But.
Tonight would not end with Mark in her bed. Or even on her phone.
Thank god Lila was here.
Eighty-Three | 2012
JaneDoe slid into the passenger seat of Lila’s Volvo station wagon. The valet wished the ladies an especially sincere “Safe ride home” as he closed the door.
“Don’t worry,” Lila told JaneDoe, “I’m not as drunk as you look.”
JaneDoe squeezed Lila’s hand. “Thank you.”
Lila gave a dismissive shrug.
JaneDoe said, “Nightcap at my place, so we can talk.”
Lila gave her a sympathetic little grin.
Sympathetic but—equivocal, JaneDoe thought. Like, wary. Like Lila’s concerned I’m crashing off my pagan-pure exultation and about to crumble into loony little pieces. Not gonna happen, Lila, I’m fine, just need to fire up a joint and talk about Mark for a few hours. In fact it’s gonna amuse the shit out of you when you hear what’s been going on with me and Detective Bergman.
They pulled out of the parking lot. Lila turned right and headed north.
JaneDoe grinned. “You sure you’re not as drunk as I look? My place is the other way.”
“We’re going to my place.”
“But I’ve got Humboldt Train Wreck.”
“Yeah but we can’t talk at your pl—I mean, don’t worry, I’ve got plenty—”
“We can’t talk at my place? Why?”
Lila hesitated. “I’ll explain when we get—”
“Now. Right. Now.”
Lila pulled to the curb. Took the kind of slow deep breath people do right before diving off the high board.
“I would’ve called you today and offered to help in any case. But, also… I saw Mark last night. He wants to see you.”
“Then why doesn’t he just call me? If he’s worried about his phone records, he can use a pay…” The realization gave her guts a playful squeeze. “Shit my phones are tapped those goddamn fucking pigs.”
“Not cop pigs, FBI pigs.”
“Well then.”
“Aaaand, so is your computer. And they’ve been reading your mail.”
“Wha—Fuck!”
“Also… your apartment’s bugged.”
JaneDoe turned white, turned red and loosed a volley of screams and sobs and punched the dashboard, again, and again again again, until she stopped to use her sleeve to wipe away tears and snot.
Lila handed her a wad of tissues. “Mark says—”
“I’ve been fucking raped. They’ve been in my home, spying on every single…” She pounded the dashboard some more.
“He said the FBI is going to remove all the b—”
“I can’t stay there tonight.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Can’t stay there till I’ve had the place disinfected with a fucking blowtorch.”
Lila squeezed JaneDoe’s arm. “Mi casa is su casa long as you want, sweetie.”
They hugged. Lila’s hug was maternal. JaneDoe’s was distracted. Too many emotions slam-dancing inside her.
They drove in silence. The buildings lining the streets seemed to JaneDoe like the walls of a World War One trench, and the Volvo was this tiny wretched creature scuttling along the cold muddy bottom.
“He should’ve warned me,” she whispered to the trench, and Lila, and herself, and him.
Eighty-Four | 2006
Two fucking hours parked down the block from One Sixty Blue, MJ’s fancy fuckin’ restaurant, like MJ ain’t phat enough, heh, the eight-figure salary he useta get, and the eight-figure endorsements, that schmeiss Nike sends MJ every time some kid gets mugged for his Air Jordans and cries till Mommy buys him a new pair.
The goddamn Volvo finally pulled out of the restaurant lot.
Hope MJ cooked you a great supper, hon, ’cause it’s your last.
He put the Suburban in gear and followed—
Crap!—the Volvo suddenly pulled over.
There was no place to park behind them, he had to drive past.
He parked on the next block. Cut his lights. Watched in his rear-view.
They didn’t get out of the Volvo. Just sat there, lights on, engine running.
Had they made him?
The Volvo started driving again.
• • •
Bucktown. The Volvo went up a driveway alongside an old-fashioned three-flat.
Tommy got lucky. There was a spot to park right across from it.
JaneDoe and the big beatnik broad came walking up the driveway and went in the front door. Minute later the lights went on in the top floor apartment.
Tommy went and looked at the front door. It had an old-fashioned intercom—there was no mirror, kind that hides a TV camera. The name on the third floor was Lila Kasey.
