by Scott Simon
Linas Slavinskas turned slightly to snap on a nearby monitor. Once again, there was the white circle of light over the white envelope and Alison Parker Belle's lingering red fingertips.
“What you see here isn't a public servant accepting a bribe,” he said. “It's a public servant protecting the people of this city—at some risk, I don't mind saying—to document a criminal conspiracy.”
Linas raised a white envelope right next to his face and paused. White lights shined and cameras snapped.
“I have the proof right here. That night this envelope and recordings were turned over to Commander Green and officers at the Deering District on south Lowe. In fact,” added Linas, “I was with Commander Green when we each received calls that summoned us to City Hall. Where the mayor, God rest his soul, had just died.”
A sharp inhalation seemed to suck up every breath in the conference room. Sunny recalled the studiously casual appraisal Linas had given in his office that night: Walt Green is a real smoothie. The commander spoke smoothly and sternly from his stepladder height. Reporters peered up from their chairs like kindergartners.
“Warrants will soon be issued,” said Commander Green. “Trying to bribe a public official is a crime. I don't care if you call yourself the Good Government Association or the Girl Scouts of America.”
“Whaddya want to bet?” Sunny wondered aloud to Matina and Sgt. Gallaher. “We're going to hear that little sentence every twenty minutes for the next forty-eight hours.”
Linas took the sides of the podium into both of his hands. He rocked back on his heels before bringing his head forward for emphasis, his chin like the head of a chisel.
“And who is this group that has the impudence to call themselves the Good Government Association?” he asked. “People so selfrighteous they think their bribes don't stink as much as anybody else's?
“Look at the list of their major contributors,” he said. “Look at their addresses. Wilmette, Winnetka, and Lake Forest. How much do you think they care about Chicago? Do they live here? Send their kids to school here? They descend on Sears Tower, Michigan Avenue, and the Board of Trade by day and load up their attachés with money. At night they take it all home to their leafy suburbs and shake it over their hedges. Maybe they take their kids into the city once or twice a year to sit in a skybox at Wrigley Field and marvel at all the ethnic people with funny last names. ‘Oh look, Dad,’ says little Dunstin. ‘I see a Negro! Just like on TV! Mexicans, too, just walking around, like normal people. And look at all those long, funny names!’”
Linas lowered his voice and elongated his vowels, in mimicry of a North Shore father.
“‘Oh, thaaat's just Polish, son, don't worry,’” he said. “‘Nooo need to bother yourself with thaaat language.’”
The reporters were soaked, hoarse, and giddy with laughter, as if they'd been munching cookies at an all-night dorm party.
“Look at some of the zip codes of their contributors,” Linas went on. “10012.10018. Know where they are? New York City.”
Linas lavished scorn over each syllable, as if uttering the name of an old love rival.
“Walk down any street in New York” he demanded. “If you dare. Heaps of steaming garbage. Crack addicts hiding behind the bags. Now stroll down any street in Chicago. You tell me what city knows more about good government!”
He stood back from the podium, fastened the middle button on his jacket, and awarded the reporters a half bow.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I respectfully await your questions.”
Sunny heard a chorus of small yelps from the folding chairs.
“Why did you visit the Oasis at all?” said one yelp that rose above the rest.
“To welcome a new business,” said Linas. “I do the same for any hardware store, pet shop, or bakery.”
“What did you mean when you said, ‘Let me know personally if I can ever help you?’”
“What do you think? Extra trash runs during the holidays. Snow plowed on Western Avenue. Every citizen has a right to expect that from their city government.”
“Do you always say that to redheads?”
Linas drew back, looking shocked, hurt, and maligned.
“And do you always have your mind in the gutter?”
With wounded dignity, he surveyed the worm basket of upraised reporter's hands, and called on a woman from the Sun-Times.
“Why did you accept the envelope?”
“To document a criminal act.”
“Why not just say, ‘No thanks?’” she followed. “Then walk away?”
Linas shook his head sorrowfully.
