Lisa’s career currently fluctuates between hairdresser, process server, rehab, and escort, the latter for those men or women customers who require thirty years of experience packed into a tight twenty-something’s body: education, manners, and no Christian morals whatsoever if there’s money involved. Lisa’s on my arm today as a representative of my Serenity Mausoleum Corporation. I have high hopes for my company even though it requires an almost constant scramble. And I have high hopes for Lisa’s sundress and its impact on angry, unreasonable construction contractors.
Lisa hugs one generous breast into my upper arm and smiles at Lithuanian Ron, the contractor in front of us. Lithuanian Ron is quite large, topped by a square head on a twenty-inch neck.
I say: “It’d be good, Ron, really good, if you could build the wall according to the plans.” I show him my rolled copy of the architectural plans that match his. “See, that’s why the cemeterians pay me and that’s why I pay you.”
Ron smiles at Lisa and her sundress, glances at the three-hundred-crypt mausoleum we’re building, then gives me the silent look subcontractors use when they want to be paid for work they didn’t do—part threat, part promise to fix it on the next draw (completed items to be paid).
I answer Lithuanian Ron’s silence. “How many of these have we done, Ron? Six? Eight? A hundred? I can’t write a draw on that wall; the inspecting architect isn’t fondling funeral directors in his back seat, and I don’t have pictures. If you’re paying your guys this week, better rob a Foremost Liquors on the way home.”
Lisa smiles sympathy.
Ron straightens his 265 pounds, eyes Lisa’s opulent décolletage, then my well-cultivated look of bon vivant-ness, not the jeans and work boots he normally sees me wearing. Ron spits behind his leg into the rebar, and says, “So, my guys made a mistake. I’ll fix it, but you still gotta pay me, cause I gotta pay them.” Ron nods at his crew of gorillas five hours short of the Labor Day weekend. All five favor me with the South Side, lynch-mob posture of men who relate to alcohol as a primary holiday companion.
“No, Ron, I don’t. Today is a racing day. One I’ve planned for a very long time. You may have noticed my suit. What I have to do is go to the track and ensure that a huge amount of work is not killed by bad luck.”
Ron smiles beyond Lisa at headstones as far as his wide-set eyes can see. “Like dying here can’t happen?”
I frown at Ron, a man I know well but don’t like much more than the last bite of an average meal. “Maybe you’re saying you want a loan? A loan shark I can find you; six for five, pay Loef Brummel back next week.”
Lithuanian Ron glances at the Daily Racing Form folded once into my seersucker pocket the way a gentrified horseman carries the Form on a race day. Ron spits again, this time closer to my Top-Siders. “Ain’t me who needs a loan shark; you’re who the Micks got by the balls.” Ron thumbs over his shoulder. “My guys ain’t going unpaid ’cause your debts kill you.”
“I don’t owe any loan sharks, Irish or otherwise, and if I did, it’d be none of your fucking business.”
“Loef Brummel’s gonna squeeze you for what Dave Grossfeld owes ’cause Loef thinks you can pay, and he knows Dave can’t.”
Silent alarm bell.
My partner Dave is a man who was, and is, dumb enough to borrow from Loef Brummel. I consider my options. And go with the most aggressive, scorched-earth “fire for effect” known to man:
“Ron, I’d like you to meet Lisa Reins.”
***
Unrumpled by a physical altercation, I’m now northbound in my aging but immaculate Citroën C5, doing seventy toward Arlington Park for a race-day Ritual that must be followed to the letter. This Ritual properly aligns the heavens and removes all bad juju including Lithuanian Ron’s suggestion that Dave Grossfeld might be on the arm to Loef Brummel. While this is a troubling addition to Dave’s behavior the last few days, a suggestion of trouble is not going to ruin a career-betting proposition that’s been thirteen months in the making and will fund the Flyers’ defense fund well into whatever idiot sphere Ms. Balloon-Ass wants to visit.
My cell phone rings just south of the 294/Kennedy interchange for O’Hare. A Baird’s Bread truck swerves into my lane to avoid a forced airport exit. I dodge the truck and answer: “And it’s a good morning to ya, whoever ya are.”
Loef (pronounced “Laif”) Brummel’s tone is icy. “Meet me at the Brehon.”
