“You got it?” the detective said. The waitress nodded. Masters released the kid, who hadn’t uttered another word. Probably an honors student.
“Now, the four of you, get your coats on and get the fuck out of here. Not just this place. This neighborhood.”
Masters shoved a thumb my way.
“This guy’s a police officer. He sees you around here, it’s in the back of the cruiser. Now get out. And I don’t want to hear a word from any of you.”
Two minutes later, we were back inside our booth, the frat boys just a memory.
“They’re okay,” Masters grumbled. “Just young and drunk. Nothing wrong with that.”
Our check still lay on the table. In a green leather binder with tempo in gilt-edged lettering across the front.
“Let me get this,” Masters said, and stuffed some money into the binder. The waitress tried to refuse, but the detective insisted.
“Sorry for the sad story, Kelly. Not sure why that all came up.”
“You going to be all right?” I said.
“Day at a time. I remember now why I told you.”
“Why?”
“You like being alone?”
I shrugged. “Don’t think too much about it.”
“You should. Not something you want to get used to. The judge is a good lady. Something else you should think about.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. The good ones are hard to spot. Even harder to keep. You need to try harder.”
We walked outside and stopped at the corner. Masters offered me a ride home, but I said I wanted to walk for a bit.
“Suit yourself,” Masters said, his breath steaming in the early morning chill. “Keep me in the loop. On the City Hall thing.”
“Gonna pay a visit to the Fifth Floor,” I said. “Take a meeting with Johnny Woods. Probably this week.”
The detective nodded and unlocked his car. “Just keep me in the loop.”
Masters pulled away from the curb and drove three blocks, to his furnished apartment on LaSalle Street. He’d lock himself inside and pour out a glass or four of happy morning gin. Day would dwindle into night. He’d read the paper, watch TV, and wonder whatever happened to the girl he knew named Michelle. He might go out for dinner. Probably not. Easier to cook something from a can. Then he’d get into bed, close his eyes, and sleep. Only to get up tomorrow and do it all over again.
I felt for Masters. Decided I needed to keep closer tabs on him. Then I thought about my apartment. My own life. Maybe not quite as empty. Not yet, anyway.
CHAPTER 23
T he fifth floor of City Hall looked a lot like the fourth and even more like the sixth. The difference lingered in the shadows. There you could catch a glimpse of ambition, the faintest whiff of avarice, and the footsteps of those who curried favor. Sometimes lost, sometimes won, but always curried. Because that’s what the Fifth Floor was all about. A court of intrigue, inside a building of stone and a city of red blood and muscle. At its center sat the only door along the entire hallway that mattered. A plain and simple door. Brown and wooden. The exact same door closed off the Office of the Bureau of Planning on the fourth floor and the Assistant Commissioner of Water on the sixth. Here on the fifth floor there was no such ornate title. Just simple letters, gold leaf, five in all, hammered into the wood with tenpenny nails. Five letters that spelled mayor. Anyone who needed any more of an introduction to this door need not bother stepping through its crooked portal.
I got off the elevator and turned left, away from the door and down the hall. There, if you knew how to find it, was an archway of sorts, leading into a cubbyhole that was more hole than cubby. A green metal desk was pushed up against a beige wall. The desk’s occupant had his back to me and was leaning over a filing cabinet.
“Hey, Willie,” I said.
The mayor’s unofficial assistant straightened up and spoke without turning. “It’s not who I think it is.”
“Turn around,” I said.
“Be happy to. Once I hear your boots backing down the hallway.”
I took the only seat available, a folding job with one leg that was missing its rubber stopper, and tilted back.
“Nice chair, Willie. Come on. Turn around. You know I’m not going anywhere. Or maybe you’d rather I pay Himself a visit.”
Willie Dawson turned and looked. Not in a way that made me feel fuzzy and infused with civic warmth.
“Kelly.”
“Willie.”
I hadn’t seen Willie in more than a while. Time had not been unkind. Mostly because it didn’t need to be. Willie Dawson was somewhere between forty and dead. His skin was black to the point of shiny and stretched tight over his skull. He was mostly bald and specialized in dandruff, a blizzard of white flakes drifting down onto his shoulders, desk, and environs. Environs now including me.
On most days the layer of scurf only enhanced Willie’s wardrobe. Today was no exception. His suit was light brown, of the leisure variety, and worn through in all the proper places. His shirt was yellow, although I doubt its hue was of natural origin. His tie smacked of maroon, with little yellow figurines on it. I squinted and the figurines morphed into Marilyn Monroe. For the first and probably last time during my visit, Willie smiled.
“Sure it’s Marilyn. Like it, huh? Actually I can plug it in and she takes her clothes off. But, you know.”
Willie looked around. I nodded. Willie actually wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, he was a good guy. Good as in connected. In fact, if you dressed like Willie did, there was more than bad taste behind it. It was Willie’s way of telling all the Giorgio Armanis to park their asses and pay attention. Simply put, if Willie could dress like that and still carry water to the mayor…well, Willie could carry water to the mayor.
“What’s the problem, Willie?”
Dawson gave his head a shake and turned back to his filing. “You know what’s the matter. It’s been what-two, three years and he can’t even stand the mention of your name.”
“When has my name been mentioned?”
“Never.”
Willie turned around and leaned across his desk. The smell hadn’t gotten any better. Cheap cigars, bad teeth, and something like Vitalis. If they still made Vitalis. If not, Willie probably had some stashed away.
“And it’s not going to get mentioned,” he said. “Not by me, anyway.”
“Got an election coming up.”
“Thanks for the news flash. Mayor got eighty-six percent of the vote last time out.”
“Mitchell Kincaid wasn’t the other name on the ballot.”
Willie chuckled and shuffled some papers. “Mitchell Kincaid. Fuck Mitchell Kincaid. He’s a nobody.”
Willie Dawson was black. Mitchell Kincaid was black. Kincaid, however, didn’t sign Willie Dawson’s checks. The mayor did.
“Is that what you came up here for? Talk to me about Mitchell-fucking-Kincaid?”
“No, Willie, this isn’t about Kincaid. Just a feeling I got.”
Willie had stacked and restacked all the paperwork he could find. Now he sat down, propped a pair of green Converse high-tops on his desk, and stared out a window he didn’t have.
“A feeling, huh?”
“Yeah, a feeling.”
The first line of sweat decorated Willie’s upper lip. He wiped it away, pulled his feet to the floor, and angled closer.
“Your last feeling, half the sheriff’s office went upstate.”
“Six guys, Willie. There were a lot more should have been with them.”
“Six was enough, Kelly. Six senior guys. Joe Dyson, two months from retirement. You know what he’s doing now? Let me tell you.”
Willie’s chair creaked and his voice dropped to a hiss. “He’s pissing through a tube and crapping into a bag. Know why? He had a stroke. Second month in the joint. A stroke. Paralyzed. No bodily functions. Doing his five years in a fucking prison hospital. Not that it matters.”
I’d heard about Dyson. Even felt bad about it. But not bad enough. The back of my neck began to burn a bit. I pulled a pen and a pad of paper from across Willie’s desk and began to write.