The Fall

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  Fifty-Two

  It was 9:00 A.M. when Minorini woke again. His caller ID told him Haskel had called again—twice. He rolled over and found Joanne gone. A pair of handcuffs lay like a Bizarroland glass slipper on her side of the bed. He felt hung over, though he hadn’t had any alcohol the night before. She was like cocaine, and he was addicted.

  He knew he should quit cold turkey—lay the situation out for Butler and walk away. Fuck his career. Fuck the Bureau. Most of all, fuck Haskel, who—Minorini was sure—was the leak.

  Minorini tapped on Butler’s door and when he heard, “Come in,” he entered and closed the door behind him.

  Butler said, “I heard you made an impression last night. Who was the woman, someone from a service?” Butler gestured to a chair.

  Minorini took it. “If your sources are any good, they told you a Circuit Court judge was introducing her to everyone.”

  “You’re skating on thin ice. Until this Dossi thing is closed, she’s a material witness.”

  Minorini ran a hand over his face. “Let me run something past you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I think it’s fair to say that Dossi knew we were watching him, especially after the bomb attempt. So he wasn’t going to try to hit Lessing himself. But we can assume he must’ve wanted her gone.” Butler nodded. “So he hires Terry Finn to blow her up. Finn screws up; Dossi fires him.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Let’s say next Dossi hired Armand Wilson to do the job. Meanwhile, the mob’s getting antsy. As long as Dossi’s in our scopes, there’s a chance we’ll nail him for something and he’ll offer to cut a deal.”

  “I’m with you. As long as Lessing was alive we just might have nailed him. But who killed Dossi?”

  “Wilson.”

  “How did you arrive at that?”

  “Wilson was a mob enforcer. I found evidence that Dossi hired him, but maybe he was really working for someone else, someone who had a grudge against Dossi, or who thought Dossi was getting too high-profile planting bombs in yuppie suburbs. Or maybe someone thought he was getting careless in his old age, letting a housewife with a camera take his picture. So when Dossi hired Wilson to get Lessing, maybe Wilson’s real orders were to shoot Dossi. Then Lessing’s no longer a threat to anyone so no one has to shoot her.” He sat back in his seat.

  “Nice theory. Wilson kills Dossi; we kill Wilson. No witnesses left. No loose ends.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But Wilson was a pro. It doesn’t make sense that he’d start a gun fight with Federal officers.”

  “Unless he thought one of them would make sure he didn’t live to cut a deal.”

  “Come on!”

  Minorini leaned forward. “As you said, it’s all too neat. I did some checking. Carlos, Dossi’s chauffeur, told me he was off the day Siano was hit and the day Doris Davis was run down. I followed up on his alibis for those days—He was off; it wasn’t him.

  “Carlos also said that the day after Lessing took those pictures at the Daley Center, Dossi had him drive to an isolated forest preserve and get out of the car. Another car drove up—a limo—and Dossi got out of his car, into the limo. It had dark-tinted windows, no license plate, and the driver had on a hat and dark glasses. Carlos couldn’t ID him.

  “Dossi stayed in the car about half an hour, then had Carlos drive him home. Carlos said he was real pissed off about something for days.”

  “So? We knew we had a leak.”

  Minorini nodded. “The housekeeper also remembers the chauffeur being off and Dossi driving himself somewhere when Siano and Davis were hit.”

  “She sure?”

  “Yeah. She’s been marking off the days on her calendar till she can go home for a visit. She keeps her to-do list on it—she showed me. Some of the things she had to do used to get on Dossi’s nerves, so she’d wait to do them when he was out. She also recalls Dossi being out of sorts after his trip to the Forest Preserve.”

  “When, presumably, he got the word he’d been recognized.”

