Boystown 7: Bloodlines

by Marshall Thornton

  Owen shrugged. “Twenty years ago Johnson told the FBI to stop with the illegal wiretaps. But presidents change. Time passes and they’re back to their old tricks.” An idea hit him. “Do you know if Jimmy has bugged the task force? Is this why you wanted to see me? Wiretapping?”

  “No. As far as I know Jimmy hasn’t done anything like that. And you don’t want to know if he has.” Technically, lawyers weren’t supposed to break the law any more than Federal agencies.

  I decided to tackle the uncomfortable bit of what I needed to tell him first. “I went to see Jimmy.”

  “I would have liked to have known that before you did it.”

  “I was out in the suburbs anyway and I couldn’t exactly call you and tell you, now could I?” I hadn’t thought of it at the time, but it made a good excuse now.

  “Still, I’d like to know these things, dear.”

  “I know.”

  “What did you talk to him about?” Owen asked, as we crossed Michigan Avenue. I scanned the people nearby, attempting to be sure we weren’t being followed. Feeling really paranoid while I did it.

  “I wanted to make sure he didn’t keep any kind of a diary. And I wanted him to be thinking about people who might have.”

  “That was on my list for our next conversation. I’ll follow-up.”

  “I went to see Nino Nitti’s son, Nino Jr. I was trying to see his widow but she’s senile and doesn’t remember who she is half the time. The son said the Feds were there putting pressure on him to say that his father confessed that Jimmy hired him to kill the Perellis.”

  “Is he going to say that?”

  “I don’t think so. He seemed pissed about it.”

  “Do you think I can get him to talk about their trying to put words in his mouth?”

  “You can try. But that will probably piss him off, too. He just wants to go back to Indianapolis.”

  “What are you doing next?”

  “There’s more I need to tell you.” We stopped walking and stood in front of the Art Institute by the southerly lion. I don’t know why I knew this, but I seemed to remember that the lion was named Defiance. “It’s not good. I got a call from Detective Frank Connors. He was Harker’s partner.”

  “Okay,” Owen said, not really seeing a connection.

  “He also handled the Bughouse Slasher investigation. This morning I had a visit from Christian Baylor. He wrote an article about the Slasher. There’s a CPD Captain named Devlin looking into the death of the Slasher.”

  “Devlin is on the task force,” Owen said, getting half the connection.

  “You’re still my attorney, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “The night Joseph Gorshuk was killed my gun was found in the cemetery. Connors returned it to me.”

  Owen’s mind raced with the various possibilities. “Oh. I see. So this Devlin guy is coming after you because you’re working for Jimmy now.”

  “Exactly. And he’ll take down Connors in the process.”

  “Nick, the safest thing to do is to walk away. They’ll leave you alone if you back off. Jimmy will understand and so will I.”

  I thought about it for a moment. I remembered Joseph saying that I should try to make a different choice if I could. I wanted to make a different choice, I just didn’t know what—something occurred to me. I looked at Owen and said, “Let’s go back to your office.”

  “And do what?”

  “Control what the task force knows.”

  On the walk back, I explained exactly what I wanted to do. Which was basically to repeat much of what I’d said, then quit, or rather pretend to quit and keep right on working for Jimmy. It would take them a while to figure out I was still working but it might give me enough time to find something out.

  We walked into the reception area of Cooke, Babcock and Lackerby, and the receptionist looked up at us in surprise. She couldn’t figure out why we’d gone to such lengths to not speak in Owen’s office and were now going to do exactly that. I gave her a sympathetic smile as we walked by.

  In Owen’s office, I sat down on one of the thin, metal chairs and pointed back and forth, silently asking which one was bugged. Owen pointed at the one I wasn’t sitting in. I leaned in that direction. Owen sat down and said, “Nick! How are you doing?” I nearly cringed. He wasn’t much of an actor.

  “Not so great.” Actually, I wasn’t much of an actor either. “I’ve heard from a couple of people that a cop is chasing down my tail. A guy named Devlin.”

  “There’s a guy named Devlin on Operation Tea and Crumpets.”

  “Same guy. He’s got me on something I did. Something incriminating.”

  “What exactly?”

  “I’d rather not say. Even to my attorney.”

  “So…are you quitting?”

  That threw me a little. It was sort of my line. “Um, yeah. I have to.”

  “But you can still work on the Levine case, right?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Jimmy’s going to be very angry.” That was good. It fit into their idea of Jimmy as an angry, mean person.

  “I know, but I don’t want to end up in prison.”

  “I’ll do my best to make Jimmy understand.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  Owen raised an index finger. Then wrote a note. It said, “BUY A BEEPER.” While I read that he said, “Keep me up-to-date on the Levine case.”

  “I will.” Though I hadn’t updated him and perhaps should have done just that.

  He handed me another note on which there was a phone number. I mouthed the word, BEEPER? And he nodded. Then I said goodbye and walked out of his office. All in all, I thought we’d just done a very good job of misdirection. I decided I’d spend the rest of the day on the Levine case, just in case I was being followed around. Taking the day off from Jimmy’s case lent truth to the lie.

