The Fifth Floor (11 page)

“Transcendent, you say?”

“I’m serious, Michael. He’s a good man. And an honest man. He can unite and he can lead. You’d like him.”

“You think so?”

“Yes. And he’d like you. In fact, I’d like the two of you to meet.”

“Not right now, I hope.”

Rachel stretched her body against mine. “No, Mr. Kelly. Right now, I’d like you to show me the rest of your place.”

“You mean the bedroom?”

She got up with a smile. Led the way like she’d been there before. I followed. Willing to go pretty much wherever.

M y eyes snapped open just as my alarm clock clicked over. From 3:03 to 3:04 a.m. Rachel’s body was warm against mine. Her breath, rhythmic and even. I slipped out of bed. My piece sat in its holster, draped across a chair. I pulled the gun out softly and looked over. Rachel hadn’t moved. I slowed my breathing and listened into the night. Someone was in the flat. I knew enough to know that, almost before I woke up. It’s a sixth sense. Comes maybe from being a cop. Or maybe from creeping enough places myself. Either way, someone was in the flat. The only question remaining: Did they know I was awake?

The door to my bedroom was open about a foot. A crescent of light carved up the floor. I held my gun in two hands, muzzle up, and came up on the dark side of the door. I watched the light as I moved. There was a creak from the living room. Might be a random sound. The stuff you hear only when it’s quiet and you’re about to fall asleep. I didn’t think so.

I went in quickly, slipping open the door and shouldering into the room. I sensed a body to my right, just as something exploded next to my ear. I fired once, heard the tinkle of broken glass and then footsteps. Whoever I had shot at was not exactly dead. Instead he was running down the hallway toward my kitchen. I gave chase. He hit my back door, went down the stairs, and into an early morning that was still night. I was about to follow when I heard my name. I turned. Rachel was in the hallway, naked, holding her chest. I caught her before she hit the floor and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Rachel had been shot. I hit my cell phone and began CPR.

I sat in my bathrobe on the living room couch and drank coffee. Vince Rodriguez sat in a chair and looked out my front window. It was a little after five in the morning. Still dark out, but there were signs of life: a Trib van dropping off bundles of papers, a green garbage truck, the occasional jogger.

“Going to need to get the window fixed,” the detective said.

I grunted and rubbed my palm across my forehead.

“What was he looking for?” Rodriguez said.

I looked around the flat. The intruder had gone through my desk and bookshelves. Nothing seemed to be missing.

“Whatever it was,” I said, “he didn’t get it. Think we can keep this quiet?”

Vince looked over at me. “Is that what you want?”

“Yeah.”

“What about her?”

Rodriguez looked up as Rachel Swenson came out of the bedroom. She had insisted on getting dressed in her own clothes before talking to us about anything. I told her Vince had seen everything there was to see when he arrived. She didn’t much give a damn.

“How’re you feeling?” I said.

Rachel rubbed her chest where the rubber bullet had struck her.

“Hurts like hell.”

“Supposed to,” Vince said.

“Left a big bruise.”

“Supposed to.”

“Stopped my heart.”

Vince shrugged. “Nothing’s perfect. I got here in less than ten minutes and your vitals were fine.”

“Thanks, Detective.”

Rachel sat down and sipped at the hot whiskey I had made for her. I wasn’t sure if she was more pissed at getting shot, being seen naked by one Vince Rodriguez, or having said detective know she and I were shacked up. At least for a night. I had the feeling it was an unhappy combination of all three. Rodriguez turned back to me.

“I can keep things quiet, Kelly. The question is why?”

“Let me answer that,” Rachel said. “I’m a federal judge. Maybe you haven’t noticed that, Detective. Probably not a great idea to be found naked, shot with a rubber bullet, at three a.m. in the home of a private investigator. Agreed?”

Vince nodded toward the judge. “Agreed, ma’am. None of this goes any further. And I’m sorry. Now, let me ask you this. Either of you get a look at the guy who broke in?”

I shook my head. “Only thing I know is that he was big. Six feet. Maybe a little more. Carried what looked like a revolver in his right hand.”

