The Undertaker (29 page)

After another mile, Sandy turned east on Cermack Road and we crossed through an industrial no-man's land of railroad tracks and run down overpasses. Two blocks later at Canal Street, I saw the first signs of Chinatown. We passed a row of Chinese import-export firms. She turned south again into a busy commercial street full of Chinese restaurants and gift shops. The buildings had colorful green and red oriental tile facings, terra cotta tile roofs, and colorful ceramic lions guarding the doors, big upright ones with slant eyes and long Fu-Manchu mustaches. They reminded me of Grant Avenue in San Francisco. And I'd bet the gift shops and stores carried the same kitsch from Mexico or the Philippines that they sold in every other Chinatown.

“Sure you don't want any won-ton to go, Gino?” she asked. “Last chance.”

He looked up at me and shook his head. “Sooner or later, her mouth's going to get you in serious trouble, Ace.”

“That's what all the boys tell me,” she laughed. “But with you bleeding to death back there, you aren't that much of a threat anymore.”

“Yeah, serious trouble,” he said, but I saw a thin smile on his lips.

Much to my surprise, the residential neighborhood behind the Peking-kitsch could have been in Bogalusa, Des Moines or Stockton. The houses were small, with brick, clapboard, or wooden shingle siding, mostly two-stories high, and dating from the 1920's. The lots were narrow and they had garages out back.

“There, the fourth house on the left,” Parini pointed. “Drive around back.” It was an undistinguished, aging Cape Cod with a black shingle roof and dark blue shutters. It had a swing hanging on the front porch, a couple of kid's bikes lying in the neatly trimmed front yard, and geraniums growing in the flower boxes under the windows. It was clean and neat, and it looked like every other house on the street. As we turned the corner into the narrow, rutted alley, Parini had one more piece of information to share. “This place belongs to the Magiori Family in Cicero, so if you don't want a whole lot worse problems than you already got, keep your big mouths shut about it. You two got that?”

We pulled up behind the house and parked. I got out and opened the rear door, intending to help Gino out of the back seat, but four young Chinese men in white medical gowns and surgical masks suddenly materialized next to me. They politely moved me aside and in seconds had Parini out of the back seat and on a hospital gurney. They pushed it up the walkway, across the back porch, and through the rear door of the house.

Sandy and I stood in the alley next to the car staring at each other.

“I sure don't get that with my HMO,” I said.

“I'm not leaving until I know he's okay,” Sandy said as we looked up at the house. “You coming, Talbott? Or am I going in alone?” She marched up the walkway to the house and I quickly followed. There was a large, double-hung window on each side of the back door. Looking in through the one on the left, I saw a small kitchen, complete with lacy pink curtains, striped wallpaper, flowerpots on the window ledge, a formica breakfast table, a stove, and a modern refrigerator, all Penny's catalogue neat and spotlessly clean.

“Nice,” I whispered. “You ought to ask if they hire out,”

I looked into the window on the other side. It was a kid's bedroom, decked out with Spider-Man curtains, a bed, a dresser, and a bunch of toys scattered around the floor. There was no sign in either room of Parini, the stretcher, or the four Chinese men who carried him inside. Puzzled, we pushed the door open and stepped inside and I could not have been more surprised. The room I stepped into bore no resemblance whatsoever to the kitchen I saw through the outside window. It had plain white walls, a white tile floor, harsh florescent lights, two desks, file cabinets, shelves with towels and linen, and two glass-front medical refrigerators. There were no homey kitchen curtains, no stove, no kitchen table, and no kitchen refrigerator. An optical illusion? I looked back at the window and found myself looking at what appeared to be a set of sophisticated rear screen projectors that threw holographic images on the window. Very clever.

Through the open door on the left, I saw a fully equipped medical clinic. As we watched, a white-garbed medical team gently transferred Parini up to an operating table, where busy, gloved hands set to work on him from all sides, putting in IVs and carefully cutting away his bloody pants leg. One of the attendants lowered an oxygen mask over his face, but Gino saw us watching and pushed it aside. He motioned for us to step closer. The Chinese attendants tried to stop us, but Parini growled and they stepped away.

