Текст книги "Penance"
Автор книги: Dan O'Shea
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
CHAPTER 19 – CHICAGO
Present Day
Lynch dropped nearly a grand on some damn comfortable loafers, toffee-colored slacks made out of some lightweight wool that Lynch couldn’t pronounce, a black silk crewneck top that was almost like a hologram – it had this subtle pattern that looked different every time you switched angles – and a lean, three-button jacket, faint check, little olive, little black, lot of the toffee color from the slacks. Waiting for the jacket and slacks to get back from alterations. The Andre guy even had them letting out the side seam in the jacket along the hip, make room for Lynch’s gun. Have to get a dress gun, Lynch thought, flat little .380 or something.
“How about some underwear, detective?” This Andre guy, he didn’t quit.
“That’s OK, Andre. Got plenty of shorts.”
“Not like these.” Andre holding up some silk boxers, fifty bucks a pop.
Lynch laughed. “I’m not dropping fifty bucks on something nobody can see.”
Andre tilting his head a little. “I don’t know detective, you came to see me looking like that, I’d want to see your shorts.”
Lynch laughing again. Liked this Andre guy, couldn’t help it.
Lynch got to Johnson’s place at five after seven, Wrigleyville, Pine Grove and Addison, just off the Inner Drive. He had a Sonata in the garage back at his building, but also a British Racing Green Triumph TR6 he’d bought with some of his dough when he’d been drafted. Didn’t drive it much, but he kept it pristine. Temperature had gone up all day, seventy right now, supposed to stay up in the mid-Sixties all night. Lynch figured what the hell, cruise the Drive with the top down, dressed like movie star, why not?
Johnson answered the door wearing leather pants that fit like a tattoo and a metallic silver top that draped like water, sweater tied loose around her neck. Deep scoop in the top. With her heels, she was Lynch’s height.
“Wow, look at you,” she said.
“Rather look at you. No dress? Thought I was supposed to help you with your zipper.”
She grabbed his hand and ran it up the front of her pants. “These have a zipper, see? Some detective you are.”
Lynch headed south on the Drive, swung through Grant Park on Columbus, cut south of the Loop and took Taylor Street west out toward the UIC Circle campus to a little Italian place in an old brownstone set back from the street, patio in the front behind a wrought iron gate. Only ten tables in the place. Lynch knew the owner and had called ahead. Got the little booth in the corner, tucked into a nook next to the fireplace. Expensive, but once you’ve dropped a week’s pay on clothes, Lynch thought, what’s a couple hundred for dinner?
They talked easily all through dinner, Lynch telling her stories he hadn’t told anyone in years. Even talked about his mom a little, Johnson putting her hand on his during that just right, like a balm. Her telling him about doing a year as the TV weather bunny in a station in Duluth just out of school, how the sports guy used to grab her ass and she’d finally broken his nose. Lynch couldn’t believe it when they’d finished the wine and he looked at his watch and it was almost 11.00.
Lynch waved down the waiter.
“If we could get our check please? Thanks.”
The waiter smiled. “No check tonight, sir, compliments of Mr Wang.”
Lynch looked back over his shoulder. Paddy Fucking Wang. Must have been in the private room in the back. Lynch hadn’t seen him on the way in.
Johnson’s eyebrows went up. “You know Paddy Wang?”
“Everybody knows Paddy Wang,” said Lynch. “Thing is, he knows me. We better go say hi.”
Paddy Wang looked like an understuffed children’s toy. Chinese, though he claimed to be part Irish, barely five feet tall, shaved head, wispy white goatee, always dressed in green, sort of a Mao suit this time, but only if Mao had had his handmade from a couple grand worth of watermarked silk. What looked like brocaded scarlet slippers on feet about the right size for a Barbie. Two of his interchangeable minions with him, Chinese guys in black suits, white shirts, black ties.
“Paddy,” Lynch said, putting out his hand.
“Johnny,” said Wang, a broad smile. “Too long. Too long. You never come see me.”
“I know you’re a busy man, Paddy.”
“A man so rich in business as to be poor in friends is a poor man indeed,” said Wang. Wang looked expectantly at Johnson.
“Paddy, this is Liz Johnson. She’s a reporter with the Tribune.”
“Intimate dinners with the press, Johnny? You are full of surprises.”
“John and I are also friends, Mr Wang,” said Johnson, putting out her hand.
Wang took it, bowed, kissed it gently, then covered it with his other hand. “Then you have been twice blessed by the gods, my dear. First with this celestial beauty, and then with Mr Lynch’s friendship. Neither are gifts to be taken lightly.”
