Brad shrugged. “I thought I recognized two guys who walked in,” he said. “I panicked. I’ve never been stuck like this. Glen’s dead. I’m really scared. I was afraid to trust you guys. I thought you might sell me out.”
“To whom? For what?” I asked.
He scratched his head again. If I saw that gesture a whole lot more times, I’d shave his head bald myself.
We drove to the police station in a blue-and-white cop car. Scott and I sat in the backseat and Brad up front next to a cop, who was more than delighted to ignore the gay aspects of what had occurred and concentrate on the fact that he had an all-star pitcher in the back of his car. We talked baseball for the mercifully short trip to the station.
My lawyer met us at the admitting desk. Todd shooed away all the solicitous and inquiring cops, and asked for and got a private room to talk to us.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked when we were finally alone.
I told him the story while Scott and Brad slumped in gray metal folding chairs, in a gray-walled room, with a painted gray wooden table.
Todd was tall and waspishly thin. His charcoal trousers were held up by black suspenders, stretched over a white shirt. He wore a perfectly knotted tie. He’d spread his gray suit coat over a chair. I’d only ever seen him dressed as if for court. If I asked him about his attire, I knew he’d say that for a trip to the police station, it never hurt to look one’s best. It might be impressive at the right moment.
He wore glasses with thin gold rims. His sunken cheeks and crinkles around his eyes added to the impression he gave everyone that, with a few minor alterations, he could have been anyone’s maiden aunt. He often sounded like it, too.
After I finished my story, he thought for several minutes, then said, “I’ll be right back.”
He returned in five minutes with two uniformed cops who escorted Brad out.
“I need to talk to you guys alone,” Todd said after they left the room.
“Brad might try to run,” I said.
“I called in a favor,” Todd said. “The commander of the police district and I have worked together before. Throwing Scott’s name around didn’t hurt. Those two guys will keep him safe.”
Todd rested his skinny butt on the top of the table. I stood near the door. Scott remained in the chair.
“What have you found out?” I asked.
“Several bits of information,” Todd said. “First, old man Proctor is generally regarded as an honest real-estate dealer. No known shady connections. As Lester said last night, Mrs. Proctor’s in the same business as her sort of ex-husband and the two of them are incredible rivals.”
“Like Blake and Alexis on Dynasty,” I said.
Todd frowned. He didn’t approve of popular culture. In music he preferred Gregorian chant. Anything tuneful later than 1899 was anathema to him. He on occasion deigned to watch a silent movie but hadn’t been to a talking movie since his freshman year of high school. He spent his free moments rereading Samuel Richardson or all thirty-two of Sir Walter Scott’s novels in the order they were published.
“It’s a classic case of two separated people into each other viciously and irrevocably,” Todd said. “I found out that before their marriage they were competitors. My source says that it was a strange union. In the early years of the marriage, Mr. Proctor hired a gigolo to catch her in a compromising position. Meanwhile, she hired a prostitute to do the same to him. In this case, a picture might be worth a thousand words, but it could also be worth millions of bucks. Eventually, they wound up trading pictures, realized what they’d done, and had a secret meeting in Hong Kong to try and make peace.”
“How’d you find out all this stuff?” I asked.
“My accountant is the smartest lesbian on this continent. She knows an enormous number of secrets about rich people. I have her looking into both Proctors’ dealings for illegality of any kind. If it’s there to be found, she’ll find it.”
Todd took off his glasses, pulled out a handkerchief, and polished his lenses. When he had them settled back on his nose, he continued, “They discovered they’d turned each other on with their aggressiveness. Sort of fellow cutthroats. Piranhas in bed with each other. For a few years they tried to stay apart, but the attraction between them remained incredibly powerful.”
“Sounds nuts,” Scott said.
“People get turned on by some odd things,” Todd said. “They ended up getting married and even had kids, Glen and Bill. The marriage didn’t really put an end to their competition. Eventually they dueled for their kids’ affection. For a couple of years, they holed up in separate wings of that big mansion up in Lake Forest.”
