like to get out of this with your life intact. Right? However much you hate me, you're not going to bring your family and practice down in flames too, are you?'
'No,' he muttered.
'Okay, Barnett? Let us get out of here, now, and leave you to tell what happened. One teller, one story. Far less room for screwing up.'
'No one's going anywhere.'
'You could kill us all?'
'I'm a Chicago police detective,' he said. 'Tell me what I can't do.'
'I'll tell you,' said a voice above him.
Barnett looked up into the night sky.
Something metal fell and struck him in the face. A lunch box. He dropped without a word. He lay dazed, bleeding from a cut above his right eye, while Ryan stripped him of his guns, including a.25-calibre belly gun tucked in an ankle holster of his own.
There was a rustling sound on the roof of the trailer above where Barnett had been standing. Then quiet, then a thud as Gabriel Cross dropped to the ground, wiping his hands of some dirt.
'I told you not to come here tonight,' I said.
'I know,' he said. 'But I'm working on not listening to white men so much.' We hammered it out quick and dirty outside the trailer. With Ryan's gun nuzzling his ear, Barnett had little choice but to nod and accept our terms. Jenn and Ryan would start the drive back that night and I would fly out on the first morning plane, to stay consistent with our means of entry; three tourists going home after enjoying ever too briefly the wonders of Chicago, the Great Lakes' finest city. Avi would go back to a life that seemed entirely predictable on one level-the good Jewish lawyer, the father of three lovely kids-and beneath it his seething hatred of me, this grudge he'd nursed all these years, this idea that if I had never come to Har Milah, he'd be happily married to a lush beauty, instead of living in clenched misery with a wife as dry as a crumbling leaf. That was his life. Let him go back to it. Neither he nor Barnett could ever implicate the other without destroying himself.
Barnett would finally solve the Birks' robbery. He would close the cases on Simon Birk, Chuck Belkin and Charlaine Teal, the woman who played the role of evil chambermaid, whose death he'd also ascribe to Curry. He'd even rescue Henry, the loyal night watchman.
Gabriel Cross, of course, had vanished before Barnett regained his senses. As far as the official story went, he was never even there. Just like the rest of us. As if that night had never happened. If only. Back at the hotel, Ryan and Jenn loaded their few things into the car, got directions to the northbound I-94 and sped off.
I booked a flight on my laptop, leaving O'Hare at 6:35 the following morning, then fell back on the bed and worked on slowing my breathing, getting it right with the rhythm of my heart and body, instead of the Riverdance thing it was doing.
Advocating a man's death the way I had, so cold and logical about it-yes, I did it to keep the rest of us alive, one life to trade for five. And it was probably a conclusion Barnett would have come to on his own. Curry had sealed his own fate the minute he threw Birk to his death. But there I'd been, like Iago whispering in Othello's ear, a low baritone urging murder to keep the peace.
Not exactly the kind of world repairs I had set out to make.
I didn't think I'd want to be back atop a tall building for a long time. No more CN Tower climbs for charity. No going out on observation decks. Being so high atop a building with another man-someone you deeply feared or mistrusted-gave you an unsettling sense of power: you could end his life with the slightest shove. Birk had clearly felt it, ordering me out on the beam, chucking bolts at me as I clung to a girder below him. And I felt it when I forced him to walk out there. When I threw a bolt at him, making him drop to his beam and cling to it like a frightened child.
I lay there in a T-shirt and shorts. The king bed was more than big enough but I knew I wasn't going to sleep for a while, so I appreciated that the ceiling was in good overall repair: no flaking paint, no cracks, no spiderwebs. A chandelier free of dust. The chambermaid had done a good job. Got into the corners. Got the place fresh. Hadn't slipped in with a knife so far. This hotel was all right with me. I wasn't so all right with me.
Maybe that would pass once I had done the last thing I needed to do to close Marilyn Cantor's case.
CHAPTER 52
I walked along the side of Rob Cantor's house in the light of a pale moon that barely showed the chink in the brick where Perry had tried to take my head off with a shovel. Like I'd ever let myself get beaten by a guy named Perry. Bad enough a Simon and a Francis had almost killed me. But not a Perry. Or an Arthur or a Skippy or a Todd.
It had been an unusual day, to say the least. I went straight home from the airport, made myself eggs and sat in front of CNN, watching the news surrounding Simon Birk's stunning demise. There was footage of a covered body beside the unfinished Millennium Skyline tower, surrounded by grim-looking men. There were interviews with police and safety officials, with the network's business analysts, the Tribune's architecture critic, Donald Trump and Birk's other competitors. 'You couldn't really call us colleagues,' Trump said. 'Simon saw everyone as competition.'
There was even a sidebar story on Tom Barnett, the Chicago detective who never gave up on the home invasion, who always believed Joyce Mulhearn Birk deserved to be heard, even if she herself could not speak, and who finally had been forced to shoot down his former partner. The circumstances were under investigation by the Chicago Police Review Authority, but he was being spoken of in reverent tones.
Once the news of Birk's death got out, my phone started ringing. My mother called, relieved to hear I was back; I was relieved she couldn't see me, banged up as I was.
My brother called. I let his call go to the machine.
Hollinger called. I let her call go too. What could I say to her that wasn't offputting or outright incriminating?
At eleven, Jenn called to say she and Ryan were on the 401 approaching the Don Valley. Ryan had done all the driving, she said, pumped up on coffee and adrenaline. I told her they should come by for breakfast, see Tom Barnett on the news.
Rob Cantor called while I was waiting for them. 'Jesus Christ,' he exploded. 'What the hell happened there? Did you see him? Did you talk to him? Did he tell you anything about-'
'Rob,' I said. 'I'm going to have to tell you this in person.' Not over the phone, you idiot.
'Oh, Jesus. Of course. Look, I'm going into an emergency meeting of our board in about three minutes. It's going to be nuts, I can tell you, because not one of us has a clue what this means. Can you come by the house later?'
'How later?'
'The latest we'll go is seven because the chair and at least two other members have to catch the last flight to New York. Make it eight to be safe.' Ryan dropped Jenn off at eleven-thirty. I offered him more coffee but he waved it off. 'Time for me to transform back into a mild-mannered restaurateur. Drive down to the market, hope I'm not too late to get good enough veal for osso buco. And then grab a few hours sleep.' He hugged me and told me to come by Giulio's later if I was hungry. Then he turned to Jenn, held out his arms. She clasped his right hand and pumped it awkwardly. Just as his frown started to tighten, she sparked into laughter, grabbed him and held him close.
'He behave himself in the car?' I asked Jenn.
'You kidding? He's not such a tough guy after all. We spent most of the drive back talking about cooking. And cooking shows.'
He said, 'Don't start.'
'Dante Ryan watches cooking shows?'
Ryan said to me, 'The look I'm about to give you…'
'Not only does he watch cooking shows,' Jenn said, 'he even watches the horseshit reality shows where the chefs throw tantrums on cue.'
