by Vivi Paige
“What kind of demonstration, Mr. Miller?” Moreno folded her hands and glared down at him from over her glasses. “We have no time for any grandstanding stunts.”
“This is essential to our case. I intend to prove Mr. Malone’s injuries could not have occurred if he and Mr. Lastra were in the positions the defense has presented.”
I stood up, my heart skipping a beat. “Objection, Your Honor.”
“On what grounds?”
“The prosecution did not inform the defense of this ‘demonstration’ beforehand.”
“I’m only demonstrating what’s already been presented in court before, Your Honor. There’s just a visual reference for the jury now.”
Moreno pursed her lips. I could see she was about to allow Miller’s demonstration. Of course, I knew Miller was right. The injury didn’t happen at all the way Indro had stated it had.
“May I approach the bench, Your Honor?”
Moreno cocked an eyebrow. “Proceed.”
Miller joined us, and we had a little pow wow between the three of us.
“Your Honor,” I said, “DA Miller isn’t presenting evidence, he’s putting on a show. I’m afraid it will prejudice the jury.”
“It will do no such thing,” Miller said with a sniff.
“Your Honor, please,” I said. “If this farce is allowed to continue, then the jury won’t recall any of the evidence presented during testimony. They’ll just remember the stunt. Besides, the defense should be allowed to present its own demonstration. It’s only fair.”
Miller chuckled. “The defense has grown desperate.”
Moreno looked at me and frowned. “How long would you need to present your own demonstration, Ms. Vercetti?”
“Two, three days.”
“Oh, come on!” Miller winced at the sound of his own, too-loud voice. Moreno glared at him. I was glad he hadn’t informed her ahead of time. Judge Moreno was easily annoyed.
“I’m in no mood to delay these proceedings further.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “All right, Ms. Vercetti. You win. There will be no demonstration today.”
“But Your Honor—”
“I don’t wish to hear it, Mr. Miller. By your own admission, the demonstration won’t reveal anything you haven’t already presented.”
It sure was fun, watching Miller choke on his own metaphorical bile. He gave a curt nod and stiffly moved back to his table.
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Moreno’s lips twitched into a sneer. She didn’t like doing me favors, but I’d played off her own desire to keep the trial moving forward, and her distaste for theatrics.
Miller had to settle for some hastily drawn poster boards of his theory. The jury’s glazed expression let me know they weren’t all that interested. That boded well for me and Indro.
“Well, here comes the big reveal,” I said eagerly as Miller wrapped up. “The only card he has left to play is Glen Gilberti’s testimony. Once I expose him for being Marco—”
“That’s not going to happen,” Indro said glumly.
“What? Why not?”
To my surprise, Miller stood up and said his eyewitness had been delayed, and wouldn’t be able to make it to court that day. Moreno was pissed, but she called for a recess until tomorrow.
“How did you know that was going to happen?” I asked Indro as the courtroom cleared.
“Simple,” he said. “Marco is dead. The cops killed him.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Indro
The flurries had turned to big, fat flakes muffling the city sounds as they laid down a white carpet over rooftops and streets. Parked cars turned into amorphous white hills as it continued to come down.
Sophie and I chilled in her car, the heat going full-blast and keeping us relatively clear. Once in a while the wipers would swish over the windshield, clearing away the melted snow. The day took on a gray darkness which perfectly suited our mood.
“Do you think you could identify these undercover cops?” Sophie asked.
“Sure, for all the good it would do. I’m certain they’ve got rock-solid alibis in the form of a dozen other cops willing to testify they’d been in a sports bar all day.”
Sophie’s pretty face scrunched up in disgust. “Did you see what happened to Marco’s body?”
“No, but I’m sure it’s long gone. Probably threw it in the lake.”
“With the way the wind is blowing, I can’t see them heading out all that far.”
I nodded. “Good point, but there’s miles of coastline. They could have dropped it anywhere.”
“Don’t you have resources you can tap for information? Someone in the Chicago PD?”
