Cut to a reporter at the crime scene: “All the statement says is—” she read text off her phone—” ’The evidence is being processed.’ “
“Has there been word,” the anchor wondered, “about whether any of the other victims had also been, um, violated with a miniature skyscraper?”
“Police won’t comment on details.”
“This one will,” Doonie said. “It’s the fuckin’ Art Critic.”
Husak muted the TV. “Probably.”
“Got my vote,” young Agent Rarey cheerfully declared.
“Deputy Chief Langan,” Husak prophesied, “is gonna say this resembles the Art Critic’s signature but the penmanship’s shaky.”
Doonie said, “Yeah, but,” and ran the reasons why the outdoor thing and upside down thing made sense.
Husak replied, “Langan will want to hold off until ballistics come back. A match with the weapon that killed Voorsts would nail it.”
“Even if it’s not a match,” Mark said, “the Art Critic’s good for this. He’s thorough enough to not use the same piece twice.”
“I agree,” Rarey chimed in. “And, bottom line, between our taps and your surveillance we know JaneDoe was home when Horowitz took that bullet.”
Mark and Doonie did not grin or trade a look.
“We need to get after the real Art Critic,” Rarey concluded.
“It is possible JaneDoe is the real Art Critic,” Husak said, dutifully, without enthusiasm, “and this was a copycat. I see three ways that could happen: One, Horowitz was killed by a cop who knew the signature. Two, a cop leaked the signature. Three, JaneDoe has a disciple whose mission was to whack Horowitz if JaneDoe ever got busted.”
“All of which I—and, almost as important, my boss—rate crazy improbable,” Rarey said.
“Me too,” Husak glumly admitted.
Mark sympathized. Husak was the one who’d have to advise the thin-skinned Langan it was time to cancel his order to look at nobody but JaneDoe, preventing a hunt for the real perp, a mistake which maybe got Troy Horowitz killed.
“Gentleman,” Husak said, inviting the three of them to leave his office so he could make that touchy call.
Mark, the last one out, took care to shut the door gently.
Rarey asked, “Mind if I hang with you guys while we wait for the verdict?”
“Grab a chair,” Mark said.
Rarey rolled a chair up alongside their desks.
Mark said, “Agent Rarey—”
“Nick,” Rarey insisted.
“Nick, I get the feeling today’s murder doesn’t make you unhappy,” Mark observed, not giving away his own huge lack of unhappiness about it.
“I never liked JaneDoe for this,” Rarey confided.
“So you came over to help stick it to Langan?” Doonie asked.
“Dr. Hillkirk liked JaneDoe just as much as Langan did. So our hotshot profiler screwed the pooch too.”
“A dog show you’re enjoying,” Mark suggested.
A wry grin. “The good doctor is held in—astonishingly—high regard by certain very senior officials.”
“So,” Mark said, “field guys know Hillkirk’s a quack, but he’s a political hire with serious protection.”
“You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.”
Mark grinned. “House Of Cards.”
Rarey nodded. Doonie frowned.
“Most awesome TV show ever,” Rarey told him.
Doonie looked at Mark.
“A British thing, on PBS,” Mark explained.
“Okay,” Doonie sighed, pushing back from his desk. “I gotta piss. You girls talk among yourselves.”
Watching Doon walk away, Rarey guessed, “Sox fan?”
Mark nodded. “How long you been in the Chicago bureau?”
“Eleven months. Best American city I’ve been in.”
“Where you from?”
“Silver Spring. I’m government issue. Dad’s an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Mom’s a lawyer at State.”
Shit. Not only was the kid sharp, he was an insider. Born on the Federal fast track.
Mark asked, “How did your folks take it when you were fourteen and informed them you were going to be a professional skateboarder?”
“Aw c’mon Mark, too easy. White suburban teenager, you knew it hadda be skateboarder or rapper. My actual shameful secret: I do not have the first fucking clue where to look for the Art Critic. You got anything?”
Mark had Dale Phipps. But no way Mark was going to blab to the FBI about the guilt-farter before he briefed Husak.
