‘How’d you know I was here?’ Kelson stayed in the open space.
‘I didn’t. When I pulled into the garage, I saw your car.’
‘Then why’d you come here – if not for me?’
‘I’m sorry – for tonight – for Rick,’ Scott said. ‘He does that. I wish he wouldn’t. He makes things worse – most of the time. You asked what he’s protecting our dad from.’
‘Right. But I just heard about it—’
‘He’s protecting Dad from himself. If you want the truth. Dad’s his own worst enemy.’
Kelson nodded. ‘I sympathize.’
Scott gave him a simple smile. ‘He takes everything personally. Even if he has no control over it.’
‘I talk when I should shut up,’ Kelson said. ‘And sometimes when I look in a mirror, I’m surprised by the face that looks back.’
‘That’s unusual.’ Scott moved out from between the cars.
Kelson took a step back before realizing Scott meant to go to the stairwell.
‘I’m sorry about Rick,’ Scott said again.
‘I’ll get over it.’
Scott stopped in front of him, almost shyly. ‘But you impressed your server. Frida. No one at Richelieu ever takes on Rick.’
‘I think he came out on top.’
‘I hope you feel better. I honestly do.’ His eyes were vacant – but pleasant.
Kelson said, ‘After your mom died, what did they do to you? Or were you always this way?’
Scott gave him a soft-lipped smile. Then he walked to the stairwell and disappeared through the door.
TWENTY-THREE
The next morning, Kelson called Rodman and filled him in on what he’d done since they last talked.
‘Busy boy,’ Rodman said. ‘Some men go from trouble to trouble like it’s the only air they breathe. Anything I can do?’
‘D’you want to help canvass the streets around Wacker where Daryl Vaughn hung out? I want to know what he did to get himself beat up.’
‘Sure. Maybe I can keep you from talking too much and getting beat up again too.’
‘Fat chance. One other thing. Jose Feliciano says he’ll pay both of us. He says he’s thick with prize money from his rodeo days, but I don’t know. If he doesn’t pay, I’ll split whatever I get with you – mostly nickels and dimes so far.’
‘Maybe we could rethink our business model.’
‘Also, Rick Jacobson worries me. Maybe we could visit him together.’
‘Trouble to trouble,’ Rodman said.
Forty minutes later, Kelson picked him up at his Bronzeville apartment. As they drove to the Loop, Kelson asked about his night with their friend Marty LeCoeur.
‘We did an intervention with Cindi’s baby brother,’ Rodman said. ‘No more guns and liquor store robberies for him. I tried talking to the kid myself and he blew me off. But I put him in a room with Marty, and I swear to God the kid came out terrified.’
Marty had been a bookkeeper at Westside Aluminum until he came into big money the previous spring. Illegal money, technically, he said if you asked, but anyone who says dirty money stinks never smelled dirty money. He was tiny and had only one arm after goofing around in a railyard as a kid. But he was the most vicious man Kelson had ever met, capable of taking apart a roomful of men three times his size. Which supposedly he’d done once or twice.
‘Marty’s like if a wasp climbs inside your ear,’ Rodman said. ‘What’re you going to do but pray it flies out on its own? Cindi’s brother whimpered after they talked. He asked me to take him home – like he’d lock himself in his room and play with toys. I asked if he had any weapons he wanted to give me. He said, “Yes, sir,” and he brought out two pistols and a sonofabitch semi-automatic Barrett carbine.’
‘Did he use them in his liquor store robberies?’
‘I didn’t ask and didn’t want to know.’
‘If the cops find you with any more hot guns, Ed Davies won’t be able to talk you out of jail.’
‘How’re they going to find guns at the bottom of the river?’
‘Good call.’
‘Except the carbine. I need to study that baby before ditching it.’
‘Bad call.’
‘Yeah, and tell me again how you spent the night?’
‘Sure, but I’m brain damaged – I have an excuse.’
They left Kelson’s car at a self-park garage at Clark and Wacker and split up, Rodman heading east toward Michigan Avenue, Kelson toward the West Loop.
On a cold January morning, most homeless men and women huddled by vents and warm grates on the lower level streets. But Kelson started up in the sunlight.
