“Wait,” said Tonio. “How’d you two get in here?”
“Broke a window in back,” said Stavros.
“Herman, how much is a window?” asked Tonio.
“One hundred and fifty would be fair,” said Herman.
“I’m not trying to be fair,” said Tonio. “I deserve a small profit for having my place of business violated.” He looked at Dimitri and Stavros. “Two hundred and fifty dollars.”
With fifty dollars from his brother added to the two hundred he had in his wallet, Stavros came up with the cash and handed it to Herman.
“Now?” asked Franco.
Lew nodded.
Franco and Uncle Tonio marched the wounded brothers through the warehouse and out onto the loading dock. Lew followed, a gun in each hand. Stavros and Dimitri walked wounded across the shipping dock, went down the stairs, got in their car and drove away.
“I’ll take those,” said Herman.
Lew placed the guns in Herman’s hands.
“They should go to the police to be checked against the bullet that killed a lawyer named Claude Santoro,” Lew said.
“Our fingerprints are all over them,” said Franco.
Herman tucked one of the guns in his pocket, took the other, disassembled it, looked down the barrel. He did the same thing with the second gun. The entire process took him no more than two minutes.
“Neither of these guns has ever been fired,” Herman said, handing the weapons to Tonio who looked at Lew.
“Want me to put them someplace safe?” he asked.
Lew nodded.
“You want that sandwich?” asked Tonio.
“Sure,” Lew said.
A few minutes later, seated behind the desk on the same wooden swivel chair Lew remembered as a kid, Uncle Tonio told them about the time Sam Giancanna had bumped into him when Tonio was coming out of Donellini’s.
“I fell on my ass,” said Tonio, holding a potato chip up to the light. “Guy with Giancanna picks me up. Giancanna apologizes. I know who he is. I say, ‘Sure, no harm.’ Giancanna nods. Guy with him reaches under his jacket. I figure they’re going to make me full of holes. Guy hands me a bunch of twenty-dollar bills folded over. I thought about handing the money back.”
“Not a good idea,” Franco said.
“No,” Tonio agreed. “I pocketed the money. Took Herman back to Donellini’s the next night and spent it.”
“ Vitello Picata and pasta,” said Herman, who sat on a wicker chair that would have dropped a heavier man, like Franco, into a comic pratfall.
“Think there’s a fixed rate for everything?” asked Franco, chewing on a sausage sandwich. “I mean like this Posno. You know, like four or five thousand for a broken arm or leg? Maybe a hundred thousand to kill you?”
“Twenty thousand,” said Herman.
“And that’s on the high side,” added Tonio. “You want it done nonprofessionally, you can get it for less than five hundred dollars, a crackhead for less. A good pro, you get to choose your method and whether you want it to look like suicide. Want something exotic, you pay a price, you get it.”
“Can opener,” said Herman.
“Right,” said Tonio, remembering. “We read this book by-”
“John Lutz,” Herman completed.
“Right,” said Tonio. “Guy kills another guy with a can opener.”
“How?” asked Franco, his cheek bulging with the last of his sandwich. “Wait. I don’t want to know.”
“Lewis,” said Tonio. “You got someone you want killed?”
“No,” Lew said, getting up. “I’ve got someone I want to talk to.”
“Who?” asked Franco, rising.
“Rebecca Strum.”
5
May be you should call her, be sure she’s home,” said Franco as they headed south down Lake Shore Drive.
“We’ll try,” Lew said.
The phone beeped as they passed Soldier Field. Franco picked it up and handed it to Lew.
“Milt,” Holiger said. “Lewis, I’ll give you the ruthlessly edited version of what I’ve got. Can’t do more now.”
Lew could hear street sounds behind him.
“Santoro, the dead lawyer. Can’t find a connection. Never represented Pappas or Posnitki. Never faced them as witnesses in court as far as I can tell. I’ll keep digging.”
“No Posno?”
“Name came up on a couple reports, a few newspaper articles, on Web sites. Just the name. No arrests. No convictions. Same photograph of him appears on three Web sites.”
Milt described Posno. The description matched the one Stavros had given. He gave Lew a Web site address. Lew wrote it in his notebook.
“Thanks, Milt.”
“Lew, the police want to talk to you and Franco. They have you on video at Santoro’s building and one of Santoro’s partners says he saw the two of you outside their office. You’re not suspects. Santoro was shot long before you got there. But you left the scene.”
“We called 911.”
“Right,” said Milt. “Might want to call the detective handling the case, Alan Dupree.”
“Little Duke,” Lew said.
“Yeah. Know him?”
“Yes,” Lew said.
“I’ve got to go,” said Milt. “Call me later.”
He hung up. Lew held the phone in his hand and told Franco what Milt had said. Then he pulled out his notebook, found a number and punched it in. He asked for Detective Dupree. A woman came on.
“Your name?” she asked.
He told her.
“Please hold,” she said.
Lew held, heard a double click and Little Duke’s raspy voice. Dupree was black, about six-two and one hundred and eighty-five pounds. His body was lean and hard, his hair short and curly, and he would have been handsome if it hadn’t been for the pink raised scar that jutted from the right corner of his mouth to below his chin line.
Little Duke was a workaholic, a cop who doled out street-corner and bar room justice. Crime in his area was a personal affront. Dupree had been the principal detective in four of Catherine’s cases. Lew had done the legwork and research on the cases for the State Attorney’s Office.
“Lewis Fonesca?”
“Alan Dupree.”
“We need to talk,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Where do you want me to be anytime after four?”
He told Lew and added, “You’ve got another guy with you. Bring him too.”
“I’ll bring him,” Lew said.
Lew looked at Franco who shrugged. Little Duke had hung up.
They found Rebecca Strum’s apartment building in Hyde Park about four blocks from the University of Chicago campus. Franco parked illegally, turned on the flashing red light.
“Nobody tows a tow truck,” he said. His mantra.
No doorman. Neat, clean, no-nonsense empty lobby with lots of glass and no framed prints on the walls. There were three black benches with no backs.
Next to the elevator was a telephone and a list of tenants with a number to punch in. The elevator slid open and two people came out. The man was lean, short, a pink-faced man wearing denim pants and a red-and-brown flannel shirt. The woman was tall, young and very pretty with smooth black hair. She wore denim pants and a blue sweater. She towered over him.
As the pair passed, the man, excitedly and with much hand movement, said, “If Samuels really meant what he said, if he followed through to the logical, the only conclusion, he would realize that his entire premise had been toppled.”
“Victor,” the young woman said patiently, “that would not be the only conclusion.”
They had paused at the entry door. Franco motioned Lew to join him in the elevator.
“All right,” said the man with resignation. “You’re the professor. Explain.”
Lew got into the elevator just as the woman said,
“It’s the Posno fallacy.”
Franco reached over to hold the closing elevator doors. Lew stepped out. The couple had already gone outside. Franco and and Lew hurried after them.
They were standing on the sidewalk, facing each other. He was talking again, arguing over whether Mahler was superior to Bruckner.
“You said something about Posno,” Lew said.
“Yes,” the woman said. “You think Posno was right?”