“Mark Rissman,” I said.
“He’s picking me up here in a half hour.”
“Rita Alvarez has been investigating him for a year.”
“I hope you’re not telling me the pathogen release was put together by that puke?”
“No.”
“No shit. So why are we talking about him?”
“Rissman’s the guy from your office who was working with the Korean. Steering medical supply contracts and getting kickbacks.”
The mayor furrowed his considerable brow until he looked a little bit like Leonid Brezhnev. “You telling me Rissman was the guy who ordered the bags?”
I laid a finger on the photo. “Peter Gilmore was on the other end of the hospital scam. He worked the body bag order with Lee as a side deal. One that would have made both of them some quick cash.” I pushed some paperwork across the table. “These are documents from Gilmore’s computer. Alvarez’s legwork pretty much confirms Rissman wasn’t involved. At least initially.”
“So Rissman didn’t know about the body bags?”
“Not until we found them in Lee’s cellar. Then Rissman must have put it together.”
“And knew Gilmore was implicated in the pathogen release,” Wilson said.
“That’s when Rissman decided to drop the anonymous note to Danielson, fingering you.”
Wilson squeezed his eyes together while his nose sucked up most of the air in the room. “He set me up to take the fall.”
I was going to ask how it felt but let the moment pass.
“There was a file on Gilmore’s computer titled ‘City Hall,’ ” I said and slipped a flash drive onto the table. It disappeared into the mayor’s hairy fist. “There are also some photos.”
I took out a folder. Inside were photos from the mayor’s suite in the Colonial. Himself, clad head to toe in his NBC suit. Another with the protective mask off, drinking a Diet Coke, smiling. A third as Renee put on makeup. In the background were the camera and the fireplace setup from which he addressed the city during the crisis.
“After the tip to Danielson didn’t work, Rissman went to Gilmore himself and cut a deal. He’d keep quiet about the bags if Gilmore would help to take you down after the crisis was over. That’s what the photos were for.”
Wilson flipped through the pictures. “He thinks these would have taken me out?”
“That’s not all. In return for his silence, Rissman wanted Gilmore to create a paper trail that would link you to the body bags. Gilmore had all the paperwork. The Korean was dead. It would have been easy enough to drop it all in Doll’s lap.”
“And the weasel grabs my chair. Where’s the documentation on the bags?”
“It’s on the flash drive. Hard copies are in the folder.”
Wilson held up one of the photos. “Are there any more of these?”
“That’s all I have. One more thing. Gilmore was going to kill Rissman. Then blackmail you with the photos himself. At least that seemed to be on his to-do list.”
“But Gilmore’s gone?”
“Yes, Gilmore’s gone.”
A pause. “And you don’t think Rissman knows who Gilmore worked for on the pathogen release?”
“I know he doesn’t. But I do.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna take care of it.”
Wilson spread his thick fingers. “And all of this?”
“I can keep Rissman out of it. Or I can turn him over to the feds.”
“If you did that, then I’d go down.”
“There’s no evidence you knew what Rissman was up to.”
“I didn’t. But politically-”
“You’d be fucked, Mr. Mayor.”
Wilson took a sip of his coffee. “What do you want?”
“Cover in case what I do today goes south.”
“What kind of cover?”
“I want my friends protected. Rodriguez, Rita Alvarez. And Rachel Swenson. Especially Rachel.”
“From who?”
“If I fail, you’ll know.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
I shrugged. “We see what happens.”
Wilson dropped the flash drive into his pocket. “You got a deal.”
I got up to go. The mayor stopped me with a hand.
“Want to tell me what you have planned for today?”
“Want to tell me what you have planned for Rissman?”
“Fair enough.”
I left the diner, sticking the mayor of Chicago with the bill. And that was a first.
CHAPTER 61
The West Side was still closed to local traffic, so I went as far as I could on the Ike. A handful of people were parked on the side of the road. They had coffee and cameras with long lenses. I had a flat bottle of Knob Creek in a paper bag. I pulled it out of the glove compartment and twisted off the cap. My eye followed the angle of the sun as it sliced up the highway. I thought about Wilson and felt the quicksand under my feet. Then I looked down at the bottle. Neat, square, and more than willing to help me dig the hole a little deeper. I shoved it back into the bag. Then I turned off the car and got out.
A middle-aged man was dressed in jeans, a black peacoat, and gloves with no fingers. He had a Sox hat on backward and was looking through the viewfinder of a Canon.
“What are you shooting?” I said. He answered without taking his eye from the camera.
“The fences. They’re taking them down.” The man got his shot and stepped back. “Want to take a look?”
The lens was marvelous, the early morning light saturated with a rosy dust rising off the street. Five men worked along a fence line. Two wore heavy gloves and cut away curlings of concertina wire. The other three rolled up a length of fencing and carried it to a waiting truck. Behind them, a run of bare poles marched across the flat landscape. A soldier with a rifle watched. None of the workers wore NBC suits. The soldier was dressed in full protective gear.
“The regular media is focusing on the main gates,” the man said. “Government started taking them down last night. But I like it here.”
“What have you seen?”
“People going in on foot. Started first thing this morning.”
“Residents?”
The man chuckled as I handed him back the camera. “Real estate. I had coffee with a guy. Irishman named Flynn. Had a paper bag full of hondos. Said he had two hundred on him.”
“Two hundred thousand?”
The man nodded and reached into his camera bag for a lens. “Said he was gonna buy up a couple blocks’ worth of graystones near Garfield Park. Cash on the barrel. Had lists of owners, blank deeds, powers of attorney. Everything he needed.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Tell me about it. Said he could get stuff for next to nothing. Hell, they’ll still be pulling bodies out of the basement, and this guy will be moving in.”
