No Show of Remorse (9 page)

Seeing a bunch of crooked cops get busted wouldn't be so bad, ordinarily, but Jimmy Coletta's being one of them made it a different story. At the very least, he might lose his police disability benefits. Now that I'd met the man, seen him in action with those kids in wheelchairs, I didn't want to take part in pulling him down, even if back then he'd been as guilty as the others.

That was reason enough to drop my petition.

So the hell with my goddamn ego and proving how tough I was. I'd call Renata the next day and tell her to withdraw my petition. That was the right decision, no doubt about it, and I fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

But then, eight hours later, I got the call about Yogi.

CHAPTER

15

T
HE CALL WAS FROM A DETECTIVE
at Area Four, Violent Crimes. Lieutenant Theodosian. I didn't ask, but he spelled it for me. Then he invited me to come in for an interview.

“What about?”

“You know a skinny little dark-skinned fella with straggly braids?” he asked. “Hangs around the parks?”

“You got anything else?” It was a struggle to keep my voice level. “I mean, lots of people hang around lots of parks.”

“This one does some sort of yoga or something … when he's not busy panhandling. Ring any bells?”

“Does he have a name?”

“I don't know.”

“I … uh … I don't suppose you could ask him, huh?”

“No. I don't suppose we can.”

“Damn.” I didn't say anything more. I couldn't.

“I wanna talk to you. I'd like you to come down here.”

“You mean Area Four? That's way out on the West Side.”

“Kedzie and Harrison,” he said. “But I'm not there. They got contractors in, tearing up and rebuilding the whole second floor, so I'm temporarily at Eleventh and State. Ninth floor. Makes it nice and convenient for you.” He paused. “I wanna talk to you.”

“I know,” I said. “But that guy you mentioned, the ‘little dark-skinned fella,' from the park. So, what happened to him?”

“It's an ongoing investigation. I'm inviting you. I don't think you need a lawyer, really. But, you know, that's up to you.”

“And what if I don't accept your invitation? Maybe I got a better offer or something.”

“Ah, yes.” There was an audible sigh, reminiscent of Stefanie Randle, in fact. “Well, I suppose then a couple of us would drive up there. In that case maybe you
would
need a lawyer. I don't know.” He inhaled, maybe smoking a cigarette. “So, you comin' in?”

“It's six o'clock,” I said. “You still be there in an hour?”

*   *   *

M
AIN
P
OLICE
H
EADQUARTERS
at that time was still just a mile south of the Loop, at Eleventh and State. The rain had started in again, but just a drizzle, and it was too early for much traffic, so I made good time. I parked in a lot at Eighth and Wabash and locked my Beretta, along with the padded envelope with the tape of Marlon Shades's statement, in a steel box I'd had welded into the trunk of the Cavalier. It's always a worry, leaving a gun in the trunk of a car, but I sure couldn't take it into the police station and I wanted the goddamn thing handy. I walked to Eleventh Street, then a block west to State.

It was an old eleven- or twelve-story rectangle, and could have been designed by the same architect who did the equally ugly public housing highrises that ran along State Street three or four miles to the south. The First District police station clung like a barnacle to the north end of the building at ground level, and had its own separate entrance. Up in the main building, besides the offices full of department bureaucrats, there were still a few dingy misdemeanor courtrooms. The city was just finishing up a brand-new facility farther south, and with any luck this one would be torn down soon.

A uniformed cop stood guard beside a podium just inside the door and wanted to know where I was going. I told him. Clout must have gotten him this soft job. He was grossly overweight, and had a .357 Magnum in his holster and an unfriendly attitude that matched how I felt, perfectly, so I gave him a wink and a peace sign and went through the metal detector.

The elevator had to be fifty years old, and smelled like bleach mixed with cut-rate cologne. When I stepped off there were signs hand-printed on white cards taped to the faded gray wall in front of me. I followed the arrow on one of them to a closed door with a frosted glass window that had the words
Internal Affairs Division
painted on it. Taped to the wall beside the door was another white card that said
VIOLENT CRIMES
in very large letters, as though they were proud of it.

