The Confessors' Club

by Jack Fredrickson

  ‘Yes, but I was not cleared on page one. My honor was restored right below notice of a sewer bond recall, well inside the paper where my former clients didn’t notice.’

  ‘C’est le monde,’ he said. Then added, ‘That’s French for “that’s the world.”’

  ‘My monde is taking a long time getting straight.’ I nodded towards the three-story graystone across the street. A single lamp with a multi-colored Tiffany-type shade had been switched on behind the sheer curtains on the first floor. The second and third floors were dark.

  Puzzlement furrowed his forehead.

  ‘The Confessors’ Club,’ I said.

  He looked past the throng on the sidewalk. A slow smile had formed on his face.

  ‘It’s been there since 1896,’ I said professorially. ‘It started as a leisure club for the elite gentlemen of the city: dinner, whiskey, underage prostitutes, the kind of place influential men could enjoy basic Victorian debauchery. I doubt the underage prostitutes visit anymore, but I’m guessing that on the second Tuesday of every second month, there’s good food and good booze to be had inside, as well as sanctuary for the richest men in town to relax among their kindred.’

  ‘“Confessors?”’

  ‘Supposedly, the club was formed so that its all-important members could relax and say anything – confess anything – and know it would be kept in the strictest confidence.’

  Delray waved to the blonde girl for more beer. ‘How did you track this down?’

  ‘Sheer, dogged digging through accounts of old Chicago,’ I said. I couldn’t tell him about the private investigator who’d beat me to the Newberry without implicating Wendell Phelps.

  Our second beers came, and as we drank, Delray leaned back, studying me.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Have you reported anything to Debbie Goring?’

  I told him the thought had crossed my mind, but I hadn’t done anything about it.

  He asked me for Debbie Goring’s number and thumbed it into his cell phone. ‘Ms Goring? Officer Delmar, with the Chicago police. I’m calling to tell you that Dek Elstrom is being very useful in our examination of the circumstances surrounding your father’s death.’ He paused, listening. ‘Yes, ma’am, though I can’t discuss progress yet. No guarantees, but if anything comes of this, you can thank Dek Elstrom. He’s a very diligent man.’ Another pause, and then, ‘Of course we’ll stay in touch.’ He clicked off, and looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  ‘You’re a stand-up guy, Delray. Thanks.’

  ‘With that five per cent from her, you could buy new clothes,’ he said.

  ‘And you can be a star in Homicide.’

  ‘Screw Homicide. I’m headed higher than that.’

  It was eight-thirty. By now, people choked the sidewalk, bobbing laughing heads. ‘The neighborhood is as loud as it’s going to get,’ I said.

  He nodded, agreeing. ‘The neighbors must shut their ears to everything.’

  ‘We’ll keep our bottles.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘People look away from wandering drunks.’

  We carried our beers outside. April was just beginning, and the young men and women chattering on the sidewalk wore leather appropriate for the evening’s soft chill. We crossed to the other side only when I was sure we were out of camera range of anything that might be mounted at the front of Sixty-six West Delaware. We continued down, turned up the side street and walked into the alley that ran behind the Confessors’ Club.

  ‘Here’s where these bottles come in especially handy,’ I said. ‘We can’t nose around during the day – too many business types and smart young mothers pushing imported prams can see us. But at night, the streets belong to people like you, Delray, hip as hell.’

  ‘And the alleys?’

  ‘After dark, exclusively the territory of the young hip male. No one wants to watch a well-dressed young man, carrying a beer, duck into an alley, for fear they’ll hear the splash of his relief.’

  We stopped when we got to the chain-link fence at the back of number sixty-six. All the rear windows were dark, but a low-watt bulb shone above the back door. There was no way of telling if there were any rearward mounted cameras.

  ‘Second thoughts?’ he asked.

  I set my almost full bottle next to the fence and raised the metal latch on the gate. ‘I’m with a cop. If anybody comes along, just flash your badge.’

  ‘No chance. I don’t have a warrant.’

