Franco demonstrated by pushing his nose to one side.
“I don’t think Posno’s your brother.”
“I don’t either,” said Franco. “I’m just saying…”
Lew was spread too thin, too many people to see, too many strings to follow into the cave. He needed help.
As they drove, he picked up Franco’s phone, took out his notebook and found Milt Holiger’s phone number. In Lew’s life, he had been able to remember only three telephone numbers. Not his own, not his parents. He remembered Catherine’s phone number before they were married. He remembered his friend Lonnie Sweeney’s phone number, still did, though he hadn’t talked to Lonnie for at least fifteen years. Or was it more like twenty years? The phone number of the Texas Bar amp; Grille in Sarasota where Ames worked. That he remembered. Oh, yes, the number of his aunt Marie, the old number she hadn’t used in at least twenty years.
Numerically challenged, Lew kept a stained and frayed sheet of paper in his notebook. On the sheet were the phone numbers of people and memories he had fled in Chicago, and people who had squeezed or pushed through the door into his life in Sarasota.
Lew had tried many times over the years to memorize the multiplication tables. Never could. Still can’t. Ask him how much seven times nine is and he has no idea.
Milt answered his cell phone after three rings.
“Lew?” he said.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Caller ID. I’ve got the number you’re calling from and the name of your brother-in-law Franco.”
“How’s your time?” Lew asked.
“Moving inexorably forward,” Holiger said. “What can I do for you?”
“Roadwork.”
A blue Mini Cooper driven by a clown smoking a cigar passed by and waved. The clown was in whiteface with a bulbous purple nose. A sad look had been painted on his face. He held up his hand. So did Lew.
“If I can help, sure,” Milt said.
Lew told him about the Asian driver and the parking permit, and Santoro’s working for the bank.
“Take your pick.”
“Bank,” he said. “I can walk over there. I’ll give you a call. Not much more on Posno on my end. How about yours?”
“A little.”
“I’ll keep looking.”
Lew carefully folded the sheet of paper and tucked it into his notebook, reasonably sure neither he nor Pappas or his sons would find Posno. Lew remembered the sweet, proud smile on the face of Pappas’s mother, who had divided her time between the kitchen and murdering her husband. He imagined Posno, broad, bald, hulking, being thrown into the Pappas kitchen. John or one of the boys would lock the door and Posno would be alone with Pappas’s mother wearing an apron, smiling, holding an oven tin with a red pot holder in her left hand. The oven tin is filled with sweet honey treats. In her right hand, she holds a long, very sharp knife, which is ideal for both slicing phyllo dough and Posno’s throat. He is twice her size, but he doesn’t stand a chance in her kitchen.
“Lew? You there?” asked Milt.
“I… yes,” Lew said.
“I’ll call you when I have something.”
“Thanks, Milt.”
The call ended.
“You see that clown back there?” Franco asked.
“Whiteface, tufts of red hair, down-turned painted mouth, cigar.”
“Huh? I meant the clown in the SUV who cut us off. You okay, Lewis?”
“Sure.”
But Lew knew he was decidedly not okay.
6
Little Duke Dupreesat across from Lew and Franco in a window booth at the Tender Restaurant on 76th Street. Little Duke had parked where he could see both his car and Franco Massaccio’s tow truck through the window.
They drank coffee, ate the Tender Restaurant’s famous oversized chocolate coffee donuts. The donuts were brought to the table by a powerful-looking black man who walked with a limp.
The Tender had been Little Duke’s suggestion, a very strong suggestion. People were talking in other booths and at tables. Neat, clean, good food, the Tender was an eye-blinding contrast to the South Side bars in the neighborhood Little Duke had roamed for more than two decades, keeping the peace when he could, showing that he was the sheriff carrying the biggest gun and reputation, most of it myth, some of it true. Lew had seen him in reaction and action twice.
Little Duke Dupree dressed the part, black pressed slacks, black shoes, a black turtleneck shirt under a black cashmere sports jacket.
Franco and Lew were the only white people in the Tender. The same was true of the pedestrian traffic outside.
“Santoro,” said Detective Little Duke.
It wasn’t a question. It was a name put on the table for Franco’s and Lew’s reaction.
“We didn’t kill him,” said Franco, huge half-eaten donut in hand.
Little Duke looked at Lew and put both hands flat on the table.
“You could have gotten around the cameras in the building, come in during the night, got away. Then you could have come back, let the cameras pick you up. Visual and timed video that when you were in Santoro’s office, he was long dead.”
“We didn’t do it,” Franco said.
“I believe you,” said Little Duke. “What were you doing in his office?”
Lew told him the whole story. He didn’t start it with the date he was conceived or born and he didn’t include the heart of the story, the people. Little Duke took no notes. From time to time Franco nodded in agreement or said, “That’s right.”
Lew told him about Pappas and his sons, Posno, Rebecca Strum, the Asian driving the car that had killed Catherine. He told it in ten minutes. Told the story but not the characters. Lew knew that Little Duke would check police reports, first, to confirm that Franco and Lew had a run-in with Stavros and Dimitri on the Dan Ryan Expressway and second to confirm that Santoro and Aponte-Cruz had been questioned by the police.
Little Duke closed his leather-bound notebook and put it back in his pocket.
“We’ve got Aponte-Cruz,” he said. “No weapon. The appointment book was missing from Santoro’s desk.”
Lew knew where this was going.
“Yes.”
Little Duke looked at Lew, his eyes unblinking.
“Want some advice?” Little Duke asked. “Don’t talk religion with a Baptist and don’t try to stare down a violent crimes detective.”
“I wasn’t,” said Lew.
“He wasn’t,” said Franco. “He stares like that a lot.”
“I do?” asked Lew.
“You do, Lewie.”
“You have it?” asked Little Duke patiently.
Lew had witnessed that same patience the last time he had seen Little Duke Dupree. Lew had been trying to find a possible witness in a fraud case. Little Duke had accompanied him to a house not far from where they were now sitting.
Two young men, black, stood in their way. One of the young men wore a black sleeveless shirt with a white thunderbolt on the front. He had the body of a weight lifter, the tattoos of an ex-con and the attitude of a drug dealer.
Little Duke had been patient. Word was that Little Duke’s wife had left him after being there too many times when he had been patient. Word was she was now dead. Lew had heard the word. When it was clear that patience and reason were not going to move the two men from the doorway, Little Duke’s gun had suddenly appeared. He had slammed the butt into the face of both young men, who were unprepared for the instant change in the policeman from a Father O’Mally to Jack Bauer.
Little Duke had broken both of their noses and wiped the bloody handle of his gun on the thunderbolt T-shirt of the man who was kneeling and holding both hands to his face to slow down the bleeding. Little Duke had stepped past them. Lew had followed. They found the witness, a pregnant girl no more than sixteen, in a second-floor apartment.
In the booth at the Tender, Franco looked at Lew, waiting for an answer to the question Lew couldn’t remember. Franco’s left cheek was bulging with donut. Then Lew remembered.