Sorry Now?

by Mark Richard Zubro

  Jeff saw his dad first. “Hey, Dad, I finally beat Brian at Monopoly.”

  Brian put his hand over the phone receiver and said, “He got lucky.”

  Turner ruffled his younger son’s hair and congratulated him on his victory. He heard Brian tell whoever was on the other end of the line that he had to go. Mrs. Talucci smiled at Turner. Turner introduced Manfred and Fenwick.

  Turner checked on his son’s progress with a nurse who entered in answer to his pressing the button. Jeff would be able to leave the hospital soon.

  After talking briefly with his sons and Mrs. Talucci, Turner, Fenwick, and Manfred moved into the hallway.

  They asked him about Wilmer.

  “I heard he died,” Manfred said. “I’ve been trying to find out from what. I couldn’t learn anything. I didn’t think it was AIDS. I heard he got drunk and fell off a bridge. Is that right?”

  “No,” Turner said. He told him what they knew.

  “Who’d want to murder an old drunk?”

  “We aren’t sure,” Turner said. “We’re trying to trace him movements that last Saturday, but we don’t know who his buddies were.”

  “I can’t help you much. I know his favorite place to flop was the Mission of Eternal Peace.”

  “Mucklewrath’s mission?” Fenwick said.

  “Pardon me?” Manfred said.

  Fenwick explained briefly.

  Manfred knew little about Wilmer’s private life. “If you’ve talked to May Worth, you know as much as almost anybody in the hospital. That woman is worth more than an entire school of brain surgeons.”

  Fenwick left to go home. Manfred said he had a few more kids to see, and maybe they’d have time to talk briefly when he got back.

  Turner reentered his son’s room. Brian and Jeff sat on the bed with the Monopoly board set up for a new game. They played intently, each determined to win.

  Mrs. Talucci left her paperback on the seat of the chair. She motioned Turner back into the hall.

  She whispered, “You know that Dr. Manfred?”

  Turner nodded. “We’ve met a couple times.”

  “I like him. He’s not an Italian boy, but that’s all right. He was good with Jeffy. But have you talked to Ben Vargas yet?”

  “We always talk, Mrs. Talucci.”

  “You haven’t asked him for a date yet?”

  “No, Mrs. Talucci.”

  “Nice Italian boys are the kind to settle down with. This Manfred though, that doesn’t sound Italian. Although he is a doctor, I like that.”

  “We haven’t really even gone out on a date.” Why was he explaining this to her, he thought. Then again, why not. She cared.

  Turner decided to stop by the Mission of Eternal Peace on his way home. An enormous renovated factory building housed the mission, on west Madison Street two blocks east of Chicago Stadium, where the Bulls played their home games. Inside Turner found secretaries at computer terminals, well-polished floors, and gleaming woodwork. The people he saw moved with purpose and efficiency. A well-scrubbed young man in a form-fitting, short-sleeved white shirt and black pants greeted him from behind a modern desk. Turner showed his star and asked to talk to whoever was in charge at the moment. Several days ago he’d talked to a Mrs. Epstein. The young man brought Turner to her again.

  She smiled in greeting. He told her he wanted to find out information about Wilmer.

  “I don’t know our clients by name. You might find a few of the staff who know him. May I take you to them?”

  He agreed. As they left her office, another gleaming modern room, she asked if he wanted a tour. For half an hour Turner let her lead him around the entire complex. The old factory must have taken over half a city block, and not an inch of it hadn’t been cleaned and polished to a shine. Much of it had been rehabbed and some was completely new. She showed him chapels, work rooms, dormitories for men and women, dining rooms, a library, custodian’s closets, and storage rooms. Everything seemed neat and organized in the extreme. Turner began to appreciate the kind of scale the reverend worked on. It would take millions in donations to subsidize such an operation, even if every one of the workers was a volunteer. All of these appeared to be young and energetic.

