Dark Blonde (14 page)

Jacob Whipple looked persuasive and durable. Most fat men do. He combed what little hair he had high over his scalp, which made him look balder than he really was. With the strong neon, his pate shined through like a white bowling ball under dirty gauze.

 
His goon sidekick dragged in a folding chair from the hallway and opened it, then stood back like he was proud of his ability to unfold a folding chair. Whipple turned the chair to the card table and leaned his massive backside into it, the chair groaning. An act like that took real faith. The two-ton driver slouched sullenly against the door, his arms folded, shoulders hunched, scowl on his puss that he’d most likely been born with.

Whipple pulled out a cigar and waggled it at me.

“No thanks, I’ve got my own.”

I lit a Lucky and studied him. He didn’t look much like his campaign posters, which touched up his blotchy complexion, darkened his hair and were taken from favorable angles that hid his double chin. In posters he flashed cheesy grins. He wasn’t grinning now. Except for a mouth too small for his face, his features were large, like an Indian’s. His ears gripped his head like they’d been stapled to it, with sharp, cut-out-looking corners. There wasn’t much going on in his eyes. His eyebrows reminded me of a Fuller Brush man’s catalogue and when he cocked them into a frown it looked like his face would slide off onto the floor from the weight. Whipple had all the charm of a glib undertaker.

He was sweating heavily even though the room was unheated and damp.

“I won’t keep you long, Mister Private Eye, just how long’s up to you. I see Marv gave you a little love tap. I’ll try to hold him back but I can’t promise unless you cooperate.”

“Swell digs you’ve got here, councilman. The place could use some union labor renovation.”

The bulldog driver unfolded his arms and took a step to move to my side, the side that sported a red ugly lump. I was ready to punch him in the balls and kick his face on the first move he made.

Whipple sneered. “You’re not exactly in a spot to be a wise guy, if you know what’s good for you.”

I crossed my legs and leaned back. “Why don’t you tell me what’s good for me then. My mother always said I never knew. Nobody’s tried telling me since.”

Whipple rose and tore the wrapper off his stogie, bit the end off and lit up with a gold Zippo. He took a puff and blew the smoke in my face, then snapped the Zippo and set it down on the table like he was betting it on a hand of poker. His eyes narrowed. “I want to know how you acquired the photograph you gave my attorney. I want to know how many others there are and where they are and what it will take for you to hand them over.” He sat back down.

“Is that all?”

“Not quite. I know Julia Gateswood hired you without consulting her husband. What did she hire you for? If to investigate her sister’s murder I want to know what you’ve found out.” He took another puff and spit to the side of the room. Two for a quarter cheapies, just like his campaign slogans.

“You don’t want to know much, do you?” He asked where I’d found the pictures, yet it was his mouthpiece Brockway who’d hired Stutt, the Kansas City pimple-necked dick. Brockway had angles that his client knew nothing about, which led me to believe Brockway might have some idea about Gail’s murder.

“I’d rather not use Chinese methods to question you, if you catch my meaning. I won’t ask you a second time.” He grinned a shark grin, all teeth and no benevolence. Chinese methods. The creep must have served in Korea, too. I bet he was one of those mealy-mouth second lieutenants they called 90 day wonders.

I let him compare my teeth to his. The pain from my neck made my grimace bigger than his grin.

“That’ll save us both time, Whipple. You ask once and I say fuck you once.” I blew a cloud of blue smoke right back at him. “Wise up. You’re a politician, you understand credibility. How long would I last in this business if I went around telling who I was working for, what things I’d found out and where evidence was?”

He chewed on that for a minute. If the people fell for this windbag, he could do the state of Illinois a lot of damage. As he was about to open his midget pie-hole, I said: “Anyway, weren’t you dropping from the race today? Because a certain party I know will forward those materials to the newspapers and the authorities if you don’t call it off. Or would you rather take a poll in Joliet of cons who want to be sociable to a fat-assed pedophile?”