Mark shook his head. “Back to the grind, see if anything connects Horowitz to the other vics.”
Husak poked his head out of his office and announced, “We’re good. Langan wanted to stall, but Downtown’s not gonna take that PR hit. The C of D’s gonna issue a statement saying the Art Critic did Horowitz and JaneDoe did not. Give her lawyer a heads-up,” Husak instructed Mark, and, turtle-like, retracted his head into his office.
Mark began searching for the lawyer’s phone number.
“Damn,” Rarey sighed.
Something about the way that sounded made Mark look at him.
“Having to go through her lawyer,” Rarey explained. “JaneDoe is a total scorcher. Shame you don’t get to give her the good news, in person,” Rarey said, giving Mark a meaningful look. Slightly threatening and thoroughly pleased.
The way a cop is when he’s just put the hammer down.
JaneDoe did say something. The FBI did have it on tape. The FBI did redact the transcript.
Well, shit, no wonder Rarey was in such a sunny mood. Had Hillkirk with egg on his face, Mark with his nuts in a vise.
That’s a fun day.
Fifty-Two | 2012
The seething troll is in his mobile cave gazing into his digital fire.
The vision conjured by the fire is Grace Natchez, sneering at a guest who’s been ungracious enough to remind Natchez she’d claimed to see a roadmap of a deranged killer’s mind in JaneDoe’s sculptures.
“I never said that!” Natchez snaps. “I just said she made twisted sicko art—and I was only reporting a diagnosis supplied by a reputable—supposedly reputable—criminologist!”
Bullshit, thinks the troll, you make up shit like that every day.
Natchez touches her earpiece. “Finally! The young woman who discovered the victim and took the picture that busted this story wide open is in our Chicago studio!”
The screen fills with a photo of dead Troy Horowitz accessorized with a miniature Hancock Building.
The troll is conflicted. His work is on worldwide display. But it’s his worst, heh. His one sloppy job, and that’s the only one the world sees.
But it does mean his plan is working.
“And now, Dottie Lang and her brave canine companion Maxx in an exclusive interview!”
The troll has already seen the skinny skank and her furry rat on every channel. He lowers the volume. Takes a swig of Balvenie. Assesses the battleground:
The cops don’t worry him. But Gianni Snake-Eyes and Lou The MBA Boy, by now they must’ve… Fuck those cocksuckers. He’s been ten steps ahead of their sorry asses this whole—
“HEH!” the troll shouts, and slaps his forehead, as the thunderbolt strikes.
His work is done! He can head for Brazil… Fuck! He was so lasered in on getting to that JaneDoe bitch he forgot how to count to fucking three. He hadda whack three artists to convince the cops he was a serial killer, heh? So now it’s time to pack his fuckin’ b—
The back end of the thunderbolt hits. Physically. A punch in the gut that makes the troll grunt and wrap his arms across his belly, fists clenched:
He didn’t plant the note on Horowitz!
The psycho note that says he’s going to Europe to kill a big-time artist, which would fuck the Mastrizzis’ huge last score! Which was the whole fucking point of this whole fucking thing, but the troll’s had such a hard-on about pinning that note
on JaneDoe it never occurred to his dumb ass, leave the note on Horowitz and it’s game fuckin’ over.
Shit… No choice now but to hang in here and finish JaneDoe.
And that thought has a strangely calming effect. Fuck it, spilt milk. Because, haveta admit, he’s goddamn fine with the fact his date with JaneDoe is still on… Heh… Maybe his mind didn’t actually forget the note, his mind kept itself from remembering the note because this was the way it hadda be…
The troll’s musings are interrupted by the muffled sound of Grace Natchez braying about Breaking News!
The troll turns up the volume: The police say the Horowitz murder is an Art Critic killing. And JanefuckingDoe is no longer a person of interest.
The troll grins. JaneDoe’s surveillance team is history.
The show cuts to a live feed outside JaneDoe’s building.
Fuck! The goddamn camera crews are back. A reporter informs Natchez that JaneDoe’s lawyer just entered her apartment, and before going in he made a statement that he’d be making a statement after conferring with his client.
