Disintegration: A Windy City Dark Mystery Read online

  They were still alive, his family.

  “Whatever the Russian did, he had me over a barrel. Maybe he staged the accident for me, and only me. Maybe my family thought I left, that I had died in an accident, or run off with some whore. I don’t know. No way to get to them anyway, and if I disappear, he’ll kill them all. I have to figure it out. In the meantime, I keep working.”

  I stare at him, numb.

  He stands up and wipes his eyes, face flushed, embarrassed at his weakness.

  “Stand up,” he says.

  I stand up.

  “Punch me in the face.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m supposed to be on an assignment. I need some time. I have to figure some things out. I’ll tell him the guy got away, but I’m on it. So punch me in the face.”

  I look at the man, and take a breath. I make a fist.

  By the time he leaves my apartment his eye is swollen shut, his ribs are bruised, and my knuckles sting. I sit down in the chair and have no sensation in my limbs, chest cold and empty. I am deflated, shot, my head filled with molasses and I can’t feel my heart beat any more. I can’t dare consider it. I saw the bodies, I was right behind them.

  But what did I really see, the night of the accident, and later, at the morgue?

  What did I really hear?

  Chapter 68

  The package sits there, a thick white envelope and I don’t want to open it now. But I do.

  She didn’t run far enough fast enough, it seems.

  There’s a photo of Holly, several photos. She’s walking through a kitchen with a tray in her hands. She’s walking through a living room with drinks in her hands. She’s kneeling in a garden planting some tulips. She’s walking to the mailbox, stepping out of a car, shooting baskets with a young boy, who must be her son. He looks to be about ten years old, and the father joins them, graying at the temples, they laugh and roughhouse and in the last shot she’s bending over to pick up a newspaper, and her eyes are looking forward, directly at the camera, she’s staring into the lens and she must know.

  There is one last photo, zooming far into the garage, to a shelf high up on the wall. There’s a large metal box sitting there and it has a lock on it. It’s open wide, and bolted to the wall inside it are several guns—a shotgun, a rifle, stacks of ammunition, and sticking out of the back of her jeans is her handgun. She’s holed up someplace. She’s either run back to where she was before, worked out a deal with Vlad to leave her alone, or she’s moved on to someplace else, fast.

  I think the former.

  I think a part of Holly likes the danger, likes fucking strange men, likes holding a gun in her hand, deciding the fate of the culprit before her.

  There’s a note in with the pictures, but it’s short. Looks like Vlad’s handwriting to me. She didn’t run that far, it seems:

  1111 Edington Lane

  Mundelein, IL

  Your call: end it, or we will.

  And we won’t do it nice.

  The family is up to you.

  Chapter 69

  I’m not ready for this. And to say I need a drink is beside the point. I stand in front of the refrigerator and twist off the cap, fling it toward the trash can, and guzzle the beer down. The fridge is full of beer, overflowing, and I guess Vlad knew I’d have trouble with this.

  There’s a scratching at the back door, so I go let the cat in. She eyes me as she wanders in, shaking off a bit of the damp snow, and turns her back on me, toward the cat food, and soon I hear her teeth crunching away.

  This is going to require more meditation than I can handle straight. I’m at a turning point, a tipping point, and I have no idea which way to lean. I’m not that attached to Holly, this faux girlfriend of mine, this late night siren song, lulling me to sleep. And yet, I am. I’ve been vulnerable in front of her, the only woman to really see me since my wife and children died. Were killed, I mean. The others, I was a ghost, a skeletal frame of bones and sweat, a distraction for a night, barely something to cling to in the dark, a blank canvas on which to project whoever it was that they actually desired—an old boyfriend or ex-husband, the one that got away, the one bartending down at the corner with eyes for everyone else, the one that took her out for wine but could never close the deal. I was a way station, a stopping-off point, to fill up and get off and move on.

  It’s still daylight out, so I open another beer and head for the medicine cabinet. I need to consult a muse. I need to see what beast lurks beneath this weak exterior. I need to talk to Isadora. Maybe she’ll slap some sense in me.