“All I knew about these people was that they were criminals. If you refuse to do business with criminals, they don't let you just walk away. I have a family to protect. I have a wife, three daughters, two dogs, a cat, a silver Porsche 911 Turbo, and Meridian 490 cruiser tied up in Jackson Harbor. I love them all very much.”
A man from the Tribune stood up with a question for Walter Green.
“Why didn't you arrest them on the spot?”
The commander moved slightly in front of Linas and bent down to the podium microphone.
“Basic police work,” he explained. “We knew the woman behind the bar had partners. We didn't want to arrest that woman—the redhead— and tip off her coconspirators until we had evidence on them, too.”
“The GGA says the bartender is a law student from Duke.”
Linas stepped back into the hot white light.
“Any junior college in Chicago would have given her a better course on the laws against entrapment than what she got there,” he said.
“Why did you call her gorgeous?”
“I call all women gorgeous,” said Linas, “including nuns and tough lesbian activists in leather motorcycle jackets. I'll bet I've even called some of you folks gorgeous,” and once again he had to hold out his arms to rein in wild bursts of laughter as they flared from the reporter's seats.
“I've never heard any woman complain,” Linas finally said in the quiet. “Or get the wrong idea.”
“How much in the envelope?”
“I don't know,” he said simply, then turned to Commander Green. The commander held a hand over his mouth and called across to Linas in a low voice that fell just shy of the microphone. Linas nodded, turned back to the room, and pointed at an ebony-haired reporter in the third row of seats.
“Jacqueline,” he asked, “can you help us out here? Gorgeous?” he added to much laughter.
She was delighted. Jacqueline was a former Miami of Ohio homecoming queen and worked for the next station just up the dial from the one that had broken the Oasis story. A row of reporters let her by to step to the podium and take the white envelope from Commander Green's hand. She held it just in front of the microphone and ran a pink fingertip along the top. She turned the envelope over and the edges of green bills fell in a palm.
“One-hundreds,” she announced, and began to count. At twenty-one, Linas called out, off-mic but loudly, “Benjamin Franklin? He wasn't even a president.”
“Fifty one-hundred-dollar bills,” Jacqueline announced.
“Five thousand dollars?” said Linas, striving to sound aggrieved, offended, and demeaned. “That's not even enough for a decent pair of cufflinks!”
Sunny picked up his phone and dialed one of Linas's mobile numbers. He guessed that the phone would vibrate in the bottom of a red silk pocket of his cashmere coat, or in the snug custom sleeve of his Gucci briefcase. When he heard the beep, Sunny said simply, “Linas? Sunny. Slam dunk.”
Vera Barrow called before Sunny could snap his phone closed. Without introduction, her softy, husky voice announced, “Slam dunk, Sunny.”
“He heard them coming. A flaming redhead pouring free drinks and making a proposition. They might as well have been wearing army boots.”
“The son of a bitch was brilliant,” said Vera. She so seldom used profanity, her epithets seemed like accolades.
“He was good,” Sunny
agreed. “He was great. Still, I don't think he won any new votes. Not tomorrow at least.”
“I'm not so sure. It's the times, Sunny,” said Vera. “People want someone who is smarter than the bad guys.”
“Linas is smarter than the good guys, too,” Sunny pointed out. “That's the problem,” and Vera laughed.
“Not smarter than me, Sunny.” Vera didn't bother to add, “or you, Sunny.” They knew each other well enough—Vera knew herself well enough—that the vain, inconsequential compliments of the kind politicians usually paid were suspect.
“He sure is nervier,” she said. “You get points for that in this game, too. I'll make my calls. My best to the pastor, Alderman Roopini.”
The First Baptist Gospel Congregation on west Washington had polished dark wood walls, red velvet cushions, fraying and smooth along the edges, and a grand brass pipe organ with forty-eight tall pipes soaring from behind the keyboard like steely tulip bulbs. Radiator jets whistled and hissed steam. People clapped gloved hands and clasped coats across their shoulders. Frost glazed the windows, but people still fanned themselves with flimsy beige programs and raised the lower edges of stained glass window panels to admit winter air. The choir rocked and clapped; the congregation stamped and swayed. Miraculously, some children still snoozed, or blinked woozily on shoulders.