The big driver jerked, like someone had touched a few thousand volts to his balls.

I nodded to the thug holding the door up and said, “Oh, you mean your boys don’t know about your sicko pictures with naked Boy Scouts?”

Whipple leaned over and dragged the back of his hairy hand across my mouth — not too hard, but hard enough to get my attention. Heat flashed in his eyes and his mouth twisted like worms in a deadly embrace. He stuffed the stogie under his heel and turned his head to Junior, who’d taken a step toward the door. “Don’t listen to him. It’s more dirty politics.”

The big palooka stared at his thumb.

“You can see the whole set in the
Times
, but there’ll be black rectangles over the boy’s faces and other parts readers shouldn’t see. But the message will come through, and your boss will front and center.” I picked up Whip’s Zippo and spun it, studying it like I was plumbing my memory. ”Funny, you asking where I found the pictures. Brockway, your mouthpiece, knew all along where they were.”

“Don’t put me on. I’m not a stupid man, Angel. You think you’re tough? I fought my way up in the Teamster’s, pal, that’s tough. Be careful how you answer, if you want to be able to answer.”

“Go ahead, beat me to a pulp. Your boys look like they could use a good workout. But Brockway has the answers. He hired Stutt, a stringbean PI from Kansas City to stake out the O’Hare locker that held the photographs. Brockway knew they were there or he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. He had to know what was in the briefcase, and knew it was Gail Gorovoy who put it in the locker. Ask yourself — why Brockway didn’t tip you off about the photographs? Why did Gail turn up without her head two days after she stashed the briefcase? Maybe Brockway was done with her and decided to go on alone, make it look like a psycho job.”

“So you found the key to the locker at Gorovoy’s place and elbowed past this other PI?”

“Something like that. Stutt did a little redecorating at Gail’s bungalow before I got there. Gave me a love lump that I fully repaid at O’Hare. Your other boy’s current debt is still being evaluated. I’ll know the size of repayment once I see how long it’ll take for this lump to go down.”

“And you’re telling me you don’t have the photos now?”

“That’s right. I’m not a stupid man, either, councilman.”

Whipple’s face twisted. He flung the card table crashing into the wall. His hand came up fast. A black Police .38 was in it, the barrel’s eye staring me in the face. “I can toss your body where they’ll never find it. A new expressway makes for a good resting place for sarcastic dicks, don’t you think?” His finger squeezed the trigger.

“Tut, tut,” I said unflinchingly against the cold clutching my gut. “Such a surplus of guns in this town and such a severe shortage of brains. You really want to off me and blow this wide open? Would it help if I said I’d vote for you?”

Whipple stretched his mouth into a wide O and laughed at the ceiling. His double chin jiggled. “Why yes, killing you’s exactly what I had in mind. But I don’t have to do the job, wiseguy, powerful friends of mine can handle petty work like that. After you tell me what I want to know. Then you won’t be blowing anything wide open except your mouth.”

Then came that unmistakable voice — except I was the only man in the room who heard it:

 
Use Mayor Daly’s name as a threat. They’re afraid of Daley.

I leaned back and gave Whipple a dreamy smile. I held it up long enough for him to get tired of it. Then I slid it off my face and said, “Fat chance, chubby. Whether I’m dead or alive, the photos are out of my hands and in a safe place where Daley can get to them when he’s ready. And he’ll want to once my partner tells him I’m missing.”

His face twisted like a plastic mask under heat lamps. His voice wobbled. “Daley? What does the mayor have to do with this?”

“Oh, you didn’t know then? Another tut, tut. Here’s the skinny: the Mayor’s most influential pal has the photos now. Most influential and you know how many of those the man has. You know the machine, Jake, you want their noses up your ass? I disappear after setting you up, who’re they going to call? O.W.’s got an obese green light from Daley to keep cleaning up the department. You don’t want to face off with Daley or O.W. Wilson. Do the math. Like you said, you’re not a patsy.”

