FORTY-SIX
Behr stepped out of the station house on King Street where he’d just confirmed his statement, and he could feel the end of summer in the slight evening breeze. The two-day wait had been worth it. He’d gotten what he needed. He moved toward his car, adjusting his gun, which had been returned to him. When he reached the parking lot, he saw that someone awaited him there. It was Pomeroy, alone this time, and in full uniform. Gone were his captain’s bars, in their place the oak clusters of a major.
“A farmer’s combine turned up the rest of Bigby and Schmidt in a cornfield,” Pomeroy said.
Behr bowed his head at the inevitability. “You knew that their murders and Santos and the Schlegel crew were connected,” Behr said.
Pomeroy shrugged.
“How?”
“Flavia Inez was a person of interest. We had her working in one of their houses. Then we lost her, until you turned her up. We had Santos as a player.”
“That wasn’t in the file I got.”
“I said I’d give you the file, I didn’t say I’d give you the file.”
“Dominic told you I was at Santos’s academy that morning. That I was personally connected,” Behr said, unnecessarily.
An imperceptible nod came from Pomeroy. “I knew you’d push, and keep on pushing, and that’s what I… that’s what the department needed.”
Behr absorbed the words in silence.
“This is for you,” Pomeroy said, and handed him an unsealed envelope. Behr glanced inside. It was a money order, in the amount of $9,990. “That’s from the Caro Group.” A higher amount would have triggered bank reporting to the IRS or other paperwork that opened everyone up to scrutiny, Behr supposed. Or perhaps that was how much they figured he was worth.
“Karl Potempa wants to offer you a job with them,” Pomeroy said.
The big firms all liked having a “radioactive” guy around, Behr knew, someone who would go into the gray areas and beyond. Case management meetings were held without this guy, and no one wanted to hear a rundown on what he’d been doing on a file. It was fake smiles around the water cooler and thanks for the results, but no invites to the bar later, and a fall guy if things went badly. The fact was, most big firms would go under without their radioactive guy, but like someone who’d been exposed in a nuclear plant accident, no one really wanted to get close.
“I don’t like wearing suits,” Behr said, thinking of what he really wanted.
Pomeroy shrugged and produced a small black velvet box from his pocket. “This is also for you,” he said, and handed it to Behr, who noticed right away that it was too small to hold a badge. He opened the box, and what was inside sparkled. It was a gold ring, with “IMPD” written in diamonds atop the band. Behr looked at it, then up at Pomeroy.
“What’s this?” Behr asked.
“What you did means a lot, Frank,” Pomeroy said.
Behr nodded, his eyes falling to the ring again.
“Go ahead, put it on,” Pomeroy urged.
Behr took it out of the box and slipped on the ring.
“They don’t generally make ’em that big. Had to be done up custom. Your size was still on file.”
Behr flexed his fingers, unused to the weight.
“You’re a friend to the department is what that signifies,” Pomeroy said, meeting his eyes. “You know what that means?”
Behr nodded. It meant access. Courtesy. All the things he hadn’t had for the last bunch of years. He also knew what it didn’t mean: that he was back on.
“We’d talked about a spot for me,” Behr said, each word costing him something deep inside him he knew he’d never get back.
“You know how we do it: let’s kiss first, see how it goes,” Pomeroy said. A check, a ring, and a handshake. Pomeroy had worked him like a pro. Behr had threatened, entered, hacked, pushed, bribed, hurt, and even killed for him. And for what? A check, a ring, and a handshake. He still didn’t know how much he didn’t know, and suspected he never would.
Behr looked at Pomeroy’s outstretched hand. Then he shook it. He didn’t see another choice.
Behr drove toward home making a mental list of what he’d need for his trip. He’d gotten his gun back. That was good. He had plenty of rounds for it still. He fingered the money order in his front pocket. Now he had cash. He’d bring his computer. He’d need his peephole viewer. Binoculars. His lock-pick set. His jump-stick for opening security chains. A shotgun and shells. Clothes. He had no idea how long he’d be in Chicago. As long as it took, he supposed, to find the three-Bobby B., Tino, and the quiet one.
He pulled up to his place and parked. He got out of the car and was walking toward the steps when he saw motion inside and stopped. Then he saw who it was. Susan was there, moving about in the living room. She spotted him and came outside and down the steps toward him.
“I’m getting my stuff, Frank,” she said, holding up her backpack. The finality of what she was doing, and what he had done, landed on him.
“Susan,” he said, and she stopped across a strip of grass from him.
“Yes?”
He fought to find more words. This time he wasn’t willing to fail. Finally he spoke, his voice raw. “I’ve gone a long time thinking there are mistakes you can make, that afterward, no matter how you live, you can’t make them right.”
Her face changed, and she crossed to him. “If the past guaranteed the future, we’d all be screwed,” she said. She saw the pain in him and must have seen the doubt in his eyes. “It can be different, Frank. It will be. You’ll see…”
“Yeah,” he said.
They stood in silence as the twilight hardened into darkness around them.
“Are you done?” she asked.
He wasn’t sure what else he owed Aurelio, but he was sure what he owed Susan now, and maybe even himself. He didn’t want to go to Chicago anymore. He wasn’t going. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m done,” he answered. She closed her eyes in relief. His hand waved between them. “You want to do this?”
“I do,” she said.
They found themselves in each other’s arms, shaking.
After some time had passed she went back upstairs, and he stayed outside for another moment drinking in the evening air. There it was. On mats in empty studios, in garbage bags dropped in fetid water-filled ditches, in stubbled cornfields, in empty garages, on raw mattresses in stripped houses, in bleak hospitals and out in the streets and beyond is where the dead lay, waiting, to be found, to be tended by the living, to be solved, to be remembered, and finally to be put down to rest. He’d reached an end in himself, and a new start. It was time for him to lay them down, too. He went up the steps toward his place. Susan had paused at the door, and she swung it open wide for him and smiled as he reached her. They stepped inside.
