by Scott Simon
“Remember when we used to come here as kids?” said Rula. “We'd stand on the chair and slurp noodles.” She smacked her lips in loud, happy recollection. “We had contests to see who could slurp up the longest strand.”
“They were noodles then, not pasta,” added Rita.
“We'd get tomato splotches on our clothes,” Rula remembered. “Back on the street, people would gasp. They looked like blood. Pappaji taught us to say, ‘Jus’ spisghetti, jus’ spisghetti.’”
“A cover story to deceive the authorities,” said Sunny.
“Pappaji,” said Rita, “tell the Santa Claus story.”
Each year during the Christmas season, the mayor spent a well-publicized couple of hours zipped into a red suit (no stuffing required) to play Santa Claus from a high-backed seat installed at the center of Daley Plaza. The mayor's seasonal throne was surrounded by a secular array of illuminated candy canes, reindeer, and glittering evergreens shipped in from Poland, Sweden, Lithuania, and Puerto Rico (the Tabebuia haemantha, which Sunny had not previously known to exist, and suspected had been cultivated only to assist the city's civic holiday celebrations).
Each alderman got to recommend five children from their ward to take a turn on the mayor's lap. Press coverage was extensive. So staffers from the mayor's office carefully pre-interviewed the youngsters to exclude any deemed likely to ask, “Can you find my daddy?” or “Santa, can you bring me some crack cocaine?”
“As the daughters of an alderman, Rula and Rita were preapproved,” Sunny explained. “Anyway, there was a story going on then—”
“A scandal,” amended Rita.
“Yes,” Sunny allowed the revision. “Beyer and Beyer. An insurance firm. The mayor was accused of steering city business to the firm through one of their agents, who was the son of the president of the county board.”
“Big commissions,” Rula remembered.
“You should serve on a grand jury someday,” said Sunny. “The story was on the news every night. ‘Beyer and Beyer, Beyer and Beyer.’ Every day, you'd hear the question, ‘Mr. Mayor, what about Beyer and Beyer?’ It was the mayor's first term. You were—”
“Seven and five,” Sunny's daughters answered before he could turn completely around in his seat.
“So they settle onto his lap,” Sunny continued. “Two happy little girls in red winter coats. This big man smiling down. So the mayor says to them both, ‘My gosh, we have a couple of beauties here. Look like their mother, I'm pleased to observe. Sometimes God throws a pair of sixes in the roll of genetic dice. Not a drop of Daddy to blemish these two little innocent faces.’”
Sunny thought Diego seemed impressed by his deft mimicry of the mayor's mellow Old Granddad voice. He hoped it made the young man wonder, “How will he imitate me?”
“So the mayor turns back to the girls,” continued Sunny. “He says, ‘Lovely ladies, what can I do for you?’” And Rita and Rula—both of them, I swear—blurt out at the same time, ‘What about Beyer and Beyer, Mr. Mayor? What about Beyer and Beyer?’”
The table laughed so explosively—forks ringing, plates bouncing— that people turned around, craned their heads and shifted legs of their chairs; a score of the Bull's game was drowned out. Rita flopped the folds of a white napkin over her head, as if to hide, and Rula put her head behind the wicker breadbasket. Diego turned back to Sunny.
“So when the afternoon was over—we had some hot chocolate; we had some cookies—we were brought backstage where the mayor was removing his boots and red suit. His cottony beard was hanging off one ear, so he could smoke a cigar. ‘Sunny I have been bitten in the bosom by an asp,’ he said. And now I have been bitten in the ass by the daughters of my bosom friend.’”
“Bosom—what a comical word,” said Rita. “Whenever I use it, I tell people that the mayor taught it to me.”
“When—why—do you use it?” asked Sunny, but his daughters had already swiveled in their seats toward Diego Pomeroy.
“Whatever happened?” asked Diego.
“Precisely nothing,” said Sunny. “The mayor thought it was hilarious. He told the story himself.”
“That year, he gave us bicycles,” Rula remembered. “Anyway.”
“Or to keep you quiet,” said Sunny.
“I mean what happened with Beyer and Beyer?” said Diego, and Sunny, who could feel a charred shard of garlic snuggle in a groove between two front teeth, snuck his small finger behind his napkin.