A smile from Johnson. “Mr Wang, I see your reputation for charm is well-deserved.”
“Christ, Paddy,” said Lynch. “A little thick isn’t it, even for you?”
Wang with his inscrutable smile.
“Johnny,” said Wang. “You will come to the ball this year.” The Connemara Ball, Paddy’s annual St Patrick’s Day shindig. Lynch got his invite every year, but he’d only gone twice, couldn’t even say why, except that the air there just never felt right in his lungs.
“I dunno, Paddy. You know I’m not really part of that crowd.”
Wang shook his head. “I’m afraid I must insist, Johnny. It is the year of the horse. Your sign, and your father’s as well. And please do bring Ms Johnson. She shall be a new star in our firmament.” A short bow from Wang, then his minions formed up at his sides.
“Jesus,” said Johnson as they set out in step through the restaurant and out the door. “Paddy Wang.”
“Long story,” said Lynch. And then he told her.
Anybody used to the Newtonian physics of democracy, even the rough and tumble kind, found out the normal rules didn’t apply in the Windy City. There was the usual interlocking web of favors and debts and racial algebra and ethnic loyalty and clout, but everything was relative and relatives. Chicago politics was a world unto itself. And Paddy Wang was the big ball of magma at the center of that world.
You didn’t see him. He didn’t loom over the landscape like the Hurleys – Senior, Junior, or the Third – the divine right of kings by way of the Chicago mayor’s office. But Paddy Wang made the Hurleys. He moved all the continents around.
Lynch’s first memory of Paddy Wang went back to his eleventh birthday, his first after his father was killed. Uncle Rusty coming to the house, loading the family into his car. Lynch’s birthday falling on Chinese New Year, Uncle Rusty taking them down to Chinatown for the parade, telling Lynch he had a surprise for him.
Not real cold for February, sunny day, lots of people on sidewalks. Rusty driving right down Wentworth, past the police barricades, pulling up to the parking lot next to the Emerald Pagoda, Wang’s restaurant that soared over Chinatown on the east side of the street at 23rd Place. The entrance to the lot was blocked by a line of young Chinese men in period costumes, green silk mandarin jackets and black pants. Rusty leaning out the window, waving to them, the line of men parting, letting the Impala through, a simultaneous slight bow.
Outside the restaurant’s front door was a line half a block long of people hoping to get in. Rusty marched Lynch’s family right to the front of it and in the door, another bow from the young Chinese woman there, the one with the fine black hair down to her ass and the green Suzy Wong dress.
The inside of the Emerald Pagoda completely redefined young Lynch’s sense of the possible. Reds, greens, yellows, seemingly no straight line in the place, everything curving away, always the sense of something fantastic just out of sight. Lanterns everywhere. Silk banners a hundred feet long and hand-painted with fantastic scenes hanging from the ceiling in the central atrium. A two-story waterfall tumbling into a stone pond full of large, colorful fish with billowing fins. What seemed like a thousand tables on a thousand levels, the place looking like a cross between an Escher drawing and something by Dali.
Lynch grabbed the tail of Rusty’s jacket as Rusty waded right into the room, Lynch feeling like he was following an explorer into an unknown world. He was afraid to let go, afraid that, if he lost sight of his uncle here, he would be lost forever.
And then Paddy Wang was striding out to meet them, two retainers in black suits a step back on either side.
Wang was wearing a green robe that went down to his feet. The front of the robe was decorated with an intricate dragon rendered in more colors than Lynch knew existed, rubies sewn to the robe as the dragon’s eyes and a line of emeralds as big as lima beans running down its spine. A palpable sense of awe, like the pressure wave and wake of a boat, surrounded Wang as he walked toward them. Wang walked right up to Lynch, not even looking at his uncle, stopped, and made a deep bow.
“Young Master Lynch, you grace us at last.” Wang’s face opened in a radiant smile, he took Lynch’s hand.
“Come, come.” Wang led him off, Lynch looking back over his shoulder, Rusty giving him a nod and a grin and a thumbs up, receding back into the riot of colors that was like camouflage, that gave you so much to see you couldn’t see anything at all.
Wang led Lynch through the main floor of the restaurant, then through a set of huge red lacquered doors. The hall in the back was not as dazzling but almost more opulent in its way. The walls were lined with elaborately carved wooden screens in front of rich silk panels, the parquet floor lined with a succession of deep oriental rugs. Finally, Wang turned Lynch into a small room where two young women, seeming duplicates of the woman at the door to the restaurant, waited. Wang said something to them in Chinese, and they turned to Lynch, smiled, and bowed. Wang squeezing him on the shoulder then, saying, “I will see you soon, young Lynch,” and disappearing into the hall.
