The Last Page

by David J. Walker

  They dragged both women up onto their feet and Krachek put them in headlocks and muscled them outside onto the porch. The whole event took place amid raucous cheering and laughter and applause.

  It was half an hour later, at about one a.m. Sunday, when more uninvited guests showed up. There were three of them and even the guys—the cops, anyway—who didn’t know them, knew them. The soft leather hip-length coats, the cashmere sweaters, the sharp-creased pants, the five hundred dollar shoes. They were young guys; the tallest one thirtyish and the other two maybe just early twenties. They all had razor-cut hair, manicured nails, and cocky, shit-eating grins.

  They were already inside the door when Krachek stepped in front of them. “Sorry, fellas,” he said. “Private party.”

  “We know,” the tall one said. “So how much?”

  Krachek looked over at Mull and Mull nodded, and Krachek told them the price. The tall one said they’d pay half that, and then peeled off bills for all three, and they walked in. No way Mull could keep them out. The tall one, Chi-Chi DelVecchio, was the goon who collected when Mull got behind in his gambling debts.

  The three got the lay of the land in a hurry. To the kitchen for booze first, then upstairs for a chat with the ladies. When they came down they joined in one of the poker games. Other than acting like they owned the place, which irritated the hell out of Mull, they made no trouble. Still, before very long most of the cops—all but Mull and his co-hosts, and a few guys too drunk to know better—had made their exits, demanding partial refunds from Mull. Time spent drinking and gambling and whoring was one thing, but time spent fraternizing with known mob guys—convicted felons or not—might earn you separation from the department.

  By noon Sunday Mull and Patterson and Krachek had counted the money together and split it up—asking each other whether it was worth it for all the aggravation. Then Patterson, who by then was pretty drunk, but still able to drive his van, gathered up the whores to take them back to the city, while Mull and Krachek tried to put the house back together.

  Mull was the only one who didn’t have to work that night, so Krachek didn’t stay long. Mull wasn’t left alone, though, because the three mob guys were still there, all snoring with their mouths hanging open like the mopes they were, in front of Mull’s T.V. He switched it off and they kept on sleeping. The TV wasn’t HD or flat screen, but was a big twenty-seven-incher that barely fit on the low, sturdy coffee table where he’d set it. DelVecchio wanted to stick around to watch the Bears game, which started at three, and Mull didn’t argue. He wanted to watch the game, too, and he wanted to keep DelVecchio happy. Besides, he wasn’t too worried about the “fraternization” problem. He didn’t expect anyone to snitch, because no one who’d been there had anything to brag about. If someone did talk, and if I.A.D. came after him, the worst that could happen is he’d have to retire. A cop couldn’t lose his pension unless he committed a felony on the job.

  He knocked down a couple shots of Jack Daniels, and got out a mop and a pail. As he cleaned up he thought how strange it had been to see Johnny again. His son, the cop. Why would a kid follow in the footsteps of a father he hated? Christ, a question like that called for a little more JD.

  By three o’clock he was half-drunk himself, and the place was in as good shape as it was going to get. He turned on the T.V., which finally woke up DelVecchio and his two mopes, and the four of them sat around getting totally wasted and watching the Bears slug it out with Detroit.

  During a commercial break late in the fourth quarter, with the score tied at ten all, Mull got up and went through the kitchen and out the back door to take a leak off the porch. When he came back inside he thought he heard something…like knocking. But not very loud. And then not at all. Had it come from the other side of the door by the refrigerator? Not possible. Even drunk, he could remember that the door led nowhere but the basement stairs and that no one had been down there but the fishermen, who’d left after DelVecchio and company showed up. Mull had gone down and checked, and they’d left the area in decent shape. The door always hung open, though, so back when he was mopping up the floor, he’d turned the key on the kitchen side and locked it shut. He knew everyone was gone, and there was no outside entrance to the basement.

  “Hey!” DelVecchio called, “bring some fucking brews back with you.”

  Up yours, Mull said under his breath, but he went over to the refrigerator…and heard the knocking again. Louder now. The basement door for sure. He turned the key and yanked open the door—and the black whore with the blonde hair was standing there…or trying to. She must have gone down there and crashed, and that damn Patterson didn’t even notice he left with only four whores. She looked drunk, or stoned.

  “Damn,” he said. “What the hell are you—”

  “Hey! Hurry up with those goddamn brewskis!” It was DelVecchio again. Mull might be drunk, but that fucker was beyond drunk. “And hey!” the guy yelled again, “you’re missing the best part of the damn game.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gimme a minute,” he yelled back. He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table. “Siddown, dammit,” he told the whore.

  “Head hurts,” she mumbled. “Wanna go home.”

  “Right, I’ll take you,” he said. “Soon as the game’s over.” He pushed her down onto the chair, grabbed four MGD’s from the refrigerator, and went back to the living room. There was a Lexus commercial on the screen, with the sound off.

  “Took you long enough,” DelVecchio said, grabbing one of the beers. “Would you believe it? Fucking Bears get to the Lions’ fifteen…and then hafta call their last time out. Jesus, can’t get the damn call straight.”

