The Fifth Floor (7 page)

“No reason not to handle it just as carefully.”

“Yes, Hubert.”

I hung my head for the appropriate moment of penance and reflection. Then I pulled some books from 1870 off the shelves.

“These are the ones we want,” I said.

“This is the time period?”

“It’s a start.”

“And the location?”

“The city.”

“No kidding. In 1870 there wasn’t much else outside the city. Property-wise, that is.”

“Just south of the Loop,” I said. “Near Roosevelt and Canal.”

Hubert bit the ring he had pierced through his lower lip and ran his finger along the parched spines of Chicago history.

“That’s still a lot of ground. More specific?” Hubert handed me a look he probably figured passed for coy. I let him play.

“You got it right,” I said. “The Irish quarter. O’Leary’s barn and the whole neighborhood.”

“DeKoven Street,” Hubert said.

“Number 137, Hubert.”

“Yes, yes. But here it will be listed by property number. Not a high property number in 1870. But they did still have them.” Hubert dug a little deeper into the shelves and came up with four long books. “This covers O’Leary’s barn and ten blocks on either side.”

I reached for the book, but Hubert held up a hand. “We take them apart a page at a time. Each page, a moment at a time.”

Four moments later, we had skimmed across forty property transfers in O’Leary’s neighborhood. Fourteen of them were sold to the same person. Or, rather, to the same set of initials: J.J.W.

“Did they always use initials back then on deeds?” I said.

Hubert shrugged. “Don’t know. Seems sort of weird.”

The kid pulled the property register closer and squinted at the scrawl. “Actually, I think this is a company.”

He pointed to a squiggle of ink. “I think that’s a Co. at the end. Could stand for company.”

I took a look. The kid was right.

“I don’t suppose John Shortall kept any corporate records from back then?” I said.

Hubert shook his head. “Sorry.”

“Burned in the fire?”

Hubert nodded. “All the corporate records were completely destroyed. Everyone who had a business basically had to reincorporate. Start all over again. Records-wise, that is.”

“Corporate chaos?”

“I’d think so.”

Hubert ran a long nail down the property register, swallowed up some courage, and posed the question I knew was coming.

“If you don’t mind me asking, these initials. Do they ring a bell?”

Hubert danced his fingers off the page as I slammed the register shut. “Shut up, kid.”

“Yes, sir.”

I slid the book back to its place on the shelf. “And forget about those initials. Make your life a whole lot nicer.”

“Yes, sir.”

I looked at the dark wall of books surrounding us. Thought about John Shortall. Getting his wagon loaded up at gunpoint. Saving Chicago’s real estate market. Probably making himself a bunch of dough in the process. Seemed just about right. Then I thought about the initials I’d found scattered throughout the old property records: J.J.W.-as in John Julius Wilson. Also known as the mayor’s great-great-grandfather.

“Let’s go back downstairs,” I said. “Before your boss misses us.”

“Okay.”

Hubert began to pick his way back down the dark aisles.

“FYI…”

“Yeah?” I said.

“My boss…she’s the mayor’s cousin.”

“The lady with the blue hair?”

“That’s what they say.”

“And she runs this place?”

“Yep.”

I scratched the side of my head. “You gonna lose your job, Hubert?”

“Nah. I’m gay, so she’s scared stiff of me.” The young man’s words floated back on a cloud of nonchalance. “I’ll tell her you made a pass at me or something. She’ll love that.”

“Thanks, Hubert.”

“Don’t worry. She won’t believe it. Just give her something to talk about. That’s all it takes. Besides, working in Land Records isn’t exactly my life ambition.”

“Let me guess. You take classes at Second City.”

Hubert turned and smiled. “Stereotype. No, I’m a hacker.”

“Computers?”

Hubert wiggled fourteen rings, scattered across ten fingers. “Given the time and the money, nothing I can’t get into.”

“Really?”

“Scary real. You want to buy stuff online, let me set up your computer first. Save your credit cards from getting scammed.”

The kid slipped me a business card, red with yellow stars: hubert russell. “Gotta get back,” he said.

