The Chicago Way (20 page)

“You don’t like to wait.”

My voice felt low, dangerously in control.

“Whatever. We don’t have all fucking day.”

It was the girl. She was dressed in hipster jeans with a cut-off tank top. She was overweight and out of shape. I watched her belly fold over her jeans and palpitate as she screeched. Then I looked over to the guy. He was muscled up, a soft sort of weight-room muscle. The kind that looked good until you took it out for a little exercise. He was looking at me, wondering what I was going to do. He had a little sneer running across his upper lip. Not because he was tough. Not because he was capable. Simply because he didn’t know any better.

“Take your shot,” I said. The kid’s eyes jumped a bit.

“Excuse me, dude?”

“I said, Take your shot.”

I moved closer so he could understand that this was going to happen. The thrill of violence ran across my shoulders, fired down my arms, and coiled in my fists. Maybe he’d back down. I didn’t think so. At that moment, I sincerely hoped not.

“You want to go?” he said, and looked over at the girl, who was all eyes now.

I didn’t say anything, just waited. Like most guys who don’t know how to fight, he started out predictable and only got worse. A long slow right, looping in from the side, losing steam and then crashing into the side of my head. I moved just enough to take the punch, yet blunt its power. It only took an inch’s worth of movement. The trick was to know which inch and when.

I waited a beat. The kid looked at me, looked at his fist, and back to me again. Then it was over. A right hand caught him on the jaw and sent him back against the wall. He wanted to go down but I had him by the shirt. Not yet. I fired two more rights. Straight shots. Short and lethal. The first snapped his nose. The second closed his right eye. Then I let him go, and he slumped to the floor. It was over in less than five seconds. The girl was frozen in one corner of the elevator. Ready to run if I made a move her way. I got out, punched the button to close the doors, and took the stairs.

The movie theater was on the third floor. I bought a Coke, made my way in, and found a seat in the back. I could hear a bit of commotion outside. Sounded like security. Then it settled back down. I wasn’t sure what film I had bought a ticket for, but it didn’t matter. The knuckle above my ring finger was sore, so I finished the Coke and shoved my hand in the ice. Then I sat there for a while and stared at the screen. Tom Cruise was saying something to a Hollywood-looking girl, but I couldn’t really follow. It didn’t matter, either. In the darkness of the theater, I was safe. Just me, Tom, and a cupful of ice. Then my best friend, Nicole, came down the aisle and sat beside me. Wrapped an arm around my shoulders, touched my face, and told me how it was going to be okay. How I’d get along just fine. How I’d find someone else to trust, someone else to love, someone else to grow up with. How someday I’d forget it was my fault she was in the ground at the age of thirty-three.

I dropped the cup to the floor, bent forward, and ran my hands through my hair. Nicole. I thought about her in the darkness. In the theater. I didn’t want to think about Nicole. I couldn’t think about her. Ever again. That was over. This was beginning. That’s what I told myself. But it doesn’t work that way. At least not for me. So I let her in. Then I cried. Deep and quiet. In a way I hadn’t thought possible. I cried until I couldn’t anymore. The movie played on. I shook, I raged, I heaved. All barely above a whisper. And then there was no more. I waited, wondered. Whatever it was, however, was gone. I found a napkin on the floor of the theater and wiped my eyes. Tom was about to get blown up, shot, and kissed. All at the same time. I wished him well and left the theater.

The mall was quiet. No sign of the kid or his girl. I wanted to give him some money, offer to pay for medical expenses, something. Instead, I took the elevator down. It was empty, save for a spot of blood against the wall in one corner. I walked back down Diversey and found my car. No ticket. My lucky day. I got in and drove back to my apartment. Nicole was in the ground. Gone. And there was work to be done.

