The Big Score

by Kilian, Michael;

  “He probably asked his staff that, too. Now relax. We’re out of the picture on those. My bet is Curland took care of Train and then killed himself.”

  “Why would he go after Train?”

  “Running scared, maybe.”

  “You said he had guts.”

  “He was a drunk, Peter. A loser. Now let’s go.”

  Krasowski headed up LaSalle Street, moving slowly in the heavy morning traffic.

  “When we’ve signed the deal with Inland Empire, Mango, I want to get out of here for a while. Out of the country.”

  “A little Bahamas?”

  “A lot of Bahamas.”

  “You gotta take care of Diandra first.”

  “What do you mean, ‘take care of’?”

  “Your divorce.”

  “That’ll take some time.”

  “It doesn’t need to. You’ve got friends in the courts, remember? You don’t have to worry about Curland’s brother now. What can he do? Train’s dead. Christian’s dead. That girl’s dead. It’s just that old man Franck’s word against yours, and you can say you didn’t know the paintings were fakes, that you bought them from Train the way Franck bought them from you. You’re all right on this score.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So get rid of Diandra. Give her some money so she’ll agree to an uncontested divorce and let her and Curland go on their way. And you and me on ours.”

  “I need him for the building.”

  “The hell you do. Those other guys of yours can figure out the numbers and blueprints.”

  “If Inland Empire and the Japanese don’t hurry up, I’m not going to have any money to give her.”

  “Relax, Peter. Come on. You’ve taken care of everything they asked for. All you have to do now is turn over title on Cabrini Green to the cardinal.”

  A beeping sound interrupted them. Krasowski picked up the front seat car phone. “It’s Mr. Yeats, Mr. Poe.”

  Poe wiped his palms on his trousers, then lifted the rear seat receiver, waiting for Krasowski to hang up.

  “I needed you with me this morning, William,” Poe said. “It was hard doing this solo. His honor can be real scary sometimes.”

  “Sorry, Peter, but I told you the bank wanted to see me this morning, that it was important. It was.”

  Poe waited. “Yeah? And?”

  “Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m afraid the building deal is off.”

  “Off? What the hell are you talking about? I just left the mayor! I’m going to get a building permit, a real one this time. It’s all set!”

  “A call came in from Mr. Yamaguchi late last night. I don’t know what time it was, Tokyo time, but real late here.”

  “Yeah, so what’s his problem?”

  “Mr. Yamaguchi has been looking at the drawings real hard. I’m sorry to say this, but he’s changed his mind.”

  “You mean he doesn’t like the design? We’ll change the fucking design! We’ll do it in a week, sooner, if he wants. Today!”

  “That’s not it, Peter. He loves the design. He thinks it’s the greatest he’s ever seen. He doesn’t want to put his money into your building anymore. He wants to put up the world’s tallest building in Tokyo. He wants Curland’s design for himself.”

  “Curland works for me. He can’t do that.”

  “You can’t copyright a building, Peter.”

  “This is crazy! Call Inland Empire back. Tell them I’ll fly to Tokyo!”

  “It’s too late, Peter. Believe me, it’s an undone deal. Mr. Yamaguchi seems to have his heart set on this. He’s an old guy. He wants to leave a monument. For the greater glory of Japan, the emperor, and Yamaguchi, Inc.”

  Poe sat there, holding tightly to the phone, trying to forestall the moment when he’d hang it up. That would be finality. That would be the end. There had to be something.

  “What about other investors?” he said weakly.

  “No one in Japan will want to lend an American money to undercut Mr. Yamaguchi.”

  “Fuck the Japanese. What about American?”

  “In this recession? I’m afraid that kind of money for a single structure would be looked upon as a dubious enterprise. These are conservative times, Peter. Everyone’s thinking retrenchment. We’ve talked about this.”

  “There’s got to be somebody! What about Germans!”

