The Fifth Floor

by Michael Harvey

  “What do you want to happen?”

  Masters shrugged. “Leave town again. Probably best for them. Either way, I need to go.”

  “Downtown knows you grabbed the gun?”

  “They know it, but can’t prove it. Still, it would be tough. I can drop a word before I leave that you had nothing to do with it. Or the murder.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m good with the mayor. We all are.” Then I told him about the deal I had cut.

  “So Johnny Woods is forgotten?”

  “Forgotten,” I said.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  I thought about the night Dan Masters came home from the job early and found his wife. The night his life ended. Then I thought about Janet Woods’ face and her daughter’s future.

  “Seems to me like no one’s getting a free ride,” I said.

  The detective rubbed a hand across his lower lip. “You think I’m crazy to run with them. Maybe I am. One thing, though, I know for sure. If I try to go it alone, it’s a short walk to the gun.”

  I couldn’t say he was right. But I wasn’t ready to take the weight if I was wrong.

  “It’s your play, Dan. But if I were you, I’d sleep with one eye open.”

  “You think Janet would come after me? For what?”

  “Not Janet.”

  I turned over one of the insurance policies. Highlighted in yellow was the name of the policy’s beneficiary: Taylor Woods.

  “If I were you, it’s the kid I’d worry about.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Masters led them into my apartment. Janet looked a little shook; Taylor, a little bored. He sat them down at a table overlooking the street.

  It had been a week, but Janet’s face was still dark and puffy. It looked like it hurt to smile. She tried, anyway. Reached out and patted my hand. Taylor Woods sat in profile, near my front window, listening to an iPod and watching traffic that didn’t exist move on the street below.

  “Surprised to see me?” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Michael.” The minute the words were out of Janet’s mouth, I half wanted to believe her. Exactly the reason I almost spent a lifetime inside an Illinois jail cell. Needed to remember that.

  “Don’t be sorry. You did what you did. We are where we are. Let’s deal with it.”

  My client rested her eyes on mine and nodded. This part, at least, she could talk about. The rest would have to wait.

  “Dan just told us about the arrangement you made with the mayor.”

  “You mean about the murder you’re going to walk away from.”

  “Johnny was a bastard, Michael. You know that.”

  “I offered you help.”

  “You offered me nothing. Can’t you see I needed to do this? Do it this way?”

  “So you could look yourself in the mirror?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I wonder,” I said, and took a slow sip of beer. Janet pulled out some cigarettes and lit up. It was nice. Just like old times. Until I pulled out the insurance policies and pushed them across the table.

  “I wonder,” I said, “how much of it you did to get rid of Johnny and how much you did for the money.”

  Janet leaned on her cigarette and blew smoke across the room. Toward her daughter, who was still doing a wonderful job ignoring us all.

  “The insurance was her idea.” Janet dragged the words out in long ugly syllables. Dragged them out and let them sit. On the middle of the table, where they festered and then began to stink.

  “Taylor was always about the money. The money, the money. If we were going to kill him, why not get rich as well.”

  “I wouldn’t call a hundred fifty K rich,” I said.

  “You got that right,” Janet said, and laughed. A hard and flinty thing. Taylor turned to the sound of it, her smile a knowing echo of her mother’s greed.

  “Asshole still beat her silly.” That was Masters, stepping in again where he didn’t belong. “She showed me the X-rays. You saw it yourself, Kelly.”

  I remembered her face, remembered the bruises. “Probably not as much as you think, Dan.”

  Vince Rodriguez had done more than put a string on Janet Woods’ insurance cash. I’d asked him to run a check on the bartender at Big Bob’s. His name was Chris Granger. I threw a criminal jacket on the table. Janet picked it up and took a look inside.

  “Your bartender pal,” I said. “How many of your bruises carry his name?”

  She didn’t offer a response. Didn’t need to. Masters opened up the jacket and ran his eyes down Granger’s rap sheet.

  “Armed robbery, petty theft, extortion. Three arrests for assault.” The cop looked up. “What are you saying?”

