5
The modern buildings of Northern Illinois University rose to the left like the set of a science fiction film with a big budget. The rich Illinois farmland dissolved into a blur of plastic college-town shopping center, apartment building and franchise restaurant living; the highway became a shaded street along which kids of both sexes wearing tee-shirts and cut-off jeans walked and pedaled bikes. Then, after blocks of pizza places and boutiques and McDonald’s hamburgers and dormitories, a wide, off-center intersection appeared from nowhere, as if to separate one half of Dekalb from the other. That seemed only right, as this other part of town was so different it was like passing through to another dimension; the business district beyond the intersection had no doubt been much the same for many years, the narrow main street lined with one- and two-story buildings, drug stores, dress shops, five and dime, hardware stores and only rare indications (“Adult Books in Rear” — “Water Bed Sale”) that this was a college town and not just a congregating point for area farmers and sedately middle class townspeople. Dekalb was a schizophrenic town. Even Nolan noticed it.
“Hey, look at the jugs on that one,” Angelo said, pointing to a tall blonde girl with a short haircut, cut-off jeans and green tee shirt. “Bouncy bouncy.”
“Just drive,” Nolan said.
“Sour ass,” Angelo said.
Nolan still wasn’t happy about being with Angelo, though he supposed he should’ve been grateful to his chubby-faced companion. It was just an hour and half ago that Nolan had been looking out the window and watching the crowd form, a crowd of briefcase-carrying men ready to leave for work and curlered women in housewifely robes and gleeful little kids in bright summer shirts, all looking on in fascinated horror at the big black dead man sprawled across the tan Ford. Nolan’s tan Ford, and at that moment of no damn use at all, as far as transportation went. Nolan hadn’t bothered trying to calm the hysterical Phyllis Watson, who had started to scream, pummeling him with hard little fists. Instead, he had knocked her cold with a solid right cross, sincerely hoping he hadn’t broken the girl’s jaw, and went down the stairs and out of the house, cutting through the backyards of houses behind, moving away from the scene of Tillis’ death as quickly as possible. He’d gone to a filling station, called the number Angelo had left, and after fifteen minutes and two cups of coffee in the station’s adjacent cafe, Nolan had gladly hopped in a car beside Angelo and got the hell out of Milwaukee. Somebody would have to go back for the tan Ford, which belonged to the Tropical Motel and could conceivably cause some problems, but that was one of those details that would have to be ironed out later. Some asshole like Felix could sweat over that.
Now Nolan was with Angelo in a black Chevy (naturally) in Dekalb, Illinois. Nolan wasn’t happy about being in Dekalb, for several reasons. For one thing, Dekalb was only fifteen miles from the Tropical, his starting point on this largely fruitless trip, which already had lasted some nine or ten hours. Being so close to home served to remind him of how far he hadn’t gotten; he sensed he was going around in a big circle that included all of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. He felt like a traveling salesman with nothing to sell.
Another reason for his discontent was that he was in Dekalb to do something he would rather not do. Something he had told Tillis he wouldn’t do.
He was going to bother Charlie’s daughter.
He was, in fact, probably going to kidnap her.
Angelo said, “What should I do, stop at a filling station and ask, or what?” They jostled across the railroad tracks that slanted across Dekalb’s main street, announcing the decline of the business district.
“No,” Nolan said, “we’re already on the right street. She must live over one of these stores downtown here.” He checked the street number on the list of names, checked it against the numbers they were passing. “Yeah, just another couple blocks. Keep it slow.”
Back on the Interstate they had stopped long enough to call Felix. Nolan had questioned the lawyer, hard, about the violent doings in Milwaukee, and Felix had said, “Do you really think we would do that to people who could lead us to the man we really want?” The man they really wanted being Charlie, of course. Felix was careful about what words he used on the phone.
“I don’t know,” Nolan had answered. “I been dealing with crazy people so much I’m feeling that way myself.”
“Nolan, be reasonable. We’re fighting the same battle, for Christ’s sake.”
“But who is on what side, is what I want to know.”
“Let me send some people to help you out. This is getting big.”
“I already got your Angelo along, and that’s one man too many. Oh, and you can call your man Greer and take him off those people in Iowa City. Not much chance of anybody warning Harry about anything anymore.”
“If you’re through making your ridiculous accusations, Nolan, I have something to tell you. Something important. We have a lead on Charlie.”
That had pleased Nolan, but still he said, “I thought this was my show.”
“I told you, it’s bigger than that now. We won’t get in your way, but we have interests in this affair far wider than your own, and resources at our disposal that a single man — even a most competent one, like yourself — could not hope to match.”
“So what have you got?”
“We’ve located a pilot who’d been chartered by Harry. He was to fly up to a private air field in the Lake Geneva area and take a passenger to Mexico.”
Felix paused, for applause Nolan guessed.
When he didn’t get any, Felix continued. “The guy, the pilot, has done some work for us before — has picked up merchandise of ours in Mexico, occasionally, if you get my meaning.”
“Go on.”
“Harry’s death was reported on the radio and television about half an hour ago, and this pilot heard it and immediately called Vito up and asked him if this chartered plane thing was still on. Vito knew nothing about it, but thought it smelled funny and called Chicago to see what we made of it.”
“What you made of it was the plane was for Charlie.”
“Naturally. I told Vito to tell the pilot to go ahead and be where he was supposed to be at the proper time. We’ll have our men waiting there, at the private field.”
“If the field’s near Lake Geneva, odds are Charlie’s holed up someplace close by.”
“I would think so. Seems to me he used to have a lodge or summer home of some kind in that neck of the woods. We’re running a check on it now, trying to see exactly where it was.”
“What time was that meeting at the airfield supposed to be?”
“It was set for last night but the ‘passenger’ ran into some difficulty and they’d rescheduled the next possible time. Which was one o’clock today.”
“Tonight, you mean?”
“This afternoon, I mean.”
“Jesus. Not much time. Where is this air field, anyway?”
Felix gave Nolan directions; they were complicated and Nolan had to write them down. He knew the Lake Geneva area fairly well, but there were a hell of a lot of country roads around there to confuse things.
“You don’t really think Charlie will go ahead with the flight, do you, Felix? He’s pretty likely to’ve heard the news about Harry and Tillis by now and figure something’s up.”
“Nolan, it’s pretty likely, too, that Charlie was responsible for what happened to Harry and Tillis. Tidying up after himself. He’s certainly ruthless enough to handle things that way. If our people aren’t responsible for what happened in Milwaukee — and Nolan, I assure you we aren’t — then who else could it be but Charlie?”