back into the car.
“Nice pub. Flat-screen TVs, good jukebox, great-looking waitress.”
I had been sitting in my car for the better part of the afternoon and was getting sick of the coffee, not to mention the company.
“What’s he doing?” I said.
“I talked to the bartender on the side.” Jacobs rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign of currency changing hands. “He let me get a look at the tab. So far, it’s a baker’s dozen. Heinekens.”
I whistled. “In two hours?”
“Yeah, bartender says he’s going to cut him off soon. Good for my story. So get ready.”
It was another hour before the bartender rang last call on David Meyers. Jacobs snapped away with his Nikon as our boy lurched into the hard sunlight and stumbled on a curb cut. I heard a snicker from behind the camera.
“This guy is pissed,” Jacobs said.
We watched as Meyers made his way to his car. The lot attendant was just a kid. He took the car check but didn’t go back into his shed for the keys. Instead, the kid tried to talk to Meyers. The man in the suit cocked his head and listened, almost as if the kid were speaking something other than English. Then, our city exec exploded. First, he kicked his tires. After that, he slammed both hands on the roof of his car. The kid backed off, scurried over to his shed, and closed the door after him. Meyers followed, Jacobs snapping away, catching every movement for tomorrow’s front page. Meyers raged at the little wooden shed, tugged at the door, pounded on the glass. Finally, the kid opened a small window. The two exchanged more pleasantries, then the kid picked up a telephone and began to dial. At that point, Meyers stuck his hand through the window and grabbed a set of keys off the counter. The kid dropped the phone and watched as David Meyers ran back to his car, got in, and started it up.
Meyers almost hit four kids in a Honda as he pulled out of the lot. But pull out he did, into a stream of busy traffic, weaving his way, presumably home. I looked over at Jacobs, who took the camera off his eye and shrugged.
“Follow him.”
I pulled into traffic about five car lengths behind. Jacobs sat back and continued to snap pictures.
“Give me your phone,” I said.
Jacobs looked at me and handed over the cell. I dumped in a number and waited. At the other end was Dispatch for the nearest cop shop. Jacobs watched as I read off Meyers’ tag number and gave them his location. Then I flipped the phone shut and tossed it back to the reporter.
“What the fuck you do that for?” Jacobs said.
“You’ll get your story. This way it’s not a homicide as well.”
The reporter shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”
Meyers hopped onto the Kennedy heading north. The expressway seemed to sober him up. He stayed in the right-hand lane and clocked a steady sixty. We both exited at Armitage. Meyers drove another block or two and pulled into a parking garage just south of Fullerton. I didn’t see a cruiser the entire time.
“His condo’s a block away,” Jacobs said.
“Guess he made it,” I said.
“Safe and sound.” Jacobs held up his camera. “Until tomorrow’s edition, that is. Then his world is over.”
“Yeah.”
“So now you know what guys like Johnny Woods do,” Jacobs said. “Does it help you at all?”
I didn’t have any answers for the reporter. As I’d find out soon enough, I didn’t even have the right questions.
CHAPTER 5
T he next morning, I got up and ran out along the lake. It was still dark. The city lay before me, edged in light. To my left, I could feel the water, hear it rustle against the rocks. A thin line of pink was rising from a distant shore called Michigan, offering the first hint of dawn.
I was halfway home when I saw her. She was about a hundred yards ahead of me, wearing a black Gore-Tex shell over a long-sleeve yellow sweatshirt, black runner’s gloves, and cap. Her stride was smooth and nice. I ran behind her for a minute or so, then pulled alongside.
“Hey.”
Rachel Swenson’s eyes widened a bit. She stopped and turned down the volume on an iPod Shuffle clipped to her upper arm.
“Michael Kelly.”
Her cheeks were red with the cold. Underneath her hat, she looked like she might be a law student at Northwestern, getting in her miles before an early morning class in contracts. In reality, Rachel Swenson was a sitting judge for the Northern District of Illinois and a woman I had been meaning to call for at least a year. She leaned close and gave me a hug. I got my arms up, almost too late, and then hung on too long.
“How are you?” she said.
“Pretty good. You run out here often?”
“Not as much as I should. How about you?”
“I try. Gets harder when it’s cold.”
“Tell me about it.”
On cue, a volley of wind punched in off the lake. Rachel shivered and stamped her feet. I shook out my arms and tried to think of something to say. We stepped into a pause that seemed to last an hour and a half. Rachel got us out the other side with a thud.
“I saw you the other day.”
“Where?”
“I was at Graceland,” she said. “Thursday morning.”
Graceland was a cemetery in Chicago. Nicole Andrews was buried there. She had been a friend to both of us. Now she was dead. Murdered, actually. By a third friend.
“I sat in my car and waited for you to leave,” Rachel said.
“You should have come over.” A second burst of wind pulled the words from my mouth and scattered them across the lakefront. Rachel, however, caught my meaning.
“Seemed like you wanted to be alone,” she said.
I shrugged.
“I waited there almost an hour, Michael. Then I left.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry. How often do you go to Nicole’s grave?”
“Not that much.”
“How often?”
“Not much. Maybe once a month. I just stay awhile. Sometimes it’s a good place to think.”
Rachel was looking at me closely now. I didn’t like it.
“You okay, Michael?”
“I’m okay.”
And I was. At least, I thought so. Nicole was my best friend. Always would be. Death was just another thing to work around.
“Why don’t we get together sometime,” Rachel said.
“I was going to call and suggest the same thing.”
The judge cocked her hip and tilted her head. “You were going to call?”
“Yes.”
“And ask me out?”
“Exactly.”
“Michael, it’s been at least a year since I’ve talked to you.”
