“Good to start young,” I said.
“And finish that way,” Quirk said.
I shrugged. “Him or me,” I said.
“I know. Tell me what you know,” Quirk said.
We were both leaning against Quirk’s car. Quirk’s arms were folded across his chest, and he was motionless except for the fact that the fingers on his thick right hand tapped gently on his left arm.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s a mishmash, but here it is, all of it.”
I told him everything in sequence from the time Rita had called me about Mary Smith until Hawk and I had come to visit DeRosa.
“You got a theory?” Quirk said.
“No.”
“If you count Nathan Smith,” Quirk said, “and I do, there’s him, the broad from the bank…”
“Amy Peters,” I said.
“… Tyler, DeRosa, the girlfriend, Kevin McGonigle.”
“Six,” I said.
“And all connected to you, one way or another.”
“Charisma,” I said.
“Six murders,” Quirk said. “And somebody threatens to beat you up and somebody hires McGonigle to clip you, and you got no theory?”
“There’s something being covered up,” I said. “And it’s connected to Nathan Smith.”
“Holy mackerel,” Quirk said.
“You asked.”
Quirk nodded. We watched the body bags load into the ME’S van.
“We find out anything, we’ll tell each other,” I said.
“I known you a long time,” Quirk said.
I didn’t comment. Quirk wasn’t really talking to me anyway. A couple of uniforms moved the small crowd out of the way as the ME’S van pushed slowly among them, hauling away the unpleasant remains of DeRosa and his girlfriend.
“And you are a stubborn bastard, and you don’t much give a fuck about how things are supposed to go.”
Quirk was still looking at the van. A uniform stopped traffic. The van turned left onto Southampton Street and moved slowly over the bridge.
“And you’re not as smart as you think you are, and nowhere near as funny,” Quirk said, still watching the van as it disappeared toward downtown. “But you’re on the right side of the fence.”
“How do you know it’s the right side?” I said.
“Same side I’m on,” Quirk said.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
We were in Hawk’s car. It was 10:15 on a bright summer morning when we pulled into the parking lot at Soldiers Field Development Limited. We had no trouble parking. The lot was empty. The front door of the building was locked. There was no sign of movement or light inside.
“B and E?” Hawk said.
“Might as well,” I said. “Practice makes perfect.”
Hawk handed me the flat bar, and in we went. There was no air-conditioning. The building was hot. The furniture was still in place. But no one was using it. We walked down the corridor to the back office where Felton Shawcross had sat. The corridor was dim. There were no lights on. There was a bank of file cabinets across the right wall of Shawcross’s office. I opened a drawer. It was empty. I opened them all. They were empty. Hawk looked in Shawcross’s desk. It was empty. He picked up the phone.
“Dial tone,” he said.
I tried a light switch. The lights went on.
“Didn’t bother to cancel anything,” I said.
We went methodically down the row of offices that lined each side of the long corridor. All of them were empty. All of the files were empty. The only things in the desk drawers were a few Bic pens, some blank paper, some rubber bands, paper clips, staples, and pads of yellow stick ‘em paper to draw smiley faces on.
“Didn’t leave no paper trail,” Hawk said. “Maybe they skipping out on the utility bills.”
“Probably it,” I said.
We had worked our way down the corridor and were standing in the reception area. There was no place else to look.
“On the wall in the men’s room it say for a good time call 555-1212,” Hawk said.
