The Bad Kitty Lounge (13 page)

My car rolled back up Wabash at a scary speed. The speedometer read twenty. The city lights glared as if stars had fallen from the sky and were burning cold on earth. Nausea tumbled through my belly as the Red Bull played with the Xanax. When the nausea passed, I got reckless and inched up to twenty-five.

A couple of minutes before six, I pulled into a fire lane in front of Samuelson's condo. Across the street, the window of Tommy Cheng's Chinese Restaurant was gray, the stools stacked upside down on the counter by the window. A few of Samuelson's early rising neighbors walked through the half light, freshly showered, wearing business suits, looking like they'd spent the night on something more comfortable than
my office floor. After a while a middle-aged woman came out of the metal security gate to Samuelson's condo block. I wished her good morning and slipped through the gate into a bricked walkway. She hesitated, looking at me like I was a junkie.

Exterior stairs took me to a second-floor landing and a corridor that led to Samuelson's door. It was a nice door: solid wood, inlaid with parallel panels of frosted glass fitted together in a thin metal framework. There were two locks, one of them good. A jiggle of the door handle said at least one of the locks was doing its job. If my mind had been clear and I'd been carrying the right tools, I could have worked the locks in twenty or thirty minutes. I stumbled back down the stairs, found a chunk of decorative granite in the bushes by the walkway, and returned. I wrapped the stone in my jacket sleeve and punched the glass panel closest to the locks. The glass cracked, and the panel bent inward. Two more punches drew the metal framework from its wooden housing. I pushed the framework further, reached in, tumbled the locks, and let myself in.

Nothing about the place said murder might have happened.

I called, “Mrs. Samuelson?”

No one answered. That was either good or very bad.

I made my way through the front hall into the kitchen. Bloodied towels and bandages were scabbing brown in the stainless-steel sink. I stared at them and called louder, “Mrs. Samuelson?”

No answer.

I took a spatula from a container of kitchen utensils and pried the towels from the sink. I don't know what I expected to find under them. I found blood.

I moved deeper into the house. The living room shades were
closed over a set of glass doors that led to the balcony where I'd watched Eric Stone flex his muscles. I flipped on a light. Brown stains were smeared on a white sofa. Samuelson could have made those stains if he had rested while he waited for his wife. A large mailing envelope, marked with the LCR emblem and address of the Stones' real estate development company, sat on the coffee table in front of the sofa. I stepped into the doorway to the bedroom. “Mrs. Samuelson?”

The queen-sized bed was made, though its spread had more brown smears. No bodies tumbled out of the closet. Clothes, mostly a woman's, hung on the racks.

The bathroom was a mess. Bloody towels were in the tub and on the floor. The medicine cabinet door hung open, its shelves swept clean. Toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste were scattered on the floor. Blood was smeared on the counter and on the toilet seat and mirror.

I found no dead bodies—no dead wife and no dead wife's dead boyfriend.

I went back into the living room. The sofa with the blood smears looked just right for an early morning nap. Maybe I could sit on it and recharge. Maybe I could rest my head on a bloodstained pillow.

A sharp, hard knock came at the front door.

I froze.

Another knock, followed by the beam of a flashlight through the hole I'd knocked in the window panel. A third knock and a loud voice. “Police!”

A patrolman strung out at the end of a night shift wouldn't like me breaking into Samuelson's condo, stoned on Xanax and Red Bull.

As the cop's gloved hand reached through the hole to the
doorknob, I moved to the balcony door and popped the lock, slid the door open, and stepped around the shades into the cold. The drop from the balcony to the grass was fifteen feet, maybe more. If I was lucky, on a straight fall I would break only my legs. I climbed onto the ledge and lowered myself until I could grab the vertical rails. My arm muscles burned and my head spun. I breathed deep, tried to get oxygen to my arms. My vision narrowed.

I fell.

I don't know how far, but I fell, and when I understood where I was, I was lying on the grass under the balcony. The grass felt good, good as a bed, good as a bloodstained sofa. But a tired patrolman would be interested in why I was camping on the lawn under a burglarized apartment, so I tried moving my arms, my neck and shoulders, my legs, my feet. I tried standing, and when I stood and felt no pain, I laughed. I laughed so loud that Samuelson's neighbors, eating their breakfasts, must have stopped and listened, a spoonful of oatmeal halfway to their mouths, wondering what could be so funny at 6:30 in the morning.

