The lions share, p.14
The Lion's Share, page 14
part #10 of Jimmy Flannery Series
Lundatos coughs and Maggie smiles at Shanker like he was a puppy who peed on the rug. The others are vaguely embarrassed in one of them odd moments when somebody does something stupid and everybody takes the blame onto themselves.
Maggie turns them blue eyes back to me.
"Some especially energetic and industrious reporter might dig up the connection but I don't see why one would. An expensive call girl was found dead, because of an unfortunate accident, in the bathroom of a luxury flat in the Eleventh Ward, home of Chicago mayors. You must take my word that Leo knew nothing about my ownership of that building. I'm afraid that a couple of the things Burke taught me, in the brief time we were married, was always have a hidden stash and never let your right hand know what your left hand's doing."
She reaches out to take her husband's hand then, like she's asking his forgiveness for the secrets kept from him. It looks like she's done with explanations and pleas.
"So you want me to join up in a conspiracy to keep it quiet," I say, finally answering Shanker's question about do I know what's wanted here.
"Are you going to give us one of your holy howls claiming official cover-up?" Jarwolski says, in this voice meant to challenge me and make me sound a fool at the same time.
"It ain't only me that howls, Superintendent," I say. "You know as good as me that some things can't be covered up, though you people keep on trying. 'Murder will out,' somebody said, and this could be murder. It's going to come out no matter how you scramble to throw a blanket over it."
"We're pretty sure we can cover them," O'Meara says, all of a sudden the wise old counselor instead of the brash glad-hander.
"Do you know how many people got to be told to shut their mouths?" I say. "There's the boys from the Mobile Crime Scene crew, the people down in the Coroner's Office and the homicide cops—"
"All of whom catch two or three of these call girl killings a month. If nobody else officially takes special notice it goes into the files as a homicide committed by a person or persons unknown. It's forgotten in a week. It's like it never happened in a month," Jarwolski says.
"And when Leo runs for alderman and they start looking for dirt on his shoes and soot on his fingers?"
"You think the whole world lives politics like you and me?" O'Meara asks. "Well, they don't give a rat's ass most of the time. That's why you got forty-two percent of forty percent of the voting age population electing a president."
"There's the people what maintain the building. Rumors fly. There's the pizza man and the guy what brings the laundry."
Jarwolski, O'Meara and Lundatos shake their heads, making me feel like I'm just picking things out of the air.
"We're talking about a dead whore, here," Jarwolski says.
"There's one person you forgot." I say.
"Who might that be?" Margaret asks.
"The man what called me on the telephone and got me over to that building. The man suggested that Leo might have something to say about what I find there. The man who wasn't there when I got there, but is still out there somewhere."
"That's being taken care of," Shanker says, and this time nobody acts like he spilled his drink. "Trust us on this."
"We're not asking you to do anything," O'Meara says. "We're asking you to just not do anything."
"Well?" somebody practically whispers.
I don't even know who says it or if anybody says it, but I just think somebody says it, because I know it's the question on everybody's mind. Am I going to go along? Am I going to run as a team with Lundatos, who'll only serve a term and then turn the alderman's seat over to me? Have I had a taste of power by becoming warlord of the Twenty-seventh and can I withstand the pull of ambition? Will I go along to get along?
They say they got the bases covered pretty good, though I don't want to think about what Shanker means when he says they got the problem of the anonymous caller covered. I'm the loose cannon who could maybe sink the ship.
Another glass of ginger ale appears in front of me, with a maraschino cherry glowing like a tiny stoplight on top of the ice.
"Well?" I hear again.
This time I know somebody said it because I see Lundatos's lips move.
I notice he's squeezing his wineglass like he's holding hisself back from smacking me in the face.
"I got to have a little time to think," I hear myself saying.
His wineglass breaks. I pull out my clean pocket handkerchief and hand it to him as Maggie makes noises of concern. She wraps my handkerchief around his hand.
"For Christ's sake, Flannery," Lundatos says.
I knew it was the wrong thing to say when I said it. They give me the facts. They made the offer. Sleeping on them is a sign of weakness to these people. They want a decision and I ain't giving it to them.
"Sleep on it, Flannery," Jarwolski says. "Do that. Think about who'll be there to listen if you decide to spill your guts."
"Think about what you really got to say, Jimmy," O'Meara says, his tongue dripping honey again. "You got a call from a man that wasn't there. What was you doing going to a flat in the Eleventh? Why, you hardly get out of the Twenty-seventh for more than an hour nowadays. Why was you going to a flat in which a professional lady, who you had a rendezvous with at Delvin's funeral feast, was waiting?"
"Don't threaten Mr. Flannery," Maggie says. We look at one another. She smiles.
I'll tell you the truth, if I wasn't married with a child, both of who I dearly love, and even taking into account what other people might think was an unsuitable difference in our ages, and if, of course, she was willing, I wouldn't think twice about having a relationship with Margaret Cooley Burke Lundatos.
"Think about my husband's offer," she says, like being her husband's running mate is all we've been talking about.
