that afternoon. They were expecting a couple hundred thousand people and got almost a million, spread out on the same patch of ground where Obama had held his rally on the night he was elected. As darkness settled over the city, the crowd grew quiet. Huge flat screens flickered to life and filled with the names of those who had died. A female voice read them aloud, one by one, over the loudspeakers. After the first few, the crowd caught on and began to repeat each name. They swayed back and forth as they chanted, the litany of the dead moving like a prayer through the park. People lit candles. Strangers clung to one another. They wiped away their tears, then cried some more and even laughed. Meanwhile, the world watched.
I hung on the edges of the crowd long enough to hear Theresa Jackson’s name. Then I turned to leave. A young woman was nearby, a news credential around her neck, shooting video with a small camera. I tapped her on the shoulder.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Missy Davis.” She stuck out her hand. I put Marcus Robinson’s notebook in it.
“You got someone in your newsroom who works gangs? Someone older than forty?”
She nodded uncertainly.
“Give them the notebook. Tell them it came from inside K Town. Tell them to get inside the burned-out buildings. Check out the doors and windows.”
“Doors and windows?”
“And check out the name on the cover.”
I left before she could ask any more questions or get her camera up and running. Maybe something would come of it. Maybe not. All I knew was I’d gotten rid of another piece of the case. And that felt like a good thing.
On day four, I drank lukewarm Budweiser and scrolled through Peter Gilmore’s laptop. Followed by Rita Alvarez’s work file. Around three o’clock I walked downstairs to the bar. A man was there, drinking a glass of beer. He had a stack of videotapes with him. We talked for a bit. Then I took the tapes upstairs and began to watch. I went to bed at eleven and slept until four-thirty the next morning. I woke up in the cool darkness and smoked a single cigarette. The street below me was asleep. I made my first call.
Our mayor wasn’t happy. I told him it might be important. And it needed to be just him and me. He said he had a full day. Speeches to give. People to see. A city to rebuild. He agreed to meet me at the Palace for coffee.
I got off the phone and stared idly at a half-dozen bottles of well vodka. Then I gathered up the belongings of the man I’d killed and set out for the West Side.
CHAPTER 60
If you ever wondered what it was like to walk onto the canvas of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, I’d suggest the Palace Grill on the corner of Madison and Loomis at a little after 5:00 a.m. Two cops, one fat, the other fatter, sat at one end of the long counter. Each had a newspaper, a plate of eggs, and coffee. At the other end was an old man, wrapped in an overcoat and peering into a bowl of oatmeal. Behind the counter was a skin-and-bones cook, standing guard over an empty grill, waiting for the breakfast crowd and a little conversation. I took a seat at a table in an area that looked like it was closed off. The counterman didn’t look my way, so I wandered up and ordered a coffee. He had just filled my cup when his ears stood up like a pointer’s in full flush. I didn’t need to turn to know who had just walked in.
The mayor went right for the table I had already staked out. The two cops took one look, got up, and left. The counterman pushed my coffee almost into my lap and ran to serve the mayor all the flapjacks he could eat. I gave the two of them a minute and then joined Wilson.
“You like this place?” I said.
“I come here now and then. Usually right after it opens. Thanks, Lenny.”
The counterman slipped the mayor’s joe onto the table and disappeared in a haze of grease. The mayor dumped sugar into his coffee and stirred as he talked.
“They were lucky. Just on the edge of a quarantine zone. Saw a good surge in business from all the cops working the perimeter.”
“Someone’s gotta make a buck.”
Wilson raised his eyebrows but let the comment pass. “Where you been hiding?”
“Never mind,” I said. “How’s everything holding together?”
Wilson shrugged. “You think I know? One minute we got dead people everywhere. Then it just stops. No more dead. No more sick. Now the feds tell me they‘re pulling down the fences.”
“You wonder how all that happened?”
“You think I got to be mayor by asking dumb questions?”
“You just take the bows.” I nudged the morning Sun-Times across the table. Wilson’s picture was on the front page.
“And I take the lumps, asshole. It’s the job. Now tell me what is it that can’t wait until the sun comes up?”
“You know this guy?”
Wilson looked at a photo of Peter Gilmore but didn’t touch it. “No. Should I?”
“He’s responsible for the release.”
Wilson took a second look at the photo, then back up to me. “Who is he? And why are we talking about this in the Palace?”
“I promised I’d give you a heads-up.”
“Only if my office was involved.”
I spread my hands, palms up, and sat back. Wilson swung a look around the diner.
I stood up. “Maybe you want a pat down?”
Wilson gestured me back into the booth. His face looked like a wall of old plaster, cracked from too much heat and trailing long threads of asbestos everywhere.
“When are you going to the feds?” he said.
“I’m not.”
A pause. “What’s my involvement?”
It wasn’t the sort of thing any politician wanted to ask. Certainly not if your name is followed by the title “Mayor of Chicago.” And definitely not if it involved the deaths of a few hundred Chicagoans.
“I can’t lay it all out,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not resolved yet.”
“And you’re going to resolve it yourself?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Wilson tapped a finger beside Gilmore’s picture. “Who is he?”
“Peter Gilmore. Former CIA.” A lift of mayoral chin at that. “Specially trained in the handling and release of chemical and biological weapons.”
“Who hired him?” Wilson said.
I shook my head.
“Why?”
Another shake of the head.
“I thought you told me this concerns my office.”
“It does. Just not directly.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think, Your Honor, that might very well be up to you.”
Lenny was orbiting at the edge of the universe with a plate of toast. Wilson waved him in. Lenny dropped off his order, freshened everyone’s coffee, and scampered away. Wilson pushed the toast aside, tapped his fingertips together, and waited.
