No Show of Remorse

by David J. Walker

  “No. That costs—”

  “Just wondered. Look, whatever you hear on the news or anywhere else—and tell Jimmy, too—don’t talk to anybody about the meeting we had. Whether or when or where or anything. Okay?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Why would we?”

  “Because you or Jimmy might think it would be helpful—helpful to me—to tell someone. But it won’t, believe me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just don’t forget. And one more thing. Don’t let Jimmy talk to anyone about … about the past. Not the police or anyone. Till you hear from me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but—”

  I hung up on Suzanne, too. That seemed to be one of the things I did best.

  Casey’d be home soon and I had to be gone by then. If the cops somehow learned he was helping me they’d be all over him. He’d have to tell them I was there the night before—which was my alibi in a homicide case, sure—but he’d have to say Jimmy and Suzanne were there, too, and I didn’t want that. I was doing my best to keep Jimmy out of it. I’d promised.

  I gathered up my stuff and was headed out the back door into the garage when Casey’s voice boomed from the front of the house. “Mal?” he called. “Mal? You here?”

  I closed the door softly and left.

  I suppose in my mind I’d been picturing the world as a pretty dark and dreary place, because when I backed the Buick Electra out of the garage I was surprised to discover the sun was high and the alley bright. I had to drive slowly at first, to avoid two bone-thin, ragged dogs, snarling at each other across the bloated body of a huge, dead rat. More proof that what makes a treasure worth the risk must—like beauty—lie in the beholder’s eye.

  Meanwhile, in the swirling fog of my own mind’s eye an idea was taking shape, a notion of what must have happened that night at Lonnie Bright’s—where some people had seen a treasure worth the highest risk of all. With the idea came the hint of a plan for what to do now. I really needed more time to think it through, but Renata was right. Time was a luxury I didn’t have.

  * * *

  THE FIRST ITEM ON MY AGENDA was a visit to Breaker Hanafan. It was time for the bastard to dip his hands a little into his own dirty work.

  Breaker let me in right away. He already knew I was a suspect in the murder of Maura Flanagan. He knew a lot of things before most people did. Then I told him what I was going to do and what I wanted him to do. He didn’t think much of the idea. But, then, who would have?

  “If it works,” I said, “your ex-grandson-in-law Richie Kilgallon goes to jail for a very long time—or at least as long as he can survive there. And if it fails,” I added, “what the hell, you always have your back-up plan.” Which was that Richie didn’t go to jail to be sodomized and brutalized, and Breaker would simply kill him. “So, when you boil it down, you got nothing to lose.”

  He shook his head. “When you boil it down,” he said, “your so-called plan is that you get that fuckin’ sonovabitch Kilgallon and the other guy together in a room, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And one of ’em’s just stupid enough to admit he committed a crime. And then the cops come along and throw his sorry ass in the shithouse.” He waved his hand at me. “Bullshit.”

  I shrugged, and kept silent.

  “Even if it made sense,” he said, “how would I know it’d be fuckin’ Kilgallon who talks and goes to jail?”

  “You’re missing an important point,” I said. “They’re both stupid enough to admit they committed a crime. It’s just that one admits to a worse crime than the other. Anyway,” I concluded, “it’s the best we got. Time’s short … for both of us. I’ll be picked up by the cops. And you? Hell, you look strong as a bull, but…”

  “I feel good, too,” he said, “for now.” A touch of something, maybe fear, came into his eyes, but he shook his head as though tossing it away. “Fuck it!”

  “Right.” I struggled not to feel sorry for the murderous bastard. “So,” I said, “take it or leave it.”

  He sat there awhile, and then he took it. Maybe he knew there was something I was holding back. And maybe he just didn’t care.

  CHAPTER

  44

  I WORKED OUT a few details with Breaker, then left and drove southwest on Interstate 55 and stopped at a truck stop near a town called Summit, about fifteen miles from the Loop and, as far as I could tell, no higher up than anywhere else in Cook County. I had coffee with a guy hauling a load of Jeep Cherokees to Omaha, borrowed his cell phone, and called home. There was one new message on my machine, one the cops probably knew was there.

