Boystown 7: Bloodlines

by Marshall Thornton

  Around two, I decided to take a break and go over to the French Bakery to see if Brian was there. I was still full from breakfast, but I might just have a cup of soup or something light. The lunch rush was well over by the time I walked up the steps to the restaurant on the second floor of the storefront on Madison and Dearborn, passing the real French bakers they had behind a window making croissants for the next morning. People knew me there, so no one bothered to stop me as I walked through the restaurant to the extra dining room in the back where the waiters had lunch after their shift. Brian sat at a small table with the bartender I liked, Lu. Lu had red hair cut into a punk mullet, a few chunks artfully cut out of her ears and a voice like back alley gravel. After we said hello, I asked Brian, “Did you see the paper?”

  “The virus?” he asked.

  “Yeah, they found it.”

  “I know. I talked to Sugar before I came in; she’d already been on the phone for two hours. She talked to a couple of doctors. They don’t think we should get too excited.”

  “Why not?” Lu asked. “It’s seems like great news.”

  “It’s a virus. No one’s ever cured a virus.”

  “What about the flu?” I asked. “There’s a vaccine for the flu.”

  “It takes years to develop a vaccine. Sometimes a decade. And it’s not a cure. It’s a prevention.”

  So we were shit out of luck. This news didn’t help Ross. It didn’t help a lot of people. Possibly not Brian. Possibly not me.

  As though he’d read my thoughts, Brian said, “I tried calling Ross this morning. They wouldn’t let me talk to him. They said he was getting better. That if he talked to me he might relapse.”

  “That sucks,” Lu said. “I don’t know why he had to go down there. We would have taken care of him.”

  “They promised to save him. It’s hard not to believe that when it’s all you’ve got.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The afternoon was deadly dull and I let my mind wander. I imagined myself as Charles Bronson swooping down on Normal, Illinois, and dragging Ross out of his parents’ trailer to bring him back where he belonged. I knew I wouldn’t do any such thing, but it felt good to fantasize about. I wondered what Harker would think of my apartment? Would he like it? Or would he miss living in the basement? I knew he’d hate what I was doing for Jimmy. He’d be afraid I was becoming the Outfit’s guy. And maybe I was. But I didn’t think Jimmy had killed the Perellis, so the task force shouldn’t just get to pin it on him. Maybe if I thought he killed them I’d be a little more squeamish about the whole thing.

  Around five forty-five, foot traffic was thinning out and I noticed a middle-aged man come up out of the subway. He had a heavy beard, wore a rumpled leisure jacket in gray, a blue polo shirt, and polyester plaid paints to match the shirt and jacket. He had an unlit cigar in his mouth. My heart sped up when I saw him. Maybe this was going to work. I watched as he headed toward the lobby entrance on the Dearborn side of the building. I hurried to the entrance near me, clutching my plastic bucket of change to my chest. I was closer to the elevators; he had to walk across the spacious lobby. I hurried around and stood on the side of the elevators he was heading toward and stood there with my bucket out. If I could get him to drop some change in, I’d also get a damn good look at him.

  I stood there nervously. An older woman with a pill box hat and half veil stood in front of me like a time traveler from the sixties. She opened her white patent leather purse and began a search for change. I wanted to yell at her to hurry-the-fuck-up, but couldn’t break character. I was a priest, after all. She was still poking around when the guy walked by me without a glance. I tried to memorize his face. Heavy brow, eyes so brown they were almost black, a nose that looked like it had been broken a half dozen times. Just as the woman finally plunked some money into my bucket, he was at the elevator, stepping in a car, disappearing. I wished for a moment that we were in one of the older buildings that told you what floor the car was on. I could watch the numbers change until the car stopped. Newer buildings like this didn’t work that way. I had no idea what floor he was going to.