  “Some of the beatings were probably real,” I said. “Maybe most of them. I’m guessing Woods was hitting her pretty regular. It just wasn’t enough.”

  Masters dropped Granger’s jacket back onto the table. The excon’s mug shot peeked out from the file. “And you’re saying she hired Granger?”

  I shrugged. “She was in the bar three times in the week and a half before Woods was shot. I saw her there once myself. According to his boss, Granger was bragging about getting some extra cash. About doing something kinky to a hot-looking customer. Something he’d do for nothing is what he told his buddies. I figure he gave her the last beating. At the very least. The one that got me over to the Woodses’ house.”

  “She was almost dead, Kelly.”

  “If it was going to work, she had to play it tough. To convince me. Convince the police. Convince whomever.”

  Janet crossed one leg over the other and ran a hand across her cheek. “It’s called owning the bruises, Michael.”

  I nodded. “Exactly. And you knew that going in. Let me ask you a question. Was any of it real?”

  “He hit me, Michael. Johnny did that.”

  “Used to be he beat me. Now it’s just hit.”

  Janet dropped her eyes to the floor and studied the cracks in her life. We had shared a romance once that was wonderfully young. Years later, the echo of a consequence that was impossibly sad. Now there was nothing left. Nothing more my client could use to draw me in. And she knew it.

  “Who pulled the trigger?” I said.

  Janet didn’t look up. Taylor tapped her foot. I kept talking.

  “I assume the original plan was strictly self-defense. You hire me. Get me familiar with the pattern of abuse. Whether the bruises were from Johnny or someone you hired—didn’t really matter. You shoot Johnny. I testify about what I saw and you walk away clean. Am I missing something?”

  I waited. Still no answer.

  “Then Taylor sees the gun in my office. The two of you figure out a better way. Why take the chance on self-defense when you can frame someone like me? With my own gun, no less?”

  I glanced over at Masters. He was looking at the girl. I moved my eyes back to my client.

  “The night at your house was part of it,” I said.

  Janet finally looked up and shrugged. “We wanted you to stay the night.”

  “Neighbors like to look out the windows,” I said. “You figured they’d see me leaving. Ties me in as your lover.”

  “We didn’t plan on Johnny being outside. Funny thing is, he never said a word about it.”

  “Whose idea was it, Janet?”

  She angled her face to one side and blew more smoke into the mess that lay between us.

  “Whose idea was what, Michael?”

  “Letting me take the weight for Johnny’s murder. Leaving my gun at the scene. Putting it back in my office after the detective here screwed everything up by grabbing it out of Evidence. I assume the police would have been tipped to it eventually.”

  I felt Masters flinch a bit at that. He hadn’t known about the gun resurfacing on my bookshelf. I didn’t think so. I continued talking to Janet, all the while drawing a bead on the brains behind the frame.

  “I’m guessing it was your little girl over there,” I said. “She even se
nt me Johnny’s book, thinking I was still in jail. If a guard got hold of her note, it would have tied me in even deeper. Or am I still not giving you enough credit?”

  Janet dropped her cigarette into an empty beer bottle and studied my ceiling. Masters leaned his forearms on his knees and watched his shoes. Taylor stared out the window and listened to her tunes. We all sat that way for a while: myself, my two clients, and a beat-to-hell-and-back detective. Each trying hard to look at anything except another human being in the room. Finally, Masters made a move to go. The other two got up with him. The detective pulled me aside at the door.

  “Don’t bother looking for us, Kelly.”

  “Why would I bother?”

  “It’s just your way.”

  I looked over at the kid, scrolling through her iPod, oblivious to the grown-up world around her.

  “The girl pulled the trigger, didn’t she?”

  Masters hesitated. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to know. But I knew. And I knew I wouldn’t make the case. Even if I could. Not at fourteen years old. Not even if she was a killer.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s no one’s problem anymore.”

