SOME DEAD GENIUS

by LENNY KLEINFELD

  Husak lumbered out of his office and asked, “Got any hits?” He was wearing his raincoat.

  Doonie said, “Nope. Gilson and Voorsts weren’t phone pals. And no mutual third party. Also, GR result came back on JaneDoe—negative.” Doonie glanced at Mark.

  Mark understood; Doon wanted him to establish he wasn’t defending JaneDoe. “Negative but not conclusive,” Mark cautioned. “She works with dyes and glue, got a box of latex gloves. Far as her phones, in the past year JaneDoe made one call to the Taylor-Voorsts household landline, but she traded calls with Hal Taylor’s cell—her relationship was with him, not Voorsts.”

  “Then go home,” Husak ordered. “Just been notified we got a 7 A.M. meet tomorrow, to organize a task force. Its us and Area Four—and an FBI liaison.”

  “Feebs, over just two vics?” Doonie asked.

  “Apparently the Dutch don’t have that many great painters left—their Prime Minister called the White House, who jingled the Mayor, who was already unhappy about Chicago’s new rep as the artist murder capital of the world. Go home. Sleep fast.”

  Husak headed out the door, intent on obeying his own order.

  Doonie looked at Mark. “Drink?”

  As if it were actually a question.

  JaneDoe would be Topic A at tomorrow’s meeting, with the FBI.

  “I’m buying,” Mark told Doonie.

  “No shit.”

  Nineteen | 2010

  The brand-new STS rolled west through the darkness, into the promised land.

  The gleaming eight-cylinder beast came to rest in a well-lit driveway, alongside a security intercom. The driver’s window whooshed down. A meaty hand emerged and a thick finger jabbed a button.

  Ten long seconds later a disinterested metallic voice said, “Yeah?”

  “It’s Tesca. Tommy Tesca,” he specified.

  No reply. The gate slid open, granting entrance to a small private parking lot behind ZeeZeeZ Bowl-A-Rama in Downer’s Grove.

  Heavy steel door in the back of the building. Security cameras.

  Inside the steel door, a pat-down.

  Tommy and Dale are led down to the basement beneath the lanes, then to a sub-basement and into an office where, soon as the door shuts, the racket from the bowling overhead just fucking disappears. And where not just the Son, but the Father, are waiting to hear what Tommy Tesca has to say.

  Heh.

  Spent most of his life eating Mastrizzi shit, but now he’s here. ZeeZeeZ. Private sit-down. Not just with Lou The MBA Boy, but also the Old Man himself, Gianni Mastrizzi, that vicious cocksucker with eyes like a dead snake. Gianni had this hairless reptile skull that was too small for his body, which somehow made him more threatening.

  Tommy was cousin to the Mastrizzis. Twice removed, but family. But he was not a made man. Just some shark kicking taxes up the chain. All ’cause back when Tommy was seventeen he had this little fuckup, burglary gone wrong.

  Like he went into the house of someone he shouldn’t’ve, honest mistake, no idea this rich Polack fuck was connected.

  Worse, the cops caught Tommy.

  Tommy’s mom went crying to Gianni Mastrizzi. The Old Man came through, got Tommy’s case dumped.

  Ever since, the Old Man saw Tommy as nothing but ass-pain. Even the son, Lou, who as kids Tommy and him got along, Lou since then acts like he can’t see or hear Tommy.

  Till now.

  Now it’s Tommy sitting with his cousins, sipping scotch and explaining what a fantastic thing great art is.

  You buy paintings by some genius, he turns into some dead genius, then you flip the paintings for two, three times what you paid.

  Next Tommy explains the rules that keep the scam safe.

  String out the buys over months, wait three-six months before you whack the artist, then string out the sales.

  Whack older artists—their shit is worth more, and it’s easier to make it look like a natural event.

  Don’t hit Chicago artists, too close to home and makes a pattern. Same reason, don’t hit more than one artist in any city, heh.

  Tommy saw no need to mention it was Dale came up with those rules. Little leprosy-face dweeb was only at this meet because Lou needed to hear every sorry-ass detail about the paperwork.

  But, credit where it’s due, when Dale starts describing the fucking house of financial mirrors he built to move the money, cover the tracks and duck the taxes, The MBA Boy’s into it.