I let out a short bark of utterly mirthless laughter. “Hell no. Don Maloik’s got his sources, but I’m too low on the totem pole for that kinda noise. I do have some folks I can hit up, though it won’t be pleasant.”
Sophie sighed. “I don’t see where we have a lot of options. Without Marco’s body, we’ve got no way to prove unequivocally that he’s Glen Gilberti.”
“Right.” I picked my phone up out of her center console and dialed Sal’s Place, the same greasy spoon where I’d run into Diego what seemed like forever ago. “Hey, Mitch? You on kitchen duty today? Yeah, this is Indro. I need the Snow Day Special. Nah, no rush. I’ve got to run a couple of errands. Say, in an hour? Sweet.”
“Snow Day Special? Is that some kind of code?”
“You could say that.” I was having a good time being cryptic. Sophie cocked her eyebrow at me but didn’t press the issue.
We swung by a dollar store and cleaned them out of flannel blankets. Ugly ass mother fuckers, plaid and baby-shit brown and dull black. They were plenty warm though, which was all that mattered.
Next we hit the liquor store. Sophie’s indulgence hit its zenith when I filled up a shopping cart with bottles of Fireball and cheap scotch.
“Are you planning on going on a bender? How’s that going to help us?”
“It’s not for me. Well, mostly.” I showed her a bottle of Jameson. “You can have your Jack Daniels and your fancy ass shit; this right here is the good stuff as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’m a Tullamore Dew kind of gal.”
“Ha! That stuff’s not bad. Maybe later I can try and convert you, and we can… heh heh… debrief each other.”
Her cheeks turned red, and not from the cold. Like she wasn’t a total demon in the sack.
We finally hit Sal’s about an hour and a half after I’d put in my Snow Day order. When I came out bearing a cardboard box full of chopped beef sammiches, steam rising from the top, Sophie’s incredulity had about snapped.
“Here,” I said. “Eat up. Then we’re taking a little trip down to skid row.”
“Skid row?”
“Uh huh.”
With full bellies and hearts full of hope, we drove down to those places where the people who fall through society’s cracks wind up. “Grab the blankets, I’ll get the booze and the sammiches.”
“You’re going to distribute these to the homeless people!”
“You’re one smart cookie, Miss Vercetti.”
“But why?”
“Because homeless people get overlooked. Constantly. People learn to look right through them. That makes them the perfect eyes and ears, if you treat them like they’re actual human beings.”
“Do you do this often?”
“Most days when it snows, yeah.”
“Even when you don’t need information?”
“Doll, I always need information.”
Sophie grinned. “Indro, you big softie.”
“Hey, don’t let that get around, all right? I gotta rep to maintain.”
We approached a group of bums standing around a weak fire flickering from the top of a rusted barrel. They saw us coming and gap-toothed grins spread over their cold-numbed faces.
“Indro Mother Fucking Lastra!” An old timer named Charlie Coal approached and shook my free hand. “A
lways a pleasure.”
“Likewise. How you holding up, Charlie? You go to the clinic about that cough yet?”
“Yeah, they said it was bronchitis, not pneumonia. Gave me an RX, but I ain’t got the dough to fill it.”
I reached into my pocket and extracted my Jewish bankroll. I flicked about fifty into his ashy palm.
“That should cover it.”
We dispensed the blankets, booze, and sammiches. Turned out nobody in that particular alley knew anything about the police disposing of bodies, but Charlie knew a guy named Switchyard Sam who might have spotted something.
I drove us to the switchyard, where the homeless had a little camp set up just out of range of the rock-salt-loaded rifles the road crew carried. Switchyard Sam pointed us in the direction of a cat named Nicky, who actually saw something worthwhile.
“Yeah, I was down by the Double-Eye-Pee-Dee, and I done seen these two pigs dumping something off the pier.”
“You sure they were cops?”
“They swung their arms out to the side like they was packing heat. Besides, I can smell a pig from a mile away.”
