’d had my wits about me that first night.
Jake closes his notebook and stuffs it into an inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Time for me to go to work,” he announces as he gets to his feet. Then he levels a finger at me. “And time for you to get some sleep. You’re already dead on your feet. You’ll be no help to anyone if you don’t get some rest.”
“I can’t sleep while Brittany is somewhere out there,” I say weakly while throwing a wave toward the window.
“What you can and will do is get some damned sleep. You’re not thinking straight, man. I’ll send a uniform to sit on the house and make sure nobody surprises you while you rest.”
I doubt I’ll sleep a wink, but I’m too tired to argue the point. “What will you be doing?” I ask as he slips his coat on.
“Trying to figure out who the hell this Joe character is.”
“How?” I ask doubtfully while trailing him to the door. “It’s a great big world out there.”
“Those Luciano fucks are behind AAA Avgas,” he tells me as he opens the inside door and pauses with his hand resting on the screen-door handle. “We’ll pull hard at the Luciano thread. Sooner or later—hopefully real soon—that thread will come back to us with a noose around Joe’s neck.”
I don’t have a clue how Jake plans to accomplish that, but he sounds determined and confident that he’ll succeed.
“Someone will go through mug shots with you,” Jake continues. “If Joe doesn’t show up in the pictures, expect a visit from an FBI artist, who will do a composite sketch.” A little smile turns up the corners of his lips. “Good call on using the back door. You even killed the motion lights, huh?”
I nod.
“Good thinking. I’ll tell anyone else coming over to give you a heads-up and to use the alley. Make sure you power up the motion detectors between visitors.”
“Will do.”
“One final thing,” he says.” If that prick shows up here again, don’t touch anything he may have touched and let us get a crime scene crew here immediately to look for prints or DNA.”
With that, Jake shoves the door open and strides purposefully to the alley. A little kernel of hope stirs in the depths of the blind fear that has consumed me over the past few days.
I close the door and go straight to my daughter’s bedroom to feed her goldfish, which I’ve brought home from Pat’s. Brittany will have my ass if she comes home to find Puckerface floating belly up because I forgot to feed him. Of course, I’ll happily take that outcome in a heartbeat if she comes home. There are more Puckerfaces in the ocean… or at the pet store. After sprinkling flakes of fish food on top of the wate
r, I walk back into the living room, where I see an apparition of Joe sitting in Papa’s La-Z-Boy. At least I think it’s a mirage. Could this be some sort of psychic message that he already knows what I’ve just done? I close my eyes and shake my head to clear it, but the specter of Joe remains in the chair, once again warning me, “No cops, Mr. Valenti. We will know if you talk to them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It’s late Friday morning, and Penelope is at the wheel of her silver Audi A4 sedan as we inch toward downtown on the Eisenhower “Expressway,” where it’s rush hour all day, every day. Brittany has now been missing for almost a week, and it’s been two days since Bobby Harland’s body was found. I know the statistics and understand that the odds of Brittany being found alive at this point are slender indeed. Yet there is a chance. We won’t give up hope, and Jake and the FBI won’t quit looking while there’s even the slightest prospect of bringing her home safely. Miracles do happen… just not very often. One might say we’ve already experienced a little one in that I haven’t yet collapsed from exhaustion. Or despair. I’ve dipped into Papa’s medicine cabinet the past couple of nights and swallowed a few of the sleeping pills that were prescribed for him last year. They still work.
Now that word is out that a pretty white girl is missing, the media have pounced on the story, the city’s good Samaritans have sprung into action, and prayers are flowing. I’ll take whatever help is on offer, however nonsensical and self-serving some of it seems to be. As for Michelle, I’ve simply refused to pick up any of her calls. The couple of screeching voicemails she’s left attest to the wisdom of that decision. I don’t have the time, energy, or emotional reserves to deal with her outrage and maneuvering. Isn’t it interesting that she’s expressing her outrage and railing about what a shitty father I am while she’s still in Brussels? Wouldn’t most mothers have hopped on the first plane to Chicago and thrown themselves into the effort to bring their daughter home safely? Perhaps it’s a busy week in Human Resources at Coca-Cola Europe.
Penelope is pensive after we exit the parking garage and walk three blocks along Wacker Drive to the modern skyscraper that is our destination. She shoots me a sideways glance. “I wish we knew what this girl has to share with us.”
She’s referring to an enigmatic phone call to our offices two hours ago from a woman who claims that her daughter has information about Megan Walton’s pilot training that “you’ll definitely be interested in.” We’ve arranged for a deposition tomorrow. If the girl really does have damaging information about Megan, it would have been nice to have it prior to the confrontation we’re heading into.
“So do I,” I reply as we arrive and push through a set of revolving doors that spill us into an expansive granite-floored lobby. We don’t need to consult the building directory to locate the offices of Butterworth Cole, where Penelope worked as an associate until quitting a year ago. I had briefly been a client before her boss, Herbert C. Cumming, dumped me. We’ve been summoned here this morning by none other than Cumming himself, who is the lead lawyer representing Senator Evan Milton in his lawsuit against Windy City Sky Tours et al.—with one of the et als. being our client, R & B Ramp Services. Why we’re here is a mystery, but we’ll know what it’s all about soon enough.
Penelope meets my eye when a trio of young business types exits the elevator and we find ourselves alone as we’re whisked to an upper floor. “Seems odd to be here in an adversarial role.”
I wonder if she’s feeling intimidated about facing off against her old boss, who I suspect isn’t outwardly supportive nor overly appreciative of the work of his underlings.
Her eyes glitter mischievously. “I’ve often fantasized about beating up on Herbert C. Cumming.”
“Figuratively or literally?” I ask with a weak grin.