  Chapter 70

  When I look up from the dining room table, the room is dark, but light skitters across the wall forming patterns, words in a sketchy handwriting, laser tracings from the outside lights, headlights and streetlamps, refracting off of the falling snow, the drapes drifting back and forth from the heat pushing out of the pipes. I’ve taken three happy pills now, but I’m far from happy. I fear that I cannot speak. I see a pair of green eyes glaring back at me from my bed. She hates me now, she thinks I’m leaving, and she may not be wrong. I may not come back this time, and she knows it. Not from tonight’s adventure, to the Innertown Pub, although that could always happen too, but from the trip to Mundelein to see Holly. She should have run, Holly. And she should have realized that a roll in the hay was not enough to buy my forgiveness. Or my silence. I try to remember her file, to bring those pictures back into my sight, but they’re blurry. I want to believe them now, to think that she’s as bad as, or worse than, anybody else that I’ve taken out.

  Somewhere there’s a file on me, no doubt. And it must be a thick packet, that one. But what if I’m misinformed, what if I’ve been fooled all along? What if the pedophile was simply a property owner that Vlad wanted out of the way? What if Cammie was simply an ex-girlfriend, somebody who broke his heart? What if Damon was just a drug dealer, a dime-a-dozen, stepping on Vlad’s territory, infringing on his block? And what if it’s simply Vlad who is the impaler, the one stepping on toes, usurping his competition? Am I just the muscle after all? The meat? The cleaner?

  Chapter 71

  Tonight it’s all backward, and nothing is going as planned.

  I make my way back to the Innertown Pub, hoping to find Isadora. The obvious thing would be to go to her house, but I don’t want to be that intrusive. I want her to come to me—in my suspended state of animation, I want her to appear at my side. I’m not logical, but emotional, and it’s probably a mistake.

  I sit on the same stool, another bottle in front of me, a full shot of bourbon, and when I look up at the bartender he’s glaring at me, arms crossed. When I look at him the second time he turns away.

  I drink the beer and the place is pretty empty, a game of pool going, some darts in the back, and two lesbians at a table by the front, one with a shaved head and sleeveless shirt, combat boots and a snarl, the other with long blond hair and ample curves, lipstick, and a tight, dark skirt. The dyke is more of a man than me, and when I look at her I shiver with cold. My arms feel like alabaster and my legs are numb all the way down. I finish the bourbon in an attempt to warm up and signal the bartender back.

  Reluctantly, he wanders over.

  “You’re not going to puke again, are you?”

  “What?”

  “Throw up? Not going to do it?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Nobody else was in there, just you, bubba.”

  I lick my lips and there’s the faint remnant of something sour.

  “Jesus, man, I’m sorry. Must have been something I ate.”

  He eyes me with a clenched jaw, arms crossed.

  “What say I make it up to you?” I ask, pulling out a twenty.

  He stands still, unimpressed. I look down at my bankroll, and it’s rather thick. I pause to consider a knock on a door, a long conversation with Guy about time travel, the collective unconscious, the behavior of certain monkeys on an island off the coast of Japan, and him peeling off half of his g
reen. Retainer, he called it. I can hardly retain my water.

  Twenty more hits the counter. He waits. Twenty more. He squints. Twenty more.

  “Forgiven,” he says, snatching them off the bar.

  He sets a beer down with a bourbon chaser.

  “Do something stupid again, and you’re out,” he says.

  “Hey, before you go,” I slur. “The girl, from the other night.”

  “Isadora?” he says.

  “You seen her?”

  “Not since that night,” he says. A grin appears.

  “She come in here often?”

  “Not often enough, if you ask me,” he says.

  He wanders away and I see the mirror behind the bar, lines of bottles reflecting the light, and I hear bells ringing, the clink of glass, the door opening, more bells, two slobs in hooded sweatshirts and jeans. I look down. I’m wearing a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. They stumble past the lesbians.

