The Underground Detective: A Novel of Chicago Streets

by Thomas Laird

  “He’s loose.”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you all this. Especially now, when things—“

  “They’re certain he’s sprung?”

  “In all the confusion, I guess he just walked out of the fucking place.”

  “They lost Franklin.”

  “What else can I tell you, Danny? What else can I say?”

  39

  I get a call from the Lieutenant Governor. He’s going to be in Chicago, and he wants a sit-down with me. So I arrange to see him at his home in DesPlaines.

  The drive takes only forty-five minutes at 10:47 A.M. The rush traffic is history by almost two hours, now, but the Stevenson is always at least partially blocked somewhere by some knucklehead who insists on tailgating another knucklehead, and then you have a gaper’s block of clowns all taking in the majesty of a rear-ender.

  Today, I’m more fortunate. No accidents en route. I pull up to the house in DesPlaines, and I see three State Trooper vehicles. Two Staties are at the door. I show them my badge, and they open the door for me. I find the Lieutenant Governor in his study, at the direction of an aide who’s female and drop dead, salivating bountiful. Must be in her mid-twenties. One of those birds you can’t elevate your eyes from her chest type. She’s got a stone beautiful face, and now I’m thinking I know why Raymond Toliver rarely came home to DesPlaines from Springfield.

  “Please sit,” Toliver beckons as the babe closes the study door behind me.

  Raymond sits down behind the lavish desk where his wife sat, all those months before when Lila and I interviewed her about Franklin.

  I sit in the straight-backed, plush chair opposite him. I’m again fascinated by the number of volumes he owns on those shelves behind him.

  “Thank you for taking the time to see me,” Toliver smiles.

  “You’re welcome. No problem. I assume this is about Franklin.”

  “Regretfully, yes, it is.”

  His handsome face goes somber. He reminds me of Stewart Granger, the English movie actor. He’s got the same distinguished streaks of white beneath a dark brown, full head of hair. The hair has been cut with a razor—it’s been styled. But he’s in the public eye, so I forgive him.

  “Any word at all?” he asks.

  “He’s done his disappearing act, just like he did when we hunted him, all those months. He’s very good at going underground.”

  “I brought you here because I’m asking you to make Franklin your one and only case until you apprehend him. I’ve asked the mayor, and he’s agreed to have your Commander assign you to Franklin’s capture. You know my son best, you and your partner. What was her name?”

  “Lila. We’re no longer partners. I’m working alone, temporarily.”

  “I see. Perhaps it’s better that way.”

  I look again at his snow-white side locks. I’m remembering Stewart Granger in North to Alaska with John Wayne and Fabian, the heartthrob.

  “Why am I being thrust into the breach here? Why has this become political?”

  He smiles at me.

  “Everything’s political, Detective. Everything. You’re not being assigned this one case just because of me. The Governor has further political aspirations. We’re in the same party, as you know, and if I become a detriment to his Senate bid, then he is also affected by Franklin’s remaining at large.

  “The Governor wants to have me run for his job in the next election. My winning can’t help but aid his run for the Senate, so you see how everything fits together, I assume?”

  His grin has replaced the wide, TV smile.

  “What if I don’t get him?”

  “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Police are looking for my son, too, so you’ll have plenty of company. But I have a feeling you’ll be there when he’s found. I know your background. I’ve read about your decorations, but I see your exploits themselves are classified.”

  “I had hell catching him the first time. This isn’t the jungle.”

  “There, you’re wrong. There’s just less foliage. Some jungle creatures, but less shrubbery.”

  “You might be right, on that one. But I’m not as confident as you seem to be.”

  He goes sullen in the face, suddenly. His fingers are spread out over the green mat on his desktop.

  “You haven’t noticed the competitive nature Franklin has? He’s always competed, even though he was neither an athlete nor a scholar. He still had to struggle against someone or something for recognition. He just didn’t do it the way most people do.”

  “You mean like killing six prostitutes.”

  His face goes positively sour at their mention.

  “I mean that Franklin will be competing against you again. He reads the newspapers. He knows who you are, and not just because you arrested him. I saw him at Elgin two weeks before he escaped. He talked about you, almost obsessively. He asked me questions about your background, which I didn’t know, two weeks ago. They don’t allow him access to books or newspapers. Franklin, as you know, was in Elgin’s version of solitary confinement, so he asked me question after question about you.”

  “Are you telling me you think Franklin’s coming after me?”

  He watches my eyes carefully, as if he’s anticipating an attack of some kind.

  “He never said that. He also asked me about your partner, Lila. I told him I knew nothing about either of you, personally, but he kept on asking anyway. As I said, he’s very—“

  “Competitive.”

  “Yes, Detective.”

  “So you brought me here to warn me.”

  “In part. But I wanted to tell you how imperative it is that you find him before he finds you. A lot of lives could be affected by my son. I know six already have been, and beyond all that about politics, he needs to be locked in a real prison where he’ll never get out again.”

  “Who’s to say they won’t remand him back to Elgin if we find him again?” I ask.

