Authors: John Ellsworth
S
ue Ellen has selected a small
, on the beaten path bistro at Jackson and Wacker, so I walk over, nice spring day that it is. Coming out of the Congress building, I first head right, go a hundred feet, then abruptly turn on my heel and head left. My eyes are playing across the traffic, intent on finding anyone who might be trying to turn somehow and follow me as I walk along. But traffic is heavy, and nothing clearly reveals itself. Mostly cabs and SUVs dropping people along the curbs, and UPS/FEDEX vans pulled alongside, blocking a lane with blinkers blasting, bringing us all our packages and picking up our boxes. A very busy noontime.
At the corner, I abruptly turn left and stop and flatten my back against the wall. Waiting to see if anyone is following on foot. If they are, they'll have to come around the corner and walk past me to escape my discovering them. No one comes; at least, no one comes who looks like anybody. Especially anybody Hispanic. MexTel people will be Hispanic, I'm thinking, but then I'm immediately chiding myself for such simplistic thinking. As rich as MexTel is, their undercover people could be crown princes from Romania, for all I know. The bottom line is that I'm not one for skulking around trying to avoid people or find people who are attempting to stay hidden. I was never a cop and never a private investigator. Those people have their methods but, for the most part, I'm not privy to them. The notion that someone is following me is actually quite unnerving. I push away from the wall and continue my route to The Flame, Sue Ellen's eatery of choice.
There are three small, white iron tables on the sidewalk out front and, lo and behold, Sue Ellen has seized one. I walk up from her side and bend and kiss the top of her head. We're still pretty good to each other, all things considered. More than that, I still have a soft spot for her; hell, I probably still love her and maybe that never goes away. This is my first time through the divorce idiom, and I still don't have my bearings and really don't know how to expect I might wind up feeling about her. For now, this mild confusion of feelings will have to do. Only time is going to heal this wound. I've been around long enough to know that.
"Hey," she says up over her shoulder. "Glad you could make it, Michael."
I take the seat across from her and push my sunglasses up on my nose.
"Me, too. It's been a busy morning, but I always have time for my favorite lady."
"You're sweet. I always did like that about you."
"You too. A super woman with a huge heart. Maybe not a heart that includes me, but a huge one anyway."
"Oh no, Prince Charming, you're still snuggled up in there. I would never let that go, darling man!"
A waiter appears and takes our drink order. Sue Ellen orders a medium-priced wine, and I ask for iced tea with a slice of lemon on the side. I like to actually chew my lemon; it makes people around me gasp when they see me take a big bite. The total effect is heightened by acting like you think nothing about biting into the modern world's most bitter fruit. The best thing is, Sue Ellen has always hated the practice. How can I let up now when I am still angry at her for leaving me for a younger man? Is eating lemons in front of her all I have left to get back at her? Sadly, yes. Even more, I no longer want to get back at her. I only want her to…come home.
"So," she says, "Eddie saw your name in the
Tribune
. You got the case defending that famous judge killer. What's his name?"
"My guy is James Lamb."
"I mean this is about the judge whose wife was murdered by your client. Eddie showed me the article, and I read it. Very interesting."
"Oh, Eddie did, did he? He must be quite a study in things legal."
"Come on, Michael, lighten up. You know Eddie's not brilliant like you. I've told you that already. Give a bum a pass, okay?"
"Okay."
"Besides, I have two things I need to tell you. One of them can't wait."
Our drinks come. I do, in fact, take a chomp out of my lemon. Sue Ellen, without quite realizing what I just did, grimaces.
"What can't wait?" I ask, chewing my lemon and following it with a nip of iced tea.
"Arnie called me."
"When?"
"Last night."
"Did you get his number?"
"No. He said he was in a public transportation station."
"That's what he said, ‘public transportation station'?"
"Yes. Odd, isn't it?"
"He's playing it close to the vest. He's thinking his phones are bugged. They probably are, knowing MexTel."
"Who's MexTel?"
"It's a long story. So why did he call you?"
