I was looking for a good place, too, a spot to do a quick U-turn, but there was too much deep slush in the median. Even in four-wheel drive, I’d sink to the tops of my wheels.
There’d been more colors; the thought slapped into my mind. I checked the rearview again. Sure enough, the green of the minivan had not been the only constant since Rivertown. Two more colors had been there as well, hanging back as precisely from the minivan as Robinson was staying behind me. That’s why he’d been hanging back. He knew they were there. No bigger in the mirror than pencil erasers, one was red, the other was dark, perhaps black. Black, like that Impala I’d noticed the day Jarobi first came around.
I could evade the minivan with a U-turn, or at least swerve back into him if he tried to run me off the road. Three cars was a different deal. They were using cell phones to coordinate their moves, waiting for the right time to box me in, one car in front, one in back, to slow me enough for the third man to pull up alongside to shoot. Zigs, zags, and U-turns would buy me nothing. I could not outrun three vehicles.
Too late, I passed by an access road into the forest preserve. There might have been a chance to go off-road in there, between the trees, but not for long. The woods were too thick.
A traffic signal appeared ahead, its light green. I dropped down a gear, to slow the Jeep and to pick up the torque I’d need. The few cars behind me began catching up, but not the green minivan, and farther back, not the small shapes of red and black.
The light turned yellow. If I stopped, they’d come up behind, on foot.
I blew into the intersection just as the light turned red. The intersecting road was much narrower, only one lane in each direction. Nothing was coming from the left, but a white convertible was starting up on the right. I swung left, barely missing the ragtop. A blond woman was driving. She hit the brakes, and then she hit the horn. I didn’t look back, but I supposed she got a finger up as well.
The road ahead of me was empty. Except for a couple of driveways, there was nothing. Then I saw why. In the distance, orange striped barricades dead-ended the road. There was construction. The road was closed.
I needed to ditch the Jeep and run. I looked behind me. The white convertible was turning into one of the driveways. There was no one behind her. No one had followed.
I made a U-turn and stopped, looking at the way I’d come. The traffic light remained green, stopping the northbound traffic, stopping them. Escape lay southbound on that same multilaner, if they remained stuck in the tangle of northbound cars stopped by the light.
If I was fast.
I sped back to the intersection, glancing at the congestion to my left only after I’d turned onto the wide multilane highway heading south.
They’d disappeared. All three vehicles were gone.
I didn’t dare slow, but I didn’t dare believe. Yet I was sure: There was no one back at the traffic light. It was like they’d been sucked into space.
I pressed down on the accelerator, watching ahead, watching behind. They had to show up somewhere.
Fifteen minutes later, I turned east, passed Crystal Waters, and got on the Tollway.
I called Jarobi. “I think Robinson’s been tailing me for the last hour. I think I lost him.”
“Green Chrysler minivan?”
“Yes.”
“I imagined he’d be out of state by now.”
“I imagined him dead,” I said. “No reports of gunshot victims on the West Side?”
“There are always gunshot victims on the West Side, but no young adults like you described. No trashed burgundy Escalade, either.”
“Robinson had two friends along today, in red and black cars.”
“That black Impala you keep asking about?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“I’ll pass all this on to your county sheriff. Tell you what, Elstrom: I’ll put out a bulletin, saying Robinson is wanted for questioning in an art theft.”
“Think any of it will work?”
“To find a green Chrysler minivan, accompanied by two cars of unknown make and model, one red, one black?” He laughed. “Nah,” he said.
Fifty-two
Dr. Feldott was puzzled by what I was carrying.
“Flags, or rags?” she asked, smiling.
“Mr. Smith’s dress clothes.”
She pursed her lips. “That’s a shame.”
“I thought they might trigger a memory or two.”
“Why not? I’m afraid we’ve tried everything. We can only be patient. He doesn’t speak much, but we hear him whispering when he’s alone. Patients sometimes do that; it’s a means of trying to communicate, if only to themselves. He smiles a lot, though. We think he’s happy.” She motioned for me to go in first.
Leo wore a white shirt and tan trousers and sat at the small desk. He swept something small into his lap.
“Do you know me?” I asked.
He gave me a nod, of sorts, but his eyes had been drawn to the magnificent songstress on the CD. I set it on the desk.
“Would you like a player for that?” the doctor asked. She’d followed his eyes.
“Oh yes,” he said.
She nodded approvingly and left. It was progress.
I spilled the clothes out on the bed. Holding up one of his most atrocious Hawaiian shirts, a bright orange number decorated with red pineapples dangling from palm trees with pink fronds, I asked, “Excite you at all?”
He frowned. “Bright.”
“Excellent,” I said. “A lack of enthusiasm for this garment is surely a sign of a correcting mental attitude. You might become better than new.”
His brow wrinkled. “Huh?”
“This is one of your favorite shirts.”
He winced and turned to the CD on the desk. A leer spread across his pale features. “This is mine?”
“Yes.”
“I like this,” he said.
I sat on a chair next to the bed. “I came to tell you a story.”
“Good.”
“Once upon a time, in a crooked little village not so very far away…” I began. Then I stopped. “No, forget that. This isn’t funny.”
I began again. “Years ago, a young thief named Snark Evans worked at the Rivertown city garage for a man named Tebbins. He also worked for Tebbins after hours, helping to install residential security systems. One day, Evans stole some jewelry and a painting from a house where they were installing a system.”
Leo’s eyes had remained on the CD.
I cleared my throat loudly. He looked up.
“The painting belonged to a Chicago mobster named Rudy Cassone,” I said.
He showed no reaction.
“OK so far?” I asked.
“OK.”
“Almost immediately, Snark realized he’d stolen from a wrong guy, so he decided to get out of town quick.”
“Quick?”
I nodded. “The jewelry he could take with him, to hock later. He decided to leave the painting behind, maybe because it would be difficult to fence, or maybe because he thought it wasn’t worth much. He gave the picture to a friend, for safekeeping.”
I watched his face. Nothing changed.
“The burglary victim, Rudy Cassone, confronted Tebbins about the theft,” I went on. “Tebbins knew nothing about it. All he could tell Cassone was that Snark had taken off. So Cassone went away. Later that summer, Tebbins, or his boss, a man named Robinson, heard that Snark Evans was dead. But maybe Snark faked his own death, to throw Cassone off his trail. He could have changed his name and begun a new life somewhere far away.” I paused. “Until just a few days ago.”
Leo’s thick eyebrows rose, like always when he was surprised. This time, though, there was no crinkling around his eyes to show that his mind was keeping up with his eyebrows.
“Enter a couple of Hollywood types named Bennett,” I said.
“Types named Bennett,” Leo repeated softly.
I was speaking simply. His words were even simpler, childlike… and chilling.
“Henny Bennett is a very successful producer of B-grade horror movies. As near as I can tell, Mindy, his wife, was successful mostly at being beautiful, at least until recently. Sadly, like us all, she’s gotten older, so I think Henny started casting around for a younger model. He found one, and now he’s divorcing Mindy. Each of them, Henny and Mindy, wants that painting that was stolen from Cassone so many years before. OK so far?”