Rodriguez looked over at Rachel, who shrugged.

“All I know was he shot me.”

“Either of you cut yourself?” the detective said. Neither of us had.

Rodriguez picked up a couple of small yellow envelopes and held them in front of his face.

“I pulled a print off the sill. And a smear of blood. Guy must have nicked himself running out of here. Probably not enough points on the print for a legal match. But there it is.”

“What about DNA?” I said.

“If you want to run it, yeah, you could get a profile. Problem is, you don’t have a suspect.”

Rodriguez slipped the envelopes into his pocket and waited.

“Whoever he was,” I said, “he thinks I have something valuable. And was willing to take a risk to get it.”

“Which means what?” Rachel said.

“Which means,” Rodriguez said, “Kelly thinks he has someone on a hook. Just needs to reel him in. Of course, there’s always the chance Kelly’s the fish that winds up in the bottom of the boat.”

Rachel held the mug up close to her cheek as she spoke. “Enlighten us, Michael. What, exactly, are you trolling for these days?”

I sipped my coffee. Rachel jiggled her foot and waited.

“Whatever we talk about stays here,” I said. “At least for now. Agreed?”

The judge looked at Rodriguez, then back at me and nodded.

“Just a guess,” I said, “but it probably has to do with the body on Hudson.”

“What body?” Rachel said.

I looked at my friend the cop, who picked up the thread.

“We asked Kelly to help us out with a death we’re investigating.”

“A murder?” Rachel said.

Rodriguez held his hand flat and then tipped it back and forth, ever so slowly. “Could be. Probably.”

“Definitely,” I said. “Guy’s name was Allen Bryant. Looks like he was drowned. Then had his mouth filled with sand.”

I jerked my head in Rodriguez’s direction. “These guys are getting a lot of heat from the Fifth Floor to bury the case. Vince and Dan Masters asked me to step in and take a look. Unofficially.”

“Which brings us back to tonight,” Rodriguez said. “And the reason why people feel the need to break into your home and shoot the judge here with a rubber bullet.”

“Yes,” Rachel said, and took a sip of her whiskey. “I’m all ears.”

So I told her what I knew. About Janet Woods, her husband, and the boxing match they called a marriage. About Johnny Woods’ trip to the house on Hudson and the missing Sheehan’s. About the Chicago Historical Society and the curator who wanted to be a star. Then I pulled out a copy of the article I had copied, originally published as an April Fool’s prank. Rachel read through the clip, handed it to Rodriguez, and turned back to me.

“You think there’s something to this?” she said.

“I spent Friday afternoon in the County Building. Pulled some land records from 1871.”

“They go back that far?” Rachel said.

I nodded. “Title abstracts. Still a little foggy, but it appears a lot of the land around O’Leary’s barn was owned by a corporation with the initials J.J.W.”

I could hear Rodriguez click his teeth together. The judge leaned in as she spoke.

“J.J.W.? As in John Julius Wilson?”

“Very good, Your Honor. Unfortunately, any corporate records were destroyed in the fire.”

“No way to figure out who the principals were?”

“No,” I said. “I also spent some time with the reporter who wrote this article thirty years ago. Guy named Rawlings Smith. Claims the piece spooked the Wilson clan. Bought Smith a one-way ticket out of town.”

“And you believe him?” Rachel said.

“I believe I do.”

Rachel shifted her eyes to Rodriguez. “Detective?”

Rodriguez’s face was cast in shadow, but I could still see his hands, long, veined, impassive, folded together loosely and draped across his knees.

“Officially, no comment. Unofficially…no comment.”

“You’re a big help.”

“Your Honor?”

“Best I can see, you put him onto this wild-goose chase.”

“Vince had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I found the body at Hudson. I decided to help out. On my own.”

“Blundered into the whole mess,” Rachel said. “And now you figure whoever killed Mr. Bryant thinks you have whatever it is they want. Shot me tonight to get it.”

“It is a circle full of circumstance, Your Honor,” Rodriguez said.

