Calumet City (22 page)

"Sit down." I gunpoint him at a concave sofa. "Anyone else here?"

He hesitates and I palm-heel him hard in the chest.
"Down."
He sits, involuntarily, and Harold follows. "Who else is here?"

Headshake and he frowns at his musty living room, one that looks like he moved into it when his mother died, one that isn’t much different than Annabelle and Roland’s. The walls are faded paper, small flowers stained with wavy lines of nicotine. I taste undisturbed dust. Four lamps are on and hooded. The old furniture under them sucks up what light escapes the lampshades. Either he hasn’t redecorated his mother’s house or he has the tastes of an old white woman.

"Your mother here?"

His eyes harden and he shakes his head again.

"You know who I am?"

He glances at Harold, then back to me, and shrugs, not as scared of my condition or pistol as I would be. We do two minutes of gunpoint interrogation that doesn’t go well. I feel myself edging closer to stepping off the cliff—my son is not going to die.

The bungalow’s owner tells me his name is DeLay and disagrees that he’s working for or with Roland Ganz; Mr. DeLay says he’s a career civil servant, an ex–prison guard at the Joliet death house, and currently a juvenile services caseworker. Harold nods his Afro. Both men insist they have never seen, heard, or spoken to a white man or boy named Idaho Joe.

I try cop-bracing them three different ways, but the longer I listen to their bullshit, the more I suspect that these two have turned against an employer or client they won’t name and are now blackmailing him or ransoming him their info—a felony that may actually save them from me.

"Wearing me out, fellas. I am gonna shoot you—right here on your fucking sofa—unless I’m
first,
told the name and whereabouts of your client;
second,
given the entire file on the foster home and its four kids; and
third,
a list of everyone who’s seen it."

DeLay says, "Don’t know what you’re talking about. But if you use that," he sneers at my Smith, "I know you’re going to Stateville. Know that for a fact."

I nod at him, guessing some of his barrel chest and thick wrists are muscle. "Harold here seems to think you have the file."

"Maybe you should be at his house, threatening him."

"First shot’s in your foot."

DeLay reaches for a cigarette or a weapon I can’t see. Harold jerks away. I hit Mr. DeLay as hard as I can on the temple and his oversize head snaps sideways.

"Owwww!"
He grabs at his ear and his right leg kicks me in the shin.

The pain shoots to my hip and I go to a knee, then stumble up quick and unsteady. "I ain’t fucking around, Mr. DeLay. Give me the file. Now."

His nose dribbles blood on his cowboy shirt. When he notices the stain, his eyes flash and he tucks a scuffed brogue back to push the remainder of him up to standing. No chance I can outfight him with just my hands, let alone him and Harold together. As he straightens, I kick him in the abdomen. The kick knocks him back into the sofa. Harold twists sideways to avoid 240 pounds falling. DeLay is gasping when he lands, both arms wrapped to his intestines. I don’t think I want to shoot these guys, but the new me will probably kill them if she’s given the opportunity.

I kick Mr. DeLay in the shin instead. He yells,
"Shit,"
and rolls onto Harold’s legs, trying to protect abdomen and shin. "Quit it, for chrissake."

"Give me the file." I kick DeLay again, this time in the hand covering the shin.

"Owwwww."

I jam the gun barrel hard next to his bleeding ear and fire. He slams backward from the noise, screams, and grabs his ear.

"The file."

"
Dining room. Under the boxes
. Under the boxes."

I catch Harold moving, his arm now ends buried between a cushion and the sofa’s arm. I aim before he can. "Slowly, Harold. Very slowly."

The large black hand comes out with a small black pistol.

"You’re close to dying, Harold. Don’t fuck this up for us. Drop it on the floor."

He doesn’t.

"Drop it on the floor, Harold. Or I put out your eye out."

The pistol bounces on the carpet. I step his way and kick the pistol across the room. "Hands on top of your head, Harold." He does and I back into the dining room to retrieve the file. It’s only an inch thick, not much for all the hell it represents. Both men stare at me, DeLay with his face contorted, waiting for a mistake that will save their meal ticket, but neither willing to die for it.

"So far, I figure you two are facing three to five in Stateville for the file and the blackmail. My brother’s there doing double life. You read the file, right? Nine murders?"

No answer.

