“I’m asking you.”
I said, “Bill and I go back as far as you and I do. But I respect and like him.”
“What did you tell him?”
I looked Johnson in the eyes and said, “I gave it all to him. I named you and Raj and the others. I gave him the dates and locations where you’ve boosted copper and appliances. I told him you’re running prostitutes and said where. I told him you’ve got plans to poke your sticky fingers into all the corners of the city. What do you think I told him?”
Johnson sighed. “Did you give him any of our names?”
“If I told Gubman an eighth of what I know about you, you would be in jail, not sitting in your fancy club pinching your waitresses. No, I didn’t give him your names.”
Johnson said, “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said and kept spinning the story. “I guess I’m tired of being fucked over.”
Johnson rubbed his fingers on his chin, eyed me. “I don’t trust you,” he said.
“Then you did learn something in all those years since the academy.”
Johnson shook his head and laughed liked he figured I was an idiot. Then he stood. “I’m watching you.”
I shrugged and lied again. “An eighth of what I know could bring you down.”
He shrugged too. “Just as long as it doesn’t.” He crossed the room and disappeared back through the door he’d come out of.
Raj whistled low. “Earl’s a dangerous guy to play with.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but he knows I can outplay him.”
Raj laughed like he figured the whiskey had me thinking I was tougher than I was but he leaned in and said, “Okay, my honest man, are you going to work with us?”
“I don’t think Johnson would like that.”
Raj grinned. “He left the table without shooting you. And he said he’s keeping an eye on you. That’s as good as a job offer.”
“I don’t work well with others,” I said.
“Finley’s worked out the numbers. He figures each of us should clear ten thousand a month. That’s for starters.”
I stared at him.
He said, “Are you expecting a paycheck from somewhere else?”
I shrugged. “Okay,” I said.
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “I’m in.”
RAJ SHOWED ME AROUND the club. Beyond the lounge, it was like an upscale exercise club, with carpeted floors, painted steel railings, and the smell of chlorine, but no exercise equipment.
A hallway took us to a lobby where men and women relaxed on sofas or stood talking, most of the women in the khaki uniforms. The far wall had floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over Lake Shore Drive, across the beach, and to the lake.
Along a side wall stood a counter, staffed by a short-haired, healthy-faced woman whose khaki top barely contained her. A sign behind the counter listed the services available at the club. tension relief (40 minutes), $400. sensual awakening (75 minutes), $650. gentleman of leisure (2 hours), $700. couples spa (3 hours), $869. his and hers (1 hour), $750. group (75 minutes), $350 per person. other services negotiable. videographer available.
Another hallway led to doors cracked open an inch or two and other doors shut tight. Raj showed me inside the unoccupied rooms. One had a marble floor and marble wall tiles, a crescent-shaped hot tub, and a large cushioned bench. Another had three massage tables arranged side by side. A third had a thin gray mattress on a cheap metal bed frame, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and walls that needed paint. “Fulfill your dreams, whatever they are,” said Raj.
A blond-haired woman came out of a closed door and shut it behind her. She was barefoot and wore a short green sundress, the kind of thing that would slip off her shoulders and then she would have on nothing at all.
At the end of the hall, there was an emergency exit. Just before it, Raj used a key to let us into another room. The walls were lined with television monitors showing what was happening in the occupied rooms. A pock-faced man who looked about sixty sat on a desk chair with his feet propped on another chair, watching without interest, like the screens were airing a slow-moving ballgame. Two larger screens, off to the side, took video feeds from street level-in front of the building and behind.
Raj pointed his thumb at the screens. “If we ever get raided, the club can convert to legal massages real fast.”
When we finished the tour, Raj took me to another closed door. “Signing bonus,” he said.
“What?”
“For joining us. Go inside.”
I pointed my thumb at my chest. Me?
He nodded and said, “It’s been a tough couple of days.”
I waved away the offer. “That’s all right,” I said.
He smiled. “Come on. Her name is Tina.”
I went in.
The girl was lying on a white sofa. She was Eastern European-Russian, maybe Ukrainian. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. Her face was oval, her eyes the lightest blue, her hair so blond it was almost white. She was thin and had a wisp of white pubic hair and small breasts with dark nipples. She looked maybe seventeen or eighteen.
“Hi,” she said.
My voice caught in my throat. “Hi.”
She rolled over and sat at the edge of the sofa. She held her hand toward me, inviting me.
I wanted her badly. I stood where I was. “How old are you?” I asked.
She gave me a look. “How old do you want me to be?”
“I don’t-”
She got up and came to me, put her hands on my shoulders by my neck like she either planned to strangle me or wanted me to fuck her. She didn’t try to strangle me.
I said. “I have a wife.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips got mischievous. “You don’t have ring on your finger.”
“I have an ex-wife.”
She looked confused.
I said, “It’s complicated.”
“Yes, complicated,” she agreed, and moved her hands from my shoulders to my chest, caressing down toward my belt.
I stopped her hands with mine, held them to my lips, kissed her fingers. “I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked angry for a moment but it passed. “Your loss,” she said, and turned to the door.
“Yeah, my loss,” I said, but she was already gone.
NINE
I LIVED ON THE Northwest side in a house I bought after Corrine and I split up. I got there after midnight. My car tires crunched on the asphalt alley and I parked outside the garage, then crossed under an old elm tree to my back porch. An October storm had knocked the last leaves off the elm and now the branches hung bare in the moonlight.
I let myself in and flipped on the kitchen light. For the past three months, ever since moving in with me, my nephew Jason had run in and welcomed me home at the end of an afternoon. Even when I’d come in at midnight, he’d stumbled out of his room to say hello. But Corrine had picked him up for school on the morning after the Southshore shootings, and now he should be sleeping at my mom’s house in the bed I used as a kid.
Still, I called his name. I couldn’t help myself.
When Corrine picked him up, Jason had left a half-eaten bowl of Cheerios in the sink. The milk had dried and the Cheerios had glued together and made a cake more solid than anything else in my life at the moment.
I left the bowl and went to the shower, stripped, and cranked the faucet full throttle so the pins of water hurt. I needed the hurt, though I knew it wouldn’t wash all the dirt off of me. I stood for awhile and took it, then soaped myself and let the steaming water rinse me. I closed my eyes. The Russian girl at The Spa Club flashed in my mind. I wanted her and knew I shouldn’t have her. Sex at The Spa Club was a bit of Arizona for Bob Monroe, and I figured it would help me escape too for an hour or so. Two hours with the Gentleman of Leisure package. But then what? I would be back where I was, sweating in front of Corrine, trying to explain myself.
I knew I should run away from Johnson and his crew. If one of his helpers threatened Corrine, Jason, and my mom, then I should get them out of town and go with them. It wouldn’t be easy but I could do it.