“You could follow the team,” I agreed with fake enthusiasm. “It could be one of those tearjerkers where this bunch of girls who don’t have enough balls or uniforms comes together under my inspired leadership to be state champs. But, you know, practice goes on for two hours, and I have an appointment with a local business leader afterward. We’ll be in the armpit of the city-if you do get bored, there won’t be a lot for you to do.”
“I can always leave,” Love said.
“Onto the street with the highest murder rate in the city.”
She laughed again. “I’ve just come from Baghdad. I’ve covered Sarajevo, Rwanda, and Ramallah. I can’t imagine Chicago is more terrifying than any of those places.”
I’d agreed, of course: I had to. It was only because Love rubbed me the wrong way-because I was jealous, or insecure, or just a South Side street fighter with a chip on her shoulder-that I hadn’t wanted to bring her. If the team could get some print space, even overseas, maybe someone would pay attention to them and help in my quest to find a corporate sponsor.
Despite her airy assurance that she had taken care of herself in Kabul and the West Bank, Love had wilted a little when we reached the school. The neighborhood itself is enough to make anyone weep-at least, it makes me want to weep. When I first drove past my old home two weeks ago, I really did break down in tears. The windows were boarded over, and weeds choked the yard where my mother had patiently tended a bocca di leone gigante and a Japanese camellia.
The school building, with its garbage and graffiti, broken windows, and two-inch case-hardened chains shutting all but one entrance, daunts everyone. Even when you get used to the chains and garbage and think you’re not noticing them, they weigh on you. Kids and staff alike get depressed and pugnacious after enough time in such a setting.
Marcena had been unusually quiet while we produced our IDs for the guard, only murmuring that this was what she was used to from Iraq and the West Bank, but she hadn’t realized Americans knew how it felt to have an occupying power in their midst.
“The cops aren’t an occupying power,” I snapped. “That role belongs to the relentless poverty around here.”
“Cops are on power trips no matter what force places them in charge of a community,” she responded, but she’d still been subdued until she met the team.
After she left the gym, I stepped up the tempo of the practice, even though several of the players were sullenly refusing to respond, complaining they were worn out and Coach McFarlane didn’t make them do this.
“Forget about it,” I barked. “I trained with Coach McFarlane: that’s how I learned these drills.”
I had them working on passes and rebounds, their biggest weaknesses. I forced the laggards under the boards, letting balls bounce off them because they wouldn’t go through the motions of trying to grab them. Celine, my gangbanger, knocked over one straggler. Even though I secretly wanted to do it myself, I had to bench Celine and threaten her with suspension from the team if she kept on fighting. I hated doing it, since she and April, along with Josie Dorrado, were our only hope for building a team that could win a few games. If they picked up their skills. If enough of the others started working harder. If they all kept coming, didn’t get pregnant or shot, got the high-tops and weight equipment they needed. And if Celine and April didn’t come to blows before the season even got under way.
The energy level in the room suddenly went up, and I knew without looking at the clock that we had fifteen minutes left in practice. This was the time that friends and family showed up to wait for the team. Even though most of the girls went home by themselves, everyone played better with an audience.
Tonight, to my surprise, it was April Czernin who picked up the pace the most-she started knocking down rebounds with the ferocity of Teresa Weatherspoon. I turned to see who she was showing off for, and saw that Marcena Love had returned, along with a man around my own age. His dark good looks were starting to fray a bit around the edges, but he definitely merited a second glance. He and Love were laughing together, and his right hand was about a millimeter from her hip. When April saw his attention was on Marcena, she bounced her ball off the backboard with such savagery that the rebound hit Sancia in the head.
3 Enter Romeo (Stage Left)
The man moved forward with an easy smile. “So it is you, Tori. Thought it had to be when April told us your name.”
No one had used that pet name for me since my cousin Boom-Boom died. It had been his private name for me-my mother hated American nicknames, and my father called me Pepperpot-and I didn’t like hearing it from this guy, who was a complete stranger.