  “Yeah. Fast-forward to the day we get the Jane Doe subpoena for Lessing. Manuela remembers Dossi getting a call from his ‘cousin Guido’ from New York. Dossi took the phone and told the caller he didn’t have a cousin Guido, but in a little while, he went out. Carlos said he drove him to the Harold Washington Library. Thinks he wanted to make a private phone call.”

  “Go on.”

  “I checked the records for all the pay phones at the library.” Minorini handed Butler a sheaf of photocopies, one of which had a time and phone number highlighted in yellow. “Finn’s phone.”

  Butler glanced at the page. “Nice work.”

  “Look at the number above it.”

  Butler looked. The call had been placed to a 312 area code number thirty seconds before the call to Finn. The timing was pretty good circumstantial evidence that the same person made both calls.

  “It looks familiar but I don’t…”

  “Yeah.”

  “But why would Dossi wait until Lessing was called to testify? If he knew about her before…?”

  “Lessing wasn’t much of a threat to Dossi until they issued the first subpoena. At that point, he hired Finn. After we took her into custody, and until we set our little trap, no one—not even Haskel—knew where she was except you and me and the Marshals.”

  “So until we set our trap and leaked the location, Dossi couldn’t find her.”

  “Just on a hunch, I pulled the records for all the calls made on that library phone up to the day Dossi got nailed, and guess what?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Minorini handed him another sheaf of photocopies. “That phone wasn’t used much, fortunately, and there’s no way to prove who made the calls, but we’re all creatures of habit…Carlos is pretty sure Dossi was in the library on the days I’ve highlighted. I’ve written the subscriber’s name next to the numbers.”

  Butler paged through he sheets. There were numbers marked for the day before Minorini left for Florida, the day they decided to set the trap. One was to the 312 number, another—labeled “Wilson”—was from out of state. There was also a call to an 847 area code number labeled “Judge Hollander.”

  “Wouldn’t our hypothetical informant tell Dossi we were setting a trap and where Lessing really was? Why would he send Wilson into a trap?”

  “As I said before, I think his informant had another agenda.”

  “I’m sure you’re gonna tell me what.”

  “Wilson didn’t know he was walking into a trap. Whoever sent him to Wisconsin, wanted him dead—so he couldn’t talk if he were caught.”

  “How could they know we’d kill Wilson?”

  “Think about it,” Minorini said, though he didn’t, himself, want to consider a fellow officer killing for the mob. Especially not Haskel.

  “But after we decided to go with this trap plan, everybody knew the location of the dummy safe house.”

  “Not everyone knew I was taking the kid out of state.”

  “How is that relevant?”

  “Maybe Wilson already knew where we had Lessing stashed. I’m sure—from what I learned about him—he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to kill Carver or Reilly or me, but the thing with Wilson was he wouldn’t hit a kid, wouldn’t even hit someone in front of a kid.”

  Butler nodded again. “So even if he knows, earlier, where Lessing is, he won’t kill her with her kid around. He’s gotta find her, then find a way to separate her from her kid. But when his informant tells him about your little Florida trip, he sees his chance.”

  “And if, as you said, someone wanted Dossi dead and no loose ends why not pay Wilson to kill Dossi too?

  “Reilly told me Wilson yelled ‘fuckin’ double-cross’ just before he opened fire. If she were the leak, I’m sure she wouldn’t have mentioned that.”

  “Unless she thought Haskel would, and wanted to set him up or cover her ass.”

  “But her shot wasn’t
fatal.”

  “What did Haskel have to say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Butler saw what he was getting at. “It’s circumstantial.”

  “Yeah it’s circumstantial. But whose cell phone do you think this is?” Minorini pointed to the 312 number on the printouts.

  “Haskel’s?”

  “Bingo!”

  “But if he was the leak, why wouldn’t he tell Wilson about the trap?”

  “Maybe he did. Maybe Wilson suspected it was a double-cross and went there to kill him.”

  Or maybe he went there thinking that’s where she really was after he didn’t find Joanne in Kenilworth!

  “Speculation,” Butler said. “How’re we supposed to find out for sure?”

