Giuseppe picked up the narrative. “But there is one group you have to be nominated for and voted into. That is the group of Fight Masters. There aren’t many of us. Twenty-five in all. There were fifteen when Al pulled his Houdini. Being a Fight Master is a pretty big deal.”
“And the Doc here was one of the first. Giuseppe, Joe, I’m sorry I just dropped my shit and jammed. I was fucked up. I was a drunk and was heading to being a bum. I didn’t deserve the respect of my peers because I had lost my self-respect. I’m finding as I do this show that I miss many, many parts of this world. I also know that I’ve crossed into a line of work where I can help more people. I can’t tell you a lot about it, but I help people who need help. I help processes find…balance.”
“The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.”
“And, dear Joe, Che Guevara was right. I’m working as an instrument of change. It’s why we’re here.” He grabbed Edith’s hand. “She’s from another world but she’s in this with me. We think someone is killing actors. We have some ideas about who is on the kill list, but we have no clue who is doing it or why.”
“I know it’s been a rough year for Chicago theatre folks. I’m sure you’ve heard.”
Edith reached into her large purse and handed Al the paperwork they’d gathered. Bud had given them a copy of the picture from the workshop with the names written on the back. Al pulled it out but stopped short of showing Giuseppe. “I’m going to read you some names and you tell me what you’ve heard. All the names I read you are people who have died relatively recently. It might sting.”
“I live here. I know all the shit that goes on from Wisconsin to Indiana. The good, the bad, and the ugly.” It was true. Giuseppe had always had his finger on the pulse of Chicago’s theatre scene.
Al went through them one by one. Giuseppe knew all of the people who and died and had the bare details of each. He thought a couple were funky when he’d heard, but had passed it off as part of his imagination.
When Al got to Odd Bill Ruggers, Giuseppe laughed and said, “That one was no surprise. His ticket should have been punched a long time ago.” He turned to Edith, “Odd Bill Ruggers was the craziest motherfucker I have ever known. Sweet as candy. He was talented, lithe, and physically? Genius. Pure friggin’ genius. I bet he could have stabbed a housefly with a short sword. He was fast. He thought fast, talked fast, moved fast. He had absolutely no fear of heights. I guess that’s why I wasn’t surprised he fell off a roof. They said the edge of the roof, where he’d apparently been sitting, broke off. He fell fourteen stories. I heard he almost grabbed a balcony rail at floor seven. He left two fingernails there.” Edith shuddered.
When Al got to Dave Parcel, Giuseppe’s head dropped. “Al? Can you un-say that please?” He looked up and there were tears brimming in his eyes.
“Sorry, Doc. Drowned in his bathtub.”
“Jesus.” He paused. “Did you get a chance to see that thing? Biggest bathtub I have ever seen. He was a good man. Kind. He always struck me as a little sad. After his accident, when he roached his back, he couldn’t fight anymore. He’d still show up every year. He’d come in with crates of energy drinks, or he’d order enough pizza to feed everyone. He always seemed like he was trying to hit a home run for Jesus. It was like he was looking for that one good deed that could make up for some awful thing in his past.” He paused and composed himself. “Anyone else?”
“Only one. Karen Lane.”
“I knew her, but not well. She only took a few classes, but I choreographed some business for her in a production of Fool for Love about eight years ago. Nice gal. She was an OK actress, too, she just got cursed by not being either fish or foul.”
“What does that mean? Is that a theatre thing?”
Giuseppe laughed. “No. It’s just some idiomatic phrase. I think it actually comes from an old proverb. I cited it in my dissertation. It’s from a collection of proverbs by John Heywood in 1545 or 46 ‘Neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.’ Funny, I can remember that, but I can never remember where my glasses are.” Edith laughed at this.
“Don’t let the good doctor’s charming demeanor fool you. He’s forgotten more about medieval literature than you and I will ever know.”
