Lies in High Places

by Dana Killion

  Michael stood at the terrace doors, observing the view of the Hancock Building and giving me a moment to admire how the cut of his navy linen blazer showed off his strong shoulders and trim waist. He turned as I approached and gave me a smile that I felt in the pit of my stomach.

  “Sorry I’m a little late.”

  As I got closer, his smile morphed into concern. His eyes drilled into me as he lifted the hair off my forehead to get a look at the damage.

  “I guess the ten minutes I just spent putting on war paint didn’t hide the evidence.”

  “Makeup isn’t going to cover up a goose egg that size. What happened?”

  “Why don’t we talk about it over a glass of wine?”

  I didn’t give him a chance to respond and moved toward the kitchen “Hope you’re okay with Rosé. My wine list is short right now. But I have a lovely Whispering Angel.” I tipped my head toward the kitchen mess as I opened a bottle and poured. Handing him a glass, I sloshed a little over the side.

  Michael rescued both glasses from my hands, lifted an eyebrow, and nodded toward the living room. I dutifully traipsed over to the safety of upholstered furniture.

  We sat silently, getting the first sip of wine under our belts, while Michael grilled me with his eyes.

  “Stop stalling. You were all in one-piece yesterday. What happened?” He leaned over, took my chin in his hand, and gently turned my head to get a better look.

  “This was a warning shot,” I said, matching the intensity of his gaze. Any need to couch my words to Michael had evaporated in that alley. Like it or not, he was going to hear straight out what I believed to be true.

  “A warning?” he asked. “That phone call you got was a warning. This is assault. Talk to me.”

  “I stopped at Link-Media for a few minutes early this evening. When I returned to my car, which was parked in the back alley, a man attacked me from behind. This,” I motioned to my face, “is where I made contact with the brick wall he shoved me into.”

  “You parked in the alley?” he said, as if this were some stupid blunder on my part.

  “He wasn’t there to mug me, Michael.” I could hear the irritation in my voice. “I know it was stupid.’ I sighed and changed my tone. Michael was right. “He followed me. I first noticed his car on Lake Shore Drive. He followed me off the exit at Randolph. He may have followed me all the way from my garage. I don’t know.”

  Michael said nothing, his jaw tightening as he digested my words. His fingers wrapped the bowl of the wine glass so firmly I thought it might shatter.

  “He followed me to deliver a message. He shoved me into a wall and told me to stay out of Englewood. To stop asking questions about things that were none of my business.” I paused. “To stop talking to cops.”

  I could see the comprehension dawn on his face. Gone was the relaxed laugh, the smile teasing at the edge of his mouth, the playful banter. In its place were impenetrable determination and anger.

  As I waited for the interrogation I knew was coming, my phone rang in my bag at my feet.

  “Sorry, I should have turned that off.” I leaned down and switched off the ringer. As I pulled myself back up, Michael reached over and touched the edge of the wrap neckline of my top, holding back the cotton jersey that had gapped when I moved, exposing my scraped chest.

  “Did he do this too?” he asked, his voice tight, as if struggling to control his tone.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “He pulled aside my clothing.” As I said the words, I could again feel the brick against my flesh, his body pinned against mine, the terror as his hand clamped down. My breath caught in my throat, and I wrapped my hands over my knees to control the trembling as the emotions rocked me again.

  Michael watched. His eyes now hard and black as they washed over my abraded skin.

  “Is there more?”

  Our gazes locked, and I nodded. “Bruising from his hand.”

  “What does he look like?” His voice was frigid, frightening me with his tone and the anger behind it.

  “I never saw his face,” I said. “He’s Caucasian, muscular. Someone who works out a lot. I’d guess about five ten or five eleven. Tattoo on his right forearm. Elaborate. Colorful. Possibly military. It had a globe, an eagle, an anchor, and the words ‘Get Some.’”

