Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  The music irritated me. When the train reached the Washington Street Station, I was happy to get off.

  By this point, we were underground. I hurried to the exit, then slipped into the shadows, loitering there. I watched the other passengers hurry past me, some of them giving me uneasy glances. I did not meet their gazes. I continued to look past them as if I were waiting for someone. I guess, in a sense, I was.

  Finally the group from my train had gone up the stairs. The next group was disembarking. I waited until they passed before heading up the stairs into the sunlight.

  All Laura had given me was the address of her father’s office. Her father had been dead for eight years, but his corporation lived on. Laura had shares, but her father, believing that a girl could not run a company, made sure she had no real power.

  She still had keys to the building and, as a major stockholder, no one dared ask her to turn them in. I wondered how she would be faring after an afternoon in that building, sifting through old memories and discovering more of her father’s secrets.

  I doubted she’d be happy.

  I’d emerged just south of the Civic Center Plaza. There were a lot more people in the Loop than I would have expected on a weekend. Some were sight-seeing. Others seemed to be on their way to or from work. There were some young people, many of them with their Clean for Gene buttons prominently displayed. And in the middle of the intersection was a policeman, wearing a helmet, a nightstick at his side and a whistle in his hand. Behind him was a motorcycle cop who seemed to be watching everyone who passed with great intensity.

  The massive city-county building, a stone edifice that dominated part of the Loop, looked neglected. The Plaza itself was pretty empty. Very few people were heading north. Most of them were heading toward the shops farther down in the Loop.

  I walked up Dearborn to Randolph. There, at the corner, was a stone building with a rounded front, nearly dwarfed by the skyscraper beside it. In its day, the eight-story building had probably seemed huge. It looked incongruous now, the remnant of a forgotten age.

  I stopped in front of the building and double-checked the address. It was the one Laura had given me. She had never said that it was right across the street from the Civic Center Plaza, in the very heart of Chicago’s downtown.

  Her father, who had worked his way up from a small-time crook to one of the richest men in Chicago, had a lot of balls. Just the location of his offices told me that much.

  I crossed to the east side of Dearborn and reached the building. The bottom two floors were made of cast iron and were a different color from the rest of the building. Shops nestled on the lower floors, their windows dark. Apparently this far north in the Loop, no one believed in catering to Saturday business.

  The entrance was on the Randolph Street side. I went through the iron doors into an atrium that had once been magnificent. Now it was dingy and dark, the Victorian scrollwork covered in almost a century of grime. Still, I felt out of place and uncomfortable. My work—my life—rarely brought me to places like this.

  The office that Laura wanted me to go to was on the seventh floor. The elevators were old and had no attendant. I worked the lever myself, feeling more than slightly disconcerted by the action. I had yet to see a white elevator attendant in Chicago. Most of them were black and elderly and all of them seemed to have had their jobs forever.

  The elevator lurched to a stop on the seventh floor, and for a moment I thought I wouldn’t be able to get the doors open. Then they eased open and I found myself staring at modern office suite, done in pale blues and blond wood, with oddly shaped postmodern furniture, the kind usually displayed in expensive magazines.

  As I exited my elevator, I wished it were newer, so that I could send it up to the top floor. Having it stuck here was like an arrow pointing to us. I checked the other elevators. Two were on the fifth floor and one was on the fourth. The rest waited on the ground floor.

  At least the sign wouldn’t be that obvious.

  Someone had propped the main glass door open. I walked into the empty reception area. The rounded couch matched the blue carpet and looked very uncomfortable. On the oversized blond coffee table rested a pile of magazines and Friday’s newspapers. The reception desk, also blond, had nothing on its surface except a blotter. Behind the desk was a gold sign that clearly predated this remodel: Sturdy Investments, Inc.

  When I had first seen the name of the company, I had thought Sturdy was someone’s last name. But there had never been anyone named Sturdy connected with the business. Laura’s father, Earl Hathaway, had been shrewd. He’d initially called the company Sturdy and Sons Construction and had built it from there. Eventually the “and Sons” got dropped, and all that was left was a name that spoke for reliability and strength.

  The man’s ability to reinvent himself constantly amazed me.

  I turned right, as Laura had instructed me to, and walked down a narrow hallway. Doors flanked me on either side. The end of the hallway opened into a large sitting area filled with plants, more blond furniture and uncomfortable couches, and a glass conference table that filled the center of it.

  Jimmy sat at the far end of the conference table, cards spread before him. He was playing solitaire.

  “You winning?” I asked.

  “Smokey!” He launched himself from the table and wrapped himself around me so hard that I had to take a step backward. I put my arms around him, holding him close. It felt like we’d been separated for weeks, not days.

  Finally I eased him back. I slipped my arm around his shoulder and led him to one of the couches. It was as uncomfortable as it looked.

  “How’re you holding up?” I asked.

  “Today was better,” he said. “We had some goofy lunch-breakfast thing.”

  “Brunch?”

  He nodded. “At this fancy restaurant. She made me dress up for it like we was looking for apartments. And they called me sir and everything.”

  I smiled.

