Chicago Stories: West of Western (5 page)

Seraphy dropped down and scooted close, using body language where words failed. Tony's head nudged her shoulder and they leaned against each other as they had since they were three and the new kids at nursery school.

“Whatever,” she said finally, her words coming slow at first as she figured out what she wanted to say. “I'm a little surprised at all this, myself. You know, people talk about a neighborhood in terms of what sticks out, what's shocking and easy to see. But give us a chance, Tony. Maybe the violence, the gangs, are the dandelions in the lawn. Doesn't mean the grass isn't there.”

“So you, what? Get a couple of gallons of Round-up? And an Uzi or two?” Her brother sat up and stared at her.

“Something like that. I don't know, haven't had time to get out much yet.”

“Right. Fee's Pest Removal.” He sighed and scooched closer.“I know you can take care of yourself. I still think it's pretty iffy out there.” She didn't answer.“Even so, I'm a little jealous. At least you've got a place. Sort of.”

“You can always come live with me.”

“Gee thanks.”

“Or maybe I'll get a dog. Big dog.” She showed her teeth.

“I'm already house-trained.”

“Um-hum, wouldn't have to walk you, either, I guess. Of course,” she looked into his eyes and grinned, “I live in a slum.”

“Yeah,” he peered back with the same silver blue eyes and managed a small grin of his own. “Fortress Pelligrini.”

Neither of them spoke for a while.

“Shit.” Tony sat up straight.“I almost forgot. Mom wants to come and see your place.”

“Shit! I'm not ready.”

“Nobody ever is.”

After
Tony left, she felt he'd taken the life from the loft with him. Everything was suddenly too big, too empty, too quiet. Late afternoon sun splashed golden bands across the floor, bright but without warmth. The open space, shining floor and twelve foot ceiling were the same as before, but now seemed all surface and no soul, a developer's model waiting for her to fill the emptiness, and she had no idea where or how to begin. Domesticity was a foreign country, she had no map, and neighborhoods don't come with instructions.

Once she would have known how to do this, she thought, but that part of her had died ten years ago. When she met Joe her senior year in college, they had made so many plans, easily and instinctively: jobs, home, family. All died the night she sat on the sidewalk with Joe's head in her lap, sirens, flashing lights, urgent cop voices all around her.

Seraphy looked at her loft. Fat lot of good all that was to her now. A new life. She rubbed absently at her arm. Why was this so fucking complicated? Her building was functional, and she knew how to make a home when she was eighteen: find a place, get furniture, move in. It worked ten years ago. So why wasn't it working now? Deliberately, she narrowed her thoughts to the space immediately around her. The bathroom needed painting. Two of the former offices still had holes and missing mortar in the walls. She couldn't order kitchen cabinets until she made a measured drawing and plans. Everywhere she looked something seemed to need work.

“For Christ's sake, shape up or ship out, Pelligrini,” she muttered. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You've got a home, dammit, right here. Right now.” As if in answer to her thoughts, the heat came on, hot water thrumming through pipes, warm and life-giving as the blood through her arteries. The building alive around her, she knew what she had to do.

Security first, installing video cameras over the garage and front doors. Up on the ladder when an old man walked past her in the alley, she called hello and he nodded but didn't speak as he passed. She could feel eyes watching while she worked, maybe from the apartments across the alley, she couldn't locate the watcher. Chilled by the cold north wind and by working under the gaze of hidden watchers, by the time she finished, her coffee craving had reached desperation level. Time to move inside.

About the time the smell of fresh coffee filled the loft, the sun came out, sending bright bars of gold through the loft from west to east. After her second cup, the sunlight was noticeably warm and comforting and she noticed a faint scent of herbal shampoo and Neutrogena, grace notes to the prevalent espresso scent. She took a deep breath. Enough latte and a building of her own and she could cope with anything.

Lots were long and narrow in this part of town, backyards were tiny, just twenty-five feet or so carved out between back porch and garage, and tended to feature abandoned cars and discarded toilets. Her kitchen windows overlooked backyards of buildings that faced Cortez, she wasn't expecting much when she wandered over to take a look. Down below, behind a boarded-up storefront, she discovered an exquisite Japanese garden, a tiny secret garden hidden from the street and alley by surrounding buildings. Even this late in the fall, shades of green glowed against brick walls and a tiny bridge arched over a stream that reflected flashes of sunlight. Surely there were goldfish. A tiny bit of Shangri-La. She wondered about the gardener.