“Anyway, dear, it just means she wasn’t quite all the way anything. She was pretty, but plain in a way. She was a little sexy, but had a thick torso. She wasn’t funny looking enough to be a real character type, like Lucy’s friend Ethyl from I Love Lucy. She could act pretty well, and dance OK, and carry a tune in a bucket, but she’d never be as good as she deserved to be.”
Al knew Giuseppe was a kind-hearted man, but had never really understood the depths of his caring until tonight. It made him feel even more like a shit for not staying in touch.
“So that’s all the names on the hit parade.”
“Hit parade. Very punny, Al.”
“Didn’t mean it like that. So, now I have a picture for you to look at. The names are on the back, but I’d like you to look at the picture.” He pulled out the copy and put it on the blotter in front of the aging doctor. Giuseppe patted both of his breast pockets, looked in his top drawer, then Edith half-stood and gently lowered the reading glasses from the top of his head to the bridge of his nose. They made eye contact and shared a warm smile.
“Oh, my. My, my, my. Yup, I was looking at this picture earlier from my file after you…wait. This isn’t…hold on.” He grabbed the hanging folder from the blotter, opened it and started moving large amounts of paper from one side of the folder to the other. He finally got to a huge stack of pictures. He went through these with great rapidity until he came to a long series of group shots. He thumbed through each one slowly until he came to a picture almost identical to the one that Al had. “Here.” He spun it around and put it next to the one Al had. “We always have a pro come in and take pics. We take group pictures of people who have gotten certified together, and then if a particular group wants to get photographed, they can for a few extra bucks. I keep copies of all of them.”
The picture Giuseppe had pulled out was almost identical to the one Al had brought. The differences were small, but they were there, nonetheless. The frame was larger, meaning there was more space around the group. The quality was better, as well. But the biggest difference was the picture that had been in the hanging envelope had fourteen people in it instead of thirteen. “Well, ain’t that a kick in the head?”
“What? Who’s that guy?” Edith had her finger extended and hovering one quarter of an inch above the smiling face of a young and rakish Marty “Hoover” Mitchell.
“Remember the guy I told you about from the old days that called and offered me this gig?”
“That’s Hoover?”
Giuseppe snorted a little laughter. “I remember that. You used to call him Hoover. He hated that shit. You’d never tell why. Can you tell me now?”
“Without killing you? I think I can make an exception this once. I walked in on him blowing three wealthy investor types in the men’s room late one night. He was gobbling their cranks in hopes of getting enough money to produce his next play.”
“Did it work?” Edith asked.
“Let’s just say I didn’t call him Hoover for nothing. Gotta hand it to him, he always went the extra mile.” They all had a small laugh. It broke the tension more than anything. Giuseppe stood up and went to his mini fridge. He got three waters without asking and gave Al and Edith each a bottle, then sat back down.
“Hey, Doc. Who’s this guy in the background? I assume both pictures were taken relatively close together, but that kid hasn’t moved. He looks like a statue.”
“Let me see.” Giuseppe took a long look, silently looking at the picture while he traversed the years on that strange mechanism, peculiar to Doc, which seemed to remember essential details and discarded the superfluous ones. “Oh.” It was a small noise, a puff of air coming from under a long locked cellar door.
Edith t
ouched Giuseppe’s arm. She had gotten up and was walking slowly around the room. It wasn’t boredom, she’d just been sitting most of the day and her butt was going numb. “Do you remember him?”
“Eric Bannerman. His name was Eric Bannerman.”
“Bannerman. That name rings a bell. I don’t recognize his face, but it’s blurry, even in the professional’s shot.”
“He left the year you got here. You probably missed each other by about six months. You came to us in summer, isn’t that right.”
Al almost chuckled. The man’s mind was truly amazing. “Right again, Doc. I got here at the end of July. It was the first time I’d spent any time in humidity, real humidity. It was about 90 degrees when I pulled into the city in my Buick LeSabre with all my worldly possessions in and on that thing. I think the humidity was around 85%. I just remember I got out of my car here and broke a sweat. I don’t think I ever completely dried off until sometime in September.
