“Gina. Not for nothing, but I spent a good deal of time undercover. I had a plan. I didn’t know you had a phone.”
“What was the plan?”
“It doesn’t matter, now. Now I can just tell you—I mean, can I tell you? What I found?”
“Yes.”
“Or is the phone on its way out with your friend?”
I think he thinks I’m full of shit. “You can tell me.”
“Maybe you already know. I mean, it was on your computer.”
“The bank statement?”
“No. The picture—”
“What picture?”
“From the Sun-Times. Sacred Heart? It’s Captain Yacht Club.”
“What? He’s in the photos?”
“He is Chris Heltman.”
“Sanchez’s boyfriend—”
“Yes—”
“—is the attorney.”
“Yes. You know, I’m terrible with names, but I could pick that guy out just by his sailor scarf, the mope—”
“Kay St. Claire paid that mope nearly five thousand dollars last month.”
“I saw that. And first I thought maybe it was a payoff, to get Sanchez to drop the charges on Johnny. But the check is dated before Sanchez called the cops, which means the money came before the attack.”
“She paid Heltman to set up a trust.” I sit up. “You know, when I saw him in the fundraiser photo, I pegged him as an ambulance chaser. But now I’m thinking he chases patients home from the hospital. Patients who may or may not be coherent enough to seek legal services to, say, apply for a reverse mortgage, or to set up a trust fund.”
“You think Heltman struck up business with St. Claire before Marble supposedly assaulted her? So he knew about her condition, or at least her situation—”
“And her money. Maybe Christina Hardy has nothing to do with this.”
“But Sanchez—what does she have to do with it? Why come down on Johnny after the fact, I mean?”
“It’s like that old handyman scam. A guy comes by to fix your broken window and says you’ve got water damage inside the frame. He offers to take on that job, too—bad flashing, or something—and you figure he’s doing you a favor—”
“And pretty soon you’re forking over dough for shit that isn’t wrong.”
“If this is the estate-planning version of that, Johnny is Kay’s leaky roof.”
“Who started by assaulting Sanchez.”
“And Heltman is the handyman.”
Weiss says, “I’m going by his office.”
“Now?”
“Talking to the Captain isn’t going to get me anything but a boat ride. Finding out how he pays for that boat—that’s something I’m going to have to dig for. When no one is looking.”
“Get going, then,” I say. “And call me on this line—my friend is leaving his phone.”
“That’s a good friend.”
I consider the curious inflection in the statement. I let it ride. I say goodbye.
We hang up and I look at the clock and I wonder if Walter is waiting impatiently like I am, so I press the nurse’s call button.
When she shows up at the door, a young Hispanic girl with gel-wet hair, I decide to be rude, to preempt the chit-chat: “I am so fucking tired. Cerita said I could take my meds at nine and be left alone until morning.”
“We will certainly try to let you get some sleep after your MRI—”
“What? That’s not right. I already had an MRI.”
“I’ll check your file when we’re through here,” she says. “Here is your medication.”
The cup barely hits my tray before I take it and toss the pills back like chewable candy. I thought about faking and pocketing them so I’d have all my wits about me but I am in pain, and I don’t need wits so much as I need to be able to walk.
I ask, “What’s your name?”
“I’m Monica.”
“Monica, I swear I’ll walk the fuck out of here before I let anybody trap me in that tube again. You check the file.”
I slug water from the plastic pitcher Cerita left bedside while Monica gets the hint and goes over to the computer. The second hand ticks around the clock once, twice.
“Yes,” she finally says, “the order is here. Someone should be here to get you momentarily.”
“I need you to page the doctor.”
Just then, someone pushes a gurney through the door.
“Hi,” Monica says.
“No,” I say.
“How ya doing?” the man says, all cheerful, like he’s here to take me to get ice cream.
“I want to talk to the doctor,” I say again.
The man comes in, turning the gurney to line up with the bed. He’s wearing scrubs, a mask. He’s got a clipboard under his arm. “Is this Gina Simonetti?”