“Also nothing. Stern editorials, vows to investigate. In the end, no case.”
“Fascinating, Mr. Roopini,” said Diego. His ginger ponytail was beginning to unfurl, and fan out from behind his neck. “I tell Rula and Rita, ‘How lucky you are. Some scandal breaks—you've had dinner at their house, you've played in the bathtub with their kids.’”
“Are you interested in politics, Diego,” asked Sunny, pointedly attaching the boy's first name.
“Oh, plenty,” he answered quickly, pumping his head up and down. “I just don't know if I believe in the utility of electoral politics.”
“Yes. Well that probably makes fifty of us.”
“Our mother hated politics,” Rula said, throwing the words onto the table like a splash of water into a hot skillet. “Or was it just politicians? Except for Pappaji, of course,” she said after a long—too long— pause. But Diego had a background of good manners.
“I'm sure it's a daily battle, sir,” he said quickly. “For a man of integrity to resist sordid compromise.”
“Well, that lets me off the hook,” said Sunny. “What interests you, Diego?” he asked suddenly. “What do you think you'd like to do?”
The young man leaned in across his plate and lowered his voice.
“I'm torn.”
“Between?”
“Becoming a teacher of autistic children. Or working in an AIDS hospice in Congo. Or …” He stabbed the last brick of eggplant parmi-giana with a fork, and lifted it over Rita's plate of linguine with red devil shrimp. “Or getting my MBA at Wharton and become an international financier.”
“Diego is a junior at the Latin School,” Rita explained. “We met at a Ghost Trackers meetup.”
“I was just there to see who else came,” said Diego.
“Us, too,” said Rula.
“Well, I hope you have the chance to do all of that and more,” said Sunny. He put a hand across the table on Diego's folded hands and excused himself to visit the bar.
“I have to handle a few phone calls,” he explained. By the time Sunny had turned and taken just three steps away from the table, he heard teenaged laughter behind him. Terry had a Rémy Martin waiting for him below the White Sox banner, ice pinging as it melted in the short, thick glass.
“VSOP,” said Terry. “A step up, like you've taken this week. And because you may need it.”
“Playing the fool for my daughters?” he asked. “The boy's not so bad.”
“I mean your friend,” said Terry Taliaferro, raising his eyebrows toward the television screen as he spritzed something into a glass.
The ten o'clock news had come on. Linas Slavinskas's carved red apple face filled the screen. Letters blared, “An Exclu-Two Report!” A video came on, in dim, grainy colors. A voice explained that it was a new bar on Western Avenue in the 12th Ward. There were hazy shots of Alderman Slavinskas, in one of his buttery cashmere jackets, a camel topcoat flagging his forearm, and an opulent magenta swash swirled around his neck, leaning over a polished bar to chat with a smoldering (even as seen, or especially as seen, from behind) flame-haired bartender. Her voice was gently flavored with the south, like a bourbon cookie. A small circle of light shone on a white envelope she had placed in the alderman's hand, her fingers lingering.
BARTENDER: “This is something to thank you for all of your
time and trouble, alderman.”
ALDERMAN SLAVINSKAS: “It's no trouble. I always have time
for you, gorgeous.”
A solemn, resonant reporter blinked
snow from his eyes from in front of the bar and explained that the Good Government Association of Illinois was the clandestine owner. They called the bar the Oasis and wired it with hidden cameras and concealed microphones. They deliberately installed faulty ventilation and water pump systems to draw citations, so the Good Government investigators could document the many colorful corruptions with which a bar owner was required to comply. The bartender was a law student, Alison Parker Belle (co-editor, Duke Law Journal) who was also a GGA investigator.
(Alison had taken a two-week bartending course to learn how to handle speed racks, double sinks, ice bins, blenders, and soda guns with theatrical sincerity around customers. She learned how to mix a Beagle's Tail, a Blarney Stone, and a Slow Southern Screw—vodka, Southern Comfort, sloe gin, and orange juice—and was therefore slightly let down only to be asked for Jack on the rocks and Honker's Ale.)
The reporter gravely explained that the bartender had asked the alderman for help against the irrational demands of pitiless city bureaucrats. The alderman had assured her, “I'll take care of it.”