Tommy got back in his truck. Waited another couple hours. The lights in the apartment were still on.
The news on the radio, as it had been all day, was still in fucking heat about the shit went down at the Art Institute. Somebody tried to whack Dale. And planned to pin it on Tommy. And the cop who waxed the shooter was working the Art Critic murders.
Heh? Couldn’t figure what the fuck that might be about. But it couldn’t be good.
Tommy had to get this fuckin’ shit over with, go be a fat happy ghost in Brazil.
Screwed a silencer onto a .40-cal Sig Sauer.
Tough luck, Lila Kasey. And anybody the fuck else was dumb enough to be up there with JaneDoe.
Eighty-Five | 2012
“How is it we release that face to the media,” Nick Rarey wondered, gazing at the umpteenth broadcast of Dale Phipps’ unique epidermal plaguescape, “and nobody spots him?”
“He’s indoors or wearing a burka,” Mark said.
“Or a mummy costume,” the wunderkind theorized. He was seated directly across from Mark, at Doonie’s desk.
Mark had blackmailed Doonie into leaving when he noticed blood on the back of Doonie’s shirt; Doonie’s stitched-up cuts were oozing. Mark ordered a uni to drive Doon home.
Doonie protested that a little leakage was normal.
“Don’t make me call Phyl,” Mark warned.
“Fuckin’ snitch,” Doon groused. But he went, rather than let his wife come down and drag him off in front of the whole delighted squad.
In the hours since—it was after 11 P.M.—no leads had developed on Dale, or the Serbian wheelman, or—
Kimbrough whooped. Everyone stared at Kimmie staring at her computer. She’d been working the phones, calling every number in Dale’s records. She said, “I may be looking at the Art Critic.”
Mark led the stampede to Kimbrough’s desk.
“Plowed my way back to 2005, saw this loan shark Phipps kept calling—”
“Tesca,” Mark said. Crap! After the shoot-out he’d totally blanked on—
“Thomas ’Tommy’ Tesca,” Kimbrough nodded. “But back when you saw his sheet, we didn’t have this.”
Kimmie’s screen showed the sketch of the hefty guy with the broad nose who probably shot Horowitz, next to Tesca’s mug shot.
The guy in the booking photo was twenty years younger and slimmer than the guy in the sketch. But—
Mark ran Tesca: No current address or phone. DMV said Tesca sold his Cadillac last year, currently had no vehicle registered in Illinois.
Mark put out an APB, and told Gang Crimes he needed a full-court press on all things Tommy Tesca.
Rarey searched FBI’s confidential Mob database. Not a nibble; Tesca wasn’t enough of a player to make it onto the radar.
A long half-hour later Mark got a call from Ed Nardelli, the senior Outfit genealogist at Gang Crimes. Nardelli was home but he’d been in touch with his CIs.
“Nobody’s seen Tesca for over a year,” Nardelli reported. “Rumor was maybe he pissed off Gianni Mastrizzi. Tesca’s a cousin, but wasn’t a made guy; word is the Old Man never had much use for him. And here’s the good part—”
Mark didn’t interrupt to say tha
t the name Mastrizzi was already a good part—
“—last few weeks Mastrizzi soldiers have been lookin’ for Tommy.”
“Shi-i-t.”
“You’re welcome. What’s Tesca got to do with the Art Critic?”
“Maybe everything. Keep that to yourself and keep digging. Anything Tesca’s been up to since 2005, and any fucking thing about him and the Mastrizzis. “
“Gianni Mastrizzi and dead artists,” Nardelli chuckled. “I am all over it.”
As Mark hung up, Rarey, seated at Doonie’s computer, announced, “Indianapolis! Ten months ago a court granted Thomas Tesca a name change. He is now Jonathan Davis.”
“Current address?”
“A commercial mailbox. What’d you just hear that made you so happy?”
Mark gestured for Rarey to wait while he issued an amended APB for Tommy Tesca aka Jonathan Davis.
Mark motioned Rarey to follow him into Husak’s office, where Mark updated them. When Mark got to Mastrizzi, Rarey let out a small pleased groan. Serial killers are nice, but for the FBI, bringing down a Capone-sized mob boss is a re-enactment of the First Crusade.
