“Hey?” someone yelled. A house door slammed across the street.
I found a foothold in the dirt and pushed up just enough to see. A man was walking toward the street, a dark shadow in the moonlight. He was looking at the excavation. I held my breath. If he came over, he’d see the corpse lying uncovered in the moonlight.
“Hey?” he called again.
He’d stopped by a car. A minute passed, and then, satisfied he was alone in the night, he opened the car door and set a rectangular lunchbox inside.
He was so close I was sure he could hear me breathe.
He looked over at the excavation a last, long moment and then got in and pulled the door closed. A second later, he drove away.
My arms were shaking too badly from nerves and pain to strike at the earth anymore. I pulled the big hulking man into the shallow grave, spaded him over with frozen clay, and covered it all with gravel.
The moon was now as bright as an examining lamp. There was a slight mound where the dead man lay, but it cast no shadow. I could only hope the cement men wouldn’t think to work at leveling the gravel further.
I threw the shovel out of the hole, scrambled out after it, and shuffled across the snow to the abandoned bungalow. I’d never be able to get rid of the holes in the wall, or the splatter, but obliterating the drag marks might buy enough time to get the body cemented over without anyone thinking to inspect the inside of the bungalow.
I scooped up Leo’s clothes from the back bedroom, snatched up the shovel, and ran around the block to the Jeep. Five minutes later, I was back at the turret.
Leo still slept, in spite of the uncomfortable way I’d bound him. I cut away the tape and undid the rope. I left him in his coats. I was too tired to do anything else.
I left myself in my own coats as well and lay down in front of the stairs. He’d wake me if he tried to leave the turret.
In the brief seconds before I crashed into sleep, I supposed I’d been as cunning as I could be, in trying to hide a corpse in frozen ground.
Twenty-one
His slight cough woke me.
Leo’s hands were clasped primly in front of him, as attentive as a small child in a museum, as he stood facing the curved wall. First-time daytime visitors to the turret are always dazzled by the way the sun streaming in through the slit windows changes the hues and the shadows on the limestone blocks every few minutes. It’s quite a show.
Leo had seen it before, hundreds of times.
I got up off the floor. “Coffee?” I asked.
He turned at the sound of my voice, his face as blank as it had been the night before. Leo, the Leo I knew, was still checked out from the trauma of his gun work.
“Follow me,” I said.
He understood. We crossed the hall to my almost-finished kitchen. I pulled out a chair, told him to sit at the plywood table.
I had Cheerios, and I had bowls. I mated one into the other in front of him. The fact that I had no milk didn’t concern him. I gave him a spoon. He just stared at everything.
It chilled me worse than anything the night before. I tugged at my peacoat, to pull it tighter. I saw dirt and grime-and blood.
“Damn it,” I said. I had the thing off in an instant.
Leo watched me like he’d watched the limestone-silently, with mild interest, nothing more.
I laid the coat on the counter, sloshed Tide on the dark wool, and scrubbed it with my fingers. After a minute, I put it in the sink, ran water on it, and rubbed at it some more. It wasn’t just the blood I was trying to wash away; it was the memory.
I set the coat on the back of a chair to dry and looked again at Leo. He was eating the Cheerios, uninterested in my sudden laundering.
Amnesia was supposed to give the brain time to heal from trauma, but amnesia meant Leo couldn’t tell me anything to make him safe. I was certain the man he’d killed hadn’t been the only cranky monkey in the circus. That bruiser had worked for someone who would simply hire another cranky monkey, but for what, I could not imagine.
I set a cup of coffee in front of Leo. Invariably, he refused to drink my coffee, claiming I brewed the worst stuff on the planet. It was true enough, since I rarely indulged in absolutely new grounds. Now he was drinking it slowly, passively, without expression.
I called the Bohemian.
I’d known Anton Chernek since the day my marriage to Amanda Phelps was dissolved. He was a CPA and certified financial manager and worked out of a fancy factory rehab full of licenses, degrees, and awards, but the wall shingling told only a small part of Chernek’s story. Mostly, he was a quietly influential adviser to many of the wealthiest people in Chicago and their offspring, of which my ex-wife was one.
He’d come to the settlement conference with her three-man team of lawyers. I came alone. The conference lasted barely ten minutes, and that long only because her lawyers brought a huge sheaf of papers for me to sign. I read none of them. I wanted none of her money.
Chernek liked that. He also liked that I was half Bohemian and had been tagged with the thoroughly ethnic and quite unwieldy name of Vlodek. He enjoyed rolling it on his tongue: Vuh-lo-dek. We reached an accommodation: I let him call me something I wouldn’t name a dog; he offered his quite considerable resources when I got in a jam.
“Vuh-lo-dek,” he said now, relishing the three syllables when we both knew there were merely two. “What sort of mess are you in, these days?”
“I need a very private, very discreet medical clinic, for a friend.”
His tone changed from kidding to serious. “To treat what?”
“Amnesia, I think, and shock. Lots of other head stuff, potentially.”
“How discreet?”
“Discreet enough to admit him under an assumed name and to never tell anyone he’s a patient. Do you know of such a place?”
“I must put you on hold.”
He was back in five minutes. “As a matter of fact, I do know such a place. It’s very pricey.”
“I have about forty-five hundred dollars.”
“Amazingly, Vlodek, that is precisely what I estimate it will cost for an indefinite stay.” He chuckled. He’d find a way to take care of the balance, through favors he was owed, or merely his own considerable funds. Friendship with me isn’t always cheap.
“Is there a capital crime associated with the amnesia?” he asked.
“Yes. I think his life is in danger, too, but the immediate problem is his amnesia.”
He did not hesitate. He’d heard worse, from the people who ran most of Chicago. “Does your friend require transportation?”
“I don’t know how to do that. He is with me at the turret. It’s probably being watched.”
“What does your friend look like?”
“Five-six, one-forty, pale skin, bald as an egg.”
“Do you own a hat, Vlodek?”
I was probably the only one he’d ever had to ask such a question.
“Chicago Cubs,” I said. “It’s one of two I own, the other being a knit.”
“In about an hour, put your Cubs hat on your friend, along with your peacoat-”
“You remember I have a peacoat?” I interrupted.
“Every time I’ve seen you in cold weather, you’ve worn navy surplus. I assumed it’s your only outer garment.”
“Please continue.”
“Thusly attired, put your friend in your Jeep and drive to this address on Archer Avenue.” He gave me the street number. “It’s a spring coil manufacturer. They have a ground-level loading dock. They will be waiting for you. When they open the receiving door, drive in. Your friend will be immediately transported in a windowless service van to a clinic. You, however, will wait thirty minutes before driving out of the factory. You will be accompanied by one of their employees, who will be wearing your surplus coat and Cubs hat, sitting slouched down in your, ah, vehicle. That person will instruct you what to do. It’s the best I can offer on such short notice.”