“Friend of the people,” I said.
Cancerno’s face went ugly, and any sense of ease that had seeped into my body as he’d begun to explain things to us leaked right back out.
“You don’t mock me, prick,” he said. “You don’t say a word. Not if you want to walk back out the door. That van outside doesn’t have to take you home.”
For a moment there was nothing but an electric silence. Then Joe broke it.
“I’m sure he’s sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it, did you, Lincoln?”
I shook my head slowly. “Didn’t mean anything by it.”
Cancerno’s glare didn’t lessen, but after a moment he began to talk again.
“I hired Gradduk. A few weeks passed, and I ran into him down at the Hideaway. We all drank together, shot the shit. I liked the kid. Later on I found out he was hanging around with Corbett. That bothered me. It wasn’t right, not with Corbett’s history. The next time I drank with Gradduk . . .” Cancerno shrugged. “I told him some things he probably shouldn’t have ever heard.”
“What things?” I was leaning forward now, Cancerno’s last outburst all but forgotten. This is what I’d wanted to know days ago, what Ed might have said if he hadn’t been killed in the street before he’d had a chance to tell it to me.
“I knew a guy used to see Gradduk’s mother. It went on for a while, while she was married. Then she tried to end it. This guy, he’s not the most stable son of a bitch you ever saw. Violent. Mean-tempered. Holds a grudge. Anyhow, he promised the Gradduk woman he was going to take her life apart. She laughed at him, told him to get lost. But, this guy, he’s not the type that makes empty threats. The man settles his scores.”
“What’s this have to do with Corbett?” Joe said.
“I was getting to that. This is where I come in. I had Corbett do some work for me. A few . . . projects that I needed handled.”
“You hired him to burn Terry Solich out of business and out of the neighborhood,” I said.
Cancerno looked at me with empty eyes. “Corbett took care of these projects for me, then set Gradduk’s father up. This was at the request of the guy I was telling you about. It wasn’t my idea.”
Thunder rolled close to the building, making the door rattle against its frame. Out in the warehouse, men were laughing. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted into the office.
“It was Jack Padgett,” I said. “The guy you’re talking about. He could make the setup happen because he was a cop.”
Cancerno didn’t speak.
“I want you to confirm that,” I said. “Otherwise we’ll go out and do it ourselves. But you know it was him, and so do we.”
“You don’t tell me what to say,” Cancerno snapped. “I’ll tell you what I damn well want to tell you, kid. And you’ll keep your mouth shut. You understand that I’m doing this as a favor to you? As a courtesy? Believe me, I got other ways to deal with you. Didn’t need to have you brought in here for a talk.”
I met his cold eyes. For a long time he just sat and stared at me. The laughter from the warehouse had stopped as soon as Cancerno had raised his voice again. I had the feeling his voice could make a lot of things stop.
“So Norm Gradduk committed suicide, and Padgett was still harassing Alberta,” I said softly, still meeting his stare. “Ed found out about it, probably. Then my father did. He made a complaint, and people scrambled to cover up for Padgett. Mike Gajovich came down and convinced Alberta not to go public with the complaint.”
Cancerno’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking beyond me now. I don’t know what the hell happened after Gradduk gassed himself in the garage.”
“That’s what happened,” I said.
Another clap of thunder, this one louder than the last. A gust of wind followed it, howling around the old warehouse. Cancerno leaned back again, put his feet back up on the desk.
“That’s what I told Gradduk,” he said. “And I shouldn’t have told him. But I didn’t like it, knowing that he was becoming buddies with Corbett. It didn’t seem right.”
“And a woman died for this?” Joe said. “I’m not seeing the connection.”
Cancerno shrugged. “Not my job to help you see it. But I can tell you Gradduk had a serious hard-on for Corbett after I told him what I did. Then the woman went down, Gradduk went down, Corbett took off. Last night he sets my houses on fire. You see what I’m saying about this guy being the center of it?”
“Corbett burned the houses?” I said.
“You’re damn right he did,” Cancerno said. “No doubt in my mind. He had access to all of them, too. Would’ve been easy for him.”
“Why do it?”
Cancerno smiled, and it was one of the least appealing expressions I’d ever seen. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No more answers. I gave you the ones you needed. The ones you don’t need stay with me.”
“The one I need the most, you haven’t given me,” I said. “Why was Anita Sentalar killed? You said Ed was trying to take Corbett apart, but not how. You say Corbett killed her, but don’t say why. That’s not enough. I need to prove it. Right now it’s still on Ed, and I’m not letting it sit there. Someone else is going to answer for it. Ed deserves his justice, whether he’s alive or dead.”
Cancerno slid his feet back off the desk, stood up, and walked around to face us. He looked hard at my face.
“You want justice for your friend?”
“That’s right.”
“You going to find Corbett?”
“Yes.”
He kept staring at me, then nodded. “You find Corbett, and I’ll see that your friend gets his justice. And when that’s done, you can work out whatever story you want to give the cops and the reporters. I’ll deal with it.” His dark eyes were filled with fury. “But first you find him. You call me. Tell me where he is. And then I’ll see that your friend gets his justice.”
