Grave Designs (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

At 12:30 a.m. Maggie parked her pickup truck a half block from the entrance to the Grand Avenue subway station. Maggie, Cindi, and I climbed down out of the cab of her pickup as Benny pulled his Nova into the space behind the truck. Cindi and I were in jeans and sweatshirts. Maggie was wearing a green double-knit jogging outfit with white piping, and Benny had on a Chicago White Sox T-shirt and baggy khaki slacks.

“Listen, gang,” Benny said, “we don't need any heroes tonight. Let's just find out what we can—and run like hell if we have to.” He looked at Maggie. “You bring your license for that gun?”

Maggie patted her bulging shoulder bag. “Right here,” she said.

Benny grinned at me. “Are we fucking nuts or what?”

I forced a smile. “I hope not.” The guns made me queasy.

Walking down the stairs toward the fare booth, we passed a recruiting poster: THE MARINES—WE'RE LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD MEN.

“And a whole bunch of sadistic bastards,” Benny added.

Maggie snorted. “We could sure use a few tonight.”

We paid the fare, passed through the turnstiles, and took the stairway down to the tracks. Maggie and Benny waited near the foot of the stairs. Cindi and I walked ahead, stopping about fifty feet away.

“This is creepy,” Cindi whispered.

I nodded. Two gray rats waddled along the tracks below us. There was a hollow plunk-plunk-plunk of water somewhere off in the darkness.

Two college-age boys—both pasty-white and fat—were huddled together farther down the platform. One of them pointed at us, and they both grinned. Each had a can of beer in his hand.

I leaned my head toward Cindi. “Here come the men of our dreams,” I said.

“Terrific.”

They walked single file, stopping about ten feet away. The one in front had curly black hair, a beer belly, and a red football jersey with the number 69 on the front. His buddy peered around him with a gap-toothed leer.

The one in front grinned, raised his can of beer, and belched. “Good evening, girls. How are we tonight?”

“Take a hike, you clowns,” Cindi said.

The guy in front winked and turned back toward his buddy. “Sure, girls. But first we'd like you to meet Red. Go ahead, Pete. Let these girls meet him.”

Pete stepped out from behind his buddy, wagging his half-erect penis in his right fist. “Say hello to Red, girls.”

“Ignore these bozos,” Cindi mumbled as she grasped my elbow to pull me away.

I didn't budge. Instead, I stared at Pete's crotch, and then glanced at Cindi. “Look at that,” I said to her, nodding at the display. “It looks just like a penis, only smaller.”

Pete's face dropped, followed by his penis. He looked down at his crotch, then back at me, then back at his crotch.

“Poor thing looks undernourished,” Cindi said, picking up on my lead.

Pete pushed his penis back into his pants and yanked up the zipper. He turned and walked away, followed by his buddy.

When they were almost twenty yards away, one of them shouted “Bitch!” without looking back at us.

Cindi burst into laughter and held out her palm. I slapped her five.

“That was beautiful, Rachel. Just beautiful.”

My smile froze. “Someone's coming.”

Cindi turned slowly. Coming down the stairs toward the subway platform was a skinny Hispanic man dressed in a baggy gray suit and a dark brown shirt open at the collar. He brushed past Benny and Maggie, who were still standing at the bottom of the stairs, and walked nervously down the platform with his hands in his pockets. Benny and Maggie looked toward us, and Benny pointed at the man. I nodded and checked my watch. It was 1:01 a.m.

“Think that's him?” Cindi whispered.

I shrugged and checked my pocket for the key. It was still there. Cindi and I were to follow the recipient of the package—and if I was right, the skinny guy was our man. If something got screwed up, Benny had given me an extra key to his car—just in case.

The skinny guy stood with his toes on the yellow warning line at the edge of the platform. He started cutting his nails with a nail clipper. Maggie and Benny had moved down the platform to within twenty feet of him. Cindi and I stood quietly, listening to the click of the nail clipper and the plunk of the water and the rustlings of the rats below.

From off in the distance, in the darkness beyond the north end of the platform, came the sound of an approaching train. It was barely audible at first—a low growl. The noise grew louder, and suddenly the train screamed out of the tunnel and rumbled into the station. It stopped with a squeal of brakes several feet shy of where Cindi and I were standing. It was one of the newer trains—silver with large windows.