They played the video once more, zooming in on the white envelope as if it were the winning kick of the World Cup. They sent bold letters marching along the bottom of the screen: ‘OASIS’ FOR CORRUPTION?
BARTENDER: “This is something to thank you for all of your
time and trouble, alderman.”
ALDERMAN SLAVINSKAS: “It's no trouble. I always have time
for you, gorgeous.”
Sunny's phone warbled inside a pocket. He let it jiggle. Overhead, there was a shot of Linas, wearing a more sober gray muffler above the same coat, speaking inside a circle of light and cluster of microphones in front of his home. Clouds of breath broke above him with each word.
“These charges are ridiculous,” he declared, in a level, affable voice. “In fact, they're even untrue. I am assembling proof to refute this nonsense, and it will be my pleasure to meet you ladies and gentlemen in the second floor conference room at City Hall tomorrow morning at eight. So get your rest, and …” He began to turn away; a shouted question brought him back.
“Am I worried?” he repeated. “I'm an innocent man. They spent months on this so-called investigation. Let me have a few hours to reach some people and defend twenty-five years serving the people of my ward and city. Things will look a lot different by eight-thirty tomorrow morning. Tonight, I throw myself upon the mercy and sense of fair play of the people of Chicago …”
“He better not just rely on that,” said Terry, as more chihuahuas’ questions yelped and leapt at Linas’ heels down the long walk back toward the glossy front door of his house.
Sunny's phone buzzed again in his pocket; he answered without looking for the number.
“I've got them, lordship.”
“Linas!” Sunny turned away from the bar, and brought his mouth closer to his chest.
“There are shots that can bring me down,” Linas told him. “Not this one.”
“They're running it over and over.”
“Who watches television? Psychos, shut-ins, and pimply teenage boys who just wait to jerk off when the girl who does sports comes on. Tomorrow, the same pictures will tell a different story. Stay tuned, your lordship.”
Sunny could hear the click of another call and checked the screen. Terry, without so much as a nod of instruction, had topped off his glass; Sunny nodded in gratitude.
“Linas, is there—”
“I'm absolutely fine, lordship,” he said. “I'm going to sleep the sleep of the just.” Sunny heard a woman's giggling chime behind Linas. “After I spend about an hour licking Rosie's toes.” The volume of the giggles climbed. Linas's wife was a smart, lissome blond woman—and attorney—named Rosemarie Fennell Slavinskas.
“Then good night, my friend,” Sunny told him. “You're always the best show in town.”
Vera's voice clicked on: she spoke in an urgent hush.
“You don't suppose, Sunny,” she said, “that after all this time, Linas will be brought down by a redhead bearing gifts. He's too smart.”
“It's the smart ones who think they're too smart to get caught,” Sunny reminded her. “I was just on the phone with him, Vera. He really is amazing—sounds like he's just won the lottery.”
“My phone has been beeping, beeping, beeping,” she said. “I want to say something like, 'Alderman Slavinskas is a longtime colleague with whom I have worked despite many disagreements. I also respect the Good Government Association. All Chicagoans will be interested in what Alderman Slavinskas says tomorrow.”
“Perfect,” said Sunny. “Utterly useless. And the picture plays over and over.”
“You were with Evelyn,” she said.
“She loves you Vera. But until …”
“Could this be until?”
Sunny paused.
“John, Felix, Patrick, Keith, might feel they can't stick with him. Linas knows the numbers. If votes fall away, Linas won't play his hand. He'll fold and wait for next year. Arty may stick around. Daryl—it wouldn't matter. Arty—if we worked on him—might even be persuaded to put you over by acclamation. But you can't say until until.”
“And if Linas is indicted?” Sunny stayed silent for a moment while the word smacked them both.
“I mean, it's on stage, screen, and video, Sunny,” she said. “‘No trouble, gorgeous. I always have time for you.’”
“He'll keep his seat,” Sunny answered finally. “Linas could run and win from Death Row. But in this day and age, he won't be mayor—not even here. The state's attorney and U.S. Attorney will use this to get into his file cabinets. He'll become a professional defendant.”
Sunny heard Vera Barrow blow out a long breath through her immaculate pastel lips; he wondered if she had decided to permit herself a cigarette.
“Strange. I'm almost sad,” she said.
