Windy City Knights

by Michael A. Black

  The linoleum floor felt cold under my bare feet as I padded to the bathroom and urinated. The stream was dark and yellow. A sure sign of too much coffee last night. I was nearing top condition and it should have been practically clear. At the sink I rinsed my mouth and splashed some water on my face, then glanced up at the calendar: I’d run for one hundred twenty-five consecutive days preparing for this match. I had sixteen more to go. Fifteen, actually, since the day of the fight I was supposed to just rest.

  Chappie, in his typical superstitious fashion, expressed concern about the fight being originally scheduled for the 13th, so we’d had it changed to Friday the 12th. But I didn’t care when it was, just so it got here. In the square for today’s date I’d written: job interview 0900 HRS.

  Oh shit, I thought, remembering George’s call.

  The hardest thing about getting up early to run in the winter is taking those first few steps after you get out of bed. I was tempted to go back into the bedroom and lie down next to Paula’s warm body again, but then I knew that I’d never get to my run, much less that job interview. Then I’d have to contend with both George and Chappie being pissed at me. I went downstairs to the basement and retrieved my sweat clothes from the makeshift clothesline. I dressed silently and quickly, with the rote skill developed through many previous morning rituals.

  As I ascended the stairs, I thought about Paula. I wasn’t crazy about leaving her alone in my house while I went out for a forty-five-minute run. After all, what did I know about her? We were old lovers. We’d slept together last night. And, for some stupid reason, like the old days, we hadn’t used protection—necessary for more than preventing pregnancy these days. She probably wouldn’t have blinked an eye if I’d taken out some rubbers…. But I hadn’t had any. And the moment had seemed so spontaneous. When I’d held her in my arms, felt the electricity of her fingers on my skin, it was like we’d been transported back through some magical window in time to reclaim something that had been ours long ago.

  Dumb. Very dumb. We both knew that there’d been a lot of water under the bridge. Or at least I should have known. Could I even be sure who she was anymore? But last night was now water under the bridge too.

  And as far as leaving her alone while I went for the run, at this point I didn’t really have a lot of options. I figured I’d wake her up and let her know I was going out running, and that I had an appointment to get to. Then maybe I could take her out to breakfast, and drop her somewhere afterward. We could decide if we wanted to see each other again. But I was feeling the pangs of regret now and wasn’t sure if I’d want to.

  After turning on the nightlight, I leaned over the bed and kissed her gently on the cheek. She snapped awake, then smiled and reached up for me.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” she asked, her fingers curling around my hooded sweatshirt.

  “Remember I told you last night I was training for a fight?”

  “Ohhhh,” she groaned. “It hurts just to think about last night.”

  The words stung me. Was she having the morning-after regrets too? Did she feel it was all a big mistake?

  “I have to go for my morning run,” I said. “I’ll be back shortly, then I can take you for breakfast and drop you off at home if you want, but I’ve got an appointment at nine. Okay?”

  She smiled, yawned, and said, “Sure, baby.”

  I stood and went toward the door. Just as I got there she called out to me.

  “Ron.”

  I paused.

  “It was…nice seeing you again,” she said.

  I smiled and muttered, “Yeah. Same here, babe.”

  At five fifteen I headed out the door, almost six minutes later than my planned starting time. Closing the gate, I slipped the bag gloves on my hands and began a quick trot. The side streets were deserted, and it was still as dark as night. I had to really watch my step because a slip on a patch of ice or a trip because of a pothole might set me back training-wise. Once I warmed up after the first half-mile or so, I didn’t worry about it so much because I’d be loose. Luckily, I hadn’t taken any spills yet this winter.

  None until last night, I thought.

