‘My father went along with murder, Dek?’ The words came out of her mouth dry and hoarse.
‘I’m pretty sure your father drove Whitman home the night he died, which might not mean anything other than it was an act of a friend. I’m also pretty sure your father sent Debbie Goring a hundred thousand dollars anonymously, because she’d gotten none of her father’s life insurance.’ I tried a smile. ‘That seems like the act of a friend, too.’
She turned to look at a family at the next table. The little girl was putting a potato chip in her father’s hand.
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ she said. ‘What now?’
‘We hunker down and let the investigations run their course.’
She leaned back, pulled a tissue out of her purse, and dabbed at her eyes. ‘My father and I were estranged, and then we were not… I wonder if I know him.’
She didn’t ask any more questions, and I didn’t offer any more speculation. We ate a little, and talked of other things a little, and then she took a cab to her condo, and I hoofed it to the train station.
And both of us headed away remembering when our evenings didn’t end that way and we understood so very much more than we did that night.
FIFTY
Dreading that Keller had done a follow-up mentioning Wendell or Amanda by name, I hustled out early the next morning to get the day’s Argus-Observer. But I did not go out early enough.
I’d just grabbed a paper from the box in front of the Jiffy Lube when two vans with local television logos pulled up in front of the turret. Keller could have identified me in the paper I was holding, or Krantz – or any number of angry Chicago cops – could have made calls. What was certain was that television vans had rolled up. I was now in the light and the circus was about to begin.
Going back directly meant video. I walked a half-mile down on Thompson Avenue, crossed, and came up the river path. The turret has only one door and it faces my stub of a street, so the short stretch around to the front required a sprint. Key in hand, I charged like Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill, unlocked the door and ducked inside before the news folks even thought to set down their lattes.
Angry hands began beating on my door as I climbed the stairs to my would-be office. The red light on my answering machine was flashing. Another light glowed constant: though I’d only been gone an hour, the recording tape had already maxed out. I listened to the first few messages. All were the same. Television and print reporters from as far away as Minnesota were requesting phone interviews. I left the machine full, so it couldn’t record any more.
By now the incessant banging on my timbered door had taken on an arrhythmic, irritating quality that set my circular metal stairs, loose at points, to ringing in an unsympathetic vibration that pulsed through my head like an infected tooth.
I have a large gray plastic wastebasket. It is thin, and tall, and rectangular. I used it to catch leaks before I got the roof fixed. I ran into the kitchen, filled it with cold water, and added a long spritz of dishwashing soap for color and bubbles. Forcing away any thoughts of restraint, I cranked open the slit window directly above the entry. Though lousy for admitting light, my windows are medievally correct for raining down liquids like boiling oil on marauding pillagers. And also, I hoped, for sudsy water. I upended the wastebasket out the window. The frigid soapy water cascaded magnificently down onto the door-bangers, bringing forth much yelling and swearing. The pounding stopped. It had been the minor gesture of an immature mind, and I retreated from the window a satisfied child.
I scanned Keller’s column and saw no mention of the Confessors’ Club. The day’s new allegations concerned short-pours by crooked concrete contractors at a city park. Typical Keller: yesterday’s news was yesterday’s news. He’d flung a grenade and moved on. Details to follow.
Not so the websites of Chicago’s main daily newspapers. All offered up new details, including speculation from unnamed law enforcement types that I was Keller’s unnamed agent, recaps of my involvement in the phony-check trial years before, and brief mentions of my marriage to Amanda Phelps, daughter of Wendell Phelps, a wealthy Chicagoan.
None of the reporters had dug deep enough to mention the Confessors’ Club by name. Nor were there any references to Delray Delmar, though I supposed Krantz and the Chicago police were keeping a lid on him in the hopes of grabbing him, unawares.
All the reports did note that Agent Krantz of the IRS would be holding a press conference at noon, to discuss matters that bore on the case.
It would be a good day to not answer the phone or look out the window. I put sandpaper into the block, Robert Johnson into the ancient CD player, and worked on rebuilding my most troublesome kitchen cabinet.
An hour later, a car horn sounded outside. Three blasts, a pause, and three more. It was the secret staccato from seventh grade.
I peeked out the window. Leo and Endora had gotten out of his Porsche and were making their way through a cluster of the now seven news people thrusting microphones and aiming video cameras. Leo wore a black suit, black shirt, white tie and a cream fedora, and looked like a perfect miniature of a twenties-era gangster. Endora, much taller, was dressed as a flapper, in a pale blue beaded shift and a red cloche hat. Each of them carried a carton filled with groceries.
I ran down the stairs, ringing the metal. No one bringing food has to wait at the door of my turret. I unlocked it, eased it open a crack.
‘Now,’ I yelled, tugging the door open all the way.
Leo and Endora ran at the door, laughing. Endora came through, but Leo paused at the threshold. ‘Not only did Elstrom grab the Lindbergh baby,’ he yelled out, ‘but he killed Archduke Ferdinand to start World War One. And I have it on good authority that he’s personally responsible for the last two earthquakes that hit California.’
I pulled him in and slammed the door on the shouting news people.
Endora, still laughing at the theater of it, handed me her carton. It was filled with celery, carrots, apples and oranges, bottles of fruit juice, a head of lettuce, and some low-sodium microwavable meals. ‘It was my idea to bring you food, since we knew you’d be hunkering down. It was Leo’s idea to dress up.’
‘Good thing we’d gone to a costume party last fall,’ he said, setting his carton on the floor. He’d brought Twinkies, Oreos, Ho Hos, peanut butter and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and several two-liter bottles of Diet Coke. He is my friend.
‘I’ll get us coffee,’ I said.
‘Laced with sawdust?’ Leo blew at the dust mites floating in the narrow beams of sunlight crisscrossing the room. ‘No. We only drink bathtub gin,’ he said, still in character, ‘and we don’t even have time for that. Endora has to be at work, and I’ve got a plane to catch.’
They moved toward the door.
‘Ready?’ I asked.
‘Twenty-three skidoo,’ Leo shouted, and out they went.
I slammed the door shut behind them and ran up the stairs to watch from the window above the entry. Leo marched towards his Porsche with his arms outstretched like a pint-sized southern governor. He held the car door open for Endora, the perfect moll, who paused to curtsy before getting in. Grinning, Leo went around, got behind the wheel, and drove them away with a loud blast of exhaust.
FIFTY-ONE
Semi-reclined in the electric-blue La-Z-Boy, the micro-television resting on my lap, I was ready. My hands balanced coffee, a stick of celery and a two-pack of Twinkies. It was exactly noon, the time Krantz was to hold his televised news conference.