"He asked me to beg you to leave Chicago. He said they—whoever they are—are after you now too. He said you'd be killed if you stayed in Chicago. Is he right, Michael? Are you in some kind of danger? What's it about?"
I brush her words away as if slapping gnats.
"That's just Arnie. His usual histrionic self. So, did he tell you how I can reach him?"
"He said to come to Cozumel. You'll receive further instructions there."
"Damn it all! Always with the ‘come to Cozumel' thing. I can't just abandon my law practice like he can. I don't have partners to cover for me like he does. Damn him!"
"Well, you know Arnie. He does have his issues."
"You mean his psychoses? Goddamn, right he has issues. This time, he's going to wake up dead over them too, I'm afraid."
"Michael, no. Arnie's really in that much trouble?"
"Bet your ass he is. This is ridiculous. So he didn't leave any callback number?"
"No. He just wanted me to try to convince you. He was very serious and very pushy—unlike the Arnie I know who's usually gentle and sweet and never pushy."
"Damn."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, he asked me to make you go. He said I should offer to go with you. So I'm offering if it will help change your mind and get you down there."
For a moment, it's as if everything around me has gone silent. Did she just say what I think she said? Is she actually offering to go to Cozumel with me?
"Would you need to bring Eddie along?" I ask and immediately hate myself for it. I don't want to look like I want to pry her apart from Eddie. Even though I do.
"No, silly, I don't need Eddie. Besides, he has to work. He's got a job."
"Doing what?"
"Working as a lifeguard at my tennis club. It's not outside, so the sun doesn't damage his skin. He's very fair, you know."
"You mean his complexion is very fair. He's not very fair. He took you away."
She laughs. It's a short, lilting laugh as if she's pleased to have been taken away by Eddie and considers it trivial. My face reddens. I shouldn't have gone there. What the hell am I doing?
"So you'll tag along to Cozumel. What if we're gone two or three days?"
"You mean will I sleep with you? Well, we were married once. I don't see—"
"Wait a minute. You're trying to get pregnant. What if I got you pregnant somehow—you've started with hormones or something?"
"I'd like your baby, Michael. Oh, here's the waiter back."
The young man takes our order. Sue Ellen is having the crab legs, and I think that sounds good, so I double down. With steamed asparagus, a rice pilaf, and freshly baked bread. I order as if from inside a fog: did she really just say she'd like my baby? Is that why I can't order beyond ordering whatever she's having?
It is. My brain is baked.
"You just said—"
The waiter is gone now.
"I know. I said I'd like your baby. Don't take it the wrong way, Michael, I'd like any baby."
"But you'd prefer if it were Eddie's baby?"
"True. I'm with Eddie now. But that's the second thing I needed to talk to you about. You know the ninety thousand dollar alimony thing?"
I pat my breast pocket. "Got your check right here. Just need you to sign an agreement first."
"Well, that's just it. I'm having second thoughts about the whole entire thing. I'm forty-five years old. I mean, what kind of mother do you get when she's forty-five? I'm not going to feel like PTA or building snowmen or going to the Shedd with the first graders. I'm too busy for that. I've got my friends—"
"Our friends—"
"Michael, you're not still bitter that they turned out to be my friends mostly?"
"Not really. I'm doing all right."
I don't add, "Alone every night since you quit organizing my social calendar."
"Well, you can still see Ralph Egerton. He asks about you every time I have everyone over."
"You have everyone over while Eddie's there?"
"They've all quite taken to Eddie. Except for Ralph. Eddie can be very charming in his disarming way. You know, no airs, no trying to be something he's not, no trying to prove he's more successful than others."
"Good for him. I'll bet that's a real turn-on for you, someone charming."
She reaches across the table and takes my hand. "Michael, Michael. I've hurt you so deeply. I'm so sorry."
I pull my hand away.
"Don't feel like you need to tend my wounds. I'm doing okay."
"Well, tell me about that. Are you seeing anyone?"
"Not really."
