“Meaning naked?” Johnson asks.
“Yeah. Meaning naked. So we sit down, and these naked girls are serving us food, serving us beers. Suzy Wong standing in the doorway like a chaperone. Warren pawing at the girls. They don’t actually say no, but they’re pretty good at avoiding him. Finally, he says to me, ‘Hey, Lynch, use that coin, man. I bet we can do these chicks right here.’ This whole thing’s got me pretty weirded out already, and now it looks like it’s going to get ugly. And I say, ‘That’s it, we’re out of here.’ And this time, the other guys are with me. They pretty much jump up out of their seats. Warren sees it’s going against him and is just kinda pouting. And then fucking Warren, he grabs this one girl from behind, got his hands all over her, and instantly that Oddjob guy is behind him, peeling his arms off her like they’re pipe cleaners. And the Suzy Wong chick, she steps forward, says if I give her my keys, she’ll have the car brought around. So, we’re out on the walk, car’s waiting. Just as I’m walking around the back, this stretch Lincoln pulls up, back window slides down, and there’s Paddy Wang.
“‘Young Lynch. What a surprise to see you again,’ he says. I’m thinking I should apologize or something, and all I get out is ‘Hi.’ He says, ‘Do you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, young Lynch?’ I say yeah. He says ‘In which a man trades his magic beans for a cow?’ I say yeah again. He says ‘Seems a waste of magic beans, doesn’t it, young Lynch?’ And the window goes up, and the Lincoln glides off, and I get to drive home, car full of guys carrying on about how they grabbed this and grabbed that, and Warren saying how he should have kicked the Oddjob guy’s ass, and I’m just hoping this doesn’t get back to my mom, and I’m feeling stupid and dirty and not grown up at all.”
“So the coin works.” Johnson looking a little sad for him, Lynch amazed how well she understands, falling more for her all the time.
“Need to be real careful what you wish for,” said Lynch.
CHAPTER 20 – CHICAGO
Jose Villanueva sat at one of the plastic tables outside the pastry joint on Wabash, drinking his coffee, eating his chocolate croissant, and trying to find a way out of his current fix. An L train crashed and banged along overhead, but the noise didn’t bother Jose.
Jose was a professional creeper. Best alarm and second-story guy in the city. You wanted something out of somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, you wanted Jose, especially if that somewhere was wired up. Jose’s workload was increasingly by referral. Work-for-hire stuff. Private collectors looking for a certain piece, industrial espionage, some work coming out of divorces. Once, some fat cat sent him into a house up in Lake Forest. All he wanted was a painting of a cocker spaniel. Wife got it in the settlement, so he was going to take it. Jose telling the guy that was going to point right back at him. Jose telling him that he’d better take some other shit, make it look good. The guy saying take all the shit you want, just get me the damn picture. Guy paid him five grand for the painting; Jose made another fifteen on the other stuff he grabbed.
No, the El didn’t bother Jose. What was bothering Jose was that Magic Mel hadn’t been at his joint down on Halsted, not for almost a week. Magic Mel had been Jose’s main fence for going on six years now. Jose still did some traditional residential work on his own. Got leads through a bent realtor. Guy’d see some nice stuff going through houses, get the addresses to Jose. And Jose’d take the shit to Magic Mel so Mel could turn it into cash.
Magic Mel was a discreet guy, working out of the back of his plumbing supply store, big ticket goods only. Didn’t attract attention handling watches and jewelry from street heists. Tied into the Italians, everybody said. Got you a decent price, got it pretty quick.
Magic Mel owed Jose for some shit he dropped off last week. No big deal. Couple of pieces, maybe two or three grand on Jose’s end. But Mel wasn’t around, and nobody seemed to know where he was. First couple of days, Jose thought maybe Mel had pissed off the Italians, maybe he’d turn up in the Cal-Sag channel in a day or two. But then the Italians had sent someone to see Jose, asking did he know where Magic Mel was. Then Jose started hearing whispers maybe the Feds had Mel, that they were milking him for stuff on the Italians. And if they were, Jose figured, then Magic Mel might just give them Jose, too. Fuck, probably give them Jose instead.
Jose thinking maybe he should try to get out in front of this, go see his lawyer. That’s when a small Asian woman pulled out a seat.
“May I join you, Mr Villanueva? I am sure you remember me from our previous business.” She set a briefcase down on the sidewalk beneath the table.
Jesus, thought Villanueva. It was the chink chick from that U of C job back – what, three, four years ago? He had some bad nights sleeping after that. Guy was some hot-shit professor in town for a lecture at the U of C. She told Jose all she needed was the guy’s laptop. Simple job, guy was staying at the Westin downtown. Then, two days later, the guy gets popped on the Midway. Cops writing it off to a street robbery, but Jose feeling different about it. Job paid good, though. Ten large just to take a laptop out of a hotel room.
“Hey,” said Jose.
“Are you interested in another easy job?” she asked.
“Depends. Going to kill anybody after this one?”
Chink chick sat unmoving, looking dead into his eyes. “It is good to take an interest in your work, Mr Villanueva. It is unhealthy to take too much of an interest, however.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Villanueva. “Look, I got a lot on my plate right now.”
“Worried about your fence, Mr Villanueva? Magic Mel?”
That shook up Villanueva. “I don’t know any–”
“Of course you do, Mr Villanueva. Halsted Plumbing Supply. Let’s not waste our time, shall we?”
Jose took a sip of his coffee, took a bite of the croissant. Jesus, this bitch scared him.
“OK,” said Villanueva. “You got something to say, say it.”
She pulled a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and slid it across the table. Villanueva looked at it. Pictures of a very small camera and an even smaller bug. Definitely top-end shit, both because of the size and because you just figured this chink chick, she wasn’t here about some retail crap.
“Surveillance shit of some kind,” he said. “I haven’t seen it, and I’ve seen most of em. If you want me to beat this shit, you’re gonna have to get me some schematics or something.”
“I don’t want you to beat them, Mr Villanueva. I want you to collect them.”
Villanueva took another sip from his coffee, looking at the chick, trying to get some kind of read. Nothing.
“Collect them from where?” Villanueva asked.
The woman slid him another piece of paper with an address on it. Jose looked at it. Sacred Heart Church. Shit. The Marslovak shooting.
“The transmitter should be inside one of the confessional booths. The camera will be secured to the bottom of one of the pews, pointing at the confessional. Find the camera first. It will show you which confessional to search.”
Villanueva set the papers down on the table. “I know what happened at the church,” he said.
“Just think of cats, Mr Villanueva. Think of curiosity and cats. Now, we understand that you are a professional and, as such, are entitled to your fee. We propose twenty-five thousand dollars. In addition, we will ensure that no difficulties befall you resulting from the unfortunate situation involving Mr Mel. You understand, of course, that we will require absolute confidentiality.”
“Shit, lady, I don’t even know who this ‘we’ you keep talking about is. When you need this done?”
“Tonight.”
“When I get paid?”
The chick slid an envelope across the table. “In advance. We’re going to trust you. We’re going to assume you don’t want to deal with our collections department.”