William Brown - The Undertaker

“That's the bald-headed guy we saw on TV yesterday,” Sandy crowed.

“Yeah, I heard they were going after Charley next. Lotsa luck hangin’ anything on that guy,” Gino chuckled. “He invented slick. Anyway, Panozzo tells Charley he's really sorry and he has a deal for Jimmy. He says he'll recant all his testimony, if Jimmy would call off the open hit he has out on him and let him slide back home.”

“I'm sure Jimmy was real understanding,” I said.

“Think about it. Louie said he'd go on all the TV talk shows: Oprah, Larry King, Sixty Minutes, the works. He'd swear the Feds made it all up and blackmailed him into saying all those terrible things about Jimmie.”

“And that was supposed to get Louie off the hook?” Sandy asked.

“How could Jimmy turn him down? He don't exactly have a lot of options anymore.” Gino said. “He‘d have to leave Panozzo alone just to prove the fat shit was telling the truth and it was the Feds who were lying, and Panozzo knew it.”

“Did Louie tell Billingham he was in Columbus?”

“Didn't have to. The dumb ass used his office phone, and Charley has caller ID. I'm sure he had the Feds on his line to, which is probably how Tinkerton got wind of what Louie was up to. Like I said, sometimes those guys ain't too bright.”

I had to admit, there was some logic to all of it. “So, if Jimmy bought the deal, why did he send you there?”

Parini smiled. “It ain't what you think.”

“So you're saying you didn't kill him?” Sandy said.

“Hell no! Louie Panozzo was Jimmy's best chance to get out of jail, maybe his last, so why would he have him whacked? Louie was supposed to call Billingham last week and finalize the deal, but he had his “car accident” and that was the end of that. On the other hand, maybe that's why he had the accident. Anyway, we weren't sure whether they killed him or just faked the whole thing and moved the fat shit some place else, but we smelled a rat. That's why they sent me to Columbus, after he disappeared. I started checking out the stuff in the obituary, the house, and the office, like you did, but I never thought to look for more obituaries. That was brilliant, kid.”

After another mile, Sandy turned east on Cermack Road and we crossed through an industrial no-man's land of railroad tracks and run down overpasses. Two blocks later at Canal Street, I saw the first signs of Chinatown. We passed a row of Chinese import-export firms. She turned south again into a busy commercial street full of Chinese restaurants and gift shops. The buildings had colorful green and red oriental tile facings, terra cotta tile roofs, and colorful ceramic lions guarding the doors, big upright ones with slant eyes and long Fu-Manchu mustaches. They reminded me of Grant Avenue in San Francisco. And I'd bet the gift shops and stores carried the same kitsch from Mexico or the Philippines that they sold in every other Chinatown.

“Sure you don't want any won-ton to go, Gino?” she asked. “Last chance.”

He looked up at me and shook his head. “Sooner or later, her mouth's going to get you in serious trouble, Ace.”

“That's what all the boys tell me,” she laughed. “But with you bleeding to death back there, you aren't that much of a threat anymore.”

“Yeah, serious trouble,” he said, but I saw a thin smile on his lips.

Much to my surprise, the residential neighborhood behind the Peking-kitsch could have been in Bogalusa, Des Moines or Stockton. The houses were small, with brick, clapboard, or wooden shingle siding, mostly two-stories high, and dating from the 1920's. The lots were narrow and they had garages out back.

“There, the fourth house on the left,” Parini pointed. “Drive around back.” It was an undistinguished, aging Cape Cod with a black shingle roof and dark blue shutters. It had a swing hanging on the front porch, a couple of kid's bikes lying in the neatly trimmed front yard, and geraniums growing in the flower boxes under the windows. It was clean and neat, and it looked like every other house on the street. As we turned the corner into the narrow, rutted alley, Parini had one more piece of information to share. “This place belongs to the Magiori Family in Cicero, so if you don't want a whole lot worse problems than you already got, keep your big mouths shut about it. You two got that?”

We pulled up behind the house and parked. I got out and opened the rear door, intending to help Gino out of the back seat, but four young Chinese men in white medical gowns and surgical masks suddenly materialized next to me. They politely moved me aside and in seconds had Parini out of the back seat and on a hospital gurney. They pushed it up the walkway, across the back porch, and through the rear door of the house.

Sandy and I stood in the alley next to the car staring at each other.

“I sure don't get that with my HMO,” I said.

“I'm not leaving until I know he's okay,” Sandy said as we looked up at the house. “You coming, Talbott? Or am I going in alone?” She marched up the walkway to the house and I quickly followed. There was a large, double-hung window on each side of the back door. Looking in through the one on the left, I saw a small kitchen, complete with lacy pink curtains, striped wallpaper, flowerpots on the window ledge, a formica breakfast table, a stove, and a modern refrigerator, all Penny's catalogue neat and spotlessly clean.

“Nice,” I whispered. “You ought to ask if they hire out,”

I looked into the window on the other side. It was a kid's bedroom, decked out with Spider-Man curtains, a bed, a dresser, and a bunch of toys scattered around the floor. There was no sign in either room of Parini, the stretcher, or the four Chinese men who carried him inside. Puzzled, we pushed the door open and stepped inside and I could not have been more surprised. The room I stepped into bore no resemblance whatsoever to the kitchen I saw through the outside window. It had plain white walls, a white tile floor, harsh florescent lights, two desks, file cabinets, shelves with towels and linen, and two glass-front medical refrigerators. There were no homey kitchen curtains, no stove, no kitchen table, and no kitchen refrigerator. An optical illusion? I looked back at the window and found myself looking at what appeared to be a set of sophisticated rear screen projectors that threw holographic images on the window. Very clever.

Through the open door on the left, I saw a fully equipped medical clinic. As we watched, a white-garbed medical team gently transferred Parini up to an operating table, where busy, gloved hands set to work on him from all sides, putting in IVs and carefully cutting away his bloody pants leg. One of the attendants lowered an oxygen mask over his face, but Gino saw us watching and pushed it aside. He motioned for us to step closer. The Chinese attendants tried to stop us, but Parini growled and they stepped away.

“What are you two still doing here?” he asked.

“Uh, look, Gino… “

“No “look Ginos.” Take the ditz and get the hell out of here. Now!”

“Go, but where?” I asked as the nurses began to push us out of the room again.

“Anywhere, so long as it ain't here. Just freakin' go.” Parini coughed. “Besides, you ain't listened to me so far, and you ain't been doing too bad on your own. Take the Lincoln. That oughta to square us up. And take her, too.”

“But…”

“You shouldn't have brought her into this thing, but you did, Ace, and now she's your responsibility. So get out of here, both of you.”

There was no sense arguing with him. Besides, he was right. I grabbed Sandy's hand and we went.

Outside on the sidewalk she said, “Those computer flash drives in your pocket are going to put Santorini even deeper in jail, not get him out. And pals or not, when Gino finds out, he's going to come after us, and he's gonna kill us both.”