Dan O'Shea - Penance

“Rodney,” said Lynch.

“Damn, boy, you finally a player? Look at you, ol’ gumshoe Lynch at the Connemara Ball. And with this fine specimen here.” Williams draping his arm around Johnson’s shoulder. “Ramjet’s just one nickname, my lovely. You get tired of your little-league date, you want to learn some of my private talents, you just look me up.”

Johnson shrugged off Williams’ arm. “I already know your other nickname, AA.”

A little crowd had gathered, watching the show. Williams throwing his hands up, pretending good humor.

“Whoa, baby, you want to get personal, let’s do that in private.”

Lynch took Johnson’s hand, walked past Williams. “Always good to see you again, Rodney.” Then he leaned in, quieter voice in Williams’ ear. “Don’t make me hit you again.”

The Emerald Pagoda was the same visual feast that Lynch remembered from his childhood, only more so because of the crowd and the ball.

“This place is amazing,” said Johnson.

“Thank you, Ms Johnson.” Paddy Wang sneaking up from the right, Mayor Hurley with him. “Detective Lynch, Elizabeth Johnson, the mayor asked that I introduce you personally.”

Hurley was thick through the shoulders and chest, too much booze in the face, looking a decade older than his thirty-eight years. Green tux jacket, green tie over black pants.

“Detective, I can’t tell you how pleased I am finally to meet you. Your family, your father, they are real heroes to me. Every year, Paddy tells me he’s gonna get you to show up, and every year I’m disappointed.”

Lynch shook Hurley’s hand. “Mayor, nice to meet you. My father was a hero. I’m just a cop. Glad to finally get to the party, though. Quite a show. This is Elizabeth Johnson. She’s a reporter with the Trib .”

Wang interjected, “Don’t worry, your honor. Ms Johnson understands that the ball is off the record, start to finish.”

“Ms Johnson.” Hurley shaking her hand now. “All reporters looked like you, I’d change my opinion of the press.”

“Thank you, your honor.”

Wang started to usher Hurley away, flesh to press, but put his hand out to Lynch.

“Thank you, young Lynch, for coming. You have made my night a success.”

Lynch shook the hand, felt a small square of paper pressed into his palm. Opened it after Wang had walked away.

Stefanski had a daughter. Born March 13, 1964.

“Love note?” Johnson asked.

Lynch stuffed the paper in his pocket. “Something like that. We’ll talk later.”

Lynch knew he could trust Johnson, knew he should level with her, but wanted it straight in his head first. This thing with Stefanski was another free radical. Before he handed anything off, he wanted to be sure she knew where to look. And who to look out for. He took her elbow, turned her toward the dance floor.

“Care to dance?”

Johnson smiled. “I’d love to. But I thought tough guys didn’t dance.”

“Usually we don’t. But it’s common knowledge that dancing is just ritualized sex. Gets chicks hot.”

Weaver was working his way through a couple of inches of scotch digesting a bad day. The Palmer House thing, that was a clusterfuck, but the Mossad guys had come pre-packaged with paper that set them up as Al-Qaeda types if the shit hit the fan, so he had a net over that. Problem was it left Ferguson and Chen on the field looking to get even. Swell.

Other problem was this Lynch fuck. Paravola was still tied into the Chicago PD systems, tracking the sniper investigation. Looked like Lynch was starting to sniff around his old man’s murder, might be making the wrong connections.

Next morning, Lynch walking into the office, dragging some. The Connemara Ball was everything he’d heard. After three when he and Johnson left, the party was still going on as far as Lynch knew.

Starshak stuck his head out of his office door. “Lynch, need to see you.”

Lynch walked in. Starshak’s face was tight, his jaw clenched.

“You don’t look happy,” said Lynch.

“I’m not. We’re off the Hurley case. Word from up top. You’re too close to it they say, what with this stuff from ’71 now. And with your mom’s death, they’re afraid you won’t be focused. Bullshit like that.”

“You surprised?”

“This clusterfuck? Wish I was. Feds are running it now. They’ve set up a taskforce. Desk tells me they badged their way in here in the middle of the night, took all our files.”

“You know this is fucked.”

“I know.”

“The stuff I found in the garage, any of that in our official files yet?”

Starshak shook his head. “Taking my time on that.”

“You tell the Feds about it?”

“Wasn’t here, nobody to talk to.”

Lynch pursed his lips, looked around the squad room.

“That strike you as a little strange? No hand-off meeting?”

“How it strikes me is maybe they’ve already decided how this turns out. Like they figure they don’t talk to anybody, then they don’t have to chase down anything that doesn’t fit their theory.”

Lynch nodded.

“By the way,” Starshak said, “you see the news last night? Shootout at the Palmer House? Brave Feds save Chicago from a terrorist plot?”

“Saw it, yeah.”

“Thoughts?”

“Giving up thinking for Lent. It’s not getting me anywhere. Look I’m gonna take a few days, OK? I got the wake tonight, funeral. Guess I’m not supposed to do any real cop work.”

Long look from Starshak. “Yeah, fine. But behave, OK? And watch your ass.”

Lynch drove out to Rusty’s.

“Can’t say I’m surprised to see you Johnny. Hear it’s been a rough morning.”

“Had better.”

“Good to see you at the ball last night.”

“Yeah. You left early.”

“Getting old, my boy. Connemara Ball takes a year off your life, you do it right. Makes me about a hundred and forty.”

“I can see that. Little tired myself this morning. Listen, I got a question for you.”

“Thought you might. About Stefanski’s kid.”

“So you know about the note.”

“Wang gave me a heads up. Said something about tectonic shifts, paradigms, usual Wang smoke and mirrors.”

Rusty stepped out of the doorway, let Lynch in, walked him back to the kitchen, bottle of Jameson’s open on the counter, glass half full next to it.

“Little hair of the dog,” Rusty said. “Breakfast. You want any?”

Lynch shook his head. “Just what you got on Stefanski.”

Rusty grunted, sat down on a stool at the counter.

“Stefanski, back in the day, used to go through a couple secretaries a year. Either they put out and he got bored with them, or they didn’t and he replaced them. But there was this Italian chick, Tina Delatanno. This is mid ’63. Before when Kennedy got shot. Word was Stefanski knocked her up. That had happened before. Stosh knew this doc, and usually that’s how it got taken care of. But this Tina, she wasn’t having that. She stuck around till she was showing a little bit and Stefanski canned her. So anyway, it figures there’s a little Stosh or Stoshette running around somewhere.”

“Stoshette. Wang said daughter. And Delatanno had the kid on March 13, 1964?”

“Don’t know how Wang got the date. Be about right, though.”

Rusty took a sip, grimaced a little as it went down, Lynch wondering what was up with the short answers, what happened to the Rusty who usually wouldn’t shut up.

“You wanna save me a step here, Rusty? I know you can run this down.”

Rusty raised his head, strange look on his face.

“Give me a minute.” Rusty walked into the next room. Lynch could hear him on the phone, couldn’t quite make out the conversation.