Dan O'Shea - Penance

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.”

“You wanna set up a drop? I mean, I’m assuming you want your toys back.”

“You can take them to Mr Mel’s, as is your habit,” said the woman. “They will be tended to.” She picked up her briefcase from under the table and stood up, raising her hand to flag down a yellow cab heading south on Wabash. “Mr Villanueva?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t get caught, don’t get curious, and don’t get careless. I don’t think you’d care to meet me under less collegial circumstances.” She turned, walked off, and slid into the back of the cab, and it pulled away.

Villanueva slid the envelope into his coat pocket, thinking for a second should he open it, count it, then thinking what difference would it make. He swallowed the last of the coffee and left what was left of the croissant on the table. Not much of an appetite all of a sudden.

Lynch grabbed Bernstein at the office, and they headed over to MarCorp to talk to Eddie Marslovak about the waste hauling deal.

“Might want to bring up Andes Capital, too,” Bernstein said as Lynch flipped off some guy trying to muscle a Land Rover into their lane.

“What’s that?”

“Venture capital firm down in Miami. Seems to stick cash into MarCorp’s deals pretty regularly. I called a friend over at Morgan Stanley. Nothing official, but the Feds have started looking at Andes for money laundering. Think it might be washing dollars for the Medellin crowd.”

“Running a laundry for the Columbians and you call the place Andes Capital? Takes some cojones.”

“Or just dumb.”

“Yeah,” said Lynch. “Or that.”

Bernstein looked over, little crooked smile. Second or third time Lynch had seen that.

“Fuck’s up with you? Don’t like the clothes? Blame your friend Andre, he picked em out.”

“Hey, they look great. Just didn’t think you’d still be in them when you got to work the next day. Guess the date went OK.”

“Shut up, Slo-mo.”

“Hey, I’m a detective too, remember.”

Marslovak was already out from behind the desk when Lynch and Bernstein walked into his office, already on the black sofa, already with a drink. Marslovak dressed casual today, khaki slacks, deck shoes with no socks, white cable knit tennis sweater, probably a 3XL and stretched on him like a sausage casing.

“Thanks for seeing us on Saturday,” Lynch said.

“Told you I was trying to stave off divorce number three, Lynch. Whole secret to marital bliss is avoiding your wife.” Marslovak didn’t look happy. “Who’s your little friend?”

“Shlomo Bernstein,” said Bernstein. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah, yeah. Everybody’s fucking sorry, nobody wants to leave my ass alone.” Marslovak gestured toward a second man. “This is Steve Heaton. He’s my attorney. I’ve invited him to join us for today’s festivities.”