Sunny, Rula, and Rita were taken to seats in the sixth row by a smiling usher who kissed his daughters’ hands and glanced a white-gloved hand off of Sunny's forearm.
“My man. Good to see you, Mr. Acting.”
The pastor, in a pink and black robe that rippled like a flag as he rocked his arms, raised his hands above his head as if to ask for quiet; for a moment, the choir held back while the organ warbled and the pastor gave a steady shout into the microphone.
“There are those among you who are homeless, hurting, haunted,” he announced. “They neeeeed a blessing!” and the pastor stepped back into a roar of raw voices, slick foreheads, and sliding feet.
“I heard an old story,” they sang, “how a savior came from glory, how he gave his life, to help someone like me.”
“Praise the Lord!” the pastor shouted out, above and beyond the microphone, and when the song died down he put his arms over the huge dark wood podium as if collapsing in God's embrace.
“Let everyone and everything that has breath,” he said wearily, “praise the Lord in heaven while they have it. What are you going to use that breath for anyway?” he asked worshippers with new strength. “Cheering on Satan?”
“No sir!” they barked back.
“Arguing with your mother-in-law?”
“No sir!”
“Rapping, hip-hopping, and singing about hos, pigs, and bitches?”
“No, sir, Pastor Evans,” parishioners declared even more emphatically.
“Shouting at your kids?”
“No sir!”
“Well, maybe a little,” replied the pastor across a ripple of chuckles. “If they're playing with fire. Or playing around with drugs. But why use the breath that God gave you for those things that are small, silly, negative, depressing, discouraging, Dee-praved, tmnn-necessary immm-material, unnn-wholesome, and generally negativity-producing no-count nonnn-sense, when you can prrraise God Almighty in His Heaven!”
Sunny got to his feet and brought his daughters up with him. They grabbed outstretched hands all around, setting off a clanking of bracelets and a rustling of heavy sleeves, and smiled over at Sgt. Galla-her, who stood to the side of their row, elbows folded and eyes playing over the mass of upraised hands and fists.
“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”
People sat down hard, as if after an uphill trudge. Applause flickered and faded. It was soon hushed enough to hear a few sneezes, an isolated cough, and a couple of babies’ cries.
“We have guests here, of course. We will ask them all to introduce themselves after the offering—make sure they'll stay.” There was a quiet tinkling of laughter. “But there are also a few people who may want you to see they're here right now,” the pastor resumed. “State Senator Melvin Simpkins,” he announced. “County Board Commissioner Nikki Sherman. And down there, with his beautiful daughters— and lovely police guard—Alderman and Vice Mayor Sundaran Roopini, who has always been a good friend, and especially in these recent, tragic days. Gentlemen and ladies, please!” bid the pastor, and Sunny stood with an arm around each of his daughters. He could see Rula's face redden. He could feel Rita stiffen against his arm. Sunny smiled and sat down swiftly. When he looked toward the end of the row, he could see Sgt. Gallaher flustered and blushing.
“D y'all see the police guard?” he asked. “Tall lady in blue. When did that happen in the Chicago Police Department?” There were soft snickers and calls of, “She's pretty, pastor.”
But when the pastor could see Sgt. Gallaher's smile curdle, he called out gently, “It is good to have you here. We'll pray that our Lord keeps you safe. Thank you for serving the city of Chicago.”
The pastor shuffled papers on the lectern; he did not want to proceed until all was in order.
“We have another guest here this morning,” he announced. “I ask you to receive him with courtesy. He has asked to worship with us today. Of course I said yes. The House of God is open to all. But I know you would also be disappointed if you didn't hear him speak, as well as say amen. Some of you have probably seen him on the TV this morning. Better than Oprah, wasn't it? Oprah, who is such a dear friend.”
Rula wrenched her mouth against Sunny's ear.
“You don't suppose—” she said.
“Of course not,” he assured her.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the pastor began …
“Who else?” hissed Rita.
