Cold Justice

by Rick Polad

  I laughed but stopped when I realized he was serious. “Really? You were just complaining about the cold.”

  “Not happy about that, but I’d like to be a part of this.”

  “You do realize that everyone at this table agrees that Joey didn’t kill Schloff.”

  He nodded as he chewed.

  “So you want to be a part of maybe getting Joey off?”

  He thought for a few seconds. “Maybe not.”

  “Yeah, maybe not.” I gave him a sideways look. “Any maybe you couldn’t get him in court, so you set him up in a frame.”

  “Don’t say that too loud.”

  “You’re not denying it?”

  He just looked at me with a little smile.

  I took a deep breath and rolled my eyes. “Okay, I can use the help. I’ll have photos in the morning. Carol will have them by noon. Danny lives with Joey along with Moose. The kid drops them off at ten and picks them up at five.” I gave Ben the license number of the Lincoln and Joey’s address.

  “Okay. I’ll stop at the office at noon. Reports to Carol?”

  “Sure, but if you need me, I have a new toy.” I told him about my portable phone. He agreed that it wouldn’t catch on.

  As I paid the bill I told him I had talked to Mooneen and asked him how old she was. He said I’d find out.

  I ended the night early after a phone call with Rosie. I mentioned the alley in passing. She didn’t correct me. I didn’t know if she didn’t know or wasn’t talking. I figured I could tell Rosie, but Stosh had said nobody means nobody. I guessed that included Rosie.

  I turned on the news as I got ready for bed. The weatherman was describing the arctic air that was going to move in by morning. Something about a dip in the jet stream. Below zero by sunrise with winds picking up during the day and a wind chill of twenty below. It would be a good day to say inside. Great timing.

  Chapter 8

  The garage was heated so the Mustang started easily Thursday morning. I just had to walk twenty feet to the garage, but that was brutal. The thermometer on the back wall of the porch showed five below, and the wind was blowing hard out of the north. The sky was blue with bright sun that did nothing for the temperature. People in the southern hemisphere were complaining about the heat.

  The parking garage was a half block from Spiro’s. Luckily the wind was at my back, but the cold blew right through me. There were three people in the restaurant, one woman sitting by herself in the back booth. It was Mooneen Gossett. She didn’t look anything like the picture I had from her voice. I didn’t have a definite picture, but I had envisioned a young woman. Mooneen was old enough to be my grandmother.

  After some small talk about the cold that gave complete strangers something to talk about, we ordered sub sandwiches at the counter. The counter man asked if she wanted her usual.

  “So you come here often,” I said.

  “Yes, it’s a popular spot. Usually packed at lunch, but today only the brave wander out.”

  My winter braveness had ended in December. I was ready for spring. I told myself I was doing this for Billy.

  “How long have you worked for the city?”

  She laughed. “Too long.”

  Our number was called and I got the sandwiches.

  “Thank you, Mr. Manning.”

  “My pleasure. How long is ‘too long’?”

  “Oh, I lose track, but it’s been about thirty years.” She smiled at the amazement on my face.

  “I bet you could write a book.”

  “I probably could.”

  We ate and talked about the current Harold Washington regime. As the first black mayor of Chicago, he had won with the support of blacks and white liberals who saw him as a reform candidate. Voters weren’t happy with the chaotic leadership of Jane Byrne, the first woman mayor, who had been elected because voters remembered two disastrous snowstorms in 1979 that had dumped thirty-five inches of snow on the city in two weeks. Michael Bilandic, who had taken over when Richard J. Daley had died in office in 1976, was blamed for the aftermath of the storm—roads weren’t cleared for days, trash pickup had stopped, el trains bypassed stops, and other city services came to a halt. All that, of course, was not Bilandic’s fault, but he was the guy sitting in the seat.

  The papers were full of the bad blood between Mayor Washington and the city council, and I asked how that was affecting the everyday business of the city.

  Mooneen shrugged and, with a resigned look, said, “Doesn’t affect me too much. Hard to make dogs political, but the big things are a mess. Politics is politics. It will never again be the same as when Mayor Daley was here.”

  “You mean never as corrupt?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, it will always be corrupt. But the city worked when Daley was mayor. It was corrupt as hell, but he got things done and took care of the people.”

  “Maybe there’s another Daley in our future.”

  “Maybe. But he’ll never be like his father.”

  I took a bite and turned to the dog.

  “So back to my question, Mooneen. You said you had a guess for why the form says ‘health reasons’ without listing the reason.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She finished the last bite of her sub and said, “Bribery, or she knows somebody.”

  I wondered why that guess rated a free lunch. “And you couldn’t have said that over the phone?”

  She wiped her mouth, folded the napkin, and set it next to her plate. “I could not. There are ears all over that place and rumors that phones are bugged.” Seeing the look of wonder on my face, she continued. “I know, who cares about dog permits, but the atmosphere of distrust and backstabbing is everywhere. I’m close to retiring. I’d like to do that on my own terms rather than get a pink slip.”

  “Okay, so what do you think health reasons means?”

  She looked straight at me with a determined look. “I think it means there’s nothing wrong with that woman and that she knows someone who pulled some strings.”

