Curtis shook his head. “Johnny knows. It happened during the blizzard, that much I can tell you.”
“You were at the Waltz Right Inn the night before the storm,” I said.
Rivers nodded fractionally. “Lamont came in with Johnny, like Sister Rose said. They went off into the back room, talked between themselves, then came out, joined the party. Lamont took off about two a.m. And that was the last time we saw him.”
“Johnny went with him?”
“No. And they weren’t fighting. Believe me, if Johnny had wanted to put a hit out on Lamont, we all would have known. But we were scared about what was happening to Steve… to Kimathi. I think Johnny and Lamont were talking about that, talking about whatever pictures Lamont said he had.”
“You think Lamont is dead?”
“I’m sure Lamont is dead,” Curtis said. “Brother didn’t have anyplace to hide that we didn’t know about. Miss Ella, she had family in Louisiana. They would have taken him. But we still would have heard. If anyone knows what happened to Lamont, it’s Johnny. I thought Johnny had seen a demon himself, when the snow cleared and we all crawled out again. After that storm, he would never let anyone mention Lamont’s name on the street around him.”
I squeezed my forehead with my hand. “What can I possibly offer Johnny Merton that would get him to talk to me? He wants the Innocence Project working for him, but frankly-”
“He’s not innocent of what they sent him down for, but he never killed Lamont Gadsden.”
I fished in the handbag, looking for a tissue, before remembering the bag belonged to the shop. The machinist chess player pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and let me wipe my face and hands. All four of us knew what I could offer Johnny Merton: proof of who really killed Harmony, proof of who killed Lamont and where his body rested.
Kimathi telling his story, me collapsing in the face of it, that had shifted the relationships in the room. Rivers and his friends weren’t on my side, exactly, but I was no longer an enemy. I guess you could say I was on probation.
I looked at the soiled handkerchief. “I’ll wash this and get it back to you, but I have a lot to do first. A lot of ground to cover and not much time. You need to get Kimathi out of here. George Dornick knows where he is, and it would be pathetically easy for them to break in here. Kimathi has to go someplace where no one would think to look. And you have to make double and triple sure that no one is on your back when you move him. They’re sophisticated, and they have a lot of money to throw around.”
Rivers said, “I have a shotgun, and I was in Vietnam. I can look after-”
“No, you can’t. Dornick has firepower that makes Hamburger Hill look like a pie-throwing contest.”
“Listen to her, Curtis,” the lumberjack said softly. “She’s telling you for Kimathi’s sake. No time for ego-tripping here, brother.”
The machinist nodded. “We’ll take him away right now. You want him, Ms. Detective, you ask Curtis. Less you know, the better.”
He turned to Kimathi and began talking to him, cajoling him. Kimathi didn’t want to leave without Curtis. I thought I might start screaming. I wanted him out-now!-before Dornick or anyone else showed up here.
I parted the ropes to leave and realized I was still holding the red handbag. I returned and put it on the counter. “This bag has attached itself to me, Mr. Rivers… And I see, anyway, that I’ve stained it… I lost all my cards and whatnot in the fire, but, if you put it away for me, I’ll pay for it when I get the cash together.”
Rivers studied me up and down with somber eyes, then handed the bag to me. “I’m going to take a chance on you, Ms. Detective. You’ve extended yourself here today. And if you don’t come through with the money, heck, I can leave your body in George Dornick’s office, claim he was responsible.”
It was a feeble joke, but we had all been so tense that we burst out laughing. All but Kimathi, who jerked away when he saw me laugh. “They say I the song-and-dance man… They laugh.” That sobered me up in a hurry.
I asked Rivers to let me out through the back, into the alley, just to give myself a little comfort zone. On my way out, I again urged the chess players to follow with Kimathi as fast as possible.
Once I reached Morrell’s car, I moved quickly, pushed by a nervous energy so frantic that I found myself flooring the accelerator and taking terrible risks in the traffic on the Ryan. At least I wasn’t texting, or playing the tuba, at the same time.
I pulled off the expressway, got out of the car, and tried to take some deep breaths, tried to regain some kind of center, but all I could see was my dad, the face I loved and trusted, looking through a one-way window into an interrogation room.
“You all right, there?” A police car had pulled up behind me without my noticing.
I felt the blood drain into my legs, but I clutched the car door and managed a smile. “Thanks. I had a cramp in my foot and thought I’d better get off to work it out.”
The officer tipped a wave but waited until I got into the car and slowly merged onto the Ryan. He followed me, as I studied traffic in my side mirrors, kept to the speed limit, signaled my lane changes. A bubble of hysteria kept threatening to overwhelm me. We serve and protect: the Chicago police motto. Was he protecting me? Was he making sure I hadn’t pulled over for a drug deal? Was he bored? What did he do in the station when he brought in a suspect?
I left the Ryan again at the main downtown exit and put the car in the underground garage near Millennium Park. I locked the red bag in the trunk. If I got to a point where I had to run, a bag like that would slow me down. It would also be easy for some tracker to follow.
Out on the street, the late August sun was blistering, and all that I had in the way of protection was my Cubs cap. No jacket, no lotions to protect my skin. I felt such a surge of self-loathing, anyway, that it seemed to me it would be good if the sun peeled the skin off my arms.
I was in too much of a hurry for public transportation and hailed a cab to take me to the top of Michigan Avenue. There’s a vertical shopping mall across the street from the Drake Hotel, where my uncle was staying. I went into the mall and found a stationer, where I picked up a pad of paper, an envelope, and a pen.
The Four Seasons Hotel was attached to the mall at the sixth floor. I walked through the connecting door into the subdued colors and calm of wealth, smiled at a concierge, and found an alcove where I could do some writing. I chewed on the capped end of the pen, trying to figure out what I wanted to say.
Dear Peter
Your big brother Tony covered your ass all those years ago, but I know now that you killed Harmony Newsome. There is no statute of limitations on murder, and I don’t feel Tony’s protective attachment to you, I won’t try to save you. What I’m wondering, though, is why you would sacrifice Petra. I thought at least you had a father’s normal love for his children.
If you want to talk to me, I will be in the gazebo across from the Drake for ten minutes. If you don’t show, I’ll be on my way. Will Bobby Mallory sit on the truth for you?
V.I.
I sealed up my note in the envelope and addressed it to my uncle. Across the street, I entered the lower lobby of the Drake, where there’s an arcade of shops. A bellman was standing near the stairs leading to the Drake’s main lobby. I gave him a five and asked him to deliver the envelope at once. Then I walked quickly through the arcade to the hotel’s north entrance.
It was 1:23 when I handed the letter to the bellman. Assume Peter was in his room. Assume the bellman delivered the envelope right away. Peter would call Dornick… or Alito… or Les Strangwell. Something should happen within twenty minutes.