The Governor's Wife (4 page)

R
odriguez and I talked for another half hour. He promised to see if he could dig up anything on the whereabouts of Eddie Ward or Paul Goggin. Before he left, Rodriguez urged me again to empty the hundred grand out of the account before it disappeared of its own accord. I told him I’d think about it and followed him out the door five minutes later. I hailed a cab and looked out the window as we crawled through the evening rush on Lake Shore Drive. I had the cabbie get off at Fullerton Avenue and head west until we hit Lincoln. Then we backtracked a couple of blocks and pulled up in front of a bar with a hanging sign of a gigantic carrot.

Sterch’s had been a tradition on Lincoln Avenue since the early seventies. The place was, and always had been, a drinkers’ bar. Serious drinkers. The kind who put their keys and money on the bar because they knew they were gonna be there awhile. I walked in around half past five. The bar was full, and there wasn’t a TV in the place. Boxing gloves and carrots hung from the ceiling and walls. An
ALCOHOL FUTURES
chalkboard was pegged above the register. On it were the names of six or seven regulars who’d had drinks bought for them in absentia or had been too lubricated at the time to take advantage of someone’s largesse. Beside the board was a stack of citations from the city of Chicago for violations of its no-smoking laws and a white-and-black sign that read:
THE MORE CORRUPT THE STATE, THE MORE NUMEROUS THE LAWS. TACITUS
. In the back of the place, the bar had been kind enough to set up its own no-smoking section. It consisted of an empty rectangle made of aluminum tubing and hanging a foot or two from the ceiling. Nice.

I caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a longneck Bud, then took my beer to a seat by the window and watched the people walk past. I’d been coming into Sterch’s a couple of times a week for the past few months. The “craic,” as my Irish-born friends liked to call bar conversation, was “mighty”…even if you were just listening. Which is mostly what I did. Listen to the chatter, drink my beer, and stare out the window. She usually caught the 5:45 bus up Lincoln Avenue. She used to drive to work, but now she took the bus. Sometimes, it ran a little late. Tonight was one of those times. Rachel Swenson was the second-to-last person to get off. She wore a black jacket with a collar she lifted against a sudden patter of rain. Rachel hustled across Lincoln and turned to urge someone behind her to beat the blinking light. She stretched out her hand and laughed. My eyes tracked back through the crowd, hunting for her companion. A couple of taxis cruised into the intersection and blocked my view. Then they laid on their horns just for fun. By the time the people and cars had cleared, Rachel was gone. As was her friend.

I had two more beers at Sterch’s and eavesdropped on the conversations floating through the place. At a table to my left, a man and woman were comparing Royko to today’s crop of scribblers. Not much of a comparison. Not much of a conversation.
Behind me, a couple of guys debated the merits of our mayor. One guy thought he was setting himself up for a run at the White House. The other figured that to be a lateral move at best. And not a very smart one. My mind wandered back to Rachel, standing in a soft rain in the middle of the street, living her life and filling it up with people. I figured that was a good thing. No matter how much it hurt. I finished my beer, picked up my money, and headed out.

Maggie’s nose was at the front door as soon as I cracked it. She ran around in circles until I opened up a cabinet for the dog food. Then she was all business, sitting at attention, eyes riveted on my every move. I filled her bowl, crouched down, and stared at her. She held my gaze for about ten seconds before her eyes flicked toward the bowl.

“Maggie.”

Her eyes came back to mine and held on for another thirty seconds. Then the drift again, accompanied this time by a soft whine.

“Mags.”

She barked once and slapped her tail against the floor. I nodded toward the bowl. She dove in up to her ears. Ten seconds later, she was done. I pulled her leash off a hook sunk into the wall.

“Park?”