Translation: I can't find anyone who might be interested in a fifty-five-year-old man. Not that I've been actively looking, actually. It's just that I'm a little old—by thirty years—for the club scene, and there's really no other place I know to look. It was so easy back in college: everyone knew everyone, everyone was in everyone's age group. But now, it seems everyone is younger than me. They're all younger and probably looking for hardbodies. Something I definitely no longer possess.
"You should see someone. Hey, I hear Sandy Darnell and Edmund are splitting the sheets. What do you think of Sandy?"
"I think she drinks too much, and she comes across like she's on speed. She's probably driven poor Edmund away."
"Yes, I think you're right. But don't worry. I meet eligible women all the time. I'll start keeping my eyes open for you."
"God, thanks."
Until right now I didn't realize how low I'd actually sunk, with my ex-wife trying to solicit dates for me. Our food comes, and I give up feeling pathetic while I use the little pliers to crack open my first King Crab leg.
We chew in silence for several minutes. At one point, Sue Ellen removes her sunglasses and dabs at her eyes with her linen napkin. I wonder what that's all about, but I don't ask. Probably the hormones.
Then I dab my mouth with my napkin and ask, "So, do I tear up the ninety thousand dollar check in my pocket? Or do we still have a deal."
She stops, her mouth dropping open.
"You—you got the money?"
"I did. Line of credit on my house. So I can pay you."
"Oh. My. God. Well, that does it then. Full speed ahead, baby. Yes, I'll sign whatever you have for me to sign. Eddie is going to be thrilled!"
Eddie this, Eddie that.
I couldn't be happier.
The crab is rubbery, and the pilaf has no spice. In the center of the table is my plate with its lonely, half-eaten lemon.
And my ulcer is churning. Citrus can do that to me.
We finish up, promise to get documents signed and the check transferred to her, and we embrace and say how nice it's been, and we should do it again sometime.
Sometime.
Walking back to my office I try to count all the ways I hate that word: Sometime.
"
I
'm taking you shooting
," Marcel says to me as enter my building lobby. "You've got too many bad people after you, with the MexTel thing going on."
"You must have spoken to Mrs. Lingscheit."
"Yes, Evie clued me in," he says, using her first name. "Plus I've had my eye on you this morning. They followed you all the way down from Evanston. As we speak, they're across the street in a loading zone, eyes on you."
"Were they following me to lunch?"
"One of their thugs did. I'm pretty sure he's back across the street with the others."
"Good work, Marcel. This is like learning I have head lice."
"I wouldn't know about that," he laughs. "What do you say we lose them now?"
"I'm up for that. What do you have in mind?"
"I rode my bike today."
He's talking about his FXRT Harley, a beautiful old road bike with a very comfortable passenger ride.
"Sure, let's do it."
"We'll head outside, take a left, back around the corner, and I'm parked right across the street. We can rip out going north, and there's not much they can do to follow."
"After you, my friend."
We leave the Dirksen Building, turn left, and begin walking rapidly toward the light at the opposite end of the block. The light is green, and we hurry across, down fifty feet, there's Marcel's blue bike with the chromed-out engine and pipes and black leather seating. It even has hard shell saddlebags where Marcel often hides a gun. It wouldn't surprise me if he had one along today.
We climb aboard, and he guns it out into traffic. We stay in the left lane, up one block and then head left and zip down a few blocks then right. We go a dozen blocks toward the lake then head back toward the freeway, where we head into Indiana.
Across the state line, we pull into a gun range and Marcel parks the bike. We both climb off, and he sticks the key into the right saddlebag and twists. I was wrong. He doesn't have just one gun; he's brought two. He wasn't kidding about working on my shooting.
Inside we go, me bringing up the rear. We buy several hundred rounds and the woman behind the counter lends us two earmuffs. Hearing protection.
The range is down at the end of a hall, and it is deserted except for the two of us.