“Fuck off, Detective.”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

I held up a hand. “That’s not exactly what I think, Rachel.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. The person who killed Allen Bryant wasn’t the guy who shot you. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Explain.” That was Rodriguez, sitting up now, curious.

“The person who broke in tonight carried a gun with rubber bullets,” I said. “Why? If it was Bryant’s killer, he’d be packing the real thing. After all, what’s another life? No, this was a different guy. A thief, yes. Just not up to the job of killing.”

“Which means what?” Rachel said.

I got up and stretched. “Which means there are at least two groups involved in this. One is willing to take a life. The other is still working up the courage.”

“Does that bring us back to the mayor?” Rachel said.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. But if my great-great-grandfather burned down the city and lined his pockets in the process, I’d be worried. Maybe even worried enough to kill.”

R odriguez left my flat at a little after five-thirty. Rachel and I sat in the living room. I listened to the wind blow through the hole in my window. Rachel hugged her knees to her body, drank my whiskey, and stared straight ahead. After a few minutes, I got up, went into the bedroom, and got dressed. Rachel had her coat on and was waiting by the door when I returned. I drove her home. It was still quiet on the streets. Even quieter in the car.

“I’m sorry about all this,” I said.

Rachel wasn’t crying. Too tough for that. She was, however, close. And that probably made things worse.

“What the fuck, Michael. Jesus Christ. I’m goddamn naked, out cold on your living room floor, and you decide to have your cop buddy over.”

“I thought you were dead.”

There wasn’t much more to say so I drove. We pulled up to her house, a Gold Coast graystone a block from the lake. It was still mostly dark out. I turned the car off and listened to the engine. It didn’t have much to say either.

“Good night, Michael.”

“Good night, Rachel. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For tonight.”

“Don’t be. Just pretend it never happened.”

“Including the date?”

“None of it.”

“That what you want?”

She looked out the window in a way that would give any man pause.

“Maybe this is a bad idea,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe.”

“Fair enough.”

An awkward hug later, she was out of the car. I waited until she got inside her front door, cursed at the empty street in front of me, and pulled away. Halfway down the block, I saw a rust-colored Dodge Monaco parked in front of a hydrant. I pulled up alongside.

“Following me, Detective?”

Dan Masters was blowing on something hot in a Styrofoam cup. He spoke without looking at me. “Get in the car.”

I parked, legally, behind him and slipped into the passenger seat.

“You watched her get in the front door,” he said. “That was nice.”

“You think so?”

“I think it was a good idea.”

“Makes her feel safe, right?”

Masters snorted and turned the engine over.

“Is that what you were going for there, Kelly? How about the ‘she just got shot while she was naked and left for dead in my apartment’ feeling. How about the ‘I better do anything I can possibly fucking think of or I’ll never see this woman on whose radar I don’t belong in the first place ever again’ feeling. Think you might want to be addressing any of that, lover boy?”

The detective shook his head, took a sip of his joe, and slapped his lips together. Then he put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

“Rodriguez told you what happened?” I said.

“Sure, he told me. I was checking out the block while he was inside with you and the judge.”

“Find anything?”

“A guy getting a blow job in an alley.”

“Is that supposed to be interesting?”

“He was a Chicago alderman.”

“Okay.”

“The married kind. His date was a working girl.”

I looked over at Masters, who sipped and smiled. “I got him a cab home.”

“Nice chit to have.”

“Yes, sir. You need some breakfast? I need a breakfast. Let’s go over to Tempo.”

Tempo’s been around for a lot of years. Its business plan is simple. Stay open all night and be within staggering distance of Rush Street. Folks coming out of the late-night bars aren’t too picky about what’s on the plate. If it’s not moving, put some ketchup on it and eat it. We got a booth near the front. I ordered scrambled eggs. Masters ordered toast and another coffee.

“You aren’t eating?” I said.

“Nah. Lost my appetite.”

The detective played a toothpick across his teeth and looked out the window. The last of the taverns had flushed an hour earlier, and the street was filled with the wretched refuse. Four frat boys stumbled to a corner and headed our way.