  I pushed open the gate anyway, and we crossed to the shadows at the back of the house. There were basement windows on either side of the door. I started to kneel at the one to the right.

  The bulb went dark above my head. Delray had unscrewed it.

  The basement window was locked tight. As I straightened up, I heard something jangling. Delray had pulled out what looked like a ring of loose wires.

  ‘A cop with lock picks?’

  He didn’t answer as he bent to the lock. Almost instantly, the tumblers let go with a short, loud click. He pushed open the door. For a moment, we stayed outside, listening for any sounds from within. But all I could hear was my heart.

  He turned and pressed the lock picks into my hand.

  ‘I don’t want these,’ I whispered.

  ‘They go in your pocket. If we’re caught, I can help us more if I don’t have them.’

  It wasn’t a good place for spirited debate. My fingers clenched the slender metal picks and jammed them in my pocket.

  I stepped inside.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The darkness of the house was cleaved, front to back, by the soft reds, greens and yellows spilling into the other end of the long central hallway. The Tiffany lamp I’d seen behind the sheer curtains in the front window was the only light burning on the first floor.

  I stopped just inside the back door, straining for the sound of a muffled footfall or the sharp intake of a breath. All that came back was the blood beating in my ears, and the smells of a hundred years of cigar smoke, grilled meat, whiskey. And secrets.

  Delray pressed up close behind me. ‘Basement,’ he whispered. I felt rather than saw him pat his inside jacket pocket. He’d come armed.

  The door was against my left shoulder. I stepped away.

  He tapped my right hand with slim, cool metal. I closed my fingers around a small flashlight. Lock picks, a gun, and now a flashlight – Delray had come a real scout, fully prepared.

  ‘Keep it low,’ he whispered, meaning I should descend into the basement first.

  ‘But you’re armed,’ I whispered back. Surely proper police protocol demanded that the cop go first.

  ‘Best I stay up here, in case someone comes,’ he said low, stepping back.

  That did nothing to calm the blood rushing loud in my ears, but I supposed it made sense. Any threat was likely to come from someone on the first or upper floors.

  I turned the knob, swung open the door. Cool, dank air rushed out as though from a long-sealed crypt. I reached inside, feeling for a rail. There was only cold plaster.

  Steadying myself with my left arm against the wall, and holding the flashlight with my right, I stepped down onto the stairs. A slightly lighter gray haze lay like a thin fog on the basement floor, streetlight washing in through a basement window. Ten steps down, I got to the concrete floor. Enough light came in from the two side windows to show spindly shapes against the walls, but the center of the basement was pure darkness, as though something hulking was resting there, sucking up the light.

  I stayed at the base of the stairs and switched on the flashlight, aimed at the floor. The black mass in the center was an enormous old boiler, hot water pipes extending from it like tentacles from a giant squid. The shapes along the wall were a shovel, a rake, and an old-fashioned, reel-type push lawnmower, manufactured in a time when engines to cut grass had not yet been imagined.

  I’d seen enough; there was nothing alarming there. I hurried softly back up the stairs, pressed the flashlight into Delray’s han
d. He could lead into the next dark place. He had the gun.

  I followed close behind as he moved to the open door to the kitchen, just ahead on the right. An old white porcelain sink counter, tinged a ghostly blue from the moonlight coming through the back window, took up most of one wall; on another was an ancient, chipped eight-burner gas stove. Dented, dulled pots hung like steel moons from an overhead rack. The only modern presence in the cramped room, a small refrigerator, was jammed into a corner, an interloper in a kitchen outfitted when ice was kept in a box.

  By now my ears had acclimated to the old house’s rattling and pulsing every time a car or, even louder, a motorcycle passed by. My eyes, too, were now comfortable in the gloom. I made out ornate, curved shapes of electric light sconces, dark now, set high above the deep grooves in old wainscot paneling along the hall.

  Delray stopped a few steps down the hall. A sliver of light ran up the wall on the left. It came from the center seam of a pair of closed pocket doors. I pressed my ear against one of them, but heard nothing above the noises from outside.

