Disintegration: A Windy City Dark Mystery Read online

  I turn to look at the phone number, and memorize it. At the end of the parking lot is a pay phone. I walk to the car, open the door, and fish a couple of quarters out of the ashtray.

  My head is a vast, empty space. I’m walking, but I don’t feel anything. The rain is a beaded screen blocking my sight, and it beats down on me with no end in sight.

  I lift up the receiver, drop in the quarters, and punch in the digits from the door. It rings. A tingling sensation runs across my spine and I hope I am wrong. I stare at the cops standing on the front porch of the cop shop.

  “This is the Mundelein Police Department, Thirteenth District, Officer Weis calling….”

  Nobody is going to answer, because the number doesn’t go anywhere.

  “…I am so sorry to make you come down here….”

  It’s a dead end.

  “…I may have some information for you….”

  The phone clicks and a Russian voice speaks.

  “Da?”

  My heart stops.

  “Yes? Who is this?”

  I hang up.

  Vlad.

  I stand in the rain, cold and wet. It always comes back to that hawk-nosed asshole.

  The phone rings and I jump. I’m not answering it.

  I walk toward the police station, one more question on the tip of my tongue. When I’m twenty feet away, the cops stop talking. I’m still in the parking lot, but they sense my presence. Both heads are turned to me and their expressions go blank. Their faces are a leather patchwork, alligator skin, mottled and green, their red eyes turned to slits. I shake my head. One puts a hand on the butt of his gun.

  I smile.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen, Officers, quick question for you.”

  I keep smiling, wet, my hair falling into my eyes.

  “Yes?” the one closest to me says, his hand still on the butt of his gun.

  “Is Officer Weis working tonight? He helped me out with something in the past, and I had a couple of questions for him.”

  They look at each other. Long red tongues flick out, sniffing the air.

  The same cop answers me, the other standing very still, watching me.

  “Weis, you say?”

  They look at each other again.

  “Yes, Officer Weis,” I repeat.

  I wrack my brain and I only get a fuzzy picture. To tell them he was a fat, white Irishman, well, that might not go over too well.

  “This station?” he continues.

  “I think so.”

  “No Weis here that I know. You, Joe?”

  “Nope. Got a West. Wallace. No Weis.”

  I stare at them, feeling more and more like a drowning rat on a sinking ship. Their jaws tighten and the color in my face drains away.

  “Ah, maybe I got things confused. Maybe it was Vernon Hills or Libertyville. I wasn’t in very good shape back then.”

  They eyeball me a bit more, slowly nodding their heads.

  “You all right, buddy?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks, guys, I’ll figure it out.”

  “Something we can help you with?” the cop says, taking a step in my direction.

  “No, no…no big deal. Thanks.”

  I turn and walk away before they can say any more. I turn around and their pale white faces shimmer in the wet light. Normal. Their eyes stay on me, tracking me across the parking lot and around the corner of what I thought was the morgue.

  I bend over just out of sight and vomit. Maybe I grabbed the wrong pills?

  I pause for a moment, contemplating the next stop.

  Somebody has answers. It might as well be Holly.

  Chapter 87

  Turns out that Holly didn’t live that far from me, and something about that bugs me. Did she bring me in? Did she suggest me to Vlad?

  Back north on Seymour and a left, across the tiny island that is downtown Mundelein, the rain keeping the sidewalks empty, Flowerama with a flock of pink flamingos staked into the ground. A sculpture of a boy and girl playing with a ball, one of those gazing balls, shiny and blue, and those sculptures always creeped me out. The static movement, their features just a bit too harsh, like they were dipped in plaster while still alive, arms stretched out, asking to be saved.

  Past my old house and farther west to Ivanhoe I go. The houses are larger there. Her company bonus must be bigger than mine. A right turn and up the road, the houses push back farther from the road, spread out, the oak trees older, eighty years and more. Eleven-eleven, make a wish. I pull up to the address, and into the driveway, and sit at the end of a long stretch of black tar. It eases back at a slight incline, a circle drive in front of a stone and brick mini-mansion, front porch ringed with evergreen bushes, the drapes in the windows pulled shut, tight. I take the gun out, replace the bullet I shot, and close it. It feels heavy in my hands, and I sit there, numb, staring at the house. There is no movement, but lights glow a dull yellow behind the heavy drapes.