“What ended the marriage?” I asked.
“They aren’t divorced. That’s why I said sort of ex-husband. They’re separated. Haven’t lived together in five years.”
“Why not divorce and be done with it?” Scott asked.
“Who knows?” Todd said. “Business? A sick attraction? Power? Could be anything. Reportedly, they would do anything to hurt each other in business.”
“Nuts!” Scott said.
“That may be,” Todd said. “What I also found out is that they were both interested in several large deals down in Mexico lately especially with the North American Free Trade Agreement that was signed recently. My source says that the son, Glen, was sent down by Daddy to do some work for him, although it wasn’t clear whether it was licit or illicit work. As an older son, Glen supposedly was quite a disappointment to his father.”
“I don’t suppose he dreamed about having a drug-addict, has-been baseball player for a kid,” I said.
“Not a dream come true,” Todd agreed.
“So how does that affect us?” Scott asked.
“I’m not sure,” Todd said. “The kid comes back from Mexico and says he is in trouble and does not run home to Mommy or Daddy. I would think they’ve got enough money to cover up almost anything.”
“Enough cash to buy off an unhappy South American drug lord?” I asked.
Todd shrugged. “From the way you describe Glen Proctor, he seemed to be living out some Terry and the Pirates fantasy.”
“Maybe he was just trying to win his parents’ love and affection,” Scott said.
“You have an invitation to talk to Mrs. Proctor?” Todd asked.
I nodded.
“Then go talk to her. She might know something that will help. The people after you have to be placated. I’m not sure how you go about doing that.”
We discussed that for half an hour but got nowhere.
The old cop with the limp came in and said, “We got a mob of reporters out here, want to talk to Mr. Carpenter about what’s going on.”
“You going to hide it was a gay-bashing?” Todd asked Scott.
“No,” Scott said. “But I’m not sure I want to talk to them now.”
“Whoever’s after us has probably heard where we are,” I said.
Todd agreed.
We left the room. The cop limped over and pointed out the window. “Minicams are here.”
I glanced out at the crowd of milling reporters. I saw a few I recognized from the ten o’clock news on different stations. I also saw several people in the ubiquitous charcoal gray suits I had come to associate with those people after us. If they were minions of South American drug dealers, they did not fit the cliche look as presented on so many American television shows. They looked neat, clean, and respectable. I didn’t see the big guy with the blond mustache and bald head.
“I can get you out the back,” our cop buddy said and left to arrange it.
“Can we get police protection?” Scott asked.
“Probably not,” Todd said.
“We should hire personal bodyguards,” Scott said.
“I’ve already taken care of it,” Todd said. “Guards may simply draw attention to you, but we’ve got to at least try.”
“You trust these guys?” Scott asked.
“I’ve used this company
before,” Todd said. “When I called today, I didn’t say who they’d be protecting. They have no way of knowing that I’m your personal lawyer. I trust them. Protection is only a temporary solution. If these people want to kill you, they will. You’ve got to try to find them so you can negotiate. You’ve got to find out how Glen managed to connect you with what he was into, and what to give these guys to make them go away. I do not have high hopes.”
“You mean we’re dead already?” Scott asked.
“I’m not going to start lying to you now,” Todd said. “I’ve always told you the truth before. You are not in a good position.”
“I could make a statement on television,” Scott said. “I’m well known enough that the media would let me talk.”
Todd considered this for a few moments. Finally he said, “Let me try to work out some kind of announcement. Although a plea to a drug lord for understanding sounds kind of iffy to me.”
I was forced to agree.
“We’ve got to get out of here and someplace safe,” Scott said.
“I want to talk to Mrs. Proctor,” I said.
“Yes, that has to be done,” Todd agreed. “Let’s get the cop to get us out of here. The longer that crowd mingles in front, the less comfortable I am.”