  Briefly, I considered jumping into an elevator and going to the twenty-third floor. I wouldn’t get there in time. If he were going there he would beat me to it and be safely tucked behind the office door of the task force. I’d have no idea if he was in there or not. I decided the smart thing to do was to go and stand by the subway entrance. Sooner or later he’d come out and then I could follow him home. I stood there wondering who the guy was. He was a good thirty-five years younger than Jimmy. Was he someone Jimmy had mentored? Was he on Jimmy’s crew? How long would he be in there? If he was Prince Charles he could be in there for hours being questioned.

  I was busy trying to think how long I might be standing there, when a gray Ford LTD pulled up to the curb. It was a boxy sedan. The kind favored by Federal agencies. The doors opened and three people got out. One of the Federal agents I’d been in the elevator with and two other people I recognized. Two people who knew Jimmy. The guy I’d just picked out and was trying to figure out how to tail was nobody. Prince Charles was standing in front of me. But I couldn’t be sure he was a prince at all, or rather which of them was the prince. One of the people with the agent was Jimmy’s granddaughter, Deanna Hansen. The other was her boyfriend and low-level Outfit scum, Turi Bova.

  I’d run across Deanna once before. I was looking for whoever blew up my Plymouth Duster, and for a while I suspected Turi Bova of having done it. That was how I learned that Deanna was involved with the much older mobster. It didn’t take much to figure out Jimmy wouldn’t like it. It also didn’t take much to realize I’d be a fool to keep that information to myself, so I forced Deanna to confess her sins to her grandfather. I’d thought that had ended their association, but I was wrong.

  Deanna hadn’t forgotten me either. Her eyes flared when she saw me. She nudged her boyfriend and Turi looked over at me. Sheer hatred turned his face beet red. It was comforting that there was a Federal agent right there, since it prevented anyone from pulling a gun. Calmly, I walked down into the subway.

  Of course, I wasn’t calm. Not even close. I now knew something that I had to tell people. I had to tell Owen and then somebody had to tell Jimmy. I was tempted to tell Owen and then let him deal with Jimmy, but, given that I actually had something to do with this, given that his granddaughter might have had no reason to seek revenge on Jimmy if I hadn’t forced her…yeah, I was sort of, maybe, responsible. I needed to tell him myself.

  After I got off at the Belmont stop, I hurried home and quickly changed my clothes. Then I walked around the neighborhood looking for my car. At first I was looking for the Nova, then I remembered I actually had the Versailles and the Nova was now sitting out in Edison Park with a makeshift for sale sign in the window. Remembering which car I was looking for made it a lot easier. I found it on Melrose and drove out to Oak Park.

  I tried to work out what I’d seen and what it meant. Who was Prince Charles? Turi or Deanna? As far as I knew, Turi didn’t have anything to do with Jimmy. He wasn’t high enough up in the Outfit to know Jimmy’s business. And I couldn’t imagine Jimmy giving him the time of day. That left Deanna. Of course it was Deanna. If Turi was the informant he would have made her stay home. A macho guy like Turi would never let her come along for support. And a macho guy like Turi wouldn’t let her come alone if she was the informant. Deanna was Prince Charles. They’d called her that to throw us of the scent. It had worked.

  But that raised an important question. How did she know so much about her grandfather’s activities?

  Jimmy opened the door himself. He wore a white shirt, black slacks and a pair of plaid flannel slippers. His hair was a bit disheveled as though I’d just woken him from a nap. Since it was after dinnertime, I assumed he’d let the maid go for the day. I apologized for showing up so late, though it was only about seven and the sun wouldn’t fully set for another hour.

  “It’s important, Jim
my,” I assured him.

  He led me into a parlor just off the foyer. I’d never been in there before. The room was decorated to look as though it was a British drawing room. Or rather, the American idea of a British drawing room gleaned mostly from movies. There were antique tables with vases against the walls, an unused fireplace, an Oriental rug laid over wall to wall carpet, a comfortable sofa in a floral print, and carved wooden chairs with wide upholstered seats which were probably named after some French king. Jimmy sat on the sofa while I sat on one of the chairs.

