Windy City Knights

by Michael A. Black

  “Well, that’s up to you,” I said. “But the guy who owns that truck is gonna be plenty pissed if you don’t.”

  His brow furrowed as he squinted to read the license number. He snorted good-naturedly and stuck it in his pocket. “Why is it every time I start out helping you, I end up with my own ass in a sling?”

  “One hand washes the other,” I said. “You mind if we keep the truck one more day?”

  “Only if you remember to fill it up and watch where you park,” he said as we walked toward the elevator. “Anything else, Mister Shade? Or would you prefer to be called Prince Ron?”

  “Prince Ron does have a nice ring to it, but Mister Shade will be just fine,” I said. “And, yeah, there is one more thing.”

  I took out one of the cards I’d taken from Peeps’s office. “Could you check out this guy? He’s involved in this thing in some way. And he’s probably the guy who burglarized my house, too.”

  “How you figure that?”

  “I just came from his office. He and I had a little talk. He sounds like the same dude who set me up for that wild-goose chase up to the north shore the day of the burglary.”

  George frowned, nodded, and stuck the card in his pocket. The elevator doors opened and we rode down to the first floor in silence. Little did I know that handing him that damn card would come back to bite me in the ass.

  CHAPTER 15

  Except for the usual traffic backup where the express and local lanes merge around 71st Street, we made pretty good time going home. I kept as good a watch as I could for any black limousines, but nothing suspicious floated into either of the side-view mirrors. Getting off at 119th Street, I shot back north to the animal hospital. By the time we got there it was twenty to six, and I knew I’d be cutting it close. Rags seemed unusually subdued as the attendant brought him out in the travel case. Laurie cooed how cute he was and immediately tried to initiate some sort of conversation with him. When he failed to respond, she turned to me.

  “Oh, Ron, he’s a little darling. I didn’t know you liked cats.”

  “Yeah, I just seem to keep accumulating them. This one almost got run over last week.”

  “Oh no. He’s so tiny,” she said, sticking her fingers between the metal squares of the cage door. “Do you mind if I take him out and put him on my lap?”

  “At your own risk,” I said. Then added, “But I guess if he gives you any trouble we can slap him behind bars again.” It took them only a few minutes to bond. Rags sat on her lap purring the whole way home. I pulled up in front of my house and took him inside away from the cold. The other two cats came out to eye us suspiciously. Georgio emitted a mournful cry that told me that the supply of cat food had run out during my extended absence. I told Laurie their names and where the cat food was. She went to feed them while I made the first of several trips with the boxes from the truck to my front porch. Laurie came and helped me and we finished in record time. But the clock was edging closer to six.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I told Big Ed I’d pick up The Beater to night,” I said. “And I got to be at work at the hotel by six fifteen.”

  “When will you get a chance to eat?” she asked.

  “I’ll grab something there. I need to change though.” I glanced at my watch.

  “Well, I can drive the truck if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “I would like a chance to sort through some of this stuff. What time do you get off?”

  “Midnight.”

  “Well,” she said, placing a hand on my arm. “If you’d trust me to stay here unsupervised while you’re gone, I could go through these boxes and see what I want to keep. I need to go through all that mail too. I can drop you off to get your car and I’ll just wait here for you. Then you can take me to the hotel when you get back.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. I went into the bedroom and quickly stripped off my clothes, giving Laurie a quick rundown where everything was through the partially closed door. I changed T-shirts, underwear, and socks too, pausing to swipe deodorant under each arm along the way just so I’d feel civilized. After tossing on a dress shirt, I slipped on my regular jacket and grabbed my tie to put on in the car. Looping my belt through my pants, and pancake holster, I came out of the bedroom and motioned to Laurie.

  “Ready?” I asked. She nodded. “Think you can find everything?”

  “I’m sure I’ll be able to,” she said, smiling. “Aren’t you going to finish dressing?”

  “Nah,” I said, snapping my Beretta in place and slinging my sport coat over my arm. “I’m used to doing quick changes.”

  Big Ed had The Beater outside and all warmed up for me when I got there. I gave him a check and told him I had to get to my second job so that I could make the deposit in the morning to cover it.

  “Better make it a double shift if you want to keep driving that thing, Ron,” he said laughing. “It’s at the stage where it’s gonna start nickel-and-diming you to death. And the parts ain’t easy to find.”

  I conferred briefly with Laurie and gave her my extra house key. She assured me that everything would be fine. The Beater roared to life at the turn of the ignition, and I sped off toward the Lincoln Estates Holiday Inn with practically no time to spare. But I still had one last task to accomplish before I got there. And I’d saved the worst till last. As I rounded the corner and hit the expressway, I pulled out my cellular phone and hastily dialed the gym. Brice answered and I told him that I needed to speak to the boss. When he came on I said, “Chappie, it’s Ron.”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “Ah, I got roped into working hotel security to night,” I said hesitantly. “Looks like I’ll have to skip our workout.”

  The uneasy silence was punctuated by static. “You there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “Don’t know about you, though. You think you that good you can skip a crucial workout when that fight’s right around the corner?”

