‘A pleasure,’ the bartender said and pocketed the bill.
‘Can you help me with one more thing? What time does Señor Nuñez leave?’
The bartender gave him a wary look. ‘You couldn’t ask him yourself?’
Kelson took another twenty from his wallet and laid it on the bar top. ‘I left in a hurry.’
Without glancing at the bill, the bartender folded it into his fingers. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed until closing. Tonight, that’s two a.m.’
Then Kelson headed for the exit.
He almost made it.
Two men by the hostess station grabbed his arms and guided him back into the club. They were no bigger than many other guys who work out at the gym for a few hours each day, but there were two of them.
While couples did the rumba to a tune heavy with guitars and clave rhythm, the men pushed him into a narrow hallway covered with graffiti.
One of them shoved him through a restroom door, while the other stood guard outside. The first threw him against a stall. As Kelson bounced back, the man planted a fist in his jaw. All the Percocet in the world couldn’t take away the pain of a punch like that. The man seemed to grunt his words – ‘Don’t’ – he threw a punch into Kelson’s ribs – ‘ever’ – Kelson slid toward the tile floor, but the man hoisted him up by his jacket – ‘call’ – the man punched him in the jaw again – ‘Señor Nuñez’ – Kelson felt himself falling and falling – ‘Chilito.’
The man kicked Kelson and kicked him again. In the head, in the ribs, in the head, in the ribs. Kelson pasted himself on the dirty bathroom tile as if the cool and wet could open an escape hatch. The man grunted with each kick. Kelson groaned, lips to the tile. The man kicked him exactly ten times, as if doling out lashes written in law. Sometime after the last kick, Kelson fingered his ankle holster, tugged out his gun, and aimed at the man. But the man was gone.
Kelson pried himself from the floor and looked at the mirror. He felt exactly like the man who stared back – wincing from pain in his ribs, his face bruised, his top lip cracked. He set his pistol on the sink and splashed water on his face. He mumbled something as incoherent as his thoughts. He straightened his pants, his shirt, his jacket. He ran water over his hands, splashed it on his face again, and slicked back his hair. He didn’t like the man in the mirror.
He tucked his pistol in his belt and stumbled out into the club. The DJ was playing a song with a hard, thumping beat. If Kelson didn’t get out soon, he felt his head would explode. But he stumbled past dancing couples toward the VIP room. No one seemed to care about a bruised man lurching through the strobe light.
In the dim corridor, Juan the waiter brushed past with platters from the table.
‘Ghost,’ Kelson said – and he meant himself.
Outside the room, he pulled his pistol from his belt. He took out the magazine, checked it, and slapped it back in place. He shoved open the door.
The room was empty. Nuñez and his guests – gone. Only a food-stained tablecloth showed the damage they’d done.
Kelson stood, bewildered. He raised his pistol and aimed at the chair where Nuñez had sat. He tightened his finger on the trigger, then eased it. ‘Probably for the best,’ he said.
He went back out and crossed to the bar. He signaled the bleach-blond bartender. The bartender – mixing a highball the color of blood in water, topping it with an orange wedge – ignored him. Kelson waited. ‘No rush,’ he said.
The bartender filled another customer’s order – green with jalapeño slices – before coming to Kelson. ‘What can I do for you?’
Kelson fumbled with his wallet, taking out another twenty and putting it on the bar top. ‘Where’d Nuñez go?’
The bartender ignored the bill. He stared at Kelson as if he’d never seen him before and asked, ‘Who?’
TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Kelson had an appointment with Dr P.
Overnight, the rain had stopped, and the sky was clear and cold. As Kelson walked from the parking lot to the Rehabilitation Institute building, he tried to whistle from his swollen jaw. ‘Nothing doing,’ he mumbled.
After he told Dr P about the past few days, finishing with a blow-by-blow account of the Bomboleo men’s room, she shined a penlight at his pupils, had him perform a coordination exercise, and asked questions from a cognitive acuity test.