“What are you two still doing here?” he asked.

“Uh, look, Gino... “

“No “look Ginos.” Take the ditz and get the hell out of here. Now!”

“Go, but where?” I asked as the nurses began to push us out of the room again.

“Anywhere, so long as it ain't here. Just freakin' go.” Parini coughed. “Besides, you ain't listened to me so far, and you ain't been doing too bad on your own. Take the Lincoln. That oughta to square us up. And take her, too.”

“But ...”

“You shouldn't have brought her into this thing, but you did, Ace, and now she's your responsibility. So get out of here, both of you.”

There was no sense arguing with him. Besides, he was right. I grabbed Sandy's hand and we went.

Outside on the sidewalk she said, “Those computer flash drives in your pocket are going to put Santorini even deeper in jail, not get him out. And pals or not, when Gino finds out, he's going to come after us, and he's gonna kill us both.”

Bumper cars on the Dan Ryan…

P
arini's
white Lincoln was sitting in the alley where we left it, with all four doors hanging open. Inside, two elderly, black-clad Chinese gnomes were hunched over in the back seat using rags, spray bottles, and a bucket of water scrubbing away the last traces of blood from the car's leather upholstery. As we approached, they quickly exited, bowing and smiling as they backed away and scurried off through a gate into the next yard. I looked inside. Unbelievably, there wasn't a hint of blood anywhere. The car's interior was showroom clean.

We both went for the driver's side door, but I got there first. “If you don't mind,” I smiled as I edged her aside and slipped behind the wheel. “You had your turn and I'm not sure I could survive another.”

“Laugh it up, but you don't know the Chicago streets like I do.”

“No, but I can read signs. And you're right about Gino,” I finally got up the nerve to say what needed to be said as I drove away. “Between him, Tinkerton, and the Chicago cops, it's not a smart idea for you to stay with me for a whole lot longer.”

“You don't, huh?” Her black eyes turned hard and angry again. “Well, who put you in charge?”

“It's too dangerous, Sandy. For all I know, Gino's going to come after me next.”

“Great! I got a dead hit man lying in my basement, I'm MIA from my job, you've got me riding around the south side in a white pimpmobile, and now you want to dump me.”

“That's not fair. I'm worried about you.”

“Let me worry about me.” She bristled.

“All I wanted was a copy of those papers of yours, that's all. I don't suppose you'd trust me with them for a couple of days?”

“Trust you? I stopped buying that line in the back seat of Ernie DeMarco's Ford in eighth grade.” She clutched her big purse to her chest and turned away, clearly furious at me. “Trust you. That'll be the day. Once you get them, they're gone and so are you. And I heard what Gino told you,” she said. “I'm
your
responsibility now.”

This line of reasoning wasn't getting me anywhere, besides, she was right, so was Gino. I got her into this and it was my responsibility to get her out. So, I settled down in the seat and drove. I remembered some of the map, so I doubled back the same way we came, driving down Canal until I found Archer, a busy diagonal that bisected Chinatown. I figured it should take me back to Cermack. That might take me east to State Street and the Dan Ryan. Once I found it, I could get my bearings. Hopefully, I could talk her out of the car at a bus stop and I could find the Dan Ryan and get the hell out of town.

At the red light at Archer and Cermack, I reached for the buttons on Parini's car radio. Unfortunately, all I found were jazz and easy listening stations. I was surprised the Chicago Mafia didn't have their own twenty-four hour all-Sinatra station or, “The Best of the Sopranos.” Sandy didn't wait. Her hand reached out and she punched Seek. This time, the radio stopped on a country and western station and I heard the mournful twang of a guitar. “Touch that button again and I'll break your finger,” she warned.

“Oh, come on. What's that? Billy-Bob singing about his pick-up truck?” I shook my head thinking State Street couldn't come fast enough. “Okay, but if I hear Achy-Breaky Heart, all bets are off.”

She tried to keep a straight face, but I saw it crack. “I suppose you can't line dance, either, can you?” she asked.