We go through field stripping the Glock 19 that I'll be shooting, and we go through loading, ejecting, checking the bore, inserting the magazine, chambering a round, sighting, and squeezing the trigger. I fire off maybe thirty or forty rounds. Marcel watches, moving my hands into a proper grip and kicking my legs into the new sideways stance intended to reduce one's silhouette in a combat shooting situation. Another forty rounds, during which I field strip and go through the whole loading/unloading routine several more times. Then the targets noisily re-position at the press of a button and they've suddenly gotten much smaller. But the Glock is a dream. It's one of those guns that, as Marcel puts it, shoots where you point it. After my first hundred rounds, I'm feeling proud, and my ears are ringing. I look at my hearing protection and Marcel shouts, "Ears ringing?"
I nod, and he tells me to unload my weapon and hand it over to him.
We check the weapons, holster them, and return to the lobby. There's a soft drink machine and a lounge at the other end.
"Let's grab a drink and have a talk. It's time."
"All right."
We buy our drinks, stack our guns in the center of a round table, and scrape back two wrought-iron chairs, black frames and red seats. Marcel crosses his leg over his knee and leans in toward me.
"These are bad guys following you around, Michael. Two of them are what they call
sicarios
, in Mexico."
"What in the world is a
sicario
?”
"Up here we call them hit men. Seriously, I don't like this at all. Your brother's chances of making it through this alive are slim to none if he doesn't stand and deliver their file."
I spread my hands. "He won't listen to reason, Marce. He's so manic without his meds that he's blowing every which way with any little breeze that comes along."
"And right now that young chick has his ear. What's her name again?"
"Esmeralda. She's definitely not the feel-good he needs right now. But that's Arnie—he substitutes one drug for another. Romance for medications. It's not the first time we've been down this road."
He takes a long pull at his orange crush. He wipes his mouth with the back of his huge hand.
"All right. What can I do to help?"
"Do you know where the Mexicans are staying?"
"Sure, Hyatt hotel on Wacker. Want their room number?"
"No room numbers, please. I just need to know how to get the MexTel guys to back off Arnie."
"You want me to bug their room? Probe for an opening?”
“Thought of that. But, as an attorney, I could never ask my investigator to burglarize a hotel room."
"Never mind. Don't ask."
"Do you still have those carbon monoxide detectors with the built-in video cam?"
"Yes, indeed. I'm thinking one right above their eating area. They'll be having drinks and talking right about there."
"Wait, have you already been inside their room?"
He smiles. "Don't ask and I won't tell."
"You're right. Is there something that I can do—"
"Tell me again about the missing file."
I take a drink of my Diet Coke. I wipe my hands on my suit pants. "Okay. Arnie was working with these guys from MexTel for the better part of three years. They're being sued for poisoning groundwater at various places in Mexico. People have died; people have contracted cancer and other horrible illnesses. MexTel has denied responsibility and Arnie was defending them, going along with their claims of innocence. Then he found a file that contained groundwater test results from in-house testing they'd done. Turns out the chemicals their infrastructure leached into the groundwater were highly carcinogenic. Cancer-causing stuff that is illegal to even produce in the U.S. But not so, Mexico. So MexTel orders Arnie to bury the file. Which he does. Until one day he quits taking his meds and decides to do the right thing and tell the citizens of Mexico their own communications cartel has been poisoning them. He takes off, but of course we don't have a clue where. MexTel is going to probably find him before I do and kill him. That's where you come in. If I can understand how to manipulate MexTel into leaving Arnie alone, I'm happy. That's about it."
"We need conversations, then. I'm on it."
"We need conversations. We can't tap their phone lines so—"
"So we'll do the next best thing. We'll bug their rooms." He stands. "Let's go. They might be meeting up while we're sitting here gabbing. Time's a-wasting."
I set aside my can of Diet Coke and stand. "How about letting me drive the bike on the way back?"
"In Chicago traffic? Are you out of your mind?"
"Just testing. Just wanted to see how far along you'd go with me."
He turns and pulls the ignition key off his belt chain.
"Not that far, Mikey boy. Far, but not that far."