I thought maybe there'd be a big open area filled with desks and balding men in shirtsleeves hunched over their telephones or pecking at typewriters with index fingers. But there was just a small reception room with six wooden chairs and a russet-haired, Hispanic-looking woman, fortyish, behind the counter. She scowled at me as though she'd been working there all her life and I was the first person who'd ever dared come through that door.

“Hate to intrude,” I said, “but I received an invitation.”

“You one of the new guys?” She rhymed the last word with dice.

“Nope. I'm here to see one of the old guys.” I rhymed it the same way.

“Ah.” She picked up a ballpoint pen and held it poised over a sign-in sheet on the counter. “Name?”

“Theodosian.”

She looked up at me. “No, honey. I mean
your
name.”

“Oh. Well then, Malachy P. Foley. Here to see Lieutenant Theo—”

“Hey Lieutenant!” She leaned toward an open doorway to her left. “Someone to see you,” she called. If anyone answered I didn't hear it, but she turned back to me. “Have a seat. He'll be out in a minute.”

“Great,” I said, and sat down on an uncomfortable wooden chair. Two or three minutes went by. “Um … got anything for customers to read?”

She smiled then, and looked very pretty all of a sudden when she did. “That's a joke, right?” she said.

“Yeah.” I smiled back. I didn't feel like it, but you never know when you'll need a friend.

“Because most people come in here don't read much.” She leaned down behind the counter, seemed surprised at what she found, and came up with a newspaper and a magazine. “Let's see. Yesterday's
Sun-Times,
and last month's
Playgirl.
”

I took the
Sun-Times.
“Don't wanna get busted,” I said.

She put the
Playgirl
back where it came from. A phone rang and she answered it while I paged through the paper.

There was nothing in it about anything I was interested in, because my interests had narrowed down to Yogi—what happened to him, who did it, and why.

“Malachai?” I recognized Theodosian's voice, but I didn't look up. “Malachai?” he repeated, rhyming the final syllable with “sigh,” like it was a name he'd read in the Bible. He came out to my side of the counter.

I turned to the sports page.

“Hey you!” He was right in front of me now. Dark brown shoes stuck out from the cuffs of tan slacks, and were polished to a high gloss, but one of the shoestrings had broken and been tied back together with a clunky-looking knot. “Your name Foley?” he asked. “Or you just come in to check up on the White Sox?”

“Foley it is,” I said, and finally looked up at him. “But it's not Mala-
kai.
It's Mala-
key,
as in
Key
-stone Cops.” I put the paper on the chair beside me. “Which you would already know if we were on a first-name basis, Lieutenant Theodosian.”

“Jesus.” He shook his head, more resigned than angry, like someone who had to put up with bullshit of one sort or another on a daily basis. “C'mon this way.”

He was six feet tall, medium build, with sharp, handsome features, deeply tanned skin and dark eyes. His jet-black hair was slicked back and he looked like a dealer in an upscale casino—except he looked smarter than that somehow. He wore a dark blue shirt and a bright yellow tie, no coat. I followed him through an opening at one end of the counter and then through the doorway. Still no big room full of desks and detectives in shirtsleeves, but a hallway with tiny offices on each side. We went into the third one on the right.

There was an old metal desk and a couple of chairs and a file cabinet, and a computer that looked sort of embarrassed to be there. One huge, sooty, double-hung window that probably didn't open anymore looked west across State Street. There was a housing development there, on what had been an abandoned railyard twenty years ago or so, until developers got cheap financing based on their solemn promise to include housing for poor people in the mix. If there were any poor people inside that walled community now, they left at sundown.

“Have a seat,” he said, so I did, and he went around to the other side of the desk and sat down, too. “You're not a suspect. At least not so far. I just want to know what you know about this man.” He took a black-and-white photo from a folder and slid it across the desk.