  Dale and Tommy created an offshore corporation. An art consulting firm, with offshore bank accounts.

  Next they set up six offshore shell companies. Each one hires the art consultant firm to buy one painting—by wire, no face-to-face, nobody’s name used. Then these six shells peddle the paintings back and forth between each other till anyone trying to follow the money gets fucking dizzy. Then each company sells its painting, months apart, to legit collectors.

  After Dale finished, Tommy, as the man in charge, got the last word.

  “Bottom line, beauty of the art market is, the more expensive the painting, the huger the jump when the artist dies. Each time around I bought pricier shit, and each time, my margins went up. So… Heh?”

  Father and Son stared at him. It lasted maybe five seconds. Felt long and deep as the Grand Canyon.

  Lou said, “We’ll think it over.”

  Tommy looked at Gianni. Mr. Dead Snake Eyes had not spoken this whole meeting and his face never showed a thing. Good. Time to worry with Gianni is when he smiles at you.

  The MBA Boy stands, meeting over. Lou shakes Tommy’s hand, says, “This is an interesting operation.”

  Tommy knows Lou ain’t being polite, ’cause Lou’s never worried about being polite to Tommy.

  Jesus fuck. The hook is set. Tommy is in. He is in.

  Then Lou shakes Dale’s hand. “Thank you. Impressive presentation.”

  The fuck? Tommy gets interesting, Dale gets Thank you and impressive? A cold anger leapt inside Tommy, along with this sick feeling—

  He clamped down. Don’t go fucking paranoid. This is the Mastrizzis being the kinda assholes they are. Letting Tommy know, until he delivers heavy dollars, to them he’s the same fuckup he was at seventeen.

  Fine. What’s gonna happen is, Tommy’s gonna get rich, the Mastrizzis are gonna get richer, and Tommy’s gonna be inside.

  Trusted.

  Made.

  Or else. Or fucking else.

  Twenty | 2012

  Mark lived on Sheridan, in a high-rise just past the north end of Lakeshore Drive. It was after two when, weary and unsober, he got back to his one-bedroom apartment and crawled into his one bed. But, disobeying Husak’s order, Mark didn’t sleep fast. Too busy interrogating the ceiling, demanding an explanation why, soon as he ID’d JaneDoe, he hadn’t told Husak: Loo, in 2008 I had a relationship with the ass tattoo Barbie. Someone else will have to interview her.

  And then he parlays that initial stupidity by going dog-wild? Knowing, even while he was burying his face in her crotch, that if he waited till this case was cleared, JaneDoe and her crotch would still be there.

  Why?

  The ceiling suggested: Gale.

  Really? His ex-girlfriend gets fiancéed, so he’s gotta go screw anyone, right away?

  Shit, if it was just about getting laid he would’ve called Carrie Eli… except he couldn’t. Carrie wasn’t available.

  Mark and Carrie met in college. Lust at first sight. Never led to love. Just lifelong friendship, with sleepovers. But only when neither was in a real relationship.

  Assistant State’s Attorney Carrie Eli’s idea of a real relationship was to fall in love with a married man—she was a workaholic commitophobe to a degree that made Mark look like a stone romantic. And Carrie was quite pleased with her current somebody else’s husband.

  Shit.

  Maybe Mark could request a therapeutic exemption—right, call Carrie at—Christ, 3:37 A.M.—and hope her married boyfriend isn’t there. Hi, mind if I drop by for a mercy fuck to take
my mind off my sex life?

  But, shit, wasn’t the sex that was bothering him. It was his lack of professionalism—

  His landline rang. He answered, “Bergman.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carrie Eli said. “Hope I—”

  “I’m awake. You all right?”

  “I’m in my car across the street.”

  • • •

  Carrie gave Mark a perfunctory peck, strode past him and headed for the bedroom, steaming mad, peeling off her clothes.

  “Let me guess,” Mark said, trailing her, “your boyfriend’s hooked up with a girl younger and more solvent than you, and for her he’s actually going to divorce his wife.”

  “No, I’m used to that.” Carrie yanked off her bra and angrily flung it across the room. “This is serious. This putz, with the wedding ring and the eighteen pictures of his daughters in his phone, is—” she spat the epithet: “—not married! Those were stunt kids! Nieces!”

