police reports, first, to confirm that Franco and Lew had a run-in with Stavros and Dimitri on the Dan Ryan Expressway and second to confirm that Santoro and Aponte-Cruz had been questioned by the police.
Little Duke closed his leather-bound notebook and put it back in his pocket.
“We’ve got Aponte-Cruz,” he said. “No weapon. The appointment book was missing from Santoro’s desk.”
Lew knew where this was going.
“Yes.”
Little Duke looked at Lew, his eyes unblinking.
“Want some advice?” Little Duke asked. “Don’t talk religion with a Baptist and don’t try to stare down a violent crimes detective.”
“I wasn’t,” said Lew.
“He wasn’t,” said Franco. “He stares like that a lot.”
“I do?” asked Lew.
“You do, Lewie.”
“You have it?” asked Little Duke patiently.
Lew had witnessed that same patience the last time he had seen Little Duke Dupree. Lew had been trying to find a possible witness in a fraud case. Little Duke had accompanied him to a house not far from where they were now sitting.
Two young men, black, stood in their way. One of the young men wore a black sleeveless shirt with a white thunderbolt on the front. He had the body of a weight lifter, the tattoos of an ex-con and the attitude of a drug dealer.
Little Duke had been patient. Word was that Little Duke’s wife had left him after being there too many times when he had been patient. Word was she was now dead. Lew had heard the word. When it was clear that patience and reason were not going to move the two men from the doorway, Little Duke’s gun had suddenly appeared. He had slammed the butt into the face of both young men, who were unprepared for the instant change in the policeman from a Father O’Mally to Jack Bauer.
Little Duke had broken both of their noses and wiped the bloody handle of his gun on the thunderbolt T-shirt of the man who was kneeling and holding both hands to his face to slow down the bleeding. Little Duke had stepped past them. Lew had followed. They found the witness, a pregnant girl no more than sixteen, in a second-floor apartment.
In the booth at the Tender, Franco looked at Lew, waiting for an answer to the question Lew couldn’t remember. Franco’s left cheek was bulging with donut. Then Lew remembered.
“Do I have what?” Lew said.
Little Duke looked very patient. He held out his hand palm up. There was a thick gold band on one of his fingers. Lew reached into his back pocket and came up with Santoro’s appointment book. He handed it to Little Duke, who tapped the edge of the notebook on the table and opened it.
“He didn’t have any appointments until ten,” Lew said. “We were gone by then.”
“You didn’t have an appointment?”
“No.”
“So what were you doing there?”
“He was looking for me,” said Lew.
“Why?” asked Little Duke.
Franco’s eyes moved back and forth between the detective and his brother-in-law, amazed at Lew’s sleight of hand.
“Hey,” said Franco, “we didn’t kill him-”
“What’s in the book?” asked Little Duke, ignoring Franco.
“Dinner and bar appointments with Bernard Aponte-Cruz,” Lew said. “Appointments with people, dinners, addresses and phone numbers of theaters, friends, restaurants, bars…”
“Gay bars,” said Little Duke, sitting back.
“I didn’t check-” Lew began.
“I will, but we found enough from Santoro’s apartment town house to figure it out.”
Franco wiped his chocolate fingers on a napkin.
“Hey,” said Franco. “Let’s say Santoro wanted to break out of the relationship. Right. Aponte-Cruz is a hit man, right? People who hire him who are not exactly sympathetic to alternative lifestyles, right? Santoro threatens to expose him and-”
Little Duke looked at Lew and said, “Bernard Aponte-Cruz was not a hit man. He was the security guard at the door of the Chelsea.”
“The disco place,” said Franco.
“Disco is as dead as Santoro,” said Little Duke. “The Chelsea’s the right-now hot spot, painful music, kids looking for drugs or sex they won’t find. Gays of both genders looking for sex which they will find, and Bernard Aponte-Cruz at the gate.”
“Aponte-Cruz and Claude Santoro were queer with each other,” said Franco. “I mean they were lovers or something?”
“Yes,” said Little Duke.
“Him and his brother-in-Law? Okay,” tried Franco, rubbing his lower lip with a thick finger and coming up with, “Aponte-Cruz threatened to expose that Santoro was gay and-”
“Exposure wouldn’t mean much to Santoro,” said Little Duke, looking out the window. “In this city, inside the Loop, it might bring him more business. Outside the Loop, a successful good-looking guy like Santoro, it would make him very popular.”
Three men in their late teens or twenties saw him and hurried by.
“Okay,” said Franco. “So Aponte-Cruz killed Santoro? You just go pick him up, right?”
“Aponte-Cruz is dead,” Lew said.
Little Duke drank some coffee and nodded.
“Right. Aponte-Cruz was shot about four hours ago in his apartment,” said Little Duke. “No gun found. Bullets are 9 mm. Odds are it’s the same gun that was used on Santoro.”
“Why?” asked Franco.
Lew looked down and then met Little Duke’s eyes.
“Maybe someone didn’t want Santoro to talk to me. Maybe someone who was responsible for my wife’s death.”
“Possible,” said Little Duke.
“Why are you on Santoro’s case?” Lew asked. “It’s not your district.”
“I asked for the case,” said Little Duke. “People downtown behind desks owe me favors. I called one in. Claude Santoro was my wife’s brother, her only brother. We’ll forget about where I got this,” Little Duke said, tapping the appointment book inside his pocket. “One condition. You find anything, let me know.”
Little Duke, got up from the booth and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table.
“Thanks,” Franco said.
Little Duke, eyes still on Lew, nodded, walked to the door and went outside. The chatter level at the other booths and tables became louder.
“You palmed the appointment book in Santoro’s office,” said Franco.
“Yeah.”
“We’re partners, Lewis.”
“I thought you’d be better off not knowing,” said Lew. “You could say you never saw the appointment book, and you’d mean it.”
“Lewis,” Franco said, shaking his head. “We’re family, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve gotta trust me a little here,” Franco said. “You know?”
“I know,” said Lew.
The limping waiter came to the booth, pocketed the twenty and asked if they were finished.
“Cops pay for their food here?” asked Franco.