“Was he an actor? Did he go to one of the other cities to try his luck?”
Giuseppe was still looking at the photo. “He tried his luck here. Things went bad and he moved on.”
“L.A.? New York? One of the smaller markets?” asked Al. A lot of people that felt out of their depth in Chicago left and went to Portland, Oregon, Dallas, or one of the smaller markets.
“Joliet. He went to Joliet.”
“You mean Joliet Prison?” Edith was dumbstruck.
“Yes. He went to prison.” He turned to Al. “Surely you remember all of the news coverage about the Bannerman case. All of the stuff that went down with M.A.D.D., you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.” Al vaguely remembered a woman yelling at Gill one time for wearing a shirt that said “D.A.M.M.- Drunks Against Mad Mothers” but there was something he was missing.
“Tell us, Doc. It’s on the tip of my brain, but I can remember why.”
“I’ll tell you the short version, at least how I remember it. Bannerman was a kid from Iowa. He’d come out here from some shit-splat little town and was convinced he was going to make it big. He was a tough kid. I studied up on him a bit after the…incident.
“He came here with nothing, worked two jobs, auditioned his ass off, and no one gave him any work, time, or respect. It was that last one that hurt him the most. He just wanted to be treated with respect. He saved his money and paid to participate in the Fifth Annual Big Shoulder Blizzard. It was a mess. From the moment he got here, everyone wanted him gone. He was ‘that guy,’ the one at the workshop that no one wants to talk with, sit with work with. It was sad. We, the teachers and assistants, should have done more to be inclusive with him, but…we didn’t. I was going to say that we didn’t want to be with him either, but that’s an excuse, and one that educators don’t get to use.”
“Poor kid. Did he come here alone?” Edith’s eyes were wide. She was simultaneously feeling sorry for the kid and dreading the punchline of this very un-funny story.
“Yeah. He was on his own. Anyway, these princes and princesses just tormented the shit out of him. I can’t remember what they called him at first, some nickname that didn’t quite fit. Then he got this big pimple on his forehead and they started calling him ‘Cyclopes.’ Pretty soon, everyone was calling him that.
“He hung in. One of the instructors even offered him part of his tuition back if he wanted to quit, but he was dug in like a tick. So the workshop goes by and everyone goes their separate ways. I remember Dirk, this was when he was still Ralph Snider, walking off toward the kid at the end of everything. I remember because Dirk was an asshole and I thought he was gonna do something mean. I wish he would have. Not to speak ill of the dead, but that guy was a shitty human being. Well, Dirk surprised me by walking up next to Eric. He slung his arm around the kid’s neck and said something to him. Eric said ‘Really?’ then they walked out together.
“I didn’t think about it until I was watching the news the next morning. Eric got screaming drunk and drove. He ran through a crosswalk, killing a woman, her little boy, and her unborn baby. Dragged them for a block or so before he wrecked the car. The dad of the family was so grief-stricken, he killed himself. When they questioned Eric, he didn’t have much to say. He said he’d never gotten drunk before. He said he was with some people and they got him drunk. They asked him who, and he wouldn’t say. Said it was just some dudes he met. He finally changed his story and said he was alone.”
“Oh, my God.” Edith looked at the picture. The kid in the picture looked like he was about fourteen. “He’s just a baby.”
“Eighteen years old. An adult. He had no record. He was a clean slate. He drew a judge who had lost a family member to a drunk driving accident. With that, plus the political pressure from the M.A.D.D. organization, the judge threw the book at him.”
“I remember that. I had a car at the time. I used to hang with Gill and some guys.”
“I remember.”
“We used to drink often and abundantly.”
“I remember that, too.”
“Gill had this almost pathological feeling about drinking and driving. I finally sold my car because I was always with Gill, we were always drinking, and mass transit was great here. Plus, I remember people saying things about not wanting to end up like that kid who killed that family.”