"I'll do that," I say.
Lundatos unwraps his hand and looks at the cut. It ain't bleeding any more.
Maggie reaches for the handkerchief. "I'll see that it's washed and returned to you," she says.
I take it from her fingers.
"No, no," I say, letting them know that, at the moment, I won't even accept that small courtesy.
TWENTY-THREE
I drive past the fancy conversion on Lowe on the way past the new house on the way to the old flat.
I just heard Maggie Lundatos take a shot at getting her husband off the hook and shut up a person—me—what is known for sticking his nose in where a lot of people don't think it belongs.
I've got no reason to believe she didn't tell me the truth except that she's a wife and a political wife to boot, which means telling lies is only bad or good depending on reasons and results.
I stop at a telephone booth and ring up the number of this bar and grill what takes this friend Willy Dink's messages.
Willy Dink is an exterminator of rare and unusual talents. He don't use chemicals, poisons or sprays. You got ants, he brings in a small armadillo. You got mice in the walls, he brings in a snake and a ferret. You got rats, he's got this little terrier by the name of Timmy.
Willy Dink lives in a truck with a wooden camper body he built hisself. A very nice sign he's painted on the side says "Willy Dink's Natural Vermin Control" with, under it, this coat of arms which is made up of a mailed fist, a snake, a ferret, and a terrier and a ribbon with some Latin words which he says, roughly translated, says, "Let us get the buggers before they get you."
Ever since he helped me with a matter concerning a dead model and I saved his animals from death at the city pound, we been friends and I called on him once or twice to get into places or stake places out because he's got this talent of disappearing into the walls through the most unlikely methods.
The guy in the bar and grill finally answers.
"This is Jimmy Flannery," I say. "Is Willy Dink around?"
"No," he says, "Willy ain't been around a day or two now."
"How's that?" I ask. "He ain't in trouble, is he?"
"Nothing like that, as far as I know. He said something about wanting to get some fresh air these warm nights. Maybe go over to Saganashkee Slough, where there's more trees and less homeless than Grant Park."
"What's he doing way the hell over there in the forest?" I say. "How's he going to get his calls?"
"He's got one of them phones you carry around with you."
"You happen to have a number?"
He gives me a number. While I'm dialing up, I'm wondering how Willy Dink's got a cellular phone when he can't pay the rent on a flat and lives in his truck. Of course there's always been the problem with landladies about the creatures he uses in his business, so even if he's fallen on good times and could afford a flat, he might not be able to find one anybody'd rent to him.
The phone rings way out there on the edge of the city and then Willy Dink picks it up.
"Is them birds I hear?" I say.
"Is that you, Jimmy?"
"What're you doing running around with a phone what costs forty dollars minimum a month to own."
"You should know better'n that, Jimmy," he says. "I made an arrangement."
"You found a way to pirate cellular phone service?"
"You know how to get into buildings, stores and offices, here and there, and you learn how to work these computers, you'd be surprised what you can do," Willy Dink says. "But I don't steal nothing from people," he quickly adds. "So what can I do you for?"
"I've got a little stakeout job for you," I say.
"Where?"
"Bridgeport."
"Night or day?"
"A little of each."
"Inside or outside?"
"Your pick after you look the place over."
"Give me an address."
I give him the address.
"So you want to meet there and explain things to me?"
"Meet me at Schaller's Pump and we'll drive over together. That truck of yours is maybe too conspicuous."
"I ain't stupid, Flannery," he says, somewhat offended.
"I never said. Just meet me at the Pump."
I'm parked in front of the Eleventh Ward Democratic Headquarters across the street from Schaller's when a red Honda pulls up at the curb behind me.
I glance up at the rearview and see this short guy get out and start walking toward me. He's got something under his arm and something draped around his neck.
I twist around in my seat because I can't believe my eyes. I never seen Willy Dink dressed so sharp in gray slacks and a tweed sport jacket. He's even wearing a dark green hat with a feather in the band.
The package under his arm is the little dog, Timmy, and the bundle on his shoulder is his ferret, I forget its name.
I get out of the car thinking how you got to watch out or the whole world'll change on you while you got your back turned.
"What's going on here?" I ask. "Is this your Saturday night-out outfit?"
"This is my professional look," he says. "I ain't going to look like a Gypsy no more, Jimmy. It's time I got into the new society."
"You crawl into walls dressed like that?"
"When I got a dirty job to do, I put on the pair of coveralls I got in the car. Is this a dirty job you got for me to do?"
"That depends on how and which end you're looking at," I say. "You want to drive over and case the stakeout with me or follow me in your fire engine?"
"I'll go with you and decide how to handle it," he says. "Then we'll come back here and you can buy me a beer before I go dry until the job's done."
He's talking like a professional or an agent from the Bureau of Investigation.
He gets in my car, tossing Timmy and the ferret in the backseat.
"You really got to get yourself a new set of wheels," he says.
So ten minutes later we're parked across the street from the three-flat that was once two three-flats.
"What am I looking for?" he asks.
"I want to see who goes in and out of that building in the next two or three days."