  “The informant is your granddaughter, Deanna,” I said as simply and directly as I could. Jimmy pushed himself back into the sofa; he looked as though he’d just been hit by a gust of air.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I saw them get out of a car with a Federal agent on their way into the Federal Building where Operation Tea and Crumpets is housed.”

  We were quiet for quite a long time. Softly, he said the girl’s name once, except he pronounced it Dina or Dean-a. Which I supposed was the Italian way. A gold clock in a glass bubble sat on the mantel. I listened to it tick off the seconds.

  “The diary is real, isn’t it Jimmy?” That was the only way Deanna would know anything about her grandfather’s activities unless—

  “Yes. I kept a diary,” he admitted.

  “Why did you lie to me about that?”

  “It’s a very dangerous book. I can’t have people knowing it exists. You can’t ask people about it, do you understand?”

  “I won’t say anything to anyone. But your lawyer should know.”

  He shrugged.

  “You still have the diary, don’t you? Deanna just made a copy, right?”

  “No. She stole it.”

  “You’ve known that all along.”

  “I knew it was gone. I didn’t know my granddaughter took it.”

  “Who did you think took it?”

  “My driver. The maid. I got rid of them.”

  “You fired them?” I asked hopefully.

  He looked a little offended. “I wouldn’t do more than that without proof.”

  “According to the files, Prince Charles–Deanna–has told them, repeated conversations the two of you have had. Is that true?”

  “Cautionary tales meant to put the girl on the right track.”

  “Have you seen her recently?”

  He shook his head. “She wants to come next week.”

  “She’ll be wearing a wire. Or at least she would have been. They saw me, too.”

  “She won’t come then.”

  I thought about the situation for a moment. I had to think of something constructive to suggest. “If they indict you, the Feds will have to provide your defense with a copy of the diary. But they’re going to do their best to stall. You need to try to remember everything you can about what you put in that diary. My guess is that your lawyers will want to find inconsistencies, things that aren’t true. If they can cast doubt on some of what’s in the diary then all of it becomes suspect.”

  “Why would I write things that aren’t true?”

  “Jimmy, you’ll never admit that you wrote it. If we find anything in there that doesn’t fit, then we’ll be able to say that you didn’t write it.”

  He thought for a moment, then nodded.

  Not sure I wanted the answer, I asked, “Does this mean you did order the death of the Perellis?”

  He just looked at me. It was a look that made me a queasy. But what did I expect, really? That Jimmy was secretly a Girl Scout?

  “Getting Nino Jr. to say his father confessed would be close to the truth?”

  “No. It wouldn’t be. The Nose didn’t do the job.”

  I was afraid to ask who did. Somehow this would all be worse if Jimmy killed them himself. It didn’t matter though. Operation Tea and Crumpets was wrong. They were just making things up and pushing people around until they agreed. Wasn’t that every bit as wrong as what Jimmy had done? If they got away with doing something like this to Jimmy, then what would they do to innocent people? I was rationalizing and knew it. But it did make me feel better for a moment. But only for a moment.

  “What does it say in your diary about the Perellis?”

  “That N took care of the Ps.”

  “Who is N?” If it wasn’t Jimmy, I could ask.

  He shook his head. I decided not to press him. A minute later he said, “I don’t believe she did this to me.”

  “The people we love can do terrible things.”

  He looked at me as though he’d made it to his eighties without ever suspecting this.

  Driving home, I turned it all over in my head. The pieces fit. I wasn’t sure if they fit because they belonged together or because they’d been stubbornly jammed together like pieces of a puzzle with too much sky. But I couldn’t think of any reason for Jimmy to lie to me. He was very likely going to prison, sent there by his own granddaughter. I put the whole thing out of my head and drove. I’d done my job. I’d found the informant, and I could relax. I didn’t think Jimmy would try to “persuade” his own grandchild. The girl was safe and the best that could be hoped for was that Cooke, Babcock, and Lackerby would find a technicality to get him off. And, hopefully, I’d keep getting paid to make that happen.