  “‘Get Some.’ You’re sure?” I nodded. Michael knocked back the balance of his wine, jumped to his feet, and bolted toward the door. “Lock up behind me. I’ll be back in an hour, maybe two.”

  “Wait. Where are you going?” I rushed after him, confusion racing through me. “The shooting. We have to talk about what happened. I thought you…”

  “I have to see Janek.” He raised a hand to my cheek, caressing my skin. “I’m going to fix this.”

  “Michael,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “How did he know I had talked to the cops?”

  36

  I paced the length of my living room like a caged panther, weaving around plastic-sheeted furniture and boxes of tile as if they were rocks in my path. Did Michael seriously think running off without a word of explanation was going to work for me? Did he expect me to sit here like some quivering mess of femininity waiting for him to fix everything?

  My description of the attacker’s tattoo had rung a bell, and I could only imagine that Michael was tracking him down as I sat here alone in my protective tower. Running off to defend my honor in some macho moment of male bravado wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Hell, I wanted the guy brought in, too—to find out who hired him. Whoever had attacked me was simply the help. Guys in this league didn’t get their own hands dirty. The prosecutor in me deserved to be part of the interrogation. And the lump on my forehead was my admission ticket.

  I punched in a call to Michael, getting nothing on the other end beyond a recording. Damn it. Sorry, Michael, damsel in distress wasn’t part of my repertoire. Think. What was the endgame? Big. Secret. Profit worth killing for. Ideas shot like pinballs in my mind, but nothing seemed to fit the bill. It was the scale of it all that was the key. The financial upside had to be astronomical.

  Wine wasn’t going to keep my head clear. I opened a bottle of water and stood staring at the notes still laid out on the dining table. Okay, so assuming that I was right about Langston, Ramirez, and Mankoff, they needed others to pull this off. Other financial players, connections to grease the wheels. If it took a village to raise a child, then it took a major city to pull this off. A city? A vague memory tugged at the back of my mind. Platt? What had Borkowski said about Platt? Nothing happens in this city he doesn’t know about.

  I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs to hail a cab.

  Lights were still on in the Link-Media office when I arrived. I inserted my key and crossed my fingers. Click.

  Borkowski, the lone employee still in the office at this hour, turned at the sound, a blank look on his face as he gaped at me over his glasses. I nodded, walked over to the side of his desk, and pulled up a chair.

  “If you’re hoping I have more dirt on your ex, you’ve wasted a trip.” His expression didn’t change, but his tone lacked the edge I’d come to expect as his eyes gravitated to my face. Given our earlier conversation, was I hearing sympathy or self-preservation?

  “You seem unusually accident prone.” He nodded at my head. “Might want to consider adjusting some of your lifestyle choices—and a new insurance policy while you’re at it.”

  “What’s your connection to Nelson Ramirez?” I blurted out, needing to see his face as he responded. It wasn’t the most sophisticated of tactics, but I was out of time and patience.

  “What? You barge in here to ask me that?” His brow crinkled in confusion.

  “I know you have a personal relationship with Ramirez. That you’ve, shall we say, done him favors in the past. I know the two of you had dinner recently, along with Anthony Langston and Matt Dubicki. So what exactly is the nature of your relationship with Ramirez?”

 
; He scowled and turned his head away from me.

  “The answer isn’t on that wall, Art. Talk to me.”

  He huffed but turned back.

  “Me and Ramirez go way back. High school days, before we ever had an inkling of how our lives would play out. We’re still neighbors.” He sighed. “About ten years ago, he helped my kid out of a jam. A big one.”

  “What kind of jam?”

  Borkowski pinched the bridge of his nose and scrunched his eyes tight before continuing. “I guess I don’t have anything more to protect. My son had a drug problem. One night I laid into him about it for the umpteenth time and he bolted. Got in his car and left, loaded up on Oxy. He ran a stop sign four blocks from home. Car coming through the intersection swerves to miss him, hits a tree instead. Driver was killed instantly. David didn’t even know it happened, just kept going.” Borkowski’s voice cracked at the memory.