  “Evening, ladies,” they say, nodding.

  They find their way back to the pool table.

  The blonde catches my eye and there’s a sparkle at her ear, a large diamond, flashing, twinkling, and she gives me a coy grin. She runs her hand through her hair and winks. She licks her lips and shifts in her seat. She bends over to get something out of her purse, her shirt riding up, her skirt pulling tight, and I’m sure she’s not wearing any underwear.

  I blink my eyes and the dyke is standing in front of me.

  “Hey, miss,” I croak.

  Maybe I imagined all of that, the blonde.

  “You got a problem?” she says.

  “Many.”

  “My girlfriend says you’re making lewd gestures at her.”

  “What? No, she was winking at me!”

  She turns around to look at the blonde, who is crying into a tissue, honking her nose. She doesn’t look flirtatious in the least.

  “You’re an asshole,” she says, picking up my beer and pouring it over my head.

  “Hey,” I say.

  By the time I get the beer wiped up, dry off my face, and look up, they’re gone. The bartender has nothing to do but glare at me.

  “That’s two strikes, big tipper,” he says.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say. “Another please?”

  I drop another twenty on the bar and head to the bathroom. I open the door and a blonde is sitting on the toilet. She’s got a syringe out and is shooting it into her arm.

  “You mind?”

  I close the door and step out. I turn around and one of the hooded sweatshirts is standing there.

  “My girlfriend in there?” he asks.

  “She blond, like to shoot smack?”

  “What the fuck did you say?”

  The girl comes out of the bathroom, crying, holding an empty syringe in her hand.

  “This jerk tried to sell me this, and you know how hard I’m trying to get clean, baby….”

  My mouth opens, the tiny red mark on her arm glowing like a cigarette tip.

  “…So I emptied it in the toilet, and told him to get lost, but he—”

  I know what’s coming and I can’t even move. The sweatshirt wrinkles his upper lip and pops me in the gut. I vomit all over the both of them.

  Chapter 72

  Not my night, I think to myself. I’m partially covered in vomit, my wound is leaking, and the ass-hat in the sweatshirt got in another shot and split my lip. The bartender threw me out, and I’m wet from landing faceup in the snow. I head toward Isadora’s hoping that I can salvage something from this night. I turn the corner and there are cop cars, two of them, right about where we left the homeless man.

  Shit.

  The lights flash around and around, four cops standing there, an ambulance behind them, one of them wandering this way. I duck down the same alley the homeless man came out of and hope it goes through. It looks like it runs all the way down to Chicago Avenue. I lurch along glancing over my shoulder, looking guilty as sin. Looking back up the alley, I see the cop stop and turn.

  “Hey,” he yells. “You.”

  I start running. I know where I want to go, but I can’t go directly there. I hang a left and jump a small fence running between two apartment buildings. I fling open a gate and come through the other side. I hear the engine of a revved-up police car, the one from the other night, most likely. Spotlights are banking off the blue vinyl siding, and I take a hard right down the sidewalk. I dash across the alley and the cop is facing the other way, flashlight shining down the alley. I sprint up Damen to the front of Isadora’s, the cops farther up the block. I hope too far to see me. Up the steps I go, jumping them two at a time. I can’t pound on the door—it will make too much noise. I find a bell and ring it.

  The house is dark, all of it. I don’t have a good feeling.

  I ring and ring, nothing happening, and a squad car cruises by, heading north on Damen. I flatten myself up against the door as the spotlight shines up and down the street. They slow to a crawl two houses south, making their way toward me. A light clicks on behind me and the door creaks open. I push in, shoving the woman back and closing the door behind me. I turn around and she’s wearing a sage-green silk robe, her long black hair tied in a braid.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asks, eyes wide.

  “Where’s Isadora?”

  “She’s not here, I’m not sure where she is, or when she’ll be back.”

  It’s not the girl I know, this woman is older. A man’s voice booms down from upstairs.

  “Vot is the noise?”

  I know that voice.