  “Hey, Mal.” It was Barney Green. “Just wanna say I’m on your side. But you oughta hurry up and meet with the police. They’re talking to everyone they can find who knows you. Asking where you might be, what you’re driving, what your habits are, where you might go. So, what I mean is, it’s just a matter of time. Me, I told them what I know, including that you were sure to come in and cooperate. Have Renata set it up, okay? God bless, buddy.” He hung up.

  In other words, Barney wanted me to know he’d told the cops I was driving the Buick Electra he’d gotten for me. If he hadn’t told them, and I got picked up in it, he’d be in deep trouble, and in no position to help me anymore.

  I ditched the car in the lot of a nearby Holiday Inn, with the key under the floormat. There was a pay phone in the hotel lobby and I called one of Arthur Frankel’s restaurants in the city. He wasn’t there, so I tried another one and he was. We talked and he agreed to meet me at his restaurant in Highwood the next night, and to get Richie Kilgallon there, too.

  It wasn’t quite that easy, of course. I had to tell him I knew what happened at Lonnie Bright’s, and that I’d never told anyone yet, but I’d tell the world now if he didn’t do what I said. I told him that if I was arrested between now and tomorrow night I’d easily prove to the cops that I couldn’t have killed Maura Flanagan, and that once they let me go I’d see that he went to jail, and that if he knew what was good for his sorry ass, he’d …

  That sort of thing.

  Eventually he agreed. The next day was Friday and the dining room at Le Chantier closed at eleven, he said, and the bar at midnight. By one o’clock the staff would be gone, and we could meet at one-thirty. The only hitch was he said he hadn’t talked to Kilgallon in years, and couldn’t guarantee he’d be there. I borrowed Breaker’s line about being bent over a bench in Stateville and said maybe the two of them could get adjoining benches if he didn’t make sure Richie showed.

  Frankel was a tough enough guy, but he could be scared, like just about everyone else. When I hung up I felt a surge of optimism—for maybe five seconds.

  * * *

  A METRA COMMUTER TRAIN RUNS through Summit and there’s a station there. I rode a near-empty evening train back into the Loop, took the el to Rogers Park, and walked to a six-flat building on Glenwood, near Pratt. It was past six o’clock. The sun was just down, but it wasn’t really dark yet. Inside the tiny vestibule, I pressed the button for the second floor, south, Stefanie Randle’s apartment. She didn’t answer.

  I walked to a bar on Sheridan Road and, two cheeseburgers and two Sam Adamses later, it was quite dark out and I walked back and she answered. I announced on the intercom who I was, and she buzzed me in.

  She stood in her open doorway on the second floor landing, running her hand through her hair as though it needed straightening out or something. “My God,” she whispered, “what are you doing here?” But even as she said it, she let me in and closed the door behind me.

  She had on black stretch tights that went down to her bare feet and a white shirt that went halfway to her knees and might have looked like a man’s dress shirt except it had little flowers—embroidered, I think—sprinkled across her decidedly feminine chest. The apartment smelled like popcorn.

  “You’re wanted by the police,” she said.

  “Do you think I killed Maura Flanagan?”

&nb
sp; “Don’t be absurd.”

  “So that’s why I’m here.”

  She said her daughter had seemed to be coming down with the flu, or a cold or something, when she picked her up from daycare, and she’d put her to bed. She raised her forefinger to her lips and led me down a long hallway, through a darkened dining room full of little-girl-type playthings and big-girl-type computer stuff—but no place to eat—and into a small kitchen. The ceiling light was on and the room was neat and spotless. A tea kettle sat on a lighted burner on the stove and the odor of popcorn was stronger here, along with the smell of bleach—or was it fabric softener?

  She turned. “Really, what are you doing here?”

  “I’ll tell you,” I said, “but … may I sit down?”

  “Oh.” She seemed startled. “Yes. Um … do you want a cup of … tea or something?”

  “Coffee?”

  “Instant decaf?”

  “Tea’s fine,” I said. I sat on one of two chairs at a little white wooden table set against the wall, and watched her stretch up to get two mugs from a cabinet. She put a tea bag in each mug. Plain, ordinary Lipton’s. The kettle started to whistle just then and she turned off the gas at once and made the tea. She was awfully pretty and I reminded myself she was leaving town for Albany and there were thousands of other attractive women within a twenty-mile radius. Millions, maybe.

