The Big Score Read online

  His hands and feet were small. Glancing down, Matthias noted expensive-looking oxfords as highly polished as a British guardsman’s boots.

  “Peter!” said Mrs. Symms, pulling Matthias forward. “Look what I’ve found for you! The best architect in Chicago! Christian Curland’s brother!”

  Never in all his life had Matthias thought that the occasion might arise where he’d want to strike a woman. It was the second time that day he had had a violent impulse. It would take a lot of solitary sorting out to determine where that compulsion was coming from. It couldn’t be just that he was back in this big, brawling, violent city.

  “I’m Matthias Curland. I used to be an architect here, years ago.”

  The man’s grip was firm, but careful. The turquoise eyes flickered over Matthias, taking in the casually worn blue blazer, gray flannels, rumpled gray-and-white striped shirt and old navy-blue dotted tie, and then returning to the face, gazing into Matthias’s eyes as directly as he could manage from his lesser height. Matthias felt like an object about to be purchased in a store.

  “Peter Poe,” said the other.

  “You’re the man who’s going to buy the baseball team.”

  “Maybe, maybe. What buildings are yours?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Buildings. You’re an architect. What have you designed?”

  “Nothing of consequence.”

  Sally was standing just behind Matthias. “He won an international prize,” she said.

  “Really?” said Poe. “What for?”

  “An apartment building up by Lincoln Park.”

  Like a ship’s captain moving about his own bridge, Poe went to the window, two other men moving out of his way.

  “Show me,” Poe said.

  “You can’t really see it from here,” Matthias said, going to the man’s side. “The buildings on the drive screen the view. It’s near the zoo. It’s a tapered column with a triangular base—a pyramid, actually, but it’s so elongated you don’t quite notice the incline. There’s a glass curtain wall on the side facing the park.”

  “Kind of green.”

  “A green tint, yes.”

  “I know that building. The Halsman something.”

  “Halsman Tower.”

  “Yeah. Halsman Tower. The guy went belly up, didn’t he? A shopping center or something that got mixed up in the savings and loan thing.”

  “It was a bank, actually. It pulled out of its commitment at the last minute. Because of the savings and loan problem, it got very cautious about money.”

  “Bankers are a pain in the ass.” Poe caught himself. The chairman of one of the Loop’s biggest banks was standing nearby. “I know your building real well. I always wondered who did it. Nobody who ever worked for me could design anything like that.”

  He continued looking out the window, as if he could see Matthias’s building through the other structures.

  “You know, I bought Cabrini Green,” Poe said, turning back to Matthias. He glanced sharply at Bitsie, a dismissal. She caught the signal and began talking briskly to Sally and the others, drawing them away.

  “So I understand,” said Matthias. “What’s going to happen to all those people who live there?”

  “Most of them are out of there. I’ll have them all out by July first. It’s a blessing for them, believe me. A blessing. The city’s got a relocation program for them. Rent subsidies. Some low-rise housing projects on the West Side. They’ll be all right. I take care of people. I’m not like those guys in New York. I don’t give people a hard time.”

  Matthias didn’t know what to say.

  “I own a lot of land around the North Branch of the river there,” Poe continued. “I want to do something big with it.”

  “The high-rise projects at Cabrini,” Matthias said. “They’re not salvageable.”

  “No way. Gotta go. The concrete must be soaked through with urine. And blood. No, I’m clearing the whole area, starting July one.”

  Matthias wanted to ask what he was putting up in the project’s place, but the conversation was beginning to make him nervous. Poe was friendly enough, very much under control, but there was something thuggish about him, something in the set of his shoulders, in the cast of his eyes.

  The tall strawberry blonde came up to Poe quietly and stood at his side. Poe glanced up at her, then put his arm around her, possessively pulling her a little closer.

  “This is my wife, Diandra. This is Matthias Curland. He designs world-famous buildings.”

  “We just met,” Matthias said. Of all the men at the party he would have picked as her husband, Poe would have been the last he’d have guessed. Though perhaps not. They were probably the two most impecably groomed people there. Matthias wondered if Poe was as attentive to the details of her dress as he was to his own, though perhaps it was she who saw to his.

  Poe’s eyes were showing uncertainty—possibly unhappiness.

  “We met just a few minutes ago, in the other room,” Mrs. Poe said. “We were looking at a painting.”

  “My wife loves paintings,” Poe said. “She helps me with my collection.”

  She was staring at Matthias. The three of them stood uncomfortably for a moment, not speaking.

  “Mr. Curland,” said Poe. His voice was full of authority, like a corporate CEO wrapping up a meeting. “I’d like to talk to you some more. Can you come to dinner this week?”

  “This week?”

  “Tomorrow night. Diandra, are we doing anything important tomorrow?”

  “Everything you do is important, Peter.” Her clear, soft, perfectly measured voice had the tiniest edge of sarcasm to it. Matthias wondered if Poe noticed.

  “Whatever we have going, it can wait. Mr. Curland, come to dinner. Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock.”