“There must be some mistake,” I say.
He takes down his mask.
He’s fucking Walter.
“Hi, Gina Simonetti,” he says, smile big as shit. “You mind if we borrow your brain?”
“She’s nervous,” the nurse says.
“Agh, don’t worry. I know how to drive this thing.” He turns to the nurse. “Monica, is it?”
“It is.”
“Will you help me get her unhooked?”
“Sure thing.” Monica peels the electrodes off my chest, takes the thing pinching my finger, undoes the tangled cords. She frees me from the machines.
“I already had an MRI,” I say to Walter, because I shouldn’t quit protesting now.
“Yep, for your spine. This time, we need your brain.” He winks; he’s pretty proud of himself.
I try not to smile.
He looks over me, at Monica. “It’s pretty backed up down there. They say they’re on schedule, but I think they mean yesterday’s.”
“They’re always behind,” Monica says.
“Do we have disconnect?” Walter asks.
“We do.”
“What about the IV?”
“She can transport with it. Just have them switch bags downstairs.”
“Help me move her?”
“I can move,” I say. I climb onto the gurney. The pain is about as amazing as the fact that I’m actually getting out of here.
Monica leads the way, Walter pushing me. He says, “I’ll have her back by breakfast.”
“I’ll tell the charge nurse.”
He turns the gurney around again so he meets Monica, pulls a Dum Dums lollipop from his scrubs pocket, and twists it around like a flower. “You have yourself a sacchariferous night.”
She takes the Dum Dums, gives him the sweetest smile.
When we’re a good distance down the hall in the opposite direction, I say, “My gun.”
He slows down. “Is where?”
“Back in the room. The daybed.”
He stops. “That would have been good information to have earlier—”
“And I need to bandage my leg. And I left the burner—”
“I have another one of those for you.”
Not with Weiss’s number programmed. “We have to go back.”
“Shit.” Walter puts the brakes on. “I’ll go. Just lie here and, I don’t know—act sedated or something.”
I close my eyes and listen to his shoes squeak down the hall. Then, after a few minutes, I hear his shoes squeak back, accompanied.
He says, “I don’t know, Monica, I’d probably want my phone on me at all times if I had your number.”
She says, “You’re such a flirt.”
“You’re the one who offered to buy coffee.” Cue a sacchariferous silence. Then Walter says, “I think this tape will do the trick.”
“We use it to secure the carts, too, so it should be strong enough.”
“It’ll be fine until I can swap out the caster. Thanks.”
“My break’s at eleven. I’ll see you down there?”
Walter unlocks the wheels. “You will.”
We roll.
He whi
spers, “Don’t say anything until I get you downstairs.”
I keep quiet, though I think of about a million anythings.
We take the elevator to the second floor and as we head down another corridor he leans over, says, “Okay. I’m taking you to the bathroom up here on the left. There’s a backpack in the last stall. I brought some clothes; my girlfriend is about your size. The rest of what’s in there is always in there—my GTFO bag—but you should know I’m not much of a survivalist, so if I ever do have to get the fuck out, I might wind up just going bird-watching or something. Anyway. When you’re dressed, take the stairs across the hall—I disarmed the alarm there and that exit spits you out in the alley. There’s a blue Honda parked around the corner on Le Moyne. Keys are in the front pocket of the pack.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Apparently, I’m going to have coffee with Monica.” He stops outside the women’s bathroom. “Okay: on three, I’m going to help you sit up. Act like it hurts. And like you have to pee. And take the plastic-belongings bag I hung on the rail, there. It’s your stuff—probably stuff I should carry if I actually want to survive.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m getting the fuck out.”
“One,” he says. “Two—”
“Wait. How am I getting the fuck back in?”
“I’m working on that.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you, Walter.”
Walter says, “Three.”