“Yep. And that is the story of Eric Bannerman. He should still be in Joliet. He should have about four years left.”
Al checked his watch. It was 10:30 and he had rehearsal in the morning. “Hey, Doc. We gotta split. I have rehearsal in the morning. Can we continue this sometime soon?”
“What do you think the deal is here? Do you really think someone is killing these people off?”
Al explained how they found Karen. “I think the chances are pretty damn good that we have a serial killer who has decided to target this group of fourteen people. They may be going for a different group, but I’d say the odds of that are pretty small. I’m working with a local cop.”
“You’re just a private eye. Why are they even talking to you about this?”
“Two reasons. It’s my theory.”
“And?”
Edith interjected. “Al here is now Special Deputy Marshal Alistair McNair.”
“Shut up.”
Al whipped out his badge. “Please don’t tell anyone. I’m not supposed to use it unless I have to. I got deputized after helping the Marshals with some stuff.”
“I’ll keep mum about it. But before you leave town, you are going to do a few things for me. You have some people to catch up with, apologize to, you have to do a graduate seminar for me, and if you don’t come see Caroline, she’ll kill us both. That’ll be a dinner thing.”
“How will she know I’m in town?”
“Season ticket holders at the Majestic. I’m coming to see you opening night.” He stood and came around the desk. “All bullshit aside, Al, it’s fantastic to see you, I’m glad you are looking into this, and I want to keep in touch with you. Even if you leave Chicago and go back to being Sam Spade.”
“I always fancied myself more of a Phillip Marlowe type.”
“Well, you seem to be dizzy with a dame that’s a real tomata.” They all laughed at this.
Edith came over to Giuseppe, “I hope to see you again soon. You’re sweet. Thank you for the help. We’ll figure this out.”
“Edith, the pleasure was entirely mine. Keep the big guy safe. He has a tendency to leap before he looks.”
“Hey, now. He is standing right here. Here’s my card. Call if you think of anything. If you want, I’ll get you the best seats I can. They’re still treating me like a big shot.”
“I’d appreciate that. I’ll tell Caroline you’ll be by…soon. And bring the dame.”
Al gave him a hug and they walked out. “Whattya think?” She looked at the side of his face. Those cheek muscles were working double time.
“I think I gotta check and see if Mr. Bannerman is still in Joliet. I’d like to see if the woman who was killed has any family
who might be doing this. I also need to come up with a plan, make sure I know my lines, and get some sleep in the interim. Come spend the night with me?”
“No. Come spend the night with me. You’ve seen my place. It’s comfy and maybe a change of venue will do you some good. There’s also room for you to do your Tai Chi in the morning, plus my La Pavoni espresso machine is a joy. I made my ex-husband buy it for me. I figured an $800 espresso machine would pay for itself in the pursuit of a law degree.”
“Let’s swing by my place; then we’ll go back over to yours. I want you to think about something. Put together some pros and cons.”
“OK. Regarding what?”
“Do we angle to get our surviving actors in protective custody, or do we push to keep them on the loose and use them to catch a psycho?”
She stopped walking and looked at him. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. Using them as bait may be the only way to get whoever is doing this. We put these folks in PC, the killer could just stop, pack up, and never come back. Or they could stop, pack up, and finish the job as soon as the police lose interest. Just humor me. Think about it. Pros and cons.”
“When do you want your list?”
“Sleep on it. I’m going to right after I buzz through my lines. You can help me with that if you want.”
She put her arm through his and said, “I’ll help you with the lines. I just want you to know something.”
He stopped and looked at her. “Yeah?”
“This is the weirdest fucking date I have ever been on.”
“Stick with me, baby. Weird is my middle name.” He kissed her tenderly, looking into her eyes and wondering who was in the most danger: the killer, the surviving people on the list, or Special Deputy U.S. Marshal Alistair “Weird” McNair.
Hog Butcher: 2nd Edition Page 26