  Mark cracked up.

  Carrie thrust a hand in Mark’s robe and grabbed his dick. “Stop laughing and what happens next won’t hurt.”

  “But it’s funny,” he insisted. “You found a guy who’s marriage avoidance program is even more robust than yours. You’ve met your soul-mate.”

  “Not true! I’m honest! And not the point! The point is he runs this lounge lizard scam and I fell for it! I’m too, too—everything—for that! Fuck!” She shook her head. “Don’t hate him near as much as I hate feeling like a total idiot. Y’know?”

  “Yeah,” Mark sighed, “I know that feeling.” He enfolded her in his arms.

  Then the bed grabbed them, tore off Mark’s robe and Carrie’s panties, and Carrie, on a mission, was furiously, urgently all over Mark. Climbed aboard, slammed down hard, and again, and again-again-againagainagainagain…

  Slowed. Stopped. Eyed him.

  “What?” Mark asked.

  “You’re distracted. You’re almost never distracted.”

  “Distracted,” Mark scoffed.

  He treated Carrie to twenty minutes of the deranged, bed-damaging opposite of distracted.

  Sank back into the pillows, soaked, panting, and, oh fucking finally, empty-headed, floating off to sleep.

  Carrie snuggled alongside. Gave him a tender kiss on the cheek. Laid her head on his shoulder.

  Whispered, “Who is she?”

  Twenty-One | 2010

  Smothering the old woman was a piece of cake, but then they noticed her dog had stopped breathing, too.

  Son of a bitch had been snoring like a lawnmower when Tommy and Dale snuck in, but now the Lab was as inert as if it was his face that had been underneath a pillow with a three-hundred pound mobster on top.

  “Ah shit,” Dale muttered, as he kept checking Alfred for a pulse that kept not being there. Unfuckingbelievable. First time they’d ever had a screw-up and it happens with three-point-seven million bucks of Mastrizzi money on the line.

  Ella Stark lived alone, on a secluded hillside outside of Taos, New Mexico.

  Two things you can count on when sneaking into a house in the middle of the night in the rural southwest:

  1) The owner, even if—especially if—she’s an eighty-three-year-old stoner with emphysema, will have a gun handy.

  2) There will be a dog who will bark his ass off.

  Earlier that evening Dale had plodded by dressed as a hiker, and flipped a spiked meatball onto the property. He’d immersed himself in veterinary pharmacology until he’d determined the perfect sleeping dose for a dog Alfred’s size.

  Perfect for a younger, healthier dog Alfred’s size.

  Dale looked up at Tommy. “We have to bury him.”

  “Doggie funeral, heh?” Tommy said, amused. In the months since the Mastrizzis bought in, Tommy had morphed into Forrest Gumpino, suffused with an optimism so bulletproof the only excuse for it was mental impairment. Especially at a moment like this.

  If a woman with Ella Stark’s pulmonary difficulties is found cold with her loyal mutt gazing mournfully at her, she died in her sleep of natural causes. If there’s a poisoned dog next the bed, she died of murder.

  Fortunately Dale had become obsessive about planning for contingencies. He brought a tarp and a shovel.

  They wrapped Alfred in the tarp and deposited him in the trunk of Tommy’s still newish STS. A dead dog in the trunk would’ve peeved the shit out of Tommy. But not Gumpino.

  “Least we don’t haveta chop him up. Ever tell ya how much hassle it is to take a grown man apart without power tools?”

  • • •

  They drove till pavement gave way to dirt and they arrived at the desolate contingency dog disposal site Dale had scouted months earlier, when he’d been shadowing Ella Stark and designing the hit.

  Tommy got stuck doing most of the shoveling because they had to get Alfred underground before dawn. When the interment was complete, Tommy was sweat-soaked, filthy, wheezing, and in a good mood.

  “Requiescat in pace, Al,” Gumpino intoned, making a whimsical sign of the cross.

  Dale was beginning to suspect Tommy was bipolar.

  The pitch meeting with the Mastrizzis had been followed by three weeks of tense silence, during which Tommy had been as surly as something that lived under a bridge and ate children.

  Then they got The Big Call. The Mastrizzis bought in. Not just bought in, dove in. Lou Mastrizzi took an enthusiastic interest, working directly with Tommy and Dale.