She streaked to the front door and sat. I leashed her up, and we walked three blocks to a field next to a local middle school. The rain had stopped and the turf was just wet enough to be sloppy. Springer-spaniel weather. I unsnapped the leash and threw a tennis ball into the night. Mags brought it back and dropped it at my feet. I threw it again. The city felt empty—the only sound the metal clink of Mags’s tags as she ran. I thought about Ray Perry. Maybe he was on a beach
somewhere. Maybe he was dead. Maybe someone just wanted him dead. The tennis ball rolled against my shoe. I picked it up and looked at Mags, tongue out, tail thumping against the grass. I tossed the ball from hand to hand and smelled the smoke and sweat of Sterch’s coming off my clothes. Mags barked.
I’m still here
, she said. I wound up and leaned into a throw. When I was in high school, I played center field. No one ever ran on me. If they did, it was at their peril. A couple of years back, I took a bag of balls out to my old position. In my mind and heart, I knew I could still do it. Then I picked up a ball and fired toward home plate. The mechanics were fine. Better, even, than I could have hoped for. The ball, however, barely reached the pitcher’s mound. I remembered taking a look around. Maybe they’d changed the dimensions of the diamond. Maybe I was in deep center field. I grabbed another ball out of the bag and tried again. This one rolled up on the mound and bounced off the rubber. My shoulder was on fire down to my fingertips. I told myself I just needed to build up the arm again. If I came out once a week for a summer, I’d be back to where I was. That’s what I told myself. Then I threw the bag of balls into the trunk of my car and slammed it shut.

I got back to the apartment around 8:00 p.m. No messages. No e-mails. I made myself some mac and cheese and threw in a can of tuna because I thought I needed the iron. I wasn’t sure if tuna had any iron, but figured the mac and cheese didn’t and the upgrade couldn’t hurt. When I was done, Mags licked the bowl clean. Maybe she needed some iron, too. I fixed up a pot of coffee and took a cup into the living room, where I sat down with my laptop. Mags curled up on the other end of the couch and stared at me. I googled Ray Perry and began to pick through articles. Then I googled his wife. The picture I pulled up was taken at a community forum years ago. Even in the best of times, Marie Perry’s face was better seen through the lens of a camera. Some people were just like
that. Not unattractive in real life, just never quite living up to the magic of being “photogenic.” I studied the elegant set of her chin and clean line of her jaw but couldn’t find any of the pain I’d seen today. Still, there was something inescapably sad wrapped up in Marie Perry’s smile, and I wondered where it came from.

I clicked the photo shut and opened up my black notebook. On the first blank page, I wrote down three names.
EDDIE WARD. PAUL GOGGIN. RAY PERRY
. I drew a line between
WARD
and
GOGGIN
and wrote
VENDING MACHINE
underneath it. Then I drew a line between
PERRY
and
WARD
and wrote
ELEVATOR RIDE
. Off to one side I scratched out
MARIE PERRY
and drew a final line between her and her husband. I stared at my little diagram for a while, then logged on to the website for the Illinois State Board of Elections. After about an hour, I had a working list of Ray Perry’s major donors from 2005 through 2010. My routine was the same. I took each name in turn and did a search for any media coverage. Then I did a litigation search, cross-referencing the donor’s name against civil and criminal court cases filed in Cook County. The donor list was an impressive one. A lot of high rollers. A lot of corporate money. I didn’t really know what I was looking for but figured I’d recognize it when I saw it. It wasn’t the best plan, but right now it was all I had.

I took a sip of coffee and typed in a name off the list. Hi-Top Construction. It was an Illinois corporation that had donated almost two million dollars to Perry spread out over three years. I pulled up the articles of incorporation for Hi-Top from the secretary of state’s office. The company’s registered agent was a local lawyer named Albert Striker. I shuffled through my handwritten notes. Striker had also acted as the registered agent for another Perry donor, an outfit called Eagle Cement. Neither company listed any corporate officers other than Striker. Not unusual, but interesting. I plugged Striker’s name
into the state’s database. Five more corporations popped up. One of them, Railway Steel, was also on the Perry donor list.

I got up and poured myself some more coffee. Then I walked back into the living room and opened a fresh document on my laptop. Under the heading
STRIKER GROUP
, I typed the names of the three privately held corporations. Between them, they’d donated more than eight million dollars to Ray Perry over three years. When I expanded the window to five years, the donations jumped to more than fifteen million. Each outfit had won bids for significant highway construction projects during Perry’s time in Springfield. I dug into the online clips and pulled up details on the state contracts. I printed out some articles and added names to my list. Spokesmen, contractors, more lawyers, a half-dozen vice presidents. Around 1:00 a.m., I found the entity I’d been looking for—Beacon Limited, a holding company that appeared to own all of the other outfits. Not surprisingly, Albert Striker was the only individual listed on Beacon’s corporate charter. I put the name in caps and highlighted it in bold. By 2:00 a.m., I’d gone through two-thirds of the donors and filled up twenty pages with notes. I’d identified a couple of other key Perry supporters and listed them alongside the Striker group. I turned off the computer, collected my handwritten notes, and locked them away in a drawer. Then I drank a glass of whiskey and smoked a cigarette by an open window. Maggie was curled up on the floor of my bedroom and yawned when I came in. She gave me a quick scan to see if I had any food, then went back to sleep. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Smart dog. Stupid owner.