E ven a decade later, the street-mime killer was never far from a headline. The latest article I Googled on John William Grime was dated a week ago. A local businessman had bought some of his prison sketches and held a public bonfire. A week before that there was a piece in the Chicago Tribune about the house on Hutchinson. The split-level under which Grime had buried fifteen young women was being sold to a developer. A couple of dozen people dressed as mimes sat silently on the sidewalk as the house was bulldozed. Each held a picture of one of Grime’s victims. According to the reporter, plans called for a Kentucky Fried Chicken to replace the house. Everyone got a charge out of that, since Grime himself was once a KFC cook. That was only slightly before he murdered sixteen-year-old Tamara Kennedy, his first known victim.

I had fixed myself a cup of tea and was digging through the accounts of Grime’s arrest and trial when the phone rang. It was Diane.

“What are you doing?”

I checked my watch. It was twenty past six.

“Why aren’t you on the air?”

“I am. It’s a commercial break. Turn us on and I’ll lick my lips for you.”

“Funny. You coming over?”

“You want me there?”

“Yes.”

“How was your afternoon?”

“Fine.”

A pause.

“I’ll be over after the show.”

“Great. I got a question for you. Didn’t you guys do a retrospective on John William Grime last year?”

“John Donovan did it. Ten-year anniversary of the arrest. I think we brought a lot of the families together.”

“If you can, bring that tape over and anything else you can dig up.”

“Grime?”

I could hear a music cue in the background and her director’s voice.

“I’ll explain when you get here.”

I hung up and clicked on the TV. After the commercial break they went to a studio shot, and then there was Diane, up close, telling Chicagoland about Beluga whales at the Shedd Aquarium. There was no smile on her face and not even a hint of lasciviousness about the lips. In fact, she looked a bit distracted. I clicked off the set and returned to the serial killer.

A Time magazine piece from 1996 had photos from the crime scene itself, including the excavation. Best I could tell, Grime had stacked the bodies two deep in three long trenches. He accessed the graves through the floor of his bedroom closet. Fashioned a pulley system, tied the feet of his victim to the pulley, and lowered away headfirst. Not a lot of room, but the bodies were there, so I read on.

Grime hunted on the city’s strolls. Usually at night. He drowned or strangled most of his victims and raped all but three. Fifteen-year-old Eileen Hayes was found at the bottom of one of the graves. Her fingers were dug into the back of the corpse beside her. The medical examiner speculated Hayes was still alive when Grime buried her. According to the ME, Eileen Hayes could not have lasted more than a few minutes after regaining consciousness.

I stretched, walked to the window, and wondered how long would be short enough to be awake in your own grave. Across the street a CTA bus disgorged its passengers into a sudden, soft rain. A space cleared, and Diane stepped through it. She popped open an umbrella and cast her eyes toward my window. A minute after that there was a knock at the door.

“Hey, babe.”

She moved easily into my body. A couple of good moments later, we parted.

“How you doing?” she said.

“I’m doing fine.”

“Good. You hungry?”

“Not really,” I said. “But we should eat.”

I pulled a variety of take-out menus from a kitchen drawer.

“What do you feel like?” I said.

“Whatever.”

Diane had her back to me and drifted her fingers across an old bookcase I kept by the front door. Inside it were the collected works of Plato. I pulled a menu off the pile and dialed.

“What are you getting?” she said.

“Chinese.”

“I hate Chinese.”

Diane had one of the volumes open now and was reading. I hung up the phone and picked up another menu.

“Is this Greek?” she said.

“Ancient Greek. Fourth century B.C.”

“Looks hard.”

“Not if you lived in Greece.”

Diane turned with a smirk.

“You mean in the fourth century B.C.”

“Exactly,” I said. “You like pizza?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“This is East Coast pizza. Thin crust and round.”

“Sounds great. You got beer?”

I pointed in the general direction of the refrigerator and ordered. Diane got us a couple of beers, green glass and cold. She sat down in the same chair Annie had sat in, tipped the bottle back, and then wiped her upper lip.

“How and why?”

“What?”

She had put down Plato and held up a copy of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.

“How and why?”

I moved back into my mind and shrugged.

“Something I got into early in life. Studied in high school, college.”

“I was a history major in college,” Diane said. “I don’t have my apartment stuffed with American history books.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Interesting,” she said.

