“Where the fuck you headed, Kelly?”
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“High profile, Fred, high profile. So you want that third Pulitzer or what?”
I knew he’d agree to do it. It was easy enough for a guy like him and too damn tempting not to. I went over the specifics twice and hung up. Then I held my breath and dialed up a friend.
“Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Hey, Rachel.”
“Hello, Mr. Kelly. I hope you’re not inviting me for another overnight.” Her tone was amused. A detached “had a fling with this guy once” sort of amused. I didn’t especially like it.
“I thought we might get together tonight,” I said. “Grab a beer.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I just want to see you.”
“Maybe not. Last time I was with you, I got shot.”
“I know, Rachel. That was messed up and I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” A pause. “Listen, Michael, tonight doesn’t really work. I already made plans.”
Convenient word, plans. Great weapon. Women use it especially well. Tells the poor bastard at the other end of plans she’s on a date without ever actually saying it. Twists the knife and preserves the veneer of deniability. Also rife with the possibility of sex-again, something the poor bastard hearing about her plans is not going to be any part of.
“Plans, huh?”
“Yes, Michael. Plans. No breaking and entering. No guns. No possibility of cardiac arrest. Just dinner. Plain old boring dinner. Really, it’s all my heart can take.”
I smiled at my windshield, but it didn’t seem to do much good. “Fair enough, Rachel. Maybe we can do this over the phone.”
“Do what over the phone?”
“You remember the guy who broke into my apartment?”
“Could I forget?”
“I got a hunch as to who it might be.”
“Okay.”
“Gonna run the guy’s prints against the lift Rodriguez pulled off my windowsill.”
“That was only a partial. Not going to get you very far.”
“There was blood as well.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” she said.
“If this hunch pans out, I might need your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Mitchell Kincaid.”
There was nothing for a beat. Then her voice came back, brittle to the point of angry.
“What would Mitchell Kincaid have to do with any of this?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It usually is. Let me guess. The mayor is involved.”
“Could be.”
“Mitchell’s not going to grab at a rumor about your break-in and try to smear Wilson with it. That’s not how he works.”
“I know, Rachel. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?”
“I can’t tell you right now. I just need to know. If I wanted you to take a message to Kincaid, would you do it?”
More silence collected at the end of the line.
“What’s the message?”
“I don’t know yet.”
My soon-to-be-distant memory of a romance that never was had heard enough.
“You want me to get involved, Michael, tell me what’s going on. Otherwise pick up the phone and dial the man yourself.”
“Can’t do that. Not until I run these prints against the partial.”
“Then we have nothing to talk about. I gotta go.”
Rachel gave me half a goodbye and hung up, off to her plans, which undoubtedly included a lot of wonderful sex without yours truly.
I flipped my phone shut and cursed on behalf of clueless men everywhere. Then I drove until I found a Kinko’s, one with an Internet connection and a printer. It took a while, but Fred Jacobs was as good as his word. A little after nine, I left with the set of prints I needed to test my theory. Now I wanted a place to think and drink. Not necessarily in that order.
CHAPTER 31
J oe’s on Broadway opened at six a.m. and sold cans of beer for a dollar and a quarter. I sat under a sign that hung from the ceiling and read sorry, we’re open. The bar was full with its evening crowd, which meant there were five people in the place. Four of them were talking to themselves, which was okay because that meant they wouldn’t bother me. The fifth was the bartender.
“Yeah?”
He spoke without taking his eyes off the screen. Bob Barker was playing the plip-plop game with an overweight housewife I’d be willing to bet was from Ohio.
“A Bud,” I said.
“Yes.”
The bartender made a fist and pumped it once. Onscreen, the housewife hung on Bob Barker’s neck as he described the recreational vehicle she had just won.
“Isn’t that on during the day?” I said.
“Actually, it’s not on at all. We taped the old shows and watch them back-to-back all night.”
I didn’t have a whole lot to add to that and took my cold can of booze to a stool by the window. The beginnings of a Chicago rainstorm knocked politely against the glass. A homeless woman sat on a bench near the bus stop. I tipped the Bud her way. She shuffled over to the window, stood in front of me, and held out her hand. I walked outside and gave her a couple of bucks. Then I went back inside, took a seat at the bar, and pulled out the booking photo and prints Jacobs had sent me. The picture was more than a decade old, but I recognized the face. Remembered the anger.
I slid the prints and photo back into the envelope and pulled out some notes from my conversation with the volunteer named Teen. I needed to talk to her. But not tonight. I took a sip of beer and wondered if it was too late to call Rodriguez. Probably. On TV, a woman from Pharr, Texas, won Bob Barker’s grand showcase. I toasted her success. Then I took a glass of Irish and another beer. It was warm inside the bar, and the whiskey tasted all the better with rain pounding against the awning outside and washing the streets clean. I decided things could wait until tomorrow and was about to order a microwave pizza when a friend scraped into the empty stool next door.
“Drinking alone. Not good, Kelly. Not good.”
Willie Dawson shook the rain off his shoulders, lifted a finger, and ordered himself a water glass full of Johnnie Walker Red.
“What brings you in here, Willie?”
The bartender measured out the drink and pushed it across the bar. Willie took a taste and smacked his lips.
“Nothing like whiskey on a night like this. Nothing close. But I don’t need to tell you that.”
I waited. Willie took a look around the place and then back at me.
“You spend a lot of time here, Kelly?”
“What’s up, Willie?”
Dawson glanced toward the front windows and beyond. I could see smoke from a tailpipe, a wink of red, and the metallic black flank of a car, idling under the streetlight in front of Joe’s.
“He wants to have a word.”
I wondered how the mayor had tracked me to a dive bar on a Friday night. Even better, why? The former question would probably remain exactly that. The answer to the latter, however, was just a few feet away. I finished my Irish and nodded to the inch and a half of booze left in Willie’s glass.
“Finish up, then. Don’t want to keep Himself waiting.”
A CHIME BEEPED as I opened the back door to the Town Car. The mayor was bundled into a corner, gazing out over Broadway, his face half lit by an interior light. I climbed into the seat across from him. Willie slammed the door shut and got into the front beside the driver. I caught a final glimpse of the back of Willie’s head before a partition slid across, sealing the mayor and me in back.
“Thanks for taking the time, Kelly.”
The mayor talked without taking his eyes off the street. He wore a tuxedo under the cashmere of a gray overcoat, and white calves peeked out from where his pants rode up too high. Or maybe his socks were just too short. Either way, the mayor seemed uncomfortable with the whole lot of it.