"Anything go on in there I should know about?" he asks.
"A woman was found dead, probably murdered," I say.
"The cops got the doors taped?"
"They're finished doing everything they intend to do," I say.
"We talking the rug and the broom here?"
"That's what," I say.
He's been looking around, up and down the street, up and down the buildings all around.
"I can't stake it out on the street," he says. "How's it set up inside?"
"I only know the top floor. I figure you can find out the rest for yourself."
"But it's only the third floor you're interested in?"
"I think so."
"So I won't stake it out from the lobby level either. I'll go inside. You want pictures?"
"They could be useful."
"Stills or tape?"
"Tape. I got to tell you, Willy, this new efficiency of yours is very impressive but it worries me a little bit."
"Don't you worry, it's the same old Willy Dink, Jimmy, but the world marches on and you got to change just to keep up. Okay, let's go get that beer. I don't want the neighbors should have too much time to start worrying what two men in a car are doing parked in a residential neighborhood."
I start the engine.
Willy's still looking at the conversion. "A very handsome remodel," he says.
"You ought to see the inside," I say.
"Oh, I will," he says.
TWENTY-FOUR
God is supposed to have rested on the seventh day, some people say Saturday, some people say Sunday, but I didn't rest.
All day Sunday I'm over to the house in Bridgeport working my tail off helping Mary, Charlotte, Sada and Janet Canarias decide which stuff of Delvin's and which stuff of ours is to be set aside for a garage sale. Which, I hope, could help make up some of the expenses of this move.
Some of the furniture, pictures and lamps is going to auction, also to make some money to pay for all this deferred maintenance and improvements.
I been given the job of sorting through photos, papers and documents, old newspaper and magazine clippings, making up my mind what I want to keep and what I'll donate to the Harold Washington Library if they want it.
There's other stuff what'll go to different charities. So much stuff. A ton of stuff.
The women love the process. I hate the process.
"Driving you nuts, Jimmy?" Janet asks.
"I can't help feeling that I'm picking through things I shouldn't be picking through, putting my nose where it don't belong."
"It's got to be done," she says. "It's not only sorting through Delvin's possessions, is it?"
"I've got a problem."
"Talk about it?"
"I don't think so. Not yet," I say, waiting for her to make the offer a second time, which is only polite.
"Anything I can do to help?" she asks.
She looks at her watch. She's a busy lady. She's giving Mary a couple of extra hours here and she feels she really shouldn't waste a minute.
"It'd help if you could tell me where I could find Mabel Halstead," I say, not getting into it the way I was intending to.
She looks at her watch again after just looking at it, the way busy people do.
"At the storefront," she says. "Every Sunday Mabel gives me half a day, sets up my appointment book for the week and checks my calendar for the month. Mabel's the best at that sort of organization I've ever seen. She even bought me a watch that can be programmed to sound a tiny alarm when an important appointment is coming up."
"A watch?"
"I leave it on my desk when I leave the storefront Saturdays and pick it up Sunday night or Monday morning."
"I don't know if I can keep up."
"I know what you mean."
"I don't know if I want to keep up."
She leaves and a minute later Mary walks in and stands there watching me sort.
"There's so many boxes of letters and reports and old documents here," she says. "Are you making a dent?"
"I think maybe I should get us some help from the library," I say. "There's a lot of junk here but a lot of stuff that's historical, valuable even. Maybe we should get an expert in."
"Could you do that?" she says.
"I could do that. Just pile everything like that in here."
"There's three times as much again down in the basement," she says.
I must've groaned because she grins and says, "This is the first house move we ever really made, not counting me moving in with you," she says. "It'll be the last for a long, long time to come, if ever. So let's consider it an adventure. Are you hating it?"
"These books and papers is one thing. I'll help the librarian sort through it. There's even things I'll probably want to save for myself. But the rugs and chairs and dish towels and doilies, I don't know what to say when you ask me should we get rid of it, should we keep it."
"I don't want to shove you out of it, James. I don't want to leave you feeling that your opinion doesn't matter."
"The thing is," I say, "I got no real interest in whether you keep this chair, that table, or what. Except for Delvin's old leather chair and the rug what he used to throw over his knees. I'd like it if you could find a place for them."
"The chair needs upholstering," she says.
She don't have to tell me what I already know, but I understand why she did it. The next time I complain about the expense of something she thinks needs doing, she can bring it up to me that she didn't make any complaint when the chair I wanted to keep was done over.
I stand up from where I been squatting and try to get my knee joints back in place.
She comes up to me chest-to-chest and lays her cheek against mine.
"You are a man among men, James Barnabas Flannery." She kisses me and then backs away so she can watch my eyes and know what I say next is true. "You'd really rather not be in on the decisions?"
"Not these decisions," I say. "You make the house you'll be happy in and I'll be happy in it, too."
"Well, then, go on and have a day for yourself."
She kisses me again and then practically pushes me out the door so she can get on with it. I'm not even down the steps when the four of them are laughing and carrying on and I realize I was throwing a wet blanket on their fun.