  “Chappie, I’m sorry—”

  “Sorry ain’t shit. When you be getting your ass whupped ’cause you didn’t train, that be sorry. You think Elijah Day be skippin’ training?” He paused to let it sink in. “You only gots a week, Ron. Where’s your head at, man? Or is you lookin’ to get it knocked off?”

  “Look, I said I was sorry.”

  “You gonna be more sorry. You want me to cancel the fight?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then start acting like a fighter,” he said. “A professional fighter. A champion. And in case you don’t know what that is, it’s somebody who gets paid to fight and win, not just show up.”

  “Chappie,” I started to say, but he’d hung up. I pressed the END button on the phone and locked it. After blowing out a slow breath that fogged the windshield slightly, I thought about what he’d said, and why he’d said it.

  As my trainer, it was his job to prepare me for the fight, and he’d basically done that. We’d already put in a lot of long, hard training sessions, and I’d never let myself get that far out of shape to begin with. My urine had been practically clear this morning before my run, which usually meant that I was in tip-top shape. Plus I’d beaten Day before, so I should have the psychological advantage. Or maybe that would make him train harder. He was the champion now, which, according to Chappie, usually added about twenty-five percent to a fighter’s edge.

  I kept turning it over in my mind as I drove south until it became a jangled mess. But at this point I knew that the major thing I had to battle between now and the fight wasn’t conditioning or practice. It was nerves. I had to maintain my sharpness and peak at just the right time.

  The closer the fight got, the more I thought about it. I’d seen Elijah Day staring across the ring at me in my dreams. I saw him beyond each street corner when I put in my morning miles. And I knew I’d see him when I left the locker room to take that long walk to the ring. The one that was the longest walk in the world.

  I arrived at 6:2
3 on the dot, managing to punch-in almost on time. I dumped my heavy coat in the office area behind the front desk, draped my sport jacket over the back of a chair, and was tying my necktie in the mirror that was hung there. Marsha came up to me and smiled. “Hey, Ron,” she said. “Back for more excitement to night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I haven’t seen you for a few. What you been up to?”

  “I’ve been training for a fight.”

  “No big cases?” she asked, handing me my portable radio.

  “Nah, just trying to keep my head above the water.” My beeper went off and I checked the number. It was my house. I immediately went to the phone and called. Laurie’s voice sounded tentative.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh, Ron, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “I kind of thought that I’d take a look at this videotape later on, to see if it should go in the keep or destroy pile. I wasn’t sure how to operate your machine.”

  I gave her a quick run down on using the small TV with the built-in VCR.

  “Just scan it and see,” I said. “But remember, I’ll want to take a look at everything before you throw anything away.”

  “Right,” she said. Her voice sounded wistful, then she added, “I just didn’t think it’d be this hard. I keep thinking that I’ll see her again, or something, or that she’ll be turning up for a visit. I just wish I could sit down with her and ask her what the hell she was doing with her life.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, do what you can to night. And there’s a bunch of movie tapes in the cases by the big TV if you want to watch something else.”

  She thanked me and we hung up. I was beginning to regret letting her watch that tape alone, and I thought about calling her back. Knowing that Peeps had been associated with it, I figured that sleaze wouldn’t be too far behind. But I decided against it. She’d already confronted part of the truth about Paula. I’d leave it up to her what she told her aunt and uncle.

  After I’d slipped on my sport coat, I saw Marsha staring at me.

  “You playing house with someone now, Ron?”

  “Not really,” I said. “Just a friend.”

  “Oh, sure. I know. It’s none of my business.” She smiled and canted her head. I rolled my eyes and walked out of the office to begin my rounds. As I passed by the front desk a woman was complaining that the bottom toilet paper dispenser in the women’s washroom was empty, and the top one wasn’t rotating correctly. The desk clerk called Marsha’s name. I smirked and strolled leisurely away. When I got to the piano bar Kathy was just setting up. Sue, the bartender, gave me my usual club soda, and I went over to the elevated platform by the piano.

  “Hi, Ron,” Kathy said. She studied me for a second, then asked, “You all right?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Just sort of preoccupied.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am. I’ve been looking into the death of an old friend, and some of the pieces I’ve uncovered aren’t real pretty.”

  “Oh. Must be difficult for you.”

  “Brings back a lot of old memories.”

  She nodded. “I know the feeling.”

  We chatted for a few minutes more while she sorted through her music, then sat on the bench behind the piano. She flipped the microphone on. I set the empty glass on the bar and took off toward the office building, which was supposed to be locked up by six thirty. At least I’ll get my leg workout in to night going up and down the stairs, I thought. That ought to count for something. As I walked through the big, expansive lobby Kathy’s voice suddenly floated after me. She was singing “These Foolish Things.”

  The shift went by pretty routinely: an obnoxious drunk in the upstairs bar and a rowdy group of college kids having a party in one of the rooms. I persuaded them all to leave, revoking their room privileges on the grounds that not more than three people were authorized to be in the rooms without special permission. One of them looked at me mournfully and said, “Hey, man, it’s semester break.” He was a big, varsity football type, and for a moment I thought he was going to be confrontational. I told him he should have gone skiing if he wanted to enjoy taking the chance of getting some broken bones. Luckily for him, his buddies pulled him back as they left.