The revolver found its way back to his jacket pocket. He nodded at his doorman who went out of the room. Whipple glared at me for a full minute and then studied his shoe tops. I sat there finishing my smoke, legs crossed, a weak smile planted on my puss. I’d won this pot with a small pair, a bluff of influence from Daley and the Outfit. I hoped they wouldn’t get word too fast that I’d thrown it at Whipple.

The biggest hammer in Chicago was hizzoner Daley, and using his name just popped into my pounding head. Dad was right — as long as Whipple thought I was connected with Daley, he was putting his own neck on the chopper to take action against me. And it would be awhile before he could prove me wrong, plus it’d be ticklish for him to go asking around about kiddy porn pictures.

I stood and buttoned my coat. “If you’re done with interrogation 101 in your charming phone booth, I have things to do.”

He stuck a set of fat fingers out at me. “One thing you have to know — I had nothing to do with Gorovoy’s murder. I’d only met her once.” The corner of his mouth quivered.

I opened the door and peered down the dark hallway. The door to the back was open and the two behemoths stood near the house smoking. I turned to Whipple, a sad clown wearing defeat.

“Beat it,” he said, still looking at his shoes. “I don’t give a good goddamn where or what you do. Cut me out of your big plans for a splash in the newspapers. After I’ve fired Brockway, I’ll be withdrawing from the race.” He took my Browning-Colt .45 automatic from his other pocket and held it out to me with an empty magazine. Maybe he collected bullets.

I holstered the weapon. Even empty it’d make a good club. I thought about the extra magazine I had in an inside pocket, but I decided to quit winners. “And where was that you met her?”

“What?”

“Where did you meet Gorovoy?”

“Fritzel’s. The wife and me were having dinner there and Frenchy dropped in our booth with this little gadget on his arm. She did everything but blow the guy during dinner.”

He leveled with me that much at least. “And you knew Frenchy from?”

“Teamsters. Used to be a good man. Somewhere along the line he thought stealing was a better way to earn dough than working for it. Took some union money and dealt drugs with it. I got Brockway to bail him out and set him up with legal assistance.”

“Why not just let Christy take the fall?”

“It was during those hearings. Enough union laundry was being aired.”

“Sure it didn’t have to do with your ideas of fun with little boys?”

Whipple turned empty eyes up to me, his fight gone. His mouth set hard against his teeth and the corners turned down. His pallor was the color of boiled ham. “He knew, threatened to expose me. I guess you must think I’m pretty stupid shooting for a high office. But I’ve had a doctor helping me with the problem. I’ve stayed away from it for over a year. And I had nothing to do with Gail Gorovoy’s murder. Nothing.”

“I never said you did. But Gorovoy had the dirt on you. She’d most likely threatened to use it, maybe she and Brockway planned on blackmail once you got elected and had more to lose. But first they had to get you elected. That’s how I see it. Brockway knew and said nothing to you. He wanted power inside the good offices of the people. Scum like him always do.”

He shook his head. His wide shoulders slumped and he stared at his shoe tops again. There’s no future in shoe staring. I’ve tried it myself for hours. He gripped his knees with his hands and leaned down, frozen-eyed.

Standing in the doorway, I turned and looked back at him. “By the way, who’s Antigone?” That little detail hadn’t been in the press.

“Who? I don’t know,” he said, without looking up.

“Don’t put your boys out,” I said, starting down the hall. “I’ll find my own way back to town.”

I went out through the back door past the meatheads who were huddled up using their extensive vocabulary on each other, then down the driveway and three blocks down the street where I caught a smelly bus to the Loop. “Thanks Dad,” I said out loud on the bus, “that Daley tip did the trick.” People always talk to themselves on the bus, so no one paid any attention. Nobody shot at me or followed me, but the chills on my neck didn’t warm up until a taxi dropped me at the library, where I got in my car and drove home.