  In their slouched stupors the homeless, gathered at various parts of the building, seemed mostly overwhelmed at their surroundings.

  “Who would have had the most contact with Wilmer?” Turner asked.

  She led him to a large admitting room. “Each person who comes in has to sign in here. They are assigned their task for their stay. We don’t give anything away free. They have no money, but they can give us their strong arms and bodies to clean, sweep, whatever is needed.”

  Another young man, who could have been the twin to the receptionist, stood up and shook Turner’s hand. Mrs. Epstein said to him, “Travis, help the detective in any way you can. If you can’t, please see if any of the others have any information he needs.”

  The youth nodded, smiled at Turner. Travis sat on the edge of the desk. Turner wondered if the boy’s face ever began to crack from what seemed to be a permanent smile. Immediately upon thinking this, he berated himself. The kid probably worked hard in an environment that had to be foreign to him. He must have seen and heard enough to depress him for the rest of his life. Turner had grudging admiration for faith that could stand up to the beating it must take every day, even in this gleaming, well-financed facility.

  “How long have you worked here, Travis?” Turner asked.

  “About a year. I go to the U. of I. during the day. I make a little money doing this. They have a tuition program here for the employees, for us kids in the faith. Have you been saved, Mr. Turner?”

  Turner said, “I need to ask about one of the homeless who used to use the shelter, Wilmer Pinsakowski. He’s been murdered. You know him?”

  The boy looked genuinely shocked. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Somebody bashed him on the head and threw him into the river,” Turner said.

  “Old Wilmer? What on earth for? He was the most harmless guy. He never got in any fights or anything. He never complained about the work we gave him to do.” Travis shook his head. “He was one of the great characters around here. Everybody knew him. He spent one or two nights a week. I don’t think he needed the place to stay, but he came for the meals. A lot of the people here have places to sleep, but they don’t have enough to get something to eat, and it’s easier to stay here than trudge to some miserable flop. Plus we have air conditioning.”

  “How was he a great character?”

  “He told the best stories. A lot of times our clients exaggerate, or even fabricate entire lives and it’s all lies, but Wilmer, he told stories. People would gather around to listen to him, and somehow he got them to tell fewer lies about their lives. Lots of them trusted Wilmer.”

  “Anybody in particular?”

  “No,” Travis said, “just most everybody.”

  “What time did he come in Friday?”

  “Around eleven. A little late for him, but not all that unusual. Some of the shelters close early. We never do.”

  “Had he been around much lately?”

  “Not the past few days, but I’m not always on duty.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Friday night, I think. It was a fairly slow night. Many of them sleep outside in the summer. We have fewer people, so it’s easier to notice.”

  “How did he seem that night?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Did he act normal?”

  The boy thought a minute. “No, not really. I mean, he didn’t tell stories. When he came in, he always teased me, and he didn’t that night.”

  “What would he tease you about?”

  Travis blushed red. He stared at his feet. “He tried to talk dirty to me. They teach us to ignore a lot of the stuff the clients say. A lot of them are disturbed in the head, and they say all kinds of crazy things.” He looked up at Turner. “I think,”
he whispered, “Wilmer may have been a homosexual. He made comments about my pants and other stuff. I never said anything. We’re not supposed to let that type in, but Wilmer was a good guy. I’ve never met a real homosexual.”

  Turner resisted the impulse to say “Now you have.”

  Travis continued, “That night he didn’t tease me. He just got his admittance pass and his work assignment.”

  “Did he have any friends?”

  “None of them really had friends.”

  “Anybody he talked to more than the others?”

  Travis scratched his nearly brush-cut hair. “Well, he used to talk with Ajax. They had work detail together that night. They had to scrub the front hall. Ajax hates to work so we try to pair him up with somebody we can reasonably trust. Less supervision on our part.”

  “Ajax is his real name?”

  “We never question them. Many are ashamed of what they’ve become. We accept what they say. We really don’t need more than that.”

  “Ajax here?”

