No Show of Remorse (17 page)

“Funny?”

“Yeah. I mean, no drugs, no money, and still for some reason Lonnie turns and fires on a couple of cops who just chased him inside his own house, when he knows there are more cops outside.”

“Who can say what a fucking dopehead like Lonnie would do? They found the shit in his system.”

“Just a trace, though, and it seems such a crazy thing to do.” I watched Frankel as I spoke, but he just kept switching his gaze from the TV to his cigarette and back, with an occasional glance at his watch, as though he was bored. “Anyway,” I went on, “there aren't many houses on the block that aren't boarded up and abandoned, but the coppers do their best. There's page after page of go-nowhere interviews of potential witnesses, and pulling in snitches and known associates, but nobody turns up clue one about the missing man. And that's about it for the police reports.”

“Not quite,” he said, still not looking at me. “You left out the parts you didn't think were important—like Sal Coletta going down with three slugs buried in his chest, and his brother Jimmy shot in the back … left to sit on his ass the rest of his life.”

“Right,” I said. “Also the part about the extra hole in Lonnie Bright's head, and his girlfriend's not being as lucky as you … and bleeding to death before she got to the ER.”

“A dog and his bitch. They left the world a better place.” He tapped his cigarette on the edge of a little foil ash tray on the bar. “The other animal got away. And if it wasn't Marlon Shades himself, Marlon could've told us who it was.”

“You don't know that.”

“Yeah I do,” he said. “Otherwise you'd have let him talk. And if you had any balls you'd have told everyone what he said when they ordered you to, especially when they told you there
was
no fucking privilege. It's people like you made me decide to quit the department. People who don't give a shit.”

“You mean if I had any balls I'd have caved in and done what I was told? Instead of what I thought was right?”

“You wouldn't know what's right from your own asshole, counselor.”

The conversation was decomposing pretty quickly. “I'm not a lawyer,” I said, switching topics, “not till I get my license back.”

“Which you're trying to do now. I know all about your fucking petition. Me and a few others already got letters from that attorneys' commission.” He took a drag on what was left of the Lucky Strike, then punched it out in the ashtray. “That's why you're really here. To find out if I'm gonna testify against you.”

“The question did cross my mind.”

“The answer's yes. I'm gonna tell 'em how my leg's never worked right since that night, and how they oughta lock you up again and this time leave you rot till you tell what that chimpanzee said to you, so the cops can either close the case—if he was the shooter—or find the other monkey if he wasn't.” He stood up. “Yeah, I'm gonna testify.” He walked out of the bar, dragging his foot across the floor as he went.

Funny thing. I'd been there in the crowd when he got his medal that morning in the Daley Center Plaza. He'd been in uniform, maybe twenty pounds lighter, and he'd gone up those steps and across that temporary stage with hardly a trace of a limp.

CHAPTER

27

W
HEN
I
GOT BACK
to my place there was a message from the Lady, saying she was home, but would be leaving again at four o'clock.

Layla opened the door when I rang and led me to the parlor. I thanked her and she nodded, and I'd have sworn she gave me just the hint of a smile before she turned and left. The Lady poured me some tea.

I'd have preferred brandy, actually, but I took the tea. We both sat down and I sipped a little and tried not to make a face.

“Oh dear,” she said, and stood up again. “You've never liked that tea, have you.” She walked to a table across the room and came back with two fingers of brandy in a snifter—way more than she usually offers—and handed it to me. “With my apologies,” she said.

“Thanks.” I drank half a finger.

“You're welcome.” She sipped her tea. “I understand you were concerned about me.”

“Concerned? Jesus, I couldn't sleep all last night waiting for you to come home. After all, you—” I stopped, wondering why I was so mad at her. I wasn't her son, and even if I had been, what business would it have been of mine what she did? “It's just that I had things to talk over. I asked for you and … and then kept thinking you'd be home any minute. I didn't know where you were. At least you could have picked up a phone and…” I gave up and went back to the brandy.

“I should have called you to report that I wasn't coming home?”

“Well, I mean, not that it's my business what you do, Helene, but this is a bad time, you know?”

“A bad time for you, yes. And as I recall, one you specifically chose to endure.”

“But you could be in danger, too. I thought you understood that. People are trying whatever they can to convince me to withdraw my petition. They jumped Yogi and ruptured one of his kidneys, and he's not nearly as important to me as you—”

“Yogi? I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“That's not surprising, because you haven't been
available,
for God's sake.”

She should have thrown me out on my ass, of course, but she didn't. She just drank her tea, and watched me drink too much of her brandy, too fast, and listened as I went through everything that had happened since we'd talked Wednesday night. That was three and a half days of happenings, and it took a while. I worked my way through it all very carefully, and as I did, a few of the pieces started falling together. Other things—and especially how Maura Flanagan fit into the picture—were still way up in the air. When I finally finished I stood up and started for the brandy, then realized it would be my fourth hit, and sat down again. Damn, that stuff was potent.

“I believe that's quite prudent, Malachy,” the Lady said, and I knew she meant not going for more of the juice. “One thing still remains very unclear to me,” she went on, “perhaps because it's unclear to you.”

“What is it?”

“That supreme court justice. Why
ever
is
she
involved?”

“Good point,” I said. “I was wondering that my—”

“Does she
know
any of these people?” she asked, more to herself than to me. “Did she ever work for the police department? Was she married to a policeman?” She looked up at me. “Didn't you tell me, the last time we talked, that she's always been in public service?”

“What I said was she's been feeding at the public trough all her life, something to that effect. Like her family before her. She's been on the supreme court two years now, after being on the appellate court less than a year. Spent a year or so before that as a lawyer for the park district. Before that she was with O.P.S. for a couple years, and with the county and … Damn, that's—”

“What is O.P.S.?”

