The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  Bunch of amateurs anyway. Everyone knew that, if you’re gonna blow a boat, you put the charge in the bilge by the gas tanks.

  Zany Rawlings heard the news about the burning and sinking of Poe’s boat on the radio. He frequently turned on his favorite country and western station when he sat down at home to fiddle with his computer. The announcer read two sentences about the incident in the hourly news wrap-up. When there was no new information provided in the half-hourly update, he called his friend Killeen at his newspaper, working the late shift. Killeen pulled up the wire story on his newsroom computer terminal and read it to Zany—with some difficulty, as the reporter had apparently paused overlong at his dinner break.

  “What was that about arson?” Zany asked.

  “It says ‘the cause of the fire is unknown but arson is being investigated.’”

  “Who’s on it?”

  “Door County sheriff’s office. And the Coast Guard, I guess.”

  “And there was only one injury?”

  “Two. A woman named Cynthia Ellison, listed as serious but stable condition with burns, and the skipper, Matthias Curland. Minor burns.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. How are you coming on the O’Rourke story, the painting angle? Did Baldessari say he was investigating the connection?”

  “Said he was looking into it. Otherwise, I’m getting mostly nowhere. I called the Laurence Train gallery and some others, but they acted like I was crazy. So did the burglary coppers.”

  “Which coppers?”

  “Detective Plotnik.”

  “So are you going to do a story about it?”

  “I talked to the city editor, but she said she wanted some more facts.”

  What was the newspaper business coming to?

  “Okay, Marty. If I pick up anything more, I’ll let you know. When this thing breaks, you can tell your editor she passed up a hot one.”

  “She’ll still want the facts.”

  Zany stayed up long after his wife went to bed, drinking beer and going through his computer files on the case, over and over, pointlessly. He was confused as hell by the sailboat sinking. Curland and those people could have been killed—probably should have been. Poe might have gone to a watery grave, too, if he had stayed with them.

  Zany had put both Curland and Poe in his file of possible bad guys. Now they were among the victims—or would be victims. Were they good guys? Or were there two sets of bad guys—or several? Did the incident have anything to do with the painting? Did anything have anything to do with anything? Was Zany Rawlings slowly losing his mind fooling around with this thing, imagining weird conspiracies and linking coincidences together like someone trying to solve the John F. Kennedy assassination?

  He was groggy. Perhaps he’d been pushing this thing too hard, for too long. He probably would be wise to set it aside for a while, let everything settle, wait for some new development that would be more helpful, or for new evidence to turn up. When he was with Area Six burglary, he’d often let piles of cases languish that way—often solving them months later when a snitch passed something on or the perpetrators struck again. Everyone he knew, including most especially his wife, wanted him to step away from this investigation.

  But this wasn’t a burglary case, or some game he was playing on his computer. Two women were dead. Another had been burned. There could easily have been more victims in the two Grand Pier robberies. He couldn’t walk away from any of that.

  His wife stirred and wakened as he took off his clothes to go to bed, dropping his boots too loudly on the floor.

  “It’s past two A.M., Zane.”

  “Sorry. Been doing a little work.”

  “I think we should move,” she said.

  “What?”

  “To Detroit, or maybe the South Bronx. Where we can get some peace and quiet.”

  Zany overslept the next morning, but took his time getting ready anyway, turning on the bathroom radio while he showered and shaved, taking more time to trim his beard.

  There was a story on the news break about Poe’s boat, but the information was exactly the same as the night before. Zany had read somewhere that most people now got their news from television and radio. They must not give much of a damn about what was going on in the world, let alone their own city.

  He turned the dial to WBBM, an all-news station. They were interviewing some woman who’d written a book about lesbian parenthood.

  In the car, he clicked on only his police radio, and got some news in a hurry. Hearing the call of a robbery in progress—his heart racing after the location was given—he pressed the accelerator to the floor and grabbed up the microphone.

  “This is Rawlings. What’s happening?”

  “It’s your wife’s store, chief! A stickup! She just called it in!”

  Then it was no long an “in progress.” And she was probably okay.

  “Got a description on a perpetrators’ vehicle?” Zany was shouting into the mike.

  “Negative, Chief.”

  “Call the sheriff’s office and the state troopers! Get a roadblock up by the interstate! Stop everybody.”

  “Ten four, Chief.”

  Two of his patrols and a sheriff’s car had gone directly to the scene and beat him to it. They were in the store, talking with his wife. She was trembling, more with fury than with fear.

  “They were in bathing suits!” she said. “Bathing suits and sweatshirts. Barefoot. They waited until I was done with a customer and when he left they pulled guns out of their beachbags and made me empty the cash register.”

  “What did they get, Judy?”

  “It couldn’t have been a hundred dollars, for God’s sake.”

  “Describe them.”

  “One black. One white. They wore sunglasses. I don’t know. They went out the back. Fast.”

  Officer Barbara Vaclav came in through the rear screen door, service revolver hanging in her hand.

  “They got away clean, Chief.”

  There was a small dune behind Judy’s beach shop, some vacation cottages and a hardtop road on the other side.

