As the sun fell, I adjusted the seat all the way back and closed my eyes. For two hours, I drifted in and out of anxious dreams. I tried to picture myself in bed with Corrine but as I fell asleep she disappeared and a man hanging in barbed wire took her place. I tried to picture myself in bed with Lucinda, and she faded into a darkness where cops shot at each other. I tried Tina, the girl Raj offered me at The Spa Club. I imagined myself taking her from behind, imagined her yelling with pleasure as I fucked her but she disappeared too and I was alone and afraid.
* * *
MOM LIVED IN A yellow bungalow on West Leland. A tall, skinny white pine grew in the front corner of the yard. Ever since an October storm, the top third of the tree had tilted to the south like it knew enough to run but couldn’t. Outside the front door, two boxwoods trimmed into little balls shimmered in the headlights as I pulled into the driveway.
I went around the side of the house, tapped on the back door, and let myself in. Mom stood at the stove, a small woman in blue jeans and a blue cotton work shirt. The house smelled of roasting meat and potatoes, with a sweet, sour edge of butter and onions. Mom stirred a pot of boiling broth. A plate of cooked pierogi stood on one side of the pot, a plate of uncooked pierogi on the other. The kitchen was warm, almost too comforting, and I resisted an impulse to back out of the house and run.
“I didn’t think you would come,” Mom said, her voice soft, her back to me.
“Of course I came,” I said, soft too. “I told you I would.”
She ladled the pierogi from the pot into a colander, turned to me. She screwed her lips to the side. “The police came by this afternoon. I’m supposed to call them if you’re here.”
I knew better than to ask but couldn’t help myself. “Did you tell them I was coming this evening?”
The spoon dropped from her hand and clattered on the floor. She came to me and hugged me like a woman four times her size. When she was done, she let me go and said, “You should be ashamed.” Her eyes were dry, her voice calm. She might have meant that I should be ashamed because I should have trusted her. She might have meant I should have avoided getting in trouble. She might have meant it all. I didn’t ask.
I pointed my thumb at the door to the living room, where Mom’s television was on, and said, “Is Jason in there?”
The faintest of smiles formed on her lips and she nodded. “Go see him.”
Jason was lying on the couch. He was wearing blue flannel pajamas. I thought I recognized them. I’d worn pajamas that looked like them when I was eleven years old.
“Hey,” I said, trying to put cheer into my voice.
“Hey,” he said. He kept his eyes on the television.
“How’re you feeling?”
Eyes still on the television. “Fine.”
I looked at the screen. Jennifer Grey was tangoing with Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. Not the kind of movie Jason normally watched.
“That any good?”
He shrugged, gestured toward the kitchen. “She won’t let me watch the news.”
“Since when do you watch the news?” I said.
“Since you’re on it.” His eyes stayed on the television.
I picked up the remote from the table next to him and punched the power button. Jennifer Grey disappeared into a pinpoint of light. Jason still looked at the screen.
I stepped between him and the television, stooped, and looked at him eye to eye. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Of course it is,” he said. He didn’t believe it for a second. He gestured again toward the kitchen. “She said it would be too.”
I showed him my palms. “You think we’re lying?”
“I think you don’t know.” A smart eleven-year-old.
“You’re right, but I’m doing everything I can to make it okay.”
“Like committing a robbery?”
“I didn’t—” I stopped. He deserved the truth and I wished I knew it. “It’s complicated,” I said. “You’ve got to trust me.”
He looked at me for awhile, then said, “Why?”
“Because—” I started. “Just because.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“I know. But it’s all I’ve got.”
He nodded unhappily. “Now can I watch TV?”
I shook my head. “Where did you get those pajamas?”
He tipped his head toward the kitchen.
“Mom?” I called.
She came to the door.
I pointed at Jason and asked, “Are those—?”
She nodded. “Your old pajamas.”
“You’ve saved them for thirty-five years?”
“They were in perfectly good shape.”
“But thirty-five years?”
“I thought maybe one day I would have a grandson.”
“If you did, I would buy him pajamas myself.”
She turned back to the kitchen. “They were in perfect shape.”
Fifteen minutes later, Mom called us to the table. She’d served enough food to feed twelve—a platter of roasted pork, pierogi sautéed with onions, a bowl of mashed potatoes, red cabbage salad, sliced and buttered bread. Jason was half my size and usually ate twice as much as I did but tonight he ate slowly, carefully, chewing each bite far longer than he needed to. Mom watched him, concerned.
“Still uncomfortable to eat?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
Mom said, “The doctor says he’s fine with a regular diet.” She spooned potatoes onto his already full plate.
“Can I be done?” he said.
“Eat your dinner first,” Mom said.
He cut a small bite of pork, put it in his mouth, chewed a long time, then raised his napkin to his mouth and spit the pork into it. He slid his chair away from the table and wandered back into the living room. A few moments later, he turned on Dirty Dancing.
Mom stared at his plate, then looked at me. “Eat your dinner, for God’s sake.”
I did.