“I’m out on the West Side, Loef, headed to Arlington. Can we do it tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Later, maybe? After six?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Ahh . . . are we good, Loef? Something wrong?”
“Nothin’ but sunshine.” Click.
Sunshine and loan sharks are a non sequitur. I envision Loef alone at the Brehon after I don’t show.
Nope.
I veer east off 294 onto the Kennedy, hang up, and punch Dave’s cell on speed dial. Fucking Dave . . . me and Loef Brummel in the same sentence is not what my afternoon plan had in it. Dave’s phone goes to voicemail. My childhood friend and errant partner hasn’t answered my calls for two days. Calls I’ve been making since Dave’s secretary called, saying, “Dave’s in the TCI”—(Turks and Caicos)—“changed his mind at the last minute and entered this year’s tournament. Said to tell you he has a big job, like the Sportsman’s”—(a racetrack)—“move in ’03, but has to have your help to close it. Please call him ASAP.”
I try Dave’s satellite phone. It rings ten times. Fucking Dave. Since he retired from the NHL, Dave’s big into ocean sportfishing. His 48-foot Viking, Slap Shot Terror, is docked in the TCI south of the Bahamas, where Dave spends four weeks a year that are more like eight. Dave being MIA isn’t unusual; Dave putting me on Loef Brummel’s plate for dinner is.
***
In the summer, the Brehon Pub props open all its doors. The 150-year-old building smells clean and airy, front to back, but it’s surrounded by two hundred years of Chicago history, much of it neither clean nor airy. The sounds of the city roll past the doors. Canaryville’s top loan shark isn’t here yet. Canaryville is Chicago DNA for hard-ass, working-class, kill-you-twice-a-day Irish.
Two cars pull up in tandem out front on Wells. The doors of the tail car pop open. Four of Loef Brummel’s guys leap out. Two sprint to the passenger door of the first car, rip it open, jerk out a white man, and sprawl him to the sidewalk. Both guys take turns slamming size twelves into the man’s head while their associates glare witnesses away. The stomping doesn’t stop until the man’s face is unrecognizable.
Loan Shark 101—pay them.
All four guys, plus the driver of the first car, get into the tail car and leave. The man on the sidewalk bleeds in three directions and doesn’t move.
A young waitress I haven’t seen before runs past a bar customer to help. He grabs to stop her but misses.
I feel the threat behind me before I see it and cut to the Brehon’s side door on Superior.
An Irish gentleman of about fifty leans into his steps as he approaches. He’s a hard 175 pounds, dressed better than I’ve seen him act, and capable of killing people in volume. The summer Donegal cap cheerfully dipped to the left eye doesn’t change that. Loef Brummel stops at conversational distance, looks the remaining waitress away, then chins at me. “Step into my office.”
People in the crime business call this Irishman a dead-serious gangster, a throwback to the straight razors and ice picks of the Levee era in Chicago, but one who will listen to reason if it’s about money. I know Loef from the track, used to work his horses. He likes me, so I might live five minutes longer than someone he doesn’t.
Loef’s office for this meeting is a wall-attached table at the front with a good view of Wells Street and no way to get to him from behind. We sit; I glance him outside at the body on the sidewalk. He shrugs.
Customers
at the Brehon’s long bar stare at the body, but none leave their stools to assist the waitress. Proof that Loef occasionally does business from here.
I raise my index finger, step off the stool to the pay phone, dial 911, tell CPD they have a dying man on the sidewalk, and ask for an ambulance.
When I return to the table, Loef’s head is canted five degrees off-center. “Wanna tell me anything, Mr. Bill?”
“Like what?”
“Your partner, Dave.”
“Huh? Like Dave and . . . you?”
Loef nods.
“Is Dave jammed? Must be, or he wouldn’t be talking to you.”
“Dave isn’t talking to me, you are.”
Silent alarm bell no. 2. “Far as I know, Dave’s fishing in the TCI, the tournament he does every year.” I glance at the sidewalk, hoping for EMTs.
Loef nods again. His eyes don’t blink.
Mine do. “What?”
“You tell me.”
“Like I said, Dave must be jammed. End of story.”
Outside the Brehon, two women hover over the waitress and the body on the sidewalk. One has her phone out but drops it and puts both hands to her mouth. The other woman stoops to assist in the triage. Sirens blare; EMTs arrive.