S
pyder sat in the dark at a large round table, surrounded by an array of glowing computer screens. He accessed a display to his left and cycled through a series of cameras they’d set up in the apartment. Then he picked up a cell phone and punched in a number.

“I’m watching him sleep,” Spyder said.

“Alone?”

“Unless you count the dog.”

“So you got everything installed?”

“We’ve got every room covered. His landline and every keystroke on his laptop as long as he’s in the apartment.”

“How about his office?”

“No-go. The building’s got some quirky things going on with its wireless reception, and he just installed a fairly sophisticated alarm system.”

“Can you beat it?”

“Of course, but it might take some time.”

A pause. “Let’s just focus on the apartment for now.”

“Fine.”

“Why are you calling?”

“He spent a lot of time online tonight.”

“Looking at what?”

“I’m sending it to you now. There’s a lot, so it’s gonna take a while to get through.”

“You take notes like I told you?”

Spyder stared at the pad of paper by his elbow. “Filled up half a notebook.”

“Give me the highlights.”

“He pulled up stuff on Perry like you thought. Then he started digging around in the state database for donations to Perry’s campaign and corporate records.” Spyder edged the notebook a little closer. “Spent some time with a company called Hi-Top Construction. Another called Beacon Limited.”

“Stop.”

Spyder waited. He hated this cloak-and-dagger bullshit, but the pay was too good to pass up.

“Did he make any calls?”

“Nothing,” Spyder said.

“You sure?”

“Hundred percent. We don’t have coverage on his cell phone, but I would have heard the call.”

Another pause. “Take a look out the window.”

Spyder was sitting in the front room of a third-floor apartment. The room had three windows that looked out at Kelly’s building across the street. Spyder had the windows covered. Now he reached out and tweaked one of the blinds.

“Can you see his place?”

“You know I can.”

“We’re gonna have someone follow this guy in the morning. I want you to coordinate with them.”

“It’ll be early. I’m guessing this prick doesn’t like to sleep very much.”

“We’re not paying you to lie around in bed. Call me when he’s up.”

Spyder snapped his phone shut and considered a half-dozen ways he could cut his boss’s throat. Unfortunately, the man didn’t have a name or a face, so Spyder would have to content himself with the ten K wired into his account every other week. He turned up the audio levels in the apartment so the sounds would wake him when Kelly got up. Then Spyder zipped himself into his sleeping bag. He thought about the rifle in the closet. Another ten thousand. Per body, no less. Spyder smiled and closed his eyes. At the end of the day, it was all about the money…and pretty easy money at that. Spyder couldn’t have been more wrong.

I
sat on an overpass, sipping coffee and staring down at the Eisenhower Expressway. It was just past 6:00 a.m., and a crew from Hi-Top Construction was arriving at the job site. There were ten of them in the pickup. Two up front in the cab. The rest piled into the back. A man with a belly like a cast-iron tub got out of the front and opened a gate so the truck could drive through. The work area ran for almost two miles and was bounded on both sides by a black privacy fence. The pickup stopped near a Hi-Top trailer, and the men in the back climbed out. I pulled a small set of binoculars from my jacket pocket for a better look. The men were dressed in dark pants and long-sleeved shirts. Each carried some sort of suitcase. One wore what looked like a priest’s collar. Iron Belly gestured for them to put their luggage in the trailer. Then he began handing out picks and shovels. The workers hefted their tools and lined up at a long table on the far side of the trailer. That was when Iron Belly brought out the vodka.

I punched in a number on my phone. Jack O’Donnell picked up on the first ring.

“What do you want?”

“Hey, Jackie. I figured you’d be up. How you doing?”

“I thought I was doing fine. Now, I’m not so sure.” For ten years, Jack O’Donnell had worked for the
Chicago Tribune
as their transportation editor. Now he ran an industry newsletter called
The Guard Rail
. O’Donnell had spent his professional career studying the men who broke rocks and built highways for a living. If there were bodies buried under the blacktop, O’Donnell knew how to find them. Whether he’d tell me was another matter entirely.

“Where are you?” O’Donnell said.

“I’m sitting on the Ike. Looking at a work site.”