  You know what they say about seeing old lovers: like déjà vu all over again. But this particular reunion had been so long in coming, it had seemed eerie. Like meeting someone you knew for the first time again. Things familiar, yet different. Very different. We just weren’t the same two people anymore. Intersecting lives shaped by separate experiences. Separate lives. Separate lies. The experiences that you carry around with you and bring into every new relationship were there, but sort of like lost luggage. Every touch, every caress, every breath had been tinged with old memories, old delights, old pain. Remembering myself thirteen years ago, but suddenly thrust into a slightly off-key present with a stranger I knew, but didn’t know. Things familiar, yet different, all colored with a lingering and overwhelming feeling of regret for what might have been.

  Chappie continually preached the virtues of abstinence to me when training for a fight. He’d tell me this story about how he was duped by an unscrupulous promoter into spending the night with a prostitute before one of his big fights. “Women weaken your legs,” he’d always say. “So don’t be layin’ up with some ho when you in training, or you be paying for it in the ring.” As I tried to settle into my comfortable pace I heard his words ringing again and again in my ears.

  Finally, after the better part of a mile, I started to shake off my fatigue and let my mind wander. One of the side benefits of these early morning runs was they gave me time to think. The traffic was usually sparse, the air clean. Virtually no other people around. The darkness still cloaking everything, bathing it all in shades of neutral grayness. The only variations were the lighted business signs and stop lights, which introduced sudden bright flashes of rainbow colors into the predominantly gray world. Red, yellow, green, blue, and an occasional twisted pink neon shining like beacons at various points along the way.

  Unfortunately, my thoughts just kept coming back to Paula. My mind did a mock Bogey imitation: Of all the gin joints in all the world…Why did she have to step into mine? Glancing at my watch, I decided to concentrate more on my pacing. I was running behind schedule, especially in view of the fact that I had to drive downtown for that interview. Maybe Paula and I would have to hit McDonald’s for breakfast on the way.

  As I turned a corner I began running directly into the cold wind and struggled to pull the ski mask down over my face. In Chicago they call it “The Hawk,” and on cold winter days there’s no escaping it. Running in the winter was like fighting a war against an indomitable adversary. Each day was a new battle. I finally had to slip off one of the bag gloves so that I could adjust the eyeslots of the mask. Packs of cars, their headlights shining in the darkness, were growing thicker on the main streets now.

  I approached Agony One, the first of the three hills on my course. My breath was a steamy vapor cloud in front of me. Droplets of moisture became frozen chips on my eyelashes, and my feet seemed to weigh fifty pounds each. By the time I crested Agony Two I felt the fatigue seeping into my legs and gut.

  Too much sex and not enough sleep, I told myself as I tried to fight off the creeping exhaustion. This was the time to push harder. When I got to the park I knew I had just a little over a mile to go, and one more hill left: Miss Agony. But instead of feeling renewed, I felt half-dead. Breathing through the mask only made it harder, and the part of it over my mouth was covered with solid ice. Even though the wind was blowing from behind me now, it sent a deep chill through my body. I lifted the bottom of the mask so I could spit, and proceeded across the frozen white expanse of the park. The brittle crunching of my shoes through the snow was the only sound I heard.

  When I got to Miss Agony I realized that somehow I’d made up some time. The chartered bus that always passed me near the last set of tracks rumbled by. That meant I wasn’t too far off my regular time. Or maybe the bus was late. I knew I couldn’t relax
on this part of the run because I had to get across the tracks before any freight trains trapped me. A wait of fifteen or twenty minutes would just about kill my timetable, not to mention give me a cold.

  Then I heard it: the distant whistle. I knew I had no choice but to pick up the pace. Another adversary. Whenever this happened I tried to liken it to being behind on points going into the last few rounds. You had to dig deep and really come on. Go out there swinging and give it everything you had. That was why I sort of liked the unexpectedness of these early morning runs: there was an element of pressure that sometimes exerted itself and kept me sharp. I quickened my pace and headed for the tracks.

  The whistle sounded again, louder this time. Then the red warning lights and bells came on, and the long wooden arms began to lower over the street. I was about a hundred yards away and started an all-out sprint. My feet skipped over the two sets of tracks as the train whistle blared again. It was a relatively safe two hundred feet away, but the engine light still looked like an approaching fireball.