“You’ve been away from the ’hood so long you don’t remember your old pals, huh, Warshawski?”
“Romeo Czernin!” I blurted out his own nickname in a jolt of astonished recognition: he’d been in Boom-Boom’s class, a year ahead of me, and the girls in my clique had all snickered about him as we watched him put the moves on our classmates.
This afternoon, it was Celine and her sidekicks who laughed raucously, hoping to goad April. They succeeded: April aimed a ball at Celine. I jumped between them, scooping up the ball, trying unsuccessfully to remember Romeo’s real name.
Czernin was pleased, perhaps by the juvenile title, or by grabbing the team’s attention in front of Marcena. “The one and only.” He put an arm around me and bent me backward to kiss me. I turned inside his arm and hooked my left foot around his ankle, sliding away as he stumbled. It wasn’t the kind of juke move I wanted to encourage in the team, but unfortunately they all had been watching closely; I had a feeling I’d see Celine using it at the next practice. Marcena Love had also been watching, with an amused smile that made me feel as immature as my own gangbangers.
Romeo dusted himself off. “Same standoffish bitch you always were, huh, Tori? You always were one of McFarlane’s pets, weren’t you? When I found out she was still coaching basketball, I came over to have a talk with her-I figured she’d dump the same crap on my kid she did on me, and now I suppose I have to make sure you treat April right, too.”
“Wrong,” I said. “It’s a pleasure coaching April; she’s shaping into a serious little player.”
“I hear any reports that you playing favorites, you letting some of these Mexican scum beat up on her, you answer to me, just remember that.”
April was turning red with embarrassment, so I just smiled and said I’d keep it in mind. “Next time, come early enough to watch her scrimmage. You’ll be impressed.”
He nodded at me, as if to reinforce my acknowledgment of his power, then switched on another smile for Marcena. “Would if I could: it’s my hours. I got off early today and thought I’d take my little girl out for a pizza-how about it, sweetheart?”
April, who’d retreated to the background with Josie Dorrado, looked up with the kind of scowl that teenagers use to conceal eagerness.
“And this English lady who’s writing about your team and the South Side, she’d like to join us. Met me in the parking lot when I was pulling up in the rig. What do you say? We’ll go to Zambrano’s, show her the real neighborhood.”
April hunched a shoulder. “I guess. If Josie can come, too. And Laetisha.”
Romeo agreed with an expansive clap on his daughter’s shoulder and told her to hustle; he had to do some driving after pizza.
Zambrano’s was just about the only place on the South Side that I remembered from my own youth. Most of the other little joints have been boarded over. Even Sonny’s, where you could get a shot and a beer for a dollar-all under the life-sized portrait of the original Richard Daley-isn’t open anymore.
I sent the girls off to shower, in a locker room whose dank, moldy smell usually kept me in my own sweaty clothes until I got to Morrell’s. Marcena followed the team, saying she wanted the whole picture of their experience, and, anyway, she needed to pee. The girls gave gasps of excited shock at hearing her use the word in front of a man, and they clustered around her with renewed eagerne
ss.
I looked up to the stands to see whether Sancia’s kids had anyone with them while she showered. Sancia’s sister had come in at the end of practice-she and Sancia’s mother seemed to alternate in helping out with the babies. Sancia’s boyfriend was lounging in the hallway with a couple of other guys who had girlfriends or sisters on the team, waiting for them to finish. After my first practice, when the guys had tested my authority with too much bumping and ball playing, I’d forced them to wait outside the gym until the girls were changed.
Romeo picked up one of the balls and began banging it off the backboard. He was wearing work boots, but I decided we’d had enough friction without me chewing him out for not wearing soft soles on the scarred court.
My cousin Boom-Boom, who’d been a high school star, already recruited by the Black Hawks when he was seventeen, used to make fun of Romeo for trailing after the jocks. I’d joined in, since I wanted my cousin and his cool friends to like me, but I had to admit that even in work boots, Czernin’s form was pretty good. He sank five balls in a row from the free throw line, then began moving around the court, trying different, flashier shots, with less success.