“Which job?”

“Just past Twenty-Fifth Avenue. Let me ask you a question. You ever hear of an outfit called Beacon Limited?”

“Fuck you, Kelly. Everyone knows Beacon.”

“Not me. Not until last night.”

“They like to spread their business out over a bunch of subsidiary contractors, but they’re one of the biggest players in the country. What do you want with them?”

“You sound a little tight, Jack.”

“I’m fine.”

I looked again at the site. The workers were still clustered around the table. Iron Belly was passing out orange vests.

“You got some time, I’d like to pick your brain.”

Silence.

“Jackie, you hear me?”

“I heard you. You want to talk about Beacon?”

“Just a couple of questions.”

“It’s never just a couple of questions. Not with you.”

I waited.

“Let me think about it.”

“You got my number?” I said.

“I got it. Make sure you pick up when I call.”

“Fine, Jackie. I’ll talk to you.”

O’Donnell cut the line. I sat for another minute, watching the ebb and flow of early morning traffic, light stuff streaming smoothly around the construction zone. I started up my car and drove down onto the highway, parking just inside the fence and walking toward the work crew. As I approached, I heard a babble of voices. Best I could tell, all of it was in Polish. I got to within thirty feet before someone noticed me.

“Hey.” It was the priest. He had a cold hot dog, no bun, in one fist. There were more dogs piled on the table along with two half-gallon jugs of vodka and a stack of paper cups. The priest said something to me I didn’t understand, so I smiled. He smiled back. The other workers moved closer. Some had paper cups full of vodka. A couple had shovels. I nodded as they broke out again in Polish. Then Iron Belly stepped out of the trailer.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Name’s Kelly.” I stuck out my hand. Iron Belly didn’t take it.

“You’re trespassing.”

“Sorry. I’m an insurance investigator. Looking for a man named Albert Striker.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He works for a company called Beacon Limited.”

“Never heard of it.” Iron Belly glanced at his work crew, then back at me. “Now piss off before someone gets hurt.”

“Can they understand a word of what we’re saying?”

“They understand enough to kick your ass.”

I nodded and smiled at the crew. “You just pick ’em up at O’Hare?”

Iron Belly grabbed a shovel. Up close, I could see the rotted holes where his teeth used to be and a wad of tobacco stuck in
his cheek. “You want to play fuck-fuck, mister. I love to play fuck-fuck.”

I wasn’t sure whether his Polish army would stand and fight. Or just offer me a drink. Either way, I’d stirred the pot. And that was enough for one morning. I was halfway back to my car when I saw them. Four of them. Not Polish. Not illegal. One had a red beard and a bat in his hands. They spread out in a semicircle. Red Beard did the talking.

“This your car?”

“It is.”

He swung the bat and spiderwebbed the passenger’s side of my front windshield. “You’re trespassing.”

“You work for these guys?” I said and hooked a thumb back toward the trailer.

Red Beard nodded. He was six feet plus. Maybe two thirty. And the smallest of the bunch. “This is how we give out tickets to trespassers.” He smashed in a side window. “Next time, it’s your fingers. After that, knees and ankles. You understand what I’m saying?” He turned and started in on the passenger’s-side door. That was when I pulled out my gun and shot him in the thigh. Red Beard went to the ground with a heavy grunt.

“Next one goes in the kneecap,” I said as the other three circled. “Whoever catches it walks with a limp for the rest of his life.”

I waited to see if anyone wanted to play hero. Hired help usually didn’t, and this bunch was no different. They pulled Red Beard to his feet and began to back up. He cursed and tried to come at me again, but his leg buckled. I figured he was the leader and was glad I’d shot him first.

“Back away from the car,” I said.

They gave me fifty feet. I insisted they give me fifty more. Then I slipped in the front seat and started up the car. I ran over a half-dozen cones as I pulled out of the work site and
back onto the Ike. I was two miles down the road, windshield nicely smashed and no one in the rearview mirror, when my phone buzzed. It was Rodriguez.

“You up yet?”

“Up and out,” I said.

“Where are you?”

“Just went for a run.”

“Sounds like you’re driving.”

“What’s going on, Vince?”

“I got a little information this morning on one of your pals. Paul Goggin.”

“Where is he?”

Rodriguez gave me Goggin’s last-known address. It was one all Chicagoans found their way to sooner or later: 2121 West Harrison Street. Also known as the Cook County Morgue.