I got home at three in the morning, no closer to knowing what I should do. I didn’t bother with my cot. I went straight to the blue vinyl of the La-Z-Boy, shifted into full recline, and watched the insides of my eyelids for a couple of hours. I nodded off a few times around four o’clock, but it was only to dream, in bursts, of big houses disintegrating into fireballs. And, strangely, of snakes-red, lavender, green, black, and white snakes-writhing on their tails,twisting together in the orange light of the burning houses. Over and over I dreamed of those snakes until, exhausted, I gave it up at five thirty. I made a pot of coffee, filled my double-sized travel cup, and took it and my cell phone up to the roof. I keep a folding lawn chair up there for nights when old times come to haunt and I go up to wait for the sun.
I sipped coffee and thought about the snakes in my dreams. Endora, Leo’s girlfriend, says everyone knows dreams are the mind’s way of resolving the unresolved. Leo laughs and tells her that’s got to be true with me, because my daytime mind is too weak to power both motor and cognitive functions. Leo jokes that I should concentrate only on eating and walking when I’m awake and save my thinking for my dreams.
Screw Leo. But he’s more right than I’ll tell him. During the weeks when my reputation was being trashed, my business was collapsing, and my marriage was destructing, I learned to trust my dreams to work through what I couldn’t make sense of during the days. Or didn’t dare.
Up on the roof, though, I couldn’t figure the snakes.
I drank coffee and listened to the night. A mile away, long-haul trucks on their way to Indiana and Wisconsin rumbled over the corrugated rub strips on the toll road. Closer, the bells at the railroad signal started clanging. Long-haul trucks and railroad trains made sense to me. Dreams of snakes did not.
I picked up the cell phone and then set it down. It was only six o’clock, too early to call the Bohemian.
To the east, the sky was getting lighter over Chicago. It seemed impossible that, just a couple of years before, when I lived downtown on Lake Shore Drive and was full of enthusiasm for such things, I’d get up early to watch the sun rise over Lake Michigan. August dawns were the best, because the moisture rising off the lake would sometimes combine with the early heat to create incredible colors.
But now, drinking coffee on the roof of my grandfather’s aborted dream, the day’s first reds, oranges, and yellows licking at the blue-black of the night sky reminded me only of the snakes that had twisted and contorted through my dreams.
At seven o’clock I called the Bohemian’s office number. He picked up the main line himself.
“Vlodek. I was just going to call you,” he schmoozed. “The note is from the same sender?”
“Surprise, surprise. How about I drop it at the cops-”
“-Vlodek-”
“-on my way to your office. We need to meet. You, Stanley, and I.”
“About what?”
“The first payoff. The one you haven’t told me about.”
The oil went out of his voice. He told me he’d have Stanley Novak in his office at nine.
I got in line inbound on the Eisenhower Expressway behind a grayprimered Chevy Caprice with a wired-up back bumper. At eight in the morning, the traffic crawling east into Chicago is thick with rattling old cars. More and more, the good stuff-the high-end imports, the sixty-grand S.U.V.’s-is across the elevated tracks, going the other way, aimed at suburban offices from the rehabbed Chicago lofts, renovated row houses, and brand-new city communities of red brick, black wrought iron, and green sod that have popped up, like God’s own blooms, over what used to be hardscrabble urban blight, glinting of ancient cinder and broken glass.
The Bohemian’s office was just west of downtown, in one of the first rehab districts. His were the only offices listed for the top floor of a ten-story, yellow-brick former factory that towered over everything around it. I punched the button and was admiring my khakis, blue Oxford cloth shirt, and navy summer-weight blazer in the elevator mirror when I noticed the splotch of dried ketchup onthe coat sleeve. I was still scratching at it when the elevator chimed at the top.
The door opened right into the reception area of Chernek and Associates. The room was dark and discreet, lit softly by green glass-shaded lamps. The six high-back chairs and two Chesterfield sofas were upholstered in dark green leather that was lightly creased, like old money. I crossed the burgundy oriental rug to the black walnut desk. The receptionist was young and blond and upholstered in red silk. The only crease I could see on her was one perfect inch of tanned cleavage.
“Dek Elstrom to see Anton Chernek.”
“Of course.” She smiled and touched a button on her telephone console.
A dark-haired older woman with a helmet haircut appeared almost instantly at a side door. She wore a blue suit with a white blouse buttoned to the neck and had the pinched-face demeanor of someone wearing tight underwear. Certainly her cleavage had never seen the sun. I recognized the British accent when she told me to follow her. She was the Bohemian’s secretary.
We went through the door and down a row of cubicles, two of which had empty cartons set on their worktops. She stopped outside a small conference room with a single window, more dark green leather chairs, and a round walnut table. She told me Mr. Chernek would be with me shortly. I went in and sat down.
A large oil painting of an English hunting scene hung on the beige-papered wall. I studied the dozen red-coated riders, tensed astride their burnished black horses, their faces all purpose and concentration as they followed the pack of hounds. I tried to fit myself into the scene. The Bohemian would be the lead horseman, of course, his whip raised, his face confident and sure. Just as the rider immediately behind him, dutifully sounding the hunt with a curved brass horn, would have to be Stanley Novak. But I couldn’t fit myself in with the rest of the riders; they looked too well born,too comfortable in their riding clothes, too obviously suited to the hunt. They could only be the Board members of Crystal Waters. I stared at the painting until I finally decided I was the only dog straggling behind the riders, his head canted to the side, distracted by something in the underbrush. Yellow, green, and red snakes, maybe.
The Bohemian opened the conference room door and came in. For a big man, he moved softly, like a panther. He wore a charcoal chalk-striped suit, a soft blue shirt, and a muted burgundy tie. He had the same tanned skin and bright teeth I remembered from my divorce meeting. I got up, and we shook hands. His hand was big, the hand of a man who had done manual labor long ago. We sat down, and he folded his big hands on the table and waited for me to speak.
“Stanley Novak will not be joining us?”
“He’s been delayed but will be here shortly.” The Bohemian glanced at the table and then shifted to look at the floor by my chair. “You’ve not brought the envelope and the letter back?”
“I thought it would be safer back at my place.”
His face remained calm. “You’ve not given it to the police.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Not yet.”
He leaned back in the chair and studied my face. “Vlodek, so little trust.”
“Why go through the charade of bringing the second note to me?”
“We have to make sure we’re paying the right man.”
“You mean the same man-”
The quick tap at the door cut me off, and Stanley came in. He didn’t look well. His uniform was neatly pressed and his comb-over was intact, but he had dark smudges under his eyes and his lips were shiny. He sat down like he’d been carrying cement.
“How is your wife, Stanley?” the Bohemian asked.
“She’ll be fine.” Stanley pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. “What have I missed?”