“I’m heading home.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“This news isn’t-” She wasn’t going to apologize. No. There was nothing for which she needed to say she was sorry.
“Mari,” she said, “I didn’t want this. I had no idea who this cop was.”
“I understand.”
“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”
A pause. Mari was a good sort.
“You could say that,” she said.
Shelly clicked off the phone and dropped her head back on the carseat. She thought of the headlines for her father. She tried to rationalize each piece of information. A private adoption was not a crime. His grandson’s involvement, in some way, in a cop shooting. His loose-cannon daughter. It was the collective whole. Messy, is what it was.
Her phone rang again.
“Shelly, it’s Joel. Jesus Christ!”
“Hi, Joel.”
“I’m reading this on-line. The Watch. Ronnie’s your son? Miroballi-”
“All true,” she said.
“‘A grandson who’s never been acknowledged by the Trotter family.’ ‘A daughter, outcast from the family-’”
“It says that?” She came forward in the seat, felt a wave of nausea.
“‘Did the governor involve himself in the prosecution?’ ‘Did his daughter know this all along?’”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“It’s not pretty, Shel. Did you really faint?”
She moaned.
“And I got some news for you, Counselor.”
“Tell me it’s good, Joel. I can’t take anything else right now.”
“Depends on your perspective. Guess which west-side drug dealer woke up this morning without any arms?”
“No.”
“Mr. Edward Todavia, one and the same.”
She did a quick calculation. Ronnie Masters was in the county lockup last night. She immediately scolded herself for even considering it.
“That’s the Cans for you. He got notorious. They don’t like publicity.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she said.
“Not in my cab, lady,” the driver called back.
“That’s one less scumbag on the street,” Joel said. “Don’t lose sleep over that guy.”
“It’s up here on the left,” she told the cab driver.
“You got plenty else to lose sleep over, I’m afraid,” Joel added.
77
Shelly walked down the hallway upon hearing the whine of the intercom buzzer. She hit the button for entry into her building and walked over by the door. She unlocked it and found herself taking steps backward, away from the door.
The state plane from the capital would have landed, by her estimation, about twenty-five minutes ago.
He came in by himself, without any security detail. He seemed startled, for some reason, to see her. Perhaps he’d been lost in thought. Perhaps he’d been busy calculating the damage to his political campaign. There had been some talk of a vice presidential bid down the road, perhaps even the top spot. Why not? He was a tall, handsome, personable conservative from a large Midwestern state.
That was over now. No question. Stuff like this? Just too messy. He’d be lucky to hold on to his current job now.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, standing firm. She immediately regretted the capitulation.
He looked at her with a quizzical expression, cocked his head. And then she saw something she had not ever seen before. She saw tears in the eyes of her father.
“You’re sor-” His throat closed. Something else she had never seen.
It was a moment she couldn’t describe, one that she never would be able to explain. A breakthrough. A spark, maybe, that each of them had been awaiting. She didn’t know who moved to whom. Later, she would remember that they met in the middle. They held each other tightly, desperately, their bodies trembling. No words were spoken for what seemed like forever, as if they were trying to recover so much with this embrace. Just like that, and she felt it sweep over her, felt time melt away.
His head turned, his mouth moved to her ear. “What kind of a father am I?” he whispered, his voice trembling. “What kind of a father am I, when my beautiful little girl can’t tell me that she was-that somebody had-had hurt my little-”
“I should have told you, Daddy. I’m so-”
“No,” he whispered gently. “It wasn’t your job to tell me. It was my job to ask. I prosecuted so many of those cases, and when it came to my own daughter-” He stroked her hair. “I thought you were being stubborn. I swear that’s what I thought. I swear.”
She didn’t have a reply to that. She just held on to him as tightly as she could.
“You had to go through all of that alone. And I made you feel worse. Oh, God, Shelly, can you ever forgive me?”
“I already have.” She pulled back from him. She tried to smile, but her lips were still trembling.
He cupped his hand around her chin, and this seemed to calm him. “I am so proud of you and so ashamed of myself.”
She shook her head but couldn’t speak.
“I want my daughter back,” he said.
“She’s back,” she managed. And she meant it. Could that really be all it took to erase years of barriers and resentment? Was that, in the end, all she ever really wanted, to hear these words?
He smiled at her. His steel-blue eyes were entirely bloodshot now. The strong, stoic mask was washed away. It seemed appropriate, somehow, that she was seeing something new in him at this moment.
He touched the back of her neck tenderly. “You hurt yourself today. You fainted.”
“I’m fine,” she answered, and then chuckled. “Do you think I could have possibly found a more public way for this to come out?”
He smiled. They both did. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“This is going to hurt you-”
“It doesn’t matter.” He slowly shook his head.
Their breathing evened out. They looked at each other, their smiles slowly growing. He petted her hair, wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m going to do something I’ve never done before,” she told him.
He looked into her eyes, noted the expression on her face. He tilted his head so their foreheads touched. In some ways, nothing had changed. He could still keep a step ahead of her.
“You’re going to vote for me,” he said.
78
February 11, 2004. A feeling he cannot escape: Someone is watching. He has no visual confirmation but it’s a sense, his gut telling him that he’s not alone as he stands on the street outside the athletic club on the commercial district’s west side. The bitter evening air stings his sweaty body, the light wind shooting over the top of his long black coat and filling the space within his sweatshirt. His fellow players have left in their various directions, to high-priced condos along the city’s lakefront or, in some cases, to student housing at whatever school they are attending. Not so for this young man. He will walk four blocks to the Austin bus that will transport him to the city’s south side, to his middle-class home.
Alex Baniewicz looks at his watch. It’s early. Seven-forty. Open gym at the City Athletic Club usually goes until eight, maybe eight-thirty. Ronnie Masters, who was going to pick him up-who has been so protective of Alex since he learned about Alex’s meetings with Ray Miroballi-wouldn’t be here yet. Kicked out of the gym as he is, Alex decides to head to the bus. He certainly doesn’t want to linger out here.
The streets on the southwest side of the commercial district are empty. It has been dark since five, and most of the professional buildings in the district are to the east and north, so it is quiet as he walks toward the bus stop. Quiet is not good, not anymore. These days, he prefers noise and company to drown out the howling in his head.
He hears it before he turns his head and sees it behind him, to the north. Squad cars are unmistakable, even from a distance. This particular police vehicle is headed south on Gentry, toward him. The car has just crossed Bonnard Street, which puts it less than a block away from him. The boy finds it difficult to walk with his head craned back, but he will do what he can to be nonchalant. There is no reason to panic. He doesn’t know the officers’ intentions. More than likely, it’s a routine cruising. He’s a white kid in a long coat and sweats, obviously leaving the City Athletic Club after a game of hoops. They might not think anything of him. Or they might stop him. They might even ask him what’s in the gym bag he’s carrying. But he doesn’t know this, and he can’t react preemptively because that would draw suspicion, could turn a nonevent into something.