  The car door opens and in slides Holly, wet, with a gun in her hand, pointed at me.

  “What are you doing here?” she gasps, pulling the door shut behind her.

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “Well, you’re doing a pretty sloppy job of it.”

  I stare at her, the pale salmon blouse clinging to her body, rainwater running down her pale flesh, into her cleavage, nipples poking through the thin fabric, goose bumps across her neck. I still want her, even after all of this, the things I’ve seen.

  Motion in front of me and the curtain parts, a man with dark features and glasses on, and at his waist, the boy, pushing the curtain back farther, wanting to see too, despite his father’s protests. The drapes shut.

  “Nice family.”

  “Go,” she says. “Leave, and I’ll pretend like you were never here.”

  “Vlad knows I’m here.”

  “Tell him I was gone.”

  “Are you going?”

  She pauses.

  “No.”

  “Why not? Why not run?”

  “I’m too tired to run,” she says. “And he said I was done working, free to go.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He sent me out here to kill you, Holly. I saw the tape, the interrogation room, the playground…”

  She flinches.

  “…and, I mean, Jesus.”

  Her teeth chatter.

  “He’s not going to let you go, Holly.”

  She sighs. Her shoulders slump.

  “Goddamnit,” she yells. She pounds the dash with her hand, her tiny fist leaving dent marks in the heavy black vinyl. The tears come, finally, heavy sobs.

  “Why won’t he leave me alone?” she wails.

  I reach out to her and she pushes my hands away.

  “Damnit,” she sniffs, wiping her nose with her sleeve.

  “Can you buy me some time?” she asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Tell him I wasn’t here. The cars were here, tell him you went inside, the luggage was here, but you couldn’t find me. Tell him you don’t think I ran and ask him what to do. Play dumb.”

  I nod my head.

  “Ask him if he wants you to sit on the house. He’ll yell, but he’ll send you back out here. We’ll be gone by then.”

  “Where will you go? What about your husband, the boy, do they know about all of this?”

  “My husband knows a little bit. Not all of it. My son, no, he doesn’t know a thing. I’ll tell him we got new jobs, tell him we won the lottery, I don’t know. He’ll believe anything. I have money.”

  She sighs again. “I thought he’d leave me alone. After all I’ve done for him, I thought…”

  “I know.”

  “I’m an idiot.”

  The car is quiet. She stares at her hands, not moving. Again, the drapes part, just the boy this time, and just as quick, he’s gone.

  “You better go,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “Thanks, Holly.”


  “For what?”

  “The time, for being there. For not putting a bullet in my head.”

  She grabs my face and points it toward her, leans in and holds me for a moment, her jackrabbit heart fluttering in her chest.

  “Go. You need to go,” I say.

  She kisses me, the heat rising up, her tongue into my mouth with a rough thrust, her hands holding my face and I flash on my apartment, her body close, her pale skin beneath me, eyes locked with mine, sweat on her upper lip, legs wrapped around me. She breaks the seal and pushes away.

  “Some things you can’t fake,” she says, and she’s out the door, back into the rain, the hollow thud of it closing, and I see her run toward the house, tucking the gun into the back of her pants.

  I forgot to ask her almost everything that mattered. But maybe it doesn’t. She worked for Vlad, she did things, horrible things, and so did I. Whatever happened to my family, she had nothing to do with it. She was facedown on a nightclub couch, blowing guys for coke, when this all went down. She wasn’t behind anything, but I know who was.

  It’s time to find out if my family is still alive. What I do then, well…I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I start the car and back out. I don’t need to see her reunion. I don’t need to know her husband’s face, or the boy’s laughter.