He saw me watching him and gave a cocky smile: all was forgiven if I was going to admire him. “Watcha been up to, Tori? Is it true what they say, that you followed your old man into the police?”
“Not really: I’m a private investigator. I do stuff that the cops aren’t interested in. You driving a rig like your dad?”
“Not really,” he mimicked me. “He worked solo, I work for By-Smart. They’re about the only company hiring down here these days.”
“They need an eighteen-wheeler down here?”
“Yeah. You know, in and out of their big distribution warehouse, and then over to the stores, not just the one on Ninety-fifth, they’ve got eleven in my territory-South Side, northwest Indiana, you know.”
I passed the giant discount store at Ninety-fifth and Commercial every time I rode the expressway down. As big as the Ford Assembly Plant farther south, the store and parking lot filled in almost half a mile of old swamp.
“I’m going over to the warehouse myself this afternoon,” I said. “You know Patrick Grobian?”
Romeo gave the knowing smirk that was starting to get on my nerves. “Oh, yeah. I do a lot with Grobian. He likes to stay on top of dispatch, even though he is the district manager.”
“So you going to show Marcena the northwest Indiana stores after you take the girls to Zambrano’s?”
“That’s the idea. On the outside she looks as stuck up as you, but that’s just her accent and her getup; she’s a real person, and she’s pretty interested in how I do my work.”
“She drove down with me. Can you take her as far as the Loop when you’re done? She shouldn’t ride the train late at night.”
He grinned salaciously. “I’ll see she gets a good ride, Tori, don’t you worry your uptight ass about that.”
Resisting an impulse to smack him, I started collecting balls from around the floor. I let him hang on to the one he was playing with, but I put the rest in the equipment room. If I didn’t lock them up at once they evaporated, as I’d learned to my cost: we’d lost two when friends and family were milling around the gym after my first practice. I’d scrounged four new ones from friends who belong to tony downtown gyms. Now I keep all ten balls in a padlocked bin, although I’ve had to share keys with the boys’ coach and the PE teachers.
While the girls finished changing, I sat at a tiny table in the equipment room to fill out attendance forms and progress reports for the benefit of the mythical permanent coach. After a moment, a shadow in the doorway made me look up. Josie Dorrado, April’s particular friend on the team, was hovering there, twisting her long braid around her fingers, shifting from one skinny leg to the other. A quiet, hardworking kid, she was another of my strong players. I smiled, hoping she wasn’t going to bring up a time-consuming problem: I couldn’t be late to my meeting with the By-Smart manager.
“Coach, uh, people say, uh, is it true you’re with the police?”
“I’m a detective, Josie, but I’m private. I work for myself, not the city. Do you need the police for some reason?” I seemed to have a version of this conversation with someone at every practice, even though I’d told the team when I started coaching what I did for a living.
She shook her head, eyes widening a bit in alarm at the idea that she herself might need a cop. “Ma, my ma, she told me to ask you.”
I pictured an abusive husband, restraining orders, a long evening in violence court, and tried not to sigh out loud. “What kind of problem is she having?”
“It’s something about her job. Only, her boss, he don’t want her talking to no one.”
“What-is he harassing her in some way?”
“Can’t you just go see her for a minute? Ma can explain it, I don’t really know what’s going on, only she told me to ask you, because she heard someone at the laundry say how you grew up down here and now you’re a cop.”
Romeo appeared behind Josie, twirling the ball on his fingertip à la the Harlem Globetrotters. “What does your ma need a cop for, Josie?” he asked.
Josie shook her head. “She don’t, Mr. Czernin, she just wants Coach to talk to her about some kind of problem she’s got with Mr. Zamar.”
“What kind of problem she have with Zamar that she wants a dick on his tail? Or is it the other way around?” He laughed heartily.