CHAPTER 25
He left us in the office while he stepped out into the dark warehouse. Joe and I didn’t say much while he was gone. It wasn’t an environment that encouraged conversation. Cancerno was gone maybe five minutes before he returned, trailed by Ramone and the mountain man. The old guy who’d driven the van wasn’t with them, but I heard an engine start up outside.
“They’ll take you back now,” Cancerno said. “I hope this visit straightened some things out for you. Hope it made some things clear.”
We got to our feet, and Cancerno pulled the door open and held it. Outside the sky was still dark, but the rain had held off. Warm air whipped around the parking lot, blowing dust and bits of fine gravel in our eyes. I squinted as I stepped through the door. Joe came out behind me, Ramone and the huge guy on his heels. The green van was running already.
When we were outside, Joe turned to Cancerno. “Tell you what, we’re going to pass on the ride this time. Thanks, though.”
“What?” Cancerno said.
“We’ll take care of ourselves,” Joe said. “Got a few stops to make around the neighborhood, anyhow. Then we’ll catch a ride back. Don’t need to trouble your employees here with the task.”
Ramone, standing close to Joe, turned and looked to Cancerno for instruction. Cancerno leaned against the doorframe and tilted his head, studying Joe.
“You don’t trust me? I bring you down here, tell you things you want to know, and you don’t trust me?”
Joe shook his head. “That’s not the issue. But seeing as you’re such a trustworthy guy, I expect you’ve got no problem letting us go on our way here. Don’t take it as disrespect.”
Cancerno considered it for a moment, then shrugged and stepped back into the office. “You got it. Go on and walk home in the rain, if that’s what suits you.”
The door closed behind him. Ramone gave us one last long stare, then turned and reached for the doorknob to follow Cancerno.
“Give me back my gun, Ramone,” I said.
He didn’t say anything, but walked back out to the van, leaned in the open window, a
nd said something to the guy behind the wheel. Then he stepped back with my Glock in his hand. I walked toward him, hand outstretched. When I was almost to him, he gave the gun a toss. It sailed over my shoulder and clattered on the pavement.
“Thanks, asshole,” I said. He smirked, walked into the warehouse, and slammed the door shut.
I picked my gun up, dusted it off on my pants, and placed it back in its holster. Joe was standing beside me, shoulders hunched against the wind, eyeing the sky.
He began to walk toward the street. “Interesting conversation, huh?”
“Damn interesting,” I said.
“You buying it?”
“What he said about being the one who told the old story to Ed, maybe. It’s the trigger that got all of this rolling. When Ed started to explain it to me, he said a man told him a story. I asked him what story, and he said, the one he didn’t want to tell. Cancerno was regretting it today. Admitted he’d hesitated to tell Ed about it in the first place.”
Joe nodded, walking fast as we rounded the corner of the building and came out on the sidewalk.
“Some bad blood between Cancerno and Corbett, that’s for sure,” he said. “And until this morning we didn’t have a logical motive for last night’s fires. But understanding there’s conflict between Cancerno and Corbett, it might fit. Why’s Corbett care if half the police department rolls out to look at those fires? They’re just going to focus on Cancerno. Be a hard sell for someone like Cancerno to convince investigators he had nothing to do with it, you know? A guy like that is an ideal smoke screen for Corbett.”
“And what does it gain for Corbett?” I said.
“Gives him a way to come at Cancerno. Because it seems the man is awfully scared of Cancerno. He’s hiding, afraid to use his credit cards, afraid to go home. Cancerno didn’t hide how bad he wants to find the guy—basically offered to kill him if you do the finding. So maybe Corbett’s returning fire. Making a preemptive strike, rather.”
We were walking east down the sidewalk, Joe moving fast and purposefully. I realized I had no idea where he was going. It certainly wasn’t in the direction of the office.
“You weren’t so sure the van’s intended stop was the same as ours?” I said.
“Don’t like being a passenger. Besides, we got places to go.”
“Yeah?”
“You catch what Cancerno said when he got to explaining why he’s so sure Corbett burned those houses?”
“That he had access to all of them.”
“Uh-huh.”
We reached an intersection but caught the light right, walked across the street without a pause.
“Well,” Joe said, “suppose you were hiding from some people. Suppose you were so scared you wouldn’t use your credit cards or bank accounts or seek help from friends. Where would you go?”
I turned to face him, slowed my pace. “You’re thinking the houses?”
He shook his head. “No. There’s work being done on them, people from Cancerno’s crew going in and out, neighbors watching. And, hell, most of them burned down last night, probably at Corbett’s hand. Think beyond that.”
“The school.”
He nodded. “Huge old building, sitting empty. Locked up, but Corbett’s got the keys. No work scheduled to begin on it for months yet.”
“That’s where we’re going?”
He shook his head. “No. First we’re going to find a convenience store. I think we’ll need a flashlight.”
The ground-floor windows were securely boarded up, the doors fastened with heavy steel chains and new padlocks. Entry into the building wasn’t going to be easy for someone without a key. And while Corbett might have had one, we did not.