The afternoon was soiled around the edges by the time the lump on my neck shrunk under an ice bag. Rick called. He’d taken statements from Charles MacNamara and another Scout leader in Bloomington. Detective Burk showed him the file on the Christy French death.

“The M.E. on French was Milo Peterman,” Rick said. “Peterman died six months after certifying the body was French through dental records. Which, I might add, are not in the file. Burk said that was highly irregular and he’d ask questions. Either the dental records didn’t exist or someone’s lifted them. It’s fishy enough to be staged.”

“So there’s at least an open question if French died in the fire. Was Peterman’s death suspicious?”

“Coronary. No autopsy and cremation two days later. The obit lists a wife and two grown sons, both of Milwaukee. She’s not listed around Chicago and either remarried in a hurry or went to live with her sons. I may have to take a little road trip up there. Where have you been all day?”

“Library research on Whipple and friends. Snagged a photo of him with French and Gorovoy at Fritzel’s. Afterward our two mug friends in the white Pontiac took me to a little interrogation party in Whipple’s Oak Park basement. Cozy little sweatbox he has up there.”

“They rough you up?”

“Not enough to advertise, except a second chin on my neck. I’d say Whipple’s ready to withdraw. I told him Daley’s right hand man has his glossies, and he sweat blood and let me go. Brockway was sandbagging him on those pictures. Whipple had no idea they’d been taken from his possession and I don’t think he suspected Gail. Whipple probably thought they were still in his safe. He didn’t know I’d come by them even though it was Brockway who hired the dick to flush them out. So Gorovoy looks to have been in some caper with Brockway.”

“It would appear that our clients were not totally forthcoming with us, either. How about if I dig into the odd couple’s past?”

“I’m sure others have tried with Henry, but if you get time, it won’t hurt. He broke chalk on DePaul blackboards back when, don’t forget. See if he ever taught a class on Greek tragedy. Also, we need to nail this Christy French thing down. If he staged his own death, he’s first in line for Gail’s murder. See what Kup’s picked up on any of this that might help. Ring me in the morning. I’m eating a pile of aspirin and sticking this pain in the neck to bed.”

I poured a shot of Old Times, threw it down my gullet and kept doing that until my head felt as stiff as a wooden Indian. Wood doesn’t hurt as bad.

The light went off and so did I, fully dressed on the davenport.

Sometime after one I dreamed that Julia whispered “I want you” in my ear. I sat straight up, head as clear as an altar boy’s conscience. The house was quiet. I listened to my ears ring and thought about getting up. Booze jitters.

I went to the window and looked out to the street, silent and dark. No wind, no moon to admire, no one on the street and no femme fatale singing my name. The only whispers of suggestion came from the half-empty bottle of Old Times; the only perfume from dirty dishes in the sink. I drank a gallon of water. I was too raw to go back to sleep. My limbs were numb, my neck still tender but at least the swelling was down. There’d be nasty bruises. I couldn’t turn my head much without cursing.

I lit the fireplace kindling I’d laid earlier and rummaged a lonely Rheingold out from behind a mysterious bowl in the fridge that held what looked like a biology experiment. I pulled a blanket over me and sat with my knees under my chin in the darkness, sipping suds, watching flames eat wood until glowing coals blinked Morse code into the dark room.

There’s a kind of silence that’s louder than you want it to be, loud with your thoughts, worries, fears, so loud it can hold sleep at bay until dawn. I replayed the case, where it had taken me so far, how the pieces might fit together. I kept seeing Julia’s eyes on me with Gerard pacing the room, the little bantam rooster, questioning, eyeing her cleavage. I wondered why she hadn’t called, offered apologies or explanation for Henry taking me off the case. I also wondered what she would be like, naked next to me.

The clock said half past two but it felt like noon.

Out from the driveway a muffled click, then another. I reached to the chair and slipped my Colt from the holster. I listened. Light tapping on my door, like fingernails, not loud enough to rouse an insomniac cat. I hadn’t heard a car.