The skinny Hispanic had backed up a few steps. He was standing near the front doors of the train as they opened. Cindi and I moved toward him. Out from the train walked the same man I had seen on the el tracks at Addison, the one I had followed to Shore Drive Tower. He was dressed the same: black T-shirt and khaki work pants. He had a thick manila envelope under his left arm. The skinny guy stepped forward and said something to the man with the envelope, who then handed it over. The skinny guy stepped into the train, and Cindi and I followed him in.

He sat down in the first row of seats on the side opposite the door we had entered. Cindi and I sat down two rows back on the side closest to the platform.

I peered out the window as the train lurched forward. The other man was walking at a brisk pace down the platform toward the stairs. Maggie and Benny were following him. I watched them until the train passed beyond the end of the station and plunged back into darkness.

“All systems go,” I said to Cindi. “We have lift-off.”

Our man got off at the Washington subway station. We followed him across the Loop to the First Illinois Bank Building. We waited across the street from the entrance as he entered the building. He stopped at the security guard's desk for a moment and then moved past the guard toward the elevator banks.

“C'mon,” I said to Cindi, and we sprinted across the street.

A gray-haired security guard was behind a desk in the middle of the lobby. He was leaning back in his chair, staring at a miniature television at the edge of the desk. The white plastic sign on the desk stated that all visitors had to sign in.

“Evening,” I said as we reached the desk.

The guard looked up and touched his cap. “Evening, girls,” he said, and turned back to the television, where the tinny sounds of a gun battle could be heard.

I leaned over the sign-in book and picked up the pen. The last entry was for John Doe at 1:37 a.m. I checked my watch: 1:39 a.m. Under the Destination column John Doe had written Reynolds & Henderson, 42nd floor.

I wrote in Bridgid O'Shaughnessy and Nora Charles, 1:41 a.m.

We walked over to the express elevator bank. I started to reach for the Up button and then stopped.

“What's wrong?” Cindi asked.

“Wait here a sec. I've got a hunch.” I walked back to the security guard. “Is there something wrong with the express elevator?” I asked.

The guard looked up from his television. “What's wrong with it?”

“I pushed the button and waited and it never came down.”

“Well, we only got one of them in service after midnight. It takes a while sometimes.”

“Are you sure it isn't stuck somewhere?”

The guard leaned forward and squinted at a small terminal screen on the desk. “Let's see. That's elevator number four. It's just sitting up there on the thirty-sixth floor. Push that button again and I'll see if it starts coming down.”

“Thanks.”

I walked back to Cindi and pushed the Up button. Ten seconds later the guard called out, “It's coming down now, lady.”

“I think he's on the thirty-sixth floor,” I said to Cindi. “Not the forty-second. Let me go up there alone. You stay here. Give me about ten minutes. If I'm not down by then, get the guard and come up after me.”

“Are you sure you want to go up there alone, Rachel? You don't even have a gun.”

“I wouldn't know what to do with one, anyway.”

The elevator doors slid open and I stepped inside. “Don't worry,” I said. “I'm not going to confront him. I just want to see what he's up to. Remember, come get me if I'm not down in ten minutes.”

“Good luck, Rachel,” Cindi said as the doors started closing.

“Thanks,” I said as the doors slid shut.

I took a deep breath, and the elevator started its ascent.

Chapter Thirty-two

I stepped out of the elevator onto the 36th floor. Down the hall to my right was the entrance to the law firm of Perrini & Oliver. To my left was the entrance to the real estate investment firm of Krantz, Hedburg, & Disher, Ltd. The glass doors to both were open, and night-shift cleaning carts were in the lighted reception area of both firms. A heavyset woman in a white smock and blue scarf finished dusting the receptionist's desk at Krantz, Hedburg, & Disher and then moved down the hall out of sight. I walked into their empty reception area. From somewhere inside the offices came the muffled sound of a vacuum cleaner. Walking over to the cleaning cart, I pulled out a white rag and a spray bottle of window cleaner.

Five minutes later, as I was pretending to clean the glass entrance door of Krantz, Hedburg, & Disher, I saw the skinny guy come out of Perrini & Oliver. He was no longer carrying anything.

I waited until he stepped into the elevator, and then I walked into the law offices of Perrini & Oliver.

Oscar Perrini had died of lung cancer about ten years ago, when the law firm consisted of just him, Joe Oliver, and one associate. Since Perrini's death Joe Oliver had built Perrini & Oliver into one of the premier plaintiff's antitrust firms in the Midwest. They have a substantial role in most antitrust cases pending in Chicago and at least some piece of the action in several of the larger antitrust cases in the country, including four of the plaintiffs in
In re Bottles & Cans.