  And then all three of them left. I watched from my front window, through the latticework of branches that crowded my flat. Dan Masters stopped at the corner and touched Janet on the sleeve. The two talked for a moment. Then Masters held out an arm. She sank into his shoulder. He dropped his head against hers. The two of them walked like that to a Toyota Corolla that sat in front of a hydrant and was decorated with a ticket. Taylor followed five paces behind, sneakers scuffling, headphones on, thumbs working furiously at the marvelous entertainment technology offered to America’s youth. Masters got behind the wheel. Janet sat beside him. The girl stopped under a streetlight and took a look up toward my window. I think she might have smiled. I know she waved. Then she climbed into the backseat of the car. The soon-to-be-former Chicago detective turned the engine over and the Corolla disappeared down the street. Another nuclear family, just living the American dream.

  I STEPPED BACK from the window, saw an envelope on the table, and recognized Taylor’s handwriting in the loops and circles of my name. There was no note inside, just a couple of photos. Cheap, grainy shots I’d seen in a million and a half Vice jackets. Only this time I knew the girl being violated. Knew the face. Knew the pain. Two generations’ worth.

  I took the photos into the kitchen and watched them burn in the sink. Janet Woods had been right when she said it was only a matter of time until Johnny Woods went after Taylor. Janet just didn’t know how right she was, or how little time she actually had. But her daughter knew. Better than anyone, Taylor knew.

  CHAPTER 50

  It was cold and windy along the lakefront. The water was dishwater gray, and a thick curl of white froth ran along the surface. I zipped up my coat and walked south toward North Avenue Beach.

  Two months hence, summer would be in the offing. Early morning joggers and yoga in the sand, the city standing tall on one side, nothing but blue water on the other. The quiet cry of a seagull overhead and the small talk of Gold Coast locals, walking their dogs along the footpaths and getting their coffee before the day heated up.

  Around ten a.m. the lifeguard shack would open and the beach would start to happen. Music floating out over the water, eclectic strands mixing and mingling into a harmonious whole. The lazy smell of suntan oil, treadmills grinding out miles at the outdoor gym, beer and brats cooking at the beach house. People lying out on their blankets, reading paperbacks, talking, sizzling under the sun, and, of course, flirting.

  In the early afternoon, North Avenue would sprout thin white poles and netting as far as the eye could see. Young professionals would descend from their high-rises and climb out of the Loop, looking for some beach volleyball. Running, jumping, sweating, more bare skin, more suntan oil, more beer, and, of course, more flirting.

  As the sun dipped behind the city’s skyline, North Avenue Beach would grow quiet again. A man and a woman might play a final solitary game of volleyball. The runners would return, as would the dogs, their owners in tow. Night would creep up and over the lake, draining it of color and leaving a vast black emptiness at the edge of the city. Nothing visible, nothing tangible, except the sound of tomorrow, knocking gently against the breakwater.

  Those were the thoughts that kept me warm as I walked along the beach. A pigeon loitered nearby, caring not a whit for my musings and keeping an eye on the doughnut I’d gotten to go along with my coffee. I took a bite and threw it at the black-eyed beast, who pecked it into pieces and made off with as much as he could carry. I took the lid off the coffee and breathed in the heat, thinking it might warm me up. All it did was make my coffee cold.

  A solitary figure waited near the North Avenue bridge. Vince Rodriguez was wearing a blue cashmere topcoat, black leather gloves, and rose-tinted sunglasses. He was reading a Sun-Times and spoke without looking up.

  “See the paper today?”

  I hadn’t. Vince turned over the front page. It was a picture of the mayor and Mitchell Kincaid, framed against a statue of Abraham Lincoln, heads together, undoubtedly thinking something deep. It was a nice shot. A shot JFK and Bobby would be proud of. The headline under the photo read: kincaid and wilson: our link to lincoln.

  I scanned the article. It detailed Mitchell Kincaid’s vision: a Lincoln Annex to the Chicago Historical Society. A state-of-the-art home for everything and anything that was Abraham Lincoln. Its centerpiece, of course, would be the newly discovered Emancipation Proclamation. Kincaid called it his destiny and wanted to fund the annex privately. Mayor Wilson wouldn’t hear of it; his city would foot the bill. It would cost forty million dollars, but who was counting? Certainly not Chicago’s taxpayers. I dropped my eyes to the bottom of the article, saw a quote from the annex’s assistant curator, and smiled. Longtime volunteer Teen McCann was looking forward to the challenge and the living history that was Lincoln.