  During my solitary floor checks of the hotel and office building, I’d thrown a quick series of punches and kicks on each landing. I figured, besides facing down the drunk and the college punks, I’d gone maybe four rounds total. It helped to assuage my guilt over the missed workout, and I vowed to go in first thing in the morning and let Chappie punish me to his heart’s content. As I walked through my final tour of the hotel, I thought about that. And about Elijah Day.

  After I finished the walk-through, I went back down and stood by while the airport shuttle bus arrived. As I strolled by the lobby I heard Kathy’s voice again, singing “All at Once.” I went over to the bar and leaned against it. Sue slipped me another club soda as I listened. After the song there was a smattering of applause. Kathy thanked the patrons and told them it had been a pleasure entertaining them this evening. I stepped over to talk with her as she was folding her music and glanced at my watch. It was almost time for me to pack it in too.

  “What happened to ‘One More for the Road’? Isn’t that usually your swan song for the night?”

  “It is, but I figured I owed you your favorite song before I left,” she said, smiling. “I haven’t seen you very much lately.”

  “Yeah, well, I been busy training for a fight,” I said. “It’s gonna be next Friday. If you want to come I’ll get you some tickets.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m booked to play here,” she said. “But otherwise I’d love to go. Who are you fighting?”

  “A big black guy out of Detroit named Elijah Day.”

  “Is he good?”

  “He’s the champ,” I said. And hopefully next week I’ll be, I thought. But I didn’t want to jinx it by predicting that I’d win.

  I went over to the front desk to see if my relief had arrived yet. Marsha was coming out of the women’s washroom carrying a screwdriver and a square piece of white cardboard. I grinned at her and said, “I guess I don’t want to know what you were doing with that.”

  “Just everybody else’s job,” she said. “I wrote out three work orders about the top toilet paper dispenser not working correctly in the first floor ladies’ room. When the bottom roll’s gone, the top one’s supposed to fall down in place. Well, the damn thing’s been broken since before New Year’s, but do you think they could get off their asses and fix the damn thing? Noooo. They just keep putting a new roll in the bottom and leaving it. So finally I have to go in and do it. Christ, I’m sick of this place.”

  “So did you fix it?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, calming down slightly. “Look at this.” She held up the cardboard, which I now saw was a folded coaster from the piano bar. It said season’s greetings on the front and had a picture of a cocktail glass surrounded by festive ornamentation. “Somebody’d jammed this between the top roll and the bottom one, keeping it from falling down. And this was wedged in between another coaster.” She held up a long gold-colored key.

  I raised my eyebrows as I took it from her. It appeared to a commercial key of some sort, with a rounded end and a number, 1427, stamped below the hole.

  “Know what it’s to?” I asked, handing it back to her.

  “No. It doesn’t look familiar,” she said. “I guess I’ll just put it in Lost and Found to see if anyone claims it. But I’d like to find out who wedged it in there, and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

  “My, my, such hostility for such a nice girl,” I said as I stepped back. I saw one of the local coppers walking toward me fixing his tie, and knew he must be my relief. And not a moment too soon, I thought as I looked at Marsha’s baleful stare. But something about the key being jammed in there bothered me. I didn’t know why, but I figured I had enough to worry ab
out for the time being and dragged my sorry ass home.

  CHAPTER 16

  Everything was quiet and well lit as I entered the back door and came in through the kitchen. Placing my winter jacket on the back of a chair, I looked through the dining room toward the front of the house. Black-and-white images of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman flashed across the TV screen in the living room. Of all the gin joints in all the world, I thought. Then I heard it: the volume of the TV almost covered the sound of crying. I tossed my sport coat on a chair in the dining room and immediately went to the couch. Laurie was leaning forward, her face in her hands, her back shuddering faintly with uncontrollable spasms.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  She looked up at me, the tears still streaming down her face. Then suddenly she was standing and pressing herself to me, her face buried against my chest, as she muttered, “Oh, Ron.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That…tape,” she managed to say between sobs. “It was just so terrible. How could she do things like that?” I patted her back and held her, cursing myself for letting her watch it at all. Peeps…I should have really kicked his ass, and then my own for not screening the tape first myself. But I was so anxious to show I was picking up some leads. So damn anxious…

  Finally her crying became less spasmodic, and I gently urged her back down to the sofa. I went into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of paper towels off the rack and gave them to her. Not as soft as tissues, but they do wonders for a runny nose.

  Laurie wiped at her eyes, and then blew her nose, her pretty face looking swollen and puffy. “Are you all right?” I asked softly.

  She nodded, her hazel eyes flashing downward. “I guess I thought I’d already gone through the worst part. But seeing her in that movie…”

  I pulled her to me for a hug and searched for the right words to try and comfort her. As we talked my hands began to make light circles on her back. I suddenly realized that it was affecting me physically. So did she…. It had been a while. I hadn’t been with anybody since Paula. And I was still under the specter of the pending HIV test. Then Laurie put her arms around my neck and gently kissed my lips.