  ‘Open the door,’ he whispered. His hand moved to the inside of his jacket.

  I placed my fingertips at the seam and, when he nodded, slid open the rightmost door.

  It was a dining room, lit stronger by the same reds, yellows and greens that were spilling into the hall. Another set of pocket doors had been opened directly into the tiny front parlor. The colored glass Tiffany lamp I’d seen from across the street sat behind the sheer curtains on a mahogany claw-footed table, plugged to a timer. Two red plush settees were set on either side of it.

  ‘Stay away from those parlor doors,’ Delray said softly, close to my ear. ‘We don’t want to make shadows that can be seen through the front window.’

  In contrast to the small parlor, the dining room was huge, and almost completely taken up by a long oak table surrounded by more than two-dozen high-backed oak chairs. The whole first floor was meant for dining and drinking.

  Delray moved around me, and I followed him into the room.

  ‘Let’s have a look at a couple of those,’ he whispered, pointing up. Two long rows of tankards hung from rails on the paneling.

  It seemed an odd thing to be interested in, but I pulled two off their pegs and held them in the glow coming from the parlor. The mugs were heavy pewter, dented, and old. Each was etched with a different number: I was holding numbers seven and eight. I started to hand one to him. He shook his head. ‘How many do you count?’

  I set the two mugs on the table and looked up to count the pegs. ‘Thirty, all told.’

  ‘Same number as the chairs,’ he said softly.

  ‘Thirty members,’ I whispered.

  He motioned for me to back out into the hall. I started to reach for the two mugs I’d left on the table.

  ‘Go on out. I’ll put them back,’ he said. He came out a few seconds later.

  I crossed the hall, opened a door to a tiny washroom that contained a toilet and a porcelain pedestal sink. A cloakroom was cut in next to it, partially under the stairs. There was no rod, no hangers, just rows of brass hooks on three walls, set high and far enough apart for the sorts of broad coats that would have been worn in 1896.

  I started to cross the hall, to take another peek into the parlor, but Delray grabbed my upper arm. ‘Remember the front window,’ he whispered.

  I stepped back, pointed to the staircase. He nodded. I started up first.

  Pressing myself against the wall to minimize any creaking, I climbed four steps, stopped, and held my breath to listen. I heard only the sounds of automobiles and motorcycles. Almost certainly, we were alone in the old house. Delray came up behind me and we continued up to the second floor.

  A blush of moonlight backlit the gauzy fabric at the rear window, but most of the hall was in absolute darkness. The smell of cigar smoke, mingled with must and old wood, was strong, like below. The air moved next to me as Delray reached into his pocket. A second later the pencil beam of his flashlight broke the darkness at the floor.

  It was enough to see the five doors that lined the old corridor. Each was partially open – for ventilation, I supposed.

  Motioning me to stay behind him, Delray moved to the closest door. Easing it open with his shoulder, he stepped in quickly and stabbed low at the darkness with his pencil beam. It was the size of a small bedroom, no doubt once shared with prostitutes. Now it was furnished for relaxed conversation, with two pairings of red leather wing chairs, each with its own smoking table and glass ash tray, facing each other. There was no closet for someone to hide in. The graystone was built when clothes were kept in armoires.

  Delray stepped back out of the room. One by one, he moved on to the others, nudging their doors with his shoulder, then sweeping his light beam fast and low, searching for feet and legs, arms and guns. All were furnished with chairs, tables and ashtrays, except for the last one, which was a bathroom.

  At the staircase to the third floor, he whispered, ‘Go back and pull the doors almost closed, the way they were.’ He watched from the stairs until I’d closed each door to its previous position, and then we continued up.

  The street noise was barely audible at the third-floor landing. We stopped to listen anyway, this time just for a few seconds.

  There were only three doors on the third floor. Two were ajar, like those below. The third door was closed tight.