It was a head-and-shoulders shot of Yogi. He was lying on his back on what looked like a sidewalk and his dreadlocks were spread out around his bruised and swollen face like a halo. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was closed. He looked almost serene.

I pointed to a blotch on the concrete near his left ear. “Blood?”

“Yes.” He took a fingernail file from his desk drawer, and went to work filing the nails of his left hand. They didn't look as though they needed it.

“He's dead, isn't he?”

“Do you know him?”

“Beaten to death?”

“Do you know him?” He stayed busy with his nails, and didn't look up at me.

“Not really. I've seen him in the park a couple of times. Downtown, near the Art Institute.”

“What's his name?”

“I don't know. Where did you find him?”

“He know your name?” He started in on the nails of his right hand.

“How would I know whether he knew my name?”

“You'd know if you told him.”

“I don't recall ever telling him my name.”

He laid the fingernail file on the desk between us, then took a card out of his folder and slid it across, lining it up carefully beside Yogi's photo. “This your business card?”

I stared down at it. “It says ‘Malachy P. Foley, Licensed Private Detective,' and that's my phone number, so it's a good bet it's one of my cards. Of course, anyone could have something like that printed up. Where'd you get it?”

“The victim would have—”

“The victim? He was beaten, then?”

“You thought he got those bruises from a heart attack, maybe?” When I didn't answer, he went on. “He'd have known your name if you gave him one of your cards, right?”

“That's a reasonable inference,” I said. “Look, I don't think I ever saw the man before a couple of days ago. I've talked to him two or three times in the park. I gave him money when he said he was broke. That's about it.” I paused for a second to think, then added. “Oh, and I think I saw him a couple nights ago walking through the Metra station—the Randolph Street underground station—but he was wearing a sport coat, and shoes, too.” I tried to stay close to the truth, mostly because it might have been Theodosian's man I'd run into in the station.

“Did you give him one?”

“One what? Oh, one of my cards? No.”

“I think you did. That card was found in his pocket. How do you suppose it got there, Mala—Mr. Foley?”

“I don't know how, Lieutenant.” I stared at him. “I don't even know that it was in his pocket. All I know is you say it was. And with all due respect, I—”

“Shut up!” He swiveled around and looked out the window for a few seconds, then turned back to me. “Turn the fucking thing over.” I reached for the fingernail file and used it to flip the card over. “That your printing?” he asked.

“No.” I stared down at the card and read the words aloud: “‘Use your head, asshole. Or there's more to come.'” I looked up at Theodosian. “What does that mean?”

“I thought maybe you could tell me,” he said.

I thought maybe I could, too. But I didn't.

I just stared down at Yogi's face and shook my head. Theodosian was talking, but I couldn't really hear what he was saying. Yogi probably couldn't really hear what I was saying, either, but I was telling him anyway, right then, that I'd changed my mind again. The message on that business card wasn't a message to Yogi; it was a message to me.

When I called Renata later that day, I wouldn't tell her I wanted to withdraw my petition. I'd tell her I wanted a motion to set the matter for a hearing at the earliest possible date … and I wanted a little publicity about it.

CHAPTER

16

T
HEODOSIAN HAD RUN OUT
of questions. “For now, anyway,” he said, “but keep yourself available.”

“Find any prints on that card?” I asked.

He stared at me. “We'll talk again,” was all he said, and five minutes later I was back at the Cavalier.

I sat for a few minutes to calm myself down, then headed over to the Kennedy and went north, just as I had the previous afternoon. But this time I veered left at the Edens Junction and didn't get off until an exit near O'Hare Airport. From there it was a short drive to Carl's Gun Shop. The sign in the window said:
Sales To Licensed Law Enforcement Officers Only.
I knew Carl, and if I'd wanted to buy a gun I could have. But I was headed for the pistol range in the rear.

*   *   *