  “They left footprints,” Vaclav added.

  “They touch anything in here?” Zany asked.

  “Just the money,” said his wife.

  Zany went out through the screen door, the other policemen trailing. Two sets of foot marks, useless in the dry sand as far as recoverable impressions were concerned, led up through a narrow defile. Standing on top of the dune, Zany could see where they must have parked the car. They would have been taken for a couple of guys going for a morning swim.

  “Canvass these houses,” Zany said. “I want a description on that car.”

  He returned to the store. Judy was leaning back against the counter, arms folded, staring at the floor.

  “Are you all right?” Zany asked.

  Her gaze lifted like a deck gun being trained on an enemy ship. “This is it, Zane. No argument about it. You drop that goddamned case.”

  “Judy …”

  “You drop it or I’m going back to Chicago. Or maybe Wyoming.”

  “There’s been a new development. Somebody set fire to Poe’s boat yesterday. Matthias Curland was on it—the dead girl’s old boyfriend.”

  Her eyes were rejecting every word he uttered. “Now, Zany. Finito.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll let it go.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Promise.”

  “If you cheat on this I’m going to take an ax to your computer.”

  The phone rang. Zany had no doubt it was District Attorney Moran. If it wasn’t, he was sure it would be the mayor.

  Poe, Yeats, and Mango sat together in the front row of the public gallery that overlooked the floor of the Illinois State Senate. There were very few spectators in the old wooden seats—a couple of retirees with nothing more edifying to do with their time, a weirdo who haunted the legislature on behalf of some lunatic cause, and several lobby
ists doing guard duty, keeping the lawmakers under observation until the last gavel fell on this extended summer session, lest someone try to put through a sneaker bill, or attach some odious amendment to the legislation under present consideration, which was the measure authorizing cities with more than two million population—i.e., Chicago—to issue general revenue bonds and impose a .025 percent tax on accommodations for the purpose of constructing new museums of public interest.

  It was advertised as a “merely bill.” As Poe’s chief Senate spokesman had put it, “This bill merely authorizes the municipality in question to establish these institutions if it so wishes. Not a penny will come from the state treasury and not a penny can be spent without the approval of the city council and the park district. It’s a local measure—no skin off anybody’s back outside the Chicago city limits.”

  The mayor had agreed to support the measure early on, seeing it as a foothold in getting the lawmakers to allow an increase in the city’s hotel tax in the next legislative session and knowing full well that the bill had become a holy crusade for the backers of the proposed Holocaust Museum. Chicago had only about a quarter of a million Jewish residents, but they spent a lot of money on public causes and exercised a political influence far out of proportion to their numbers. They made up the hard core of the “Lakefront Liberals” who had been such a sticky thorn in the side of the first Mayor Daley in the ideological turmoil of the early 1970s. In the modern era of consensus politics in the city, they were quiescent, but they enjoyed a good fight, and there was no point in stirring them up.

  The Republicans were divided. Some were disposed to let the city of Chicago tax itself to death if it wished. Others were opposed to tax increases of any kind in any form for any reason even if the tax was one levied on aliens from outer space. Most of the downstaters didn’t much give a damn, though a few of them had used the opportunity for some log rolling, trading their votes in favor of the bill for future favors and commitments.

  Poe’s interest in it was widely known and considered highly curious. Most thought of him as a WASP. Some were aware of his Polish ancestry. In either case, his peg seemed to be in the wrong hole in the city’s long-standing game of ethnic politics. The most common guess was that he was trying to get on the good side of the Jewish bankers he’d done so much business with, though the bank he was cutting his Cabrini Green project deal with had mostly Japanese connections. One House member, known for his wit, had introduced a spurious amendment calling for the bill to include authorization for a Pearl Harbor museum. It got one vote.

  The House had approved the bill by a comfortable enough margin, but Poe was worried about the more conservative Senate. The voting that morning was to be on approval of a conference committee report that had merged the slightly differing House and Senate versions of the measure. Once the report was accepted, everything else was a formality. The governor had expressed no interest in a veto.

  Still, as the Senate clerk called forth the measure from the calendar, Poe began to itch and sweat. He had laid down a lot of money. Nine key lawmakers had been bought and paid for in the Senate, more than twice that many in the House—each buyee carefully selected and romanced by Yeats and his lobbyists. But Poe was worried that they hadn’t done enough, that he had too much allowed himself to be distracted by his yacht race and other business. The legislature could wreck his plans just as thoroughly as the bankers.

  The vote was called. Instead of responding to a verbal call of the roll, as was still done in the United States Senate, the members simply turned a switch at their desks that was reflected by lights next to their names on huge electronic tally boards at the front of the chamber—green for aye, red for nay, yellow for abstention.

  In all, delayed by the absence of two members who had gone to the men’s room, the process took nine minutes. The final result was amazing. There were only six nay votes—five from conservative Republicans, one from a rabid ideologue who in public comment had expressed doubts that there had been a Holocaust.

  “You win,” said Yeats. “Again.”

  “It’s a landslide. An avalanche. How’d you do that?”