  “I’m not sure. Sometimes he gets here early. He just got thrown out of his regular place. They tend to feel real lost when they lose a familiar spot, even if it’s just an old refrigerator carton behind an old building.” Travis checked the sign in list. “Yep. He’s here. He’s assigned to trash detail.”

  No one had seen Ajax for half an hour. They began a search. They found him curled up and snoring in one of the pews in the chapel. The man’s white-streaked gray hair was down to his shoulders; he wore a stained and torn army jacket that might have been issued to him in World War II.

  Travis introduced them and left. Turner showed Ajax his star, but the half-awake man barely seemed to notice.

  Instead he said, “I don’t talk to cops.” Ajax’s rusty tenor had a tendency to crack like a teenage boy’s.

  Turner sat in the pew with Ajax, keeping only a foot or so between them. “Why not?” Turner asked.

  “Don’t trust them. They never help out. Always want to harass you and make fun.” He spent some minutes letting Turner know his view of cops in particular and then of the world in general. He eyed Turner suspiciously as he finished, “How come you don’t yell at me and tell me you’re going to run me in if I don’t talk?”

  “Because I won’t do that.”

  Ajax cackled loudly. The sound echoed off the stark white walls. “Sorry, young man,” he said when he got himself under control. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’m here about Wilmer,” Turner said quietly.

  Ajax got teary-eyed. “I heard he died. He was the only one here who ever cared for anybody else. Always collecting his damn toy cars. If any of us ever found any, we always had to give them to him. He had his damn collection. Said he needed it for a little crippled kid he knew. He didn’t know any crippled kid.”

  Turner said, “He never met my son, but he knew about him.”

  “You got a crippled kid?”

  Turner said, “My son Jeff has a birth defect.”

  Ajax rubbed the stubble on his chin with the back of his right hand. The lines of old scars covered the front of the palm. Turner noted the encrusted dirt blackening the edges of all Ajax’s fingernails. The old man leaned close. Turner didn’t flinch from the odor and the blast of noxious breath as Ajax said, “You’re Turner?”

  “Travis introduced us when we found you,” Turner reminded him.

  “I was asleep. You guys startled me. I didn’t know you were that Turner. Wilmer always talked about you and your kid. He wanted a perfect collection of cars to give to the boy. He liked you. Talked about you.”

  Turner watched the old man carefully.

  “How come you got a crippled little boy?” Ajax asked.

  The one question Paul had asked himself ten thousand times after his son’s birth. The one he’d never gotten an answer for. The question he’d taught himself not to ask. Now brought to the fore by this old man, the memory stung as if it were the night Jeff was born.

  Turner placed his elbows on his knees, his body facing forward, but his head turned sideways so he could look at the man next to him. “I don’t know,” Turner said slowly. “My wife died giving birth to him.”

  Ajax placed his hand on Turner’s shoulder. The cop didn’t flinch. “I heard a lot of claims,” the old man said. “I know which are true. I believe yours.” He coughed and peered around the chapel. The brown pews, a simple metal lectern, and the parquet floor barely relieved the starkness of the four white surrounding walls.

  “I better tell you about Wilmer,” Ajax said.

  Turner nodded.

  “He had AIDS. He couldn’t tell anybody here. They wouldn’t let him in. Wilmer hadn’t been eating much lately. He’d lost a lot of weight.”

  Turner gave an encouraging grunt.

  “Didn’t bother me any. I’m not prejudiced about sick people, or if they like guys.”

  Turner almost smiled at the wreck of humanity next to him confessing his liberality.

  “Something bothered him Friday night. Bothered him bad.”

  Turner waited while the old man coughed and brushed away some spittle from the side of his mouth.

  “He wanted to talk to you. I’m surprised he didn’t. Said he was going to.”

  “He tried to,” Turner said. He found himself describing the scene outside the police station where Wilmer had gotten angry and left before telling what he knew.

