boystown (12 page)

A chill went up and down my spine. If Bernie had been sleeping on the boxes in the storeroom when the fire started, he would have been woken when bottles began to explode. He would have had to come through this door. He’d have flung it open to discover the bar engulfed in flames.

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There wouldn’t have been any option but to run through the flames. Bernie couldn’t have stayed in the storeroom, not with all the liquor in there ready to explode. It would have been suicide.

I imagined him running through the flames, scrambling to get over the bar, knocking down barstools, rolling around on the carpet trying to put himself out. It was a terrible thought.

When I’d seen enough, we went back outside. Davey thanked us for coming, then climbed into the Eldorado and drove off. I turned to Ross and said, “I’ve got some things I need to do. I’ll give you a call later on.”

“Why can’t I come with you?”

“Because we’re not
McMillan and Wife
.”

He frowned. I could tell he was angry.

“You can’t come with me for this. It’s a family thing.”

* * *

I grew up in the Chicago neighborhood called Bridgeport. Lots of Irish, Lithuanians, and Poles live there. It’s sort of a citified version of
Leave It To Beaver
Land. Yeah, if you scratch the surface things are completely screwed up, but what’s important is that it makes a pretty picture.

A lot of cops and other city employees live in Bridgeport, and up until two years ago every mayor since 1933. Bridgeport’s two big claims to fame are Comiskey Park and the fact that it’s one of the very, very few white neighborhoods left on the Southside.

Most of my family is in the Chicago Police Department. Up until a couple years ago, so was I.

Then my ex-lover Daniel and I got into an altercation with some suburban kids outside a gay bar.

We got bashed. Daniel ended up with a badly injured eye. I ended up losing my boyfriend, my job, and my family. I’m not trying to whine. It’s just what happened.

Approaching anyone in my family is unpleasant. Every once in a while I run into someone, usually in their official capacity, and it’s not exactly a tea party. In order to trace the payments that Davey made to The Outfit, I had to track down my uncle, Sergeant Jack Nowak. Jack is short for Jacek, but if you call him that he’ll have you in a headlock before you’ve stopped talking.

In a police department dominated by Irish cops, my Polack family doesn’t do so well. My Uncle Jack was one of the few who made it to sergeant. To do it, he had to get himself pretty dirty. In fact, he was probably the dirtiest cop I knew. I figured the pension he expected from The Outfit was going to put the pension from the CPD to shame. He had about two years left until retirement, and from what I heard he’d been doing what he could to squeeze every last bit of graft out of those two years. Occasionally he does a bit of police work, but most of the time he holds court at a diner on 31st near McGuane Park.

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I wandered around my neighborhood until I found my baby-blue Plymouth Duster and, after a half dozen tries, managed to get it started. I zig-zagged my way over to the Kennedy and stayed on it until it became the Dan Ryan and took me into Bridgeport. I got off the freeway and took a quick detour to the house I grew up in.

A one-story, brick bungalow, it had two bedrooms, a fireplace in the living room, and a formal dining room. My father retired from the department a year or so ago, and I’d heard through the grapevine that he and my mother had bought a mobile home in Phoenix for the winters. It seemed like this might actually be true, because when I unlocked the front door and walked in, the house was cold and smelled of dust. I headed to the breakfront in the dining room and grabbed what I’d come for. I was in and out in less than sixty seconds. Still, my heart beat like I’d spent the whole morning breaking and entering. Back in the Duster, it took another ten minutes to get to 31st and another ten minutes to find a parking space.

The diner was called Molly’s, and I remembered going there with my family when I was a boy.

Each table had its own private jukebox stuck to the wall, and I remember flipping through and begging my father for a quarter so I could play three songs. I walked in and noted that, in twenty years, little had changed. Not much had been cleaned, either.

My uncle Jack sat in a booth at the back, near the restrooms and the payphone. He was just past fifty and spreading around the middle. He hadn’t bothered to buy a larger uniform, so there was a constant struggle between the buttons on his shirt and his belly. I slipped into the booth across from him.

“Hello, Uncle Jack.” He was my father’s baby brother. Spoiled as a child and spoiled as an adult.