“The police department's Office of Professional Standards. The unit that investigates charges of police brutality, and the use of firearms by any police personnel.”

“And that's where she was at the time of that shooting?”

“I don't know. Her name's not on any O.P.S. reports. Although … I'll have to check that out.” I thought hard, which was a struggle, with the brandy fighting back. “God, Helene, maybe you're a jeezus. I mean a genius.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but I doubt it.” She stared at me, then poured out a fresh cup of tea. “Drink this. I think you need it now.”

I drank the tea and we talked some more. Mostly about Maura Flanagan, and how she'd been married and then gotten divorced and gone back to Flanagan, her maiden name. And how I seemed to recall reading somewhere that she was glad she'd done that because it was an Irish name, which she admitted was helpful when she ran for the supreme court against a guy named Radzinski.

Before I knew it the Lady was standing up and telling me it was getting late and she had to dress for a party at the woman's shelter she runs in Uptown. One of the residents had just gotten her GED. We said our good-byes and I left and headed down the drive toward the coach house. I remembered I'd never found out where she'd been the night before.

Not that it was any of my business.

*   *   *

S
TARTING UP THE STAIRS
to my place I felt light-headed, and by the time I reached the top I was definitely dizzy. Then Dr. Sato's tea must have decided the best way to deal with the brandy was to convince my system to reject the whole mess. The plan kicked in and I had to hurry back down to the bathroom in the garage.

It was past four o'clock and I hadn't eaten since breakfast—and that was just some toast and jam—so when I finally got through with what quickly turned into the dry heaves, I was pretty washed out. Hungry and thirsty, too, but afraid to send anything down there for a while. I was supposed to play that night at Miz Becky's, but called in sick. Becky didn't seem very disappointed, and that sort of response was why I didn't blow off the gig very often.

I lay on the sofa and dozed on and off for what seemed like a half-hour or so, and finally got up and made some coffee. I was staring into my mostly empty refrigerator, pondering a supper of toast and jam, when the front doorbell rang. It would have been a good time for one of those intercom systems, but …

I slipped a windbreaker over my T-shirt, took the Beretta from the shoulder holster hanging on the hall tree and dropped it in the jacket pocket, and headed down the stairs. They seemed unusually steep.

It was Layla, carrying a large box with two hands. I pulled open the plateglass door and saw the words
Tag's Bakery
on the side of the box. “A cake?” I asked. “Is it someone's birthday?”

“It's not a cake,” she said. “It's some supper. For you. Be careful and don't spill it. It's soup. I mean, it's in a covered container and all, but … Anyway, there's some bread, too, and half a stick of real butter.” She held the box out toward me. “Here, take it by the bottom.”

“Okay,” I said, taking the box, “and tell the Lady thanks.”

“The Lady?” She looked confused. “Oh, you think…” She smiled. “She doesn't know about it. She left at four o'clock, like about three hours ago.”

“What?” I looked at my wrist and remembered I'd left my watch on the kitchen table.

“Uh-huh, and the soup, I made it myself. The bread, too. I'm going to cooking school and, you know, I'm practicing.” She spun around, and was gone before I could think of anything to say.

CHAPTER

28

S
HERIDAN
R
OAD TO
L
AKE
S
HORE
D
RIVE
, then south. The drive along the lakefront, from Evanston to the Loop, was a pleasant one on that warm, sunny Monday.

The previous night, after I'd washed the dishes Layla brought over and put them back in the cake box, I sat for a while looking out the coach house window. At about eight o'clock the Lady had pulled her big old Lincoln Towne Car up to the gate. The woman who let her in wasn't Layla. Too bad. I could have taken the dishes down and thanked her. The bread had been a little chewy or something, but tasted pretty good; and all the soup needed was a little more salt and pepper, which I added.

Anyway, I enjoyed the drive, and wished the world were as friendly a place as it looked right then.

At Barney Green's office a paralegal sat down and showed me—for the third time in as many months—how to use the computer to retrieve information about cases filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County. She was always very patient and I'd try to look as if I was paying attention, but once the information I wanted turned up on the screen I'd lose interest in how it got there. This time I thought I had a challenge for her. I knew that “Flanagan” was Maura Flanagan's maiden name, and that she'd gone back to that name when her divorce was finalized. What I wanted was her married name.

It took the paralegal all of sixty seconds: Liederbach. I could verify it with a call to the police department's Office of Professional Standards, but there wasn't much doubt that Maura Flanagan was the “M. Liederbach” who, as assistant administrator, had directed the O.P.S. investigation into the use of firearms by police officers at Lonnie Bright's home. It was she who, despite a police version of events that any impartial investigation would have found questionable at best, declared the use of deadly force “justified,” and closed the case in just a few weeks, when similar cases dragged on for months.

The search for the unidentified man in the apartment who'd gotten away seemed to fade pretty quickly, too, while the supreme court and the media concentrated on me. Sal Coletta's widow and the whole Coletta family, among others, kept up a relentless crusade about forcing me to tell what Marlon Shades had said. They didn't know that Marlon's information was the last thing Jimmie Coletta and the other two surviving cops wanted out in the open.

For their part, it seemed neither Lonnie Bright nor his girlfriend had family or friends interested or capable enough to raise any stink. What few neighbors Lonnie had were happy to be rid of him and his drug house. All anyone wanted to say was how nobody saw or heard a thing, and how everyone wished the man who'd escaped would have been shot down, too.

Many months later, when the supreme court finally let me out of jail, the incident was out of the public mind. Marlon Shades had finally resurfaced, but he had a new lawyer by then and I never saw him again. There was no reason for me to poke my nose into the affair, even though I knew the real story hadn't been told, and probably never would be. I hadn't blamed Lonnie Bright's neighbors for thinking the cops had done a service to the community.