  “Please, Peter. You’re going to have to think about retrenchment yourself. Consolidation. I’m afraid you’ve got Chapter Eleven breathing down your neck now. I’d better start drawing up some papers.”

  “No.”

  “Peter—”

  “No!”

  “Listen to me, Peter. You have $4.5 million outstanding with three different banks from when you bought the Cabrini Green tract from the city. I was asked about it this morning. You’d better think about dumping that property real fast.”

  “You’re no damn good, Yeats! You’re a lousy fucking lawyer! All you’ve got are connections, and they’re not worth a shit!”

  “Why don’t you call me back later, Peter, when you’ve had a chance to calm down. Collect your thoughts.”

  “I’ll collect your ass, you mick bastard! Fuck you! You’re fired!”

  Yeats hung up. Poe lowered the phone slowly to his lap, but moved no further.

  Mango was staring at him, studying him, her face impassive.

  “You want to tell me?” she said finally, her voice as expressionless as her face.

  Poe stayed silent. Mango had seen corpses who looked better than he did now.

  “Never mind,” she said. “I heard enough. It’s all down the fucking toilet, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Mango lighted a cigarette, then looked to Krasowski. “Forget the cardinal’s house, Lenny. Make it the penthouse.”

  “No,” said Poe. He still hadn’t let go of the phone. “Not there. I don’t want to go there.”

  “Where then, Peter? You just want to drive around? You want a drink?”

  “Cabrini Green.”

  “What?”

  “I want to go to Cabrini Green. It’s still mine.”

  Zany had used the Queen P’s radio to contact the sheriff’s men from Michigan. When they were aboard and everything was under control, he made a patch call to the Chicago office of the FBI. He had a bona fide interstate kidnapping here. The yacht had crossed two state lines.

  The agent in charge sounded a little confused by what Zany told him, but told him to bring the yacht back to Chicago’s Monroe Street harbor, where he’d be met by field agents. Then they could sort everything out.

  Sorting everything out was going to take a long time, maybe longer than Zany planned to stay a policeman.

  Curland’s Hillary and the sheriff’s boat were taken under tow—the sailboat given the longer line. Matthias went aboard his craft to handle the tiller, to make sure the sailboat didn’t become fouled on the other.

  Diandra, who’d found some sailor’s clothes that fit her, went into the Hillary with him. She said she didn’t want to spend another minute on the Queen P.

  It was chilly in the open cockpit, but Matthias put his arm around her and the rising sun began to warm them. She yawned, then apologized. The lifting and falling motion of the boat once they were underway was very lulling.

  “Did you get any sleep?” he asked.

  “Not much. I was really afraid they were going to kill me.”

  “So was I.”

  “Gallant knight to the rescue.” She patted his knee.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep,” he said. “It’s a long way back.”

  “What about you? You didn’t get any.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Superman.”

  “Just a sailboat skipper.”

  Diandra shifted on the seat, then lay back with her head in his lap. She took his hand and held it to her chest. “I don’t ever want to let go of you.”

  “Just rest.”

  The Chica
go skyline was fully in view by the time Diandra awoke. She sat up and stretched, then nestled close to him. “It’s warm now.”

  “Getting there.”

  “Summer’s almost over. It was the longest one of my life.”

  The Hillary was riding up close to the smaller boat again. Matthias pulled the tiller toward him, making the bow turn away and the line swing taut. “We’re nearly there.”

  “How much longer?”

  “A half hour.”

  “Matt, there’ll be policemen there, won’t there? I’ll have to make a statement and fill out forms or something, won’t I?”

  “We all will.”

  “I’m not up to that. Not now.”

  He smiled. “Neither am I.”

  Taking his arm from her, he went forward, pulling on the bow line, bringing the Hillary closer to the big motor yacht. When the line was slack enough, he untied it at the Hillary’s end, letting it slip into the blue-green water. The sailboat began to fall back. After returning to the helm, he opened the lid of the control compartment and started the boat’s engine.