  He seemed to be giving Matthias no choice. “Well, I am free. Yes. Thank you very much.” Matthias at once wished he could take the words back, but as much as he was repelled and made apprehensive by this man, he was intensely curious.

  “You know my building on Michigan Avenue, Poe Place, the one with the red top?”

  “I can find it.”

  Poe reached forward to shake hands again. “Good. Excuse us now. I better see if the mayor’s here. Need some words with him. You can’t do business in this town without politicians.”

  As they began to move away, Diandra took Matthias’s hand briefly in hers. “Good night, Mr. Curland.” Her touch was cool. Her hands were long and beautiful, just like the rest of her. The vague scent of fresh flowers lingered after she had gone.

  Donald O’Rourke, father of eight, regular at mass, the most important man in his community—a wealthy real estate and insurance broker who had worked his way through the Democratic organization from state representative, to alderman, to ward committeeman, to president of the Chicago Park District—left his large, comfortable home in one of the most prosperous middle-class neighborhoods on the Northwest Side to attend a political meeting. His wife, Mary, was a long-suffering political wife who understood that such meetings, even on Sunday evenings, were as much a fixture of his life as going to the supermarket was of hers. She didn’t ask where the meeting was or what it was about; only when he would return. All he said was “Not too late.”

  There was such a meeting, down at the south end of the ward, and O’Rourke actually went to it, staying less than an hour, making a big show of taking a couple of precinct captains who were with Streets and Sanitation out for some frosty cold ones.

  That’s all he had—one beer, with a couple of shots. He was a big, white-haired, pink-faced Irishman, with a little too much gut and a heart problem that made his doctor nervous. The doctor allowed him a beer or two a day, but would not have approved of the two shots. O’Rourke needed them. He always did when he did this. Liquor got him stirring, kept up his nerve.

  He’d picked up his philandering habit with the bimbos down in Springfield when he’d been in the legislature, and it had proved more addictive th
an beers-and-shots or the three to four packs of cigarettes he had smoked until his doctor had started treating him like a war criminal.

  Venereal disease had worried him a little, and the new AIDS thing a lot, but he always took precautions and nothing had showed up in the frequent physical examinations he now underwent because of his heart. He had long since stopped worrying about the coppers. The license plate on his station wagon bore his ward number and his initials, “DOR.” No beat patrolman or vice dick was going to mess with that. It was a quick way to end up working the midnight watch in Hegwisch, or patrolling the river docks in January.

  If his wife Mary held any suspicions, she’d never even hinted as much, and O’Rourke had never done anything to encourage them, or to provide a private investigator anything to work with—no hotels, no credit cards, no phone calls to escort services, no bimbo on the payroll who might squawk later if she didn’t get a promotion or a raise. Everything in the car. As for the risk of getting rolled and dumped upside-down in a back alley garbage can, well, he didn’t use alleys. He had his own spot, one he’d picked carefully, the same way he picked his girls. And if worse came to worse, he had a .44 Magnum with a four-inch barrel underneath his car seat.

  The summer evening was fully dark now. O’Rourke knew his city, had learned it precinct by precinct, and was as fully informed about the ebb and flow of vice activity on its night streets as a general keeping tabs on enemy troop movements. Old Town was too hot now. Local businesses had complained about an excess of streetwalkers, and the cops were cleaning up. The Clark and Diversey area was too full of weirdos. O’Rourke chose a section of Uptown where the Yuppies with their gentrification had been pushing the junkies and sleazos out, but where a stretch of Broadway was still in business.

  The hellish orange glare of the sodium vapor streetlights illuminated the girls along the sidewalk like packages in a supermarket. He drove by slowly, browsing like a shopper, taking note of the choicer lovelies and sorting them into possibles and forget-its. He took a turn around the block, speeding by the Yuppie townhouses on the side streets, then came up Broadway again, again slowly, making his pick.

  She was tall, with fantastic legs and big knockers. She wore dark glasses and her long blond hair was probably a wig, but he could see she was a real looker, easily the best-looking girl he had seen on the street in a couple of years. She had seen him coming and pushed another girl out of the way to step off the curb as he approached, smiling at him like she was a little kid and he was Santa Claus. He smiled back but kept on going, following his usual procedure of making one more circuit of the block to check for cops or any other sign of trouble.

  There was none. As he approached on his final pass, he saw that the other chippie, a black girl also in a blond wig, was hassling the one with the great legs and tits. There was a quick way to end that. He slammed on the brakes in front of them and nodded for the one in sunglasses to get in. She did so like someone coming in out of a downpour.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t think that lady likes me.”

  “I like you.”

  “You should. It’s not often you find a girl like me on the street.”

  They drove on through an intersection. She looked even more terrific close up. He couldn’t have done better if he had picked up a contestant in a beauty contest.

  “Why is that?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Why are you on this street?”

  She gave him an enormous smile. He had never seen such good teeth on a hooker. “The man who pays the rent on my apartment tossed me out on my ass. I need some money, quick.”

  “How much?”

  She folded her arms beneath her big breasts, pushing them up and almost out of her halter top. “Two.”