Loef says, “When’s Dave back?”
I lie, “Wednesday,” then quote Dave’s secretary. “Dave says he has a big job about to pop.”
“You sure?”
“I’m not sure of death or taxes.”
Loef stares at me, then two squad cars arriving. His thickened bottom lip pushes forward. “Your Dave’s in for a hundred; owes the vig three days ago. Comin’ back next Wednesday means you’re late three days on the first payment and you’re gonna miss the second.”
Heart spike. “A hundred thousand dollars? My Dave?”
Nod. Icy stare.
“Tell me you’re lying.” I point at Loef. “You’re after Dave for something else.”
Two-inch headshake.
“No. Goddammit.” I glance the bar for a clue on the real story, then the sidewalk. “Dave didn’t do that. He didn’t.”
“Ain’t just Dave.”
I lean back. But distance won’t change the unspoken indictment: Dave and I are partners; I run Serenity Mausoleum and own 50 percent, so in loan-shark world I cosigned Dave’s debt and I have to pay it if Dave doesn’t.
“Loef, no, man, don’t go there. Whatever Dave’s doing with you has nothing to do with Serenity.” I look right at Dave’s loan shark and lie. “I bought Dave out a month ago. Me and him are all done.”
“Not what Dave says, or the Tribune covering your court cases over the cripples. You two still got the hockey team. You’re partners.”
Before I can begin to negotiate or beg for Dave’s life, and by default, my own, Loef wants a breakdown of the problems at Grossfeld’s Moving and Storage that are none of his business, or mine.
I pull my phone and call Dave. Voicemail.
Loef asks, “Dave doing more blow than usual?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. Didn’t see any chop scratches on his desk last time I was at Grossfeld’s, but that’s been a while.”
“Who’s the finance company on Dave’s trucks?”
“If you sell his trucks, he’ll never be able to pay you.”
“Finance company?”
“Liberty Loan. Cosmo and his sons, same guys who do my construction loans.”
“Get me my vig by Saturday night—that’s tomorrow. Twenty thousand for the payment you missed three days ago, plus the twenty thousand that’s due on Tuesday—or the trucks get lost before Cosmo can repo ’em; I got a buyer lined up for $40K. Pays you up through Tuesday.”
“Me? Forty K? The trucks are almost new, have to be worth a hundred, maybe two if the loans are current and sold with titles.”
“If you can do better, do better. Either way I want my vig tomorrow.”
“Why the fuck would you lend Dave that kind of money?”
“I didn’t.” Loef nods out the window at the sidewalk. “One of my associates did.”
I lean closer. “You know the insurance companies won’t pay. All grabbing the trucks does is guarantee a gunfight.”
Loef’s eyes narrow. “I’m gonna forget I heard that.”
“C’mon, man. Nobody wants trucks right now. And Dave’s company doesn’t have $40,000—for vig or anything else. You gotta wait for his big moving job to work out.”
Headshake. “Sell the shit his customers have stored in Dave’s warehouse.” Loef presses his spatula-tipped finger on my hand. “Or rob one of them nigger-gang dope banks . . . Dave was one violent motherfucker back in the hockey days. But what you don’t wanna do, William, is not pay me, and we both know why.”
“Quit saying you, okay? It isn’t me, it’s Dave and . . . whoever. And I have to be alive to save Dave’s idiot ass. Again. If possible.”
“Nope. Dave conned one of my crew. I got partners in street money, nothing I can do. You and Dave are partners, just like I am with my people, so you’re on the paper; owe what Dave owes.”
“No! Bullshit. Fuck your partners. Absolutely not. I didn’t agree to—”
“Get the fuckin’ money, Bill.” Loef chins at the window. “We just showed you.”
I lean in again, this time to argue for my life.
Loef shoves me back. “Dave’s buying kilos of coke in the Bahamas—Rum Cay—not fish. Outta my hands.” Loef gets up to leave before the cops come in to interview for witnesses.
I grab his arm. “Rum Cay? Coke deal? What do you mean?”
Loef looks down at my hand on his arm, then up my seersucker sleeve to my face. I let go and lean back. “Cocaine is Dave’s sure-thing big job?”