  “I can confront Haskel with what I’ve figured out. If he’s guilty, he’ll have to do something about me.”

  “Don’t do anything without backup.”

  There were just a few things that didn’t fit the theory he’d outlined for Butler—the first snow plow job; the fact that Wilson wasn’t known to use a rifle; Dossi’s picture under the seat of his aunt’s car; and Joanne’s lie about Carver being there all night.

  She had no alibi and plenty of motive. And he bet if he dug into it—or into the Grayslake landfill—he could prove she’d had a gun. The problem was, he didn’t want to.

  He went back to his office to think about how to set up a trap.

  Fifty-Three

  Haskel had graduated the academy the year after Minorini and spent the intervening time working his way up the food chain. He had been in Chicago only two years, the last six months of which he’d worked with Minorini. On Butler’s authorization, Minorini got his personnel files and did a credit check. There was nothing in his background or Minorini’s recollection that would explain him selling out. Like Minorini, he was single—though Haskel had never married—and had an apartment downtown, on the near South Side in Haskel’s case.

  Minorini spent the day discreetly investigating him, asking questions of fellow agents, secretaries, attorneys, court clerks, and cops. He even located and interviewed a former girlfriend. She said he was a jerk, like most of the men she’d dated, but not exceptionally awful. Apart from expensive taste in clothes and cars, and reckless driving habits, there wasn’t anything to raise any flags. Except the phone calls. Haskel had had the same phone number since coming to Chicago.

  The next round of inquiry was done in a couple of sports bars and restaurants where Minorini’d developed confidential informants. None of them had ever heard of Haskel; no one recognized his picture.

  It was about 9:30 P.M. when Minorini exhausted the last of his leads and remembered he’d only had coffee and a donut to eat all day. The holiday traffic was thinning for the night, but parking was still problematic. He spied a semi-legal spot on Wabash and realized he wasn’t far from Miller’s. The pub had decent food and Bass on tap. He parked and went in.

  He ordered steak and a pint at the bar, sipping the latter while he waited for the former. The place was full. He watched the waiters and bartenders, observed skaters from Skate on State, businessmen, college students, and a pair of young men trying to disguise the electricity arcing between them across their table.

  Another Christmas in Chicago. It felt like home even though he hadn’t any family here. He thought of Joanne and Sean and wondered.

  An odd couple at a small table near the back caught his eye—shoppers by their packages—in an uncomfortable tryst. Not quite Jack Sprat and his wife. A tall, cadaverous man with thinning brown hair and eyes hidden behind thick-lensed wire rims. His overcoat was draped on the back of a vacant chair beneath his companion’s full-length mink. His suit was expensive and conservative. In contrast, the woman’s moneyed, no-taste glitz reminded Minorini of Bette Midler in her prime. She was perched on the edge of her chair with her right arm resting on the mink in a clear “See? Mine!” gesture. The fingers of her left hand danced a drum roll on the table-top, causing the diamonds on her wrist and ring finger to flash like a suburban cop’s mars lights.

  Minorini knew the man, though it took a minute to recall from where. He smiled to himself. Chance favors the prepared…He signaled the waiter and watched him two-step between tables of well-lubricated carolers.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Minorini pointed to the couple and said, “I’d like to buy my friend and his lady another round.”

  “Sure.”

  Minorini watched the waiter make his way to the bar and confer with the bartender, who poured a double shot of Red Label over rocks in one glass, then mixed a number of ingredients to make a burgundy colored concoction in another.

  The waiter walked over and put the drinks in front of the couple. When he pointed out their benefactor, Minorini nodded and raised his glass to mime a toast. The puzzlement on the man’s face changed to panic as he worked out where they’d met. He said something to the woman—the first definitive gesture Minorini’d noticed. She looked uneasy, but she didn’t argue as he rose and walked to the bar.