  Before I left the Loop I looked around for a place to get a beeper. It seemed like these places were springing up all over the place, but then when I wanted one I had trouble finding it. I finally found one on Madison a few doors down from the French Bakery where Brian still worked. It was getting close to eleven so he’d be just getting there. I wondered if Franklin came with him. These past few days Franklin seemed to be everywhere Brian was.

  I spent forty-five grueling minutes in the store. By the time I was done I felt mugged. Worse, my mugger was going to mug me to the tune of twenty-five dollars a month for as long as I carried the little black plastic box around. On the upside, when the salesman spent five minutes trying to sell me a briefcase telephone that cost nearly four thousand dollars I managed not to punch him. I had a lot of trouble understanding why I desperately needed something that hadn’t even existed a few years ago. I thought I’d been getting by just fine without a beeper. Now, people would be able to reach me any time, anywhere. I wasn’t sure I liked that idea.

  Chapter Twelve

  After deciding not to have lunch at the French Bakery, I caught the El back to Boystown. My plan was to grab my car and head out to Park Ridge. I figured I’d find a diner somewhere and have some lunch. On the way from the Belmont El station to Roscoe where my car was parked, I stopped at my office. I called the receptionist at Cooke, Babcock and Lackerby, told her my pager number and asked her to give it to Owen.

  I remembered a diner out in Lincoln Square that was mediocre at best but had parking nearby and the guarantee of an open table. The place was called Tasty Bites; it had an overwhelming and encyclopedic menu, so I started thinking about what I might want for lunch well before I got there. After the loose-boned waitress sat me in a booth next to the window, she began to walk away. I said, “I know what I want.”

  “Really? Usually it takes people forever.” She took out a pad.

  “I’d like a grilled ham and cheese, with French fries and a Coca-Cola.”

  “What kind of bread?”

  “White.”

  “What kind of cheese?”

  “Cheddar.”


  “You want a salad with that?”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “They make me ask.”

  “No I don’t want a salad, but why don’t we count talking about it toward my daily requirements.”

  “Funny,” she said, without enthusiasm. She snatched up the menu and loped off.

  I lit a cigarette and tried to get my focus back on the Levine case. Most of my adult life I’d done more than one thing at a time. When I was on the job I only worked for the CPD, but my life at home with Daniel was like a completely different world. It was like being two people. Then when I left the CPD, I started working as an investigator, but for a long time it wasn’t enough money so I was a doorman two nights a week at Paradise Isle, a disco that had eventually shut down. I think someone was turning the place into a mattress store. Anyway, I felt like I should be a lot better at juggling everything I had going on. Yeah, there was a lot at stake in Jimmy’s case and not just for Jimmy. And there was a lot at stake with Madeline’s case, though it wasn’t as personal to me. Probably since I’d never met her and to me she was little more than a picture in the newspaper.

  My sandwich arrived and it was pretty good. Though it seemed hard to screw up. The greasier and soggier the better. The same cannot be said for the French fries. They were also greasy and soggy, but that doesn’t work for fries. I ate them anyway, paid my bill, and got back on the road.

  The Levine’s lived in a grand two-story brick house with brilliant white trim and delicate lace curtains. The lawn was winter brown and the trees were naked. As nice as the house was, it looked beaten down, as though it were reacting to the stress of Madeline’s trial. As I got to the front door it opened and a black woman came out dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. Closing the door behind her, she carried a bucket filled with cleaning supplies. She walked past me without smiling. I rang the bell.

  The door opened quickly. A woman in her early sixties with a gray pageboy looked at me with a bit of surprise then glowered over my shoulder at her maid.

  “Why do I always feel guilty when she comes? I pay her twelve dollars an hour and she doesn’t even do that good a job. I’m helping her feed her family, but every time she comes I feel like I’m doing her some terrible disservice. Who are you?”

  “My name is Nick Nowak.” I handed her a card. “I’m working with your daughter’s attorneys on her case.”

  “That’s over, isn’t it?”

  “We’re working on the sentencing phase.”

  “I’ve already told Maddy’s lawyers I can’t testify.”

  “I know. I’d just like to talk to you about avenues we could pursue to help lessen your daughter’s sentence.”

  Her nose crinkled. At first, I thought it was in distaste at the idea of helping her daughter, then she asked, “Do you smoke?”

  That was embarrassing, she’d just smelled me. “Yes, I’m sorry if—”

  “I’ll let you in for ten minutes if you give me a cigarette.”

  “Deal.”

  She led me into the house. We walked past a living room where two small children sat in front of a television watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon. They were younger than I’d remembered, a boy and a girl around three and five. Mrs. Levine glanced at the TV and said, “There’s about twenty minutes left on that tape so we should be fine. They won’t move until it’s over.” Then she led me down the hallway to the kitchen, which was enormous and spotlessly clean. Looked to me like the maid did a damn fine job.

  “My daughter hates the idea of me smoking around her children. I smoked around her when she was a child and it didn’t do anything to her. Well, I guess that’s debatable.”

  I pulled out my pack of Marlboro’s and flipped the lid back to offer her one. We each lit up and stood in front of the sink using it as an ashtray.

