High Chicago

CHAPTER 48

The way Curry told it, Birk had wanted his wife dead from the outset. He didn't love her. He hated the way she spent his money on paintings that made no sense to him, sculptures that looked like scrap. Vases and rugs he could have bought for a tenth of the price. Like many rich men, he was tight with a dollar. He might spend thousands on a Rolex, millions on a private jet, but he begrudged the expenses Joyce piled up.

"Even this home she's in now is peanuts compared to what she used to spend, right, Simon?" Curry sneered.

"He's making it up," Birk insisted. "He's trying to save his own neck."

"You had your chance," I told him. "Let Curry talk."

Curry told us Birk had come up with the idea after seeing a news report on a fraudulent home invasion in Connecticut. He approached Curry with the plan, went over all the security systems with him, lined up buyers for the artwork in Switzerland, Japan and Russia.

"The inside camera, the one in the foyer, was supposed to be disconnected," Curry said. "But I needed insurance, in case Simon tried to pin it on me. I knew he wouldn't hold up if the police brought any heat on him. So I kept it rolling, and it's a fucking beauty. Nice crisp images of Simon taking a tire iron to his beloved wife. And you know what else? Belkin was supposed to do it. I was going to break a couple of Simon's bones and Chuck was going to do his wife. The story would be she resisted, kicked him in the nuts or something, and he lost it on her. But Simon insisted on doing it himself. Didn't you, boss? He took the tire iron and looked her right in the eye. Then whack, whack, whack. Six, seven times in the head. She only saw the first one coming, but what an image to take to your grave. Your own husband doing you in, in the home you made together."

"How did she survive?"

"We thought she was dead. Christ, you could see through her skull right to her brain. And we were running out of time. We had to get Simon cleaned up-he was covered in blood-and we still had to get all the shit out to the van. We were all surprised she made it. The wonders of modern medicine. Personally, I think she would have been better off dead, because she's got no life now. But in her own way, she contributed. As long as I have that recording-and I have plenty of copies-I have a job for life. Simon can't fire me, kill me or say anything to the cops."

"Why worry about that?" I asked. "You have Tom Barnett on your side."

"I wasn't sure Tommy would go along with it. He was a pretty good cop once. Even that thing-the one that got me kicked off the force-he didn't have much to do with that. Lucky for us he needed money to help his kid get off dope. What they charge for rehab programs, he wasn't going to make as a cop."

"You getting all this?" I said to Avi.

"Yes." He looked deathly pale. I guess corporate law didn't prepare you for sordid tales like this one.

I paged Jenn on the walkie-talkie: "Everything cool down there?"

"We're good," she said. "One car stopped here a minute ago but it moved on."

"Okay. We'll be down in five."

I told Birk he could come in off the beam now. He crawled forward until he reached the metal deck.

"What now?" he asked.

"Francis is going to tell us where that tape is. Then we're going to retrieve it. Then we're going to have you charged with the attempted murder of your wife, plus whatever other counts a U.S. attorney can come up with. Even Barnett won't be able to save you this time."

"How do you know that tape even exists? That it's not something Francis made up to put the blame on me?"

"Because he's still alive and working for you. Without it, I don't think that would be the case. Right, Francis?"

Curry nodded.

I called Avi over and asked him for the recorder. I rewound it briefly and hit play. Heard Curry's voice: "… money to help his kid get off dope. What they charge for rehab programs, he wasn't going to make as a cop."

I pressed stop and handed it back to Avi.

"I heard you like to box," I said to Birk, squaring up with him, my hands clenched.

"You're thirty years younger than me."

"Your wife was younger," I said. "And I don't have a tire iron. In fact, I have one pretty useless hand and the other hurts to make a fist."

He kept his hands down at his sides. "Go ahead," he said. "Hit me. Hit me all you want. The worse I look, the more people will believe this so-called confession is bullshit."

I wanted to crush his nose, make him taste his own blood. Break his jaw so he'd have to take meals through a straw for a month. Give him a taste of what his wife had endured when the tire iron had descended on her. But I let my hands drop. "Fuck it," I said. "Let's take them down. Avi, let me have that recorder till we can make copies."

Avi said no. I looked at him, wondering why he'd say that, then stopped wondering. He had an automatic pistol pointed at Dante Ryan. "Lower your gun," he told Ryan. "Or I'll shoot you and Jonah both."

"Avi?" I said.

"Do it now," he said.

Ryan set his weapon gently on the ground. Curry went to pick it up but Avi told him to stay where he was. He stooped to pick up the gun himself, then slipped it into his trench coat pocket. "I'm going to keep it for the time being," he said. "If it's the gun you used on those other people, like Jonah says, it'll make for good insurance."

"What insurance?" Birk said. "We have a deal."

"I know what a deal means to you," Avi said. "The gun and the tape are worth a lot more than you're paying me."

Suddenly it was all clear: how Birk had been aware of my every move since I had arrived in Chicago. It was Avi Stern who had sold me out.

"Your gun, Jonah. Set it down and slide it over to me."

I did as he asked. I watched him pick it up, smiling at me with his even white teeth, wondering what Birk could have offered him to betray me. But there was no way he would have known the connection. Which meant Avi had approached him. Which meant it wasn't the money. He was living well enough legitimately and would certainly have all the money he needed by mid-life. It had to have been something else. Then I recalled the image of him in his den, crying as we watched the Broza concert at Masada. And I had my answer.

Dalia.