A CALL TO 411
got me the Stones' home phone number and address. They lived in a suburb west of the city. I knew the town. The first case I worked when I went private involved a missing teenaged boy who had lived there. The police chief walked between the redbrick police station and the bakery for his morning cup of coffee. The mayor chatted on the downtown sidewalks with the local ladies. But every path through the woods led to a little clearing where the kids got high. And watch out for what Aunt Bee was baking in the brownies. On the unincorporated edge of town a strip club called The Cheetah did hot business with the local men at lunchtime and again after the kids were tucked into their beds. One of the dirty secrets of the place was that the mayor and police chief owned shares in the club.

My investigation into the missing kid had uncovered a small-time drug dealing operation headed by the police chief's son. After that, the police chief and the mayor let me know the town was private property as far as I was concerned and if
I crossed the town line they would look at me as a trespasser—and in that town, the mayor said, they shot trespassers.

I crossed the town line at 7:15 on a cold, clear morning. The Stones lived in a large Georgian house with a plot of almost treeless lawn that looked made for strolling barefoot on summer afternoons and for evening garden parties with open-flapped tents and a string quartet. The garage would house three Mercedes, burned or unburned.

A maid answered my knock. She wore black and white and looked like an English servant but her voice was southwest Chicago. I told her I needed to see Mrs. Stone and her boys, and after closing the door on me for a couple of minutes she let me in. The entrance hall expanded upward two stories to a large glass chandelier, and a wide double stairway curved up opposing walls to the second floor. At the base of the stairs, backed by a curving marble bench, a fountain pulsed, the water braiding inside itself, tossing upward from a spout shaped like a fish mouth. I would like to sleep away the day on the bench, listening to water music.

The maid walked through a doorway into the living room. We wound through several rooms until we came to a breakfast nook. Mrs. Stone, her two sons, and Amy Samuelson sat at the table with coffee and breakfast. At the back of the room a glass door was propped open to an indoor swimming pool. Morning light shined brightly into the room from the exterior glass wall beyond the pool.

Mrs. Stone, her hair wet, wore a heavy terry-cloth robe. She looked up at me and blinked. Eric Stone nodded. David Stone and Amy Samuelson ate their breakfasts as if I wasn't there.

Mrs. Stone said, “Good morning, Mr. Kozmarski. I hadn't expected to see you again so soon.” The edge of her lips curled
upward. She kept her eyes on me but said to the maid, “Donna, please bring coffee for Mr. Kozmarski. And a chair.”

I turned to Amy Samuelson. “Mrs. Samuelson, have you heard from your husband?”

She chewed a bite of toast and shook her head but didn't bother to look at me. “Should I have?”

“Have you been watching the news?”

A grimace crossed her lips. “As little as possible.”

I said, “Greg walked out of his hospital room yesterday when the guard wasn't looking. He spent some time at your house, bleeding on the furniture and waiting for you. He has a gun, and I think he's looking for you.”

Her face twitched but she said nothing. Eric placed a comforting hand on hers. He said, “The police called and warned Amy that Greg had escaped, but they mentioned nothing about a gun.”

“They don't know.” The maid brought the coffee, and I blew on it once and gulped.

Mrs. Stone watched me with her lips parted. “You think he's coming here?”

“It would make sense.” I turned to Amy Samuelson. “He's got your car, so he must know you're riding around with Eric. And he knows you're not at home, so where else?”

David Stone pushed his chair back and stood up.

Mrs. Stone looked alarmed. “Where are you going?”

He was dressed in a blue tailored suit for a day at the office, his ponytail banded neatly behind him. He looked calm and mean. “If he shows up here, I'll shoot him.”

“You'll do no such thing.” She pointed at his chair.

He looked unhappy but he lowered himself into it. He mumbled, “The man's coming here with a gun to shoot us.”

“Not in this house.”

I asked David, “You've got a gun?”

