Howard Shrier - High Chicago

"There's nothing to negotiate."

"I can compensate you-"

"I'm not the one who needs compensation."

"Then these supposed victims of yours. Their families."

"Which victims?"

"The ones you mentioned. The ones you think I killed."

"The ones you ordered killed."

"No!"

"Walk," I said.

"Please!"

"One foot, then the other."

I cocked my throwing arm. He inched out onto the beam.

"My advice?" I said. "Don't look down."

"Jesus Christ, you're making a mistake."

"Keep going."

"I can pay you, Geller. Millions! Tens of millions."

"It wouldn't be enough. Everything you have wouldn't be enough."

"You can't do this."

"I'm already doing it," I said.

"Francis did it!" he said. "All of it."

"Shut your mouth," Curry said.

"Let's hear it," I said to Birk. I looked at Avi. He turned his recorder on and pointed it at Birk. "Loud and clear."

Birk started in off the beam but I stopped him. "Not yet," I said. "Let's hear it all first."

"All right! Rob Cantor called me," Birk said. "He told me his engineer was making noise about the land. About having to have it all cleaned again. I told him we couldn't. The hole was already dug. The caissons were already sunk. Starting over would have ruined everything."

"Ruined you, you mean."

"It's a precarious business we're in. And I was overstretched, I admit it. Too many buildings going up and too many things going wrong. Acts of God, acts of war, sabotage, unions-one disaster after another. I couldn't handle one more, so I told Francis to take care of it. I never told him to kill the man. I just thought he'd…"

"He'd what?"

"Make it go away somehow. Bribe him. Threaten him. Then Francis went to Toronto and came back and all he told me was it was fixed. I swear I didn't know Glenn was dead until it was already done."

"And Will Sterling?"

"Who?"

"The student who discovered the Aroclor on the property."

"Same thing," Birk panted. "It was Francis who shot him."

"On your orders."

"Not explicitly," he insisted. "I didn't say kill the boy. I didn't say shoot him. I just said we had a problem, that's all."

"And you had no idea how Francis eliminates problems."

"None!"

Curry laughed harshly and spat out the words "You lying piece of shit." His white shirt was spattered with blood but unlike Birk, he showed no sign of being cold. Maybe he was just colder inside. "He knew everything. Every step of the way."

"No," Birk said. "I was blind to it. Wilfully, perhaps, but I never knew the details, I swear."

"What about Maya Cantor?" I asked.

"What about her? She killed herself."

"No," I said. "She didn't. And anyone who says she did is pissing on her grave."

"I swear I had nothing to do with that. Maybe Francis did, ask him, but not me."

"She called your office the day she died."

"If she did, I never spoke to her. No one gets through to me if I don't know them. Even people I know don't get through."

"Someone picked that girl up and threw her off her balcony."

"Why?"

Why. Why had someone killed Maya? The simplest of questions. And not one I'd expected him to ask. He seemed genuinely in the dark about it.

"She was helping Will Sterling. Looking for evidence that her father was covering up the Aroclor."

"Then ask her father. Ask Francis."

Curry said, "Don't look at me. I wasn't in Toronto when she died."

"It doesn't mean you didn't contract it out."

"A double negative," he smirked. "That shit won't get you far."

"Should I hit him some more?" Ryan asked. "It gives his face character."

"Save it for now. What about the robbery?" I asked Birk.

"What about it?"

"Take five steps out."

"I can't!"

"Do it!"

"Why?"

I yelled, "Because I said so," and flung the bolt at him. He ducked and lost his footing and almost fell off the beam. He grabbed it with both hands and stayed in a squatting position. "Five steps," I said. "Or the next one drills you in the head."

He shuffled back five steps on his hands and knees. Avi was looking at me like I was crazy. Luckily for me, he was a lawyer, not a shrink, so I didn't have to pay it much mind.

"The robbery," I said.

"What about it?"

I looked around for a bolt. Ryan found one first. As soon as he picked it up, Birk said quickly, "All right! The robbery!"

"It was a fraud, from beginning to end."

"Yes," he whispered.

"Louder."

"Yes!"

"You planned it."

"Yes."

"You, not Francis."

"Yes."

"You circumvented your own security system and let Francis in?"

"Yes."

"And Chuck Belkin too."

Birk's eyes widened, as if he'd just seen a ghost. I glanced at Curry. He had taken note too. Birk said, "How do you know about Belkin?"

"For the record," I said, pitching my voice toward Avi and his recorder, "Chuck Belkin was found shot to death a few weeks after the robbery."

"So many people get shot in Chicago," Curry said. "It's hard to keep track of them all."

I ignored him. "So you let Francis and Belkin in the house and they took out all the artwork you subsequently reported stolen?"

"Yes," Birk said.

"Then what? You sold it privately?"

"Yes," he admitted. "Not for full value, of course. But there are always people who will buy art even if they can't display it publicly. They want to own it for the sake of owning it."

"Then you defrauded Great Midwestern Life for the full value."

"Yes." He glanced over at Avi, at the recorder glinting in the moonlight. "No one is going to admit this as evidence, you know. Surely your lawyer friend told you that."

"He tried," I said. "I didn't listen."

"You should have."

"You want to go back another five steps?"

"No!"

"Then forget the law and keep talking. Tell me about the beating. That was planned too?"

"Yes. They were supposed to rough us up, to make the robbery more convincing," Birk said. "They got carried away. Especially Belkin. He wouldn't stop hitting Joyce."

"Why?"

"I don't know. He went a little crazy."

"And you couldn't stop him?"

"No."

"And Francis couldn't?"

"No! I don't-I was already unconscious."

Until then, I believed, he'd been telling the truth. But all my instincts now told me he was lying. It was as if a surge of emotion had welled up inside him, and he was using every ounce of his will to suppress it. But the pitch of his voice had changed, and his body had tensed. In the dim light cast by nearby buildings, I could see his eyes flutter slowly before they blinked.

I held out my hand and asked Ryan for the bolt.

"What are you doing?" Birk shouted.

"You lied," I said.

"No," Birk cried, cowering as he gripped the beam with his hands and his knees. "Why would I-"

"You're lying!"

"Francis did it!" Birk said. "He beat her."

"Bullshit!" Curry said.

"I only said it was Belkin because he's already dead, but it was Francis."

"Why would he do that? Unless you ordered him to."

"No! I loved my wife." Birk was clutching the beam he was on like it was a bucking bull he was about to ride.

"Yeah," Curry laughed. "True love. You can see it on the tape."

"What tape?" I asked.

"The one of him beating her head in."

The way Curry told it, Birk had wanted his wife dead from the outset. He didn't love her. He hated the way she spent his money on paintings that made no sense to him, sculptures that looked like scrap. Vases and rugs he could have bought for a tenth of the price. Like many rich men, he was tight with a dollar. He might spend thousands on a Rolex, millions on a private jet, but he begrudged the expenses Joyce piled up.