Hardball

13

THE POLICE HAD CORDONED OFF NAVY PIER. AS MR. Contreras and I showed our invitations at the barricade and were passed through, I couldn’t help thinking of Stateville. It’s true that the cops here treated us with deference since we had the VIP reception tags for people who gave ten thousand or more or who had connections to the campaign, but the barricades, the very idea that we were never far from a police guard, made me tense.

“You okay, doll? You want to ride?” Mr. Contreras looked at me anxiously and pointed to the trolley cars waiting to take guests to the east end of the pier.

I realized I’d come to a halt in the middle of the street. I smiled at him, determined not to ruin his pleasure with my fanciful fears. The evening was soft and warm, with the reflected sunset painting the eastern sky a rosy gray. I took his arm and said I needed the walk.

The pier is a strange, honky-tonk place, a tourist version of what Chicago means: gimcrack souvenirs of our sports teams and of the pier itself, the big Ferris wheel where you slowly rise above the city while listening to ads, the usual high-fat eateries, and the endlessly blaring, pulsing music. Loudspeakers placed on poles every ten feet guarantee that you can never escape the noise.

“Krumas for Illinois” had taken over the pier, with the small donors partying at the west end under the Ferris wheel, and the VIPs a quarter mile east. In a signal of Krumas’s star power, the state’s celebrities were moving around us: the Illinois house speaker, the attorney general, county officials, corporate chiefs, big lawyers, local media luminaries.

You can’t be a player in Chicago without crossing paths with many of the usual suspects. It pleased Mr. Contreras no end to have a number of people come out of the crowd to greet me by name. I saw Murray Ryerson from the Herald-Star, with a carefully fit young woman, and Beth Blacksin, who anchors Global Entertainment’s evening news.

“See, doll? I said you needed to be dressed up. And, look at you, best-looking gal in the place, and everyone knows it.”

I’d worn my mother’s diamond drop earrings and an ankle-length scarlet sundress I’d bought for a wedding last summer. I did it partly to please Mr. Contreras and partly, I confess, to flaunt myself. I wanted my young cousin to see that you could be circling my age and still be sexy. Dominatingly sexy. At that thought I gave an involuntary grimace. I hoped my time with Johnny wasn’t rubbing off on me. How depressing for a feminist to feel the need to dominate anyone, let alone do it with a red dress.

Still, I enjoyed it when my once-upon-a-time husband, a player himself, partner at one of Chicago’s international law firms, gave me a silent whistle in greeting and kept an arm around my bare shoulder a moment too long for his current wife’s peace of mind. When I introduced him and Terry to Mr. Contreras, the old man recognized their names and laughed with pleasure.

“He’s thinking maybe he made a mistake letting you go, cookie,” he whispered audibly as we moved on.

“Not when he remembers how I’ve treated some of his important clients.” I laughed, too, though, happy at the attention.

Mr. Contreras was jaunty in his one good suit. His battle medals and ribbons attracted their own attention from men like my brief husband, who had carefully constructed their lives to avoid any public service, especially the kind where other people shot at you. Now too old to serve, they had a wistful longing that they, too, could brag of their military heroics.

At the east end of the pier, we showed our VIP tags again and got admitted into the grand ballroom. The outsize space with its star-studded ceiling had been designed back in 1916 with this kind of event in mind. A band, lost in one of the alcoves, was playing a rumba, the music barely audible above the hubbub of the crowd. White-jacketed waiters offered us little snacks, members of the legislature and the governor’s entourage huddled with lobbyists and lawyers, PR staff and journalists kept firing camera strobes at obligingly grinning guests, and, near each entrance, city cops stood at grim attention.

We were handed Brian Krumas lapel pins by a twenty-something volunteer when we entered, and, everywhere we turned, Brian’s smile gleamed at us, tacked to tables, chairs, the support columns in the room. Topping it all was a floor-to-ceiling portrait of the candidate with his slogan, KRUMAS FOR A CHANGE IN ILLINOIS. He was flanked by the president of the United States, the governor of Illinois, and the mayor of Chicago.