“Thanks, Hubert. Name’s Michael Kelly.”

“No problem, Mr. Kelly. It was fun.”

We shook hands. Hubert went back downstairs. I waited a minute and followed. I could feel Hubert’s boss tracking me as I walked through the bureau. The kid fell in step halfway across the room and spoke in a voice plenty loud for anyone who wanted to listen.

“Sorry I couldn’t help you, sir. The property you want was actually not even platted back in 1840. Chances are no one technically owned it. At least, not anyone who could produce a legal deed. Like I said, if you want to find out more, you might try the Chicago Historical Society.”

Hubert winked and opened the door to let me out. Then I was alone again, in the cold marble corridor, walking back in time. To 1871 and a gang of land thieves, also known as Chicago’s founding fathers.

H ow did you get in here?”

I wandered back to my office on Broadway at a little after two in the afternoon. The girl sat in the same chair her mother had. She had the same hair touched in red. Same elegant lines for nose and chin. Same pale skin, stretched tight over high cheekbones with dusky points of fatigue underneath. Like her mom in just about every way. Except she didn’t have the black eye. Not yet, anyway.

“You left the door open,” the girl said, and threw a look behind her.

“I don’t think so.”

She smirked, in a way that made me feel suddenly slow. Suddenly old. “Okay, so I’m good with locks.”

I made a mental note to get the locks changed and took a seat behind my desk. My notes from the historical society and the County Building went into a drawer. Then I booted up my Mac and checked my e-mails. I could feel the girl waiting, watching, assessing. I thought she might get a little antsy. I was wrong. After a minute or so, I looked up and across the desk.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re Taylor Woods.”

“How did you know?”

“You look a lot like your mom.”

Taylor held up the volume of Catullus I had shared with her mother less than a week earlier. “I borrowed a book.”

I got up and walked over to the shelf by the door. Felt for the Smith and Wesson, a. 38 caliber snub nose I kept in a space behind the Iliad. The gun was still there. Loaded and, thankfully, not in the hands of a teenager. Then I sat back down behind my desk.

“I showed that book to your mom the other day.”

“She told me,” Taylor said. “I study Latin in school.”

“What grade are you in?”

“I’m fourteen. Freshman in high school.”

“So you can translate?”

“A little bit.” She looked down at the title and then back to me. “I hate and I love. That’s pretty easy.”

“You like Catullus?” I said.

Taylor weighed the pros and cons of a poet who wrote two thousand years before she was born. Took all of five seconds.

“Seems pretty cool. Kind of romantic.”

I could have told her all about romance. About how it was sometimes better read than lived. But I figured people, even fourteen-year-old people, had to figure some things out for themselves.

“What’s up, Taylor?”

“My mom told me you were going to help us.”

“She did?”

“Yeah. She told me if there was trouble, I should come find you.”

Taylor held out my business card. A name, address, e-mail, and phone number. Not much more than that to a business card. Until it’s in the hands of a kid. Until it offers you up as a savior.

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

She shook her head and hair fell over the lower half of her face. She pulled the tresses back behind her ears and settled herself in her chair.

“You came on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“At home, I guess.”

“So she’s not in trouble right now?”

“No. Is that what I have to wait for? I mean, before we can come and see you?”

“No, Taylor. It’s okay to come and see me whenever you want.”

We sat for a moment and I thought about things. Taylor picked through the pages of Catullus, then looked around the room. Waiting, apparently, for my plan.

“Who’s that guy?” she said. I followed her finger to a couple of old volumes that sat on the edge of my desk.

“That’s a Greek playwright by the name of Sophocles. Ever heard of him?”

She shook her head. I picked up a book titled The Oedipus Trilogy.

“He lived in the fifth century b.c. Any thoughts about the fifth century b.c.?”

Taylor just looked at me so I kept going.

“Sophocles wrote three plays known as the Oedipus trilogy.”

“What were they about?”

“That’s a big question.” I opened the text and found a line from Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus.

“What’s that?” Taylor said.

“Ancient Greek.” I pointed her to the translation: “Man is born to fate a prey.”