He stopped by a woman, wrapped in layers of rags, who panhandled under the El tracks at Wells and Wacker. ‘Do you know Daryl Vaughn?’ he asked.
She stared without seeming to see him.
‘Daryl Vaughn?’ he said again. ‘Got hurt last month. Beat up. Went to the hospital. Never came back.’
Her gaze drifted up and off, as if she watched a bird fly out of his head.
He dropped a five-dollar bill in her box of change.
‘Bless you,’ she said.
Kelson walked onward, crossing under the El tracks at Franklin Street as a train roared past.
He turned around and went back to Wells Street, where he descended a set of slick concrete stairs to Lower Wacker. On the lower level, Wacker divided into three sections – fast westbound lanes, fast eastbound lanes, and, inside a concrete barrier that opened only at intersections, a slow eastbound lane with street-side parking. The cars shooting along the echoing street and the sound of trucks rumbling overhead on Upper Wacker disoriented Kelson, and he stood for a moment in the concrete cavern with eyes as lost as the panhandler’s.
Then he rushed across the fast lanes and stepped between parked cars to the basement wall of a building that rose into a sky he couldn’t see. He edged along the wall, moving east again.
He came to an encampment where two men had arranged sleeping bags and plastic sacks of their possessions. They wintered here in the thick of the cavernous fumes, mostly out of sight from drivers. One of the men – dark skinned, with a long, tangled beard – lay in a sleeping bag with his eyes wide open, watching the other. The other – crouching, pale, beardless, younger than the man in the sleeping bag – tore the side of a large cardboard box into shreds, dropping the pieces into a mound on the oily pavement.
‘Yep,’ Kelson said. ‘I know the feeling.’
The pale man said, ‘I don’t do it with white men.’
‘Fine with me,’ Kelson said.
‘Entitled bastards.’
‘You seem to know what you’re talking about.’
The man snatched another side of cardboard and tore it. ‘What do you want?’
‘Do you know Daryl Vaughn?’
‘Black or white?’
‘To tell the truth, I don’t know,’ Kelson said.
‘I don’t do it with white men.’
‘Right. He lived around here. Then some guys beat him up.’
The man said nothing. He tore and tore.
‘He died,’ Kelson said.
The man stopped tearing. He stared at the mound of ripped cardboard.
‘At the hospital,’ Kelson said. ‘Not here. He died there.’
The man dug a blue Bic lighter from his pocket. He flicked it with his thumb. He held the flame to the mound. When a piece of cardboard caught fire, he held the flame to another, and then another. Then he held his hands over the flames to warm them.
‘That makes sense,’ Kelson said. ‘I guess.’
The man in the sleeping bag said, ‘I knew Daryl.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Black.’ He nodded at the man who started the fire. ‘But Jimmy never did him.’
‘I don’t do everyone,’ the pale man said.
‘That would be asking a lot,’ Kelson said. He asked the man in the sleeping bag, ‘Were you around when he got beaten up?’
‘Nah. Heard abou
t it. A couple punks.’
‘Guys who live down here?’
‘Why would guys who live here shit in their own bed? A couple white kids with baseball bats. Sixteen, seventeen years old. Probably took their mom’s car and drove in from the suburbs. Went hunting for black men in the city.’
‘It’s not all about black and white,’ said the one at the fire. ‘I would do a white guy if the situation was right.’
The one in the sleeping bag said, ‘The kids with baseball bats always go after us black guys.’
‘You’re obsessed with racism,’ said the other.
The one in the sleeping bag sat up. ‘That’s like telling a man who’s on fire he’s obsessed with water. These white kids come in to get their rocks off. Happens every couple months. Happened to Brianna.’
‘Brianna?’ Kelson said.
‘My wife till she died.’
The one at the fire said, ‘You never had a wife, faggot.’
‘Common law,’ the other said.
‘You never had anything in law.’
‘Who saw the kids beating Daryl Vaughn?’ Kelson asked.
‘The professor,’ said the man in the sleeping bag.
‘The who?’ Kelson said.
‘The professor. Him and Daryl hung out.’