“Is JaneDoe going to face the media?!” Natchez demands.
“Her attorney said he’d be issuing the statement.”
“I thought so!” Natchez crows. “Well if JaneDoe wants to prove she isn’t more than a little off, she has to appear, she will appear, herself, in person! Soon!”
The troll hopes to fucking Christ the horse-face old whack-job’s prediction comes true. Sooner JaneDoe throws meat to the jackals, sooner they leave her be.
And then he goes at her, fast. Has to get to her before the Mastrizzis get to him… Heh. An inspiration hits, shouldering aside concerns about the Mastrizzis.
The troll decides, if there’s time, he’ll get two more miniature Cubs bats. He’ll put one in her mouth, one in her cunt and one up her ass.
His grand finale, pizza resistance or whatever the fuck they call it.
Fifty-Three | 2012
Mark slid Nick Rarey’s business card into his pocket.
Rarey, on his way out, issued an upbeat “See ya” to Doonie, who was returning from the john.
“Friendly kid,” Doonie said to Mark. “Thought he’d never leave.”
“We all have to get busy. Downtown is about to issue an official ’Oops’.”
Mark phoned JaneDoe’s attorney and alerted him to the upcoming Oops, then he and Doonie went to brief Husak on Dale Phipps.
• • •
“Good,” Husak growled, relieved to be back doing something that had the possibility of being useful. “Even if you don’t find anything to squeeze Phipps with, go at him again soon.”
“And can we check out that list of fat white art aficionados?” Mark asked.
“Work your case the way you see it.”
“Awesome.”
• • •
Mark removed JaneDoe’s photo from the murder board. He assigned the overweight aficionados list to Kimbrough. He ordered the POD unit to scan for a large fat white male near all three crime scenes at the times of the murders.
Doonie took Dale’s financials.
Mark took Dale’s phones. Mark was multi-tasking; his eyes scrolled through Dale’s calls while his mind scrolled through the implications of Rarey’s business card. On it was a handwritten phone number Rarey “asked” Mark to call when he got off work tonight. No matter how late.
What did the FBI want? He couldn’t give them much on this case they weren’t already getting in task force updates. They must be looking for a heftier payoff—deploying him as a snitch on one of their eternal probes of Chicago pols, Chicago cops, Chicago businesses, Chicago unions, Chicago trees and squirrels—
Mark got a hit off Dale’s phone records: in 2005, when Dale’s gallery was going under, he traded calls with one Thomas Tesca, who was in the system. A booking photo from 1995 showed a thick-featured, scowling young thug busted for misdemeanor assault allegedly connected to loan sharking; case got kicked when the vic refused to testify.
So, Dale made the classic drowning businessman mistake of asking a shark for a lifeline. Good place to start when Mark and Doonie question Dale—
“Hey,” Doonie, said, directing Mark’s attention to a TV on the wall.
Live news: JaneDoe’s attorney reading a statement in front of her building.
JaneDoe. Mark had to talk to her, soon. But the FBI bugs would, you bet, remain hot until the Feds could get into her place and remove them. Mark didn’t want to be overheard talking to JaneDoe until he found out the quality of the cards the FBI were holding. They might be bluffing; no point handing them confirmation of something they suspected but couldn’t prove.
Mark had to contact JaneDoe when she was outside her loft, and without using a phone or email. He had an idea how.
Mark’s phone rang. “Bergman.”
“Hsu. Canvas turned up a fat man sighting.”
“How good a look?”
“Not very. The walkway where Horowitz died goes through to the next block. A local had just parked his car and turned off the engine, when he sees a huge dude—white, wearing a black coat and watch cap—come out of the walkway. The witness wasn’t up for meeting this ape who lurks between buildings at two A.M., so he sat real still in his dark car and didn’t get out till the ape went around the corner.”
“No description of the face?”
“Nothing. The big guy moved fast, walked away with his back to our witness.”
“Our witness got a glimpse of the face when the fat man came out of the walkway,” Mark insisted. “Bring him in, put him with mug shots, a sketch artist, a hypnotist and a bartender, turn him upside down and shake him till some details fall out.”
