“No. But I think you believe it already.”
“Look, you going to tell your story or not? Don’t you think if there was something not right that I’d be on the fucking thing like. . . like—What do you know about it, anyway?”
“Not much. Just what was in the papers.”
Washington stubbed the cigarette out on the side of the trash can and then dropped the butt in.
“Hey, Jack, tell your story. Otherwise, do me a big favor and just get the fuck out of here.”
I didn’t need my notes. I told the story with every detail because I knew each one of them. It took a half hour during which Washington smoked two more cigarettes but never asked a question. Each time he kept the cigarette in his mouth, so the smoke curled up and hid his eyes. But I knew. Just like with Wexler. I was confirming something that he had felt inside his guts all along.
“You want Wexler’s number?” I asked at the end. “He’ll tell you everything I just said is legit.”
“No, I’ll get it if I need it.”
“You have any questions?”
“No, not at the moment.” He just stared at me.
“Then what’s next?”
“I’m going to check this out. Where you going to be?”
“The Hyatt down by the river.”
“Okay, I’ll call you.”
“Detective Washington, that’s not good enough.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, I came here to get information, not just to give it and then go back to my room. I want to ask you about Brooks.”
“Look, kid, we didn’t have any kind of deal like that. You came here, you told the story. There was no—”
“Look, don’t patronize me by calling me ‘kid’ like I’m some kind of hick from the sticks. I’ve given you something and I want something back. That’s why I came.”
“I don’t have anything for you now, Jack.”
“That’s bullshit. You can sit there and lie, Larry Legs, but I know you’ve got something. I need it.”
“What, to make a big story that’ll bring the rest of the jackals like you out?”
I was the one who leaned forward this time.
“I told you, this isn’t about a story.”
I leaned back and we both looked at each other. I wanted a cigarette but didn’t have any and I didn’t want to ask him for one. The silence was punctuated when one of the detectives I had seen in the homicide room opened the door and looked in.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Get the fuck out of here, Rezzo,” Washington said. After the door was closed, he said, “Nosy prick. You know what they’re thinking, don’t you? They’re thinking maybe you’re in here coppin’ to doin’ the kid. It’s the year anniversary, you know. Weird things happen. Wait till they hear this story.”
I thought of the photo of the boy in my pocket.
“I went by there on the way over,” I said. “There’s flowers.”
“They’re always there,” Washington said. “The family goes by there all the time.”
I nodded and for the first time felt guilty about taking the photo. I didn’t say anything. I just waited for Washington. He seemed to ease up some. His face became softer, relaxed.
“Look, Jack, I gotta do some checking. And some thinking. If I tell you I’ll call you, I’m gonna call you. Go back to the hotel, get a massage, whatever. I’ll call you one way or the other in a couple hours.”
I nodded reluctantly and he stood up. He held his arm across the table, his right hand out. I shook it.
“Pretty good work. For a reporter, I mean.”
I picked up my computer and left. The squad room was more crowded now and a lot of them watched me go. I guess I had been in there long enough for them to know I wasn’t a crackpot. Outside it was colder and the snow was beginning to come down hard. It took me fifteen minutes to flag down a cab.
On the ride back I asked the driver to swing by Wisconsin and Clark and I jumped out and ran across the snow to the tree. I put the photo of Bobby Smathers back where I’d found it.
12
Larry Legs kept me twisting in the wind the rest of the afternoon. At five I tried calling him but couldn’t locate him at Area Three or Eleven-Twenty-One, as the department’s headquarters was known. The secretary in the homicide office refused to disclose his whereabouts or to page him. At six I was resigned to being blown off when there was a knock on my door. It was him.
“Hey, Jack,” he said without stepping in. “Let’s take a ride.”
Washington had his car parked in the valet lane in the hotel drive-up. On the dash he had placed a Police Business card so there was no problem. We got in and pulled out. He crossed the river and started north on Michigan Avenue. The snow had not abated as far as I could tell and there were drifts along both sides of the road. Many of the cars on the road had a three-inch frosting on their horizontal surfaces. I could see my breath in Washington’s car and the heater was on high.
“Guess you get a lot of snow where you come from, Jack.”
“Yeah.”
He was just making conversation. I was anxious to see what he really had to say but thought it better to wait, to let him tell me at his speed. I could always pull the reporter act and ask questions later.
He turned west on Division and headed away from the lake. The sparkle of the Miracle Mile and the Gold Coast soon disappeared and the buildings began to get a little more seedy and in need of repair and upkeep. I thought maybe we were heading toward the school Bobby Smathers had disappeared from but Washington didn’t say.
It was completely dark now. We went under the El and soon passed a school. Washington pointed at it.
“That’s where the kid went. There’s the yard. Just like that, he was gone.” He snapped his fingers. “I staked it all day yesterday. You know, a year since the disappearance. Just in case something happened or the guy, the doer, came back by.”
“Anything?”
Washington shook his head and dropped into a brooding silence.
But we didn’t stop. If Washington wanted me to see the school, the view had been quick. We kept heading west and eventually came upon a series of brick towers that somehow looked abandoned in some way. I knew what they were. The projects. They were dimly lit monoliths against the blue-black sky. They had assuredly taken on the appearance of those that were housed within. They were cold and despairing, the have-nots of the city skyline.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“You know what this place is?”
“Yeah. I went to school here—I mean in Chicago. Everybody knows Cabrini-Green. What about it?”
“I grew up here. So did Jumpin’ John Brooks.”
Immediately, I thought of the odds. First of just surviving in such a place, next of surviving and then becoming a cop.
“Vertical ghettos, each one of them. Me and John used to say it was the only time when you had to take the elevator up when you were going to hell.”
I just nodded. This was out of my realm completely.
“And that’s only if the elevators were working,” he added.