We were working our way to the drinks table when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Arnold Coleman, my old boss at the county criminal courts. He’d been a political flunky who made sure not to step on the toes of a powerful state’s attorney, and he’d been given his reward: a state appellate judgeship.

“Vic! Good to see you have time to turn out for young Brian, even if a judicial campaign is beneath you.”

“Judge Coleman, congratulations on your election.” I had turned down my invitation to a fundraiser for Coleman’s campaign-Illinois treats its judiciary like any other commodity for sale-and Arnie clearly had kept a list of friends and foes. Another Illinois tradition.

“You keeping your nose clean, Vic?” the judge asked genially.

“Wipe it twice a day, Judge, on my sleeve, just like we used to do at Twenty-sixth and California… Judge Coleman, this is Mr. Contreras.”

My old boss gave a fake laugh and turned back to his own party, ignoring my neighbor’s outstretched hand.

“Cookie, that’s no way to talk to a judge,” Mr. Contreras scolded.

“I don’t know. From what I hear from my old pals at the bar association, justice in Coleman’s court isn’t just blind, she’s deaf and lame, too. The only one of the five senses she has left is touch, to feel how big the bills you’re pressing into Coleman’s hand are.”

“That’s terrible what you’re saying. It can’t be true. People wouldn’t stand for it.”

My mouth twisted in an involuntary grimace. “When I was with the PD, Coleman and the state’s attorney-Karl Swevel, it was then-fell over each other to see who could line up the most support for the local Dems. Who we defended and how we did it, that took a far distant backseat to licking local asses. Nobody minded then, and nobody seems to care much now.”

I saw that my neighbor was looking seriously aggrieved-as much at my choice of words as what I was saying-and patted his arm consolingly. “Let’s find the kid. We need to prove to her that we showed up.”

We worked our way through the press of people until we stumbled on Petra near one of the bars. She was talking to an assorted collection of lobbyists and legislators, who all had the round shiny faces of people who’ve spent too many years with their heads in the public trough.

Petra squealed with delight and flung her arms around Mr. Contreras. “Uncle Sal, you made it! Look at you with all your decorations! And, Vic, you’re so splendiferous! I wondered for a second who Uncle Sal’s gorgeous date was.”

She gave a peal of laughter, and the group she’d been talking to, jaded old party hacks though they were, joined in. Mr. Contreras brightened instantly. Petra herself was wearing a chiffon flower-child dress over shimmery tights. In her spiky heels, she towered over almost everyone around her, including me.

“I have to find the senator, I mean Mr. Krumas-I keep forgetting we have to elect him first!-I know he’ll want a picture with Uncle Sal,” she explained to her group, adding to Mr. Contreras, “I’m going to take you to Uncle Harvey’s table so I know just where to find you.”

She linked her arm through Mr. Contreras’s and started to steer him through the crowd. I followed meekly in their wake. Twenty-three years old and she was already a pro, tapping shoulders, laughing, stooping to hear what an old woman with a hearing aid was shouting up at her.

About a dozen numbered tables, festooned with red, white, and blue balloons and giant RESERVED signs, stood near the band and a podium. Pretty soon, we’d get to hear a bunch of soul-stirring rhetoric. The tables were set aside for the people who had really come through for Krumas. According to the program, they cost a hundred fifty grand, fifteen grand a chair. Which just proves that adage about real-estate prices being all about location; the chairs were the same metal folding kind you can pick up at any church rummage sale.