  “Ramirez saw it all from his living room. Hell, the driver died on his front lawn. A seventy-year-old woman coming home from seeing her grandkids. He knows the car, knows it was David. Comes to my house in the middle of the night and tells me everything. Says he’ll protect David. That he’ll keep it quiet. Lie if he’s asked about what he saw. Whatever it takes to keep my boy safe. Kid was only seventeen. And Ramirez has done that for all these years. So, yes, I’ve done him the occasional favor. Right or wrong, I owed him.”

  “What about your son?” It was all I could manage to say. I had been so prepared to believe Borkowski’s motivations were financial that nothing else had crossed my mind.

  “David never knew. He was in and out of rehab so many times I couldn’t find a way to tell him. That he wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was afraid that it would be the one last thing that sent him over the edge. Didn’t matter. Didn’t change the outcome. He graduated to heroin not long after. Overdosed three years ago.” The pain of countless sleepless nights was etched anew on his face. His body slumped forward, arms resting on his desk as he looked at me.

  “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how difficult that was for you.”

  He nodded. “Is that what you came for?”

  “In part,” I said. “You made a comment last week about Platt knowing everything that happens in Chicago. Did you mean that in a general sense of his job, or was there something behind the comment?”

  Borkowski leaned back his chair, drumming the pencil in his hand against his leg. “What are you asking about? Why are you coming in here now with these questions?”

  “I got the sense that you were alluding to some history or personal connection. That your comment was more than a statement about his role in city government. Was I mistaken?”

  “Doesn’t get much bigger than mayor, does it, now that he’s thrown his hat in the ring?”

  I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees. “You’re not answering my question.”

  “Just trying to figure you out. You come down here after hours, letting yourself in to a business that no longer employs you, asking about my personal life and now an offhanded comment from days ago. What are you up to? Looking for a trash-talk story on the new mayoral candidate? Selling dirt to the tabloids?”

  I felt my back rearing up for a fight, but the agony in Borkowski’s disclosure stopped me.

  “Were you just blowing smoke earlier when you complimented my honesty? Do you think I operate under reality TV rules?” I asked.

  We sat quietly, scoping each other out. But both seemingly ready to test whatever our new relationship was morphing into.

  He tilted his head and tossed the pencil on the desk. “No. I meant what I said. You’re not a game player, which is rare in this industry, and quite frankly, not an asset. But oddly refreshing nonetheless.”

  I nodded a thank you in honor of our silent truce.

  “Platt has a complex history, to say the least,” he said. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five years ago, long before he was on the political stage, he was a newly-minted MBA with a healthy bank account burning a hole in his pocket, courtesy of his father’s estate. He had a big old arrogant chip on his shoulder, even back then. So he hooks up with a buddy from business school, and they set out to rule the real estate world. Only, their first project kills a kid.”

  “What project? What was the business?” Paging back through what I knew of Platt’s resume, nothing but civil service had ever been attached to his name.

  “They built a three-flat, in Logan Square I think. They were playing with this concept of low-cost modular construction. Threw one together to test the waters before they expanded. Platt was the financial side of the duo, and being a numbers geek, it was only about the profit. Vendors were squeezed like turnips. He rode them hard, didn’t care what they had to do to meet the budget or the schedule. Shortcuts. Substitutions. The end result was one of the back porches collapsed.”

  “What happened from there?”

  “A twelve-year-old boy lost his life. Platt pulled in a cavalcade of lawyers. Used smoke and mirrors to shift the blame to faulty fasteners imported from China. Platt and his partner spent a boatload of money on legal fees and settlements to make it all disappear. Paid off everybody to hush it up, complete with heavy-duty nondisclosure clauses. It’s as if it never happened. I only know about it because my brother-in-law was on the construction crew.”

  “And what about their company?”

  “That’s when Platt decided that using his family connections to entertain a career in government made sense. Distanced himself from the whole mess.”

