Mid-block at the L7, the two smiling female doormen don’t ask for my ID or the gun in my purse. The chunky one with the “Kesey Does It” T-shirt says, “Busy in there.”
Kesey must mean Ken Kesey of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test … makes sense … I think. The L7 is a “woman’s bar” but it’s also the Beat capital of Chicago. Been here since the ’30s, a beer hall/tavern with a Jack Kerouac pedigree. Julie added John Waters and Tallulah Bank-head, and our friend Beth Murphey painted the a/c ducts like snakes that only get that big in Imax anaconda movies.
The brunette opens the door and LOUD rocks me back a step. If Annie Oakley lived in Chicago, this is where she’d drink. Visiting-rugby-team banners hang haphazard from the high tin ceiling. Bagpipes wail across thirty tables pushed aside by muddy women in colorful jerseys and questionable haircuts. Have to be a hundred girls in multiple uniforms, all of them singing and sloshing a beer in each hand. To my right the long historic bar has five girls marching on it? Parasols on their shoulders, throwing beads at the crowd? Right, right—the Mardi Gras March, the New Orleans team Julie played for. The stage at the back is the only spot that’s empty except for the band equipment.
Julie McCoy will be in the mosh somewhere—probably guest-starring with the pipers. Jesus, it’s loud in there. Julie was a world-class athlete and well on her way to becoming a concert cellist before “the accident.” The accident is depicted by a huge twenty-foot back-bar photo mural of Julie crashing her Ducati into a Nice café, showing off for a girl whose name she couldn’t remember.
Brilliant red hair. I duck the flash—not sure why—just know I should. Two or three dead in an alley may be the reason … or twenty milligrams of Valium, or giant snakes squirming overhead of an allgirl riot. I veer toward the bar, shuffling for traction, staying close to the front window and the lesser violence. The doorway to Julie’s office and the stairs up to the Butch and Sundance suite are all the way at the back, stage left, or to the right if you’re a civilian.
Bump, shuffle. Young faces with bulletproof grins. The crush of shoulders and feet and hips and hair and singing—singing is way too kind—all this might be more than the Valium OD will allow. Keep moving. Four minutes of snaking through the crowd keeps me upright. This is a post-tournament party that will be off the hook in another hour. I’ve been to a few of these; wild like a badger, as me ma would say.
Hey! There’s my picture, an eight-by-ten framed with others, each with a lipstick kiss and autographed to the L7. Mine is from The Argonautika four years ago. If I get Streetcar Julie will do a life-size poster and put me next to the Lisa Law photo of her hero, Allen Ginsberg at 9 rue Gît-le-Coeur. If I get Streetcar … loopy grin, three dead in an alley, homicide cop trying to kill me, Japanese motherfuckers wanting to eat me alive—no problem, take twenty milligrams every day and everything’s everything.
The door to Julie’s office is unlocked. I slip through, shut it behind me, and lean for a second. The noise cuts by half. Her oak desk has a folded copy of the Herald that won’t quit following me and a framed photo of her adopted daughter, Hannah, playing the guitar. I pick up today’s Herald. Please have something in here that can be used against Ruben Vargas for real, and soon, like today. Big picture of Dr. Hitoshi Ota, the Furukawa CEO, with the mayor. I fold the Herald and reach to lock Julie’s door. Nope, double deadbolt that requires a key. The other door leads to the tiny hall and stairs to Butch and Sundance, and safety for now, and I’m through the door, pulling it closed behind me and—oh, shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Sitting on the stairs—No possible way—Ruben Vargas couldn’t have known I was coming here. The door is shut tight behind me. Blink. He’s blinking, too, both hands on a red guitar, not a pistol. And he’s younger than he looked earlier today, my age now, and his eyes are kind, not cold and reptilian. The devil’s last cruel trick before he grabs me, his newest killer.
My ma says, “No, you baked the crumble muffins.”
Blink. Half swallow. Do something. Gun … I have a gun.
I reach for the gun. And all the saints of heaven.