She bounces her eyebrows and drolly replies, “Both.”
I smile absently as my daughter’s predicament forces its way back to the forefront of my thoughts. I push the thoughts aside, or at least try to. The distraction of work hasn’t been a panacea, but it has provided scattered moments of relief. That’s about the best I can hope for over the next thirty minutes. Doing something to help Billy and Rick won’t alter Brittany’s fate, whatever it turns out to be. That’s now in the hands of Jake Plummer and the FBI.
The elevator glides to a stop at the forty-ninth floor, and the doors whoosh open onto the plush reception area of the Law Offices of Butterworth Cole LLC. I recognize the receptionist from my single visit here last September, back when collegiate sports groupie Herbert Cumming fawned over me amid fond memories of my leading our shared alma matter to a national volleyball championship. Things between us had soured quickly, in equal parts because of my affiliation with Sphinx Financial and his subsequent recognition that I wasn’t the deep-pocketed potential client he’d hoped I might be. The good news? I was demoted to the status of a client worthy of nothing more than representation by an associate counsel, which turned out to be Penelope. She did a great job then, and look at us now. She beats the hell out of Herbert C. Cumming Jr. in every possible way.
The receptionist’s eyes widen when she recognizes Penelope exiting the elevator. She might even recognize me, too, though I doubt it.
Penelope’s eyes light up and her smile dazzles as she walks straight to the reception counter and reaches across to squeeze the hand of her former colleague. “Hello, Jennifer! It’s so nice to see you.”
Jennifer’s initial grudging half smile widens into something near a genuine smile. “Hello, Miss Brooks. Nice to see you, as well,” she whispers. I imagine being seen exchanging pleasantries with turncoat associates who have spurned the hallowed halls of Butterworth Cole is frowned upon.
“We’re here to see Mr. Cumming,” Penelope says.
Jennifer nods and glances at her computer screen.
“Conference Room B?” Penelope asks.
Jennifer nods again. “I’ll have someone escort you.”
“I know the way,” Penelope replies, tugging at my sleeve before she marches past reception and down a hallway while Jennifer calls after us to wait. My partner smiles over her shoulder and disingenuously waves the offer of assistance away as an unnecessary courtesy. Then she shoots me a sideways smirk. “Let’s surprise the old bastard.”
She’s developing quite a potty mouth.
We spot Cumming through the glass wall of Conference Room B as we approach. He’s standing over a group of seated Butterworth Cole youngsters with his thumbs hooked in the straps of a pair of suspenders that is one of his courtroom props. He seems to be holding court—perhaps regaling them with tales of lawyerly derring-do, perhaps spinning a scintillating preview of how he plans to carve up and humiliate Penelope and me. He’s not a big man, maybe five foot eight or thereabouts, with thinning black hair teased into something of a comb-over and a little paunch bubbling over his belt buckle. Aging detracts somewhat from his assured self-image as an imposing legal giant, but he still has something of a presence about him. Cumming looks pretty much as he did a year ago. He’s probably just as much of an asshole as he was last year, too. He confirms that as soon as we stride into the room unannounced and interrupt his monologue.
Cumming’s eyes widen when he recognizes us. His gaze quickly morphs into annoyance as he looks beyond us, probably wondering how a disreputable pair of ambulance chasers such as us have waltzed into the inner sanctum unannounced and unescorted. The flash of anger passes quickly, replaced by a transparently false welcoming smile as he advances on us with a hand extended and exclaims, “Tony! Good to see you.”
I nod and shake hands with the phony bastard, making sure to crush his pudgy little hand in my big paw as I do so. He can pretend last year didn’t happen all he wants. We Italians have long memories.
“Penelope,” he says while wrapping her hand in both of his in what’s probably an even less authentic welcome.
It’s a paternalistic, condescending display, delivered as if she were still a flunky of his. Is he a
ttempting to put her on her back foot by treating her shabbily, or is this simply a display of unconscious misogyny? I bristle on her behalf but am well aware that Penelope doesn’t need anyone’s protection. Her game face is set firmly in place.
“Herbert,” she replies curtly with a disdainful expression that says, “Fuck you.”
I step back and lock eyes with Cumming. “What can we do for you?”
He casts his eyes toward his acolytes with a bemused smile. “I believe the correct question is ‘What can we do for you?’” His flunkies smile and chuckle in sycophantic admiration of their leader’s rapier wit.
And so the dance begins. The table is laid out with several pads of paper and glasses of water ranged along one side. This is where the assembled Butterworth Cole host will sit. A lonely pair of water glasses awaits us on the opposite side of the table.
“You asked us here,” I remind him as I bypass our assigned seats, snag a water carafe and two glasses, and pull out a chair at the head of the table. I drop into it while I await his answer. Penelope slides into the seat beside mine and works it around until we’re sharing the end of the table.
Cumming’s minions scramble to rearrange themselves around the far end of the room while I pour myself a glass of ice water from the sweating carafe. He remains standing. Some sort of power move, I suppose—the Big Man lecturing the Lesser Beings.
“Let’s recap where things stand,” he begins. Then he starts to pace while he explains the state of the case from his exalted perspective. “My client will win this case, of course. We all know that. So the question becomes who will pay and how much.” He slows to a stop and looks at me. Then his eyes shift to Penelope. “Agreed?”
Penelope doesn’t agree or disagree. She simply stares back at her former boss.
Cumming purses his lips in a look of disapproval before he turns his attention to me. “Mr. Valenti?”
Following Penelope’s lead, I don a neutral expression. “Yes?”
“So, you plan to make this difficult,” he mutters with a rueful shake of his head while he slides a chair out and settles into it. “So be it.”