  My pace slowed after I crossed the tracks, and by the time I rounded the corner of my street I knew I didn’t have anything left for the ending sprint. Have to make up for it tomorrow, I thought. When I pulled off the bag gloves, the steam clouds rose up from my hands as if they were smoldering.

  Instead of going directly downstairs to hang up my clothes, I decided to check on Paula. I went into the bedroom, but she wasn’t there. Nor was she in the bathroom or kitchen. Then I saw the note sticking up on the telephone. I picked it up.

  Ron, thanks. It was nice. Had to go. Call me. P.

  Her phone number was under it. The yellow pages lay open to the taxi section. She’d left without saying good-bye again, but at least this time there was a note. And a way to contact her. If I wanted to.

  I set the note back down by the phone and wondered if I should maybe check my wallet. No, now I was being paranoid, but an ironic thought hit me. Was this what women felt like the morning after inviting a stranger to spend the night?

  I realized that I had tracked a lot of dirty snow in on my shoes, so I stooped over to unlace them. A thin stream of sweat began to pour out of my ski mask and onto the rug. I hoped this wasn’t an indication of how the rest of my day was going to go. When I went down to the basement to hang up my wet clothes, I couldn’t help but wonder why Paula had taken off so abruptly without even so much as a quick good-bye. I pulled the light chain and the radio that I have hooked up to the same switch came on, blaring Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One.” Just what I wanted to hear at that moment.

  Yeah, right, babe, I thought as I stripped off my sweaty clothes in time to the music.

  After my shower I heated up a cup of coffee in the micro wave and slipped the two halves of a bagel into the toaster. But I kept coming back to the note by the phone. She’d used paper from my pad. As I looked at it I saw a faint impression of some unfamiliar writing. I held it obliquely toward the light and studied it. A flourishing script style, very different from mine. It matched Paula’s writing, so she’d written another note after the one written to me. Always the detective, I found a pencil in my desk and lightly shaded the paper to distinguish the imprinted writing.

  What looked like 8AM became visible, with another phone number underneath. I scribbled the number on my pad, thinking that I could run it through name and address later. But instead I crumpled the shadowed page and dropped it back onto the desk. She did have a right to her privacy.

  After a moment’s hesitation I picked up the phone and dialed the number Paula had left in her note. It rang three times, then an answering machine picked up.

  “Hi, this is Paula. Leave a message after the beep, please, and party hearty.”

  I thought of what to say as the recorder clicked on.

  “Paula, it’s Ron. It was…nice seeing you last night. Maybe we can do it again. Give me a call.” I paused. My home number wasn’t on my phone, but there was a chance she’d get it if she had caller ID. Did I want her to have it? I just gave her my business phone, which is handled by my answering service, and my beeper number. At least until I decided if I really wanted to get involved with her again. Once burned, I thought.

  When I hung up I smelled something, then suddenly realized it was smoke. The bagel! I ran into the kitchen and pulled the plug on the toaster as the black cloud rose like a miniature three-alarm fire, and the ear-splitting sound of the smoke detector stung my ear drums. After extracting the two burnt halves from the toaster, I smeared them with cream cheese and munched them down anyway as I finished dressing.

  Now it was twice burned…in one morning, I thought.

  CHAPTER 4

  I saw the kitten as I came out of the underground parking at Michigan and Monroe. The flood of people were doing their best to ignore its peril as they trampled across the intersection, seemingly oblivious to the tiny gold bundle of fur, with its tail straight up, walking in an ever expanding circle, closer and closer to the traffic flow. The light was about to change, allowing the halted drivers on Michigan to make the turn on the green arrow. That was when I broke into a quick trot. I was afraid that my sudden movements would startle the kitten, causing it to run into harm’s way. But it was too late to wait.