  “All I’ve got to serve with the tea,” she said, “are some ginger snaps. My daughter loves them, but I don’t.”

  “I don’t either.” I tried to remember if I’d ever seen a ginger snap. “You said you’d help me. I realize things are a little different now, but—”

  “Wait,” she said. “Let me go make sure she’s asleep.”

  She was back in a couple of minutes and I’d have sworn there was something different about her and decided it was fresh lipstick, and the hint of a floral scent. I also decided I’d made a mistake and I should get the hell out of there. But I didn’t. I just sipped my tea and said, “Wouldn’t you like to sit down, too?”

  She sat down and stirred artificial sweetener into her tea.

  “I don’t want to be a bother,” I said, “but I’d like to spend the night with you.”

  * * *

  MY CHOICE OF WORDS had been careless. Maybe unconsciously too accurate, in fact. But we’d gotten that cleared up right away. It was a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment, and I slept in my clothes on the couch in the living room. In the morning I pretended to be asleep and listened to her move around the apartment and get her little girl up. They went back to the kitchen and, ten or fifteen minutes later, Stefanie came to the living room door. “Mal?” she whispered.

  I lifted my head and opened my eyes.

  “We’ll be going out the back door,” she said. “I don’t want her to see you, obviously. Like I said last night, everyone in the building works days, so it should be pretty quiet.” She paused. “Um … we’ll be back about six.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be long gone,” I said. “How’s she feeling?”

  “What? Oh, she’s barely awake yet, but fine, I think.”

  “Good. And Stefanie? Thanks.”

  She smiled. “No problem.”

  I heard them go out the back door. I thought about Stefanie for a while; and then about Lynette Daniels and how nice it must be in Taos in April, and wondered whether I should fly out there when this was all over. Then I thought no.

  Then I hoped I’d be around when this was all over, to see if I still felt that way.

  CHAPTER

  45

  AT NOON I was sitting at one of Stefanie’s front windows, looking down through a soft steady rain at Glenwood Avenue. Pretty soon a dark blue Bonneville approached from the north and parked beside the fire hydrant right below me. There was a perfectly legal space right across the street, but the Bonneville would have had to go down to the corner, turn around, and come back. You couldn’t expect a busy guy like Fat Wilbur to go to all that trouble. He got out of the Bonneville and crossed over to the northbound side of the street, where he stood motionless in the rain, his huge body seeming to fill the vacant parking space.

  A minute later a Jaguar came from the south and stopped. It was a green four-door sedan, and must have been one of those extended models Jaguar makes, because Fat Wilbur managed to fit into the backseat. It was Breaker Hanafan’s car. It had dark tinted glass all the way around and I wouldn’t have been able to see the driver, except that he lowered his window as he pulled away. It was Breaker himself. He didn’t look up.

  I went downstairs. The key was in the Bonneville and I moved it to the legal space across the street. Then I went back up to Stefanie’s apartment, made myself another cup of instant decaf, and returned to the window. I killed an hour watching for—and not seeing—anything unusual. That left about eleven hours of down time ahead of me. I found a pizza in Stefanie’s freezer compartment, one with no mold, and wrote her a nice note of apology while I heated it up. I left the note with a twenty-dollar bill on the sink and went to the living room to eat the pizza, watch TV, and try to nap.

  No matter how boring CNN got, though, I couldn’t sleep, so I spread a newspaper out on the kitchen table and took the Beretta apart. I’d already cleaned it after my encounter with Zorro, so there was nothing to do but stare at the parts and put them back together again. I thought about Yogi and how I said I’d visit him on Thursday. Now it was Friday and no way could I show up there, or even call. I worked out for an hour, mostly just stretching. From the sound of things Stefanie was right and the building was empty, but still I didn’t want to make much noise.

  There were lots of things I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to think about Zorro; I didn’t want to wander aimlessly from room to room through Stefanie’s apartment; I didn’t want to sit in the window and nourish my paranoia. And I certainly didn’t want to keep going over my so-called plan for that night at Le Chantier.