OFFICER BOBBY VARGAS
SATURDAY, 4:30 PM
Eighteen hours ago, Officer Sheila Lopez was murdered during her third shift with the Chicago Police Department. The dead shooters ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-two. My part of the officer-involved interrogations ended at 4:30 AM when U.S. Attorney Jo Ann Merica cut me loose. I drank two hours, semi-slept six, then ate breakfast at one o’clock watching the national news cycle marry gang wars and dead policewomen to Olympic rebids. The comments in Tokyo were of great shock and sympathy for the victims.
Officer Lopez’s parents came in from Ohio; limp, washed out, holding on to each other and the cloudy, fuzzy hell-walk you see when somebody’s child dies. And the cameras were right there. The Lopezes’ parish priest was with them. Mayor McQuinn made a statement, called Sheila Lopez a hero in the war on drugs. The parish priest called Sheila a daughter, a casualty of this society losing its moral compass. The reporter said, “Back to you, Jim.”
Twenty minutes till showtime.
I’m here at the L7 but my bandmates aren’t. My cell vibrates. I put phone to ear, knees balancing my guitar.
Ruben says, “Lopez was a fed. Dead-bang.” Pause. “But neither the ATF, FBI, or DEA had people at Area 4. No one on Hahn’s hospital room, either. I’ve been seeing feds a long time, esé—and G is what these girls are—but this ain’t how their organizations act.”
“You’re sure about Hahn?”
“They rolled in together, no?”
Exhale. My eyes squeeze shut. One hand presses my cell phone tighter, the other covers my ear to block out the party noise beyond the greenroom wall.
Ruben continues. “Homicide’s investigating the Lopez murder—we got jurisdiction, but can’t get the U.S. attorney to tell us what Lopez was working on. And I know Merica knows, which means it’s all about CPD, maybe another Greylord …”
My back slumps into the stairway wall. Floor polish and mop disinfectant mix with Ruben’s words.
“Or … we got us some kind of wild-card situation. Hahn give you any idea who she is? Who they work for?”
“Nope. Said her history was FBI, then DEA; got sworn here through Mayor McQuinn. We figured if they were feds, it had to be for Dupree.”
“That don’t wash. The mayor’s not gonna help anyone with the Dupree lawsuit. And even if he wanted to give city money away, why would feds be undercover in your team for that? None of you was even on the job then. No, has to be the G’s after someone in your team for something else.” Pause. “And whoever that vato is got their girl killed.”
My Stratocaster slides half off my lap but my elbow catches the neck. A cop killer in my gang team—my family; guys I bet my life on every day.
Ruben says, “Our lawyer wants a conversation tonight, eight at the Mambo; get you thinking right for IAD on Monday—”
“Damn, Ruben, I don’t want—”
“Carnal. Trust me, this you have to do. Don’t know how Barlow did it—probably Toddy Pete—but Barlow got a judge to sign an injunction against the Herald. No part three on Sunday. Barlow and them go to court Monday, we won’t have to read about us again till Tuesday, maybe Wednesday at the earliest. Even if we lose, Barlow will have seen whatever Spanish news the Herald is selling; gives us a chance to buddy up with the Tribune or WGN with a rebuttal.”
“The U.S. attorney asked me about you ninety-five times.”
“I saw the transcript. Watch your ass. I’m your brother. I know you think I’m nine-foot armor-plated, but I can’t keep a U.S. attorney off you.”
“I didn’t do so good in the interviews, huh?”
Pause. “People running for cover, carnal, they gonna run over whoever they have to. You hear anything about what Hahn’s up to, let me know. See you at eight.”
I flip the phone shut and reset my guitar. If you have to fight giants or bet it all, no one better to stand with than Rube
n Vargas. The door to the stairwell opens. A svelte, curvy woman slips through with her back to me. She closes the door, leans into it, and exhales deep. Professional dancer; it’s the posture and her jeans couldn’t fit any better. She turns, shaking strawberry blond hair out of her face—
My heart literally stops.
The ghost at the door sees me and goes rigid, welding her back to the door to stay standing. Her eyes widen to their limits and so green they take your breath away—
Never ever forget those eyes, not as long as I live. Not in summertime across our alley, bold and timid sitting in her window, peeking up from her book after every page. Or a year later making a Neverland promise from three inches away, both my hands in hers. Not in the rose-red blush of a first kiss, and not in the harsh white of winter, pleading terror frozen in the prettiest eyes God ever made. Someone uses my voice to say: “But you’re dead.”