In the bathroom I sit on the toilet and remove the IV line. I put tape over the catheter and then I tape my leg. I start from just above the knee and wrap it tight all the way up to the stitches.
When I’m done I pull on a pair of leggings that are as tight as the cloth tape and a shirt that falls off one shoulder, not because it’s too big, but because it’s the style. The shoes are stretchy ballet flats, thank the lord Jesus. They are too big, but they stay on over the thick hospital socks.
I put the .40 S&W in my very snug waistband and the burner in my back pocket. I take Walter’s beanie out of his pack and pull it over my forehead. And when I emerge from the bathroom, I feel about as confident as anyone would who’s sneaking out of a hospital to stalk a nurse.
But I make it out. On an adrenaline crutch and a stony high, I fucking make it out.
27
I find Walter’s car and zip down to Kay’s, which is only six blocks away. I spend more time looking for parking than I did driving here and I wind up double parking, hazards, outside the church. If there is a God, I hope he’ll forgive this trespass.
Kay’s front windows are dark and the gate is locked. The fence is a decorative cast-iron job, and not even shoulder high, but I’m in no state to climb.
And, anyway, I should see who’s inside before I make a move to go in.
I strap on Walter’s bag and cut through the church’s lot to the alley. Wood fencing borders Kay’s backyard, flush with the garage. I slip between a pair of garbage cans and check the back gate, which is locked, but the height of the fence dips at the gate’s hinges so if I stand on tiptoes, I can see the back of the house pretty easily, about twenty feet away.
I can’t stand on tiptoes.
Then I remember: bird-watching.
I go across the alley, lean against someone else’s fence, find Walter’s binoculars, and dial in.
A half-level up, Kay’s kitchen windows are lit, and Robyn is sitting at the table refilling the pill dispenser while talking on her cell. She’s got six bottles lined up and the nocs are good enough to read the medication labels: Aricept, Risperdal, zolpidem, trazedone, Zofran, Hydrocodone.
I can’t believe a single person could take all those, in a day or in a lifetime.
I zoom out a click and look at Robyn, who’s concentrating on her conversation while rolling a white trapezoid-shaped pill between her fingers. She’s wearing dark eye makeup that matches her eyebrows and the roots beneath her white-blond hair. Her lipstick shimmers when she speaks. No hint of warmth otherwise.
After an obvious disagreement with whoever’s on the line, Robyn takes the pill, washing it down with a short glass of red wine. Then she pushes back from the table and takes the glass to the sink—which is labeled SINK, now. The stove is also the STOVE, and the fridge the REFRIDGERATOR.
Looks like somebody straightened up.
Robyn attempts the same with her dress, but it’s cut so deep on top and hemmed so high below it’s impossible to cover everything at once. Her bra is trimmed with lace and her legs are perfectly trim. Whoever gets the pleasure of her company tonight will be distracted one way or the other.
Dressed to kill. Heh.
When she hangs up the phone and disappears from view, I go back across the alley between the garbage cans to sit down for a minute. I have to. I’m light-headed, and I know I’m in real pain, but it only comes through as unrelated discomforts—dry mouth, sour stomach. It’s like some metamorphosis gone wrong, my old self hanging on, my wings still tucked along my spine, throbbing, unable to spread. This is what painkillers do.
Painkillers also make me ponder shit like metamorphosis instead of what the hell I plan to do now that I’m here and Robyn is inside, just as I’d hoped.
I open Walter’s bag to see what else he’s got for dire straits. I find a cheap pocketknife, a penlight, three flash drives, an oversize energy drink, a two-pack of Tylenol, and a tin of curiously strong mints. I suck down the drink and hope Walter never actually needs to get the fuck anywhere.
I walk the alley to find something I can use with the knife to jimmy the gate’s lock. I pry a nail from a shingle somebody didn’t successfully tack to the roof of the rehab two doors down. Then I’m back at the gate, on my knees, holding the penlight between my teeth.
