Terry took down his sets one after another, and getting close to done with the bench, he considered the squat rack and whether he should bang out a few. He rolled up his sweatpants and checked his leg. A fat bruise, purple and black, spread over his quad. Maybe he should wait another few days.
The boys. Shit, that thought was enough to take the starch out of him on its own. Raising three wild men, as he had, that was a tricky proposition. It had driven Vicky half to three-quarters crazy already, and they weren’t done yet. You try and look after ’em, shield ’em from the outside elements, he said to her, but they need their exposure too, in order not to turn out like all the other soft pukes around in this day and age. He rolled down the pant leg and loaded the curl bar for skull-crushers.
Kenny, the baby, with his black spiky hair and wiseass grin, would be in high school for another year-that is if he ever made it to class. Not that he seemed in any hurry to graduate on account of all the trim he wheeled out of there. The place was basically a poontang depot for the kid to dip into every week or so when it was time to refresh his stocks. Vicky had pretty much worn herself out yelling at Kenny about his skipping classes. Terry hadn’t gone in for that. Land war in Asia, was what he’d said to her on more than one occasion when she tried to enlist his help on the matter, just something unwinnable you don’t wanna engage in.
Then there was Deanie, the middle man, twenty years old already and always in need of a haircut, and Charlie, his big boy, more fair haired, like his mother, cock diesel at twenty-two, quiet and serious. Time was flying. Hell if it seemed they had any immediate plans to move out again. Why should they? They’d tried it when Deanie had graduated a few years back. They’d gotten a two-bedroom dung hole and filled it with secondhand furniture and beer parties before they realized there was a little thing called “rent,” and it wasn’t interested in waiting for hangovers to wear off before being paid. Terry’d had to go have a little chat with their landlord before the Ukrainian son of a bitch went and got the marshal involved with the eviction, so it turned out to be a short-term experiment for the boys.
Now? Room and board, butler and maid, butter and bread. The boys were pretty teed up, of this there was no doubt. Not that you’d know it from the funk Dean was walking around in. These bitches’ll drive you crazy if you let ’em, he’d told Dean-o a thousand times. But did Dean listen? Nope, he just kept moping around the house. And Charlie, the gang boss, he was strong as a Mack truck, even though he didn’t train much and just stayed in his room most days working the phone and laying plans for god knows what.
Terry didn’t mind. Truth was, he liked having them around where he could keep track of ’em. They were damn good boys. That’s why he was working so hard to build them a business. They were loyal to him, and they stuck together, even in the shit. Everyone knew the Schlegels were thick on the street and if you messed with one of them, you messed with them all. They kept him young and on fire too, the scrappy bastards. They forced him to stay lean and mean and one step ahead of them. Especially mean. That was his biggest edge these days.
He lay down on the bench and began pressing the curl bar up from his forehead, feeling the burn in his triceps, when the door to the main bay swung open, admitting a hot breeze along with the sound of pneumatic wrenches. He saw the upside-down image of Knute the Newt Bohgen filling the door frame.
“Look at you there, ripe for a tea-bagging,” Knute said.
“Try it, motherfucker,” Terry grunted between reps. “See what happens.”
“Don’t tease me.” Knute smiled. He found a stool and lit a cigarette.
“Open a window. Shit. I’m getting healthy, you’re taking me in the other direction.”
“Sorry.” Knute waved at the smoke and cracked the window a little, blowing out a drag.
“You could pick up a weight some time, you know. Wouldn’t kill you,” Terry said.
“Never know. It might,” Knute said. He sucked down another hit and fired his cigarette out the window.
“Probably would.” Terry dropped the bar with a crash. They slapped hands. “You hear something from Financial Gary?” Terry asked.
“Like you said, I didn’t come here for the workout…” Knute bumped his eyebrows and wiggled the partial he had standing in for the front teeth that went missing in a bar brawl long ago.
“And?” Terry asked, appraising his longtime partner. Knute was two years older than he, half a foot shorter, and forty pounds lighter, which would have made him a super lightweight. He had a droopy mustache and a pink scar on his cheek from his time in ISP in Michigan City, which was where the state sent you to disappear. Up there every trip out of the cell was a chance to get shanked, every visit to the yard an opportunity to be opened up. But Knute hadn’t died. Three years in, and now three months back. Those were long, lonely, unproductive years, for them both. A real shit time. But they were getting things back on track. They’d been real eager beavers since Knute’s return.
Knute took a scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Terry, who looked it over. It had figures written all over it in no particular order, including one fat number that was double stroked and circled in felt pen.
“This?” Terry glanced up. Knute nodded. “Every month?”
“Yeah, but we have to have ’em all good and organized and under control. Not piecemeal. No holdouts. Not just the near Northside, but far Eastside and all the way through Speedway, too. Lot more heavy lifting to go-”
“As discussed. We’re on our way. We’ll have ’em all by winter, wrapped and ready to present to our buyer,” Terry said. He ripped up the scrap, wadded it, and tossed it in the garbage can. “Couple a bandy-bellied pirates gonna carve out a fortune is what we are…” Terry smiled. But Knute looked nervous.
ELEVEN
Behr arrived at the McCarty Street building that housed the coroner’s office and parked. He grabbed the paper bag holding what he’d had to drive around to three stores to find-a box of Lindt truffle chocolates and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red-and entered the building. It had become a routine between Behr and Jean Gannon over the years he’d known her. On her birthday, and Christmas, and whenever he needed a little access, he’d drop by and they would share a drink and a talk. At first it was just the whiskey, but then he’d seen the candies on her desk one time and added them in, too. His name was at the front desk and he was allowed back to where Jean worked. The smell of formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde and other chemicals hung in the chill air.
“The candy man can,” he said, entering and waving the bag in front of him.
Jean looked up from her work. She’d put on weight since he’d last seen her and the glow of her computer screen was finding the lines on her face. Divorce wasn’t treating her too well, but then it usually didn’t.
“Frankie,” she said.
“Doctor…” Behr smiled, opening his arms.
Jean pushed away her keyboard and came around the desk. She skipped the hug for a squeeze of Behr’s forearm and grabbed the sack out of his hand. She glanced inside, then bunched the top of the bag and put it in her desk drawer.
“My spare tire thanks you,” she said.
“I’ll bring you a spirulina muffin next time, you want.”
“That’d be great. Better still would be if there is no next time.” Her tone was harsh, but they shared a smile and she waved him out of the office toward the exam rooms.
“I never asked you, why Johnnie Red?” Behr wondered as they went.
“Because I can’t afford Blue.”
“Course.”
“Nah, that’s not why. Way back when Greg and I were buying our first house we had this Chinese Realtor. At the closing, he gave us a bottle of it, because after a transaction the Chinese are supposed to give something red for luck. Been drinking it ever since.” They walked down a long corridor and Behr couldn’t tell if it was actually getting colder as they went or if it was his imagination.
“So you’re trying to stay lucky.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” she said.
They passed a tall, middle-aged man who nodded to Jean but didn’t give Behr a second glance, and then they entered one of the cutting rooms.
It was colder inside. Laid out on a slab beneath harsh surgical lights was Aurelio’s body. The thing that had