At first, there were more gasps than applause as the intonation of Linas Slavinskas's name. But suddenly it was indisputably Linas striding with a full plume of steam across the stage: sandy hair swept back, blunt lizard chin, and his sharp pink tongue licking, a deep blue blazer set off by a white collar and high-pitched magenta tie. Hot white camera lights painted the podium as he arrived.
“Thank you, Pastor Alfred,” Linas said soberly, and paused for mothers to shush children and adults to mutter behind their hands.
“We've known each other a long time, pastor. And liked each other about half of it.”
The pastor, sitting in a portentous wooden throne nearby that was engraved with scripture and cherubim, laughed and called out toward Linas.
“A little more than that my friend.”
Linas bowed toward the pastor, and turned back to the congregation with a challenging eye.
“I—loved—the mayor,” he said, rolling out each word. “I disagreed with him. I argued with him. We called each other names. I won't bore you with examples. Let's just say, that when it came to name calling, I always finished second.”
Shy, tentative laughter swirled over the ranks of seats.
“The mayor was a man of his word,” said Linas. “And a man of words, wasn't he?”
Voices rose around Sunny and his daughters.
“That's true, Mr. Slavinskas.”
Linas nodded in thanks, and went on.
“We knew how to fight,” he explained. “We knew how to jab each other. That's what old couples do, don't they?”
The floor of the church began to flower with pink, white, and yellow-brimmed hats, swaying with laughter and blunt, short shouts.
“That's right, that's right.”
“When the mayor and I quarreled, we didn't need translators,” said Linas, “We understood each other perfectly. The mayor said to me once—,” and here, Linas risked his own gravelly impersonation— “‘Linas, at least you and your folks didn't fly out of here when my folks started spreading our wings. Cleveland, Dee-troit, Dee Cee, folks just up and left. The same folks who now pay dearly for their kids to go to schools with a carefully selected representative sample of Nee-groes, Hispanics, and Asiatics turned down the honor whe
n diversity moved next door. Look at those cities now—block after block like empty ashtrays. Least your folks stayed.’”
Linas dropped his right hand against the podium, as if laying down a large rock.
“And we did,” he said quietly. “Maybe not always next door. But across the street and down the block. Look, I know I've been called ‘honky.’ My grandparents were hunkies. If you worked in the stock-yards or steel mills, you were a hunkie—hunched over for life. That's how the word began. You worked with your back, and your work could break your back. Dirty, smelly, bloody jobs, pouring white-hot steel in the mills, or getting soaked in blood when you hacked cattle. And for too long, a lot of black men couldn't work there. What miserable jobs to fight over. But hell—forgive me, pastor. No: hell is the right word. Hell! Those jobs were everything to us.”
Cries and shouts moved over the room. Sunny felt his phone shudder in his pocket, and kept his eyes on the church's podium. Linas had removed a crisp linen square from his pocket and blotted it thoughtfully against his forehead.
“All those jobs have gone to Kansas and Nebraska now. God bless them—and good riddance. Those jobs were good enough for our fathers and grandfathers. But we have the largest financial market in the world here in Chicago. Our sons and daughters can have better jobs, with higher pay. They get to work indoors and wear suits. Our grandfathers worked in blood and sweat, but our children can wear cufflinks in air-conditioned offices and lift billions of dollars with just their fingers. Isn't that what life is all about?”
Rewarding Linas with laughs was one thing; applause was a greater gift entirely. But handclaps began to break out across the rows now as he went on, chopping out phrase by phrase with his right hand, and stepping back slightly from the rostrum to raise his voice.
“In your ward and mine, we rear our own children. Have you seen the nannies and the aww-pears wheeling around little apple-cheeked children in Lincoln Park? Or down Michigan Avenue, looking in the big store windows? But in our neighborhoods, we don't subcontract the most important job in life to hourly employees, God bless them, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Haiti. Hourly employees that the folks along Astor, Bellevue, and east Lake Shore Drive pay below minimum wage, off the books, and under the table.”