Chicago Stories: West of Western (4 page)

“I will, and thanks, my friend,” she said, laughing as she disconnected. Old friends were the best friends. At least she'd be able to sleep tonight.

The
Maalon came as promised and Seraphy moved in the day the windows were installed, spreading her sleeping bag over a mattress on the floor. She had a roof over head, water in the bathroom, and the glossy black Egyptian Revival radiators along the outside walls were nicely warm. Bare walls and floor, piles of boxes, bits of furniture and unassembled bed, at last she was home.

With her shelter in place, her stomach growled for attention. Ten p.m., she'd forgotten to eat since morning, and there was nothing in the loft but a couple bottles of water and three empty taco chip bags. Pizza, then, she'd call one of the places on Western.

“Sorry, no deliveries west of Western. You want carry-out?”

“You're kidding.” Rockwell was only two blocks west of Western.

“No. Look, lady, you want the pizza or not?”

“Yeah. I'll be there in, what? About forty-five minutes, okay?”

Bummer. She'd never lived in a neighborhood without pizza delivery. Where the hell were her clean jeans?

On
the way home with the pizza, sausage and oregano scented the Jeep with promises she could taste and she was trying not to drool as she swung into the alley. Her headlights washed across the garage door, an unfamiliar splash of color jumped out at her, and instinct brought her foot down on the brake. The brakes grabbed, the Jeep dipped and snapped her forward. Peering through the windshield, she took a moment to understand what the unexpected color meant.

“What the hell?”

Gleaming black when she left to get the pizza an hour ago, the garage door now flaunted a crude mural. A woman's naked body, the paint still wet, sprawled across the bottom of the garage door. Huge, crudely rendered, glaring white, obscene. Crimson splotches marked her breasts and crotch. Above her, three life-sized black-robed assassins loomed against a blood-red sky, clutching bloody knives that dripped red onto the white body below. Seraphy's stomach clenched and she tasted bile in her throat. Crude as the figures were, she had no doubt whom the naked woman was meant to depict.

Maybe the bastards were still around. Fight or flight? Hell with flight, she wanted to rub their noses in the paint before she strangled them. Seeing no one, she rolled her window down to listen. Small sounds—clothes rustling? a foot scratching on pavement? seemed to hint at a lurker nearby, yet when she slid out of the car and held her breath, she heard nothing more than the usual distant traffic. Maybe there was a trace of cigarette smoke, someone nearby, maybe across the alley?

When the odor had dissipated and still nothing moved in the shadows, she pulled the Jeep into the garage, brought the door down, and sat with her forehead on the steering wheel, secure in her building, but shaken by the venom that oozed from the image. So the windows hadn't been a one-off bit of teenage vandalism. This image wasn't some adolescent prank, she could feel real hatred ooze from every inch. Somehow she'd made an enemy, an enemy who threatened to kill her. Or at least scare her away?

Right. Give up her home? Not in her lifetime. Seraphy got out of the car, opened the bottom drawer in her workbench, considered the Glock, but strapped on the stiletto she found there. The bastards thought they could scare her off? Like that was going to happen.

Chapter 3

First light, Saturday,
her first full day in her new home. A beautiful late November day, sunny and crisp, and Seraphy was back at the garage door, the cappuccino in her right hand sending feelers of fragrant steam into the chill dawn air, her mind steaming along with it. Dreams of hooded assassins had kept her company through the night, now she drew on the city's early morning calm to concentrate her mind and analyze the obscene image. Around her the city lay quiet, gathering strength to cope with Monday's stampede to the Loop. She checked the alley. Empty. None of her neighbors seemed to be up yet, good.

However crudely rendered, the woman was obviously intended to depict her—spiky black hair, white skin—while the three hooded figures were generic assassins and the painting signed only with gang signs. Whatever, she thought, absentmindedly sucking up froth and caffeine and ignoring the anger smoldering under her analytic brain. The vandals were in for a big surprise if they thought she could be scared off by a few broken windows and a painting. Narrowed to silver slivers, her normally blue eyes lingered over details of the painting, the hair on her arms rose and she tasted blood when she bit the inside of her cheek. A last swallow of coffee washed the blood down.

