Still, I’d laid the groundwork for the lies Bill Gubman wanted me to build. Bob Monroe was interested in what I knew about Johnson. Now I could start hinting that Johnson was freelancing and keeping the profits for himself. I could fill in the details later-places, times, amounts. Bill Gubman said he had a list of them that Johnson would have no alibi for, and phony bank accounts too. I could make the lies convincing if I moved slow and kept my head straight. I could help Bill make Johnson’s crew self-destruct quietly.
But why should I?
Bill said I could redeem myself. If I did, though, I would be back in the place I was trying to escape. There was nothing I liked about where I was.
Except for Corrine. She was in that place too and I still wanted her.
And Jason. He also was there.
I laughed out loud the way a guy who lives in a cage laughs, half crazy, half to keep from going crazier. Then I turned off the water. The heat and sting wouldn’t cure me. The only thing I could do was make the cage my own, make it as comfortable as I could since I was going to have to live in it.
I climbed into bed and after awhile I slept. An hour later I startled awake, worried about Corrine and Jason. Mom could take care of herself, I figured. I told myself that Corrine had been okay without me before we met and after we divorced, and Jason was safe in bed at Mom’s house. But I still couldn’t sleep. So I pictured the Russian girl coming to me at The Spa Club, imagined her face, which hadn’t hardened yet, her nickel-sized nipples, the tuft of pubic hair that rose from her like a breath of smoke. I thought of the sweetness she’d offered me.
Eventually I dreamed. I was sitting at my office desk looking for a letter. Just a piece of paper with words on it. But I knew in the dream that my life depended on my finding it. I checked the desk drawers, the file cabinets, the carpet under the desk. The letter was gone. I got frantic and looked for my gun instead, stuck my fingers into an empty holster, checked the desk and file cabinets, patted my pockets. Gone too. The phone started ringing. Like it was in front of me on the desk, but there was no phone on the desk. It rang and I knew everything depended on my hearing the voice on the other end.
I startled awake again.
The phone was ringing. The dim gray light of early morning filled my bedroom.
I looked for my desk. I had no desk in my bed. I pawed for the phone on the night table. “Yeah?” I said into it. Breathless.
“Thank God! You had me worried, Joe.” The voice was relieved and angry.
“I’m okay, Mom. They let me out yesterday.”
“I know they let you out yesterday. They had it on the news.” All anger now. “Why didn’t you call?”
Because I wasn’t ready to hear her voice. “What time is it?” I said, then looked at the clock on the night table and saw for myself. 7:10 A.M. “Never mind. I just woke up.”
Mom was silent for a moment. Then, “Have you been drinking?”
“No. I’ve been sleeping.”
Again she went silent for a moment. “Are you all right?”
I lied. “Yeah. I’ll need to work things out, but I’m okay.”
“The news says you shot a police officer.”
“He was shooting at other police officers.”
“That’s not what the news says.”
“Then they’ve got it wrong.”
She went silent again, like she was waiting for me to explain what happened. I had nothing to add.
She asked, “Why didn’t you call when they let you out?”
“I’m sorry that I didn’t,” I said.
“You don’t listen to the messages on your answering machine?”
“I came in late last night. What’s happening?”
“You don’t answer your cell phone?”
“The battery ran out.”
“While you were in jail,” she said.
“As a material witness.”
“The news called you a person of interest.”
“Again, they got it wrong. What’s happening. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Jason’s in the hospital.”
I felt the world falling away from me. “What-?” The words caught in my throat. Jason had lived with me ever since my cousin Alexi ran off with a guy from the Jacksonville Port Authority and her mother and mine decided that her eleven-year-old would benefit from being around a father figure, even one like me. Now I’d fooled myself into thinking he was safe. He was in the hospital while I was lulling myself to sleep with fantasies about a high-priced hooker.
“He’s all right,” Mom said. “They took out his appendix.”
The fear lifted and I felt my body relax. Little things go wrong all the time. This was one of them, nothing more.
“He’s been asking for you.”
“I’ll go see him today,” I said.
“He would like that.”
More silence.
“I’m sorry about all this,” I said. “Do you need anything?”
“I can take care of myself,” she said and I figured that was true. But then she added, “Anyway, some of your friends already came by and offered to help.”
“What friends?”
“Relax. Men you know at the police department. Detectives.”
“Did they give you their names?”
“They did more than that. They showed me their IDs. One was a black man a little older than you and much bigger. Bob something. The other was white but had a foreign name.”
“Raj?” I said, figuring Bob something was Bob Monroe.
“It could have been,” she said. “I’d just gotten back from the hospital. I invited them in for coffee and they said I should let them know if they could help. They were very kind.”
“They’re not friends of mine, Mom.”
“No?” She sounded more disappointed than concerned.
“If they come back, don’t answer the door. Don’t talk to them. Call me.”
“Will you be picking up your phone?”
“This is serious, Mom. These guys don’t want to help.”
“That’s a shame,” she said.
I agreed that it was.
“Joe?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Maybe you should leave town for awhile.”
“Yeah,” I said and I almost smiled. “That sounds like a great idea. Maybe I’ll do that.”
Mom gave me Jason’s room number at Children’s Memorial and we hung up.
I got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and started a pot of coffee. While it dripped into the pot, I looked out the back door into the yard. The sky was heavy and gray with the kind of cold rainless clouds that sometimes covered Chicago for a week at a time in November. The elm branches hung in the windless air just like they did last night. The tree was the last of its kind in the neighborhood. All the other elms had died from a disease in the 1970s.
After awhile I made my way into the living room. The red display on the answering machine said I had fourteen messages. Someone loved me. That was something.
But I figured I should take care of business first. I picked up the phone and dialed Bill Gubman.
“Did you change your mind about helping out and rent a fishing boat?” he said when I told him who was calling.
“I was about to,” I said, “but then I started partying with my friends Earl Johnson and Bob Monroe and I forgot about fishing.”
“You’ve met with them? Good work.”
“I didn’t find them. They found me.”
“Good work anyway,” he said. “I’ve got some things for you-bank receipts, police reports, photographs. All that you need to set up Johnson.”
“They’re watching me pretty close. I can’t pick them up at the department.”
He considered that for a moment. “There’ll be a ceremony this morning at Daley Plaza for the officers who died at Southshore Village. I’ll be there with a package for you.”
“Not exactly a private meeting,” I said. “Half the city will be there.”