The ghost fumbles for her purse but is having trouble keeping her feet. “So are you.”
My Stratocaster and I lean against the stairwell wall, hoping for stability. “No, really, you’re dead.”
The ghost doesn’t move or agree. We’re too close for me to be wrong … even after twenty-nine years. My first girlfriend, my first heart-to-heart partner in hopes and dreams, a girl I would’ve fought every Irish boy in the Four Corners just to walk home. Coleen Brennan is grown up, not dead, and standing five feet from me. And she’s shaking.
I start to stand—Behind her jeans, Coleen’s hands fumble fast for the doorknob.
“Wait.” I sit back down. “Wait. It’s okay.”
Coleen’s hand stays on the knob. She swallows or tries to, then lowers her chin. “Bobby?”
“Uh-huh. Twenty-nine years later, but it’s me.” I’m talking to a ghost, losing my mind from no sleep and tabloid fantasies.
“They said … I asked … they said you died in a car accident, in Milwaukee.”
“Never been to Milwaukee.” Blink. I’ve been confused before, but not like this. “You died in an alley. I … I saw your body … Your dad wouldn’t let me come to your funeral. I stood outside at St. Dom’s. It … was snowing.”
Coleen stares, trying to decide if I’m real. She squints at my guitar, then back to me. “The flowers every February?”
I nod again. Flowers on her grave—me and Joe DiMaggio; bluebonnets and pixie dust and a promise I couldn’t keep. Her grave, Bobby. As in dead person. Who they want to exhume. My hands are shaking, too.
Her mouth trembles into a smile that doesn’t happen. She stammers “Tinker Bell,” and waits, eyes on mine, her hand trying to turn the knob. The first book we traded was Peter Pan, a book that became her Bible. We promised each other we’d fly away from the Four Corners together; take her sister along, too. Flying away was so important to Coleen she said we had to hold hands every day we could, close our eyes, and promise that Neverland was only one tomorrow away. But the Four Corners killed her before we could make it happen.
Talking to apparitions leads to pilgrimages and straitjackets but I can’t help myself. “But you’re dead, Coleen.”
She stares—the eyes so green, the soft freckles—and doesn’t have to answer. It is her, impossible but true, not a no-sleep, tabloid fantasy, and I am, literally, without words or breath.
Coleen exhales, scared, confused. “It … wasn’t you, the accident in Milwaukee?”
“No. But … you’re a ghost, right?”
Headshake. Finally she says: “I’m Arleen.”
“No, you’re not. Your eyes, the freckles, the alley, our books. You’re Coleen.”
She shows me her hand without bringing it closer, the little warm, electric one that held mine, the long scar on the palm. “My da … we weren’t allowed … Coleen was braver, wanted you and I to be together. She’d be me at school or after when I was with you … in case our da … we were kids, foolish, somehow we thought it would work … if—”
“You were my girlfriend?”
She nods. “And you were my boyfriend. Coleen and I would’ve told you before we all flew away.”
Well, holy shit.
As I lean back, my shoulders land soft on the banister and it’s the only reason the rest of me isn’t on the floor. A really long time passes, or not. My heart keeps beating; my mouth says, “But after your sister died … Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve … Something.”
Her hand regrips the knob behind her.
“Wait. Did, ah, you come here to see me?”
Arleen has trouble with that, too.
I point at the Herald in her hand. “Are you back in town for … because of the article?”
Her head shakes slow and only an inch. “Been back two years.” She stares, forming words that tremble her lips. “Why are you here?”
I point at my guitar, then the wall separating us from the rugby party. “I’m in the band, weekends around town.” Still nothing. “The L7 every six weeks or so—Julie’s rugby parties?” I point at the wall again. “ ‘YMCA’? ‘Margaritaville’? Once the girls get cranked up?” Still nothing; obviously not a regular or a rugby player.
“Julie and I usually meet downtown … not in this neighborhood so much.”
My hands pat the electric air separating us. “Are you okay?”