She wore a silver, full-length mink, with a collar big enough to lose a small dog in and matching silver gloves with embroidered script initials JG. A string of large black pearls nestled against her throat. In the dim light her skin glowed. Her lips were somewhere between fire and sex.

She stood there, her eyes glinting mystery and more than a smidge of forbidden excitement. She aimed them at me, steady, and grinning like she’d been expected, looking perfectly wonderful.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in? I see you’re still dressed.”

I stood aside. She swayed into the living room, turned and faced me, her back to the fire.

Julia. In my dark lonely living room. In the middle of the night. I was in a script directed by DeMille, about to play the lead.

I closed the door, put the .45 back in the holster and went to her. Her face and hair were tinged with gold from the soothing embers. Her mouth bent with that slight crooked smile, the knowledge of good and evil, like she was about to let me in on a wonderful secret.

“Well, I’m not dressed,” she said, and let the coat fall from her shoulders, gliding down her torso into a heap in the fire’s glow, a gossamer halo around her feet.

She was unashamedly and totally and breathtakingly naked, the ninth wonder of the modern world. Her breasts were larger, more stunning than my fantasy at Alfie’s. They could keep an army of Eskimos warm on the coldest winter night. Large velvet nipples, barely darker than her skin, with incredible edible nubs that redefined round, erotic, female, and a whole bunch of other concepts that only Einstein might have understood, all slammed shut the brakeman’s switch to my brain. Both my heads snapped on autopilot. It took a Herculean effort to move my eyes from those orbs.

“One of the pageant judges thought these were too large” she said, cupping them in her hands for me like I was the grapefruit inspector. “Do you think so?” Her voice was a floating feather, dancing somewhere above me.

I managed an awkward sort of grunt, a cross between shock and groan that I’d intended to sound clever. I must have looked like an anesthetized ape. That’s how I felt. For want of anything better to say, I blurted out, “You were just in my dreams a few minutes ago. Is this a dream?”

She held her palms out to me. “Come see.” My heart did a crazy sort of rumba.

The world stopped.

There are moments in life when words are inadequate obstacles to reality, and as unwelcome as a hailstorm on a lovely spring walk. I would say I didn’t know what to think except I didn’t think about not knowing what to think: all thought left me. I was in the dream that I’d secretly been having since the moment I leaned into her 300SL, watching the dash lights play games with the gold flecks in her blue-gray eyes, the graceful curves of her mouth as she talked, her full honeyed tresses that framed it all.

Her hips were cool. Her arms around my neck and those magic pillows pressed against me sent prayers of thanks upward that I was a breathing heterosexual male without any hint of impotence or problems with morals. Breathing was an afterthought with Julia, something suspended.

 
We stood on the brink, then slid into a nightlong glide that I cannot describe.

Her long fingers made graceful hieroglyphics over my clothing, and I was naked against her, cradling her tenderly, taking in her aroma, more intoxicating than a bottle of old Chateau Lafitte on a balmy summer evening. Julia’s desire was healthy, strong, musky, yet delicate and rare.

Her hands played down my stomach and took hold and held the evidence of her affect on me. She brushed my hardness delicately over her middle as if she were painting a masterpiece that would take a hundred years or more. Her head drifted back intoxicatingly, mouth slightly open. My brain poured all reason into a balloon headed for the clouds, and I was glad to see it go. Her control of me was total, even as I led the way.

She tasted wonderful. Warm sounds came from her throat, not words, better than words.

Her tongue darted over my lips and through my teeth and found my tongue, bringing a new kind of electric chills. We slow motioned the script, making it up line by line, until she moaned and pulled away, her eyes flashing elements approaching anger mixed with fear. I was petrified she’d stop, change her mind and leave me to a very cold shower. I was beyond stopping, at the point where even force would have seemed good and right and justified.