  Chapter 88

  The drive back is nothing but water, and I don’t remember much of it at all. I’m in shock, uncertain about what comes next. I park the car, walk into the apartment building, and trudge up the steps. I need to talk to Vlad, but I’m not sure how to find him. I mean, I can’t just walk up to his front door and ring the bell. No, I need to keep that to myself.

  I come to my door and it’s slightly ajar. I hear laughter from behind the door. I pull my gun and listen. The door pulls open.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Vlad says. “Come in, come in.”

  The table is filled with glasses, a clear bottle in the center, playing cards scattered across the wooden surface. The two Frankensteins stand up, dull clay faces, the head of the table reserved for me.

  “Sit, sit,” Vlad says.

  He pours me a glass, eyes to his men and with a nod of his head they sit. He raises his glass.

  “Ostrovia,” he says.

  The men grunt an echo and I take a drink. We drain our glasses, and slam them on the table.

  “No problems?” he asks.

  His cellphone rings. It sounds like “She Works Hard for the Money,” by Donna Summer, and I stifle a laugh. He hunches over the phone, a short series of yes and no answers, ending with the word good.

  When he turns around, there is color in his cheeks, a light flush.

  “So Holly, done? Taken care of?”

  “Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  “Yes, I’m all over ears. Speak.”

  “She wasn’t there, you see, I went into the house…”

  I don’t see it coming. It’s a recurring theme. A hard slap across the face and I rocket back in the chair, tipping over, banging my head on the floor. The muscle is on me and has me upright before I can even move, a handprint across my left cheek.

  “Liar!” he screams.

  “No, it’s…”

  “Shut up,” he yells, his nose in my face, two vise clamps on my shoulders, digging in, and I wince.

  “Hold out your left hand,” he says, and walks to the kitchen.

  I don’t move. I’m not holding out my hand.

  They move fast, grabbing my shoulder, my arm, and my hand is slammed flat on the table. I resist, pulling my arm back, and it gets me a shot in the jaw, blood ringing my teeth. I keep on, and a punch in the gut, once, twice and I’m out of air.

  Vlad is back with a cleaver in his hand, a gleam in his eye and spittle flying from his lips.

  “I have great disappointment for you.”

  “Vlad, wait….”

  “No more waiting.”

  “I can go back, I’ll sit on the house, she’ll come back….”

  “No she won’t,” he says.

  I pull at my arm. One goon wraps a meaty biceps around my neck and starts squeezing. The other holds my hand down, stars shooting across my vision, my throat closing.

  “It is like restaurant. Bad manners to not leave a tip.”

  The cleaver comes down and severs the end of my pinkie finger, embedding the blade in the dining room table. Crimson spurts in arcing pumps of blood across the scattered cards. I open my mouth to scream and Vlad stuffs a cloth in it.

  “Get the torch,” he yells.

  I’m holding my left wrist with my right hand, the pain shooting up my arm, sweat running down into my eyes, and the Russian block clicks on a tiny blowtorch, something you might use on, say, a crème brûlée.

  “No, no, no…” I scream, muffled by the cloth.

  The mountain at my arm holds my hand down while the other beast holds the torch up to my pinkie, the flesh burning, a wet sizzle as he holds it closer and closer, the blood cooking, cauterizing the wound. It smells like a bad steakhouse in here, and I feel the bile rise up in the back of my throat.

  “There, done,” Vlad says, like a proud papa.

  The bleeding has stopped, burned to a halt, but the pain in my finger is shimmering up my arm. Vlad opens my mouth to pull out the cloth, and pours the bottle of clear liquor down my throat. I choke and gurgle, swallowing some of it down.

  My eyes turn up to Vlad and he punches me in the face.

  I fall to the floor and whimper, eyes closed tight.

  “Stupid fucker,” Vlad says, slightly out of breath. “I knew you would fail me. I sent the reinforcement, just to be safe.”

  What does he mean?

  “It was an easy shot, even in the rain. Her head exploded like watermelon dropped on sidewalk.”

  Holly.

  “So hard to find good help. Am I right, boys?”