The seats would fill when the speeches started. Right now, only a handful were taken. Petra took Mr. Contreras over to Table 1, right in front of the podium. Jolenta Krumas, the candidate’s mother, was sitting with a small knot of older women who were all talking at the same time. Two younger women sat across from them. I recognized Jolenta from the newspaper photos of Brian with his family. I think the younger women were a sister and sister-in-law, but they weren’t as striking as Jolenta. Her thick dark hair, well streaked with gray, was swept back from her face with a couple of diamond butterflies. At sixty-something, her posture was still perfect. She was intent on what the woman to her left was saying, but she looked up with a good- humored smile when Petra bent down.

“Aunt Jolenta! This is Salvatore Contreras. He’s, like, my newest honorary uncle, and I know the senator-to-be would adore meeting him and having his picture taken!”

Jolenta Krumas, glancing from Petra to the row of polished medals on Mr. Contreras’s suit, gave a wry smile. “You are doing a splendid job, darling. I’ll make sure Harvey tells your papa the next time they talk. And so, Salvatore, is Petra exhausting you? Come, sit down, rest! Brian will be along in a while. He’s in back with some of Harvey’s friends. Now that he’s running for office, I’m lucky if I see him at Mass on Sunday mornings. This fundraiser is our first meal together in months!”

Petra turned around and saw me behind her. She made a grimace of mock contrition. “Oh, Aunt Jolenta, I’m sorry, I forgot to introduce my real cousin, Vic, Victoria. She’s Uncle Sal’s upstairs neighbor. She’s a detective. Vic, this is the senator’s mom.”

“Senator-to-be, dear, senator-to-be, we all hope. The election’s a long way off. Let’s not jinx it, okay?”

She patted Petra’s hand, then indicated a chair near her for Mr. Contreras. Everyone swarming nearby stared at him, trying to figure out what he’d done to get a seat near power. I picked up a glass of wine from the Krumas table. As I moved toward an exit, I heard a woman say to her partner, “Oh, that’s Brian’s grandfather. The guy behind me just told me that.” I laughed a little. So stories start.

I moved away from the building and walked to the east edge of the pier, remote from the pounding loudspeakers and the endless preening conversations. See and be seen, see and be seen.

I stared down at the ripples that gleamed on the black water. The pier was awash with money tonight, with everyone hoping some would drift their way. Or at least some glamour or a tiny snippet of power.

Like my old boss. I hadn’t thought about Arnie Coleman for a long time, but he was the main reason I’d left the criminal courts. If you had a high-profile case that State’s Attorney Karl Swevel wanted to ram through, you were supposed to put on the brakes when it came to questioning the cops or finding witnesses who might support your client. I’d ignored the directive once, and Coleman told me then that if it happened again I’d be on report to the state bar’s ethics committee.

My dad had died six months earlier. My husband had just left me for Terry Felliti. I felt unbearably alone and scared. I could lose my license to practice law and then what would I do? The next morning I handed in my resignation. I went around to the private criminal defense lawyers and starting doing odd jobs for them. And one thing led to another, and I became a PI.

I started to feel cold in my backless dress. When I returned to the melee, the band was playing a martial medley. The candidate and his inner circle had appeared. Krumas was working his way through a wildly cheering crowd, shaking hands here, kissing a woman there-always choosing a woman hovering on the fringes of a group, never the most striking in the knot he was passing through.

He was, as Petra said, extraordinarily beautiful in person. You wanted to lean over and stroke that thick head of hair. And, even at a distance, his smile seemed to say, You and I, we have a rendezvous with destiny.

I craned my head to see if Mr. Contreras had been allowed to stay at Table 1. I finally saw him, looking a little forlorn, squeezed between Brian’s sister, or maybe sister-in-law, and a stocky young man who was talking across my neighbor to another man on Mr. Contreras’s left. I threaded my way to his side, prepared to rescue him, if that’s what he wanted, or to stay on the sidelines until he was ready to leave.

Harvey Krumas appeared from some place in the crowd and stood behind his wife, with a small fist of cronies in attendance. I recognized the head of the Fort Dearborn Trust but none of the others, although a stocky Asian man was probably head of a Singapore company in which Krumas had a large stake.