He went on to describe the two shitstains what killed Marco. I gave him a hundred to go with the booze and sundries before Sophie and I split.
“What’s the IIPD?”
“Illinois International Port District. Right up on the edge of the Indiana border. Makes sense. Don’t know why the piggies didn’t take the body out on the lake before dumping it, though.”
When we got to the ports, we saw why soon enough. The lake was even choppier than it had been when we’d taken our plunge. I came up to the edge of the dock and spotted the graffiti Nicky had told us to look for: a Gangster Disciples symbol carved into the wood and then charred black with a crack lighter.
“This is the spot,” I said, peering over the edge. I shook my head in disgust. “Water’s probably freezing, and who knows where it got off to?”
Sophie’s jaw worked silently as she peered into the water.
“Indro, how much money do you have on you?”
I burst into laughter. “How much you need? I’m willing to blow my whole wad seeing as I’m about to go into the slammer for the next decade and a half.”
“How about blowing your wad to stay out of the slammer?”
I tried to press her, but I guess turnabout was fair play. It was her turn to be cryptic.
Chapter Forty-Six
Sophie
Indro Lastra turned out to be a far more complicated man than I’d given him credit for. He straight up made me feel ashamed with his generosity. I’ll admit, I’d always been one of those people who saw the homeless as guilty of some sin which had resulted in their condition.
Thanks to Indro, I was starting to see them as human beings. Who would have thought a mobster had something to teach me about morality?
We headed to the Scuba Sensations next to Warren Park. Indro cocked an eyebrow at all the different gear, his nostrils flaring.
“Smells like a rubber fetish shop in here.”
“You know what one of those smells like?”
Indro chuckled. “Ask no questions, and I’ll tell no lies, Counsel. Whatever you need, we’ll get.”
I perused the gear, starting with a good oxygen tank. I was looking at the most economical choices, since I didn’t figure on getting much use out of the gear. Indro was incredulous.
“What are we doing, looking at this cheap shit?” He thumped one of the tanks with a metallic ring. “Point us in the direction of the top of the line.”
“Indro, you’re talking about a difference of thousands of dollars.”
“Hey, my girl is not going down into the cold, murky waters of Lake Michigan with substandard gear. Nothing but the best.”
I flushed a little. “What did you call me?”
Indro frowned. “My girl. You know, I call everybody my girl. Except dudes, of course.”
A woman walked past us and he waved. “Hey, my girl, how’s it going?”
“I’m a lawyer, Indro. I know when you’re full of shit.”
“Oh yeah?” He cocked his eyebrow at me. “How can you tell?”
“Well, for one, I check to see if your lips are moving.”
“Zing!” He laughed without a trace of bitterness. “Look at you, Sophie. Busting my chops.”
I relaxed. If you ignored the fact we were shopping for gear so I could go diving for a corpse, it seemed like a fun excursion. Almost like a date.
“All right, we got your air tank, we got your wetsuit—with a hood, so your pretty little dome won’t get all frozen solid. What else we need?” Indro gestured at a spear gun assembly. “Something to fend off those monster catfish in the lake?”
“I don’t think I need to worry about catfish, Indro. I do need a salvage air bag to get the body back to the surface, assuming I can find it.”
“Salvage air bag, all right, all right, all right.” Indro bobbed his head in assent. “What about light? It’s going to be pitch black down there.”
“That’s next on the list.”
I cringed when I saw all the zeroes at the end of the receipt, but Indro didn’t bat an eye. They say crime doesn’t pay? Fuck that, it pays plenty. I was considered one of Chicago’s more well-off denizens, and I wouldn’t dream of dropping that much money for a one-day excursion. Then again, taking into context Indro’s life was on the line, it seemed a lot more reasonable.
We headed down to the IIPD and I started gearing up. When I was sufficiently dolled up, Indro whistled.
“Man, you look good in that suit. Emphasizes the, ah, lungs, if you catch my drift.”
I grinned at him. “Indro, you’ve seen me naked. A lot.”