  “It was fairly easy to persuade the serious guys, those who like to be conscientious about their legislating. I convinced them it’s for a good cause, it’s Chicago only, and the city’s really under-taxed when it comes to hotels. New York levies four different taxes on its hotel bills. Chicago’s a piker in comparison. The guys who were bought were well paid. The others, well, it’s July. It’s hotter than hell down here. They hated the idea of an extended session. They just wanted to go home. Now, why don’t we do the same?”

  At the airport, waiting for their plane’s gas tanks to be topped off, Mango took Poe aside.

  “I’ve got the Philadelphia papers waiting for you when you get back to the penthouse. I think you’ll enjoy reading them.”

  She’d waited until Yeats had gone off to make some phone calls before telling Poe this. Yeats knew nothing about Poe’s deal with the West Side gentlemen and its payoff. He’d find out eventually, but Poe had decided to tell him as little as possible. He and Mango could handle things on their own. All things considered, they were doing a hell of a job at it.

  “The Atlantic City paper, too?”

  “Let’s not overdo it, Peter.”

  The housekeeper had put the out-of-town newspapers in Poe’s study. He’d dropped Yeats off at the Hancock, but Mango stayed with him.

  “Fix me a drink,” he told her, settling down into his chair. “Scotch light. Help yourself, too.”

  The Philadelphia Inquirer had run the story inside, in the metro section. Philadelphia Daily News had splashed it on page one: “MOBSTER KILLED IN BED.”

  The secondary headline summed up the other killings. The story, carried on inside, was quite lurid. Finishing it quickly, Poe went back to the Inquirer. The facts there were the same.

  He realized he’d crossed a line here. With O’Rourke, and the prostitute they’d stuck with his murder, he’d accepted what Mango had done, condoning—affirming—her actions. But he hadn’t asked to have either of them killed, hadn’t wanted it done. His former partners back East were something else. If he hadn’t said yes in that West Side restaurant, they’d all still be alive. He might as well have pulled the trigger himself—clicked the switch that set off the bomb in the tire.

  But he felt little remorse, less than he had over O’Rourke and the Chicago hooker. As he thought about it, none at all. It was good riddance. All of those guys must have killed people in their careers, or ordered it done. They were lowlifes, preying on every human weakness, in the business of screwing the public and cheating the government. It was good fucking riddance.

  It was self-defense. They were out to kill him. They’d almost done in his wife and his architect, and they’d burned that pretty girl. It was justice. If he were ever tried for what he’d done, he’d probably stand a good chance of getting off.

  And, of course, he never would be tried. Only a handful of people knew about his now thoroughly defunct Atlantic City partnership, and they all either worked for him or for them.

  For the first time in days, he felt in command again, in full control. And, on top of everything, he’d won that yachting race. He was happy.

  “Salut,” he said, raising his glass. “To the future.”

  Mango lifted her drink in response, then froze. Diandra was in the doorway, wearing a bathrobe, looking terrible.

  “Peter,” she said, her voice a monotone. “I want to talk to you.”

  “In a minute,” he said. “Okay, Miss Bellini. I want you to get back to work. I want to call a press conference for Thursday. And send a telegram to that girl’s father. What’s her name, Cindy Ellison? Tell him I’m real upset about what happened and that I’ll pay all the hospital costs, everything. Tell him I intend to cooperate with the authorities in every way to get to the bottom of this.”

  Mango knocked back her drink in a few quick swallows. “I’ll take ca
re of it, Mr. Poe. See you at the office.”

  Diandra stepped out of her way to let her pass, not deferentially or courteously, but as if to avoid contact with something repulsive.

  She seated herself in a chair by the window, compelling Poe to swivel away from his desk. He started to get up.

  “Don’t come near me, Peter. I’m not looking for a hug.”

  Her eyes were red, either from booze or crying or both. Her face was chalky white and her hair a tangle. He had never seen her looking like this.

  “You had a close call up there, honey,” he said. “You okay?”

  “I can’t think of a more inappropriate word for how I feel.”

  The robe was loose. She didn’t seem to be wearing anything beneath. It was nearly five o’clock. Had she been in bed all this time?

  “You don’t look so good. You sure you’re all right?”

  “Am I supposed to believe that you care?”

  “Of course I care. What do you think?”

  “Then why weren’t you there to meet me? Why did you go down to Springfield?”

  “Had to, babe. My bill was up on final reading today. It was a special session, you know? They weren’t going to sit there and wait on me. And Krasowski told me you were fine. Just got a little wet.”

  “Matthias said it was bomb. That it couldn’t be anything else.”

  “Is that what he thinks? Well, maybe it was. I’m sorry you got mixed up in it. I should have taken you back with me.”

  “Most wives don’t have to contend with bombs, Peter.”

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’m upset. I’m mad as hell about it. I’m going to make damn sure nothing like that ever happens again.”

  “Is someone trying to kill you, Peter? Why? What have you done?”

  “I haven’t done anything. I don’t know who planted that bomb, if it was a bomb. Maybe it had something to do with Curland. He’s the guy who had a dead girl turn up in his boat.”