The candidate’s father was in his late sixties, with a thick head of curly gray hair and a square face that was starting to give way to jowls. When he saw me near Mr. Contreras, he bent to ask his wife about me. His heavy face eased into a smile, and he beckoned to me. It was only when I crossed to his side of the table that I realized Arnie Coleman was part of the group around him.

“Little Petra’s talked about you-her big cousin, Vic, the detective. You’re Tony’s girl, right? Tony Warshawski was the staid and steady guy on the street,” he explained to his friends. “Bailed me and Peter out more than once, back when we were wilder than we can afford to be these days. Bet you don’t know that old Gage Park neighborhood, do you, Vic? Not much to detect there these days, except a boatload of poverty and crime a pretty gal like you shouldn’t touch.”

“Warshawski used to work for me in the PD’s Office, Harvey,” Arnie Coleman said. “She was always getting her hands dirty up to her nose.”

Krumas was surprised to have Coleman turn his party chitchat into something so venomous, and I was astonished, too. Who knew his animosity ran as deep as that after all this time?

“We had a pretty rough crew as clients, Mr. Krumas,” I said. “People like Johnny ‘the Hammer’ Merton. I don’t know if you remember him from the roaring sixties, but I guess he was quite a figure on the South Side in his day.”

“Merton?” Krumas frowned. “Name rings a bell, but I can’t…”

“Head of a street gang, Harvey,” Coleman said. “You probably saw his name in the papers when we finally got him locked up good and proper. After Vic here kept him loose for too many more years.”

“Is that the man you went to see yesterday?” Petra had popped up next to Krumas. “Vic drove out to the prison to visit him, and he’s, like, covered with snakes or something, didn’t you say?”

“Tattoos,” I explained to a startled Harvey.

“You haven’t taken up the baton again for Merton, have you, Vic? He’s locked up for a reason. No maverick investigator is going to come up with any evidence that will overturn his convictions.” Coleman announced.

“Oh, she’s not trying to get him out of jail,” Petra said. “She’s just working on a case that goes back to when you and Daddy lived in Gage Park, Uncle Harvey, some guy who went missing in a snowstorm or something. I made her drive me down to see the house Daddy lived in, and I couldn’t believe it! Like, it would totally fit into our basement in Overland Park.”

“A guy who went missing in a snowstorm?” Krumas was bewildered.

“The big snow of ’sixty-seven,” I explained, wondering at my cousin’s capacity for burbling forth disjoint news. I looked at Coleman and added, just to be malicious, “Black guy, a friend of Johnny Merton’s. They were protecting Dr. King from the rioters in Marquette Park in ’sixty-six. Were you already with the PD then, Judge? Did you make sure those good boys who threw bricks and stuff got acquitted?”

“That’s when this city began to go to hell,” Coleman growled. “If your father was with the cops, he probably told you that.”

“Meaning what, Judge?” I could feel my eyes glittering.

“Meaning men ordered to turn on their neighbors, on decent churchgoers, trying to protect their families.”

“Are you referring to Dr. King?” I asked. “If I remember correctly, he was a churchgoer-”

“That’s enough!” Jolenta Krumas turned to look at us. “This is Brian’s big night. I don’t want a lot of sniping and backbiting to interfere with it.”

“Jolenta’s the boss.” Harvey crossed his arms over his wife’s shoulders. “And she’s right as always. Vic, good to meet Tony’s girl. I can’t believe you’ve been stirring up the South Side all these years, and we never met. Don’t be a stranger from now on.”

The words were pleasant, but they were a definite dismissal. Coleman smirked as I retreated to Mr. Contreras’s side, while he got to stay next to power and glory. A moment later, though, the candidate appeared. Brian kissed his mother, embraced his father, and then was taken by Petra to meet Mr. Contreras. She was flanked by the campaign’s PR staff, and it was my side of the table, not Arnie’s, that Beth Blacksin’s Global Entertainment cameras began shooting.