“You think so?”

I grabbed the volume of Aeschylus and opened it.

“What do you know about this guy?” I said.

“Aeschylus?”

“Aeschylus.”

She shrugged.

“What everyone else knows. Didn’t he kill himself? Drink some hemlock?”

“That was Socrates.”

I copied out a line for Diane to read.

“This is ancient Greek,” I said.

“Cool.”

“It’s from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, part of a trilogy of plays called The Oresteia. This line translates ‘There is the sea, now who will drain it dry?’ Clytemnestra says it to Agamemnon just before she sets him up to be killed.”

“Messing around, was Agamemnon?”

“Not really. But the point is, when you say this line in the original Greek, it comes out like a hiss. A lot of soft sss’s. Aeschylus wanted Clytemnestra to actually sound like the snake she was. Here, try this line.”

I copied out another line of Greek text.

“This was on the wall of the oracle at Delphi,” I said. “It means ‘Know thyself.’ According to Plato, this was the key to true wisdom, true happiness.”

“Know thyself,” Diane said. “Sounds great.”

“You think so?”

“Sure. Until you learn too much.”

“Speaking from experience?” I said.

“Common sense. Ask enough questions of yourself, you might find out some things you don’t like.”

I didn’t tell Diane how close she had struck to Sophocles’ Oedipus. Figured I’d save that chestnut for another day.

“Anyway,” I said, “that’s what I get out of it. A way to look at life, a way to live life. Something that stays with you. So I like it. Now let’s talk about Grime.”

Diane returned Agamemnon to the bookshelf and turned on my VCR.

“Bulldog is our expert on Grime,” she said. “You realize he covered the actual trial.”

“Of course.”

John “Bulldog” Donovan was a throwback, not to mention a legend. A guy who wore a soft hat, carried a notebook, and licked his pencil before he wrote.

“Bulldog’s the best reporter in the city,” I continued. “Gets it right the first time.”

Diane popped in a tape. Donovan’s deep baritone rolled over footage of the house on Hutchinson and then the only shot anyone ever got of Grime, twenty seconds of footage as police led the serial killer into the station for booking. He looked pudgy, sort of dazed.

“What do you think?” I said.

Diane tilted her head to one side.

“Looks like a million other guys. Guess that’s the trick, huh?”

“Serial Killer 101,” I said. “Gotta look like the guy next door.”

“In Grime’s case, the loser next door.”

I paused the tape on a photo of Grime, his face turned away from the lens and half-hidden in his hands.

“Did you know he performed a mime for every one of his victims?”

Diane shook her head. I continued.

“He’d cover his face and body in white pancake and do his mime. You’d be handcuffed in his tub. Screaming until you couldn’t breathe. Promising anything for another moment to live. And meaning every word. He’d finish his show, scrape the makeup off, and look at you. Not evil. Not mad. Just look. Then he’d slip your shoulders and head under the water. Slow. You’d hold your breath for a minute or so. Then you’d release, go down easy. To the bottom of the tub and into your grave. Meanwhile, he’d just watch. That’s the Grime way.”

Diane got up, switched off the TV, and pulled her chair close.

“I got it. Bad guy. Good thing he’s on death row. Now why are we talking about him?”

She was leaning forward, mouth slightly open, hard white teeth smeared with delicate bits of red lipstick. For the first time I noticed an overbite. Delicate, but an overbite nevertheless. Made her look like a very pretty wolf.

“I tracked down a piece of evidence from the rape Gibbons was looking at.”

“Elaine Remington’s?”

“Don’t ask me how. Just chalk it up to luck.”

“What do you have?”

“The victim’s shirt.”

“Lost bit of evidence?”

“Something like that. We ran some tests, found some semen, and got a profile. No ID yet.”

“Have you told Elaine?”

“No.”

Diane leaned back and considered. Then she picked up her beer and took a sip.

“She might appreciate the progress report.”

“I’m going to give it a couple of days,” I said. “See if I can come up with a name.”

“And where does our friend the serial killer come in?”