She sighed when he touched his finger to his nose and again when he nailed the answers. She said, ‘You can’t let people kick you in the head.’
‘I didn’t let him—’
‘Repeat injuries could be catastrophic,’ she said. ‘Even a minor concussion might—’
‘I thought you would be sympathetic.’
‘Because you saw a roaring fire and jumped into it?’
‘I didn’t light the fire. Someone set me up.’
‘What would be your best response to that?’ She had the tone of a parent who was more disappointed than angry. ‘I mean, would it be better to jump in or run away?’
‘Is this a brain test?’ he said.
‘It’s a test of whether you have any common sense.’
‘What lobe is that in?’
‘Would you have shot that man if he’d been sitting in the chair?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘At the time, I thought I would. But it didn’t happen.’
‘I think you should give up your weapon until we understand your impulse control more fully.’
‘I got sent to a condo to find a dead man. I came home and found a dead woman in my bed. A killer is targeting me. And you want me to give up my gun?’
‘I think it would be best.’
‘I like a fighting chance,’ he said.
‘It worked out well for you last night.’
‘The gun gave me a chance.’
‘It did you no good, and it put others at risk. At least lock it up. Put it in a gun safe.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
She wrote notes on a clipboard. ‘The kittens are good.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Fluffy. Sue Ellen likes them.’
‘They help with the headaches?’
‘They seem to. It’s nice to have company.’
She wrote another note. ‘Just don’t shoot them.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
When Kelson pulled from the parking lot, he glanced at the mirror and asked, ‘Who does she think I am?’ A half block away, he glanced again. ‘Kittens, for God’s sake.’ He turned the corner toward Lake Shore Drive and looked a third time – now to check the green Audi behind him. As he’d come out of the parking lot, the car had pulled from the curb across the street, and now it turned with him. No big deal if he hadn’t gone through what he’d gone through lately, but the side windows on the Audi were tinted, and glare from the sun kept him from making out the driver.
So instead of continuing on to Lake Shore Drive, he turned again.
The Audi turned behind him.
He turned again. The Audi turned.
‘As if I didn’t already have enough,’ he said. He slowed as he approached the stop light at Michigan Avenue, then punched the gas as the light turned yellow. It flipped red as he entered the intersection, but the other driver gunned it and followed him across to the music of car horns and screeching brakes. ‘Must be important,’ Kelson said, and he turned, drove to Lake Shore Drive, and headed to his office. When he pulled into the parking garage, the other car went past, slowing at the curb. When he walked out to the sidewalk, the driver’s door on the Audi opened. The redhead got out. She wore black leggings and a red angora sweater. She’d gelled her hair into spikes.
Kelson stopped. ‘Not again.’
‘Fancy driving,’ she said. ‘You’ll get us both killed.’
‘That’ll save you the work,’ he said. ‘How did you find me at the Rehab Institute?’
‘I followed you since you left your apartment this morning.’
‘Damn,’ he said, and he looked up and down the stree
t to see who else she had brought. He pulled out his phone. ‘I’m calling nine-one-one.’
‘Hang up or I’ll drive away,’ she said.
‘Really? Do you promise not to come back?’
‘You’ll be glad if I stay. Come on.’ She walked toward his building.
He stood still. ‘You’ve gotten me twice. There was a time when you wouldn’t have gotten me at all.’
She came back, close enough that he felt her breath. ‘The thing is, standing out here, we’re both taking a risk,’ she said. ‘The cops think you’re making me up – or else you’re involved with me in ways you haven’t admitted. And the guy who’s setting you up thinks I’ll do anything he tells me to do because he has me on a string too. If he found out I came to see you—’
‘Hugo Nuñez.’
‘What?’
‘Hugo Nuñez. Chilito. Is he Mengele?’
‘I don’t know anyone named Hugo Nuñez.’
‘The damned thing is, I don’t know if you’re lying.’