  “Two? This isn’t Michigan Avenue.”

  “It doesn’t have to be quick.”

  There was something about her voice. She didn’t sound like a hooker. But then, she didn’t sound like any lady cop he’d ever met, either. It took him another block to figure it out. She didn’t have a Chicago accent. But that was all right. Hookers moved around. She might be someone out of Las Vegas or Miami.

  “I only have time for quick,” he said.

  “Okay. One. I like you. You don’t look like a creep. But it doesn’t have to be too quick.”

  He went on another block, saying nothing.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Are you wearing any underwear?” he said a little uncomfortably.

  “Why?”

  “If you are, take it off.”

  “My panties?”

  “Yes.”

  She studied him. “You think I’m a cop?”

  “I like to be sure of things.”

  “I’m not wearing any panties.” She wriggled in the seat and pulled her skirt up.

  “You sure as hell aren’t.”

  The skirt came quickly down again. “I like to be sure of things, too. Open your fly. I want to see who I’m doing business with.”

  He smiled to himself. No lady cop would expose herself on decoy duty, but many male officers would have no such compunctions. This was Chicago, not Evanston.

  “You do it.”

  She leaned over and unzipped his fly, pulling his penis out gently and rolling it slowly between her hands. It quickly began to swell.

  “Mmmmm,” she said. “I’m going to like doing business with you.”

  It was going to be a good night. O’Rourke turned at the next corner and headed east.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  “I know a place. We can be real discreet.”

  “In the car?”

  “Yeah. In the car. In the back. Plenty of room.”

  “But where? In some alley? Under the ‘El’?”

  He wondered if she had ever worked any street before. Probably just bars and hotels. “I know a place where no one will bother us. In the park.”

  “In the park? It’s full of creeps and muggers.”

  He wanted to see her eyes behind those dark glasses, but he wanted something else a lot more urgently.

  “I own the park,” he said. He laughed. “I’ve got a good place. There’s a fence around it no one can get in. I’ve got a key to the lock.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “I’ve got a room, a nice big, soft bed.”

  “I thought you said you were thrown out?”

  “I was. I’ve got a hotel room. I took it for the weekend. It’s not bad. Not a flop. And it’s near the park.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I get nervous in hotel rooms.”

  “I won’t make you nervous. I’ll make you happy. I’ve got a bottle of Wild Turkey. A bed’s better. I can do more things for you. I can do really great things—in a bed.”

  For a moment, the idea tantalized him. But he’d always stuck to his rule and it had never failed him.

  “We’ll go to the park.”

  They were nearing Lake Shore Drive. She had let go of him. She seemed to be thinking about something, hard.

  “How would you like some company?” she asked.

  “I’ve got company.”

  “I mean another girl. The one who was with me on Broadway. Let’s go back and get her.”

  “What for?”

  “I jumped her turf. They’re not going to make me feel very welcome if I try to work there again.”

  “So work somewhere else.”

  “Come on. I don’t want to get my ass in a jam. Her pimp might be a knife artist or something.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Please? It won’t cost you anything. I’ll cut her in for half of the one. That’s what she works for.”

  “I’m not interested in that girl.”

  “Oh, she’ll make you interested. That lady knows things. Have you ever done a twofer before?”

  He stopped to think. He never had.

  “I’ll put it this way,” she said. “If you don’t go back and get her, you can fucking forget m
e.”

  His erection was so hard it was almost touching the steering wheel. It was getting late.

  “All right,” he said. “You work it out with her.”

  The black girl was surprised to see them return, but simply shrugged when the blonde in sunglasses made the proposition. The second girl hopped in the back. She smelled a little of sweat.

  “We’re going to the park,” said the blonde in sunglasses. “It’s back-to-nature night.”

  Mango Bellini had worked it all out, just the right hotel, a room right off the elevator, paid for in advance with cash, enough benzedrine in the Wild Turkey to give the old bastard’s heart a stiff jolt and make him sick. Then she’d run downstairs, complain to the desk clerk that her John had gone bad on her, and disappear into the night. After that, a quick stop at a pay phone to call 911 for the paramedics, and then a call to the city news bureau with a hot tip. They’d check it out and hit pay dirt. It would be in the morning papers. The chairman of the Park District stricken in a hotel room he’d gone to with a big blond chippie. If he should kick from the bad heart, too bad. Either way, there’d be a big vacancy in the city power structure.

  But the son of a bitch had fucked it all up, and now she was part of a half-assed menage à trois headed for some storage yard in the middle of Lincoln Park. Her idea in picking up the black girl was to get her and O’Rourke having at it in the back of the car while she slipped away and tipped the cops to someone breaking into Park District property.

  She realized now that was stupid. What was she going to do, flag down a squad car? How far would she have to run to get to a phone? Who would see her?

  He had seen her. If they had made it to the hotel room, it would be logical for her to get scared and split if he had an attack, or simply passed out. But if she ran off from the park scene and the cops showed up soon after, he’d know he’d been set up. And he’d sure as hell try to find out why, and by whom.