  “You ever have eggs with sauce?”

  “Hollandaise sauce?”

  “I guess.”

  “Once or twice.”

  “It’s weird, but good. Laura says there’s lots of weird but good things in the world.”

  “She’s probably right about that.”

  His animation relieved me where his hug had not. Maybe he would be all right. Or maybe he was animated because I had come back to him.

  “You found the guy?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “You said you couldn’t see us if you didn’t find the guy.”

  “I told you yesterday I’d be here. I spent most of the afternoon making sure I wasn’t followed.”

  “Oh.” Jimmy’s shoulders sagged. “I guess you want to see Laura.”

  “I don’t mind staying with you.”

  “It’s okay.” He slid off the couch. “Come on.”

  He led me across the conference area to an office that overlooked the Plaza. The office was rounded. It had light and warmth, and the décor was different here. There were flowers on the tables, just like there were in Laura’s apartment. I didn’t have to look at the name on the door to realize this was her office.

  Half of the room was filled with comfortable wooden chairs with upholstered seats—and the other half housed a mahogany desk. The windows were to the desk’s right. The placement made the windows the focus of the room, a feature in and of themselves.

  Laura sat behind the desk, her head in her hands. Her lips were pinched, her skin pale. Before her, old files scattered like leaves.

  “Smokey’s here.” Jimmy couldn’t contain the enthusiasm in his voice.

  Laura raised her head. She looked a little dazed and somewhat tired. For a moment, I thought she’d stand and extend her hand as if she didn’t know me at all.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, and that sense of unfamiliarity disappeared.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Learning stuff I didn’t
want to know.” Her voice was husky, but whether she was holding back tears or anger, I couldn’t tell.

  “Laura said she’d get us an apartment.”

  Laura’s lips got even tighter. I glanced at Jimmy. He didn’t seem to notice the tension.

  “Oh?” I had to remain neutral. Jimmy sounded excited about it. Laura seemed strained, and I didn’t know how I felt. I certainly didn’t want anyone’s charity.

  “The corporation has a lot of real estate holdings,” she said. “It’s where we—it—we—they make most of their money.”

  Laura usually wasn’t tongue-tied. She’d discovered something in the files while trying to help us out.

  “She thinks maybe one of the buildings has room for us.”

  Or she had thought that. What Jimmy didn’t seem to notice was that something had changed while he was playing solitaire.

  “That would be nice,” I said. “Maybe after the convention—”

  “Smokey,” Jimmy said, “if we move now, this guy won’t be able to find us. We’ll be all right.”

  So that was why he was excited. Laura’s gaze met mine. There was sadness in her eyes.

  “I wish it worked like that, Jim,” I said.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said. “You’ll see. If we go—”

  “If we move now, we go to a place where we’re the strangers. We only know about this man because a neighbor warned us. Otherwise, we would have no idea at all.”

  “But you want privacy.”

  “So do you,” I said.

  “Jimmy, we don’t have anything that’s immediately available.” Laura’s voice still had that husky quality.

  “You didn’t say that.” He sounded betrayed. I could feel his building anger. I put a hand on his shoulder, holding him back.

  “Is that why you look so sad?” I asked.

  She shook her head so slightly that I doubted Jim noticed. “I was hoping we’d have something that was open now. All we have are places that rent on September first.”

  “Well,” I said, “that’s better than nothing.”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she came around the desk and leaned on it, as close to me as she could get. All it would take was a movement of my hand, and I could pull her into my arms.

  I couldn’t step back—Jimmy would notice—so I made sure my tone was cool. “Can you give us a minute, Jim?”

  His frown was quick. “I thought you came to see me.”

  “I did, but—”

  “You got grown-up talk.”

  “Yeah.” I was more grateful than I wanted to be for the understanding.

  “So’s you can figure out what to do with me.” He sounded adult and bitter.

  “No.” I reached for him, but he stepped away. “I just need to talk to Laura alone for a minute, that’s all.”

  His lips formed a thin line, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  I raised my gaze to hers. Her look was steady and even, and very sad. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  The sadness left her face. She opened her mouth to answer, then shook her head.

  “What do you care?” she said. “You don’t work for me anymore.”

  The harshness of the words took my breath away. “I thought—”

  “You thought? What did you think, Smokey? You certainly don’t think about me.”

  I didn’t know what was causing this, if it was a delayed reaction to my request for help or if it had to do with something she had read. “If Jimmy’s a problem—”

  “I’m not talking about Jimmy.” She kept her voice down, but I could hear the anger in it. “He’s a great kid, and I’m happy to help him.”

  Help him. Not me. “But?”

  “You and I are another matter.”

  “There is no you and I, Laura.” The words escaped before I could stop them. She turned away from me, but not before I saw that all the color had left her face.

  “Look,” I said, “I’ll find another place for Jimmy. It may take me a day or two, but I will. And then we won’t bother you anymore.”

  “You don’t understand, do you?” She sighed, and closed her eyes. Then her mouth formed into a bow, like it sometimes did when she had made a decision. Her gaze met mine and it was clear. I didn’t even see anger in it anymore.

