“Vic! Good to see you have time to turn out for young Brian, even if a judicial campaign is beneath you.”
“Judge Coleman, congratulations on your election.” I had turned down my invitation to a fundraiser for Coleman’s campaign-Illinois treats its judiciary like any other commodity for sale-and Arnie clearly had kept a list of friends and foes. Another Illinois tradition.
“You keeping your nose clean, Vic?” the judge asked genially.
“Wipe it twice a day, Judge, on my sleeve, just like we used to do at Twenty-sixth and California… Judge Coleman, this is Mr. Contreras.”
My old boss gave a fake laugh and turned back to his own party, ignoring my neighbor’s outstretched hand.
“Cookie, that’s no way to talk to a judge,” Mr. Contreras scolded.
“I don’t know. From what I hear from my old pals at the bar association, justice in Coleman’s court isn’t just blind, she’s deaf and lame, too. The only one of the five senses she has left is touch, to feel how big the bills you’re pressing into Coleman’s hand are.”
“That’s terrible what you’re saying. It can’t be true. People wouldn’t stand for it.”
My mouth twisted in an involuntary grimace. “When I was with the PD, Coleman and the state’s attorney-Karl Swevel, it was then-fell over each other to see who could line up the most support for the local Dems. Who we defended and how we did it, that took a far distant backseat to licking local asses. Nobody minded then, and nobody seems to care much now.”
I saw that my neighbor was looking seriously aggrieved-as much at my choice of words as what I was saying-and patted his arm consolingly. “Let’s find the kid. We need to prove to her that we showed up.”
We worked our way through the press of people until we stumbled on Petra near one of the bars. She was talking to an assorted collection of lobbyists and legislators, who all had the round shiny faces of people who’ve spent too many years with their heads in the public trough.
Petra squealed with delight and flung her arms around Mr. Contreras. “Uncle Sal, you made it! Look at you with all your decorations! And, Vic, you’re so splendiferous! I wondered for a second who Uncle Sal’s gorgeous date was.”
She gave a peal of laughter, and the group she’d been talking to, jaded old party hacks though they were, joined in. Mr. Contreras brightened instantly. Petra herself was wearing a chiffon flower-child dress over shimmery tights. In her spiky heels, she towered over almost everyone around her, including me.
“I have to find the senator, I mean Mr. Krumas-I keep forgetting we have to elect him first!-I know he’ll want a picture with Uncle Sal,” she explained to her group, adding to Mr. Contreras, “I’m going to take you to Uncle Harvey’s table so I know just where to find you.”
She linked her arm through Mr. Contreras’s and started to steer him through the crowd. I followed meekly in their wake. Twenty-three years old and she was already a pro, tapping shoulders, laughing, stooping to hear what an old woman with a hearing aid was shouting up at her.
About a dozen numbered tables, festooned with red, white, and blue balloons and giant RESERVED signs, stood near the band and a podium. Pretty soon, we’d get to hear a bunch of soul-stirring rhetoric. The tables were set aside for the people who had really come through for Krumas. According to the program, they cost a hundred fifty grand, fifteen grand a chair. Which just proves that adage about real-estate prices being all about location; the chairs were the same metal folding kind you can pick up at any church rummage sale.
The seats would fill when the speeches started. Right now, only a handful were taken. Petra took Mr. Contreras over to Table 1, right in front of the podium. Jolenta Krumas, the candidate’s mother, was sitting with a small knot of older women who were all talking at the same time. Two younger women sat across from them. I recognized Jolenta from the newspaper photos of Brian with his family. I think the younger women were a sister and sister-in-law, but they weren’t as striking as Jolenta. Her thick dark hair, well streaked with gray, was swept back from her face with a couple of diamond butterflies. At sixty-something, her posture was still perfect. She was intent on what the woman to her left was saying, but she looked up with a good- humored smile when Petra bent down.
“Aunt Jolenta! This is Salvatore Contreras. He’s, like, my newest honorary uncle, and I know the senator-to-be would adore meeting him and having his picture taken!”
Jolenta Krumas, glancing from Petra to the row of polished medals on Mr. Contreras’s suit, gave a wry smile. “You are doing a splendid job, darling. I’ll make sure Harvey tells your papa the next time they talk. And so, Salvatore, is Petra exhausting you? Come, sit down, rest! Brian will be along in a while. He’s in back with some of Harvey’s friends. Now that he’s running for office, I’m lucky if I see him at Mass on Sunday mornings. This fundraiser is our first meal together in months!”
Petra turned around and saw me behind her. She made a grimace of mock contrition. “Oh, Aunt Jolenta, I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce my real cousin, Vic, Victoria. She’s Uncle Sal’s upstairs neighbor. She’s a detective. Vic, this is the senator’s mom.”
“Senator-to-be, dear, senator-to-be, we all hope. The election’s a long way off. Let’s not jinx it, okay?”
She patted Petra’s hand, then indicated a chair near her for Mr. Contreras. Everyone swarming nearby stared at him, trying to figure out what he’d done to get a seat near power. I picked up a glass of wine from the Krumas table. As I moved toward an exit, I heard a woman say to her partner, “Oh, that’s Brian’s grandfather. The guy behind me just told me that.” I laughed a little. So stories start.
I moved away from the building and walked to the east edge of the pier, remote from the pounding loudspeakers and the endless preening conversations. See and be seen, see and be seen.
I stared down at the ripples that gleamed on the black water. The pier was awash with money tonight, with everyone hoping some would drift their way. Or at least some glamour or a tiny snippet of power.
Like my old boss. I hadn’t thought about Arnie Coleman for a long time, but he was the main reason I’d left the criminal courts. If you had a high-profile case that State’s Attorney Karl Swevel wanted to ram through, you were supposed to put on the brakes when it came to questioning the cops or finding witnesses who might support your client. I’d ignored the directive once, and Coleman told me then that if it happened again I’d be on report to the state bar’s ethics committee.
My dad had died six months earlier. My husband had just left me for Terry Felliti. I felt unbearably alone and scared. I could lose my license to practice law and then what would I do? The next morning I handed in my resignation. I went around to the private criminal defense lawyers and starting doing odd jobs for them. And one thing led to another, and I became a PI.
I started to feel cold in my backless dress. When I returned to the melee, the band was playing a martial medley. The candidate and his inner circle had appeared. Krumas was working his way through a wildly cheering crowd, shaking hands here, kissing a woman there-always choosing a woman hovering on the fringes of a group, never the most striking in the knot he was passing through.
He was, as Petra said, extraordinarily beautiful in person. You wanted to lean over and stroke that thick head of hair. And, even at a distance, his smile seemed to say, You and I, we have a rendezvous with destiny.
I craned my head to see if Mr. Contreras had been allowed to stay at Table 1. I finally saw him, looking a little forlorn, squeezed between Brian’s sister, or maybe sister-in-law, and a stocky young man who was talking across my neighbor to another man on Mr. Contreras’s left. I threaded my way to his side, prepared to rescue him, if that’s what he wanted, or to stay on the sidelines until he was ready to leave.