  Mull distributed the other beers and plopped down into a sagging easy chair. “I believe it. That’s always the—”

  “Hey you!” It was the whore, stumbling in from the kitchen.

  “Shit,” DelVecchio said. “What’s she—”

  “Said wanna go home.” She stumbled across the room toward Mull. “Head hurts.”

  Mull stood up. “Look, after the game I’ll—”

  “Shut that bitch up,” DelVecchio said. “They’re startin’ again.” He pointed and clicked the remote.

  “…into the shotgun,” the play-by-play guy said. “Three receivers wide to the—”

  “Head hurts!” the whore repeated. “Wanna go fucking home!”

  “I told you,” Mull said, “after the game.”

  “…the Lions show blitz. The ball’s snapped and—”

  “No, now!” the whore said. She turned away from Mull and went toward the TV. “No more game!”

  “…breaks a tackle and…” They were all on their feet by now, and DelVecchio and Mull both grabbed at the whore, but they were too late and as the announcer described a pass “lofted toward the corner of the end zone,” she grabbed the TV and spun it around on the table, which yanked out the cable connection. Then she pushed on it, hard, and it went off the back of the table and crashed screen first onto the floor.

  There was an instant of silence when no one moved at all, and then the whore straightened up and turned. “Wanna go fucking home,” she said. “No more game.”

  “You…bitch,” DelVecchio said. “You sorry…stupid…bitch.” His voice was surprisingly slow and soft, but also filled with rage. He stood there and swiveled his head and upper body around, as though looking for something—like a wolf sniffing out prey.

  Mull was surprised at how the other two goons said and did nothing, and in fact seemed to shrink away from their boss, and he suddenly wondered what this animal DelVecchio had been into besides alcohol.

  DelVecchio reached down and grabbed the MGD bottle from where he’d left it beside his chair. He tipped it up and took a long drink, and then said again, “You sorry… stupid…bitch.”

  The whore just ignored him, though, and kept her eyes on Mull. “Wanna go—”

  The bottle caught her full on the left side of her head, and shattered, sending glass and beer everywhere. She
stood there for a second or two, beer and blood streaming down her face, and then she tried to walk, but tripped on her own feet and lost her balance. She waved her arms wildly and toppled over backwards, and on the way down the back of her head slammed into the corner of the low table. Her head hung up there for a second, but then her body went limp and the weight of it pulled her head off the table. The final blow, when her skull thumped against the wood floor, was one Mull knew she never felt.

  Dead bodies always seem heavier than they ought to, and for Mull it was a real struggle—with his bad leg and his shortness of breath—helping one of DelVecchio’s punks carry this one. They had it wrapped in a thin blanket, and were headed across the room toward the front door. Mull could hear DelVecchio out at the kitchen sink, bitching and moaning while his other goon picked little pieces of glass from the maniac’s bloody right hand.

  Mull had the foot end of the body and was walking backwards. When they got out onto the covered porch they set her down for a minute to rest, and he looked around and saw how dark it was. What light came out through the windows and the doorway spilled onto the floor boards of the porch and seemed to be sucked up by the rough, dry wood.

  About the only thing the little bit of light did was to make whatever it didn’t reach—which included the bottom two porch steps and everything beyond—look even blacker. There was no moon, no stars, nothing. There was also no driveway up to the porch, since the access drive from the main road just emptied into the large cleared area around the house. According to the punk, DelVecchio’s car was parked off to the right, over near the trees. That meant crossing what Mull knew was a sloping, rocky, uneven patch of weeds. Fifteen or twenty yards away, easily.

  “Go get the damn key,” Mull said, “and drive the car over here.”

  “You gotta be kidding.” The guy shook his head, and looked genuinely scared. “First, nobody drives that car but Chi-Chi. It’s a Jaguar and, like, brand new. Second, I wouldn’t ask him for nothing, not when he’s into… not when he’s like he is tonight. You seen just a little taste.”

  “Well, then, I’ll ask him.” Mull started for the door, but the guy stood in his way and pushed him back.

  “Uh-uh. You get hurt and we’re all in deep shit.” He squatted down by the body, then looked up at Mull. “You don’t wanna help, I’ll drag her to the car myself.”

  Mull didn’t want a bloody body being bounced down the steps and dragged across the yard, so he gave in. He squatted too, and both men shifted their hands around to get the best possible grip. The blanket made it hard to get hold of her arms and legs, so they tossed it aside. When they had hold of her they stood up together and and started for the porch steps.

  They hadn’t gone three feet when Mull stopped. “This is crazy,” he said. “Set her down again, dammit.” They did, and he turned and swept his arm out to indicate the darkness they were headed into. “There’s been nobody around here but us since Thursday. This could be noon, for chrissake, and there’d be no one to see us.” He reached inside the door and switched on the flood lights that lit up the whole yard.

  They managed to make it down the porch steps without breaking a leg or dropping the body, and as they started across the yard with it Mull had to fight the urge to try to move faster than they could. Being out there in the open under the lights made it feel like someone was watching them, and he kept twisting his head around to see who the hell was there, even though he knew better.