  The sun had just set and I was nearly home when my beeper went off. I looked at the number and didn’t recognize it. I was close to the Walgreen’s, so I stopped at the pay phone they had outside near the entrance. I plunked my quarter in and dialed the number. After one ring a man answered. He didn’t bother with hello or any other niceties.

  “Nowak. You didn’t quit your job like you were supposed to.”

  “No. I have this weird addiction to paying my rent.”

  “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll quit the job.” And I’d just been hoping it would continue for a long time.

  “Your name’s Devlin and you’re harassing me. If you don’t stop I’ll report you to the State’s Attorney.”

  That cracked him up. He was still laughing when he hung up. I stood there for a moment with the phone still to my ear. He was probably right. The idea that the State’s Attorney would take any action against someone working on Operation Tea and Crumpets was a joke. I had to do something, though. I had to take some action to keep Devlin from making good on his threats. I hung up the phone and reversed my course.

  A few minutes later I was in my office. I opened up the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out my Sig Sauer. For years I’d worn it everywhere I went. Hell, I wore it fucking a few times. But then after I killed Joseph Gorshuk I stopped feeling that the danger was outside of me. Most of the time, I was the most dangerous thing in the room, and I knew it. Carrying a gun only made that feeling worse, so I stopped. I slipped the gun into my pocket and left the office.

  I headed back to Belmont and walked toward the lake, walked under the Drive, and headed toward the Rocks. The Rocks are a seawall made of enormous terraced stone blocks that are now covered in sometimes-clever graffiti. In the summer it’s the place where gay boys put on Speedos to sun themselves and flirt. That night it was dark and the lake seemed restless, rising in waves to beat against the giant stones. I jumped down the rocks to the lowest terrace, took the Sig Sauer out of my pocket, and with as much strength as I could muster threw it out into the lake. I wish I could say it was the first time Lake Michigan had claimed a gun from me, but it wasn’t. There was a nice Smith & Wesson Model 28 that had once belonged to me floating around somewhere near Foster. So now Lake Michigan held two of my secrets. I wondered how many other guns were floating around the bottom of the lake. I wondered how many thousands of secrets the lake hid.

  I tried to decide whether I should call Connors and tell him I’d been threatened again. I wasn’t sure that was necessary and actually thought it might be better if I stayed as far away from him as I could. He’d tampered with evidence and I didn’t think there was any way he’d admit to it. Since the evidence was no longer in my possession the
most logical thing to assume was that it was lost in the property section. Somewhere there was a record of Connors submitting a search on the gun’s ownership. If that came to light, it wasn’t good for either of us, but it wasn’t terrible. I could say I lost the gun before Gorshuk’s death. The fact that the gun ended up in the same cemetery where the man who killed my lover died is just one of those amazing coincidences that happen. As was the fact that Connor’s requested an ownership search on a gun that belonged to his partner’s lover. But that’s all that anyone would ever have. A couple of amazing coincidences. No one could place me in the cemetery. Gorshuk had not been shot so there was no bullet to connect to my gun. In fact, I could argue that if I was in the cemetery with Gorshuk why didn’t I shoot him? I could argue that it might have been Groshuk who stole my gun in an attempt to incriminate me. An attempt that went wrong. My trail of logic made me feel a bit better. I was safe as long as Devlin didn’t begin to fabricate evidence. If I didn’t know they were completely capable of that, I’d have felt great.

  The next morning as I walked over to my office, I stopped at the Walgreen’s payphone and called Devlin’s number. I didn’t want to talk to him, but I did want to find out how the phone was answered. Did they say, “Operation Tea and Crumpets?” Or had they made up some faux company name like “Acme International?” The call was picked up almost immediately and a recorded voice said, “The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and try again.”

  That was creepy.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Life went on. My bed was delivered. I rented a truck, and Brian and Franklin helped me move my big stuff over from my office. I shoved it all in the middle of my place, covered it with some old sheets and painted the walls a slightly darker gray than my apartment on Roscoe had been. The phone company came and installed a telephone. I chose the beige desk model. They didn’t come in gray.