  “It’s so noisy,” she said. “Why don’t we use the sails?”

  “It’s a bit of work.”

  “I’ll help. I’ll have to get used to that.”

  The breeze was light, but filled the sails. Someone on the bridge of the Queen P, probably Zany, sounded the yacht’s thundering horn as Matthias turned the Hillary away. Matthias couldn’t tell if it was farewell or warning. He waved, and kept on his course, heading northwest toward Navy Pier.

  Diandra moved close to him again. “The city’s so beautiful from here.”

  “It’s the best place to see it. I used to come out here often, just to do that, look at the city, with …”

  “With Jill Langley.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry you lost her.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “But I’m glad I found you,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  Some seagulls wheeled overhead. Diandra looked up at them. “That’s how I feel now. Free.”

  “We paid a price for that.”

  “Now we can be whatever we want. Do what we want. What do you want to do, Matt?”

  “Clean up the mess my brother made. Then, I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Well, I know one thing. You said you married to find out what it would be like to be Mrs. Peter Poe. Would you like to find out what it would be like to be Mrs. Matthias Curland?”

  “I already know what that would be like.”

  “And?”

  “The answer is yes, Matt. A thousand times yes. I can get that divorce now. On my terms. We beat him, Matt. You did. You and that funny policeman. He’ll go to jail, won’t he? Because of the paintings? Imagine Peter in jail. Pushed around by everyone.”

  “I just want him out of Chicago.”

  “I want him out of my life. Far, far away.”

  The wind dropped. The sailboat glided on, straightening, then creaking over into a heel once more as the breeze revived.

  “We can get a place in Door County,” she said. “On the water.”

  “All right.”

  “For weekends.” She cuddled closer. “What do you want to do, Matt, aside from marry me?”

  He only smiled.

  “You don’t want to go back to painting, do you? Be an artist?”

  “I want to do another picture of you. With your clothes on. A formal portrait, just for me.”

  “Do you still want to be an architect?”

  “Of a sort.”

  “A sort? How many sorts are there?”

  “I don’t want to do buildings anymore. I don’t want to have to deal with people like your husband again. I think I’d like to do sailboats. I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

  “Architects do sailboats?”

  “Marine architects. Sailboat designers. Yes, I think I’d like to do that very much. Buildings are static. Great lumps that just stand there. Sailboats are motion. Beauty and motion, all in one. I’d like to create that.”

  Her eyes were on Lake Point Tower. Its curving glass sides sparkled in the sunlight.

  “I’ve never heard of any marine architects,” she said.

  “They don’t get to be very famous. Or very rich.”

  “You’re sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want what you want, Matt.”

  “I love you.” It was true. Love is an ever-diminishing quantity, but there remained enough. Just enough.

  “I want you,” she said. She kissed him, then leaned her head against his shoulder. Navy Pier, the city, their future, was getting near.

  “We’ll live in Lake Forest,” she said.

  He stared ahead.

  “Is that all right? Can you afford that?”

  “It’s all right.”

  You awoke every morning, and you looked for what was left. He patted her leg. “It’s all right.”

  Poe poured more whiskey into his glass. Mango looked at him disgustedly.

  “We’ve been sitting here for fifteen goddamned minutes, Peter. What’s the point?”

  The limousine was parked on the cracked pavement of a Cabrini Green sidewalk, in a vast empty space in the midst of the abandoned high-rises. Demolition work had been started and there were piles of broken concrete rising from the sparse grass, looking like ancient burial mounds. Poe was staring out the window, as if in a trance.

  “Come on, Peter. We’ve got things to do. You’ve got big problems.”

  Poe sipped his whiskey. “Shut up, Mango.”

  She folded her arms and snorted, her expression very dark. Poe got out of the car.

  “Now what?” she said.

  “Just wait.”

  Glass in hand, he walked slowly across the grass, pausing to look up at the ruined buildings, then moving on. Coming to one of the mounds of broken concrete, he stopped, then began making his way to the top.