He glanced at his mother and she shook her head. He said, “A couple of pistols.”

I fixed on Mrs. Stone. “It wouldn't hurt to have them nearby.”

“Not in this house.”

A woman in a bikini came into the breakfast room from the hall, and the discussion stopped. I'd seen her twice before, when she and David Stone almost ran me down as Eric Stone's car burned and when she introduced herself as Cassie Stone after drawing a heart in the steam I'd blown on a glass wall in the Stones' office suite. But I hadn't seen her like this. She filled every centimeter of the bikini and more.

“Good morning, Daddy,” she said to David Stone. She leaned over him farther than a daughter should lean over her father and kissed his cheek. Her bikinied hip brushed against me when she leaned.

Mrs. Stone spoke to her in the sweetest tone possible. “Cassie, would you please get the hell out of the breakfast room?”

Cassie gave her a wide-eyed look of mock surprise. “ 'Morning, Gram.” She tucked her thumbs under the back of her bikini bottom and smoothed down the fabric, then sashayed through the open door to the pool. We sat in silence and listened to her hum a little tune, then splash into the water.

“Do you have children, Mr. Kozmarski?” Mrs. Stone said.

My heart jolted. I thought about Jason waking up to the note I'd written and finding me gone. I thought about the story of William DuBuclet changing his life of violence to peace because his son, Anthony, had died. And me? I couldn't even get home to cook Jason breakfast. “No,” I said. “No kids.”

“Then you might be smarter than you look,” she said. She
sipped her coffee and added offhandedly, “The grandchildren are even worse. She's married three times already, and she's home again to her daddy and me.”

A loud sound came from the room leading into the breakfast nook. Eric and David Stone started to rise from their chairs but sat hard as Greg Samuelson and the maid stepped through the doorway. Samuelson held the barrel of my Glock to the woman's cheek, and they stumbled forward together, the maid's eyes wild with fear.

He pushed her away from him. There wasn't much in the push, but she tumbled onto the table. Samuelson swung the gun side to side. David Stone leaned forward and looked ready to lunge from his chair. Samuelson's wife clung to Eric Stone's arm. Mrs. Stone watched with cold, closed lips.

Samuelson pointed the gun at Mrs. Stone. “Did—you—” He trembled.

Mrs. Stone interrupted him, her voice calm. “You'll get nothing by coming here.”

That made Samuelson tremble some more. “Did—”

David Stone started to make his move, but Samuelson swung the gun on him and Stone sank back in his chair.

“And—
you
—” The gun fired and a terrific explosion sounded through the room. The shot went high and punched a softball-sized hole in the wall. The blast pushed Samuelson backward, but he stayed on his feet, and when he found his balance he looked as surprised as everyone else. The gruesome half smile he'd given me in my office formed on his face again and he laughed. The laugh made his face tremble with pain. Then David Stone laughed, too, and he leaned forward in his chair and rocked onto his feet.

Samuelson stopped laughing. He pointed the gun at David
Stone's chest. Stone went pale and inched down into his chair but Samuelson kept the gun on him. His eyes, which had been glassy, were clear and full of hate. “Not—yet.” He caught his breath.

I figured the next one of us to move would take a bullet, but then Cassie Stone stepped into the doorway from the pool area. Her long hair fell in a twist behind her head. Water ran off her tanned skin. Her nipples protruded through her bikini top. She looked at the gun in the bloody man's hand and shook her head like she was disappointed.

She was the most amazing sight I could imagine on a cold October morning.

She stared at Samuelson and his gun, and a coy smile found her mouth. “Turn-ons?” she said, putting a finger to her lips. “Sunsets, sushi dinners, candlelight, sleepy-eyed men.” She stepped toward Samuelson, dripping on the tile floor. He watched her, transfixed. We all did. “Turnoffs?” She pointed the finger at Samuelson's chest. “Ghouls.”

She reached for him like she wanted to caress his groin. But instead she took the gun from his hand. The shock of her in a bikini seemed too much for him. She looked at the gun like it was a strange toy, turned it over and over in her hands, got bored of it, and dropped it on the breakfast table.

David Stone and I reached for it. He got there first. But I opened my palm to him.