The Chicago Way (14 page)

As she spoke, an intense green light arrowed through the darkness and found a piece of the torn shirt. Nicole continued talking as she played the light across the garment.

“Different wavelengths of light react with different fluids, causing them to glow. Depending on how I set the laser, I can pick up bloodstains, saliva, and, of course, everyone’s favorite, semen.”

“What color is semen?”

“Yellow’s the lucky color. Sort of like that right there.”

Nicole pointed a gloved finger to the lower right side of the garment. I saw a spray of yellow, translucent against the lasered green, just below a large bloodstain. Nicole carefully marked the location with pins and photographed the site. Then she examined the rest of the garment, finding three other possible hits. After an hour she turned off the laser and flicked on the lights.

“We got something.”

“You think so?”

Nicole took a pair of scissors and carefully began to cut at the areas she had marked with pins.

“I’ll run a presumptive chemical test, but you can take it on credit. Someone left semen on that shirt.”

Each piece of shirt was placed into an evidence bag and tagged. Nicole shut down the inspection area and led me back to her workstation.

“I can start DNA extraction tonight.”

“How long will that take?”

“Usually we’re talking six weeks. If I drop everything, I can have preliminary results back in twenty-four hours.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Two things. First, I want this piece of evidence out of my life as soon as possible. Second, I think you need to get your friend in contact with some people I know.”

“After this is done, I’ll talk to her.”

“Do that, Michael.”

“Fine. Now, here’s a question. Say we get a profile. Then what?”

“Let me guess,” Nicole said. “You want a run through CODIS?”

CODIS was the state’s genetic databank, home to the DNA of thousands of felons from across the country.

“Is that possible?” I said.

“It might get flagged, but I can probably hide it. The real problem comes if you get a match. You’d have a name and not a thing you could do about it.”

“Legally,” I said.

“That’s right, Michael. Legally. Your evidence is probably tainted, as well as the CODIS search.”

“Let’s just get the name, Nicole. After that I’ll figure out the rest.”

My friend was about to respond when voices drifted down the corridor. Nicole packaged up the shirt and slid it into a drawer behind her desk.

“I’ll hang on to this and give you a call when I get something.”

She pulled one of her cards from a pocket and wrote on the back.

“Unless I miss my guess, you have no discernible social life these days. At least this will get you out of the house.”

Nicole pushed the card across the table. On the reverse she had written “Drake Hotel, Friday, 8 p.m.”

“It’s this Friday. In the main ballroom. Don’t be late, and wear something you haven’t picked up off the floor. That means black tie.”

“What am I attending?”

“A fund-raiser. For the Rape Volunteer Association. All these issues we’ve been talking about and maybe some help for your girl. There will be a lot of women there.”

I smiled.

“Don’t be too happy. It’s going to cost you five hundred dollars to get in.”

“That’s okay.”

“And most of the women you meet will have been raped. So watch your step. By the way, Ms. Lindsay will be there.”

“Really?”

“Yes, indeed. So we can see you two together, out on the town.”

I felt my face grow a little warm and dropped my eyes.

“So you two are sleeping together,” Nicole said.

“It’s not like that.”

“It never is. But she’ll be there anyway. Now get out of here. I still have a couple hours’ worth of work to get through.”

“Thanks, Nicole.”

“Don’t thank me until you see what I can do.”

She didn’t sound happy. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t have the right to ask for her help, but I did anyway. Now we’d all live with the consequences.

I left the lab at a little after nine o’clock. Evening traffic was light, and I drove carelessly toward the lake, dangerously close to Annie’s high-rise. At times it seemed my car had a mind of its own. Took the lefts and rights needed to put me on her block. I’d sit for an hour or so in the darkness. Not watching. Not really. Not stalking. Just a chance to be. To think. Essentially, to torture myself.

Tonight, however, the car zigged when it should have zagged. Took a left away from Annie’s place and into some sort of future. Diane opened the door before I got up her front stairs. She didn’t ask about my day, didn’t want to talk about the night before or tomorrow. We just had a drink and enjoyed the quiet. Sometimes that’s enough. This was one of those times. Then we went to bed. I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

R iver North is Chicago’s answer to Soho on the East Coast and Venice Beach on the West. Not much of an answer, but what the hell, it’s the Midwest.