I’ve maneuvered both stand-in pins in the lock when Kay’s back porch light comes on—apparently on a motion sensor. I peek through the wood slats: the sensor is sensing motion, all right—Robyn has exited the back door, and she’s heading my way.
I fall back, breaking the knife blade off in the lock. I turn and catch myself. The penlight clanks to the pavement and rolls in an arc, its light swallowed by the yellow alley lamps. I steady myself on one hand, go for my gun with the other.
Then I get up on my knees again. A matter of seconds. Not even. But when I look back, Kay’s yard is dark. The motion light is out. The kitchen light is out. And I’m not hiding at all in the alley, one of the most well-lit places in the city.
Kay’s garage door crawls up on rusty hinges. A car door slams. An engine starts and purrs and ticks.
A black Benz backs out of the garage. I know it’s a Benz because the emblem on the back end stops two feet from my face. I wonder if the car has a rearview camera; if Robyn sees me on my knees, sees my gun.
“Hello,” I say, just in case, and I stay put, aimed at where I think the camera would be. I get the plate number, and I say it over and over as Robyn shifts into DRIVE, the tires kicking gravel back at me. I shield my face; I cough at the exhaust fumes. Then I watch the brake lights wink before she turns out of the alley and heads north.
Pretty nice car for a woman who doesn’t drive.
I get my ass back to Walter’s car to follow her.
The street is a one-way, and that means Robyn will either have to drive past me or continue north to reach a main drag. I figure I’m at least a minute behind her, and since I don’t see oncoming headlights, I go against the one-way and shoot up to Division.
At the intersection, I take a guess based solely on her outfit that she’s headed east. River North. Or near there. A club with a cover.
And it’s a good guess: once I muscle through the intersection at Damen and Division, I see the Benz a half-block ahead.
I follow her on Division through Goose Island and past the big-box store that stands where Cabrini Green used to, the brutal lore of public housing replaced by the promise to expect more, pay less.
A few blocks later, the last car between us peels off at LaSalle. I back off as w
e approach the Gold Coast.
She turns south and snakes her way to a stop in front of the valet booth outside a popular steakhouse. By popular, I mean tourists go, but frequenting the joint means you’re either pushing sixty and making so much money that quality yet gimmicky dishes at inflated prices are worth the see-and-be-seen, or you’re pushing legal age and using your cleavage as leverage for a free, three-bill dinner. I bet the number of hot young women who actually buy martinis is around zero.
Robyn keeps my estimate low when she smooches hello with a gray-haired gentleman and he holds the door.
I back Walter’s car around the corner and leave it in a loading zone. Parking is impossible in this neighborhood, and double-parking ill-advised, but I feel so gray from the brain down I’ll take my chances on a ticket over collapsing on the sidewalk. I don’t have to exaggerate the limp as I make my way inside.
I do have to exaggerate my smile once I’m in front of the hostess, who looks barely old enough to work there but puts on a fully developed bitch face as she looks down on me from the podium.
“Do you have a reservation?” she asks, like I’ll say no and go away.
“I’m meeting someone,” I say. “Last name Weiss.”
“For how many people?”
“Two.”
While she clicks around her screen looking for what’s not there, I peek around the podium to get a look at the reservations.
“There’s no reservation under that name.”
But there is one, VIP-starred, for a Dr. Larry Adkins. I know that name. How do I know that name?
She angles the screen away from me. “I’m sorry. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”
“Oh, I’m sure. Any chance he’s already here?” I use the question to get a look in the dining room, where I see Robyn seated at a window table with her date.
“I’d have the name on my list.”
Just then, a younger guy in a dressed-up button-down comes around the curtain from the bar that borders the dining room, a pager in one hand, his date’s elbow in the other, like he steered her in from Schaumburg. “It’s about time,” he says.
The hostess takes the pager. “I’m sorry. Even customers with reservations have to wait tonight.”
“For an hour?”
“Thank you for your patience.”
The Lies We Tell Page 27