  “Don’t scream,” I say. “I’m a friend of your husband’s. But don’t tell him I was here. There are cops outside looking for somebody, so just be careful.”

  I glance down the hall. No pictures of naked women. I turn my head to peer into the living room, the hardwood floors still familiar. In the center of the room there is a black leather sectional couch and an Eames lounge chair. A huge plasma screen is bolted to the wall, but no handcuffs or whips are lying around. Whatever Isadora did to the house when she was using it, it’s back to Wicker Park chic—framed pop art on the wall, leaning toward the dark and obscure; vases on end tables with shimmering gold finishes; and a large shiny lamp with three long stalks hanging over the furniture, the silver globes like distended eyeballs glowing dull yellow—a plush rug in brick red running underneath it all. The only evidence of dark deeds and foul play is an AK-47 leaned against the wall.

  I’ll take my chances with the cops.

  “Dosvedanya.”

  Before she can say anything, I’m out the door. The cops have moved on, the lights gone. I duck down the back alley, eyes peeled for flashlights and the long-reaching spotlights of the cop cars. My mind reels and nothing makes sense.

  I stop and bend over, and vomit again.

  My head hurts.

  If Vlad has several hired guns like me, then maybe he won’t know who it was.

  I think I’m heading to the suburbs.

  Chapter 73

  My apartment has turned into a post office. There’s another envelope on the floor when I push the door open, out of breath, Vlad’s voice still echoing in my head. Wasn’t me, nope, I was here at home, just sitting at home petting my cat like a damn Austin Powers villain, waiting for my next assignment. Wasn’t me at your door, startling your wife, or whoever the hell that was, Isadora, who seems to have a twin, or a sister, or a friend with a good makeup artist. It certainly wasn’t me bleeding on your floor and screwing in your bed, blood on the sheets, with a pale damsel who likes it rough. Must have been one of the other killers on the payroll.

  Sitting on the dining room table, curiously out of place, is a small television set, with a built-in VCR, and an orange extension cord running off into the dark corners of the room. That’s new.

  The minions have been out tonight, running up and down streets, delivering mail in the snow, dropping off television sets in the middle of the night, breaking legs and scaring drug dealers. B
ut they’re a clean bunch, not a drop of snow or slush on the hardwood floors, and this gives me pause. Either they’re a considerate group, these massive men who held me down as a branding iron seared my flesh, or they’re anal-retentive, cleaning up after themselves, unable to leave a trace behind, paranoid that they’ll imprint a boot in the ice or dirt, something for the authorities to find when they finally come here to identify my body.

  There’s another option. It’s an inside job. I turn to my left and stare at the wall that Guy and I share. There’s the faint sound of a television set, a low mumble, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor. I hear footsteps, heavy legs, and a door closes. Water runs, and a solitary sob, muffled under the sound of a toilet flushing now. Or I could be wrong. I’ll deal with him later.

  I tear open the envelope and I’m not surprised. It’s a picture of my associate. Tall, dark, and ugly—falling apart one day at a time, one death at a time, whatever is left of his fractured shell, chipping and flaking, falling to the ground, turning to dust under his own heavy boot steps. A golem. And I’m just like him. On the back of the photo is very little information, just an address and one word:

  2128 West Schiller #2F

  TERMINATION

  I make a mental note to never let Vlad take my picture.

  I turn to the small TV and the Post-it note in the center of the screen says PLAY. Thanks, Vlad. I turn the set on and the tape starts up at once.

  A small man in a hood sits at a table, a tall bottle of clear liquid next to him, nearly empty, a glass next to it, full. There’s very little sound, the hiss of the screen, the scrape of a chair being pushed across the floor. There are eyeholes cut in the hood, and a gap for his mouth. He raises a small glass to his lips, black leather gloves on, and takes a sip, coughs gently, and sips again. From offscreen a hand reaches in and smacks him upside the head, jostling the liquid onto the table. He makes no noise, but turns his head to the right, staring at his abuser. No appearance from Vlad tonight, it seems, nothing that can lead back to him.