Sorrow's Anthem

decided it was time for Solich to go. Solich hadn’t proved agreeable, so now the matter was going to be taken out of his hands. And for Norm Gradduk, it was a chance to get out from under. One night’s work with a can of gas and a book of matches, one loan cleared. Simple as that. Cops wouldn’t even be an issue, Cancerno said. He’d take care of that end. All Norm had to do was light the matches.

“But Norm didn’t agree to it,” Corbett said. “He drew his line, and drew it hard. He said he wasn’t going near Terry Solich’s pawnshop, and if Jimmy asked him again, Norm was going to the cops. Jimmy asked him how he was going to pay the loan back then, and Norm told him he’d pay it back when he got good and ready. Then he made some more threats about the cops.”

Corbett stopped talking for a moment. The cat rose beside him, stretched until it seemed to have doubled in length, then wandered away from us. Corbett shifted position, hooking his arms around his knees.

“Back then people were just getting to know the sort of man Jimmy was. A guy like Norm Gradduk, well, he had no idea. Not really. But the one thing nobody was going to get away with was threatening Jimmy. Especially by talking about bringing in the cops. Jimmy always knew that owning a piece of the neighborhood police was important, and by then he had a couple guys on payroll. One of them was Jack Padgett.”

“I saw him take a bullet today,” I said. “And it was one of the nicer things I’ve seen in a long time.”

Corbett just nodded. “Well, Jimmy decided it was time to make a statement. Norm needed a lesson, right? So Jimmy rounded up Padgett and they went down to pay a visit to Norm at his house.”

Corbett’s voice was quieter, his tone softer. He didn’t like the topic he was discussing. He didn’t want to have to tell this story again, I could tell.

“Jimmy told Norm he had a choice—burn Solich out or pay up right then. Norm told him to go to hell. His wife was at the house, and she had no idea what was going on.”

“What about Ed?” I said.

“Wasn’t there. I don’t know where he was, but I know it wasn’t the house.”

If he hadn’t been home, it was a safe bet he’d been with me. I wondered what we’d been doing the night Cancerno and Padgett had paid their visit to the Gradduks. Having fun, probably. Laughing our way through another summer night. That was the way they all went, back then.

“Norm came on like a tough guy,” Corbett said. “Giving them hell, telling them to get out of his house. He didn’t know what he was dealing with. Padgett slapped him around a bit, kicked his ass in front of the wife. Laughed and showed them his badge when Gradduk’s wife screamed about calling the police.”

Silence. I waited, but he didn’t continue.

“Well?” I said eventually.

Corbett’s head was down, eyes on the floor. “Jimmy was screaming at Norm, telling Norm that he owned the cops, owned the neighborhood, owned Norm. Nobody threatened Jimmy the way Norm had, and he was going to make that point. With Norm’s wife.”

I looked away as a car passed the house again, another brief shaft of light filling the room.

“They held a gun to Norm’s head,” Corbett said. “Then Padgett and Cancerno . . . well, they made her perform. In front of him.”

I was rubbing my thumb in small, circular motions across the butt of the gun, my finger tense on the trigger.

“When they left, they promised Norm they’d be back. Said unless he did what Jimmy wanted, when Jimmy wanted, they’d be back. Padgett was the key to the whole night. He’s been the key to a lot of nights like that. It’s one thing going up against Jimmy, but when you know he’s got cops on his team, too, particularly an evil son of a bitch like Padgett . . . well, it makes a guy feel helpless, you know? I think that’s how Norm felt.”

“That’s why he killed himself,” I said, my voice hollow. “He thought he was protecting the family. Severing the tie between Cancerno and Padgett and his family.”

“I’d expect so. But it didn’t work out that way. Jack Padgett is one of the meanest men I’ve ever known, and I’ve known some that would turn your stomach.”

“Cancerno said you two were tight.”

“What did I tell you about Jimmy and the truth?”

I nodded.

“Jimmy’s a ruthless son of a bitch, but only when he’s got something to gain,” Corbett continued. “With Jimmy, when Norm was gone, it was done. No value left for him. But for Padgett, that wasn’t how it went. He’d taken a liking to Norm’s wife, and he came back for more.”

“And Ed found out.”

“Yeah. I don’t know when he got wind of it, exactly, but he did. And he went looking for someone to help.” Corbett lifted his head. “He picked your father.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “I understand this part. My dad made the harassment complaint, and Mike Gajovich swept it under the rug. He went down and intimidated Alberta, scared her out of it by telling her she and Ed would become part of a humiliating public spectacle.”

“That’s close to the sum of it. Jimmy wanted to protect Padgett, because Padgett was so valuable to him. He also knew Gajovich’s brother, an asshole of the first order. You were a cop?” When I nodded, he said, “You know him?”

“Not really.”

“Lucky, then. Anyhow, Cancerno went through the brother to the lawyer, the one who’s prosecutor now. Mike. He took some cash from Jimmy and played his role, maybe thinking it was one and done, I don’t know. If he was hoping that’d be it, then he didn’t realize he’d just made as bad a mistake as Norm Gradduk had. Making a deal with Jimmy is like the kind of arrangement some men have made with the devil on a lonely highway. You get what you want, but then, brother, you’re gone.”

I was suddenly tired of standing. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor like Corbett, angled to face him. I set the gun down beside my leg.

“You said you were the one who put things in motion,” I said. “I’m assuming you told Ed the story, and he went after Cancerno.”

“Uh-huh. Ed figured he had a score to settle with Jimmy. He knew what was going on with the Neighborhood Alliance houses, so he—”

“What is going on with those houses?”

“I don’t know the details, man. I just ran the crew. My job was to do shit repairs and fleece the HUD grant for four times what we’d actually put into it. Where’s the excess going? Maybe right back into Jimmy’s pockets, maybe somewhere else.”

According to Cal Richards, the excess was going into Gajovich’s campaign fund, Cancerno making a down payment on owning a big piece of the city.

“When Ed went to see Gajovich, what was he trying to do?” I asked.

“Bargain with him. Or blackmail him, whichever you’d prefer. He wanted Gajovich to look at the Neighborhood Alliance scam and throw Cancerno in jail. Ed figured Gajovich owed him that much.”

“So he went to Gajovich and came up empty,” I said. “What happened then? How’d Anita Sentalar get involved?”

“She was always involved. She and Gajovich go way back. He handpicked her to run the Neighborhood Alliance because he trusted her to look the other way. She knew if he got elected mayor, she’d have a high-level position on his staff.”

“Who killed her?”

“Cancerno had it done, though I couldn’t tell you for sure who pulled the trigger. And that was our fault. Ed’s and mine. He needed a strong witness if he was going to bring it down, and he thought she could be it. He was pressuring her to go to the attorney general and roll on Cancerno. She wouldn’t. That’s when Ed and I decided to go in two different directions.”

“Meaning?”

“He decided to start burning the houses down. Figured that would force the cops to take a hard look at the Neighborhood Alliance. And I think he liked the idea, too, saw some element of sweet justice in that. Jimmy had wanted Ed’s dad to start some fires, right? Well, Ed was coming through on that, with fifteen years of interest payments, to boot.”