  “What about his partner?”

  “He took a different path. Followed the Chinatown business model. Shut down one company, six months later popped open another with a different name and a slight twist. They both walked away unscathed and eventually even wealthier. Couldn’t have worked out better for them if they had planned it.”

  “What do you mean? How could a business disaster of that scale get washed away?”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why certain companies seem to get all the city contracts? Why all the dough goes to the same people over and over again? Is it logical that no one can ever wins a bid that’s cheaper or faster than the usual suspects?” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to make the connection.

  “So you’re saying it’s cronyism. Platt has steered business to his former partner or helped him undercut the bid, and they’ve both profited from it.”

  “Ding, ding, ding. Give the lovely lady her prize. Now you’re seeing how this works. You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours, and in the process we both get what we want.”

  “Who was his partner?” I asked, dread filling my mind.

  “It’s a name I’m sure you’ll recognize—Ty Mankoff, owner of Mezey Development.”

  “Platt’s involved too,” I said, my mind numb.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The shootings. The highway sniper. Of course, there has to be someone higher up.” Borkowski was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind while I rambled.

  “Kid, you’re not making sense. How is Platt involved? What are you talking about?”

  I told him everything. What I knew, what I suspected, the threats I’d received. When I finished, he took off his glasses and tossed them on his desk.

  “This is going to tear the city apart. Let me help. Let me work Ramirez.”

  I nodded. “Let me run home and get the files so I can bring you up to speed. I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

  “What is the development play?” he asked as I got to my feet. I shook my head.

  “Platt, Langston, Mankoff, Ramirez, Gladwyn, Dubicki. They’re all involved. Wait. Gladwyn.” Something about his background tugged at the back of my mind. There it was. Gaming. Of course!

  “They’re trying to build a casino.”

  37

  A casino. Yes, that had to be it. The first within the city limits. With Platt on board and likely the next mayor, they had the keys to the kingdom. And a casino plan potentially so p
rofitable it negated rational thought. As mayor, Platt could grease the wheels with Springfield for a gaming license. The community fight might be tough, but with the state’s precarious financial position, it was only a matter of time before city limits no longer mattered.

  I kicked off my heels, then went over to open the terrace doors needing a little fresh air and a moment to focus my thoughts. I sat on the chaise for a moment, jotting a quick text to Michael that I’d be at the office. As I hit send, Walter jumped on the dining table sending my neatly organized piles of notes flying. I tossed my phone on the chaise and rushed to mitigate the damage.

  As I began moving documents I wanted to share with Borkowski into my tote bag, a sharp rap on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. Michael must not have gotten my text. As I hurried toward the door, it swung open. Erik poked his head around, immobilizing me where I stood.

  “Hi,” he said. “It was unlocked.”

  “That doesn’t entitle you to walk in unannounced. What are you doing here?” My feet were moving instinctually, wanting to halt his progress, but he was already two steps inside the apartment. There couldn’t be worse timing for another of Erik’s pleading moments.

  He smiled sheepishly as I reached his side, his eyes darting around the room.

  “Not tonight, Erik. I can’t do this now…”

  Owen Platt stepped around the door, and I froze as he shut it behind him. My eyes swung from Platt back to Erik, and unease knotted my stomach.

  “We were over at Spiaggia for dinner. Since you’re just down the street, I thought we’d stop and say hello,” Erik said, his voice wavering.

  I searched his face, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Bullshit. What was the agenda? And whose? He leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek, holding his position longer than he needed to, as if lingering over the scent of my hair.

  “You’ve met Owen, haven’t you?” he said, pulling away.

  “Yes, of course.” I studied Pratt’s face as we shook hands. As usual, his practiced smile was a mask for the ice behind his eyes. His grip was tight, too tight. Tight in the manner of a man who wanted no uncertainty of his power. Questions formed in my mind and fell right out, unasked. What do you say to a man when you know he’s hired a killer?