‘Let’s go inside,’ she said, and either she was scared or she did a good job of pretending.
Kelson said, ‘I think whatever game this guy is playing has just started. I think he’s out to wreck me.’
She said, ‘You want to hear what I have to say.’
‘Tell it to me.’
‘Take me inside.’
He just stared at her.
‘Fine,’ she said, and she walked toward her car.
‘You follow me back and forth across the city and then drive away?’
She got in the car.
He shouted, ‘You’ve got great legs.’
She started the engine, rolled down the window, and flipped him off. Then she hit the gas, and the Audi jumped from the curb. As it turned the corner and disappeared, he said, ‘Impulse control.’
He went up to his office and took his computer from his desk. Then he pulled out the picture of Sue Ellen and walked around the office holding it against the walls. Maybe Peters was right – he should hang it. Maybe Sue Ellen’s gaze wouldn’t give him a headache. Maybe he should hang a photo of Payday and Painter’s Lane next to hers.
The phone on the desk rang.
When he picked up, the redhead said, ‘The funny thing is, I could help you.’
‘Why don’t you leave me alone? Tell whoever’s behind this I got the message. Tell him I’m sorry about Bicho. Tell him I wish the kid never shot me and I never shot him. I wish I never met him and he was selling coke to some other undercover cop and I was far away.’
‘Did anyone ever tell you you’re intriguing?’
‘Yeah, a word that gets used for me a lot, mostly as an insult,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you harass someone else?’
‘When I drove away, you were supposed to yell at me to come back. That’s what I thought you would do, based on your behavior.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘I learned how to read people when I was little,’ she said. ‘Survival instinct.’
‘With the stepdad who used to come to you in your bedroom?’
‘Exactly.’
‘If he’s even real.’
‘All too real,’ she said.
‘What would’ve happened if I’d brought you up to my office? What would you have told me?’
‘I would’ve told you about Bicho’s girlfriend Francisca and her baby. Bicho wasn’t the father.’
‘If that’s true, I’m sure Bicho would care – if he could. But why should I?’
‘Because the father owns most of the apartment buildings in Bicho’s old neighborhood, including the one where Francisca lived with her mom until her mom kicked her out.’
‘Dominick Stevens?’
‘Uh-huh.’
The thought sent a shiver through him.
She said, ‘With a good-looking man like him – young, lots of money, lots of power – who could blame her? But if Mengele wants to get people who hurt Bicho, what happens to Stevens?’
‘I see your point,’ he said. ‘But I’ve also seen it before. What do you want me to do? Rush over to his office and get myself in trouble again?’
‘Not his office, no. His townhouse in Lincoln Park.’
‘I’ll bet you’ll even give me the address.’
‘Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know it?’
‘No.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘you’re intriguing. Cute too.’ And she hung up.
‘I know what you’re doing,’ he said to the phone anyway. ‘And it won’t work.’
To clear his mind and dull the urge, he looked out the window at the mid-morning traffic. He half expected to see the Audi parked at the corner, the redhead staring at him through the windshield. He thought about what the redhead said about Francisca Cabon. ‘Must’ve been, like, sixteen when Stevens got her pregnant,’ he said. ‘If he really did.’ He thought about Miguel, Francisca’s baby, with his intense blue eyes. ‘You don’t get eyes like that except from pain or joy,’ he said.
He went back to his desk and called the Stevens Group office.
The receptionist said Stevens was out and asked who was calling.
Kelson told her and asked, ‘Has he come in today?’
‘I’m afraid his schedule is private,’ she said.
‘If he’s supposed to be there and hasn’t arrived, call the police,’ he told her. ‘Have them check him at home.’
When he hung up, he Googled Stevens’s name along with the word ‘townhouse.’ He got hundreds of real-estate listings. So, he Googled the phrase ‘Dominick Stevens’s home.’ He got a link to a Chicago Magazine feature titled ‘Chicago’s Designing Entrepreneurs’ that profiled five men and women who dug deep into their bank accounts as they rehabbed old houses. The profile showed Stevens standing outside a two-flat on North Burling that he’d converted into what the magazine called ‘the ultimate retro bachelor pad.’