  The Big Call was a mood elevator that turned the seething troll back into normal Tommy. Months of repeatedly being in Lou’s presence was a hallucinatory that turned normal Tommy into Forrest Gumpino.

  As they drove away from Alfred’s grave, Dale said, “Sorry.”

  “For what? The thing went good.”

  “Unless Alfred being missing raises a red flag.”

  “Cause why, he’s the first dog ever run off?”

  “Cops don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Which still leaves ’em with fuck-all for who done it or why. Oh man, lookit the colors those mountains turn in this sunrise. Someone should paint that.”

  “I believe there have been one or two New Mexico sunrise paintings. Tommy, if the cops open a murder investigation, you think the Mastrizzis will see it the way you do?”

  “Sure. Look, Dalie-boy, nothin’ to be scared, Gianni’s not gonna shoot you over a doggie OD. Tell you what’s gonna happen. Coupla hours from now the maid finds Ella Stark dead. The price of Stark’s shit goes through the fucking roof. You and me make a boatload of money, and the Mastrizzis make fifty boatloads… And then…”

  Gumpino fell silent, gazing into the lurid pastel sky, visions of Mafia-plums dancing in his head.

  • • •

  The coroner ruled natural causes.

  Ella Stark was a towering figure, a living link to her mentor, Georgia O’Keefe. During the art trophy boom of the go-go 1980s the tab for major Stark canvases crossed into seven-figure territory and never looked back. During the next two decades, with her output slowed by age and illness, Stark’s paintings had grown more fungible by the minute.

  When she died the price of her shit went through the fucking roof.

  Boatload after boatload after boatload of money was dumped into accounts in the Caymans, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

  In River Forest, Lou Mastrizzi was pleased.

  Gianni Mastrizzi was pleased. But not satisfied. The Old Man liked the profit margin. But he thought the pace was too slow and the operation too risky. Said if they ran the scam over and over there would inevitably be a fuck-up.

  • • •

  Lou Mastrizzi told Tommy and Dale what the Old Man decided.

  There would be one final score. Massive. An eight-figure investment. And then they’d shut down, forever.

  Lou would be managing this one, in detail. Said the prep had to be perfect. Even if it took years.

  Dale started the research.

  Lou held regular planning sessions with Dale and Tommy.
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  Then only with Dale.

  Not only was Tommy excluded from the meets; he could tell Dale was withholding information. Which had to be at The MBA Boy’s orders.

  Forrest Gumpino imploded. Plummeted past normal Tommy, straight into seething troll.

  • • •

  Dale dreaded being alone with the seething troll.

  Dale dreaded saying anything to Lou about the troll, because he couldn’t be sure what the result would be.

  Dale’s left eye began to bulge.

  Twenty-Two | 2012

  Mark ran the shower too hot and stayed in too long, to cleanse the scratches an enraged Carrie had clawed into his back, and to boil away the absurd notion an amused Carrie had deposited in his skull.

  If Carrie sensed a little distractedness in Mark, it wasn’t love. It was preoccupation with his total idiot romp with JaneDoe and its resulting complications. The latest of which was scheduled to commence in twenty minutes.

  • • •

  The task force launch party was a dressier affair than Mark anticipated.

  The role of toastmaster, normally a gig for a Captain, was played by Daryl Langan, Deputy Chief of Field Group B. The Deputy Chief’s presence put the cops on notice these artist murders were not merely crimes against humanity, they were crimes against the Mayor’s image. Plus which, someone in custom-tailored blues with brass stars on the epaulets would provide bureaucratic counterweight to the FBI agents.

  There were two of them, and their hair was perfect. Grey-white, wavy and receding into a widow’s peak on the fiftyish senior agent, Sten Ostergaard. Straight, thick and surfer-blond on boyishly handsome Nick Rarey.

  Special Agent Ostergaard liaised by announcing the FBI’s most brainiac profiler had taken a red-eye from D.C. and was at this moment on his way in from O’Hare.

  Deputy Chief Langan announced the task force would work out of this office, Area Three, with Lieutenant Husak in command.

  Langan introduced Detective Bergman, who’d brief on Gilson, followed by Detective Hsu, who’d brief Voorsts.