Still aimlessly wandering, she drifted through the loft, ending up at her bedroom window just as a red convertible sped down the alley and screeched to a halt behind a pair of six-flats. The black-haired and leather-jacketed driver beeped twice. A dark-haired boy of about eight or nine ran barefoot out to the car, grabbed an envelope, and ran back into the passageway between the buildings. She craned to see a license number, but the angle was wrong and she could only tell it was an Illinois plate. Less than a minute later, the boy returned and tossed the driver a baggie, the car accelerated down the alley and disappeared.

Son of a bitch. All the good feelings engendered by the sight of the hidden garden vanished. No doubt about this, drug dealers using child runners were a cliché, and she had a front-row seat. Maybe this explained the threat on her garage door. She reached for her phone.

“You
called about a drug deal?” asked the older detective. His notebook ready in his thick fingers, his red-rimmed bleached-blue eyes watched her face as he shifted his ample butt and tried to get comfortable on the rickety director's chair. “So what did you see, when and where?”

“I'll show you.” Seraphy beckoned him and his partner to follow her through the loft to her bedroom window. Their cop eyes were everywhere, wondering, assessing.

“A red Mercedes stopped in the alley there.” She pointed to the six-flat. “The driver honked, a little kid ran out, took an envelope from him, ran back into the building, and brought back a baggie with dope. I saw the whole deal.”

Markowicz, his name tag said. His off-white shirt was rumpled and the cheap blue suit pulled under his thick arms. He sighed, flipped his notebook closed, tucked it in his shirt pocket, scratched his ear with his pen.

“Hear that, Terreno? I guess we should just mosey on over there and arrest the pack of them.” He tucked the pen in his shirt pocket and hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets to anchor his hands on his hips, frowned and went on in a tired voice, “Look, lady. You don't
know
if that was money in that envelope the driver gave the kid. You don't
know
what that white powder was. You don't even
know
which apartment the kid went to, who he is, or who the man in the car was. So what do you expect us to do, since you don't really know anything?”

So this is the war on drugs I've been hearing about, she thought, drug drive-ups and the cops looking the other way.

Terreno, the younger, darker one in the navy linen jacket and miraculously-pressed tan Dockers, read the wave of disgust that narrowed her eyes and compressed her mouth. “Hold on, Marko. Miss Pelligrini, let's go back to the kitchen and sit down and I'll explain.”

Once all three found places to sit, Terreno ran his hand through his thick dark hair, sighed and said, “Look, miss, we can't just go over and grab up anybody we think's dealing. With what you told us, we don't even have reasonable cause for a search warrant. Unless we can prove, and I mean prove, not suspect, that that white powder was a controlled substance, we can't do anything.” He paused, tucked back a stray lock of hair, and said, “In fact we've known for a long time about that building.”

“Shit.”

“You saw a red car, a man give a kid something, the kid run inside and come back to the car with something, right?” She nodded assent. “So a good lawyer could say it was the kid's uncle come to pick up some baby powder his mother left there last Sunday after church.”

“Like anybody's going to believe that.”

“They don't have to. Can you
prove
that's not the case?”

Shit. She knew Terreno was right. “So there's nothing you can do?”

“We got stuff we're doing,” said Markowicz. “The only thing you could do is let us put a camera up on your roof to record the cars and visitors, but we're not going to do that, are we, Terreno?”

“Why not?” Sounded good to her. She'd need a higher resolution model, long-range lenses, like that. Maybe that place on Clybourne would have the right ones.

“Because we like you. Because if we did that, and those gentlemen found out, you would definitely not like the results.”

“I can take care of myself.” Jesus, weren't they even going to pretend to go after the dealers? She'd get that camera tomorrow. If not Clybourne, Midstate Camera downtown would definitely have something in stock.

“No doubt,” said Terreno, “But you want your windows shot up? Or a Molotov cocktail tossed into your bedroom some night?”