Love was a bitch and now she was vulnerable. Love at first sight had deepened with each tuck-pointed brick, scrubbed bathroom tile and varnished floor board, and now she and her home were one. Architects work on many buildings, but this one was different; this one spoke to her, as much a part of her as her arm or leg, and she couldn't abandon herself. Ten years in a war zone hadn't seen her as jumpy as this. Hell, she had had no dog in that race, just the need and desire to follow orders and stay alive. This was different.

She gazed down the alley, pushing her emotions to the side and concentrating on details. Black city garbage toters, filthy mattresses, a broken Big Wheel. An adventurous squirrel. Watch the squirrel. Cool it, Pelligrini. So what if the bastards splashed a little paint around, that's no reason to over-react. Anger is good fuel for a fight, maybe later.

Okay. Right. She shook her head, took a deep breath, and turned back to the door with a plan. No painting yet. Leave the door as-is. They'd be back, and she'd have video cameras aimed and ready, set to record every stroke. She grinned at the thought. Cops love video evidence.

Back
upstairs, she was charged for action and her kitchen (refrigerator, espresso machine and hotplate) begged for attention. Boxes and bags littered the floor, and her furniture (unassembled bed rescued from her mother's back room and two iffy director's chairs) formed a pile at the head of the stairs. First she dragged bed parts and mattress back to the back room for assembly. No more sleeping on the floor. Bolt parts together, mattress on bed, pillows, sheets, duvet. Bedroom, check.

At the kitchen end of the loft, she screwed legs on a salvaged door to make a kitchen table for her espresso machine and hot plate, then unfolded director's chairs, found plates, stainless flatware, salt and pepper. Kitchen and dining room, check.

With the pile of furnishings depleted, admiring the shining floors and newly tuck-pointed bricks, she found herself suddenly overwhelmed by a longing for things she had never desired before. A set of All-Clad pans hanging from a rack, she had never had a whole set of pans that matched. Clever little tools with racks to hang them from. A Swiffer for the floors, and a lambs-wool duster. Oriental carpets. Egyptian cotton sheets and thick towels and matching bathmat. Once set free, her newly-discovered needs multiplied like politicians in November. A fat down duvet, feather pillows . . . her eyes sparkled. Real furniture, not too much. Maybe a leather couch, with pillows, a real dining table and chairs, a rug or two . . . . No one had warned the tomboy ex-Marine about Nesting Instinct and House Lust.

Half-way down the stairs to the garage reality struck. Shit. Not much left in her checking account, less in savings. Huh. Maybe just a few things now, more when she got paid Friday? Conservative with her money until now, she hesitated, then shook her head and ran down the rest of the stairs. This was about home. Her Visa wasn't quite tapped out, and she needed the video cameras anyway. There was always American Express. Linens and Things on Clybourne? Renovation Hardware, that was the place. Then maybe a quick run out to Ikea?

Returning
home with her Visa account maxed out, her Amex card worn thin, and the Jeep stuffed like Imelda Marcos’ shoe closet, Seraphy spied a familiar car at the curb and slowed. Boxes piled in front of her door, and her brother was sitting in his car? Damn. She wasn't ready for company. With the neighborhood iffy, she'd intended to have her place complete before she let any of her family see it. What the hell? More boxes? Summoning a smile, she waved at Tony through the windshield and pulled around into the garage.

“My first visitor. How do you like my place?” she asked when she had come through the garage and opened the front door. After the bricks and the garage door, she needed her family’s support. She grabbed her twin and wrapped all five foot seven, one hundred forty pounds of him in him in a hug.

“Lemme go, Fee, I can't breathe.” He brushed past her, started for the iron stairs, and turned on the first step. “You got a death wish or something, living over here? Drug-O-Mat on the corner, Witches of Endor across the street? You're not that poor! The place creeps me out! I waited for you in the car. With the doors locked.”

“Come off it.” He might as well have slapped her face. She closed the door carefully and took a breath before she turned back to face him, now waiting on the stairs. “I bet nobody even talked to you, much less threatened you while you were waiting outside,” she said, putting as much scorn as she could in her voice. “Jesus, and you think you're going to live in New York?” Thank God he hadn't seen the garage door.

“Didn't have to, I got eyes. You don't know anything about New York.” Tony turned back to the stairs.

“What's in the boxes?” she asked his back.