  If I kept going over my plan, for God’s sake, I might come to my senses.

  * * *

  I’D PROMISED to be long-gone by six, so at five-thirty I left Stefanie’s. The rain was still falling—quiet, gray, ceaseless. The Weather Channel had told me about fourteen times during the afternoon to expect steadily dropping temperatures and rain throughout the night, possibly broken later on by a thunderstorm. So the weather, at least, was something to be happy about, because people don’t pay as much attention in the rain.

  On the other hand, I had to drive slowly and carefully, just the opposite of the hyped-up way I felt, because I didn’t want to be stopped for a traffic violation, and then arrested for murder. I needed some reassurance, so I drove to Devon Avenue and headed west. At Ravenswood I went north a block and deliberately drove right past the Twenty-fourth District police station. In fact, I drove around the block several times. Each time a cop car fell in for a while behind me, and then drifted off to go about its business, it further convinced me that no one was especially interested in a dark blue Bonneville with Illinois plates.

  I left the city, headed north. It was still more than seven hours to one-thirty, and Highwood was only a half-hour drive. The streets seemed filled with cars whose drivers had never seen rain before. It was a nightmare, even apart from the feeling that I had to keep looking for something suspicious in my rearview mirror.

  At a discount store I bought a raincoat—cheap and plastic and big enough to fit over me and my jacket—and a black knit ski cap with a built-in mask that I could roll down over my face, and made me feel like a terrorist when I tried it on. Then I went to a movie I’d never heard of, starring a guy from a TV sitcom I’d never seen and—after the movie—vowed I never would. Then, it was salad and coffee from the drive-through window at a McDonald’s; after that more driving in the rain, stopping now and then under a service station canopy for a few gallons of gas but mostly to stretch my legs, and driving again, with a couple of washroom breaks in there somewhere.

  * * *

  AT TEN-THIRTY I was in
Highwood. It was a busy night there, with lots of cars going both ways on the main thoroughfare, Green Bay Road. Most of them crept along, the drivers peering out through what had turned into a monsoon, looking for a particular restaurant or club and where they might park once they found it. I drove past Le Chantier several times. It was on the edge of town, right next to Ricci’s Nursery and Garden Supplies, nearly two blocks from Green Bay and its cluster of eating and drinking spots. Set apart, yet near to enough bars and clubs that were open till two and three a.m. so that cars and people coming and going wouldn’t draw attention.

  Le Chantier seemed to be doing great. There was a well-lighted parking lot, and valet parking at the door so you didn’t have to walk in the rain. It looked warm and cozy through the windows. The restaurant was a wide, single-story building, and was butted up in the rear—and apparently attached—to a much larger frame structure, like a rectangular barn, two or three stories tall. There were a couple of smaller buildings or sheds beyond that, visible through the rain under the glow of a few dim security lights on tall poles, but the whole area back there was blocked off by a row of evergreen trees and a tall chainlink fence.

  Freshly painted, with most of its many windows clearly part of a recent renovation, the restaurant was housed in what must once have been the store and front office part of a lumber yard. That was my guess, anyway, mostly because of the sign high up on the wall behind and above the restaurant section. The faded paint was illegible in the darkness, but I’d seen it the previous Sunday.

  HIGHWOOD LUMBER & BUILDING SUPPLIES

  As Frankel had said, the dining room closed at eleven. Most of the dinner crowd seemed to be gone by then, anyway, and after that the lights in the windows to the left of the front entrance gradually dimmed to almost nothing. The bar, though, visible through the windows to the right of the entrance, kept going strong until midnight.

  A few patrons hung on past that, but eventually they left and the lights in the bar, too, went out. By twelve-thirty the bright outdoor Le Chantier sign, and the parking lot lights, had all been switched off. Only a handful of cars remained, all gathered at the far end of the lot. Employees, obviously. Over the next half hour they came out, too, the last one being the manager, Mr. Alberto, who locked the door behind him. Once they were gone the lot was empty and lit only by spill-over from a security light in front of Ricci’s Nursery. Dim night lights glowed through the windows on both sides of Le Chantier’s darkened entrance.