“My windows can take care of themselves.” Nice try, guys. I don't scare that easily. She smiled. The men exchanged a glance. She could see what they were thinking, nutcase here. Assholes.

“I'll show you.” Her voice was frustrated, rough. She stomped over to the front windows. Markowicz followed slowly, humoring her, but Terreno strode to the window, looked, then shifted his head sharply from side-to-side.

“What kind of glass you got here? It's funny, kinda distorted when I move my head.”

“It's not glass, it's Maalon. I got it from a friend.” Seraphy punched the window, hard. “See? Thinner than bulletproof glass, and stronger.”

“You got it from a friend.” Markowicz's eyebrows shot up. Both detectives were alert now, watching, curious. She could hear them thinking, ‘weird stuff for a yuppie chick.’ Their faces flickered with suspicion. ‘Nutcase’ was rapidly morphing into ‘suspect.’ What was she doing with bulletproof glass?

“The second day I was here working, before I got new windows, I got bricks through eleven windows. I figured the vandals'd smash new ones, too, so I had my new windows made with Maalon instead of Thermopane. It's bulletproof, better than glass. No more broken windows, no bricks.” She shrugged. “Or bullets or Molotov cocktails, for that matter.”

The cops, busy examining the windows, were silent and alert, their weight on their toes now. Shit, why did she have to say that? Better clear things up before they decided she was bad news.

“I can take care of myself and my building,” she said, her voice deliberately soft.

Markowicz turned and stared at her with his head up, chewing his lip, then at the windows. Terreno nodded, thoughtful, then tilted his head to look through half-closed eyes.

“Just who the hell are you?” he demanded, “and why are you here?” She could see the drug dealer alarm go off in his eyes.

“You know who I am.” She sighed. “Seraphy Pelligrini, architect with Jerrod & Etwin, and I'm rehabbing this building to live in. It's my home. And I'm staying.”

“Uh-huh. And?”

Seraphy looked from one cop to the other and took a deep breath, disgusted with herself. What the hell had possessed her to show off to these guys? Her life was none of their business and now she had them curious. Probably thought she was setting up a drug house. Must be all that testosterone flying around. She didn't want to do this. She'd make it short.

“However,” she said, “what you really need to ask is ‘who were you?’ I was a Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq for four years and a contractor with Darkpool for five more, and this is why I'm not there now.” She pulled the leg of her jeans up over her left knee and her turtleneck shirt over her head. The detectives stared, but not at her white cotton sports bra.

Long puckered scars ran from her left shoulder down her arm to her wrist and down the left side of her body to where jeans covered her thigh. She heard Terreno suck air.

“Satisfied?” she asked as she pulled her shirt back on and ran fingers through her hair. “Now, you want to see my discharge papers and medical records?”

“What the hell happened to you?” Markowicz shook his head and swallowed, his mouth working.

“IED. I was liaison to Mossad at the time. I can give you a number to call and confirm that if you want.”

“Mossad. Holy shit.” He glanced at Terreno.

She looked at Markowicz, then Terreno, who had been struck dumb, and sighed again in exasperation. “So you see, guys, I'm not a drug dealer and I'm not going anywhere. All I want is to live here, in my home, minding my own business. And after Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a few diddly-squat punks and gang-bangers aren't going to scare me off.”

Terreno snorted, then doubled over laughing. “Marko,” he gasped when he could catch his breath, “she's right. I love it. Chico and his dumbass Lobos have no idea. This is gonna be interesting.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Nice to have you in the neighborhood, Ma'am.”

Markowicz still hadn't moved, biting his lips and watching as she left them and walked back toward the stairs.

“Okay. Thanks for coming, guys. I'm sorry I didn't have anything you could use.” Markowicz woke up and followed her, his hand out to shake.

“No problem, Pelligrini,” he said, “Shake. Honored to meet you. You need anything, anything at all, let us know.” He turned to go downstairs, Terreno right behind him.

“Wait a second,” she said, remembering the garage door. “Can you guys take a look at some graffiti for me?”

“Sure. You get tagged already?”

“Yeah, my garage door. I need your opinion.”

“Son of a bitch,” said Markowicz when they reached the alley. He and Terreno exchanged glances. “You sure pissed somebody off. This ain't the usual stuff.”