An enthusiastic voice spoke behind Kelson. ‘Speak of the devil.’
Three more people approached.
A stout, round-faced, red-haired man with bad skin and wire-rimmed glasses pushed a shopping cart. A waiflike woman with bowl-cut hair shuffled behind him in black Converse high tops. Behind them both, Rodman showed Kelson his hands as if to say, Who’d’ve thought?
The man in the sleeping bag nodded at the stout one and said, ‘Meet the professor.’
After the introductions, Kelson asked about Daryl Vaughn.
The stout man said, ‘Do you ever worry you’re only a character in someone else’s book?’
Kelson shook his head. ‘Nope. One of the few things I don’t get.’
‘It happened to Daryl,’ the professor said, as a truck rumbled over them on Upper Wacker. ‘Daryl could be very convincing in his narratives. Like a talented mime. People credit Marcel Marceau as the best, but I refer to Jean-Gaspard Deburau in his time with Le Théâtre des Funambules. You could almost see the walls he believed in – Daryl, not Deburau. You could almost hear imaginary people talking back to him.’
‘Was he schizophrenic?’ Kelson said.
The professor laughed. ‘Who isn’t, a little? In a time of late capitalism. Who isn’t divided from himself or herself?’
Kelson said, ‘You’re confusing me.’
‘These are the dangers,’ the professor said.
‘Whose story did Daryl think he was part of?’ Rodman asked.
‘One need not be a Freudian to know the answer,’ the professor said.
The waifish woman spoke. ‘A father figure.’
‘The father figure of Daryl’s dreams ran the whole show,’ the professor said. ‘Daryl believed he was a scripted character in this man’s story. In this sense, he might have been more enlightened than most people. Who’s to say who’s schizophrenic when the mad men run the asylum?’
‘You’d be a lot of fun at a party,’ Kelson said.
The professor bowed. ‘After the young men beat Daryl, I went to see him at Northwestern, but he was already—’
‘Not at Clement Memorial?’ Kelson said.
‘That’s where Northwestern sent him when they kicked him out.’
‘Huh. Why’d they kick him out?’
‘I can’t answer that,’ the professor said, ‘other than to note the obvious about corporate health care. I also can’t tell you why Clement Memorial took him, other than to surmise that they have a policy.’ He said policy with a flourish.
‘Huh.’
The professor leaned in. ‘Did you know that “huh” is a universal word?’
‘A what?’
‘Almost every language has it or a variant of it.’
‘Nope,’ Kelson said, ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It’s a good word,’ the professor said. ‘A word for a universal man.’
TWENTY-FOUR
Kelson and Rodman went to Kelson’s office and told each other the stories they’d heard as they canvassed the streets.
‘That was one whacky dude,’ Rodman said.
‘I’m not a universal man?’
‘No, you’re pretty much one of a kind.’
‘You think there’s anything to what those guys said?’
‘I believe the thing about the white kids coming in with baseball bats,’ Rodman said. ‘Every word of it. Why’d they go after Daryl Vaughn instead of someone else? A black man’s a target for scum like them. A homeless black man’s a powerful magnet. A homeless black man who’s talking with imaginary friends? Irresistible. I wish his getting beat up meant more than that we live in the world we live in. But you know what’s weird?’
‘Changing hospitals like he did?’ Kelson said.
‘Yeah. Who ever heard of a hospital inviting in a charity case like Daryl Vaughn? He wasn’t a baby with a cleft lip. Wasn’t a damned Siamese twin. No good press – just a dirty bum. How’d Northwestern convince Clement Memorial to take him off their hands? How’d he even get from one place to the other? You think he stumbled across the city all broken up the way he was? You think he called a cab or an Uber? He must’ve cost a lot of money in the shape he was in – money he wouldn’t repay.’
‘My thinking too,’ Kelson said. So he took his phone and dialed.
The line rang four times and bounced to voicemail.
He hung up and dialed the same number again.
‘What’re you doing?’ Rodman said.
‘Waking up a bull rider. He worked the nightshift.’
This time, on the third ring, Jose picked up. ‘Hola.’
‘Did I wake you?’ Kelson said.