  “Can we share something private, you and I?”

  He leans toward me as if he’s going to whisper something to me.

  “If you can kill him, do it. If he gives you just cause, don’t hesitate.”

  “I’m just a policeman.”

  “I know that answer, Detective, but you know Franklin.”

  “It seems like enough people have been killed already.”

  “Self-defense is a moral imperative, Detective Mangan.”

  “I know. I was in a war, once.”

  He looks at me, and now his face softens.

  “I don’t live here, anymore. I’m putting the place up for sale.”

  “It’s a little rich for my blood,” I smile at him.

  I’m having trouble not liking him. I know what a problem child can be like, but his kid and mine are in two very different ballparks. And my kid is climbing all the way out of her hole and into the sunlight. Franklin is worming his way into the netherworld. I can understand the misery this man has endured. His wife left him a bit differently than Mary left me.

  “She’s still here, you know.”

  “Who?” I ask him.

  “My wife. She’s still here.”

  “You mean her spirit?”

  “The State Policemen won’t come in here after dark. One of them saw her as he was checking the place out, a few days after her death.”

  “Are you yanking my chain?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’ve seen her, too. I spent a weekend here, getting my personal belongings removed, and I saw her in her closet, where she hanged herself. I heard some noise in her room, and I went inside, and there she was. She looked at me as if she wondered why I was home. You see, this was her residence, not mine, really. We hadn’t lived together for the better part of three years, but we didn’t officially separate because of my career. If I were to win the Governor’s job, we would’ve divorced then.”

  He looks at me and again smiles warmly.

  “I’m not yanking your chain, Detective. I never believed in gh
osts, either. Live and become educated, right?”

  He stands up, and so do I.

  “Please find him and get him back where he belongs, one way or the other. I don’t mean to be jerking you around, but he was your case from the beginning, and I truly mean to tell you that I’d be looking for him to make contact with you.

  “So please be careful. And tell your former partner to keep her eyes open.”

  He reaches across the table and takes my hand.

  I feel like telling him he’s got my vote when he runs for Governor, but I hold back, and I leave.

  I tell Lila about my conversation with Raymond Toliver. We’re at home, sitting on the new couch that Lila bought with her own coin. It’s royal blue, and it’s a three-seater with recliners at either end and a setup that you can use as an arm rest and a cup holder in the middle that flips down and then back up—retractable.

  “We have loaded weapons in this household, right?” she smiles bravely.

  “He’s not going to come here, Lila. He was just planting a seed in the old man’s head because he knew Raymond would warn us.”

  “How’d he know he was going to bust out?” she asks.

  “He didn’t. But he was looking for an opportunity to blow Elgin the minute we dropped him off there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Intuition. I’m psychic,” I grin at her.

  “Then let’s go to Vegas and make some real money.”

  But her pretty face has clouded over.

  “This had to happen now,” she says.

  “You mean, about us?”

  “Of course I mean about us.”

  “Too bad your name’s not Nora and my name’s not Nick.”

  “I’m saying is this going to postpone our wedding, Danny?”

  “Absolutely negative, Detective. Not for a minute, not for a second.”

  “Then I want to get married soon.”

  “How about today?” I proffer.

  “My parents would murder us both, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about Toliver Junior.”

  “I forgot about your parents, the lawyer and the pediatrician. You don’t mess with professional people, no.”

  “Knock it off, Danny. They both love you.”

  “They’ve only met me twice.”

  We went to brunch once and dinner once with them, and Lila’s right. They didn’t deserve the wise crack. They’re both very nice people. And they made Lila, and I firmly believe in genetics.

  “No, we’ll get married on the day you pick,” I tell her.

  She bites her cuticle, deep in thought.

  “Christmas Eve?” she asks.

  “I don’t think Catholics do that day.”

  “Then how about the Saturday before Christmas Eve?”

  “Fine. Done.”

  She bites that same cuticle again.

  “You think we can get another dog so we have one inside and one outside?” she asks.

  “You want another dog? Fine. I don’t want some fucking beast that’s going to get in fights with Sonny.”

  “You know I love Sonny, dumbass.”

  “A minute ago we were getting married on Christmas Eve, and the next minute you call me dumbass and want to bring a fucking pit bull into the house.”

  “No, I do not want that kind of pet. I was thinking maybe another border collie.”

  “Not a female. No puppies.”

  “No female. But I’d like it if we had more company around the house.”

  “Just one. No fleet of pooches, madam.”

  “Just one…. And a security system.”

  I laugh out loud.

  “Two cops and two dogs and a security system. You want concertina wire and a machine gun nest?”

  “It isn’t funny, Danny. Toliver was warning us. He brought you all the way to his home to warn you. I think all that might be significant, don’t you?”

  I hug her. Then I kiss her on the lips and hold the kiss.

  “The Feds and the Staties are after him. The Fibbies especially love headlines. They’ll catch him within a week. He’s got no money. He’s got no ride, and he’s got a mug that’s been spread all over the media. There’s no chance he’ll ever get here. I already called the FBI and the State Police and told them what Raymond Toliver said to me, so they’re going to keep the house under watch, twenty-four-seven, until somebody catches this diseased prick.”