Todd left the room and a minute later returned with our cop buddy. Out in the hall two guys who’d been sitting in the plastic folding chairs near the front desk when we came in got up. I’d assumed they were criminals in a drug bust. They had long, stringy hair of an indeterminate brown shade. One guy had his pulled back in a ponytail. He looked like he had a slight paunch. The other was scrawny and had the deep scars and red residue of violent acne all over his early twenties face. I didn’t see a gun visible on either one of them, but they wore sweaters and jackets under which they could have been concealed. Todd introduced them as our protection.
I pulled Todd aside. “These guys are guards?”
“The best,” Todd assured me.
We gathered Brad and our little group trudged down a gray corridor around a bend and into an interior garage. At the door I asked, “Where’s Brad?”
Todd hurried back the way we came. He returned in a minute with a look of concern on his face. “Two guys claiming to be his lawyers came to see him. Cops let them talk to him.” Todd shook his head. “They’re all gone now. Nobody saw them go. Let’s get out of here.”
The cop piled us into a squadrol. We drove out of the parking lot onto Addison, west past Wrigley Field, and north up Clark Street. We stopped at Irving Park and Clark and got out. The cop got an autograph from Scott, gave us a cheery wave, and left.
“I’ll do more searching,” Todd said. “Be careful. Those two guys are good, but don’t take any chances.”
Our guards waited a discreet distance away. Todd hailed a cab and left. The two derelict-looking guards sidled up to us.
“You guys have a car?” I asked.
The one with the ponytail nodded.
“You have names?” Scott asked.
Ponytail’s brown eyes stared into Scott’s for several uncomfortable moments, then he pointed to himself and said, “Bernie,” and then pointed to his buddy and said, “Angelo.”
They made no fuss or mention about Scott’s being famous. I found this refreshing and disconcerting. Their car was a 1975 Chevrolet with the tail pipe dangling down in back, a pair of dice hanging from the rearview mirror, and a statue of St. Christopher on the dashboard. None of this was tremendously reassuring in terms of expecting great protection from these guys, but I knew Todd would hire only the best.
Scott and I piled into the back. In front Angelo shoved his seat all the way back, scrunching into my knees. He propped his feet up on the dashboard, pulled out a toothpick, and proceeded to clean his teeth.
I gave Bernie the address Mrs. Proctor had given us. Bernie drove with the elan and aggressiveness of a mad cabbie.
On a late Monday afternoon the traffic on Lake Shore Drive through the Loop to the Near West Side of Chicago was fairly heavy. Even though school kids got out for Columbus Day, most people had to work. A lot of the Near West Side had burned down after the Martin Luther King assassination in 1968. For years most of it hadn’t come back, and much of it was vacant lots and old factories. Over time the westward expansion of the Loop had begun to reinvigorate the area. Presidential Towers was one of the big developments, along with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. Others had followed and now some of the area had trendy restaurants and old factories, and warehouses converted to upscale condos.
We followed Lake Street west under the El tracks. The slatted track and the rusting metal above made for a gloomy corridor down the still-unrenovated portion of this end of the Near West Side.
On the south side of Lake Street, between Elizabeth and Racine streets was a block-long warehouse, five stories tall built of dirty maroon brick, and occupying the entire block. The address we had directed us to Willard Court, little more than an alley which bisected the entire block and the warehouse. Both sides of Lake Street were filled with cars. After working hours, this area cleared out quickly. A few blocks earlier, the streets had been nearly vacant. Here cars crowded nose to nose, but few places seemed around to justify their existence. No marquees for a trendy restaurant appeared.
We halted at the entrance to Willard Court. I could see that it was actually a cul-de-sac with several black limousines parked amid a plethora of semitrailer trucks. No one seemed to be bustling around at this time on a Monday afternoon, but it was inside Willard Court that we had been directed to go.