‘Yeah, amigo.’
Kelson held the phone away and told Rodman, ‘He was sleeping.’
‘What’s that?’ Jose said.
‘How did Daryl Vaughn get to Clement Memorial?’ Kelson said.
‘I don’t know, man – in an ambulance, I guess. His legs were wrecked. His hip was shattered. He came in on a gurney.’
‘How does that make sense? Northwestern Medical had him first. Why would they send him to you?’
‘I don’t know about that. Northwestern does trauma. We do trauma. Never heard of them sending us anyone.’
‘Who would arrange to bring him over?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘Could be a doctor. But they’d need to get the approvals. No one wants a poor man.’
‘Is there anyone at the hospital I could talk to and find out?’
‘It’s all paperwork. Admissions. Insurance. I know a girl in Transport Services. They do the helipad and work with AZT.’
‘What’s AZT?’
‘Ambulance company we contract with. If, like, we need to take a burn victim to the unit at Cook County, we fly them or call AZT.’
‘Can you talk to your friend in Transport Services or put me in touch with her?’
‘Yeah, maybe I better do it – I heard about Caroline and Aleksandar. I’ll see what I can find out about admissions too.’ He sounded like he wanted to go back to sleep.
‘One more thing,’ Kelson said. ‘How did Patricia Ruddig and Josh Templeton end up at Clement Memorial? Patricia Ruddig got hit by the bike in Ravenswood, and Josh Templeton crashed in Lincoln Park. That’s five or six miles apart – and another six or seven miles from the hospital. Do you usually get patients from those neighborhoods?’
‘That’s not how it works. If a hospital does a special thing – like burns at Cook County – the ambulances maybe try to take you there. If it’s a big emergency, they take you to whatever’s closest. If you’ve got time, they take you where you want to go. If this was a big emergency, we might get Ravenswood. Lincoln Park would probably go somewh
ere else.’
‘When I talked to the deskman in the building where Patricia Ruddig lived, he said an ambulance came fast – almost before she hit the ground.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Jose said again. ‘Usually it’s like ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe it was coming from another job.’
‘Ask your friend about Patricia Ruddig and Josh Templeton too?’
‘Sure thing.’
They hung up, and Kelson told Rodman, ‘He’ll let me know.’
‘You ready to talk to your pal Rick?’
‘Talking isn’t my first impulse.’
‘That’s why you have a friend like me – to keep you from your impulses.’
A half-hour later, they walked into the Clement Memorial lobby and checked the directory. They rode an escalator down to the basement and walked past an imaging lab and a cafeteria. A double set of gray industrial doors led to a hallway with signs for Physical Facilities, Laundry, and Security.
They passed Physical Facilities, passed a long interior window inlaid with wire mesh, and came to the security office.
A woman in jeans and a yellow sweatshirt sat at a reception desk. She looked up from her phone when Kelson and Rodman came in.
‘Could we see Rick Jacobson?’ Kelson said.
She had an expression that made her look as if she was used to being disappointed. ‘I’m afraid he’s in a meeting.’
‘Until?’
‘He didn’t say. Sorry.’ She didn’t look sorry.
‘Where?’ Rodman said.
‘Out of the hospital. He’s attending to another business interest.’
‘Yeah? What kind of business interest?’ Rodman asked.
‘I’m afraid I can’t share that information,’ she said.
‘Never mind,’ Kelson said. ‘I think I know his business.’
Even in the bright light of winter noon, the warehouse district around Carroll Street was bleak. The red neon sign at Club Richelieu was off. With its dark, yawning entranceway, the building looked bored by its own existence.
Four cars were parked outside – the Jacobsons’ green Land Rover, a silver Porsche, a little red BMW, and a banged-up red Ford Fiesta. Kelson pulled into a space by the Land Rover.
Rodman followed him into the entranceway and through the black door into the nightclub. The all-white bar and furniture, which had glowed ultraviolet the previous night, looked dingy under regular lighting. Two standing fans, positioned at the doorway to the corridor leading to the VIP party rooms, blew across the big main room, but the air still stank of spilled drinks, sweaty bodies, and piney floor detergent.
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