My hands followed the sweet curves of her ribs, past her hips and around the thick part of her long thighs. I lifted her and she wrapped her legs around my waist. She was weightless. I lowered her, slowly, tantalizingly, my desire, breathing saying all I needed to. I teased her a little, giving it to her with rhythms that wound her up then brought us to long gliding sweetness. She wasn’t changing her mind. Her mind had nothing to do with this. She would have killed for more. Ached for more. Please, please, please — how many came from her throat I couldn’t count.

I made her wait, let myself take back some of the control her body and eyes had robbed me of. Control came slowly and in tight little bunches. After a few eternal moments I understood that only by giving up all control as Julia did, that I’d gain the treasure.

Now the fire seemed brighter, borrowing from our heat. It gave out little applause-like pops, pops that told me to thrust just so, and now, and more and when harder, when softer. She arched her neck, her hair flowing, shimmering in the fire’s glow. I thanked God for creating a woman like this and bringing her to my door.

When I sped up, her mouth came at me hungrily, her nails dug into my shoulders. The pain was good, liberating, proving it wasn’t all a dream. She rocked her hips and tugged against my grasp, trying to push down, but I held her tight, still teasing, leaving and entering her until she made little distant sobs. She chewed at my neck and sucked on my chin and face. She became desperate for my mouth. Her fists beat against my shoulders and chest. She bit hard quick bites on my chest and swung her hips faster, her body falling, rising, shuddering.

I walked her over to the davenport and laid her on top of me, mixing our sweat, letting her ride our fiery embrace to the top of a giant peak, a place where no one had ever been before.

When I awoke, the backs of her fingers were feathering my scar, those liquid eyes were full of warm release and something approaching gratitude. She smelled of gardenias and sex.

Pale blue light filtered in through the curtains. She slid her leg up and glued her hips to me to keep from falling off the davenport. Her eyes must’ve been open for some time next to my face. She kissed me lightly on the lips and rose to one elbow looking down into my eyes.

My old throw-blanket covered most of us, but when she rose, the cover slid down exposing a full breast with one of those delicious looking nipples. I licked it and took it between my teeth, then stretched up and kissed her bottom lip, which was full and swollen. Her face was tinged with pink; her eyes held knowledge of hope.

“I knew we’d be good,” she whispered, “but what surprised me is how gentle you are for such a tough, no-nonsense man. Plus, I like your scar. Don’t fix it. It makes you unique.”

“So, you’ve been thinking about this I suppose, planning it?”

“Haven’t you?”

I stretched my arms up over my head and she slid on top of me. She kissed me lightly on the lips and took my lower lip into her mouth. Those gold flecks danced again in the heat of her eyes. She rocked up and down on me, sliding her wetness while she kept talking.

“I thought about it,” I said, an unhurried charge building within me, “you didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that much.” Her face was a mask of ecstasy; her breathing spurred my own. “Why didn’t I hear your car? You walk over?”

“Parked. Around . . . the block,” she said, groaning again, her hands spread on my chest, her hips swinging, circling down on me harder. Once more, words were worthless.

Somewhere off in the clouds a phone rang over and over, but I really didn’t hear it until Julia whimpered and stiffened her body on mine and then all sounds were lost in a tidal wave of release, slower and different than the first. Would each time be so very new and unique? Our eyes never left each other’s, and in those minutes it was as if we knew each other’s deep insides, as deep as there is to know, beyond language to pure impression, sense, instinct. I thought about how different the world would be if a guy could walk around with insights like those. Why was beauty always so fleeting? Why so rare?

I got up and brought Julia a bathrobe. She was somewhere in deep space, so I spread it over her. I made coffee. When I poured her a cup and put it next to her nose she cradled it, sat up and drank half of it, then slung the bathrobe over her arm and walked into the bathroom. Her figure hadn’t lost any ground since winning Miss Midwest. There was a lot to admire about Julia. Whoever the judge was who thought her breasts were too large must have been castrated as a boy.

The shower ran for a long time. I rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a pair of Molly’s black panties and a bra, about two sizes too small for Julia. Even though a tinge of guilt rushed through me, I dangled them out through the bathroom door.