Josie looked at him in bewilderment. “You mean does she want him followed? I don’t think so, but I don’t really know. Please, Coach, it’ll only take a minute, and every day she keeps bugging me, have you talked to your coach yet? have you talked to your coach yet? so I gotta tell her I asked you.”
I looked at my watch. Ten to five. I had to be at the warehouse by five-fifteen, and visit Coach McFarlane before I went to Morrell’s. If I went to see Josie’s ma in between, it would be ten o’clock again before I made it home.
I looked at Josie’s anxious chocolate eyes. “Can it wait until Monday? I could come over after practice to talk to her.”
“Yeah, okay.” It was only the slight relaxation in her shoulders that told me she was relieved I’d agreed to do it.
4 Mountains of Things
I threaded my way through the trucks in the yard at the warehouse, looking for the parking area. Eighteen-wheelers were backing up to loading bays, smaller trucks were driving up and down a ramp leading to a lower level, a couple of waste haulers were picking up Dumpsters and emptying them, and all around me men in hard hats and beer bellies were shouting at each other to watch where the hell they were going.
Trucks had dug deep grooves in the asphalt and my Mustang bounced unhappily through them, splashing my windows with mud. It had been raining off and on all day and the sky still seemed sullen. A century of dumping everything, from cyanide to cigarette wrappers, into South Chicago ’s swampy ground had turned the landscape tired and drab. Against this leaden backdrop, the By-Smart warehouse looked ominous, a cavern housing some ravening beast.
The building itself was monstrous. A low-slung brick structure, perhaps originally red, turned grimy black with age, it filled two city blocks. The building and the yard lay behind high wire fencing, with a guard station and everything. When I turned off 103rd Street and pulled in, a man in some kind of uniform demanded to see my pass. I told him I had an appointment with Patrick Grobian; the man phoned into the cavern and confirmed that I was expected. Parking lay straight ahead, I couldn’t miss it.
Straight ahead meant something different to the guard than it did to me. After I’d jolted around two sides of the building, I finally came on the parking area. It looked like the lot to a run-down used-car dealer, with hundreds of beaters parked every which way among the ruts. I found a spot that I hoped was out of the way enough that no one would sideswipe my Mustang.
When I opened the door, I looked with dismay at the ground. The warehouse entrance lay several hundred yards away and I
was going to have to pick my way through rain-filled potholes in my good shoes. I knelt on the driver’s seat and leaned over to paw through the papers and towels in back. Finally, I dug up a pair of flip-flops I’d used at the beach last summer and wiggled my stocking feet around the little toe bars. It made for a slow and embarrassing waddle across the yard to the entrance, but at least I reached it with only my stockings and trouser cuffs spackled in mud. I slipped on my pumps and stuck the muddy flip-flops into a plastic bag before shoving them into my briefcase.
High doors opened onto a consumer nightmare. Shelves stacked with every imaginable product stretched as far as I could see. Directly in front of me dangled brooms, hundreds of them, push brooms, straw brooms, brooms with plastic handles, with wood handles, brooms that swiveled. Next to them were thousands of shovels, ready for every Chicagoan who wanted to clear their walks in the winter ahead. On my right cartons labeled “ice-melt” were stacked halfway to a ceiling that yawned thirty feet overhead.
I started forward, and backed up again as a forklift truck rattled toward me at high speed, its front-loader high with cartons of ice-melt. It stopped on the far side of the shovels; a woman in overalls and a bright red vest began slitting the boxes before they were even off the loader. She pulled smaller boxes of ice-melt out and added them to the mound already there.
Another forklift pulled up in front of me. A man in an identical red vest started loading brooms onto it, checking them against a computer printout.
When I stepped forward again, trying to decide on a route through the shelves, a guard moved to intercept me. A large black woman wearing a vest with safety reflectors, she also had a hard hat labeled “Be Smart, By-Smart,” and a belt that seemed to hold everything the complete law officer needed-including a stun gun. Above the racket of the conveyor belts and the trucks, she demanded my business.
Fire Sale Page 3