He went back to the window and tried to fight the urge for another twenty minutes. He fogged the window glass as he told it all the reasons he should ignore the redhead’s call. Then he grabbed his coat and went down to his car.
Kelson drove down Halsted and cut over to North Burling. ‘Jackpot,’ he said. A block and a half away, a half dozen squad cars, their lights flashing, filled the street.
Kelson pulled to the side and turned off the engine. ‘Not such an idiot after all,’ he said.
He watched as cops went to the front steps of Stevens’s house and returned to their cars, then went back to the house. They looked overexcited. Although every impulse said Go close and see, Kelson stayed put. ‘Not so much of an idiot,’ he said.
He sat for ten minutes. An ambulance approached the squad cars from the other direction, and two paramedics got out and talked with a uniformed cop. They stayed outside. Five more minutes passed. Another cop came from the house, and then the paramedics got back into the ambulance and left. Kelson said, ‘That’s either very good or very bad.’ More cops came out, got in their cars, and drove away too, leaving three squads.
‘Dammit,’ Kelson said. He started the car.
But before he could pull from the curb, a grimy blue Ford Interceptor rushed down the street behind him, braking hard and blocking him in.
Peters climbed out.
If Kelson opened his door, Peters might shoot him, so he rolled down his window and said, ‘Good morning, Detective.’
Peters said, ‘You’re a real asshole.’
Kelson said, ‘Some people think I’m intriguing.’
Peters yanked the car door open as if he would drag him out. ‘Why did you make the call?’
‘What?’
‘It’s like you’re making bomb threats.’
‘I figured, better safe than—’
‘But why? What made you think?’
Kelson couldn’t help but answer. ‘The redhead with the great ass.’
‘Goddammit.’
‘Is Stevens all right?’
‘No, he’s not al
l right – he’s pissed off. With good reason.’
‘He was supposed to be at his office. If his people called, they must’ve been worried.’
‘He was at home – with a companion.’
‘A companion?’
‘Yeah, a goddamned companion.’
‘Stevens had a kid with Bicho’s girlfriend. At least the redhead says he did.’
‘We know that. We’ve known for a long time.’
‘You have?’
‘Who do you think the companion is?’
‘Oh,’ Kelson said. Then, ‘She was sixteen when he got her pregnant. There’re laws against that.’
‘There are also laws against calling in false threats.’
‘You’re letting him slide on the girl?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Because he’s connected to power.’
‘Because the girl won’t testify. And she won’t allow blood tests on the baby. And yes, because Stevens has power. What the hell did you think? I’ve never known a guy who was a cop for fourteen years but was so naïve.’
‘I was a cop for fourteen years and I have an eleven-year-old daughter who’ll be sixteen in a few years.’
‘Oh, Christ, don’t be sentimental. That’s as bad as naïve.’
‘The redhead said—’
‘Shut up. OK? I don’t want to hear it. If this woman’s more than a fucked-up figment of your fucked-up imagination, next time she tells you to do something, do the opposite, OK?’
Kelson could’ve argued.
He could’ve explained.
He said, ‘OK.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
‘What made me do it?’ Kelson said as he drove back to his office. ‘Judgment. I always trusted my judgment.’ Next time he saw Dr P, he would ask if his brain injury could change his judgment the way it initially changed his ability to walk through doorways, skewing him by ten or fifteen degrees, smacking him into doorframes any normal man would thread without bumping shoulders. But he already knew Dr P’s answer. Sure, why not? She’d told him a dozen ways already. With the brain, we’re always in new territory. You’re one of a kind, Mr Kelson. Sometimes a brain injury even leads to new characteristics and abilities – a fondness for piano music, a facility with foreign languages.
Trouble in Mind Page 11