There was another chorus of clicks on the line, and Sunny told Vera that he would speak with her in the morning. The caller ID flashed: US-ATTY NODIST IL. It was 10:35 on a Saturday night, and Brooks Whetstone was at his office.
“This wasn't our story, alderman,” he told Sunny. “The mayor mentioned that the alderman favored redheads. And blonds, brunettes, and midgets. But that's not a state secret. A story like this, Mr. Roopini, is just pebbles and twigs to us.”
Sunny didn't know the term.
“What one Neanderthal man offered another to get a better pelt.” Then Brooks Whetstone lowered his voice; Sunny had to cup a hand over his right ear to hear. Rula and Rita waved the light-green check from their table, and Sunny tried to use both elbows to point to himself; he must have looked like he was trying to take off.
“We're more interested in how a major corporation buys influence in a major American city.”
Sunny turned around from Terry's bar again and emphasized a dramatic, weary sigh.
“No one bribed anyone to get Yello here,” he said. “Sweep out all the opera tickets, celebrity chefs, autographed jerseys, and Jerry Springer, it was a business deal.”
“Giving up tax revenues for ten years?” Brooks Whetstone asked. “Some business. Great deal.”
“Tax revenues are projections,” said Sunny. “Pie charts on a wall. Jobs are real. We traded flickering images for bread, butter, and salt. We got the headquarters of a company that will shape the world.”
“And fund your political machine,” said Brooks.
“Oh, please.” Sunny fairly spat out the words. Rita, looking cool and cross, had brought over the check, which Sunny scarcely surveyed before fishing into his pocket and shoving a sheaf of twenties into the slipcase.
“You folks say machine the way the mayor said antediluvian,” he told Brooks Whetstone. “Or the way some people say fascist, terrorist, and high cholesterol. Political machines went the way of steam engines, coughing, gasping, and conking out. You only see them in carnivals and museums now. Nobody listens to anybody. Everybody knows about everything. There is no they in politics anymore. They do
n't decide who becomes dogcatcher. Politicians take a poll before they go to the bathroom. Number one or number two? You tell us, Chicago! Soap my hands or just rinse them? Politicians don't get a dog until they figure out which breed polls better. Felix Kowalski counts all the Frutas y Vehículo signs across from his ward office on Archer and names his daughter Concepcion. I tell him, ‘Felix, a few more Ethiopian families have moved in on Fifty-fifth. Get busy! You need a boy named Tes-faye!’ If we have a machine here, Mr. Whetstone, I wish to hell someone would tell me where the plug is.”
Terry held out the slipcase of Sunny's check, the edges of four twenties sticking out like the folds of a pocket square. Sunny waved it away, silently mouthing, For her, for you. He overheard Rula and Rita show Diego the autographed picture of some crime movie star. “Amore. That means love,” Sunny was disconcerted to overhear Diego explain. “The Italians have a concept of love that's more cosmopolitan than our Anglo-Saxon views.” Muriel and Virginie announced to Terry that, on the basis of their survey, Cub players looked more handsome in their photographs than White Sox, Chicago Bear players appeared bulbous and gross, and that Bulls were cuter than the Blackhawks.
“Hockey players have no teeth,” he advised them. “Toothless Poles and Russians with more stitches in their chins than a pair of drapes. We had, what's his name, Vasily Stroganoff or whatever, in here last week. He ordered chicken vesuvio. We had to put the whole thing—thighs, breasts, peas, garlic, red pepper, and potatoes—through a blender for him. Looked like baby mash. I asked his wife, a hot young Czech, if I should bring over a few crayons, too.”
“I always learn something from our conversations, alderman,” Brooks Whetstone suddenly announced in Sunny's ear. “I hope we talk again.”
Rula, Rita, Muriel, and Virginie chatted about Diego in the back seat of the black car as Sgt. McNulty saw them back home to the 48th, stopping once on Goethe to let Diego slip home. No sooner had Sunny unfolded his legs than his phone rumbled in his chest pocket and he had to take a call from Chief Martinez. He affected not to react to the fact that he overheard the girls whisper scrumptious and lean in proximity to Diego's name, but had to hold his hand up in the tumult of backseat giggles to hear the chief say heavily, “Nothing from Ponce and Said, sir. Maybe nothing at all. We have people picking through everything. We have to break now, but we'll start in on them again at four.”