In the lexicon of corporate litigators, plaintiffs' antitrust lawyers are sharks. Among these sharks Joe Oliver is the Great White. Although he hardly looks the part—a skinny, slouching man with a neatly trimmed goatee, a hawk's-beak nose, and a pair of dark-rimmed glasses pushed back in his bushy gray hair—the mere presence of Joe Oliver on the plaintiff's side doubles the settlement value of the case. Graham Marshall had described him, with grudging respect, as an old river rat.

Like aging predators in most professions, Joe Oliver had become hungry for respectability. Three years ago he had endowed a chair at his alma mater, the Loyola School of Law. Two years ago the Art Institute of Chicago had opened the Joseph P. Oliver Gallery of Mexican Art, featuring a collection of pre-Columbian figurines from the Joseph P. Oliver Collection. When the society pages of the local newspapers covered benefits for the Chicago Symphony or the Field Museum or the Lyric Opera these days, more often than not one of the photographs included a tuxedoed Joe Oliver and his stunning raven-haired second wife, Roxanne. He'd come a long way from stickball on the West Side.

I passed the cleaning woman by the copying machine. She looked up from her vacuum and smiled, obviously used to comings and goings of lawyers at all hours of the night. I stopped at each office, flicked on the light, and scanned the office for the package. It wasn't in the first ten offices. At least not in a visible place. I would quickly check all the offices and the law library. If I didn't see it the first time through, I'd start over again.

I found it the first time through—sitting on the leather chair behind the chrome and glass desk in the corner office of Joseph P. Oliver. Hand-printed in black felt-tip marker on the front of the envelope was the following: TO JOSEPH OLIVER—PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL. I picked up the envelope, sat down in the chair, tore open the flap, and dumped the contents on the glass-top desk. A black videocassette clattered onto the desk. I looked in the envelope and pulled out a sheet of white bond paper. The message was handprinted in block letters in red marker:

DEAR JOE:
REMEMBER THIS VIDEOTAPE?
WE HAVE COPIES FOR YOUR WIFE,
YOUR DAUGHTER AT STANFORD,
AND YOUR FRIENDS AT THE ART
INSTITUTE, THE FIELD MUSEUM,
LYRIC OPERA AND THE A.B.A.

IF YOU COOPERATE WITH US, WE
WILL RETURN THE ORIGINAL AND ALL
COPIES. WE DO NOT WANT MONEY.
JUST YOUR COOPERATION. WE
WILL EXPLAIN LATER.

UNTIL THEN, SIT TIGHT. AND,
OF COURSE, DO NOT GO TO THE
POLICE. IF YOU DO, WE WILL
HAVE TO DELIVER ALL OF THE
COPIES TO YOUR FRIENDS AND
LOVED ONES.

WE'LL BE IN TOUCH.

I put the message and videocassette back in the envelope and stuffed the envelope into my purse.

The elevator doors opened on an empty lobby. Cindi was gone, and so was the guard. I checked my watch. I'd been up there for almost twenty minutes. Cindi must have gone up after me.

Waiting at the guard's desk, I thought of the videocassette recorder and television in my office, which was just across the street. I had bought the equipment last year in connection with two copyright lawsuits for one of my clients. Maggie and Benny were supposed to meet me back there. With any luck, I could view the videotape before they got there.

I tore a sheet of paper off the guard's log book and wrote Cindi a short note: Everything's okay. I'm at my office. Come on over.

I added my office address and signed my name.

Chapter Thirty-three

I got to my office before the others. I flicked on the light, walked across the room, and turned on the television and the videocassette recorder. I slid the videocassette out of its black cardboard jacket, inserted it into the recorder, and pushed the Play button. As the recorder whirred and clicked into gear, I backed up to the edge of my desk to watch.

The snow on the television screen flickered and jumped and then resolved into focus. I was staring at Cindi Reynolds. Not the Miss Illinois Cindi Reynolds. Not the tap-dancing English major. This was the $900-a-night Cindi Reynolds, in black push-up bra, black string-bikini panties, frilly black garter belt, dark stockings, and black spike heels. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, facing the camera, legs crossed.

Cindi tilted back her head, eyes half closed, and ran a bright red fingernail slowly down her long tan neck and into the swollen valley between her breasts. Her eyes opened wider and she pushed the finger into her mouth between puckered lips. Her eyes closed, and then opened as she slowly pulled her finger out.

“Come on over here, Joe,” she said into the screen, her voice husky. “Cindi's lonely.”

