The Dead Caller from Chicago

Forty

I sat for a time the next morning looking at the painting I’d faked the night before. What had seemed like a smart idea, copying Leo’s farm scene, now seemed destined only to bring more trouble. Even if Cassone didn’t recognize the poor copy right off, he would as soon as he sponged away the water-soluble acrylics and saw there was nothing underneath. Yet any decision to turn over something worth tens of millions wasn’t mine; it was Leo’s, and he wasn’t communicating except with crayons.

At nine thirty, I threw the fake in the back of the Jeep and drove west to Falling Star, feeling not at all optimistic about anything.

A man in a private security uniform, looking as worried as me, stepped out of the guard shack when I pulled up to the gate.

“Dek Elstrom to see Mr. Cassone,” I said.

His face got even more pinched. He stepped back and tugged the door tightly shut, as though I had anthrax on my nose and was about to sneeze. He picked up a phone and spoke for only a second or two. Then, most oddly of all, instead of opening the door to tell me how to proceed, he mimed the number fifteen with his right hand behind the glass-one finger, then five fingers-and pushed a button to raise the gate.

I’ve long enjoyed the belief that possessing big money offers the option of indulging behavioral aberrations that ordinary incomes keep in check. Furthermore, I fear such nuttiness can easily spread to the paid help. The guard’s behavior seemed to go well beyond that. Finger miming was not something any class of grown-ups did. I let the thought recede as I motored in.

Tall arborvitae concealed a set-back eight-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Inside, big-buck brick houses with shake or slate roofs and perfectly manicured evergreens were laid out along gently curving streets. Driveways were filled with Cadillacs and Lexi, Beemers and Benzes, and absolutely no trace of the people who lived behind all the bricks.

Number fifteen was a splendid, rambling multilevel with small windows and a big, four-car attached garage. Framing the front doorway, though, were two huge cement pots filled with cheap plastic daisies. It might have been a whimsical touch: Daisies, like the one he’d lost in a theft. That morning, the whimsy was spoiled by the two sheriff’s cruisers parked on the street.

A deputy waited by the curb. He used the barrel of his automatic to motion me to pull over. It was more compelling than using his hand.

He was alongside the driver’s side window in an instant. “Hands on the steering wheel,” he shouted, then, “Now, slide out real slow.”

I slid out real slow.

He told me to put my hands behind me and snapped handcuffs around my wrists.

“Got time for a quick question?” I asked.

“You’re a person of interest,” he said.

“I’ve always thought so, but in what regard this time?”

“In whatever my superiors are interested in, smart-ass. My job is to encourage you to not run off.”

“Your superiors will be pleased. I feel encouraged. I need to make a call.”

“In due time.”

“Where’s Cassone?”

“Unavailable.”

“Inside?”

“Unavailable.”

“I’ll sit in the car. It’s cold.”

“You’ll stand outside, freezing your ass off, same as me.”

So it went for more minutes than were necessary, until a captain came out of the house and walked up to the officer watching me.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked the cop.

“No, sir.”

“I am,” I offered.

The captain didn’t even look at me.

“I need to make a call,” I said. The Bohemian was the only one who could quickly get a lawyer in between the cops and me.

“In due time,” the captain said.

So it went. I spent another hour stomping my feet to keep warm, yelling my fool head off about making a call.

“No chance,” the freezing cop kept saying.

“I’m entitled to a phone call.”

“After you’re questioned.”

“What’s happened to Cassone?”

“Later.”

“At least let me get back inside my car and run the heater.”

“It’s a Jeep,” he said finally.

I must have looked confused.

“Not a car,” he added.

“It’s certainly not a truck,” I said, ripening for any warming confrontation.

“It’s not a truck,” he said.

By then, I’d deciphered the rhythm of his logic. “Because it’s a Jeep?”

He nodded.

“You’re crazy. You know that?”

He shrugged, accepting. I gave him credit for not succumbing to self-doubt.

Twenty minutes later, incredibly, Jarobi showed up.

He barely acknowledged me as he went in the house. Fifteen minutes later, he came out with the captain, who ordered the deputy to remove my handcuffs.

Jarobi motioned for me to get in the Jeep. “If you don’t stay right behind me, I’ll have squad cars surround you in less than five minutes.”

“What’s going on?”

“We’ll stop, have coffee.”

“What’s going on?”

“Coffee,” he said.