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Brandenburg was an industrial demolition firm with buildings on both sides of the street, maybe fifteen acres of storage and equipment. A dock wall ran along the river, oily water licking at the rusted faces of barges floating like rotting giants. The company had built its business on smashing things that were no longer useful and then disposing of the junk. What better place?
He glided into the parking lot in neutral, headlights off. Security was probably a couple of rent-a-cops playing gin rummy through the midnight shift, but no need to draw attention. He stopped in a pool of darkness and thumbed the trunk release button.
The black tarp shone like wet ink by the light of the trunk. He grunted a little getting started – the angle was a bitch – but once he had it out, shouldering the load was easy. Twice a week he squatted several times Patrick’s weight.
A fu
He bent down, lowering his burden to the concrete. A boot stuck out of the tarp like it was waving good-bye. Evan put one foot against the middle of the bundle and shoved. The plastic scraped to the edge, friction fighting him, then the weight overbalanced and it slipped off. Half a heartbeat of silence later he heard a splash like a dark fish jumping, and Patrick was gone.
Evan shook out a cigarette, lit it. The ripples spread out from below, semicircles drifting to kiss a barge forty yards upriver. He could almost see the silhouettes of teenage boys reclining on the mountain of trash it bore, stolen forty-ouncers in their hands and the skyline filling their eyes. What had happened to those kids, him and Marty and Seamus?
And Patrick. And Da
Tonight’s work was done. Tomorrow he’d plan his next move. It baffled him that Da
Apparently talk wasn’t getting through.
He’d have to find a clearer way to communicate.
17
Exhaust billowed white in the cold air, but no one sat inside the Mercedes.
Da
Da
He did allow himself a last glance as he pulled onto Diversey.
Work had been tough. He had to keep his routine up, pretend like nothing was going on – however this nightmare shook out, he couldn’t afford raised eyebrows. The morning had been spent overseeing the final winterizing of the Pike Street loft complex. The foreman, McCloskey, had it well in hand. The infrastructure of the whole building was in place, and the open walls sealed off with plastic. Tools and materials had been stored, and by the end of the week, the site would be chained up.
The unfinished loft complex and the construction trailer would remain untouched through winter’s lonely haul, waiting, like the rest of the city, for spring to resurrect them.
As he turned onto Lakeshore, the wind lashed steel waves against the rocks, spray climbing tall as a man. It suited his mood. Nearly a week since he’d found Evan in his kitchen. It wouldn’t be long before he showed up demanding an answer. Nearly a week, and Da
“Nightmares again, baby?” She’d touched the dark circles under his eyes and smiled tenderly at him in the bathroom mirror.
“Just busy,” he said, and put on his game face. She’d nodded, but he knew her mind was still chewing on it.
Not telling her was eating at him. It wasn’t his way to hide things from her. Just the opposite. She came at things from different angles, fresh viewpoints, and together there hadn’t been many problems they couldn’t solve.
But the most dangerous one of the last seven years? That, he didn’t dare share.
Wednesday, and the lawn crews had descended to service the wealthy. Day laborers called to one another in Spanish as they pushed mowers and raked leaves. A white guy with a clipboard sat in the heated cab of the pickup outside Richard’s house. Late October, and Da
Richard answered the door in golf pants and a polo shirt, like he pla
“Lakeshore was bumper-to-bumper.”
Richard nodded. “Come in. Ignore this mess.” The way he said it, Da
“Yeah.” He stepped in, shutting the front door behind him. Richard was already halfway down the hall, and Da
“You look everything over? I don’t want to find out I got rogered again.”
The last time Richard had gotten rogered it had been because he’d ignored Da
His boss nodded, sipping espresso as he flipped through the documents. “How’s Pike Street?” he asked, not looking up.
“McCloskey will have it locked down by the end of the week.”
“Good. And we’ve got him on contract for the spring?”
Da
“McCloskey. We’ve got him set for the spring?”
Da
Richard didn’t look up from his papers. “Yeah, I thought it over, ran some numbers, and it’s not going to work.”
Had he heard right? “What?”
“Jeff Teller has the other projects under control, and he costs less. We’ll dump McCloskey and his crew for the winter, pick ’em back up in spring.”
Da
Richard shrugged, his mind only half in the conversation. “I don’t need a foreman to tell me how to throw a bid.”
Da
“The market’s not going to be much better then. Besides, we can always find somebody else.”