A hairy male body passed in front of the camera and off the screen, reappearing on camera again by her bed. It was Joe Oliver, wearing red briefs and black knee-high socks.

As Cindi tugged down his red briefs I walked over and pushed the Fast Forward button. It became a silent high-speed pornographic movie, the bodies jerking and flopping around the bed. Joe finally collapsed on top of her, panting like a dog. The scene jumped to a head-on shot of Cindi's bathroom shower, both of them naked and visible from the knees up. A series of manic scrubbings and soapings and gropings, and then the shower scene ended and it was back to the bedroom, where Joe Oliver, former campaign chairman for the Catholic Charities of Chicago annual fundraising drive, was spread-eagled and naked on the bed. Cindi—now wearing a garter belt, nylons, and spike heels—tied his wrists and ankles to the bed posts, her hands a blur of choppy motion. Straddling Oliver on her hands and knees, her bottom to the camera, she worked her way up from his toes. Joe Oliver flopped on the bed like a live fish on a boat deck. As she lowered her round bottom onto his face, I walked over to the recorder and pushed the Stop button. The last image was of Joe Oliver, visible from the neck down, his body arched on the bed as if he were being electrocuted.

I had rewound the videotape, put it back in the envelope along with the blackmail message, and placed the whole package in my briefcase, when there was a knock on my door. It was Benny and Maggie.

Benny was puffing on a fat cigar. “Greetings and salutations. Where's Cindi?”

“Not back yet. She should be here soon. Well?” I asked.

“Everything went as planned,” Benny answered. “How ‘bout you? Where'd that skinny guy lead you?”

“To the First Illinois Bank Building,” I answered. “I lost him up on the thirty-sixth floor. Cindi must still be over there with the security guard.” I didn't want to tell them about the videotape until I talked to Cindi. “How about your guy?”

“You mean Anthony Rossino?” Maggie asked.

“That's his name?”

“Yep. We followed him home,” said Benny. “Me and old Hot Rod Sullivan over here.”

Maggie laughed. “We didn't lose him, did we?”

“Miss Parnelli Jones here”—Benny jerked his thumb toward Maggie—“could use a refresher course in the Illinois Motor Vehicle Code.” They were both grinning.

“What happened?” I asked.

“That guy kept making the lights and we kept missing them,” Maggie explained. “He got too far ahead.”

“So he turns right way up ahead,” Benny said. “He's going north, we're still going west, and both of us are moving along the edge of a country club golf course. Well, this crazy broad tells me to hang on, and then she whips that pickup over the curb, jumps the sidewalk, crashes through a row of hedges, and cuts a diagonal across the back nine holes of the golf course. Shit, we're bouncing through sand traps, skidding over the putting greens, knocking over small trees.”

“Hold on, ace,” Maggie said. “What's the bottom line? Did we lose him?”

“Nope,” Benny answered. “Followed him all the way home.”

“Where's home?” I asked.

“Park Ridge,” Benny answered, pulling a folded sheet of paper out of his pants pocket. He unfolded the paper. “A three-flat on Asbury. Home of one Anthony Rossino.”

“How'd you find out his name?”

“We watched him go into the building,” Maggie said.

“A few minutes later the lights flicked on up on the third floor,” Benny said. “You could see him walking around up there. I went into the lobby and checked the mailboxes for his name.”

“Good work, guys,” I said.

There was a knock at the door. “Rachel?” Cindi called.

I unlocked the door and let her in. “Thank God you're okay,” she said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“That guy came down ten minutes after you went up. I waited five more minutes. I was going crazy. I got the guard. He was sure you went up to the thirty-eighth floor. I told him it was the thirty-sixth floor. Well, we searched the thirty-eighth floor first and then the thirty-sixth floor. God, I was scared to death. I practically shouted for joy when I saw your note at the guard's desk.”

***

Benny dropped Cindi and me off at my apartment at 4:30 a.m. The three flights of stairs felt like the west ridge of Mount Everest. Ozzie greeted me with a big wet kiss, obviously relieved that I'd finally come home. I went to get him a dog biscuit.

Cindi followed me into the kitchen and I poured us both a glass of milk.

“I didn't really lose that guy up in the bank building,” I said.

Cindi looked confused.

“I wanted you to be the first one to see this.” I pulled the thick manila envelope out of my purse. “He left this in Joe Oliver's office.” I dropped the envelope on the kitchen table.