  I stood aside as he nudged the first of the slightly open doors. It revealed a small attic of exposed wall studs and roof rafters, empty except for an iron bedstead leaning against one wall and a dusty, galvanized bucket. The other partially open door led to a bedroom furnished with an iron bedstead like the one in the attic, a painted wood dresser, and a metal night table. There was no mattress. It must have been a servant’s room, unused for a hundred years.

  Delray again raised his hand to the inside of his sport coat, stepped back, and motioned for me to open the closed door. He hadn’t yet drawn his gun and the thought that he was readying himself now made me nervous that he’d sensed something I had not. I twisted the knob.

  The door was locked. I held out his picks. Handing me his pencil-beam, he worked the old lock open in an instant. We traded picks for flashlight and again his hand moved closer to his gun.

  I turned the knob and pushed too hard. The door flew open, banging loudly into the side wall.

  ‘Shit,’ Delray muttered, stabbing his light into the room. He inhaled sharply, in surprise.

  Only a table sat in the center of the small room. On it were four large, professional quality digital recorders. Thin wires ran from each of them to holes in the floor, likely down to microphones placed throughout the house.

  Delray raised his forefinger to his lips, but I already knew. The recorders could have been sound activated.

  He swept the flashlight beam swiftly across them, looking for any glow of LEDs or other signs that they’d been triggered by the sound of the door I’d just slammed into the wall. But the machines were still; they’d all been switched off.

  The recorders had been labeled: BR1, BR2, BR3 and BR4. I had the inane thought, then, that even when bugging the former second-floor bedrooms, tradition required the eavesdropper to behave as a gentleman. The washroom had not been wired.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Delray said, snapping off his flash-light.

  We padded down the two flights of stairs and through the hall to the rear door. I opened the door and was about to step out when he whispered he should go first, in case anyone was waiting. He stepped outside and I pushed the button lock on the door and pulled it closed behind me.

  We didn’t say anything as we walked down the alley and around the corner.

  ‘Coffee?’ I asked, after we’d crossed Delaware.

  ‘Booze,’ he said.

  FORTY

  There was a bar in a boutique hotel two blocks east of State Street. It was empty except for a bartender watching a television sitcom and two dozen chrome bowls of peanuts. Delray bough
t us squat tumblers of whiskey and ice, and though the place was deserted, carried them to the plush chairs in the back. I followed with two of the bowls of peanuts.

  ‘Paranoid about being seen committing a crime?’ I asked when we sat down, trying a joke.

  He took a long sip of his whiskey. ‘I have to admit, it’s not my favorite thing to do.’

  I took my own deep sip. Never before had the cold fire of whiskey tasted so good.

  ‘I’m getting used to it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘I got caught on a surveillance video last night; Lamm’s office. I had to tell some of what I knew.’

  His face tensed as I told him about my morning at the movies with the IRS. ‘You’re sure you didn’t mention me?’

  ‘Positive.’

  He relaxed back into his chair. ‘How close are they to finding Lamm?’

  ‘We weren’t sharing confidences. The conversation was mostly about me, looking stupid, though one of Krantz’s men stopped by later with Lamm’s appointments calendar. Lamm went to an address numbered sixty-six on those same Tuesday nights. That’s how I zeroed in on the clubhouse.’

  ‘The question is: who set up the recorders?’

  ‘Think about the purpose of those recorders,’ I said. ‘Likely someone was hoping to grab stock tips, or other insider information, by bugging the conversations going on in those private rooms.’

  ‘That doesn’t rule out any of them,’ Delray said. ‘They all would have had access to the clubhouse.’

  ‘Along the way, whoever bugged the rooms also learned who was vulnerable, health-wise, who had a condition or an illness.’

  Delray leaned forward. ‘Benno Barberi’s heart condition,’ he said, seeing where I was headed.

  ‘And Jim Whitman’s cancer.’

  ‘Insurance,’ he said.

  ‘Barberi came home from the Confessors’ Club agitated that some anonymous someone had insured his life,’ I said. ‘Jim Whitman’s daughter had a different insurance concern: there was none that insured suicide.’