Fifty-Four | 2012
“What a fucking miserable morning,” Dale lamented.
“You abuse my hospitality, Dale. Lately you visit only when you’re overwrought. An affliction for which I’ve repeatedly prescribed opium, which advice you’ve repeatedly ignored,” Dorian sniffed.
“Being blitzed and immobile is not my best option for surviving this.”
“Perhaps you over-value survival.”
“Perhaps, but I’m in no rush to find out. Please, Dor.”
“Very well. Whine on.”
“This fucking miserable morning started out fucking great, with me crushing Jay Branko. But that was a karmic trick, to set up my crash when detectives showed up—asking about Laurie Desh, and how I started my new business!”
“I assume you dazzled them with your wit.”
“More like alerted them with my flatulence. But they left in a hurry. Why? Because dumb-shit Tommy whacked Troy Horowitz!”
“Is that inconvenient?”
“Yes! Now the cops realize JaneDoe isn’t The Art Critic. And they promised they’d be seeing me again… But none of that is close to being the most fucking miserable thing. That would be this decision I need to make, fast: Do I tell Lou about my visit from the cops?!?!”
“So decide.”
“Easy for you to say. Look, if Lou ever finds out I kept it secret… But if I do tell Lou the cops questioned me, that makes me an instant liability.”
“Obviously. Which dictates the obvious decision: Keeping it secret is your best chance they’ll refrain from slaughtering you until the project is comple—”
Dale’s burner phone rang. Lou. Dale told Lou, “I need a minute,” apologized to the nice lady security guard for having forgotten to turn off his phone, and hustled out to a stairwell where he could talk.
• • •
Dale got into Lou’s Maserati.
“We have a lead,” Lou said, and started driving.
“Can you say what it is?”
“My hacker didn’t find a vehicle registered to ’Jonathan Davis’ at the Indiana DMV, so he looked at bordering states. Jonathan bought a year-old SUV in Iowa but never registered it in Indiana. Been driving it on the Iowa temp slip.”
“So if we tracked him to Indiana, we’d come up dry looking for his ve
hicle,” Dale said. “Shrewd.”
“Not enough. My PI talked to the used car dealer. Jonathan made sure the SUV had a trailer hitch.”
“He’s in a trailer park. We got him.”
“We’ve got a couple of hundred trailer parks in the tri-county area. We’re working outward from downtown. No hits yet. But we’ve got a black 2011 Suburban, tinted windows, trailer hitch, no plates and a driver the size of a baby whale.”
“Thanks for driving into town to let me know.”
“I’m here about Branko. How’d it go this morning?”
Dale’s turn to deliver good news: “Jay huffed and puffed, but came to Jesus.”
“He hasn’t called you since the news broke about Horowitz?”
“Not a peep.”
Lou gave Dale a sage nod. “Well done.”
Dale gave a modest duck of the head.
“But with Tesca staging this new hit,” Lou continued, “I know Jay’s bouncing off the walls. So you let him know we’ve got a lead and we’re closing in.”
“I give him any details?”
“Just the basics: ’Lou knows the car Tommy’s driving and has an idea where he’s holing up.’“
“Got it.” Yeah. Long as Lou kept freezing Jay out, communicating only through Dale, Jay would know he was still on thin ice. He’d stay scared and careful.
• • •
Lou dropped Dale off on Lower Michigan Avenue, a short walk from Branko’s office.
Dale watched the Mazz drive out of sight. He hadn’t told Lou the bad news: The cops had been to see him.
I followed your expert advice, Dorian.
Dale thought he heard something that might have been a distant snicker.
Dale pulled out his burner, called Branko and informed him he was on his way over with good news.
Branko snarled Yeah and hung up.
Dale snorted, amused. Compared to Tesca, the cops and the Mastrizzis, Jay Branko was about as threatening as a Renoir pastel.
Fifty-Five | 2012
Dale didn’t sit. Walked into Jay Branko’s office, delivered Lou’s message and left.
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