Michael Harvey - The Fifth Floor

“Some of the beatings were probably real,” I said. “Maybe most of them. I’m guessing Woods was hitting her pretty regular. It just wasn’t enough.”

Masters dropped Granger’s jacket back onto the table. The excon’s mug shot peeked out from the file. “And you’re saying she hired Granger?”

I shrugged. “She was in the bar three times in the week and a half before Woods was shot. I saw her there once myself. According to his boss, Granger was bragging about getting some extra cash. About doing something kinky to a hot-looking customer. Something he’d do for nothing is what he told his buddies. I figure he gave her the last beating. At the very least. The one that got me over to the Woodses’ house.”

“She was almost dead, Kelly.”

“If it was going to work, she had to play it tough. To convince me. Convince the police. Convince whomever.”

Janet crossed one leg over the other and ran a hand across her cheek. “It’s called owning the bruises, Michael.”

I nodded. “Exactly. And you knew that going in. Let me ask you a question. Was any of it real?”

“He hit me, Michael. Johnny did that.”

“Used to be he beat me. Now it’s just hit.”

Janet dropped her eyes to the floor and studied the cracks in her life. We had shared a romance once that was wonderfully young. Years later, the echo of a consequence that was impossibly sad. Now there was nothing left. Nothing more my client could use to draw me in. And she knew it.

“Who pulled the trigger?” I said.

Janet didn’t look up. Taylor tapped her foot. I kept talking.

“I assume the original plan was strictly self-defense. You hire me. Get me familiar with the pattern of abuse. Whether the bruises were from Johnny or someone you hired-didn’t really matter. You shoot Johnny. I testify about what I saw and you walk away clean. Am I missing something?”

I waited. Still no answer.

“Then Taylor sees the gun in my office. The two of you figure out a better way. Why take the chance on self-defense when you can frame someone like me? With my own gun, no less?”

I glanced over at Masters. He was looking at the girl. I moved my eyes back to my client.

“The night at your house was part of it,” I said.

Janet finally looked up and shrugged. “We wanted you to stay the night.”

“Neighbors like to look out the windows,” I said. “You figured they’d see me leaving. Ties me in as your lover.”

“We didn’t plan on Johnny being outside. Funny thing is, he never said a word about it.”

“Whose idea was it, Janet?”

She angled her face to one side and blew more smoke into the mess that lay between us.

“Whose idea was what, Michael?”

“Letting me take the weight for Johnny’s murder. Leaving my gun at the scene. Putting it back in my office after the detective here screwed everything up by grabbing it out of Evidence. I assume the police would have been tipped to it eventually.”

I felt Masters flinch a bit at that. He hadn’t known about the gun resurfacing on my bookshelf. I didn’t think so. I continued talking to Janet, all the while drawing a bead on the brains behind the frame.

“I’m guessing it was your little girl over there,” I said. “She even sent me Johnny’s book, thinking I was still in jail. If a guard got hold of her note, it would have tied me in even deeper. Or am I still not giving you enough credit?”

Janet dropped her cigarette into an empty beer bottle and studied my ceiling. Masters leaned his forearms on his knees and watched his shoes. Taylor stared out the window and listened to her tunes. We all sat that way for a while: myself, my two clients, and a beat-to-hell-and-back detective. Each trying hard to look at anything except another human being in the room. Finally, Masters made a move to go. The other two got up with him. The detective pulled me aside at the door.

“Don’t bother looking for us, Kelly.”

“Why would I bother?”

“It’s just your way.”

I looked over at the kid, scrolling through her iPod, oblivious to the grown-up world around her.

“The girl pulled the trigger, didn’t she?”

Masters hesitated. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to know. But I knew. And I knew I wouldn’t make the case. Even if I could. Not at fourteen years old. Not even if she was a killer.

“Never mind,” I said. “It’s no one’s problem anymore.”

And then all three of them left. I watched from my front window, through the latticework of branches that crowded my flat. Dan Masters stopped at the corner and touched Janet on the sleeve. The two talked for a moment. Then Masters held out an arm. She sank into his shoulder. He dropped his head against hers. The two of them walked like that to a Toyota Corolla that sat in front of a hydrant and was decorated with a ticket. Taylor followed five paces behind, sneakers scuffling, headphones on, thumbs working furiously at the marvelous entertainment technology offered to America’s youth. Masters got behind the wheel. Janet sat beside him. The girl stopped under a streetlight and took a look up toward my window. I think she might have smiled. I know she waved. Then she climbed into the backseat of the car. The soon-to-be-former Chicago detective turned the engine over and the Corolla disappeared down the street. Another nuclear family, just living the American dream.

I STEPPED BACK from the window, saw an envelope on the table, and recognized Taylor’s handwriting in the loops and circles of my name. There was no note inside, just a couple of photos. Cheap, grainy shots I’d seen in a million and a half Vice jackets. Only this time I knew the girl being violated. Knew the face. Knew the pain. Two generations’ worth.

I took the photos into the kitchen and watched them burn in the sink. Janet Woods had been right when she said it was only a matter of time until Johnny Woods went after Taylor. Janet just didn’t know how right she was, or how little time she actually had. But her daughter knew. Better than anyone, Taylor knew.

I t was cold and windy along the lakefront. The water was dishwater gray, and a thick curl of white froth ran along the surface. I zipped up my coat and walked south toward North Avenue Beach.

Two months hence, summer would be in the offing. Early morning joggers and yoga in the sand, the city standing tall on one side, nothing but blue water on the other. The quiet cry of a seagull overhead and the small talk of Gold Coast locals, walking their dogs along the footpaths and getting their coffee before the day heated up.

Around ten a.m. the lifeguard shack would open and the beach would start to happen. Music floating out over the water, eclectic strands mixing and mingling into a harmonious whole. The lazy smell of suntan oil, treadmills grinding out miles at the outdoor gym, beer and brats cooking at the beach house. People lying out on their blankets, reading paperbacks, talking, sizzling under the sun, and, of course, flirting.

In the early afternoon, North Avenue would sprout thin white poles and netting as far as the eye could see. Young professionals would descend from their high-rises and climb out of the Loop, looking for some beach volleyball. Running, jumping, sweating, more bare skin, more suntan oil, more beer, and, of course, more flirting.

As the sun dipped behind the city’s skyline, North Avenue Beach would grow quiet again. A man and a woman might play a final solitary game of volleyball. The runners would return, as would the dogs, their owners in tow. Night would creep up and over the lake, draining it of color and leaving a vast black emptiness at the edge of the city. Nothing visible, nothing tangible, except the sound of tomorrow, knocking gently against the breakwater.