  “Can you tell who approved the application?”

  “Normally, but not in this case. The signature is illegible.”

  “Do you know when the application was processed and who would have normally handled it?”

  “I do. It was two years ago, and that would have been me. But it wasn’t me.”

  “So who else might it have been?”

  “Any of eleven people in the department.”

  I realized I was spending more time on a dog permit than on Joey, and I had to get to County.

  “Eleven people for dogs?”

  She laughed. “We handle other things too.”

  “Was there a date on the application?”

  “Yes, another week will be two years. And I have a question for you.”

  I figured she’d earned a question. “Shoot.”

  “Why are you so interested in this?”

  I explained what had happened, and she looked disgusted.

  “That’s just plain wrong, Mr. Manning. I’ve learned to look the other way at how people abuse the system. But to abuse an animal… just plain wrong. Someone who drags a dog belongs in jail.”

  I agreed. “Tell me, why would someone who doesn’t really need the dog want one?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if you want a pet you just go get a pet. Is there any special benefit she gets out of having a guide dog?”

  Mooneen looked disgusted. “Sure. Special parking, early admittance to events, things like that. But hardly worth going to the trouble.”

  “Unless you have a special pipeline that cuts through the red tape.”

  Mooneen just shook her head. “It’s just disgusting. These dogs are in demand. They don’t have enough to go around. She’s taking that dog from someone who really needs it.”

  “I agree. But let’s try and give her the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Maybe there’s some reason we’re missing.”

  “Maybe. Thanks for lunch.�
� She pushed back her chair and stopped, looking thoughtful. “I might be able to do one more thing. It’ll take a couple of days, but I’ll look into records and see if she’s in the system prior to this current application.”

  “I’d appreciate anything you can do, Mooneen. Thanks.” I gave her my card and we stood. As I put on my coat, I said, “One more thing. I wonder if I could get a copy of the application.” I helped her on with her coat.

  She laughed and opened her purse. “You’ll have to forgive my old memory, Mr. Manning.” She handed me a folded piece of paper, saying, “I thought you might want it, so I made a copy. I just forgot to give it to you.”

  I returned the laugh. “Not a problem, Mooneen. Thanks much.” I held the door, and we headed in opposite directions. While my car was warming up I looked at the application. The dog’s name was Spot. He didn’t have any spots.

  ***

  The same guard was at the counter when I walked into the jail. I filled out the form, showed my ID, and got ready to wait. Luckily I was the only one there. We both commented on the cold, and as he handed me my pass he said, “At least you don’t need your snow brush today.”

  I was impressed. Someone working in a jail should be observant, but that probably wasn’t always the case. He told me it should only be ten minutes. It was five.

  ***

  I watched Joey walk into the room, dejected and slump-shouldered. If a man is made by the clothes he wears, Joey had fallen to the bottom of the ladder. He looked mentally beat-up and defeated. His eyes were dead, and dark lines accented the bottoms. If it were someone else I might ask how they were doing, but I could tell how he was doing just by looking at him. And most of me thought that was okay. He deserved this and far more.

  As he sat down on the other side of the glass, he laid into me. Or at least he tried to. There wasn’t much authority left in Joey’s belligerence. I almost laughed. But I was working for him so I kept a little respect.

  “Manning, I’m still here. What the hell are you doing?”

  “What I usually do. I have operatives looking into some aspects of this, and—”

  “What aspects?”

  “Nothing I want to share at the moment.” He would have gone nuts if I would have told him the aspects were his men. “But there’s one person who isn’t working on it at the moment and that’s me.”

  He just stared at me with those dead eyes.

  “I got a call from a Mister O’Brien. He said you wanted to see me.”

  “Damned right. I want to know what’s going on… and not just you got aspects. Why the hell aren’t you working on it? I hired you, not some losers.”

  “I’m not working on it because I’m sitting here talking to you.”

  “Well you—”

  “Me nothing, Joey. I do things my own way. And that doesn’t include visiting you, unless I need something. There’s nothing I can discover looking at you through this glass. So, unless you think of something important, like who your bodyguard is, I’ll make sure O’Brien is kept up to date with anything important. If that’s not okay, I’ll return the five Gs.” A big part of me was hoping he would take me up on that, but he didn’t.

  “Okay, okay. Calm down. This is driving me nuts. You gotta get me outta here, Manning.”

  “First, I’m doing everything I can. Second, this is only the second day. This is all about wearing out shoe leather. One step at a time and see where things go. I’ve got the best people working on it.” I hadn’t left a case unsolved yet, but there was always a first time. I wasn’t going to tell Joey that, but I did have another thought.

  “How many times have you been arrested, Joey?”

  “Including this one? Eighteen.”

  I nodded. “And how many times convicted?”

  He looked up with what little pride he had left. “Zero.”

  “Right. Let’s assume that some of those eighteen you were guilty of, but your lawyers were smart enough to get you off.”

  “I was never guilty!” There was a little fire left in those dead eyes.

  “Just for this purpose let’s cut the crap. You were guilty of some of those and others that never led to an arrest.”

