The Fifth Floor (22 page)

“What time does he come in?” I said.

“He’s in here just about every day around one,” Teen said. “Says he likes to get some ‘alone time’ out of the office.”

“Always brings his laptop?”

Teen nodded.

“Okay. Teen, you and I are out of here. Hubert, you sit tight and wait for our boy. You got the picture I gave you?”

Hubert showed it to me.

“Good. When he fires up his laptop and jumps online, you take it all.”

“No problem.”

The kid from Land Records winked. Teen giggled. Then the volunteer and I walked out of the Starbucks and down Wells Street. I stopped at the Up Down Tobacco Shop and bought a couple of Montecristos. Then we moved over to Topo Gigio’s and had a beautiful lunch. Hubert joined us an hour later for tiramisu. As did the entire contents of Lawrence Randolph’s laptop.

R achel Swenson and Vince Rodriguez agreed to meet me at my office. It was a little after eight p.m. Neither was entirely sure why they were there. But they both showed up and that was enough for now.

“What is it that couldn’t wait?” Rodriguez said.

“Take a look for yourself.”

I threw the Sheehan’s Masters had given me across the desk. Rodriguez took a look at the book while Rachel read Taylor’s note. It had been two days, and no one had heard a thing from Dan Masters or Janet Woods.

“The binding’s been sliced open.” The detective ran his hand along the book’s spine.

“You noticed that.”

Rodriguez slanted his face up and across the room. “What did you take out of there?”

I couldn’t tell them about that. Not yet, anyway. Still, I needed their help, which made matters difficult.

“Rachel, I need to ask you a favor. Actually, I’m going to need favors from both of you.”

Rachel passed Taylor’s note across to the detective, along with a look that told me it might be a long hard swim upstream.

“What do you need?” she said.

“You remember the prints I told you about? The ones I was going to compare to the break-in at my flat?”

Rachel nodded. I pulled out a sheet of paper and slipped it across my desk.

“The detective here ran them for me.”

Rachel ignored the report. “Just tell me what it says, Michael.”

“The partial has only six points of identification. All six matched a print on the set I sent over.”

Rodriguez grunted from his hard-backed chair in the corner.

“I told you it doesn’t matter,” Rachel said. “The match means nothing. You need at least nine points for it to hold up in court.”

I lifted a hand.

“Hear me out,” I said. “Two weeks ago a man walked into the Chicago Historical Society. Asked a volunteer named Teen for a look at their Sheehan’s first edition.”

“How many people ask to see that book?” Rodriguez said.

“Exactly. Anyway, the volunteer is a nice lady. Do-gooder from the North Shore. Tells me this man was dangerous looking. Didn’t think much of it at the time. Then I realized how the phrase translates out of white-upper-middle-class American speak.”

“And dangerous looking means?” Rachel said.

“Black. I went back and double-checked with our volunteer. The guy was black and big.”

“Let me guess,” Rachel said. “Our suspect on the print happens to be black.”

“And he has a history of breaking and entering. Not to mention violent assault.”

“I assume you showed his photo to your volunteer friend?” Rodriguez said.

“Along with six others. Took her all of five seconds to pick him out.”

I threw a picture across the desk. It was a news photo from Mitchell Kincaid’s rally. Behind Kincaid and to his left was his head of security, an angry young man named James Bratton. Big and black-and the man who shot Rachel Swenson with a rubber bullet in the middle of the night.

“I saw Bratton on the news,” I said. “At the Kincaid rally last week. Didn’t register at first. Then it did. It was ten years ago. I was still a uniform. Arrested him for B and E and assault. He used a crowbar to crank open the first-floor window of an old lady’s home on the West Side. Punched her once or twice and took some costume jewelry and cash. Less than a hundred bucks. He pled out and took six months. Records were sealed because he was only seventeen.”

Rachel lifted an eyebrow and picked up the photo. “A juvie?”

“I told him already,” Rodriguez said. “None of this is admissible. Especially not if his reporter pal lifted juvie prints out of the system.”

