The Impala sped away, but I expected it wouldn’t speed long. My money was on a screeching stop at the nearest gas station, for the sticky-palmed young man to make a fast, one-handed dip into the windshield wash.
Jennifer Gale finished her concluding remarks and handed her microphone back to the cameraman. As he headed for the van, she smiled at me and walked over.
I noticed fine lines around her eyes, and a couple more, the good kind, from laughing, around her mouth.
“I saw you get off the ladder. You work for the city?” She pointed at the turret behind me.
“I live there.”
She frowned. “That’s a city landmark. It’s on their letterhead. They let you live there?”
“My grandfather built it. I inherited it.”
Her eyes told me she didn’t believe me. “Interesting. Are you surprised about Elvis Derbil?”
“Nothing about Elvis surprises me.”
I was surprised, though. Altering salad oil labels required ingenuity, and that wasn’t Elvis. He was a subterranean operator, a minion directed to trade zoning and building permits for cash. Beyond that, he wouldn’t move without instruction.
She turned to look behind her, at city hall. “I suppose your grandfather built that, too?”
I was used to the question. City hall was built of the same stones as the turret.
“They appropriated my grandfather’s pile of limestone and most of his land at the end of World War II. They didn’t want the turret.”
After another glance at the turret, she made a show of studying my paint-splattered jeans and torn T-shirt. “Are you eccentric?”
“Only until I get enough money to act normal. Why?”
She pointed to the turret behind me. “Because I’m wondering if you use a chauffeur.” A smile played at the nice faint lines on her face.
I turned. A long black Lincoln limousine was parked behind my Jeep, and a liveried chauffeur, in full gray uniform with a black-visored hat to match, was knocking on my timbered door.
Never at a loss for snappy repartee, I said, “I use him for odd jobs, fetching pizzas, picking up my other pair of jeans from the laundry.” I wished her luck in unraveling the greasy strands of Rivertown and headed for the turret.
“Until tonight, at nine,” she called after me.
“I never miss the news,” I called back.
CHAPTER 2.
“Mr. Vlodek Elstrom?” the chauffeur asked as I walked up.
When I nodded, he nodded, but at someone in the car’s backseat. The door opened, and a tall man, thickset enough to have played professional football thirty years earlier, got out. He stuck out his hand. “Tim Duggan,” he said. “Let’s go down and look at the river.”
His suit coat was cut wider than he was. He was carrying, probably in a belt holster.
“This is all very dramatic,” I said.
He made a smile that didn’t move his cheeks. “I just like rivers.”
We walked down to the Willahock. For a minute, we said nothing, just rocked on our heels and watched empty motor oil quarts and opaque milk jugs frolic inside the half-submerged tires and tree limbs at the opposite bank.
“You keep your side of the river clean,” he said.
“I try to do one moral thing a day.”
“I understand you do investigations.”
“From whom do you understand this?”
“Here and there. The newspapers, too, some time back.”
“I try to avoid the newspapers,” I said.
He nodded. He understood that, too.
“I’m not licensed,” I said. “Mostly I do insurance work, examine accident scenes, research court records.”
I left out that, for a time, I’d also written an advice column, masquerading as a woman, for a freebie supermarket rag masquerading as a newspaper. I’d quit that some months before, because the column was making me too aware of the kinds of minds that were loose across America.
“You hear about that clown that went off the roof a couple of weeks ago?” he asked.
I looked at his broad, tough face. “There was only a single paragraph in the Tribune. They called it a tragic accident.”
“The Argus-Observer was the only one that gave it any real play. The story pretty much disappeared.”
“I don’t read the Argus-Observer.”
He made another smile. “So I would imagine.”
For sure, he’d checked me out.
“What is it you want, Mr. Duggan?”
“What do you charge?”
“It depends on how forthcoming my clients are.” I was developing an aversion to Duggan’s cementlike demeanor. “For standard stuff, photographing accident scenes, running down records, I’m reasonable. For others, I bill premium-two hundred dollars an hour.”
It was a laugh. It had been a long while since I’d billed anybody for much of anything. Thanks, in huge part, to the Argus-Observer.
“I’d like you to look into that clown’s death.” He took a white envelope from his suit jacket. Holding it out, he said, “There’s two thousand dollars in there.”
“Do you represent the building’s owners?”
He gave that a noncommittal shrug.
“You’d do better going to the police, get their information,” I said.
“I’m looking for discretion.”
Something itched on my face. I touched my cheek, and a small piece of caulk fell off.
He noticed. He raised the envelope higher.
It was enough. I took his envelope, and we started up the hill to the street.
“How will I get in touch with you?” I asked, at the limousine.
He handed me a business card. It read, TIMOTHY DUGGAN. SECURITY.
“You do security for the building?” I asked.
“If your billing exceeds the two thousand, let me know.” He got in the car.
Unlimited budget. Limousine. A cash offering. He wasn’t my typical client, not even before my life collapsed.
As he was driven away, I pulled out my cell phone and called a man I’d once done a favor for. He worked for the State of Illinois and had nothing to do with vehicle licenses, but he had access to the database. It’s like that in Illinois government; everybody has access to everything. It’s why so many of the state’s workers, right up to the recent governors, retire in prison.
My contact put me on hold, came back in a minute. “The limousine is registered to Prestige Vehicles, in Chicago,” he said.
“Leased?”
“Most likely. You’re wasting your time. Those outfits don’t disclose information. Some of their clients are pretending rich, and don’t want it known they get carted around in leased cars.”
“Me, I own what I drive,” I said.
“You still driving that heap of a Jeep?” He chuckled, proud of his rhyme.
“I just put fresh duct tape across the rips in the side windows. It looks almost new.”
“Newly slashed, you mean.” He hung up before I could brag that I’d primed the rust spots in the same shade of gray as the tape.
I went into the turret and onto the Internet. Google, that collector of all lint, had a dozen Timothy Duggans in Illinois. One was an actor, another owned a restaurant, a third coached high school soccer. None ran a security firm. Duggan’s operation must have been small, and very private. He worked at not getting noticed.
I then keyed in “Clown, fall, Chicago.” The first listings belonged to the major newspaper Web sites. The Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, and Southtown Star all had carried the story, two weeks before. Each had given it a bare few sentences, seeing the death as an obvious accident or, unmentioned, a possible suicide. None had updated the story since.