  She took a step toward me and put her hands on my arms. Her fingers were warm, her touch gentle. I couldn’t have pulled away if I wanted to.

  “I thought you’d been killed, Smokey,” she said. “Then you come here, and tell me you’d been in hiding, and you didn’t call me. Not once. As if I didn’t matter. I offer to help you find a home, a job, and you scream at me, and then I don’t see you again.”

  “Until I need your help.” I kept my voice soft.

  “No,” she said. “Until Jimmy needs my help. If it had been you, you wouldn’t have come at all.”

  She was right. She knew me better than I gave her credit for.

  I didn’t want her to know me that well.

  I touched her face. Her skin was as soft as I remembered. She leaned into my hand and closed her eyes.

  I caressed her cheek, let my thumb linger on her chin. I wanted to kiss her. Instead, I moved my hand away. “It’s not possible, Laura.”

  “Why not?” She opened her eyes. “Let’s start over, declare the past dead, and see what happens. Chicago isn’t Memphis, Smokey. It’s a new place—”

  “It’s your place, Laura. And I don’t belong.”

  “But you can,” she said.

  “What are you going to do? Tell all your high-society friends to piss off if they don’t like me?”

  She stared at me for a moment.

  “You gonna fight every cop who pulls us over because he thinks I’m taking advantage of you? You gonna fire every doorman who tries to keep me out of your building?”

  “Smokey, I—”

  “This isn’t the time, Laura. I don’t even know how long I’ll stay in this town. I’ve got Jimmy to consider. He has to come first.”

  She bit her lower lip, then nodded once. After a moment, she nodded again. Then she let go of me and backed away, walking to the desk. She took the files, stacked them, and set them aside.

  “I guess,” she said slowly, “we need to decided how best to protect him.”

  “I’ll find somewhere new—.”

  “No.” She raised her head. Her gaze was strong. “You were right. He’s safest with me. No one will suspect. For reasons we just discussed.”

  “Laura,” I started, but I didn’t know how I was going to finish. I let her name hang between us for a moment.

  “Why don’t you get him?” she asked. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  That cool, abrupt tone was the one she always used when she was uncomfortable. The imperial tone that used to grate on me so much. This time, it made me want to soothe her, even though I was the one who had upset her.

  But I didn’t reach for her. Instead I went to the door, and called Jimmy.

  It took him a moment to join us. I closed the door after him. He looked at Laura, then at me, clearly feeling the tension in the room.

  “Let’s find a place to sit down,” I said.

  Laura grabbed one of the wooden chairs, turning it around. Jimmy climbed into another nearby and I took a third.

  I took a deep breath, forcing myself to think about Jimmy and the threats, not Laura and the feelings she raised. I couldn’t afford to think about that.

  “I told you both I believe this threat is very real,” I said. “I’m searching for someone now, where before I was just trying to confirm the entire rumor.”

  “Are they after you or Jimmy?” Laura asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But there’s no real reason to look for me, except to find Jimmy.”

  Jimmy’s lower lip trembled.

  “I know you’re afraid,” I said to him. “It’s normal.”

  “I want to be with you,” he said.r />
  “I know,” I said. “But we decided to keep you safe, remember?”

  He nodded.

  “Remember the last time you went out on your own?”

  His entire face turned gray. The last time he went out on his own, he had seen Martin die. “That’s not fair, Smokey.”

  “It’s true,” I said. “You have to stay. This city is full of cops and FBI and undercover officers. You come home now and you may hurt us both.”

  Laura frowned at me over Jimmy’s head.

  “You mean kill us both,” Jimmy said.

  I studied him for a minute. “Maybe I do.”

  Laura’s frown grew deeper.

  “What happens if he gets you?” Jimmy asked. “What happens if you die?”

  He had asked that on the phone the day before. Apparently he’d been turning that possibility over and over in his mind.

  “You think that could happen?” Laura sounded shocked.

  I shrugged one shoulder. “Not really.”

  What I didn’t say was that if Jimmy was gone, I wasn’t a threat. I wouldn’t go after the entire Memphis police department just to get revenge for Martin’s death. I couldn’t. All that left was mainstream channels—reporters, lawsuits—solutions that usually didn’t work for men like me. They certainly wouldn’t work without Jimmy. If he were gone, there would be nothing I could do or say to have anyone believe me. I’d be dismissed as a crank and nothing more.

  “But,” I continued, “Jimmy’s worried about it, and I think as a practical matter, we have to address it.”

  Laura folded her hands together. Jimmy looked down as if I were embarrassing him.

  “If we don’t,” I said, “and something does happen…”

  I let my voice trail off. I didn’t want to finish that sentence. Neither of them seemed to want to finish it for me.

  “Here’s what I want to do.” I stood up. I needed to move around. “I’m going to call in every day. If you don’t hear from me for forty-eight hours, I want you to leave Chicago.”

  “Call?” Jimmy straightened. “You gotta see us.”

  “It’s too risky. I left the apartment at twelve to make sure I wasn’t followed. Even then, I wasn’t certain until about a half hour before I came here. This guy is a pro.”