  The men chuckle. My God, Holly. I failed her.

  “I gave you option, simple choice. Now she sleeps with her family. Three shots, instead of one. Pity.”

  He steps over to me, and leans down.

  “Nobody leaves me, except for the earth. Got it, big man? You work for me forever.”

  A hollow blackness spreads across my chest. The boy, her son, he didn’t have to die. I was weak, and now this has happened. I should’ve taken that shot. Everything I touch disintegrates before my eyes. I’m a curse upon the land I tread, an abomination, a scourge. There’s nothing left, and so I embrace it, the emptiness, I fall into the abyss, and become one with its void, the last bit of my humanity spilling out onto the floor.

  Chapter 89

  When I come to, it’s dark out, and I’m lying on the floor. There’s a throbbing at my hand, the pinkie finger, and I remember. There’s a scuttling about, claws tracking over the floor, and a blur of gray dances past my face. My cat. She’s home.

  Playing with the tip of my finger.

  “Luscious, no…”

  She bats it past my head and into the kitchen, and knocks it directly into a hole in the floor by the heater. It’s gone now. It was of no use anyway. Worn out from her bloody little game, she laps at the water, oblivious to my pain and suffering. I push myself up and sit at the table. I pour another glass of the foul, clear liquid, and drink it down. My throat burns, but I keep it down. I’ve developed a tolerance for this gasoline.

  I crawl over to the bed and collapse. There is dried blood up and down my arm, but the finger is no longer bleeding. I paw the pill bottles out of my jacket and toss them on the bed. I manage to squirm out of my jacket and drop it on the floor, catching my finger on a button, screaming out into the night. The cat scatters, and I don’t blame her. She may want to give me a wide berth. I curl up in the fetal position, too exhausted to make the next move, too weary and weak to care.

  My old mantra.

  I just don’t care.

  I’m slipping back down and I’m okay with that. Maybe I never should have climbed ou
t of the hole that I dug. I’m no hero. There’s nothing sacred about what I do. The faces of the dead flicker over my eyes and I try to block them out. As I pass out, one face remains, and it isn’t Vlad, as I expected.

  No, it’s a young girl’s face, with pigtails, her soft eyes glimmering as she pulls the trigger, leaving me shocked and dazed on the sidewalk. I need to see how dark I really am. I need to know if there is anything worth saving. I’ll track her down, and corner her, and make her understand. You don’t poke a feral dog and then sit back and watch it growl.

  Maybe nothing will happen, and I’ll know that I have a limit, that there’s still a shred of decency left in me. Or maybe I’ll see it through, the animal that I am. I don’t know.

  Chapter 90

  I run my finger under warm water at the sink and it stings. It throbs. I bandage my finger, gingerly, and try not to bang it on anything. I fail. Repeatedly.

  I spend the next several nights prowling the local bars and clubs, looking for my little friend. The first night I stand across from the doorway, the apartment she entered, and watch to see if she shows up. No sign. Maybe she doesn’t live there. Maybe it’s a friend instead. I keep my eyes peeled for the rest of her wannabe goth yakuza, but no luck there either. What if they don’t even live here—drifting down from the suburbs to have a little fun once a month? If that’s the case, I’m screwed. I stand and smoke cigarettes, an old habit that I’ve taken up again, waving off the homeless asking for change, ignoring the drunk whores that stumble past asking what time it is, eager to bum a smoke.

  On the third night, I start hitting every bar within spitting distance of the place she tasered me, and spread out from there. I wander through Double Door, Estelle’s, Borderline, with no luck at all. I repeat the circuit, and then call it a night.

  The fourth night, I get lucky. She saunters by in a pink and black plaid skirt over black leggings, combat boots, and a short magenta jacket with white fluff around the collar. Her pigtails give her away.

  I follow her into Estelle’s, and sit down next to her before she can utter a word.

  “Hey, friend,” I mutter as her eyes go wide.

  She stands up and I plant a firm hand on her shoulder and shove her back down. I wrap my arm around her like we’re hugging out an old remembrance.