  Mango watched him. “What the hell’s he doing, Lenny?”

  “Let him be, Mango.”

  “I think he’s lost his fucking mind.”

  She waited, smoked a cigarette, then waited more. Poe was just sitting there, a little man on his little hill, gazing off to the southeast, toward the downtown towers.

  “Enough’s enough, Lenny.” She snapped open the door.

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “Just wait here. Have yourself a belt.”

  It was a hard climb up the pile of concrete. Mango ripped her stockings on the sharp edges and cut her hand. She swore, but Poe paid her no attention at all.

  She knelt on a flat slab just behind him, leaning close. “What are you looking at, Peter?”

  “I’m looking at nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “You looking at where your building was going to be?”

  He didn’t speak, didn’t move.

  “It’s gone, Peter. All gone.”

  “I know.”

  “You can’t just sit here.”

  “Nowhere to go.”

  She looked back to the car. Krasowski was still behind the wheel.

  Mango shook her head, then pulled her purse around and reached inside. She carefully took out the pistol and raised it to the back of Poe’s head. Pathetic bastard.

  “Keep looking, Peter.”

  The shot stung the air with ringing echoes.

  She clambered back down the pile quickly. Krasowski was out of the limousine but just standing there, looking stupid. Mango took off her shoes and began running, heading for the nearest of the empty buildings. Once safe inside its darkness, she glanced back through the doorway. Krasowski was heading toward the mound.

  There was a back way out, an old metal door, half off its hinges. Mango put her shoes back on and walked out through it, hurrying out of the project and across the street, into the old neighborhood. She had a pair of sunglasses in her purse and put them on.

  Bla
ck faces stared at her as she walked by. She had a lot of cash with her, more money than any of these people would likely see in any one place in all their lives. She’d taken that precaution weeks before. If anyone messed with her, she had the gun.

  Her high heels clicking on the worn sidewalk, she kept on, heading north, then turning east, disappearing into the big sprawling city. Once again she’d have to move on, as she’d been doing all her life. Find another place, find another name, find someone else—only this time, for once, not a loser. That was the trouble with the fucking world. So many losers. There were so many, there wasn’t any room for the winners. A winner didn’t stand a fucking chance.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Though the people and events are fictional, the background material for this novel comes from knowledge I have gained from a thirty-three-year career in print and broadcast journalism in Chicago and other cities, covering fields as diverse as police and politics, fashion and society, and art and architecture. A number of individuals were extremely helpful in adding to that knowledge over the years, including such Chicago Tribune colleagues as George Tagge, Jack Fuller, Dick Ciccone, Lois Wille, Jim Coates, Lisa Anderson, Paul Gapp, Bill Rectenwald, Joe Morang, Eleanor Page, Ed Schreiber, and, of course, Mike Royko.

  My education in newspapering and the ways of Chicago was particularly blessed by having once had A. A. Dornfeld of the City News Bureau of Chicago as a mentor.

  I am also extremely grateful to a number of other important and knowledgeable Chicagoans I’ve been pleased to count as friends, including Nancy and Tom Moffett, Paula and Wayne Whalen, June and Marvin Rosner, Connie Fletcher, Mary McDonald, Jim Ruddle, Megan McKinney, Nancy Jennings, Victor Skrebneski, Dave Gilbert, and Frank Sullivan.

  I’d like to thank J. Carter Brown, former director of the National Gallery of Art, Sue Ann Prince of the National Portrait Gallery, and Elizabeth Wilson of the Pierpont Morgan Library for adding so considerably to my knowledge of art.

  To my agent, Dominick Abel, and my editors, Tom Dunne, Ruth Cavin, and Reagan Arthur, I extend deep appreciation.

  I owe a special debt to my father, D. Frederick Kilian, who first suggested I try my hand at newspapering in Chicago, and I am grateful to my wife, Pamela, and sons, Eric and Colin, as only they can know.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.