Afterward, I went to the living room and sat next to Jason on the couch. He was quiet and I kept my mouth shut, and after a little while he leaned against me and I put my arm around his shoulder and held him. We stayed like that for an hour, maybe more. Then Mom came in and said Jason should get some sleep.
I squeezed his shoulder and said, “Get well fast.”
He nodded and said, “I want to go back to your house with you.”
“Soon, okay?” I said. “Real soon.”
* * *
I DROVE TO THE Patio Motel, a blue two-story strip with a big 1960s-style neon sign out front, left over from when Lincoln Avenue was a main route in and out of the city for trucks and tourists. Now the customers were mostly men and women who’d slipped away from their famlies and parked their cars side by side outside rooms with a single dim light on or none at all. A shoulder-high wooden fence blocked the parking lot from the street. I parked close to it to make my Skylark invisible—or almost—and went into the office.
The man behind the desk was bald and pronounced his Rs like Ws. He took my fifty-five dollars and gave me a room key. If he recognized me from the TV news, he didn’t show it.
The room had a NO SMOKING sign on the door and smelled like stale smoke. The walls could have used painting, the floors a new carpet, but the bed looked just right. I put my suitcase on a chair next to it, went back to the door and chained it, then peered out the window at the traffic and the nighttime city. The business next door advertised yoga tai-chi. Out front, the block-lettered Patio Motel sign glowed orange against the dark. Under the name of the motel, blue neon cursive added, AN ADVENTURE IN LIVING. If that wasn’t enough, another sign offered free movies.
I pulled the curtains, stripped off my pants and shirt, turned off the light, and climbed into bed. The unfamiliar darkness and smells surrounded me. The bedside clock said the time was 10:28. I flipped the lamp back on and fished my cell phone out of my jeans. Corrine had told me she would come to me if I needed her. Did I ne
ed her? I dialed her home number. It rang four times and her machine picked up. I listened to her voice asking me to leave a message but hung up before the recording signal. I dialed her cell phone. It rang six times and put me through to voice mail. I hung up again.
I turned off the lamp and stretched out in the strange bed. I spun David Russo’s ring on my finger. Where would Corrine be at this time of night? That kind of thinking would get me nowhere, so I thought about Lucinda, then Mom, and then Jason. Jason had told me that he wanted to go home. I thought about that. My house was his home. I was his home. That made me glad, and I wondered if that was a good thing. Good or bad didn’t matter, I decided—it just made me glad. I realized I wanted to go home too.
TWENTY-TWO
I WOKE EARLY. THE bedside clock said 5:34. The sun wouldn’t come up for another hour.
I showered and shaved, then stepped out into the morning cold and darkness and dropped the room key at the front desk. A box at the corner sold copies of the Chicago Tribune. I dropped in my quarters and looked at the paper under a streetlight. It had a photo of me at the bottom of the front page. The photo was old, taken around the time the police department fired me after I crashed my cruiser. I looked drunk in the photo. No surprise. I had more hair then, less of it gray. I had a cut on my chin. You would still recognize me.
At the corner a block and a half away, the lights were on in a diner. I walked to it and went inside. A TV played near the ceiling. The air was warm and smelled like bacon grease. The griddle was out in the open, and the griddle man—a dark-haired kid in white pants, white T-shirt, and white apron—welcomed me with a big smile as I sat at the counter. Maybe he hadn’t read the paper.
He said he cooked the best hash browns in the city, so I told him to give me some with a couple of scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage. A woman came in wearing a short blue skirt, scuffed red high heels, a leather jacket, and dirty blond hair that needed a brush. She sat two stools away from me and eyed me like I might be business, then told the griddle man she wanted coffee. He didn’t offer her hash browns but poured her a cup and slid a container of sugar across the counter to her. She used four packs.
Breakfast did me good. The hooker watched me eat. So did the griddle man.
“How’re the hash browns?” he said.
“Best in the city.”
He nodded his appreciation. “My secret recipe,” he said.
The hooker frowned. “He uses boric acid. Also kills roaches.”
He grabbed a dirty dishtowel and threw it at her. “Get the fuck out of my restaurant.”
She rolled her eyes like she’d heard that before. “Give me more coffee.”
He did.
The six A.M. news came on and an anchorwoman with dark hair and dark eyes said that a tanker truck full of petroleum had flipped on the Southside and was burning. She cut away to a reporter standing at the crash site. The camera showed huge flames rising from the truck into the dark sky. Firemen stood at a distance, aiming hoses at the edges of the fire, controlling the burn, not fighting it. You could just about feel waves of heat coming off the TV.
The griddle man looked at the screen and shook his head. “Like hell itself is burning.”
The hooker shrugged.
The on-site reporter finished his story and cut back to the anchorwoman. She shook her head like she felt the heat too, then said, “Meanwhile, police continue their search for—”
I gulped another bite of toast, took a ten-dollar bill from my wallet, and tossed it on the counter. I scurried for the door as a picture of me popped onto the screen. The griddle man watched me like I’d turned into a strange, dangerous animal. The hooker didn’t seem to notice me go.
