“Yeah. Well, he had been a pain in Angelo’s neck, from when he was a teenager. People talked about how maybe he got to be too much, but I don’t think so. Despite the movies, you don’t see much of that kind of activity in the Outfit. They tend to be stoics about blood family-good or bad, they figure they’re stuck with them. Especially an old-timer like Angelo-blood ties are sacred to him.”
“You think Tommy died the same day he was found?” I asked.
Ray’s eyes widened slightly. “Like did he die some other day or something? Interesting… He could have.”
“Why?”
“Only because there’s no proof he didn’t. All the autopsy files disappeared. About twelve or fifteen years ago, some reporter was doing a story on the local Mafia-a routine feature piece-and he decided to check Tommy’s autopsy report. I think just to show what a hotshot he was. It wasn’t there. A small article appeared about it, the medical examiner acknowledged that sometimes files wandered, and the system was revamped. No one made much of it.”
“What about the doc who did the autopsy?”
“Dead end. He’d moved on, and he died a couple of years later. Natural causes,” he added to our collective but unstated question.
“Still,” Runnion persisted, “Tommy’s death being vague like that sure is curious.” He gathered together the lists of names and handed them to Stoddard. “I know you said it would take a while, but could you copy these and see if any of them connect to Tommy?”
Stoddard shrugged, passed them to Ray with a nod, and Ray turned to get back to work. I reached out and touched his elbow before he left. “One last question.”
He looked back at me, his face expectant. “What’s that?”
“Mafia types-the Outfit, I mean-they favor small-caliber weapons for the most part, don’t they?”
“Depends. The button men like.22s or.32s ’cause they’re small and quiet. Those boys tend to work up close. But some of the others-the general bodyguards, the soldiers-they might carry anything, especially nowadays.”
That wasn’t what I was hoping for. I tried a different, more specific angle. “What about Tommy Salierno? Did he use something special?”
Ray nodded with a smile. “Oh yeah. Typical, really, given his attitude. He had a nickel-plated, ivory-handled Colt automatic, just as showy as he was.”
“A.45?” I asked.
“Yup-big enough to blow your head off.”
“Or your knee,” I muttered, and one more piece of the puzzle-hypothetical, unsubstantiated, and utterly compelling-fell into place.
23
“I got a hit,” Norm Runnion said as he approached my desk.
We were still in the basement, in separate vacant office cubbyholes, each equipped with a phone book, a phone, and a computer terminal, on which Norm had taught me how to look up current addresses of anyone with a recent record. We’d been chasing down some of the names we’d accumulated for over an hour and a half without success-until now.
He sat on the corner of the desk, his face slightly quizzical. “Brandon Huff-he was on the hard-core list-an ex-Black Panther, currently at Carruthers, McBride.”
“A law firm?”
“Yeah-sounds pretty Waspy, don’t it? Actually, it’s the kind of place William Kunstler would call home-big on defending the poor and the oppressed, as they say; drives the state’s attorney’s office nuts on a regular basis. He’s agreeable to a meet, but on a Wendella-a tour boat-in less than an hour. We’re supposed to stand by the flag at the stern and wait.”
I’d noticed the colorful boats plying the Chicago River earlier that day when I’d visited the Tribune Tower; I’d thought they looked as incongruous against Chicago’s sophisticated backdrop as a pair of sandals on a three-piece-suited executive. “What’d you think? Any reason to be nervous?”
Norm turned both palms heavenward. “Don’t guess so-two of us, one of him… Maybe.”
It wasn’t quite dark when we acquired our spot at the boat’s stern. The sky overhead was tinged blood-red, orange, and yellow by the setting sun, the cirrus clouds looking like rippled, burning lava. The city’s towering, sparkling buildings were hard-edged and brittle by comparison-black steel and glittering glass and pale, unyielding stone, flashing with electrical might. Despite the wealth and power bristling beneath it, the sky remained as placid, soothing, and unconcerned as I’d noticed before.
Norm, unlike me, was watching the gangplank. “Hard to tell; there’ve been a few black guys, but none of them looks right. I wonder if we’ve just been jerked around.”
I was having a hard time sharing his concerns. As corny as these boats had seemed to me earlier, boarding one had proved to be a distinctly odd experience, as if the single step from dock to deck had transported me beyond Chicago’s urban grasp. I was suddenly part of the river and the lake nearby, safe from the concrete human meat grinder that crowded the shore. The sounds around me were of softly lapping water, laughter, and clicking cameras. I couldn’t bring myself to feel in peril.
The smile that sensation evoked died, however, as soon as I spotted the two men leaning over the bridge railing above us. Both were well built, in their thirties or forties, wearing dark glasses and baseball caps. They were also dressed in colorful T-shirts, and sharing popcorn out of a single big bag, like lots of other people who were out enjoying the early evening. The popcorn vendor, whose umbrella I could just see over the top of the stone balustrade lining the quay, was obviously doing quite a business. Over a dozen of his customers had taken advantage of the setting to loiter by the bridge and eat while staring at the water traffic below.
Was one of the men the same guy I’d seen eyeing the mini-skirted girl across from Norm’s office? I couldn’t be sure, and while I watched, one of the men turned, stretched, slapped his buddy on the back, and they both disappeared from view, presumably to continue their stroll.
I had acted impulsively twice in this case-once when I’d gone to interview Bob Shattuck and again when I’d poked at the local mob. Both had been catalytic, stimulating a response; Shattuck had killed Shilly, and Bonatto, curious, had emerged from his cave to talk. It seemed entirely reasonable to me that either or both had extended their interest enough to pin a tail on me by now.
And there was another possibility. If my visit to the Salierno home had been recorded by the police department’s surveillance team, had their bosses been content to swallow Runnion’s stall? Or had they put a tail on, anyway? Norm hadn’t told me the reason for his abrupt departure from that branch, and I’d assumed the decision had been purely bureaucratic. Maybe I’d been wrong.
The deck began to rumble with the engine’s thrust, and dockhands threw off the mooring ropes and pushed at the boat’s side with their feet. Runnion sighed next to me and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Oh well, I guess we can see the sights, if nothing else. Never thought I’d take one of these.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You’ve never done this before?”
“Nope. You ever take a bus tour of Vermont?”
I laughed, acknowledging his point.
“You wished to see me?”
The speaker was so near, we both snapped around fast, finding a black man in a sports shirt and slacks standing before us, his hands on his hips. He was of medium height and build but seemed to carry an enormous amount of power within him. His face was impassive, his eyes hard and penetrating, his voice almost theatrically cultured and precise-an English teacher’s dream.
Norm cleared his throat. “Yeah, hi. You Brandon Huff?”
Huff ignored the obvious, the distrust apparent in his voice. “You said you had some questions concerning the 1960s.”
“Yeah. Didn’t I see you come on board with a woman and two kids?”
Huff frowned slightly. “My family, which is why I’d like to get this over with quickly.”
I tried to clear the air somewhat. “Sorry-I’m really the cause of all this. My name is Joe Gunther; I’m a policeman from Vermont, and I’m trying to pin a name to an old skeleton we uncovered back home.”