“Has to be something there,” Husak agreed, “the Critic’s shell companies named Gianlou and Lougian, and Tesca being their cousin—”
“A black sheep cousin, who’s trying to frame them,” Rarey cut in. “And if they’re after him it means they know what he’s up to, they know about the art scam. Please let it be because they’re in on it.”
“Tesca can tell us—and so can Phipps, if we get to them before the Mastrizzis do,” Mark said. “Though I don’t think it was a mob hit on Dale today—no way Mastrizzi hires those kamikaze Serbs.”
“Then who did?” Rarey wondered.
Husak shrugged.
Mark’s cell rang.
Janet Claudel, art crimes. “I’ve got something amazing,” she crowed.
“Good, what?”
“Just heard back from one of the last galleries on my list—three months ago they sold two pieces to Lougian LLC. Which were shipped to a Swiss—”
“Which gallery what artist!?!?”
“Marla Kretz, and—not gonna believe this—the artist was JaneDoe. I mean what are the odds—”
But Mark had already hung up, barked “JaneDoe is his next target!” at Husak, who grabbed a phone and ordered units to her place, as Mark called JaneDoe’s cell. It went to voicemail.
“This is Detective Bergman. If you’re home do not let anyone in until police officers arrive. They’re on their way, this is serious, no fucking around. If you hear this message, call me right now.”
Mark tried JaneDoe’s landline; nothing.
He told Rarey, “Call Potinkin, ask if he knows where she went when she left the TV station.”
Mark called Lila Kasey’s phone. Got voicemail. Left a message that he needed to contact JaneDoe right now, she was in danger.
Mark called the burner he’d given Lila. That went to voicemail too.
Mark emailed and texted JaneDoe and Lila.
Husak yelled, “JaneDoe’s not home!”
Mark’s phone rang. “Bergman!”
An excited POD tech. “Got a hit on the Suburban—1400 block of West Randolph, turning north onto Ogden.”
“When?”
“Couple of hours ago, 9:28 P.M.. We’re running Ogden footage, see if we can track—”
“Mark!” Rarey interrupted.
“What?”
“Potinkin had dinner with JaneDoe at One Sixty Blue—”
“Shit!” One Sixty Blue was at Randolph and Ogden—
“—and she left with her friend Lila, about 9:30. Lila’s car.”
Mark checked Lila’s address, ordered the nearest units to converge, told Husak, “The Critic’s Suburban was following JaneDoe and Lila Kasey when they left dinner—Kasey lives in Bucktown—scramble a goddamn chopper,” and ran out the door, with young Rarey matching Mark step for step while also phoning his superiors.
Eighty-Six | 2012
The women were ensconced in opposite corners of Lila’s museum-quality Deco couch, where JaneDoe settled when she was able to stop pacing and ranting.
“Janey, it’s after eleven, can I at least check my mes—”
“Nope,” JaneDoe insisted, “the phones stay off, the computer stays off, and Detective Bergman can just… wonder.”
“So will all the other people whose messages I’m not returning,” Lila pointed out, and refilled JaneDoe’s glass.
JaneDoe shrugged, unmoved by the collateral damage. After hours of drinking, smoking and venting she remained awake, enraged, and adamant about maintaining the digital blackout she’d decreed the moment they walked into Lila’s apartment.
“Sweetie,” Lila pleaded, “if I could just—”
“No!… Sorry,” JaneDoe sighed. “I’m being a bitch, but tonight I need to be.”
“Nah, you’re just worried that if—when—Mark calls, you’ll grab the phone out of my hand and start screaming at him.”
“No, I’m looking forward to screaming at him. But not till I decide exactly what about. There’s so much to choose from.”
“So don’t choose. Scream all of it.” Lila offered the burner phone to JaneDoe.
JaneDoe stared at the burner as if she expected it to sprout fangs at one end and rattles at the other. She said, quietly, “Four years ago, when Mark and I ended it, it was on the phone—well, Mark wanted to do it in person, but I blew him off. No big deal. Just another man done gone…” She re-lit a roach, took a deep toke. “Then… He goes to California, gets shot and doesn’t wake up for a week… Shit, Lila, I was useless, sick to my stomach that whole week.”