“Well, if it isn’t the family fag.”

“Nice to see you, too.”

The waitress started to come over, but he waved her off. “He ain’t staying.” Then he stared me down. He took a leisurely sip of his coffee and said, “What do you want? I’m busy.”

“A bar called Paradise Isle burned down. I’m looking into it.”

“I heard about that.” He shrugged. “Sounds like someone did the community a service.”

Keeping my voice even, I said, “The bar belongs to a friend of mine. Another friend of mine got pretty badly hurt.”

He gave me a blank look, then said, “And?”

“A bagman comes by once a month, picks up a donation. Guy’s name is Mickey Troccoli. I need to know who he works for.”

Uncle Jack laughed. “What do you wanna know that for?”

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“I need to make sure the money got where it was supposed to. I need to make sure there hasn’t been a misunderstanding.”

“Why the fuck should I help you?”

“Because we’re family.”

He broke out in a big laugh. “Because we’re family? Shit, that’s a reason to shoot you in the back of the head and dump you in the Chicago River.”

I sat very still for a few seconds, then said, “Because I still have a key to my parents’ house.”

He glared at me.

“I stopped by this morning and picked up the family photo albums.” I let it sink in. My parents had been very social in the sixties and seventies. They had a lot of backyard barbecues, clambakes, and Christmas parties. The albums were full of pictures of cops: some of them okay guys, a lot of them crooked. Some of the pictures included the people they were crooked with.

“That don’t mean shit,” he said.

“Not by itself, no. I don’t even know who all the people are in the pictures. But there’s a guy at the
Daily Herald
, he might know. I figure if I go down and tell him every rumor I ever heard about you, one or two of them might have to do with people in the pictures. That’ll make a nice article with pretty pictures, don’t you think?”

He stared at me a long time, then he smiled. “What the fuck... it’s no skin off my nose. Mickey Troccoli works for Jimmy English.”

“How do I get to see Jimmy English?”

“I make a phone call.” Uncle Jack squeezed himself out of the booth. He walked over to the payphone, dropped in a dime and dialed. He turned away from me as he talked. A minute later, he hung up and came back to the table.

He gave me Jimmy English’s address and said, “He’s expecting you.”

I thought about saying thank you, but that seems kind of wrong after you blackmail someone, so I just nodded. I got up, but before I walked away I told my uncle, “By the way, I’m gonna take those pictures and give them to my lawyer, along with some notes on the things I remember. Just in case you have any ideas about dumping me in the Chicago River.”

I didn’t think he was serious about killing me and tossing me in the river. But you don’t want to be wrong about a thing like that.

Boystown - 69

“You’re a pain in the ass,” he told me.

Driving out to Oak Park, I couldn’t help but think about how my ex Daniel would have handled the conversation with Uncle Jack. He’d have gone ballistic when Uncle Jack made the community service crack. He’d have called him a bigot or an Archie Bunker or some other completely accurate name.

It wouldn’t have helped one bit. Not really. In fact, it would have gotten him thrown out of there pretty damn fast. Still, part of me wished I could be like that. Part of me wanted to scream in people’s faces when they pulled that shit. There was some satisfaction in blackmailing my uncle, but not a lot. Blackmail was a crime. It was dirty. It made me as bad as my uncle Jack.

As the neighborhoods improved, so did my mood. Oak Park is a well-manicured suburb for the well-to-do. It’s old money, family money. Nothing nouveau like you might find in Naperville.

People here didn’t talk about where their money came from. That was impolite, largely because few of them had actually earned it.

Jimmy English lived in a two-story, brick colonial. A brand-new, black Sedan DeVille sat in the driveway. Even though the weather had been crappy, with the occasional light snow that turned into dirty slush within minutes, the car was spotless. It gleamed like it was still on the showroom floor.

I parked across the street and walked up to the front door. Rang the bell. A few moments later, a small European woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door. I told her my name and that Jimmy was expecting me. In heavily accented English, she told me I should follow her.

The place was like a museum. Everything carefully displayed and lovingly tended. I couldn’t tell what the museum honored other than good taste and upper middle class splendor. The maid led me into the kitchen and then down the stairs into the basement.