One of the women opened a large armoire and removed a green silk robe Lynch’s size, adorned with the same dragon as Wang’s, though without the jewels. Together, the two women raised the robe over Lynch’s head and lowered it onto him. Lynch stuck his arm through the belled sleeves. The women took off his penny loafers and slid on a pair of black slippers. Then, each taking a hand, they led him back into the hallway and farther into the building.
Wang, the two Chinese men in the black suits, and at least a dozen Chinese men in the green and black outfits the men in the parking lot had worn waited by a door in the back.
“Excellent, excellent, young Lynch. Come.” Again Wang took Lynch’s hand, the entire retinue falling in behind them.
The doors opened before them, and Wang and Lynch stepped into a narrow alley behind the restaurant. In the alley was a parade float in the shape of the dragon on the two green robes. Two of the men in the green and black outfits rolled a wheeled set of stairs like those to an airplane up against the side of the dragon. Wang led Lynch up the stairs. At the top of the dragon was a hollowed out area with a sunken floor, and in the middle of the floor were two gold chairs with red cushions. Lynch thought they looked like thrones. Wang motioned to the chair on the right, and Lynch sat down. Wang sat to his left. The two women who had dressed Lynch in the robe climbed up the stairs and stood behind the chairs.
Wang shouted something in Chinese, and Lynch heard a truck engine start under the float. The float drove down the alley and turned left onto Wentworth.
More people than Lynch had ever seen lined the sidewalks and the edges of the street. Even more hung out of windows along the upper floors along the route. The street was full of dancers and acrobats and young men running paper dragons in serpentine patterns. Fireworks exploded everywhere. Gongs banged, and people shouted and laughed.
Lynch heard his name. “Johnny! Johnny! Over here!”
Lynch looked to his left. His mother and Uncle Rusty stood right in front, outside the Emerald Pagoda, Mom holding his sister’s hand. His uncle had his hands cupped around his mouth, making a megaphone.
“Happy birthday, buddy!”
Wang pressed something into his hand. Lynch looked. It was a coin, bronze, half the size of Lynch’s palm. There was a square hole in the middle of it, with Chinese characters on either side.
“Happy birthday, indeed, young man. This is your father’s legacy. Never lose it. It is magic. It can buy anything.” It was the happiest Lynch had been since his father’s murder.
At 5.15am Lynch and Johnson sat in her kitchen, drinking tea, Johnson in her panties and an old Golden Gophers sweatshirt, Lynch showered, dressed again, figuring he’d have to head straight to work.
“You never told me if it works,” said Johnson.
“Jesus, Johnson. It works, OK? Needs a little rest now, though.” Lynch giving a little laugh.
“I know that works, Lynch. The magic coin? Does it work?”
Lynch fished out his keychain. The coin was threaded onto the metal loop. He set it on the table. “Tried it once, my senior year at Mount Carmel. I was, I dunno, sort of a jock punk then. Not really, I guess. I was never comfortable with that, but that was the crowd I hung with mostly. Anyway, spring break that year, some of us got to talking shit like guys do. You know, I know this guy, my old man knows that guy. So I say I know Paddy Wang. Which gets me a big bullshit from everybody. I mean, they know my old man had been a kind of quasi-ward boss on the side, but they figure that’s Triple A ball at best, and Paddy Wang, well, Paddy Wang is the big leagues.”
“So you figure you have to show them, right?”
“Yeah. I figure we drive down to the Pagoda, flash the coin, maybe we get comped a meal. Maybe Paddy even comes out, says hello. Anyway, we’re driving down Cicero, just north of Chinatown, and Mutt Warren – he was this big slob of an offensive tackle, complete asshole – he sees the Manila, titty bar used to be down that way, another joint Wang owned. It was pretty infamous. He says, you’re tight with Paddy Wang, you get us in there.”
“Hey,” Johnson said. “This is getting good.”
“So we park, we’re walking up to the door, and there’s this guy, looks like Oddjob from the Bond movies, standing there, and he doesn’t even talk to us, just makes this shooing gesture. So I hold up the coin. Guy kinda freezes, give this little nod, and opens the door. So, anyway, I made my case. Coin works.” Lynch took a sip of tea, feeling kind of sheepish.
“Oh, no you don’t, Lynch.” Johnson pulled her feet up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning her head forward. “You have to finish this story.”