  “How long will it take to build?” I said.

  “They say two years, minimum. In the interim, Kincaid is going to take the Proclamation around the country. Museums, churches, schools. Educate the people about the history behind the document as well as its message.”

  “Going to make quite a name for himself,” I said.

  Rodriguez nodded. “Local Dems already have him plugged into a run for Senate.”

  “Who’s stepping down?”

  The detective smiled and tugged his gloves tight. “Way I hear it, a seat’s suddenly going to open up next year.”

  “Wilson making that happen?”

  “Of course. Kincaid’s his guy now. Three months ago, they wanted to cut his heart out. Now, the mayor’s gonna push him.”

  “All the way to the U.S. Senate.”

  Rodriguez shrugged. “The way Wilson sees it, he helps this guy go national and Kincaid forgets all about running for mayor. Forever. Wilson becomes a kingmaker and Chicago gets a big friend in D.C.”

  “Everyone’s happy,” I said.

  “Something like that.”

  It was a smart play: clean, efficient, bloodless. Mayor Wilson all over. I took a sip of cold coffee. We reached Fullerton Avenue and walked through the underpass toward Rodriguez’s car.

  “What did you think of Fred Jacobs’ story?” I said.

  It had been little less than a month since my meeting with the mayor. Two weeks later, Chicago’s Vice unit picked up Lawrence Randolph on a West Side stroll. The curator had a fourteen-year-old boy in his car. The Trib ran Jacobs’ story on page one the following day.

  “He got it mostly right,” Rodriguez said.

  “An anonymous tip, huh?”

  Rodriguez kept walking.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “To make it even sweeter, Vice swept all the older kids off the stroll. Left only the babies out there.”

  Rodriguez stopped. “Now why would they do that?”

  “That way when Randolph showed, they’d be sure it
was sex with a minor,” I said. “Felony offense. I figure he’ll do ten years, minimum. Hard time.”

  Behind his sunglasses Rodriguez laughed a cop’s laugh, a chill that echoed without ever making a sound. “Way I hear it, he’s going to be locked up with his buddies from the Aryan Nation. But that’s the Fifth Floor. They tend to play for keeps.”

  The detective gave a soft whistle and hit a button on his key chain. His car beeped and the doors unlocked. I opened up the passenger side. There was a coat in the front seat with an edge of purple underneath it. Rodriguez covered up the flowers and moved the coat into the back. Then he slipped off his glasses and turned the engine over. I got in and we waited for the car to warm. Rodriguez ticked on the radio and found an all-news station. Then the detective pulled out a postcard. It had cactus trees and sand on it.

  “Got this yesterday.”

  Dan Masters had managed three sentences. One was about the weather. The second was about a house he had bought. The third was a thank-you. Rodriguez had shepherded Masters’ paperwork through the department. Made sure he got full credit for time served. And benefits. It wasn’t enough to live happily ever after. But it was a start.

  “Sounds like he’s doing okay,” I said.

  “He doesn’t mention Janet or the girl.”

  “Probably a good thing.”

  “How about the P.S.?” Rodriguez said.

  I had read it once but took a second look. P.S. Say hi to Kelly. Tell him I’m sleeping fine.

  “I think the P.S. is a good thing too,” I said.

  Rodriguez slipped the postcard back inside his pocket. “You wish we’d taken them in?”

  I caught a flash. Bright eyes, auburn hair, and the cold smile of mother and daughter. “I’m not really sure what I wish.”

  Rodriguez turned down the radio and pulled his coat close around his body. “For what it’s worth, I’d have played it the same way.”

  “Thanks, Detective.”

  Rodriguez nodded. I hadn’t told anyone about the photos Taylor had left in my flat. Didn’t see the point. Johnny Woods was dead. Now we’d all live with the rest of it.