Arleen licks her lips then bites the lower one between her teeth. “Surprised. It’s just—I don’t know, you’re a shock after … twenty-nine years. Peter Pan returns from the grave and on a day I’m … trying to fly away. Wasn’t ready.”
She sounds like she means it. It hasn’t fully hit me that she may be here on purpose and for bad reasons. She is, quite simply, happy ever after, strawberry blond hair, and freckles in blue jeans that fit really well. If my fingers worked I’d play her a song; self-protection has left the building. “So you live here, in Chicago?”
She nods. “West Side.” A hint of little girl creeps into the posture that she quickly erases. “And you? Your, ah, family still around?”
“I live north. Up by Evanston. Ruben’s downtown living large. You remember Ruben.”
She hesitates at Ruben’s name, or maybe it’s “downtown,” or maybe I can’t see through the fog in my head. Yesterday I shot a guy who had a machine gun and the U.S. attorney wants to put me in prison. Today I’m a thirteen-year-old playing with ghosts. “What do you do? Are you … with Julie?”
“Am I gay?”
“No. Yes, I mean, ah, I don’t know what I mean.”
A grin materializes. “Julie’s my friend.” Pause. “I’m an actress. And waitress at Hugo’s.”
“Really? An actress?” My hands need someplace to be. “I saw Forrest Gump ten, fifteen years ago at the Pickwick, and big as life, there you were, Jenny on that dirt road with Forrest. For real. Dropped my popcorn and the Pepsi; hit me all of a sudden that you might come back somehow, grown up, running across Grant Park instead of the Lincoln Memorial.” My hands are flippers; I cannot believe I just told her that.
The green eyes soften but not all the way. “I auditioned for Jenny. They were casting right after the riots. I made the callback, thought I had a shot, almost.”
“Bet you’d have been good.”
“I knew her life, but I guess so did Robin Wright.”
“That where you went when you left?”
Nod. “Golden California. Kinda rough at first.”
“You were just gone—we were freshmen, first day at Benito Juarez—no one other than the kids at St. Dom’s had really seen you since … Coleen. High school was starting. Nobody knew where you went. Your mom had just died; lots of rumors …”
Arleen shifts her purse. “She died on Saturday night. Sunday was bad. Monday morning I put on the school clothes I’d worked all summer to buy and snuck out of the apartment before my da and his friends came to.” Her eyes cut away. “Anything was better than staying home. I walked toward B.J., had my enrollment money, all the worries any kid would have …” Arleen shifts her purse again. “Made it to the bus stop at Twenty-fif
th Street and a carload of older black kids yelled at me. They knew who I was; Coleen was gone but the murder and rape trials were about to start again. Beat my ma down until all the racial stuff killed her, and Da was … what he was, a long way from being safe harbor.” She exhales and pulls herself straighter. “Caught that bus and decided not to get off until no one knew me. Caught several others and stayed on them until one stopped in Venice Beach, California. Coleen and I talked the whole way. We agreed, she and I would be movie stars in the sunshine.”
“You had family out there?”
Headshake.
“You were a kid. We were fourteen, fifteen—”
“Fourteen.”
I search the green eyes for things I’ve seen in other kids’ eyes, things cops know and see that changes them forever. Maybe she got lucky; it can happen—
The door bumps Arleen out of the way. She jerks backward, hands up like she’s being attacked. Julie McCoy, proprietor, pops in with bar noise following her, yells “Blanche!” and bear hugs Arleen, then sees me, and grins. Then stops. “Damn—the crap in the Herald—are you two … okay?”
Arleen and I are deer in the headlights, anything but okay.
Julie unhugs Arleen and back-steps toward her door. “Should I—”
“No, we’re fine.” Arleen drops her hands. “Just catching up. Kind of a shock.”
Julie says, “No kidding. I called you yesterday after one of the girls read me the Herald—meant to call you back, but got tied up with the crazies.” Julie nods at the post-tournament party, then shakes her head. “Damn, Bobby. Tracy’s good, but she’s lost her mind on this one.”
I fidget my guitar, no idea what to say.
Julie notices. “Bobby’s nice, especially for a guitar player. Can sing the blues, too, if you don’t listen too close.” Julie hugs Arleen again. “Blanche can’t sing, but man can she dance.”
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