  I got to the curb as the first cars made the turn. Some guy in a van seemed almost to aim for the cat, but miraculously, when the back bumper passed, the little thing was standing right between the tires crouching, its tiny ears flattened. I was there in two more steps, bending and reaching. As I scooped it up, some asshole sounded his horn and I heard the screeching of brakes. The kitten’s claws dug into my hand like ten tiny needles. Glancing up as I headed for the next curb, I saw the driver giving me the finger. I smiled and nodded back. Then, holding up the kitten, I admonished it.

  “You’ve only got eight lives left. Use them wisely.”

  The little thing was so small it fit in the palm of my hand. My guess was that it couldn’t have been more than a month old. But then again, it may have been stunted, too. The soft fur was gold. Almost the same color as my other cat, Georgio. The little mouth curled open in a pitiful whine exposing a pink tongue.

  I glanced around, wondering what to do with it. I didn’t see any officers directing traffic. Just like the old saying, there’s never a cop around when you need one. Not that I wanted to give the kitten to some traffic cop, who’d probably just dump it in the nearest trash barrel. But I was already close to my interview appointment time.

  George was really counting on me to impress this guy, Tom Russell, who owned Securitec, one of the largest security firms in the city. If things went well, Securitec would agree to field out some accounts to our fledgling firm. It meant bigger contracts, and lots more dough for them. And me, too. George was fond of saying that he was on “the back nine” of his career on the PD, and if this company took off, it could mean good things for him. I should have felt lucky to be a part of it. At least that’s what he kept telling me.

  And if I owed anybody in my life, it was George. I didn’t want to let him down.

  A cold blast of wind sent a shiver down my spine and brought another mew from the cat. I carefully stuck the hand with the kitten in it in my overcoat pocket. It seemed content to get out of the wind, and I quickened my pace toward the office building.

  As I pushed through the revolving doors, I could feel the little bastard purring away. Obviously it felt it had found a new home. I consulted the legend on the wall and saw that Securitec was on the eighteenth floor. Some elevators opened up near a guy standing by the monitoring panel with a security badge on his belt.

  “You allow animals in here?” I asked.

  “Only seeing eye dogs,” he said. “Why?”

  “Just wondering,” I said, figuring that asking him to hold the kitty while I went upstairs wouldn’t go over too well. Besides, after effecting such a great rescue, I certainly didn’t want to trust the little thing to just anybody. The purring in my pocket continued as we rode up to the
eighteenth floor. I paused in the hallway to take off my overcoat and drape it carefully over my arm. With the kitten in my right coat pocket, I could keep it secured with my left hand and not look too peculiar.

  SECURITEC, INC. was stenciled in gold block letters outlined in black on the frosted glass door pane. I twisted the knob and went into a small waiting room. A secretary sat behind a large metal desk that looked exceptionally well organized. She did too: a prim-and-proper-looking woman in her mid-to-late forties. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and she wore a conservative tan suit. A metal plaque on the front of her desk said Ms. Winston.

  “Hi. I’m Ron Shade. I have an appointment to see Mr. Russell.”

  She flipped open an appointment book and glanced at the page.

  “Have a seat, sir,” she said. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  I rolled my head slowly from side to side, surveying the scene as I sat in one of the padded chairs. The walls were decorated with framed pictures, certificates, and letters, mostly from prestigious firms and clients expressing their gratitude for the great assistance of Securitec. After about five minutes, the little cat started to become somewhat agitated and began trying to claw its way out. Ms. Winston stared at me. I compressed my lips momentarily, wondering what I looked like sitting there with my hand in a squirming overcoat on my lap. The phone buzzed, and she picked it up, smiled, and told me that Mr. Russell would see me now.

  “I wonder if I might ask a favor of you,” I said, trying to turn on my most ingratiating smile.

  Ms. Winston’s eyebrows raised slightly.

  “You see, I found this tiny kitten wandering around in traffic on my way here,” I said, taking the little thing out of my pocket and holding it toward her. “I was wondering if you’d hold it for me while I’m in the interview?”