  “So you’re here to get me to testify for my daughter.”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “I know what you said. The thing is, I don’t know what I’d say. I can’t go into court and say that Wes deserved to die. He didn’t. I can’t say my daughter needs to be with her children because she’s a good mother. She’s not. I’ve been raising her children for her all along. The only difference is now it’s official. Now I have a legal right. I can’t think of one honest thing I could say that would help her.”

  “You could say you love her.”

  Her face froze. “Is that all it takes to keep someone out of prison? For a mother to stand up and say they’re loved? Thank God you’ve figured that out. Now we can empty the prisons.”

  I thought it best to ignore that. “You testified against your daughter.”

  “I didn’t volunteer to do that. They made me. Then they called me hostile. I wasn’t hostile, I was very polite. If anyone was hostile it was the attorneys.”

  “Tell me about Wes. What did you think of him?”

  “I thought he was great. Any mother would. He was charming and good-looking, and he made my daughter happy. And yes, he wasn’t what you’d call ambitious, but Maddy had enough ambition for both of them. An ambitious man would have gotten in her way.”

  “So what happened?”

  She shrugged and took a drag off her cigarette.

  “I know about the drugs,” I said. “Maddy was stealing drugs from her practice.”

  “Well, now you know why I can’t testify.”

  “Was Wes using too?”

  “We tried to help them both. We really did. My husband threatened to take the children away if they didn’t stop. Maddy did. She began going to those meetings. She got better.”

  “But Wes didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who Emily Fante is?”

  “No.”

  “She was a friend of Madeline’s.”

  “I know all of my daughter’s friends.”

  “Do you know her drug friends?”

  “Drug friends? I don’t know what that is.”

  “When people do drugs they make friends with people who do drugs. It makes it easier to get what you need.”

  “No. I don’t know any of her drug friends.”

  Something occurred to me, something that struck me as odd. “How much of this was in your testimony?”

  “Not much. I answered the questions I was asked. I didn’t elaborate.”

  “What did you say?”

  “They asked me about Maddy’s relationship with Wes. I said it wasn’t good. They made me describe several arguments they had while visiting. They asked me what the problems were in their marriage. I said I didn’t know.”

  “The problem was drugs.”

  “No. The symptom was drugs. I have no idea why either of them used drugs.”

  “Was he having an affair?”

  “I’m sure he was. Charming men usually are.”

  “Was he always having affairs?”

  “I don’t know. Maddy wouldn’t tell me something like that. She liked things to at least look perfect.”

  She turned on the faucet and ran her cigarette butt under the stream, then dropped it into the garbage disposal. I followed suit.

  “Do you think the story Maddy told was true? That Wes confessed to having an affair and she stabbed him in a rage?”

  “I hope not.”

  “What do you mean you hope not?”

  “I mean I hope all of this has a point. If Wes was having an affair, Maddy could easily have divorced him. She could even have kept him away from the kids if she wanted. At least until he stopped using drugs. And if he didn’t stop. Well, he wasn’t going to last long. She could have just waited.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t look good. He’d lost a lot of weight. I mean, they don’t eat right, do they? Users? And his skin wasn’t good. He was getting these awful red blotches. It was sad. He’d been so handsome. He’d have been dead by now. If Maddy hadn’t killed him.”

  After that she was finished. I offered her another cigarette but she t
urned it down.

  There was nothing to do but drive back to my office. When I got there, I set the bag with the priest suit in it by the door so I’d remember to take it with me and I could leave from Brian’s apartment in the morning. I called Owen’s pager number and listened to the prompt, then I put in my office phone number for him to call me back. Then I called Joseph.

  “It’s nice to hear from you,” he said.

  “It’s nice to be heard. Do you have plans for tomorrow night?”

  “Let me check my dance card.” He took a slight pause to support his joke. “No, it looks like I’m free.”

  Then I gave him my beeper number in case he needed to reach me and I wasn’t in my office. As soon as I said beeper he said, “Well…everything’s up to date in Kansas City.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s from a musical. Oklahoma .”

  “And you’re just now figuring out you’re gay?”

  “No, I’ve known forever. I just thought I could choose something else. Something more important. And I still might choose that.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that and didn’t have to come with a response because call waiting beeped in. “I have to take this.”

  “You know who’s calling?”

  “I’m expecting a call. Tomorrow around six-thirty? Meet at my office? We’ll figure out what to do then.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  I switched over. Like I expected, it was Owen Lovejoy, Esquire.

  “You rang?”

  “I did. I saw Mrs. Levine about an hour ago.”

  “What was that like?”

  “She’s knows a lot. A lot that she managed to keep out of testimony.”

  “Well don’t keep me in suspense, tell me.”

  “Madeline and Wes both had trouble with drugs. Madeline got through it for her kids. Wes didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t Madeline tell us? We could have made Wes look like a cheating drug addict, and it would have been true.”

  “You would have had to make her look like a drug addict too, though. The other thing is—”

  “There’s more? Shit.”

  “Mrs. Levine says that Wes was sick. She doesn’t think he was long for this world anyway. Is there anything on the autopsy?”