“I told you, Dave conned that fuckin’ cheat on the sidewalk. The cheat says it’s blow. He’s supposed to get a private piece of Dave’s deal for putting out my money on deals we don’t do. Coke makes sense why Dave’d pay the vig; he makes two, three hundred easy if he don’t put it up his nose.”
My stomach knots. “Dave’s into this coke deal alone?”
“Don’t know. Could be Dave’s trickin’ with your lawyer buddies again.”
“Who?”
Loef eyes me like I know, like I’m part of it, turns for the Brehon’s side door, and doesn’t answer.
Fuck. Gotta be James W. Barlow Jr. The same lawyer who thirty days ago paid me to find Susie Devereux. Starting at Rum Cay. Two days after my return I reported to Barlow. He was oddly complacent about my lack of success, offered no explanation about “marks” or “the Gryphon” or “Haiti,” paid me the remaining $5K, patted my shoulder, and sent me out the door.
More police cars screech-stop out front.
Clock check: Shit; racetrack.
I bolt for the side door, hit speed dial for Dave’s satellite phone, get no answer, then call Kayak Jim at the Grand Hotel Boblo, and get voicemail. At the door to Superior Street, I call James W. Barlow Jr.
Ragnild says, “Sorry, Bill, Mr. Barlow’s in court.”
“It’s urgent, as in life or death.”
“I’ll text him. Be careful.”
“Thanks. Make sure he knows he has a problem.”
Fast-walking Superior toward my car, I try to make fact out of fiction: Barlow sends me to Rum Cay, a sand-pile atoll in the middle of nowhere, on some bullshit-story recon job three weeks before Barlow’s crime partner, Dave Grossfeld, borrows the $100K, then goes to the very same Rum Cay in person.
Supposedly, Dave’s at Rum Cay to do a cocaine deal using loan-shark money on a fuse so short Barlow and Dave had to believe their deal was a lock. Except no dope deal is a lock, and both Dave and Barlow know that.
How would me not finding Susie Devereux or not talking to Anne Bonny help seal Dave and Barlow’s coke deal?
&nb
sp; No fucking way Dave’s doing a coke deal; he’s doing something else with Susie Devereux.
But what? And why would Barlow pick me to participate?
At my car’s fender, I flatten against the paint to avoid a Lycra-clad bicycle messenger flying past, then key the driver’s door. Above my hand, my reflection shimmers in the window. Things have changed. Bill Owens no longer looks like a gentleman horseplayer late to a career-betting opportunity; he’s more of seersucker bobblehead holding a suicide note.
***
3:30 p.m.
Traffic’s been shit for an hour. I’m four-tasking, foot on the gas, foot on the brake, steering one-handed and speed-dialing with the other. Post time for the feature is five o’clock. I should already be there. I blast onto the shoulder, spit gravel the last half mile to the Arlington Racecourse exit, loop all the cars in the turn lane, split oncoming traffic, and veer into the clubhouse entrance.
At the gate, I throw $10 at a guard I don’t recognize, mash the gas, fly up the drive, and skid-stop at valet.
Out of my car, I pat Jimmy-the-Golden-Arm’s palm with $10, flash my owners badge at the front gate where the Ritual has to begin, then sprint to the grandstand apron.
At the apron I touch the outside rail, then fast-walk across the parking lot to the barns on the back side, swallow the mandatory lunch at the track kitchen (hot dog with relish, no mustard), run through the barns to the barn that has my three horses, touch it at its corner nearest the finish line, and finally, stop to stand on the four linoleum tiles in the grandstand where I last saw my father.
Done. Exhale. Thank you, God.
I speed-dial Dave’s sat phone again and get no answer again. Same for Kayak Jim at the Grand Hotel Boblo. The horses are in the gate for the seventh race, the race before ours. The gate bangs open like a cash register drawer. Track announcer John Dooley’s baritone booms: “AND THEY’RE AWAY . . . POCKET ROCKET BREAKS ON TOP.”
Pocket Rocket is a speed-horse front-runner. He smokes the opening quarter in .22 flat with two horses on his neck, then the half mile in .45 battling the same two horses. I want today’s surface conditions to tire the front-runners in this race, then the feature race. Pocket Rocket spills out of the turn, digs in, shoots past me at the rail, and wins by five.
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