  “I ain’t admittin’ nothin’.”

  “Not asking you to. Just asking you to consider a point.”

  “What point is that?”

  “Let’s also assume that you were framed for the murder of Max Schloff.”

  “We don’t have to assume. I was! I wouldn’t waste a breath on that Schloff crumb. What’s your point?”

  “What if whoever did the framing is just as smart as you? Or even smarter? What if they’re smart enough to get away with this?”

  He squirmed in the chair, and I was smiling on the inside. I didn’t mind at all adding to his discomfort.

  “That’s why I hired you, Manning. You gotta be smarter than them. How many cases have you solved?”

  “All of them.”

  He nodded. “So what’s the problem? Solve this one.”

  “So you’re not firing me?”

  “No, I’m not firing you. Get the hell outta here and find who did this.”

  He stood up, and the guard walked over to his chair. Joey turned without saying another word.

  ***

  As I unlocked the car door my fancy phone started ringing. I picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Manning.”

  “Spencer, it’s Carol.”

  “Hi, kiddo. You win the prize for being my first call.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You get to work for the best PI in Chicago.”

  “Great! Who is it?”

  “Nice.” I started the car. “What’s up?”

  “Are you coming back to the office?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it. Do I need to?”

  “Not since you have that phone. Ben called. He has some information. He’d like you to call him tonight.”

  “Okay. Thanks. Nothing on the backgrounds yet?”

  “No. I’ll let you know as soon as I get something.”

  “I know you will. Just anxious.”

  I tried backing out of the spot and realized I couldn’t look over my shoulder holding the phone with the cord stretched across the gear shift. Another reason this would never catch on. So I put the Mustang back in park and let the car warm up.

  “How was your lunch?” she asked.

  “Nothing much. But she’s going to dig a little deeper.”

  “I hope she finds something. I really don’t like that person.”

  “I hope so too. I can’t imagine someone you wouldn’t like this much. She must be pretty nasty.”

  “That’s putting it lightly. I’d say a bitch.”

  “And that’s the first time I’ve heard that word come out of your mouth.”

  “And you may never hear it again.”

  I laughed. While we talked, I was staring at the temperature gauge. It wasn’t moving.

  “One more thing, Spencer. I confirmed your appointment tomorrow at eleven with Mr. Maggio.”

  “Great, Thanks Carol. I’ll stop in the office first.”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  “Hi to Billy.”

  The gauge had started to move. I turned the fan up to high and backed out of the spot. It was just a little past four. I had plenty of time to get some food before picking up Rosie at eight. We were going to see the new Star Wars movie.

  ***

  I put a pan of tomato soup on the stove and called Ben.

  “Hey, Spencer. I’ve only got a few minutes. The backgrounds should be done sometime tomorrow morning. They’ll fax them to your office.”

  “Thanks. That’s it?”

  “No. I picked up Danny Primo this afternoon about two when he left the flat. He made some stops and picked the boys up at five.”

  “So?”

  “So, one of the stops was a liquor store on Clark Street. He parks a few doors down and goes in. Two minutes later, in walk
s Jack Eigen. And ten minutes later they walk out together, talk for a minute, shake hands, and leave in opposite directions.”

  “Jack Eigen. I haven’t heard that name in a while. He’s got a long record as I remember. What do you know about him lately?” I made a ham sandwich while we talked.

  “Yeah, all two-bit dumb crap. But he did time for every one. When I left we hadn’t heard from him in six months. But I bet his parole officer would like to know who he’s hanging around with.”

  I agreed. “But maybe it was just a chance meeting.”

  Ben laughed. “And maybe the Cubs will win the series this year.”

  “You never know.”

  “I know.”

  “Yeah, you and everyone else. Talk to you tomorrow. Stay warm.”

  “I plan on it. Nice night to stay home.”

  “Yup. Wish I could.”

  “You’re going out in this? Hot date with Rosie?”

  “Yup, and a fluttering curtain.”

  “I’d ask what the hell that means, but I gotta go. Hope it’s worth venturing out in fifteen below.”

  “Me too. See ya, Ben.”

  “Adios.”

  The soup had been simmering. I poured it into a mug, sat at the kitchen table, and ate while trying not to think about the temperature. My trek could wait until tomorrow, but it had to be at night, and tomorrow wasn’t supposed to be much warmer. It was a great night to go to a movie. The place was almost empty.

  ***

  I dropped Rosie off and headed south. There were very few cars on the road. It took twenty minutes to get to Joey’s ice cream shop and park in his private spot by the hydrant. I sat for a few minutes looking across the street at the window with the curtain that had fluttered without any wind.

  I zipped my jacket, pulled on gloves, and headed across the street. The building had three floors. The curtain was on the second. Only two names were listed for the second floor. There was a Michael Masters and an L. Hands. I was looking for the name of the lady with the short dark hair who spent her days in the ice cream parlor. I wondered why, and the best place to start was with her name. A first name would have been nice, but getting that wouldn’t be hard.

  I sat in the car for five minutes looking up at the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of my mystery woman. She didn’t show. Before I drove away, I looked back at the window and said, “Hello L. Hands.”