"Maybe you missed it. My brother’s Danny del Pasco. I’m his favorite sister. Make trouble for me or testify against me or my son
for any reason,
I pull the pin on the file and your blackmail adventure—hello Danny D."

We share the moment. I ask if there’s questions. There aren’t any and I cock the Smith. "Who’s your client? Last time I ask before one of you dies. Where is he and how do you get paid?"

Harold looks at his bleeding, half-deaf partner, thinks about my pistol and how I look, and rolls without the major fight PIs put up in Fantasyland; he explains that he’s not the PI who caught the case, just an operative picking up a few bucks. Harold thinks the
real
PI has plenty of info on the client.

"Good, we’ll go see him now."

"Uh, he’s in Arizona, Phoenix, I think, Delmont Chukut." Harold spells both first and last, and produces an area code 602 number. DeLay coughs still scrunched and holding his abdomen and says he has a partner in this too, a Cal City cop who has to be paid, the detective I met Wednesday. DeLay wants to know what to tell Detective Barnes.

That’s a good question, since Detective Barnes can cause me major problems and quickly. Luckily, Calumet City policemen have a reputation, at least those from the past, and understand two things with absolute clarity: death by gunshot and federal prison. I go with the former.

"Tell Detective Barnes there’s thirteen thousand five hundred cops in Chicago. Out of them, somewhere between ten and fifty will come out here and kill him if anything happens to me. Then there’s my girlfriend." I cut a glance at Harold. "Harold can tell you about her."

Harold and DeLay share a glance, a strange one, and I ask. They don’t explain. I sort of see the explanation but don’t, like I’m in the window in Chinatown and can’t quite see the reflection…

Roland Ganz has to be the PI—the Juvenile file will show me what Roland and his employees know, but I’m really no closer to saving my son than the 602 phone number. I ask again. Neither man explains; I step to the side and roundhouse Juvenile Caseworker DeLay, this time two-handed with the pistol. The blow knocks him half off the couch. I land screaming in his face.
"Someone’s trying to kill my kid!"

The hammer’s still back on the .38, but now my fingers are slippery in DeLay’s blood. His eyes are baseballs and he’s mumbling. Harold bolts for the door. I fan and fire, splintering the doorjamb. Harold drops to the wood floor and covers his head. I scream at DeLay from six inches.
"Trying to kill my son!"

DeLay ducks to nowhere. "The PI! The PI’s got an angle." DeLay peeps at Harold, "But we can’t figure it."

"Why the fuck not?"

DeLay coughs blood.

I roundhouse him but miss.
"Why the fuck not?"

"Don’t know—"

The door opens and I almost kill Tracy Moens. Harold shies like she’s Godzilla. Tracy’s not used to that and looks at Harold, then the doorjamb above him, then the gun in my bloody hand and the big bloody white man spread on and off the couch.

"Jesus."
She swallows a grimace. "He…ah, dead?"

I glare at DeLay. "In a minute," then step back and retrieve Harold’s gun. "I’m gonna kill one of you. Whoever explains the who and why of Arizona isn’t him."

Tracy freezes. Not a word from white or black. Harold knows the most about me and isn’t bleeding and figures he’s got the most room. Harold knows what I have to lose for this behavior, but he seems confused, and should be. He doesn’t know the new me.

Tracy whispers, "We okay, Patti?"

"Sure. Fine." I tell Harold: "Whoever explains isn’t dead."

Tracy touches my arm as gently as she has ever touched anything in her life. When she feels my bicep respond, she grips and tugs. "C’mon. We need to go. Really."

We will, right after one of these two talks.

"Patti." Tracy sees the file and tugs harder, then leans to me and whispers, "The gunshots. You have the file. We can always come back."

She’s right, for all three reasons, but that doesn’t matter. I want the answers now, even if these two don’t have any. I aim, Harold cringes but doesn’t confess. Maybe he doesn’t know more; I for sure wouldn’t tell him shit if he worked for me.

I hear myself think that and blink. Getting arrested by Cal City cops won’t help. Reality competes with rage. "You two like Chinese food?"

Both men act confused. Like they’ve never heard the term.

"Been in Chinatown this week, Harold?" Louder still, "Been there to meet anybody since you caught this case?"