Long exhale from Lynch. Sip of tea. “OK. Place is pretty seedy, really. Got the big runway down the middle, couple of Asian girls up there, supposed to be in pasties and G-strings, but they’re not. Not real crowded. It was a weeknight, and it was early yet, at least by the standards of that sort of joint. Some guys at the tables, they’re probably mostly OK, you know. I mean, a little loud, a little drunk, but mostly guys in their twenties just not grown up yet. But the guys lining the runway? I knew right off I never wanted to be one of those guys, staring up into these anonymous crotches like they’d just found God. I tell the guys I made my point and let’s get out of here, and I think most of them were ready to go. But Warren, Jesus, he’s turned into one of the guys at the runway already. Says we’re all fucking pussies, must be gay, and that turns the group’s whole mood around. Nobody wants to be the guy when we get back to school Monday who gets the rap for chasing us out of the Manila. Thing is, though, we’re all standing there, trying to be cool, not one of us has any idea what we’re supposed to do. Do we get a table? Do we go join the mouth-breathers at the runway? Then one of Paddy’s Suzy Wong girls walks up, and I’m thinking this has to be one of those girls who stuffed me into that robe when I was eleven, but it can’t be because it’s been seven years. I think he must clone them or something. Anyway, she walks up, takes my elbow, says, ‘Mr Lynch, gentlemen,’ and she ushers us through this beaded curtain and into this room off to the right. Mess of food on the table, appetizer-type stuff. Beers on the table. And four of those girls, like up on the runway.”
“Meaning naked?” Johnson asks.
“Yeah. Meaning naked. So we sit down, and these naked girls are serving us food, serving us beers. Suzy Wong standing in the doorway like a chaperone. Warren pawing at the girls. They don’t actually say no, but they’re pretty good at avoiding him. Finally, he says to me, ‘Hey, Lynch, use that coin, man. I bet we can do these chicks right here.’ This whole thing’s got me pretty weirded out already, and now it looks like it’s going to get ugly. And I say, ‘That’s it, we’re out of here.’ And this time, the other guys are with me. They pretty much jump up out of their seats. Warren sees it’s going against him and is just kinda pouting. And then fucking Warren, he grabs this one girl from behind, got his hands all over her, and instantly that Oddjob guy is behind him, peeling his arms off her like they’re pipe cleaners. And the Suzy Wong chick, she steps forward, says if I give her my keys, she’ll have the car brought around. So, we’re out on the walk, car’s waiting. Just as I’m walking around the back, this stretch Lincoln pulls up, back window slides down, and there’s Paddy Wang.
“‘Young Lynch. What a surprise to see you again,’ he says. I’m thinking I should apologize or something, and all I get out is ‘Hi.’ He says, ‘Do you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, young Lynch?’ I say yeah. He says ‘In which a man trades his magic beans for a cow?’ I say yeah again. He says ‘Seems a waste of magic beans, doesn’t it, young Lynch?’ And the window goes up, and the Lincoln glides off, and I get to drive home, car full of guys carrying on about how they grabbed this and grabbed that, and Warren saying how he should have kicked the Oddjob guy’s ass, and I’m just hoping this doesn’t get back to my mom, and I’m feeling stupid and dirty and not grown up at all.”
“So the coin works.” Johnson looking a little sad for him, Lynch amazed how well she understands, falling more for her all the time.
“Need to be real careful what you wish for,” said Lynch.
CHAPTER 20 – CHICAGO
Jose Villanueva sat at one of the plastic tables outside the pastry joint on Wabash, drinking his coffee, eating his chocolate croissant, and trying to find a way out of his current fix. An L train crashed and banged along overhead, but the noise didn’t bother Jose.
Jose was a professional creeper. Best alarm and second-story guy in the city. You wanted something out of somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, you wanted Jose, especially if that somewhere was wired up. Jose’s workload was increasingly by referral. Work-for-hire stuff. Private collectors looking for a certain piece, industrial espionage, some work coming out of divorces. Once, some fat cat sent him into a house up in Lake Forest. All he wanted was a painting of a cocker spaniel. Wife got it in the settlement, so he was going to take it. Jose telling the guy that was going to point right back at him. Jose telling him that he’d better take some other shit, make it look good. The guy saying take all the shit you want, just get me the damn picture. Guy paid him five grand for the painting; Jose made another fifteen on the other stuff he grabbed.
No, the El didn’t bother Jose. What was bothering Jose was that Magic Mel hadn’t been at his joint down on Halsted, not for almost a week. Magic Mel had been Jose’s main fence for going on six years now. Jose still did some traditional residential work on his own. Got leads through a bent realtor. Guy’d see some nice stuff going through houses, get the addresses to Jose. And Jose’d take the shit to Magic Mel so Mel could turn it into cash.