  Minorini remembered him from an investigation of sports betting. He was an accountant, basically an honest citizen whose expensive lifestyle made him vulnerable to undue influence, or rather whose wife’s extravagant demands made him look for supplemental income. Stopping in front of Minorini, he brought Jimmy Stewart to mind, facing down Liberty Valance against impossible odds.

  “Relax,” Minorini told him, “The statute of limitations has expired.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Information.”

  The accountant waited.

  “The favor you owe me.”

  The man looked stricken but he seemed to screw up his resolve. “I’m clean.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to know where I can find the answer man.”

  “He’d kill me if I told you.”

  “He’ll never know.”

  The accountant thought about it for a moment. “Then we’re quits?”

  Minorini made a cross over his chest.

  The accountant looked around, as if to see if anyone was watching, then he said, “He used to put in a lot of receipts for Smith and Wollensky.”

  Minorini called Butler at his home to report. “FYI, I’ve got one more interview to do tonight, then I’m calling it quits.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Nothing yet, but I have a line on someone who’d know if Haskel was into any heavy betting or drug use.”

  “Well, keep me posted.”

  Smith and Wollensky was at 318 North State, tucked under one of the twin Marina Towers along the River. Minorini timed his arrival so that the answer man—so called because of his photographic memory and knowledge of the city’s action—was just finishing his brandy.

  He pointed at Minorini with the index finger of the hand holding his brandy snifter. “You did me a favor once.” His other hand held a fat cigar.

  “No,” Minorini said. “You got off because your accountant refused to be intimidated.”

  That wasn’t accurate either. Minorini had pulled his punches during the interrogation because he hadn’t wanted to set the accountant up with a felony record. The accountant had kids to support.

  “Extortion. Or that’s what you’d call it if anyone but the Feds did it.”

  Minorini shrugged.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Minorini took out Haskel’s picture and handed it across the table. “You know this man?”

  “Should I?” He studied the photo. “No.”

  “You ever have the opportunity to pass along information about a Federal investigation in progress?”

  “Wouldn’t that be illegal?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Off the record, if you told me what you’re fishing for I might be able to tell you where to drop your line.”

  “Any rumors of a Federal agent for sale or on the pad.”

  The ans
wer man smiled. “You have a leak.” He studied his glass, rolling it to coat the sides with brandy. “Not recently. About two years ago there was a rumor—just a rumor—that someone with the FBI had run up a sizeable tab with a sports bookie. Shortly afterward, the bookie alleged to be involved in this interesting series of events claimed he’d sold the debt to a long-term investment broker.”

  “Name?”

  “Gianni Dossi.”

  Fifty-Four

  Late as it was when Minorini pulled into his parking garage, the parking spaces near the elevator were all filled. The garage was stark and silent, unheated, but well lit in deference to security. It reminded him of Twilight Zone episodes. He left his car at the far end. His footsteps echoed as he walked back.

  There was a man sitting on the edge of the raised concrete dais that kept motorists from driving into the elevator doors. He stood up when Minorini approached.

  Haskel.

  His coat was open and he seemed unaware of the cold that was turning his breath to steam. His suit and shirt were rumpled, his eyes just sufficiently unfocused to convince Minorini he’d been drinking.

  “Paul, old buddy.” Haskel’s speech was slightly slurred. “You been avoiding me.”

  Minorini hadn’t been, but it was a reasonable assumption. He hadn’t returned Haskel’s calls. “I’ve been trying to wrap things up so I can leave for Christmas.”

  “You’re working on the assumption someone wants this solved. You know what you do when you assume? And is your dialing finger broke?”

  “What are you doing here, Wayne?”

  What he was doing was blocking Minorini’s path to the elevator.

  “Doorman wouldn’t let me in. I figured you gotta come home sometime. And here you are.”

  “The question is, why are you here?”

  “We gotta talk.”

  “Not tonight.” He started to step around, but Haskel sidestepped and blocked him.