Twenty years ago the area was rife with tumbledown hotels and warehouses. Today the warehouses are art galleries; the flophouses, million-dollar condos. The sidewalks are wide, clean, and full of admen dressed in Ted Baker and carrying portfolios. The women are nice to look at. Younger, in their twenties and early thirties, they wear low-riders and belly rings. Tattooed and perpetually cell-phoned, they curl themselves around a Cosmo at bars like the Martini Ranch, waiting to be discovered or better yet, find an investment banker who will carry them off to a duplex in Winnetka, 2.5 kids, and an expense account at the North Shore Country Club. If all else fails, women in River North get drunk, dance on the bar at Coyote Ugly, and scout around for some fun. Sometimes known as guys like me.

In the heart of River North sits an unassuming storefront, red-brick with a plate-glass window and whitewashed frame addition. A single-bulb electric sign is hammered in out front. The black block lettering reads MR. BEEF. To the untrained eye, it might seem like just another sandwich joint. Inside, however, is an entirely different matter. Inside, in fact, is an entirely different state of mind.

To the left is the counter, peopled by three or four workers, yelling at one another in a variety of languages. On the other side of the counter are the customers, various and sundry specimens of Midwestern Man, stuffed and on display.

Specimen #1: Large belly hanging over frayed leather belt, Wrangler jeans, Red Wing work boots, and a key ring dangling on the side.

Specimen #2: Large belly hanging over fake leather belt, Men’s Warehouse suit, cracked Florsheim shoes, and a cell phone clipped on the side.

Specimen #3: Large belly hanging over money belt, Tommy Bahama silk pants, Cole Haan slip-ons, and a racing form stuffed in a side pocket.

And on it goes.

Each day any and all forms of Midwestern Man line up, single file, amid pictures of Leno, Letterman, Sinatra, and, of course, Da Coach. Midwestern Man, however, ignores all the pretty faces on the wall. He is here to pay homage to the true star of the show: Da Beef.

It is sliced thin off a roasting skewer and slid into a soft Italian roll. The beef is ordered dipped or not, with hot, sweet, or both. Dipped means the entire sandwich is dipped in its own juices before being wrapped up in white paper and shoved across the counter. Hot and sweet refers to peppers, usually.

Order a hot, sweet beef, dipped- you get it with the works. You also get some of the crudest sexual comments known to man as the sandwich is being prepared. They come from the regulars, average age 107. They sit like the peanut gallery they are, stacked on stools along the front window, all day, every day. They sip coffee and talk about sex they haven’t had since Christ was a carpenter. Nice guys, funny guys. A lot of fake hair, a lot of chains, a lot of grabbing themselves. There are worse things to be doing when you are 107. Like being dead.

I got to Mr. Beef ten minutes late for my lunch with Masters. I ordered a sweet beef, dipped, and found the detective in a far corner, under a movie poster for Reservoir Dogs. He had a toothpick in his mouth, was drinking a Coke, and picking at some fries.

“Sorry, I got hung up,” I said.

Masters took one look and grunted.

“Every time I come here, I wonder why I ever eat anywhere else. Hold on while I get another sandwich.”

Five minutes later, we were both set up. Me for lunch. The detective for an encore.

“You want to talk about the file,” I said.

Masters hoisted his beef with two hands, took a bite, and looked at me through hunched shoulders as he chewed. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t supposed to be. Then he drank down twenty ounces or so worth of Coke and belched.

“Where is it?”

I pulled a sheaf of papers from an inside pocket.

“Like I told you over the phone, she sent them to me by FedEx.”

“These copies?”

“Yeah. I kept a set.”

Another belch. More subtle this time. Then a sucking sound as Masters hit the bottom of his soda cup.

“Figured that,” the detective said.

“There is a copy of the FedEx slip as well.”

