The elevator spit us out on the seventh floor. We passed a table stacked high with cut flowers, and made our way to the second set of elevators. McGlade pressed the number 36.
'Nice hotel.' He tapped the marble-inlaid floor with his shoe. 'Reminds me of a HoJo I stayed at in Jersey.'
When the elevator stopped, we found the room without difficulty.
'Mr. Rohmer! Chicago Police Department. Open up. We have a warrant.'
No answer.
'Mr. Rohmer! Open the door, sir!'
Nothing.
'I'll get a manager.' Harry trotted off. I continued knocking for another five minutes, before a desk clerk came over, smiling nervously.
'We'd like to keep this as quiet as possible, so as not to disturb the other guests.'
'Sure. Just open up.'
He opened it. I went in first, gun in hand. The room was dark, but I noticed two things immediately.
First, the television was on, playing the kind of movie that men watch when they're alone.
Second, Mr. Rohmer was on top of the bed, naked and grasping his veal. He was also quite dead.
'You could try mouth-to-mouth,' Harry suggested. 'He'd probably like that.'
I might have tried, too, but I'd been around enough corpses to know he'd been dead for at least an hour.
Harry shook his head. 'And they say pornography is harmless.'
I turned off the TV, cursing bad luck, fate, and timing in the same breath.
'Oh, dear.' The manager made worried mother-hen noises. 'We can't let this get out.'
'It'll make a good headline.' Harry put his arm around the clerk's shoulders. 'Crooked Department of Corrections Employee Wanks Himself to Death at Four Seasons.'
'Oh, dear.'
'At least he died happy.'
I called it in, then flipped on the lights and spent ten minutes tearing the room apart. I found a few grand in cash, and nothing else.
'Get anything?' I asked McGlade.
'Just an almost new bottle of baby oil.'
'No tape?'
'No tape. It's not here, unless he's hiding it in a body cavity. I'll roll him over if you wanna check.'
I rubbed my eyes. Cops came, and paramedics.
'Probably a heart attack or a stroke,' said a uniform.
'More like a lot of strokes,' Harry said.
My cell rang. I went into the hallway to answer.
'Daniels.'
'Lieutenant? This is Gary Pludenza, Derrick Rushlo's lawyer. Derrick would like to talk.'
'I won't testify!' Rushlo screamed in the background.
'We need him to testify, Mr. Pludenza.'
'He won't do it, but I think he might be able to help you anyway. Can you come here?'
'Where are you?'
He gave me his address, a house in the suburb of Naperville.
'How soon can you get here?'
'Gimme an hour.'
I hung up, heading for the elevator. McGlade nipped at my heels.
'You're still going to sign the permission form, right? Jackie? I'll be by in a couple of days, okay? Sorry this didn't work out for you--'
The elevator doors closed, saving me from further pestering.
I took Delaware to Congress, and hopped on 290 heading west. Rush hour was in full effect, and the stop- and-go traffic was a perfect setting for inducing a panic attack. My heart rate doubled, my palms became slick, and I chewed on the inside of my cheek while my brain kept sending me still pictures, like a slide show, of every mistake I'd ever made over my whole life.
By the time I made it to Naperville, I was a wreck.
Pludenza's house reeked of money. It sat in a cul-de-sac in a ritzy development, two stories high with four alabaster Doric columns supporting the roof overhang. The doorbell was hooked up to real bells.