“Love.”
“Up the ass,” JaneDoe agreed. “And, and, while Mark’s out there recuperating, I help close this hit-and-run he and Doonie were working. But when Mark gets home he’s got this California girl in his suitcase, and all I get from him is this one quick thank-you call.” JaneDoe glared at the burner. “Fucking phone. Four years later it rings again, but the reason he’s calling is I’m a witness in a murder investigation, and then fuck me I’m the suspect, and the fucking FBI is bugging my home, phones, email, my whole fucking life, and Mark doesn’t even try to fucking warn me.”
“How? You weren’t setting foot outside your bugged house.”
“He could’ve written it down and had you bring it to me.”
“At which point you would’ve remained calm and silent?”
“Fucking yeah! And then, then I would’ve known not to go and… Lila, I told Potinkin, out loud, about me and Mark. So the FBI, and maybe Mark’s bosses, know…”
“Mark won’t blame you for that.”
“He better fucking not, it’s his fault!… He-should-have-fuck-ing-warned-me!”
“Tell him that,” Lila said, tossing the burner to JaneDoe.
Reflex reaction: JaneDoe caught it.
“Number One on the speed dial,” Lila murmured.
JaneDoe eyed the burner, still not convinced it wasn’t a dormant form of rattlesnake.
She decided to risk it. Turned the phone on. It woke, sang its Hello tune. No fangs.
JaneDoe aimed her index finger at the 1—
Lila’s landline rang—a phone connected only to the downstairs intercom.
JaneDoe froze.
Lila relaxed into a stoned beneficent Cheshire grin. “Wonder who that is.”
“Son of a bitch,” JaneDoe whispered, and plunked the burner down.
Lila reached over to the side table to pick up the intercom phone—
“Don’t answer it,” JaneDoe demanded.
“He needs to know we’re okay.”
“Don’t buzz him in.”
Lila put the receiver to her ear and said, “Hello?… Hello?” Her Cheshire grin faded. “Hello? Who’s there?” She shrugged at JaneDoe. Gave it one last, “Hello?” Hung up. “Some punk,” Lila theorized.
“Named Bergman.”
“He drove over here to
ring my doorbell and run?”
There was a screech of tires from the street.
“There he goes,” JaneDoe crooned.
“Couldn’ta been Mark,” Lila insisted. She went to the bay window overlooking the street. Peered down, trying to see up the block. “Gone, whoever it was.”
“Mark. Rang your doorbell, then got a police alert about a cat up a tree. Zoom, bye-bye… And that,” JaneDoe declared, her voice thick with prophesy, “is what it’d always be. Life with an addict. The badge, the gun, the rush.”
“He’s a lot more than that. And thirty-five, and lonely.”
“Yeah, typical junkie.”
The women stared at each other across the room, and… Helicopter rotors. Far off but coming fast. Then a police siren. Then more sirens, a baying pack headed this way, until their howls were drowned by the thudda-thud roar of a chopper settling into a window-rattling hover directly overhead, and a harsh white light blasted the street in front of Lila’s house—
She looked out the window. The spotlight was nailed to a black SUV parked directly across from her front door—
Patrol cars hurtled in from both ends of the one-way street and screeched to a halt. Three cops threw their car doors open and crouched behind them, guns leveled at the SUV. A fourth cop ran to Lila’s front door and rang-rang-rang-rang-rang her intercom.
JaneDoe, who was closest to the intercom phone, made no move to pick it up.
The cop below began pounding the door and bellowing, “POLICE! POLICE OPEN UP!”
Lila looked at JaneDoe and issued a seriously impressed, “Holy crap.”
“Yeah… How’m I gonna compete with that?” JaneDoe dared her wise old friend to explain.
Eighty-Seven | 2012
Mark didn’t splatter the boozy jaywalker on Belmont or ram the bus on California. Missed both with millimeters to spare.
Nick Rarey said nothing. Thoroughly enjoying the high-speed siren-and-sparklers ride. But when Mark laced between stopped cars and fishtailed into a left turn against a red light onto Milwaukee, where vehicles were still moving, Rarey was moved to comment.
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