“No sweat, Kelly. I don’t have you killing Mulberry. Just like I don’t have you killing Gibbons. I told you, that was the DA’s thing.”

Masters spread the papers out on the table and gave them a quick scan.

“A police report, medical exam, and follow-up. I don’t see anything in here worth much.”

I kept quiet. Masters continued.

“Five fresh murders landed on my desk this morning. Triple homicide on the West Side and a mom who fed her two kids a load of Drano.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. In other words, I don’t have time for this shit.”

Masters rolled up his sandwich wrapper and shot it into a barrel a few feet away. Then he folded up the copies I had given him and stuffed them into a back pocket.

“Want to know what I think?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Gibbons was in the wrong place at the wrong time down on Navy Pier. Got himself mugged and then shot for good measure.”

“His wallet was found on his body.”

“Gibbons’ landlady got her house broken into.”

“How many guys break into a house with a Taser rigged for kill?”

“It happens,” Masters said. “Especially to women who live alone.”

“No connection between the two?”

“Nothing that I can see.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Show me a connection and I’ll listen.”

Masters got up to go.

“You know, I could charge you with about six different offenses, starting with obstruction of justice and tampering with a crime scene.”

“But you won’t,” I said.

“I will if you hold out on me again.”

I nodded as if I understood and thought about the package I had given Nicole.

“Next time you find a body,” the detective continued, “pick up the phone and give me a call. I told the guys up front you had the tab for lunch. Pay on the way out.”

Masters walked out the door. I took a bite of my sandwich and wondered just how much the cop had actually eaten.

I was half a block from the Beef when the Chicago mob stuck its foot into my life. They did it via a note tucked under my windshield wiper: “Come in for a cannoli.”

I looked up. At the corner of Superior and Franklin, under the El tracks where they like to film ER, sits a shack of a coffee shop called Brett’s. In the front window was a guy named Joey Palermo. He lifted an espresso cup my way. I stuffed the note in my pocket and headed over.

“Vinnie needs to speak with you,” Joey said.

“What, no hello?”

Palermo was a high-level hitter for Chicago’s capo di capi, Vinnie DeLuca. I knew Joey from my days as a cop. Big guy. Nice guy. Could crush your larynx like a Dixie cup and offer a sincere apology as you choked to death at his tasseled and loafered feet.

“The boss says it’s a matter of some importance. Shouldn’t take more than a half hour.”

Joey held open the front door to Brett’s. I followed him out. The cannolis didn’t look all that good anyway.

J ust south of Wrigley Field sits its canine counterpart, known to the locals as Wiggley Field. The dog park was empty, save for an old man sitting on a park bench, smoking a cigarette and trying to ignore a standard poodle.

Vinnie DeLuca had lived in the neighborhood for the last decade. Why, no one could figure out, although plenty of people tried. Vinnie started in at nine years old, a runner for Capone’s gang on the South Side. Today he was eighty-six, the last living link to Scarface and the undisputed leader of Chicago’s outfit for at least the last three decades.

Vinnie was old-school. At his age what else could he be? In the late seventies he conceded the street trade in drugs and guns to Chicago’s gangs: first to the Gangster Disciples, then the Latin Kings. Now it seemed they changed names every week. Vinnie still took a cut but never really looked back. Instead, the family took its business downtown, infiltrating Chicago’s corporate culture. Wiseguys set up on the Board of Trade and the Merc, on LaSalle Street, inside the lending rooms of banks and boardrooms. Millions of freshly laundered dollars went into real-estate development, strip malls, and shopping centers. Of course, Vinnie never went anywhere without a politician or two in his pocket. With the money they could throw at a campaign, the family usually had its pick.

The old man was rarely seen in public these days. I watched from the front seat of my car as he finished his cigarette and threw the butt to the ground. The poodle lifted his leg and christened it. Vinnie kicked the dog, took what looked like a racing form from his back pocket, and began to read. I got out of the car and walked toward the park. I could see Joey Palermo get out of a Lincoln halfway down the block. I spotted two other cars. Behind the tinted windows were men with guns, waiting, watching, probably bored but ready to kill me just the same.