  By the time they got to the Jag DelVecchio and the other guy had caught up. DelVecchio’s right hand was wrapped in a towel, and with his keyless opener in his left hand he hit the button and the trunk lid sprang open. He seemed a little more calm, but was still in a foul mood. When he saw the blanket wasn’t there, he told one of his guys, “Go back and get the fucking thing…and hurry up!” The guy ran all the way to the porch and back, and they lay the blanket on the floor of the trunk and then heaved her…it…up and in, and slammed the lid.

  “None of this ever happened,” Mull said, hunching up his shoulders to help himself breathe. “A known prostitute, full of alcohol and who-knows-what-else. No one’s gonna knock themselves out investigating. Leave her in a dumpster some—”

  “No way,” DelVecchio said. “This fucking skank won’t be found…ever.” He got into the driver’s seat and had to lean and reach around the wheel with his left hand to get the key into the ignition. He closed the door and then lowered the window. “And look here, Mulhane,” he said, “nothing’s changed. You fall behind, I’ll still be the one they send. Understand?”

  “Yeah,” Mull said. “And you have a nice day.”

  The Jaguar pulled away, leaving Mull alone to figure out a story for the pimp about how his bitch had split the scene and never come back. He was stone sober now, and first he had to clean up some more. He’d leave the place better than they’d found it—no blood anywhere, for sure—and he’d leave an extra fifty bucks for the missing blanket and towel. He climbed the porch steps and went in and turned off the outside lights.

  Maybe five minutes later he heard a car pull up and stop near the porch. But no, not a car. A motorcycle. One motorcycle.

  He waited, and Johnny came in.

  “Party’s over,” Mull said.

  “I know. I told my partner to go on home, that I wanted to come back and say hello to my father.”

  “Uh-huh. Well…so…you’re with Bomb and Arson these days?” Stupid question. What he needed was to get this son of a bitch out of here before he saw the blood.

  “Nope,” Johnny said. “Not Bomb and Arson. He made no move to come farther in, just stood by the door.

  “That’s what your part—”

  “Yeah, I know.” He reached inside the leather jacket and pulled a business card from his shirt pocket.

  Mull took the card. Under Johnny’s name it said: Chicago Police Department. And below that: Internal Affairs Division. He put the card in his own pocket and said, “So you came up here on the job. Did you know I’d be here?”

  “Nope. Just heard about a couple of coppers hosting a party that sounded… interesting.”

  “And now what? I’ll be called in?”

  “You mean because me and my partner caught you running a traveling whorehouse?” Johnny turned and went out onto the porch, and Mull followed him. The BMW stood at the bottom of the steps, visible because its running lights were on. “My partner says no. He thinks a son shouldn’t flip the switch on his own father.” Johnny went down the steps.

  “Really.” Mull stared at his son’s back. “And what do you think?”

  “Me? I think a lot of things.” Johnny lifted the cycle off its center stand, threw his right leg over it, and started the engine. Not like a Harley, the BMW made very little noise as it idled. “Like…I think that limp of yours is pretty bad.”

  “Yeah…well…I get by.”

  “And something else I think.” Johnny clicked on his highbeam and revved up the engine the way bikers do. Then, using both feet, he pedaled the cycle a little closer, parallel to the bottom porch step. “I think you won’t need to turn on those floodlights for me. Not again.”

  “Not…again?” Mull tried not to hunch his shoulders, but was finding it hard to take in enough breath.

  “That’s right.” Johnny lifted his hand up and out into the dim light and showed Mull a small, chrome-colored camera. “But the thing is,” he said, “I don’t think I should turn in my own father, either.” He held the camera out toward Mull.

  “Thanks,” Mull said, and reached for it.

  “Nope.” Johnny yanked his hand back. “Because I think…after all these years… I prefer the crippled-up, vicious old bastard right where he is.” The cycle moved slowly forward. “In my pocket.”

  MORE ABOUT LIBBY

  THE ELLIE FOREMAN SERIES

  “Libby Fischer Hellmann has already joined an elite club: Chicago mystery writers who not only inhabit the environment but also give it a unique flavor... her series continues in fin
e style... (Ellie)... lights up the page with courage and energy.”

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  “Hellmann owes a debt to fellow Chicagoans Sara Paretsky (complex plotting) and Barbara D’Amato (excellent research)—but she’s the brash young thing making this formula new again. I can’t wait for the next book!”

  —Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha’s

  “Hellmann has surpassed herself. Well-crafted, intense and exciting, right up to the last page... a must read!”

  —Laurel Johnson, Midwest Book Review

  “A masterful blend of politics, history, and suspense... sharp humor and vivid language... Ellie is an engaging amateur sleuth.”

  —Publishers Weekly, November 4, 2002

  “Ellie is a particularly believable protagonist... she’s a pleasure to spend time with.”

  —Reviewing the Evidence

  “Libby Fischer Hellmann has indisputably crossed the line into the realm of great crime fiction writers.”

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