“Yeah, but I can appreciate threads of all varieties. You’d make anything look good.”
“Put your hormones in neutral,” I said, staring at the wind-swept waters below the pier. “I need to concentrate. It’s been years since I did this.”
“Where’d you learn to scuba, anyway?”
“My old man had a winter home down in Daytona Beach. We used to go diving a lot. You remember that old Bond flick, Thunderball? My old man’s favorite movie. I think he was living vicariously through me.”
“Wait,” Indro said, his face creased in a frown. “Is this going to be dangerous?”
“Indro, I’ve been kidnapped—twice—threatened, shot at, and almost drowned. It’s a little late to worry about danger.”
I pulled the hood over my head and donned the face mask. I put the breathing apparatus in my mouth and flopped over to the edge of the pier. Indro handed me the Matjack inflatable salvage bag. I flicked on my light and stepped off the edge.
I hit the water a lot harder than I expected to. It had been years since I went diving, and the waters off Daytona Beach were a lot clearer than a churned-up Lake Michigan.
My light lit the way. The first thing I spotted wasn’t underwater life. It was junk. I swam downward, flippers beating the water as I descended into the murky depths.
I grimaced at the pollution mired in the mud. Absolutely revolting, the way people treat their planet. An orange medical waste bag with a biohazard symbol rippled in my wake as I swam a few feet above the bottom.
I spotted something, a black, longish shape. I finned over to it and my eyes widened. It was the right shape. It occurred to me that it may or may not even be the right body. Guess there was only one way to find out.
I tried tugging it out of the mud so I could attach the Matjack, but it had been weighted down with something insanely heavy. Working carefully, measuring every breath so I wouldn’t panic, I dug enough of it out of the mud so I could attach the inflatable.
I churned up so much silt I was nearly blind, even with the light, but I got the job done.
Well, here goes nothing…
I activated the airbag, making sure the hose hadn’t gotten tangled. The yellow bladder swelled outward, and the body broke free of the mud. I swam up beside it, guiding the longish
shape up to the surface.
When I came up, I saw a very worried Indro gazing down at the water. I gave him a wave, and then tugged the body up to the surface.
“We’re going to need somebody to help us haul it out,” I shouted after removing my mouthpiece.
The somebody turned out to be some of Indro’s transient friends. Twenty of them, to be exact. With all those hands helping, we dragged it out with relative ease.
I unzipped the bag and beheld a pale, sightlessly staring face.
“Hello, Father Glen Gilberti,” I said with a grin.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Indro
I stood in front of the mirror, checking out my new threads. A Brioni three-piece suit in dashing silver, paired with a charcoal undershirt and a tie with a subtle check pattern in gray and black. I wanted to look like a million bucks for my last day in court.
I affixed my cufflinks, sterling silver with embossed eagle designs. I ran a comb through my already perfect hair and turned to the side. I cut one hell of a figure, if I do say so myself.
Sophie had headed out before me, having to set up her big reveal. I added a pair of aviator sunglasses and smiled. I looked every bit the mobster I was.
“See you later, stud,” I said, pointing at my reflection. I headed out of Sophie’s place and walked over a sidewalk recently scraped of snow. I sprang for a ride to the courthouse. No point in being late because I slid into a parked car.
Even though the day was cold, gray, and miserable, I found myself in the highest of spirits. I thought about the events leading up to what Sophie assured me would be my final court date. Who’d have thought I’d hook up with a lawyer, albeit a gorgeous one?
My good mood was tempered somewhat by the knowledge that a full-on gang war was brewing. The Maloiks and the Loggias. Long-time allies, turned into foes. So far the other families seemed to be staying out of it. Hopefully it would remain that way. As it was, the streets were likely to run red with blood before the dust settled.
I couldn’t wait to see the look on that smug prick Miller’s face when Sophie unveiled her little surprise. If the killjoy Judge Moreno hadn’t banned recording devices, I’d have been prepared to snap a picture.