Harold pushes back as far as the doorjamb will allow. Tracy grips harder and I knock her hand away. "
Answer me,
Harold. Chinatown. When was the last time you were there? The last time." I step into him. "You been there this week, right? After you broke into my house,
you fucking asshole
."

Harold flinches and crabs backwards until the wall stops him.

"ANSWER ME."

My gun’s in his face. I want to kill Harold, blow his fucking face all over the oak planks and shadows, then he can go to Chinatown with me. Every fucking Friday. We’ll face twenty-three years of hell together.

"Patti!" Tracy’s yelling my name. "Patti!"

"Ready, Harold?"

"They don’t know! Patti, they don’t know!"

   We’re past the witching hour. I’m naked under a borrowed bathrobe, and exhausted. The hair dryer trembling in my hand is Tracy’s.

She led me here, skirting the lake and worsening weather to her town house in Lincoln Park, testimony to Tracy’s nerve after she met the real me in Calumet City. I left both men alive but it was an accident not a decision…John’s mother is not okay.

Tracy’s ten-speed Style Pro requires Stella’s beauty school education, so I give up. Driving here I had the same success reaching the Arizona PI, Delmont Chukut. My hand’s bruised from smashing the phone into the dash.

The three calls produced nothing but voice mail. The last two were easier than the first; I wasn’t prepared to hear Roland’s voice next to my ear again and luckily didn’t have to. The voice mail recording wasn’t Roland, so now it’s possible that Roland isn’t the PI; not likely, but possible. And if Roland isn’t masquerading as Delmont Chukut, then this PI is a stupid man with very serious problems if he’s unarmed when I find him. I haven’t yet figured out how to do that, but will shortly.

Tracy’s testing the space between us. "I called Julie while you were in the shower," seeing which Patti Black is in her house. "Julie thinks BASH will be postponed till tomorrow."

Lightning cracks. Rain sheets against the windows behind Tracy. Her windows are separated by a fireplace mantle lined with rugby trophies. Tracy’s talking about rugby. That means today is Saturday and
tomorrow
is Sunday—
son of a bitch
—Ms. Meery at Le Bassinet knew it was Friday when I was there. She also knew they’d be closed until Monday, two facts I missed while living on no sleep and less food. Plenty of time to get me arrested before I hurt any of her coworkers. I lurch toward the door and stumble.

Tracy yells, "Hey."

The knob won’t turn; the lock won’t work.

"You’ll need a hat. Pants, you know, shoes and stuff."

I see bare feet beneath my two hands struggling with the knob. The weight of my options—all the mistakes and lies and—My knees go weak. Suddenly I’m sitting, tears on my cheeks, the rage and fear defeated into exhausted mush. I lean into the door, stare at nothing, and one shoulder rolls slow to the floor. The doormat feels good. I curl up as small as I can, like I used to after the basement, and disappear.

   Thunder blows me and a blanket off the floor. I’m standing before I know how and wobble into a stairway post. Murky daylight surrounds a two-story fireplace, its monumental windows streaked with rain. Tracy’s on the rug, papers fanned in stacks. She has a coffee cup near her mouth and a startled expression. "Hi?"

I blink until I’m stable.
"Jesus."

Tracy stares, does the hair move I hate and guys love, smiles, and asks if I want coffee.

"What time is it?"

She rolls her wrist. "9:15."

"In the morning?"

Her face adds apprehension I remember from last night. My phone’s on the sofa. I grab it and I punch-dial Le Bassinet, don’t know the number, and switch to 411. "C’mon. C’mon." They have the number. I dial again. It’s a recording—
closed, reopening Monday at 9:00 a.m
.

"Goddamnit!" I cock to slam the phone and…there’s another way to save John:
Marjorie Elliot
. That was the codirector’s name, the one with the keys…A new operator can’t find Marjorie Elliot in the city or in the suburbs. I tell her, "Try a Mrs. Trousdale. How many Trousdales in Evanston?"

"None."

"How about anywhere in the suburbs?"

Pause…then: "Possibly eighty-five, ninety." Another pause, and she adds: "More than that in the city."

Too many. Too many. "Any unlisted?"

"No. I’m sorry."

I growl "Thanks" through bit teeth and click off.

My head starts to throb. The tops of my feet don’t offer a solution, nor does the ceiling. I have to find one of these women—then it will be a kidnap and death threat. Ten years minimum if no one gets hurt.