“Your crap from the back closet. Mom said they'd been there since you enlisted, back when Jesus was a Boy Scout.” He stopped and waited for her, but she couldn't move. Over ten years ago. Joe's stuff, their stuff. Shit. She pulled herself together. “True, they've been there awhile. I don't even remember what's in them,” she said. Liar.

Her twin looked good, all shaggy dark hair and day-old beard, his jeans and sweater spotless, on the verge of disintegration and smelling faintly of Clorox and soap. Familiar and satisfying. She pointed to the boxes. “You take up what you brought and I'll get the stuff from the car.”

“Mom
never said you were squatting. I thought you rehabbed the place.” Tony dropped the last of the boxes at the top of the stairs and surveyed the loft.

“So I've got a few things to finish. Couldn't get a mortgage because of the zoning and had to pay cash for the building. That and the basic rehab cleaned me out. It's just finishing and I'll get it later.”

“Finishing?” Tony glanced around, his left eyebrow raised. “In your spare time? Right. I can see that. Interesting décor, especially those clever bags of mortar and the fun plastic sheeting. Original. Minimalist. Where's the kitchen?”

“Here.” She dropped the last bag on the door/table. “As you said, minimalist. Sit and I'll fix lunch.” Fortunately for Tony, one of her stops that morning had been Whole Foods. A whole herb-roasted chicken, baguette, Greek salad, sesame noodles, oranges and bananas, Arizona iced tea. She bought enough to last her until she got paid. Or until Tony had lunch. He was watching her arrange the food like a hungry owl hovering over a field mouse.

“Okay, so the place has promise,” Tony admitted, when he stopped grazing to breathe. “Up here on the inside, anyway. Probably could be the bomb if you ever get it done. Of course, that's if you don't get killed first.” Stuffing three Oreos in his mouth, he talked through the crumbs. “Why the hell and gone over here west of Western? You're way too close to Humboldt Park. You know what they say.”

“Oh God.
Et tu
, Tony?” She snatched the rest of the cookies away and stashed them on top of the refrigerator. “I don't care what ‘they’ say. I've lived in far worse places, and I bought the building, not the neighborhood.” Her voice was too loud. “You can't judge by media crap,” she said, trying for a reasonable tone. “People live here, kids play in the street, women go shopping, and they're not dead yet.” Hell. She sounded defensive, like a bratty kid. Tony just looked at her.

“Bucktown and Lincoln Square are west of Western,” she squirmed on her director's chair. “Lots of young professionals are moving here, and artists. It's getting better.” Shit. When she tried to defend her home, it came out sounding like one of Ellie's stupid spiels. Tony leaned back and looked skeptical, one eyebrow raised in that irritating way.

“It's not bad here, just a little run-down.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Seraphy frowned, grabbed a chicken leg and chomped down. Her teeth grated on bone. Better change the subject while she still had teeth left. “And it doesn't matter, anyway.” She shrugged. “I live in here, this place, not out on the street. I can take care of myself. I‘m not some Northwestern debutante
.
I'll deal with the neighbors after I'm settled in here.”

“Right.” Tony got up. Suddenly she didn't want him to go.

“Can you stick around for a while? I could use a little help. I've got thirty windows that need blinds. Last night I had to turn off the lights and walk around in the dark so I wouldn't be the neighborhood show and tell.”

“I saw the evil-eyed old biddies across the street, and you've got a lurker watching from that second floor apartment. Not to mention the entrepreneurs on the corner. Quite an audience. Lemme check my schedule.” He retrieved the Oreos from the refrigerator. Shoving the last of them in his mouth, he pulled a torn envelope from his shirt pocket and skimmed a scribbled list. “I gotta pick up my rebec and some scores later, but I can stay an hour or so.” He frowned at the pile of boxes and packages. “Just how much of this stuff are you intending to put up?”

“Just the blinds,” she said, remembering that two of the video cameras were for the garage door. Best do those herself. Tony'd croak if he saw the threat painted there.

“I
guess maybe it's a bit of all right,” Tony said later, after the last blind was up and they were celebrating with beer. “Place kinda grows on you. Cool.” Chatty when they started putting up the blinds, he had grown silent toward the end. Now he followed his sister to the kitchen, collapsed to the floor, leaned against the wall and drained the bottle. “You know, I've never had a place of my own, too busy figuring out what kind of musician I am.”