  “He can’t screw us up, Danny. We won’t let him.”

  “You have my word, lady.”

  I kiss her again.

  “But I still want the extra dog and the security system. And you need to give Kelly a heads up.”

  When she mentions my daughter, a shiver rises up my spine.

  “He’s capable of anything, Danny.”

  I look into her eyes, and then I kiss both of her cheeks, one at a time.

  “Maybe I ought to charge a bounty on Franklin. Make it worth my while.”

  “It already is very worth your while.”

  I embrace her tightly once more, and I feel that same chill snake up my back.

  40

  It’s difficult to get through the end of summer, or any other clump of days, without Lila. She gives me feedback while we work a case. She has sure-fire intuition, and she’s exceptionally bright. I depended on her to help me get those redliners off our board.

  But now there’s only one name on the white board. And I’m getting tired of looking at Franklin’s moniker.

  Dr. Fernandez told me not to fixate on him or on anything else. She says I’m going to have to look at him as if he’s a task and nothing more. If I do obsess over Toliver, she claims, it only serves to give him power over me.

  There was a Native American in my platoon in my last hitch in Vietnam. His name was John Glover, but his real name used to be Two-Hides. John Two-Hides. When his father left the res, he legally changed it to Glover because his dad liked an All American halfback from Stanford by that name.

  John was pretty tight with me before we both returned to The World alive. He used to tell me on the hump, while we were walking somewhere very frightening, that his ancestors liked to think they assumed another man’s power when they killed him. They used to eat the hearts of their enemies, long ago, because it made them feel they were acquiring their foes’ energy, their strength. Their power.

  So when the Doc tells me not to let Toliver assume my sap by letting myself become hung up on his capture, I try to tell myself to relax and treat his case as though it were any other.

  But it’s not, of course. I’ve got the Mayor and the Lieutenant Governor and even my own Captain demanding results. They want this asshole nabbed and bagged yesterday. I think my shrink knows I’ve got enough self-imposed stress on myself without their adding to my burden.

  If Franklin were a Viet Cong or an NVA, and if he were hiding in the bush, I’d go out and find him. I tell myself that Vietnam was the fucking rainforest, and my prey out there had a lot more places to burrow in than he does in the Chicagoland area. He has no money, no vehicle, I keep telling myself.

  But what are his resources? Jennifer O’Brien and the Aryan Nation. That’s the extent of his assets, I make it.

  I try O’Brien first. I drive out to Orland Park again, and the mother answers the door. I receive a very hostile glare from mommy. She asks what I want, this time. She doesn’t invite me inside, and it’s a torrid mid-August afternoon.

  We stand on her enclosed front porch. It’s screened in, but it doesn’t keep the humidity and the high heat out. Just the bugs.

  “I want you to know that my daughter lost her job at the school because of you and that maniac. Some columnist wrote that my daughter was associated with a hate group, and that writer wondered why any school district would employ anyone of her ‘moral caliber.’ And then her fiancé broke off the marriage two weeks before the wedding. And you come here and you want to talk to my daughter?”

  I wait for the inferno to dwindle down to a blaze.


  “It wasn’t my intention to hurt your daughter. I’m chasing an escaped lunatic who killed six women, and if you find my coming here distasteful, I gotta tell you, ma’am, I don’t much give a damn. Please tell your daughter I’d like her to call me if Toliver tries to make contact with her again.”

  “Jennifer thinks you’ve tapped her phone. She says she hears clicking sounds.”

  “She’s been watching too many movies.”

  I don’t feel moved to tell her or her daughter the truth. And the FBI is tapping her phone again, not me and the CPD.

  “Do you think my daughter deserves all these terrible things to happen to her?”

  “I wasn’t alive during World War II. But my father was. He helped liberate some of the death camps. Maybe you ought to take a trip to the library, and bring Jennifer with you when you go.”

  I turn and walk out of her screened in front porch.

  The other asset will be harder to reach. But I do get a chance to talk to their sub-commander, Richard Ellsworth. He operates out of his basement on the southwest side, not far from Marquette Park, where I hauled Franklin in.

  Ellsworth is in his early fifties, I’d guess. There’s no sign of a wife or girlfriend inside his brick bungalow, here in this working stiff, blue collar hood. The houses on his block are almost replicas of one another. They have tiny front lawns that you could cut with a scissors, and equally dwarfish backyards with chainlink fences and loud dogs within.

  He has a shaved head and the requisite teardrops on his cheeks that he makes no attempt to hide by using makeup or bandages. I can’t imagine a business hiring him, unless it’s something where he doesn’t come into contact with the public.

  He has the shape of a tree stump. He’s maybe five-seven, and I’d guess he tips them at 240 pounds or so. His neck seems to blend into his shoulders so that it appears his melon head is simply resting atop them.

  Ellsworth guides me down into his basement. There is a door off from his kitchen.

  We hear growling as we descend the steps.