I kept my eyes on Rachel, who kept her eyes on the photo. Then she looked up and spoke.

“Michael isn’t thinking about the criminal end of this. Are you, Michael?”

“Are you?” I said.

“If Mitchell Kincaid’s security chief broke into your apartment and shot me, his boss’s political career is over before it ever got started. Is that what you think happened?”

I nodded, trying to fit as much regret into the gesture as humanly possible. “I think Bratton was after evidence that would have implicated the mayor’s ancestor in a land grab that turned into the Chicago Fire. Johnny Woods was after the same thing. If Bratton got it, I imagine he would have leaked it to the press at the right time.”

Rachel shot the picture across my desk with a flick of her fingernail.

“I don’t believe it.”

“I do,” I said.

“You realize what this would do to Kincaid’s campaign?”

“It would ruin him.”

“Is that the goal here?” Rachel was leaning forward in her seat now, palms rubbing a shine across the wooden armrests.

“No.”

“What is it you want, Michael?”

“I want you to approach Kincaid,” I said. “Ask him to meet with me.”

“Why?”

“Couple of reasons. First, you can do it privately. Discreetly. Second, I don’t think Kincaid knew what his staff was up to.”

“He didn’t.”

“For now, let’s say I agree. That’s why you approach him. Show him what I’ve got. Ask him to sit down with me.”

“What are you going to do?” Rachel said. “Help him write his withdrawal speech?”

Rodriguez jumped in. “And what am I supposed to do? Break-in aside, Bratton might be our guy on the Bryant murder.”

“He isn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

I picked up the Sheehan’s again. Here is where the trust came in. Either it would work, or I’d have to let it go and hope for the best. Where Chicago politics was concerned, that was usually a loser’s bet.

“There’s more to this than either of you know,” I said. “Just give me another day or two. Let this thing play out, and we might be able to save Mitchell Kincaid’s career.” I glanced over at Rodriguez. “And catch our killer.”

Rachel waited for the detective, who lifted his shoulders.

“I can play along, Your Honor. How about you?”

Rachel took another look at the Sheehan’s and then back at me. “What was in the book, Michael?”

“Set it up with Kincaid,” I said. “You’ll find out then.”

R achel agreed to make the call and left. I tried to give her a hug but got nothing more than a shoulder and the side of her face. Ah, sweet romance.

“The judge doesn’t like being kept in the dark,” Rodriguez said.

“Think so?”

The detective chuckled. “You must not keep much of a social life, Kelly. But, I guess that’s your problem. Can you pull all this off?”

“There’s a chance.”

A bottle of Powers Irish surfaced from the depths of a drawer. Rodriguez poured himself a dose and drank it in a single go. Then he stood up and leaned his face across the desk. Rodriguez could be a big man when he wanted to be.

“What was in the book?” he said.

I tasted the edges of my whiskey and leaned back in my chair. I was looking for a bit of leverage. If not in the Powers, at least in the geography of the moment.

“Let me deal with Kincaid. Then we go after the rest of it.”

“You sure his security chief’s not our killer?”

I nodded.

“This involves the Fifth Floor, doesn’t it?”

“How would you feel about that?” I said.

Rodriguez sat back down and turned his chair to look out the window. When he spoke, his voice came from somewhere down the street.

“Not fucking good, Kelly. Not good at all.”

“If it goes bad, I’ll take the weight.”

A smile flickered at the corner of the detective’s mouth. “Who the fuck made you the hero?” he said, reaching for the bottle without looking at it.

We both sat quiet. Drank and listened. For something beyond the sound of traffic. All we heard was our respective careers, and perhaps our lives, spiraling down the sewer hole that doubled as the feeding tube for Chicago politics and power.

“Now what about the other thing?” Rodriguez swung around in his chair and pulled close again.

“Johnny Woods’ murder?” I said.

“There’s that. And there’s Dan Masters. He’s taken off with Woods’ wife, hasn’t he?”

“He might be in over his head,” I said.

“Masters can take care of himself,” Rodriguez said. “Where do you think he is?”