“Is that supposed to be a puzzle?”

“Sort of. Sophocles believed each man was born to a destiny he couldn’t escape. And that anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. Like Oedipus.”

“Oedipus was a fool?”

“Oedipus was a king. A man who thought he was the master of his fate. A man who thought he could solve any problem through the force of his own intellect.”

“Let me guess,” Taylor said. “That didn’t work out.”

“Oedipus asked a lot of questions. Problem was, he didn’t always get the answers he wanted.”

“Was that the point of the play?”

I smiled and closed the book.

“There are a lot of points to the Oedipus trilogy, but, yeah, I guess that’s one of them. Don’t ask a question unless you’re sure you can handle the answer.”

Taylor ran her hand across the frayed cover and pulled it across the desk.

“Mind if I take this one too?”

“Suit yourself.”

I showed her the book’s layout. Where the English translations were for each Greek passage. How the comments in the back of the book worked. She took it all in, then stacked Sophocles on top of Catullus.

“Thanks. I kind of like this stuff.”

“Me too,” I said. “Makes you think.”

“Want to know what I was thinking just now?”

“Shoot.”

“I was thinking, I wonder if he has a girlfriend?”

“How interesting,” I said.

“So do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a girlfriend?”

“What did I just tell you about asking questions?”

The girl smiled. For the first time since she sat down, she seemed 100 percent kid.

“What do you want to know?” I said.

“Why don’t you date my mom?”

“Excuse me?”

“She says you two used to go out.”

“Your mom’s married. For the second time.”

“Yeah, we know about that.”

“Move on, Taylor.”

Now she laughed a little. Bounced a bit in her chair. I noticed a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. Looked like some kind of fruit. Maybe a peach, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Want to know what she said about you?” the girl said.

“We’re old friends.”

“I know. Want to know what she said?”

I tipped forward in my chair and slid my elbows onto my desk. “No, I don’t want to know. How about you, Taylor? You got a boyfriend?”

The girl dropped her eyes to the floor and pulled the two books I’d given her close to her body. The part in her hair was straight down the middle of her scalp. Just like her mom.

“I don’t mix too well,” she said.

I knew I shouldn’t have asked the question. As usual, about ten seconds too late.

“You got friends,” I said.

“I have people I talk to every day.”

“What do you call them?”

“I call them people I talk to every day.”

Her eyes crept up toward mine. There was a touch of annoyance in her voice and hard color rising in her cheeks.

“I like to be left alone. Sort of like you.”

I looked around the office. “Like me?”

“Sure. You’re not married. You work by yourself. Looks to me like you’re alone a lot.”

I wasn’t sure if she was attacking me. And if she was, whether it was out of spite or just plain old hurt. Either way, it was okay. She was a kid. And I’d been alone long enough to deal with any accompanying sting.

“Looks can be deceiving, Taylor. Let me ask you something else.”

“Go ahead.”

“You like ice cream?”

“Yes.”

It was a reluctant yes. But a yes, all the same. Ice cream usually helps to turn the page for kids. Adults aren’t so easy.

“There’s a great spot down the street,” I said. “Best hot fudge sundaes in the city.”

I got up. The girl got up with me, Sophocles and Catullus in tow. I turned out the lights and we left. We were halfway down the hallway when Taylor spoke again.

“You forgot to lock the door.”

I almost swore but caught myself. Instead, I went back down the hall and locked up. Then the two of us headed out for some ice cream.

T he Bobtail sits at the corner of Broadway and Surf. It’s a throwback place with a long marble counter, soda jerks dressed in white out front, and hand-cranked ice cream made in the back. Taylor ordered a chocolate ice-cream soda. The guy behind the counter took a glass with a Coke logo on the side, fitted it into a metal holder with a handle, and cranked a good amount of chocolate into the bottom. Then he dropped in three scoops of ice cream, filled the glass with seltzer from a black-handled dispenser, and stirred with a long spoon. Real whipped cream and a cherry went on top and the whole thing was slid down the counter. Taylor pulled the paper wrapping off a straw and, for the second time, looked like a kid.