Cindi's eyes opened wide as she reached for it. I watched her pull out the videocassette and the note. Her excitement turned to pain as she read the note. “Oh, my God.” She covered her face with her hands, shaking her head. When she looked up, her eyes were glistening. “Did you watch it?”

“Some of it.”

“Benny and Maggie?”

“No. Just me.”

“Poor Joe. My God, that poor man.”

“How did they get the tape?”

“I don't know.”

“Did all your customers get a videotape?”

“No. It was extra.”

“Who filmed that?” I asked, nodding toward the videocassette.

“I did. I set up the camera and got us both into the frame. I had a remote button to start the camera.”

I frowned. “What do they do with their videotapes?” I asked, fascinated despite myself.

Cindi shrugged. “Watch them, I guess. I got the idea from one client who used to take Polaroid shots of me, and of us…together. You'd be surprised how many of them wanted a videotape.”

“Did your customers take their videotapes home with them?”

“Of course.” Cindi looked up, frowning, and then her eyes opened wide. “Oh, no!”

“What? What is it?”

“That tape of Joe Oliver was in my apartment.”

“When?”

“Up until the end. Until the explosion. Or at least it was there when I left for the Dunes.”

“Where?”

“In a safe in the wall. Behind one of the pictures in the living room.”

“Why?”

“Joe asked me to keep it for him. For a few weeks. He wanted it somewhere safe. He didn't want it in his office or home.”

“Was he the only one?”

“The only one what?”

“The only one who had you keep his videotape?”

“No.” Cindi frowned. “It varied. No one ever left a tape with me permanently. Most took the tape with them when they left. But some left them with me for safekeeping for a few weeks. Especially if there was still room on the tape. Those tapes can record for two hours. Sometimes it takes three sessions before the tape is full. Usually for a few weeks they—God, Rachel! Do you think?”

“Probably. It's sure a good enough motive. How many videocassettes were there when you left for the Dunes?”

“Maybe six or seven.” She shook her head. “God.”

“Do you know their names?” I asked.

“Sure. At least most of them.”

“They told you their
real
names?”

“Of course,” she snapped. “I insisted. They knew my real name and where I lived. Why shouldn't I know theirs?”

“I'm sort of surprised,” I said. “I just assumed they'd use phony names.”

“Some tried. But I could tell a phony name right off.”

I thought it over.

“Look,” she said impatiently, “if your name is Tom and your greatest fantasy is to have some woman tell you you've got a giant cock, it's not going to get you off if she keeps calling you Harry or Joe. And anyway, these were lawyers, for chrissakes. Trial lawyers. You know the type, Rachel. Giant egos. They loved bragging to me about their victories in court. They wanted to impress me, Rachel. It was like foreplay for them. Once they learned to trust me, they had no problem with their real name.”

“Who else besides Joe Oliver?” I asked softly.

Cindi was able to name two others. She wasn't sure about the rest. But the two she could remember were an extortionist's vision of nirvana: a litigation partner at a major Chicago law firm and a state appellate judge.

“Boy,” I finally said. “They hit the mother lode.”

“Those poor men,” Cindi said. “They'll be destroyed.”

And so will you, I thought. Dumb. All around dumb. The lawyers and Cindi. And now there were at least a half dozen other videocassettes out there. I had been shocked by the videotape. Up until then Cindi's professional life had seemed little more than an amusing peculiarity, detached from the rest of her. The videotape had changed all that, had driven home the gritty reality of her job. She had decided to leave that life, to move on to a new career. Whatever chance she'd had, she'd never do it if those tapes got out.

“What can we do?” Cindi asked.

“First we have to confirm that they stole all the videocassettes,” I said.

“How?”

“I'll have someone check the police inventory from your condo tomorrow.”

“What's a police inventory?”

“A list of everything the police found in your place after the explosion. What else was in the safe?”

“Some cash. Some jewelry.”

“The police inventory will tell us what's missing.”

“Rachel, I think we're in over our heads.”

“A little,” I said. More like standing on the ocean floor. “I'm going to try to get us some help tomorrow. And I think it's time Cindi Reynolds returned from the dead. At least as far as the police are concerned.”

“Whatever you say.” Her shoulders were slumped and her head was down.

“Who knew about the safe and the videocassettes?”

“Only the ones who asked me if I knew of a place they could store their tapes.”

***

We got into bed at 5:30 a.m. and I set my alarm for 8:30 a.m. My appointment with Ishmael Richardson was at 11:30.

I thought back to the code in the coffin. The numbers weren't familiar, but the sequence was. I'd know for sure after I saw Tyrone Henderson in the morning.