Michael Harvey - The Fifth Floor

The reporter smiled. “That was it. Burn out the Irish. Hume hated the Irish. Did I tell you that?”

“You did. And it’s duly noted. Of course, John Julius Wilson was Irish himself.”

“That wasn’t the color green old man Wilson’s heart went pitter-patter for.” Smitty tapped out a bit of rhythm on the birdcage he called a chest and hauled out the rest of his story.

“October eighth, 1871. The plans are laid and the match is lit. One problem.”

“Wind?” I said.

“You know your fire, young man. Yeah, wind. Forty miles an hour’s worth. Whole city goes up like the fucking stack of kindling it was. Burns to the ground. But these guys, they come out smelling like a room full of roses.”

“Wilson and Hume got rich?” I said.

Smitty shrugged. “Finn was a little soft on his figures, but he thought they may have taken in over a million dollars each.”

“That would make them…”

“In Chicago? In 1871?”

“The foundation for an empire,” I said.

“Witness the empire.” Smitty pointed to a picture of the Chicago skyline, tacked over a hole in the corner of the room. “So that’s the story I wrote in 1978. Leaving out specifics on the money, mind you. A weekend piece, sort of a soft feature. Figured it might be good for a laugh.”

“You didn’t believe it?”

“Believe it? We ran it on April Fool’s Day. City editor thought it was a neat joke.”

“Not so much, huh?”

“I never talked to anyone downtown before it ran. Never even checked to see whose toes I might be stepping on.” Smitty pulled at the plastic and rubbed the yellowed edge of his old clip.

“How did they come for you?”

The old man’s smile broke off at the edges and crumbled into a sigh. “I was coming home off a late shift at the paper. Stopped at a light near Chicago and Halsted. All of a sudden, there are flashers in my mirror. Cop says I’m drunk. Gets me out of the car and searches it.”

“Dope?”

The reporter shook his head. “I drink beer and whiskey. Maybe too much as I get closer to a hole in the ground. I cheated on my wife. Once. Lasted less than six months. But drugs? Never had a joint in my hands. Not once. Would have been a tough thing for them to sell.”

Smitty muscled up as best he could for the last part. I held his eye and gave him enough of a nod to continue.

“I’m in the slam when this weasel of a prosecutor comes in. Now he’s the head asshole.”

“Gerald O’Leary?” I said.

“You got it. He’s carrying a Saturday night special in a plastic bag. O’Leary says they pulled it out from under my seat. Matched it to a strong-arm robbery and rape reported less than three blocks away. Of course, the victim had already picked me out of a photo lineup. I found out later she was a working girl. Imagine she was easy to convince.”

“He offer you a deal?”

“Oh, yeah. And he let me know why too. Said I should have kept my nose out of the fire. Didn’t belong there. And now I got burned. Then the fucker smiled. Thought that was funny as all fuck.”

I pictured a young O’Leary, making his bones with the city’s power brokers, stretching out Smith’s hide on the wall.

“I quit the Sun-Times; they dropped the charges. Course they made sure my wife knew all about it. Walked out on ten years of marriage with my two kids. I packed up my typewriter and hit it. That was the deal. Flush one life down the tubes.”

“What about the other big papers?”

“There was a saying on the Fifth Floor back then. When old man Wilson hates, he hates good. They put out the word. I was untouchable. No one would hire me. Finally sneaked under the wire here. Don’t know why, but I didn’t ask any questions. Thirty years later, the check still clears. I drink my beer, defrost dinner, and watch ESPN. That’s about all I want out of life.”

“Hell of a story.”

“Make a great movie,” Smitty said. “Unless you have to live it.”

“Why’d they do it?” I said.

“Well, that’s the kicker, isn’t it? The whole lot of them running scared from nothing but a rumor. Mickey Finn’s fucking fairy tale.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

Smitty shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? Long time ago. What was it you came down here for, anyway?”

The table between us was now full of old records, clippings, and handwritten notes. Somewhere in there was a threat. Heavy enough to scare someone important. Heavy enough to ruin the career and then the life of the man before me. I pulled my copy of his article from a pocket and laid it on top of the pile. Smitty looked at it and then me.

“So you knew about this all along?”

I nodded. Then I told him about the old land records and the corporation bearing Wilson’s initials.

“The corporate records were destroyed in the fire?” Smitty said.

“That’s what my guy told me.”

Smitty rubbed the back of his thumb along his lower lip. I could feel the reporter’s instincts beginning to stir.

“Convenient,” he said. “If any of it’s true, they would have dumped all the property into different hands immediately after the fire. Never reincorporated J.J.W.”

“And the whole thing would have disappeared.”

“Could be. There must have been a hell of a lot of confusion after the fire. Here, grab a seat.”

Smitty pulled up two chairs near a computer terminal and began to type away.

“I can access the corporate records for Illinois. Let’s run a search on your company.”

Smitty typed in the initials J.J.W. The wait was not a long one.

“The only J.J.W. I get was incorporated in 1983. Looks like they sell rugs.”

“Not our guys.”

“Nope.” Smitty turned from the terminal. “Your company seems to have disappeared.” He was breathing a bit harder and reached for the cup of booze to settle himself.

“You okay?” I said.

“Sure. Just haven’t had the thrill in a while. Nothing in the world like sniffing out a story.”

“Fun, huh?”

“More dangerous than fun, son. Least from where I sit.”

Smitty put his cup down. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Why are you digging all of this up? I mean, if it were true, it’d be a hell of a story.”

“But you think there’s more.”

Smitty nodded. The air felt suddenly close. As if something was being offered. Something that, once accepted, could never be undone.

“You really want to know?” I said.

“Someone’s dead, aren’t they?”

“You think they’d kill over this?”

Smitty licked his lips dry and pressed his palms flat against the side of his pants. “Come on.”

He led me back to his cubicle. The newsroom was almost empty, a single reporter tapping away on his computer halfway across the room. Smitty put the whiskey away, found a key, and unlocked his bottom drawer. I looked inside and saw the black butt of a. 38 with gray tape on the grip.

“Illegal and unregistered,” Smitty said. “Year in jail, mandatory, just for having it. But I carry it with me everywhere I go. Had something like it with me ever since I left Chicago.”

“Thirty years ago?”

“The boys who saw me out of town suggested it might be a good idea. Don’t know if they were doing me a favor or just trying to keep me up nights.” Smitty nodded down at the gun. “But there it is.”

He slammed the drawer shut and locked it. Like that might be the end of it. The past, however, doesn’t go away that easy.

“Got one more thing to run past you, Smitty.” I pulled out a scrap of paper. “Ever hear of this book?”

“Sheehan’s History of the Chicago Fire.” The reporter scratched the side of his jaw and shook his head. “Can’t say I have.”