Magic Mel was a discreet guy, working out of the back of his plumbing supply store, big ticket goods only. Didn’t attract attention handling watches and jewelry from street heists. Tied into the Italians, everybody said. Got you a decent price, got it pretty quick.
Magic Mel owed Jose for some shit he dropped off last week. No big deal. Couple of pieces, maybe two or three grand on Jose’s end. But Mel wasn’t around, and nobody seemed to know where he was. First couple of days, Jose thought maybe Mel had pissed off the Italians, maybe he’d turn up in the Cal-Sag channel in a day or two. But then the Italians had sent someone to see Jose, asking did he know where Magic Mel was. Then Jose started hearing whispers maybe the Feds had Mel, that they were milking him for stuff on the Italians. And if they were, Jose figured, then Magic Mel might just give them Jose, too. Fuck, probably give them Jose instead.
Jose thinking maybe he should try to get out in front of this, go see his lawyer. That’s when a small Asian woman pulled out a seat.
“May I join you, Mr Villanueva? I am sure you remember me from our previous business.” She set a briefcase down on the sidewalk beneath the table.
Jesus, thought Villanueva. It was the chink chick from that U of C job back – what, three, four years ago? He had some bad nights sleeping after that. Guy was some hot-shit professor in town for a lecture at the U of C. She told Jose all she needed was the guy’s laptop. Simple job, guy was staying at the Westin downtown. Then, two days later, the guy gets popped on the Midway. Cops writing it off to a street robbery, but Jose feeling different about it. Job paid good, though. Ten large just to take a laptop out of a hotel room.
“Hey,” said Jose.
“Are you interested in another easy job?” she asked.
“Depends. Going to kill anybody after this one?”
Chink chick sat unmoving, looking dead into his eyes. “It is good to take an interest in your work, Mr Villanueva. It is unhealthy to take too much of an interest, however.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Villanueva. “Look, I got a lot on my plate right now.”
“Worried about your fence, Mr Villanueva? Magic Mel?”
That shook up Villanueva. “I don’t know any–”
“Of course you do, Mr Villanueva. Halsted Plumbing Supply. Let’s not waste our time, shall we?”
Jose took a sip of his coffee, took a bite of the croissant. Jesus, this bitch scared him.
“OK,” said Villanueva. “You got something to say, say it.”
She pulled a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and slid it across the table. Villanueva looked at it. Pictures of a very small camera and an even smaller bug. Definitely top-end shit, both because of the size and because you just figured this chink chick, she wasn’t here about some retail crap.
“Surveillance shit of some kind,” he said. “I haven’t seen it, and I’ve seen most of em. If you want me to beat this shit, you’re gonna have to get me some schematics or something.”
“I don’t want you to beat them, Mr Villanueva. I want you to collect them.”
Villanueva took another sip from his coffee, looking at the chick, trying to get some kind of read. Nothing.
“Collect them from where?” Villanueva asked.
The woman slid him another piece of paper with an address on it. Jose looked at it. Sacred Heart Church. Shit. The Marslovak shooting.
“The transmitter should be inside one of the confessional booths. The camera will be secured to the bottom of one of the pews, pointing at the confessional. Find the camera first. It will show you which confessional to search.”
Villanueva set the papers down on the table. “I know what happened at the church,” he said.
“Just think of cats, Mr Villanueva. Think of curiosity and cats. Now, we understand that you are a professional and, as such, are entitled to your fee. We propose twenty-five thousand dollars. In addition, we will ensure that no difficulties befall you resulting from the unfortunate situation involving Mr Mel. You understand, of course, that we will require absolute confidentiality.”
“Shit, lady, I don’t even know who this ‘we’ you keep talking about is. When you need this done?”
“Tonight.”
“When I get paid?”
The chick slid an envelope across the table. “In advance. We’re going to trust you. We’re going to assume you don’t want to deal with our collections department.”
“You wanna set up a drop? I mean, I’m assuming you want your toys back.”
“You can take them to Mr Mel’s, as is your habit,” said the woman. “They will be tended to.” She picked up her briefcase from under the table and stood up, raising her hand to flag down a yellow cab heading south on Wabash. “Mr Villanueva?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t get caught, don’t get curious, and don’t get careless. I don’t think you’d care to meet me under less collegial circumstances.” She turned, walked off, and slid into the back of the cab, and it pulled away.
Villanueva slid the envelope into his coat pocket, thinking for a second should he open it, count it, then thinking what difference would it make. He swallowed the last of the coffee and left what was left of the croissant on the table. Not much of an appetite all of a sudden.