Bernie bobbed his ponytail in the direction of the glorified alley. “You sure about this?” he asked.
I looked at the address again. “Yeah,” I said. “Doesn’t look too promising.”
“I don’t know,” Scott said.
“We’ll go in with you,” Angelo said. He took his feet off the dashboard, reached behind his back, and pulled out a gun. He checked to see that it was loaded, then shoved it back in the hidden holster.
Bernie nosed the car into the entrance to Willard Court. He almost ran over one of the denizens indigenous to Lake Street and the Near West Side. The cops on the street called them he/shes. The rest of us called them transvestite prostitutes. They, along with their sisters and a rare brother, plied their trade along the dark depths beneath the El tracks. She tapped the hood of the car with a gloved hand, winked at us, and swayed away on her spike heels.
Angelo made no attempt to park, but pulled twenty feet inside and let the car idle. Here our perception of the alley changed dramatically. Recessed into the wall on the left and running for twenty feet was a plate-glass window. Through it we could see brightly lit, plant-strewn elegance.
A woman in black pants, white shirt, and black tie with a black-and-white patch on her shoulder that said security marched up to the car. At least she didn’t brandish a weapon. On the other hand, we didn’t get a smile and a welcome.
She motioned for Angelo to roll down the window.
“Here to see Mrs. Proctor,” I said from the backseat.
She pulled a radio from her belt, stepped a few feet away from the car, pushed a button, and spoke. Moments later, she came back and asked our names.
After I told her, she murmured into the radio. A moment later she nodded.
“You can’t park here,” she said. “Mason and Carpenter are expected.”
“You want to go in by yourself?” Bernie asked.
“No,” Scott said.
“I need some guarantee of our safety,” I said.
She gave me an odd look. “You can’t park here because you need a special permit. You have a special permit?”
Heads shook.
“Then you have to move.”
“We need some kind of guarantee,” I repeated.
“You can leave if you want,” she said. “If you want to see Mrs. Proctor, you’ll have to move the car off the premises and come back.” She didn’t sound mean and nasty, just like a bureaucrat
insisting that her orders be obeyed.
She seemed in no rush to hurry us off, nor did I think she would change her mind anytime in this or the next century.
“Park the car, Bernie,” I said. “I want to talk to her. You can come in with us.”
Bernie backed the car out and found a space on Elizabeth Street a half block from the warehouse. We walked back to the entrance with them. We passed another of the he/shes, this one in a short leather red dress and pink shawl draped around her shoulders. Barely enough against the mild October chill.
Back inside I saw that Willard Court, whether alley, street, or redeemed cul-de-sac, was spotless. For all the trucks and the incumbent garbage that must emanate from them, not a scrap of paper was out of place. Someone must sweep the alley several times a day.
The windows above the shadowed alley all seemed opaque and featureless, like any other abandoned warehouse. But none of these were broken out.
Inside the entrance, I saw two other security guards besides the woman we had already met. They were all excessively polite as they escorted us deeper into the building.
We ascended stairs of naked wood, newly constructed and unvarnished. I caught the whiff of fresh pine. We entered a room containing banks of television screens. A lone guard nodded at our escort. Two of the guards with us sat down at stations and immediately commenced a security check with the first. We were ignored.
The guard who had accosted us in the alley led us across the room.
“Good security system,” I said.
“You need it these days and in this neighborhood,” she said. “It may be upscale, but it isn’t the safest yet.”
The fourth side of the room was completely glass. It extended up two stories and looked out on an English-garden landscape. We walked through a sliding glass door. I saw that this atrium extended up five stories to a skylight that stretched the entire width of the building, as did the garden. The hedges were trimmed perfectly, flowers bloomed in riotous abundance, and a brook flowed from a small waterfall from our right to out of sight on our left. The fragrance was an early June meadow along a pristine stream. Someone had invested a huge amount of money in making the interior of this relic of a building an oasis of refinement.
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