The basement had been finished in thickly varnished, knotty pine. The varnish was old and turned the wood a jaundiced yellow. At the far end sat a bar with red leather stools. Standing behind the bar was an elderly man in a white shirt and gray slacks. The slacks were held halfway up his stomach by a pair of suspenders.

Without introducing me, the maid turned and went back upstairs. I took a seat at the bar and said,

“Are you Jimmy English?”

He nodded and asked me what I’d have to drink. It was around two o’clock in the afternoon. A little early for me to start throwing them back, but Jimmy English didn’t seem the kind of guy you said “no” to unless you absolutely had to.

I asked for a scotch, and he seemed disappointed. “You don’t want anything more complicated?”

“Sure. I’ll have a Rusty Nail.” With just two ingredients, it wasn’t much more complicated than scotch on the rocks, but Jimmy happily searched his copy of Mr. Boston’s for the recipe.

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“I’m learning to be a bartender,” he said while he flipped pages. I hadn’t noticed before, but his bar, unlike the bars in other suburban homes, was professionally set up. He had every kind of liquor you could ask for and all the gadgets professionals use. The only thing missing was a cash register.

“You know, that’s funny,” I said, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice. “Because I’m here about a bar.”

“Yes, I know.” He found the drink recipe and frowned a little when he saw how easy it was. I’m sure he was hoping I’d order something tricky like a Pink Lady or Grasshopper. He set about making my drink anyway.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” I asked.

“No, not at all.” He slid an ashtray in front of me; inside it was a pack of matches that had a nicely designed logo on the front: Jimmy’s Place.

I lit my cigarette while Jimmy filled a glass with ice, poured in some top-shelf scotch, and followed it with a shot of Drambuie. He stuck a swizzle stick in the glass, placed a napkin in front of me, and set my drink down. He stood back, pleased with himself.

“Should I leave you a tip?”

He broke out laughing. I took a drag off my cigarette and waited for him to finish. For some reason he seemed to like me. I couldn’t think why, but supposed it didn’t matter. “You think I burned down the sissy bar, don’t you?” he said.

“I don’t think anything yet. Right now I’m asking questions.” He nodded. “Guy named Mickey Troccoli comes by every month and my friend gives him a bag of cash. Does it get where it needs to go?”

“Why don’t you ask Mickey?”

“Because if the money’s not getting where it needs to, he’s not going to tell me.” Jimmy knew that, of course; he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t an idiot.

“I have no reason to burn down your friend’s bar,” he said simply. Implying that if he’d had a reason, he would have gone right ahead and done it.

“Do you have any idea who did?”

He shook his head. “But you’ll find out, won’t you?”

I stood up, putting out my cigarette, and said, “I intend to, yes.”

“Sit down. Finish your drink.”

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I didn’t want to. I wasn’t exactly sure how high up in The Outfit Jimmy was, but he was high enough to scare the shit out of me. I sat down and took a big gulp of my Rusty Nail.

“You used to be a policeman like your uncle,” he said, as though it was idle chit-chat.

“I used to be a policeman, but, no, not like my uncle.”

Jimmy smiled. “From time to time I have odd jobs I need taken care of.”

“I just said I’m not like my uncle.”

“I heard you.” His voice was calm, casual. That made it even more frightening. “I like that you came here. That took courage. You needed to find out something for your friend, and you didn’t let anything stop you. That’s good.” I managed to get down the rest of my drink. He glanced at it and continued. “Sometimes I need men like your uncle. Less often, I need men like you.”

“Are you asking for my business card?”

“I don’t need it. If I want you, I’ll find you.”

* * *

When I got back to my neighborhood, it took nearly a half hour to find a parking place. The temperature had risen to about forty while I was in the suburbs, a fluke warm day in the middle of a crap winter. The weatherman was predicting rain in the early evening, followed by freezing during the middle of the night. Not the kind of conditions that encourage people to run out in their cars. I finally found a spot above Addison on Fremont and walked the four blocks to my apartment.

I live in the basement of a two-story, brown brick apartment building on Roscoe near Halsted.