  “Typical cops,” Ajax said. “Although you don’t seem to be a bad sort. Anyway, he had to talk to you. He claimed he knew something about that murdered girl. He wouldn’t tell me what. I know he had a big-deal meeting with someone Saturday. Don’t know with who. Wilmer said he’d give you one more try after the meeting.”

  “Did he say with whom or where?”

  Ajax thought long and hard. “Nope, sorry. If he mentioned it, I can’t remember.”

  “Could it have been an HIV-positive support group or anything like that?” Turner asked.

  “Nope,” Ajax said. “He didn’t like groups. Always said he liked people, but put ’em in a group and they start making rules for each other. Nope. No group.”

  After a few more minutes of questioning Turner said, “If you think of anything, will you call me?”

  “I talked an awful lot for free tonight,” Ajax said.

  Turner looked at the old man. “I appreciate what you’ve told me. I’ll do what I can to pay you back for talking to me, but I can’t promise you anything.”

  Ajax laughed. “At least you’re honest, young fella. Most everybody else would have promised me a bottle at least. I like you, I think.”

  A light rain fell while Turner drove from the Mission home. He wished it would rain hard enough to cool the weather off.

  As Turner pulled onto Taylor Street from Racine, he saw three blue-and-white police cars double-parked near the lemonade stand. These added to the normal confusion of the crowded street. He looked to see what the problem was. He saw people sitting on the stoops, gathered at the corners, a few lounging on top of mailboxes, the normal activity of a miserably hot summer night. He didn’t see any of the cops. He pulled into his street. His house blazed with light. A beat cop gestured at him angrily. Turner didn’t recognize the guy, who now started to yell at him to get his fucking car out of the way. Fire trucks pulled up behind him silently as Turner leaped from his car. He shoved his star at the screamer and began to race toward his house. Halfway down the street the voice of Mrs. Talucci, mixed with a few he began to recognize from the local district, stopped him. He hurried toward a knot of police huddled in the shadows in front of Mrs. Talucci’s house.

  EIGHT

  Mrs. Talucci brushed aside several large, beefy sergeants and spoke quietly. “I called the police about ten minutes ago. I saw three men lurking in the alley behind your house. They tried to get inside by the back door. I don’t think Brian heard them. I called your house. Brian was upstairs. I told him to lock himself in the bathroom. Two minutes before the police showed up, the m
en disappeared around the other side of the house.”

  “We don’t know if they got in or not,” a lieutenant said. “We’ve got every car in the district within a three-block radius of here. I told them to pick up anybody who looks the least bit out of place.”

  Turner looked at the crowd gathered at the end of the street. He thought that if these guys were smart, if they hadn’t gotten into the house, they’d mingle with the crowd and not try to get away. He turned his gaze back to his home. “I’m going in,” he said.

  A lieutenant, a captain, and two sergeants argued, quoted hostage procedures to him. If these were killers, and they’d gotten in, people could get hurt, and they didn’t know where Brian was. Turner knew he was going in. He waited for a distraction to pull the others’ attention away from the scene, and got it a few minutes later when a camera crew from one of the local TV stations pulled up. They immediately tried to move as close to the scene as possible. A minor shoving match developed when the zeal of both reporters and cops reached an aggressive stage. As the assembled brass’s attention wavered, Turner moved.

  Carefully and quietly, he approached his home. He’d lived here most of his thirty-five years. He’d grown up knowing the cracks and crevices of every inch of this space. On the dark side of the porch he found the old waterspout he used to climb down as a twelve-year-old, sneaking out on warm nights just like this one to watch the adults and older kids perform the magic rites of summer up and down Taylor Street.

  He’d reinforced the gutters and spouts two years ago. As silently as he had done twenty-three years ago, he scrambled up the side. Hearing muffled curses behind him, he felt more than saw other figures now silently move toward the house. He gouged his hand as he swung himself onto the top of the porch. Blood oozed from the wound.