The Confessors' Club

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‘I’m here merely to shift your gears; I get that,’ he said after we’d driven a dozen miles in silence. ‘You’re sure you’ll be able to drive the little Ford?’

‘It’s got an automatic transmission. No shifting.’

I repeated what I’d outlined quickly in front of the clinic while we waited for Amanda. ‘Total turnaround time will be less than twelve hours, most of it in darkness.’

‘Except the last few, when I cart you back to the ski resort in broad daylight.’

‘We alibi each other. We went out to hunt up doughnuts.’

‘What about cell tower pings? I saw on TV that cell phones can place people at a site of perpetration.’

‘Perpetration?’ I asked. ‘That’s a stretch of a word, even for you.’

‘Don’t obfuscate. You didn’t think of that little detail, did you?’

‘I’ve only got tonight to perpetrate.’ I told him where I wanted to be picked up so we wouldn’t have to use our phones and risk being identified as perpetrators. Still, he handed his over and I removed the batteries from both our phones.

He reached to rattle the key in the Jeep’s ashtray. ‘This time, remember to leave the key on the floor,’ he said.

I took it out and put it in my pocket. ‘I hope I’ll feel it was a good thing I didn’t, the last time,’ I said.

‘How did Canty get in after you’d been there?’

‘Or Delray?’

‘Or Delray,’ he agreed.

‘They must have used Lamm’s key,’ I think I mumbled, before I fell asleep.

Five hours later, Leo tapped my neck. Thanks to the lingering meds, I’d slept all the way down to Chicago. He’d stopped around the corner from Second Securities. I grabbed the yellow gloves from the back, planted my crutches on the asphalt, and slid out of the Jeep.

‘Wondering about surveillance cameras?’ he asked.

‘I have to risk them,’ I said, pulling my knit hat low and tugging up the collar on my pea coat. ‘Krantz will probably have his search warrant later this morning.’

I slipped on the gloves and started down the short half-block to Milwaukee Avenue. I hobbled more than I walked, and scraped along more than I hobbled. Ligaments in both legs were torn, and it would be some time before I got the hang of the crutches.

The middle of the block was dark, and I kept my head down as I unlocked the door, but I didn’t imagine Krantz would have any difficulty identifying me from surveillance photos, if any were being taken. Men on crutches aren’t often out in the middle of the night.

The scent of the glitter girl’s cheap perfume and spearmint gum had gone; the place now smelled only of the stench I’d set free when I’d cut through the dead man’s plastic shroud. I locked the door behind me and dropped the key to the floor. I wouldn’t be going out that way.

I went through the door I’d splintered and into the garage. The smell of death was so thick it stuck to the back of my throat like rotten paste. I pushed what was left of the door closed behind me.

I needed a fast, clear look. I switched on the overhead fluorescents. The car sat in the center of the garage, rank and dented, exactly as I’d left it. I switched off the lights, crutch-walked across the garage to the overhead door’s power switch and raised the door. Moonlight flooded into the garage.

I hobbled back to the car, slipped in, twisted the key I’d left in the ignition and backed out into the alley.

I wanted badly to speed away; a corpse was rotting in ripped plastic just three feet from my head. But an open door would draw cops too soon, and I was clutching at the faint hope that time would dissipate the smell before Krantz showed up with his search warrants. I got out, reached in to push the door button, got back in the car and drove to the end of the alley.

Leo was waiting around the corner, as we’d agreed. He must have been crazed with worry as he followed me deeper into the city. I was driving the Carson kill car, with someone else’s body in the trunk.

He stayed well back when I turned off and parked on a side street in a run-down neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. It was the middle of the night but I knew there were a hundred eyes on me, and him. It couldn’t be helped. What I was doing was done often enough, on those blocks. I shut off the engine and left the key in the ignition. Leo shot forward, I got in, and he drove us west to the tollway north to Wisconsin.

He told me to unzip my side curtain as he did the same. I’d brought the stink of the death in that small Ford with me. After a few minutes I started shivering, from the cold and from worry that I’d left some trace of my DNA behind.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asked.

‘My DNA.’

‘I’ve always worried about that, too,’ he said.