Joseph A. Marsh Junior High had once been a gorgeous building—three floors of brick walls with limestone inlay around the doors and windows on the outside; on the inside, oak woodwork and tile floors built with a skilled craftsman’s greatest care. Everything in the blocks around the building had been knocked down and rebuilt at least twice in the lifetime of the school, and I figured that would be true for several more cycles. As we circled the building, looking for a point of entry, I remembered trudging through the grounds in sun, snow, and rain, Ed and Draper generally beside me. We’d been part of the last classes at both Joseph A. Marsh and West Tech, and looking back on it, there seemed to be something damned appropriate about that—Ed and Draper and I were the last vestiges of the old neighborhood, in a lot of ways.
“Basement window,” Joe said, coming to a stop and pointing. There was a narrow window just above the foundation, and while there was a piece of plywood over it, the corner was raised, showing that someone had pried it away.
I knelt beside it and hooked my fingers under the edge, gave it an experimental tug. The board rose easily, with a harsh scraping noise. I put both hands under it and yanked harder, and this time it came free.
“You know what’s down there?” Joe said.
“The metal shop.”
“Metal shop in a junior high?”
“This school fed into West Tech, so they had more trade offerings. Hell, Tech even had a foundry. There was a time when classes like that got some kids jobs when they came out of school.”
“That time was a few decades ago, LP.”
“You think it’s an accident that the school closed?”
He passed me the flashlight. I stretched out on my stomach and extended my hand, shining the light into the dark room. A musty smell rose at me, but there was more to it than that—the scent of metal and stone and, somehow, of heat, even though it had been years since any activity had taken place here. I passed the beam of the flashlight around the room, saw nothing other than old boxes and bare walls.
“We’re good,” I said. “Little bit of a drop to the floor, but not bad. Six feet from the window, maybe. Think you can make it?”
“I can make it.”
“All right.” I went first, sliding my feet through the window, then shoving my upper body in and dropping. The floor came up faster than I expected, giving me a jarring landing. I turned the flashlight back on and showed the floor to Joe, who was leaning down, eyeballing his entrance. He slipped through the window and dropped down smoother than I had. Thirty years my senior and still he moved with an athlete’s grace.
“You remember your way around here?” he said.
I nodded while I passed him the flashlight and freed my gun from its holster. “Well enough, at least.”
“Lead the way, then.”
It took us an hour to clear the building. We moved in silence through dark, musty corridors that I’d once walked through daily, past the classrooms where I’d devoted more time to studying girls than books and a principal’s office that Ed and I had known better than our homerooms. We’d had fun, though, and at the end of the day I don’t think we were the type of students that drove teachers to drink. Drove them to a bottle of Tylenol, maybe, but nothing stronger.
Even knowing that the building had been closed for years, the sight of the disrepair stunned me. Debris littered the halls, mice scattered at the sound of our footsteps, and dank puddles from countless leaks spotted the empty rooms. Looters had moved in once the building had been closed, tearing free everything of value. Most of the light fixtures were gone, faucets torn from the sinks, ceiling panels removed so people could get at the copper wiring.
In a room on the second floor, in what had once been the English department, we found the remains of several candles beside a filthy blanket, a broken bottle of Southern Comfort, and a few empty Campbell’s soup cans not far away. A dented metal waste-basket had been pulled up close by, and old ashes were inside. Joe ran the light around it and shook his head.
“Very old,” he said. “Some homeless guy sneaking in to get out of the snow, I bet.”
That was the closest we came, though. We didn’t speak at all on the third floor, just moved through the rooms in total silence, Joe scanning the floors with his flashlight, me standing behind him
with my gun out.
Neither one of us felt much like attempting to climb back out of the basement window we’d used to enter. It was too narrow and too high. All of the double doors had been fastened from the outside with chains and padlocks, but the single doors had been locked only from the inside. We found one leading out of the back of the auditorium, unlocked it, and stepped back outside into the overcast day.
“Damn,” Joe said as I locked the door behind me and let it swing closed again. “I thought we might have some luck with that.”
“It was a good idea,” I said. “As good as any other we’ve had with this guy, at least.”
We walked out of the schoolyard and back to the street. Overhead, the clouds were roiling. Looking up at them was like looking down on an angry sea. The rain was light, though. Cold, teasing drops. Thunderclaps that were louder and closer.
“Been holding off all day,” I said, looking at the sky.
“Humidity building, though. Bound to cut loose soon.”
“We need to get a cab.”
“What, you’re not up for the walk? Can’t be more than a hundred and thirty blocks.”
“The rain’s coming,” I said. “Otherwise, I’d be right there with you. Good exercise.”
“We’ll take the rapid.”
There was a Rapid Transit station maybe fifteen blocks away. We walked west down Storer Avenue, then south to the station, took the blue-line train back down Lorain. There was another station at Fairview Hospital, just down the street from the office.
We were upstairs and Joe had his key in the door when the office phone began to ring. He unlocked the door and got to the phone quickly, spoke in low tones for just a few seconds, and hung up.
“Richards,” he said.
“He finally got the message?”
“Didn’t say anything about that. Just told me he wants to see us immediately. Says your boys from last night are with him.”
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