“I don’t know, but he’ll surface soon enough.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because the mom and daughter he’s with are gonna need some answers.”

“Answers you can provide?”

“Maybe, but I might need some help.”

“What kind of help?” the detective said.

“The kind that’s gonna tell us who pulled the trigger on Woods and why.”

I stood up and walked over to Robert Graves’ leather-bound translation of the Odyssey. Behind it was a. 38 Smith and Wesson snub.

“The gun that killed Johnny.” I slid the piece across the desk. Rodriguez didn’t touch it.

“You sure?”

“I know my own gun,” I said. “This was the piece I found beside Woods’ body. The piece that disappeared out of Evidence. I usually keep it behind the Iliad. Yesterday I found it three books down. Behind the Odyssey. Been fired three times.”

“And I assume you have no idea how it got there.”

“Actually, I think I know exactly how.”

“Should we order some pizza?” Rodriguez said.

“I’m okay with whiskey.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not.”

So we ordered pizza. I told Rodriguez how my gun found its way from the Cook County Evidence lockup back into my bookcase. Then I told him what I needed and why. When I finished, the detective left. I put a call in to Big Bob’s Saloon and asked for the manager. The turtle races weren’t on, so he had a little time. We talked for a while. About Janet Woods and his daytime bartender. After I got off the phone, I sat up, drank some more whiskey, and watched the night grow old. I wondered where Dan Masters was sleeping. And who might be standing over his bed.

I slept hard and late the next day. Walked into my office a little after ten. Mitchell Kincaid was sitting there, his back to the door, reading a magazine. Once Rachel talked to the candidate, I knew he’d meet with me. I just didn’t expect it so soon. And I didn’t expect him to be alone. Not an attorney in sight.

Kincaid didn’t turn when I came in. Just dropped the magazine onto his lap. I walked behind my desk, sat down, and waited.

“Have you seen the latest copy of Time?” he said. I shook my head. Kincaid tossed the mag my way.

“They have a list of influential people in this country. Up-and-comers, they call them. My name’s right near the top.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kelly. I guess I always thought it would feel different.”

“You expected trumpets?”

“A flourish would be nice.”

Kincaid offered an easy smile, one that ran off his face as quickly as it appeared. Then Chicago’s would-be savior took a moment. I had seen this moment before. On television. In newspapers. If I opened up the copy of Time, I’d probably see it there too. It was the Kincaid profile. Long chin, gray eyes, cheekbones sculpted in shadow and light. An impression of strength, yet delicate enough to convey the intellect that moved underneath. As far as profiles went, Kincaid’s wasn’t half bad.

The pundits and pollsters might not realize it, but Mayor John J. Wilson did. And it worried him. In a place and time when leadership was in precious short supply, Mitchell Kincaid looked like he was born to the job. And now it wasn’t going to happen.

“I noticed the books,” Kincaid said. “Cicero, Caesar, Sophocles.”

“Something I picked up when I was young.”

“I read a bit myself. Don’t recall that much, but I do remember Oedipus Rex. And a thing called fate.”

“Fate, destiny. Free will.”

“Exactly. I was sitting here, looking at my picture in Time magazine, surrounded by all your books, and thinking about that very thing.”

“Sir?”

“This life we lead. The decisions we think we make. Is it all predetermined? All our accomplishments and failures? Locked and loaded when we’re born? Or is it up to us?”

“You’re asking me if I believe in fate, Mr. Kincaid?”

He tipped his chin my way. “I guess I am. Are we fated to lead the life we do? Or do we really chart our own path?”

“I think we’re all given different tools,” I said. “Capable of great good and great evil. What we do after that is up to us.”

“So you believe in a hybrid?”

“I guess.”

“And these tools, they vary from person to person?”

“I think a lot of us spend our lives trying to find out exactly what these tools are and how best to use them.”

“People give that a lot of thought?”

I shrugged. “Probably not.”

“How about responsibility, Mr. Kelly?”

“How about it?”

“People should hold themselves personally responsible for things that go on in their lives. Good and bad. Regardless of consequence. Agreed?”