She touches a fingertip to the bandage on my forehead with an amused smile. “How’s it feel?”
“Like I got hit with a sink.”
“I’m happy to report that the sink escaped the encounter unscathed,” she assures me with exaggerated relief.
As soon as Larose reappears, Maiko bustles over and shoos us toward our freshly prepared private table. It sports a crisp, black plasticized tablecloth, utensils wrapped in designer paper napkins stuffed into a water glass in the center of the table, and a set of salt and pepper shakers in the shape of two swans. A trio of sweating water glasses completes the picture. It’s a good thing Pat and Larose take up about as much lateral space as a pair of broomsticks, I think as Maiko shoehorns us into our seats.
“Three daily specials?” she says with a stubby pencil poised above an order pad.
Pat and I nod. Larose glances at us, shrugs, and says, “Sure.”
Maiko favors him with a motherly smile and departs.
“I take it you two are friends?” Larose asks.
Pat replies, “We worked together on our high school newspaper and have done a little investigative work together lately.”
Larose’s brow furrows when he looks at me. “I thought you were a lawyer?”
“Oh, he is,” Pat says. “Valenti couldn’t cut it as a newspaperman.”
Maiko swoops in with our sandwiches, three unordered glasses of draft beer, and a pile of extra paper napkins. The sandwiches smell great. The beer smells better.
“I, uh, don’t drink,” Larose informs Maiko as she turns to go.
She glances back over her shoulder. “You do today!”
He laughs and nudges his glass across the table until it sits between Pat and me. I get the sense that he’s perpetually entertained by the world around him, as if the absurdity of life is a source of unbridled amusement.
We tuck into our Sour Kraut sandwiches, pausing frequently to grab one of a quickly diminishing supply of paper napkins to wipe our chins. Larose narrates a quick recap of his life and times between bites: private pilot license at eighteen; journalism degree at twenty-three; commercial flying license at twenty-four; three years trying to break into aviation journalism while building up flying hours… “neither of which paid for shit.” He holds up his sandwich, takes a bite, and mutters, “Good stuff!” around a mouthful.
He’s right. Maiko and Brian have managed to slap together yet another bargain-bin gastronomical marvel.
I push my empty paper plate aside and reach for Larose’s untouched beer. “Let’s cut to the chase,” I suggest after drinking off a long draft of brew. “What are we doing here?”
“Did you read the Sun-Times this morning?” he asks.
I nod and lean in closer while we lock eyes. “Did you have anything to do with that?”
His eyes cut to Pat. “Really? You thought that?”
Pat shrugs. “I don’t know what to think, Ben. I don’t know you all that well.”
His tone, which carried an edge when he fired his question at Pat, softens. “True enough, but remember that I called Tony before this morning’s paper came out.”
“Which doesn’t exactly exonerate you,” I point out while tapping my middle finger on the table to punctuate my words. “The story didn’t materialize out of thin air overnight.”
Larose smiles as his eyes turn to Pat. “Ah, he is a lawyer.”
Pat chuckles as a return smile lifts the corners of her lips. “For better or worse, that he is.”
The good humor fades when Larose turns back to me. “Cutting to the chase, then. I started hearing last week about some of what we read this morning. That’s not the type of thing anyone at the NTSB puts out.”
“And?” I prompt.
“I made a couple of calls. My NTSB contacts are pissed. They claim Irving didn’t get her information from them.”
“Law enforcement?”
“My first thought, as well,” Larose mutters with a hint of approval for my insight.
I flip a thumb at Pat. “The thought occurred to her.”
“Sandy Irving,” Pat explains in reference to the Sun-Times reporter after hastily swallowing a bite of sandwich. “She’s tight with the police.”
Larose nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, she is. Here’s the thing, though. My NTSB sources say they haven’t called in the police, at least not to this point.”
I sink back in my seat and blow out a lengthy breath. “Good to know, I suppose.”
“If not the police or the NTSB, who is Sandy Irving talking to?” Pat asks.
“I hoped you might have some ideas,” Larose mutters. “Nothing pisses me off more than some asshole trying to use me to push a false narrative.”
Pat nods sympathetically. I nod as well, but a little guiltily. As a lawyer, I’m well schooled in the art of pushing false narratives. Shame on me. Probably best not to mention that just now.
Larose scowls and continues, “I got a phone call last week from some guy who took great pleasure in identifying himself as an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter.”
Pat laughs softly. “God, don’t you just love asses like that?”
No need to get personal, I think dryly.
Larose snorts. “Give me a normal source instead of some wide-eyed amateur playing Deep Throat to my Woodward and Bernstein.”
I look at the reporters in confusion. Who in hell are we talking about?
Pat seems to intuit my unspoken question. She gives me a sympathetic look and pats my hand. “The source and reporters who broke Watergate,” she informs me while sharing a disbelieving look with Larose.
I’m apparently some sort of news-history ignoramus. Never mind that Watergate happened in the early 1970s, when I was in diapers.
We fall silent. I run the Sun-Times article through my mind while they polish off their sandwiches and push their plates aside, then ponder Irving’s source. I suspect Pat and Larose are doing likewise. I’m first to take a stab at connecting the dots. “Could it be the owners of Windy City Sky Tours trying to get a narrative out there to taint Billy and Rick?”
“Billy and Rick?” Larose