“Line dancing? What's an Italian almost-Polish girl from Chicago doing line dancing?”

“Trolling.”

I started to smile, but it quickly faded as I looked across Cermack Road and saw two gray sedans and a blue Ford LTD parked right in front of us in the parking lot of a Chinese import-export shop. Bent over a map spread across the hood of the LTD, was none other than Ralph McKinley Tinkerton and four of his goons. He didn't look very happy. The side of his face was badly bruised and his left hand was wrapped in a thick, white bandage. Jacket off, tie down, he waved his arms in the air as he chewed them out. He slammed his fist on the hood and I'm sure he left a dent.

“Get down!” I grabbed her neck and shoved her down on the car seat, her head landing in my lap.

“Talbott, I don't do that on a first date,” I heard her mumble.

“That guy Tinkerton? The one you think I'm paranoid about. Well, he's standing across the street,” I said as I slid lower, trying to hide behind the steering wheel.

“I want to see.” She pushed my hand away and raised her head enough to peek over the dashboard. “That's him?”

“Yeah, and Gino was right. Your smart mouth's going to get us both killed.”

I sat there holding my breath waiting for the light to change, hoping I might melt into the upholstery and vanish before Tinkerton looked our way, but that was wishful thinking. I watched him talking and yelling at the other men, but his cold gray eyes never stopped moving. They swept across the white Lincoln and moved on. Then, they stopped and tracked back. Tinkerton squinted in the bright sunlight. He frowned as he focused on the white Lincoln and I knew that was trouble. His eyes opened wide. Even from across the street, I felt the wave of hatred and anger wash over me like heat pouring out of the open door of a blast furnace. His arm shot up and he pointed a long accusing finger at me, mouth open wide, as he shouted to his men.

I didn't wait for the light to change. I pushed the accelerator to the floor, spun the steering wheel to the right, and laid rubber through the intersection. The Lincoln fishtailed out onto Cermack Road, but what the heck. They weren't my tires. I cut between two cars and got ahead of a delivery truck, putting as much distance as I could between Tinkerton and the Lincoln. With its big engine, it could outrun most things on the open road, including police cars and Tinkerton's LTD. In city traffic, it wallowed like an old barge. Still, if I could loose them before they even got started, then the size of the engine wouldn't matter.

“You said you know the city,” I shouted to her over the engine roar. “The Dan Ryan, it's up ahead, right?”

“Yeah, keep going straight, to State, then turn south, I guess.”

We raced across Wentworth Avenue. The road dropped away and the big car soared into a railroad underpass beyond. The Lincoln bottomed out on its axles and roared up the other side without skipping a beat. The traffic soon thickened again and I cut left, crossing the double yellow lines, using the westbound lanes to pass a pokey bus and a delivery van. I looked in the rear-view mirror and still couldn't see Tinkerton's cars, so I eased off the accelerator a tad. There was no reason to commit vehicular suicide, not yet anyway. Up ahead I saw a busy intersection with people walking around. The sign read State Street, so I swung the steering wheel and took the turn on two wheels. The car leveled out and we were on a broad, six-lane boulevard, racing south.

“Last chance,” I told her. “I can let you out before they catch up and you can disappear into the crowd.”

“No, I'm staying.

“We're probably gonna both get killed, you know.”

“Nah. Maybe maimed and scarred for life, but not killed. Besides, this is fun.”

“You really are crazy.”

“Compared to the black hole I've been in the past two years, this is fun, Talbott. You'd be fun too, if you ever let yourself,” she said, as she reached over and lightly touched my arm. “Now drive.”

I felt a shiver run through me. She was quirky and funny, with sharp edges, but all girl, and I was glad she wanted to stay. I couldn't admit it back then, not even to myself, but I was lonely. I loved Terri and always would, but memories only took me so far. My life had been teetering on the edge since the day she died. I filled it with tequila and then with work, desperately trying to ignore that basic fact, but one light touch of skin on skin had tipped my pat little world upside down and I wasn't ready for that.