* * *
AT 6:45, THE STREETS near my office were busy with delivery trucks unloading boxes of office supplies, loaves of bread, and cases of canned soft drinks. I pulled my car to the curb and watched. Classes at the secretarial school started at 8:00. Roselle Turner usually showed up to open the doors around 7:00. I pulled out the Tribune and waited.
The front-page article said the police had issued a warrant for my arrest and were keeping an eye on the places I was known to frequent. It said I might have left the city and so the police had issued a multistate alert too. It described the theft at the processing plant and the witness account of me there. It said I was likely armed and should be considered dangerous.
I had the Ruger holstered on my side. But dangerous? I figured I was mostly dangerous to myself.
The article continued on page eight. It retold the events at Southshore Village and gave the highlights of my record as a cop and private investigator. According to the reporter, I was a good guy who’d gone bad. Nothing I didn’t know already. I tossed the paper onto the passenger seat.
At 6:56 Roselle Turner walked past my car. I waited five minutes, then dialed 411, asked for the number to the secretarial school, and dialed again. She picked up, breathless, like she’d run for the phone.
“Hi, Roselle,” I said. “It’s Joe Kozmarski.”
“Jesus! What do you want?” So much for flirting.
“A favor. Will you look in the hall and tell me if anyone’s near my office door?”
“You mean like a policeman?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“I don’t need to look in the hall. There’s one at your door and another at the elevators. Both in uniforms. Your door is open. I think more of them are inside, taking your office apart by the sound of it.”
That quieted me.
She got polite but with a sarcastic edge, as if I’d let her down personally. “Would you like me to let them know you’re looking for them?”
“I would like you to—” I started.
“Yes?”
“Forget it. Thanks, Roselle.”
She hung up.
The police had blocked off my house. They’d visited Mom. They were searching my office. Where could I go? Corrine hadn’t answered her phone last night. Maybe the police had visited her too. Maybe they’d told her that if she helped me or took me in, she’d become an accessory after the fact. Or maybe no one had visited her. Maybe she’d decided on her own to cut me off.
Lucinda might still be safe. The police knew about my connections with her and would have talked with her, but she knew how to shake them if they were watching her and she could help me hide if I needed her to. Sooner or later, I figured, I would need that—maybe tonight if I needed a place to sleep and didn’t want to show myself to the eyes of another motel owner. But not yet.
I started my car and drove north through the Loop, up Michigan Avenue, and along the lakefront to The Spa Club. Some guys like sex at night. Some guys like it in the morning. Some like it all day long. I figured the club would be open.
The valet took my car, and the elevator gave me a ride to the top floor. I carried the vinyl bag of cash and coins that Rafael had delivered to my office. Stuffed into my inside jacket pocket were phony bank receipts that Bill Gubman had given me, showing that Johnson had skimmed profits from his crew.
In the blue-lighted lounge, three men—two in suits and ties, one in exercise clothes—sat at tables eating breakfast. They’d probably told their wives they had early morning meetings and had come to the club to start their day right. The hostess who’d been working when Monroe, Raj, and Finley had brought me to the club the first time was on duty again. She recognized me and offered me a table.
I shook my head. “Is Bob Monroe around?”
Her look told me I could relax, take off my shoes, slip off my underwear, stay awhile. “He just came in.” She put a hand on my elbow and guided me to a table. “Sit down and I’ll see if he’s available.”
I sat and waited.
Tina, the Russian girl Raj had offered me, came in wearing a little black outfit. She looked like she’d been working all night. She still looked good. She saw me and gave me a big smile like we were old friends. “Good morning!” she said brightly.
“’Morning,” I said.
She came to my table. “What can I do for you?” she said.
“I already ate.”
She laughed. I’d misunderstood her offer. “If you want, we could go into the back,” she said.
Bob Monroe came into the room from a door behind the hostess desk. When Tina saw him heading for my table, she said, “Maybe later?”
“Right,” I said.
Monroe smiled and raised his eyebrows like he approved. “’Morning,” he said. “You want to talk?”
We went back through the door he’d come from. There were two offices—Johnson’s on the right, Monroe’s on the left—and a third room, with a conference table, at the end of the hall. Johnson was sitting at a desk in his office, talking on the phone, his chair swiveled away from the door. We went into Monroe’s office.
“You know there’s a warrant out for you?” Monroe said. “We thought someone might have picked you up by now. Johnson thought you’d already be trading information about us in return for empty promises.”
I dropped the vinyl bag onto the desk and sat. “I’m still free,” I said, “and I don’t trade information. You should know that by now.”
He nodded and sat at the desk. “I do know it. Johnson’s harder to convince.” He eyed the vinyl bag. “What’s that?”
I shrugged. “First weekly payment from Rafael.”
His eyes lighted up. “You’re kidding. That knucklehead said he wouldn’t pay. What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I said. “He walked into my office and offered me the money.”
“Yeah, right.” He laughed. “Whatever you did, I’m impressed.” He leaned so he could see out his door and across the hall. “Hey, Earl, you’ve got to see this.”
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