Brush Back

“Oh, Frank. The law of unintended consequences. It turned up so conveniently that once I stopped seeing red, white and blue, I was sure it was a fake. The diary goaded me into asking more questions.”

“They told me it was the real thing. They said they wouldn’t ask me to plant a fake in my own ma’s house,” Frank said.

“But when you looked at it—you must have known it wasn’t A

Frank flung up his hands, exasperated. “I don’t know A

He had a point. Besides, he’d wanted to believe in the diary: it was an easy way out of his problems. And given his lingering jealousy of Boom-Boom, he’d probably felt a certain Schadenfreude at the thought of fingering my cousin.

I pulled out a photocopy of the condolence letter A

He read it, hunched a sullen shoulder. “I guess, if you say so.”

“Yep. I say so. The original is in a safe, but if I can get a subpoena, I am going to force your mother to produce the book you hid in A

“Just leave it alone. Ma, her doctor made her start taking lithium. She’s not going to bother you anymore.”

I glared at him. “I am not going to let the boys in the old Mandel & McClelland office get away with framing your mother for murder. I don’t know which one killed your sister, but I’m going to have a shot at forcing him—them—into the open. However—” I held up a hand, demanding silence, as Frank started to protest.

“I’ll make sure they know you didn’t have anything to do with it. I promise you that I will not leave you and Frankie out to dry.”

“Oh, your promises, you can promise anything, your life isn’t going to be hurt by you digging up dirt left, right and center.”

“What do you mean, my life won’t be hurt?” A red mist swam in front of my eyes. “I was nearly killed by the Sturlese brothers and their gorilla. You cost me weeks of income, asking me to work for you and then not paying me. I have legal fees from dealing with this insane order of protection your mother filed. Boom-Boom has been slandered. And all so you can protect the remote chance of Frankie making it to the show. I have bills, just like you. I work for a living, just like you. You’re lucky I don’t sue your sorry ass.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”

“Maybe not, but you can get enough turnip juice to make soup.”

Frank kicked a hole in the grass with the heel of his work boot. He muttered something that might have been an apology, but when he had started back toward his truck, he couldn’t resist turning around to yell, “If you’d ever had any kids, you’d know you do anything to protect them.”

“Yeah, Frank, right, whatever.”

I watched him drive off before I got into my car—actually Jake’s Fiat—and headed north to Rafe Zukos and Kenji Aroyawa’s home in Rogers Park.

MONEY PITCH

“Today’s top story, Chicago—who has the real diary written by murder victim A

It was a great story, and Murray made the most of it. While he narrated, the production team ran footage from South Chicago, from Pierre’s and Boom-Boom’s days with the Hawks, from Wrigley Field where A

“You can see a copy of the diary Warshawski received in the mail on our website: globalentertainmentnews/A

I went to the website. Sure enough, the pages of A

September 10

Ma is out of control. Mr. M, ditto, Frank and Betty are so

depressing

, nothing but babies and diapers and looking down their nose at anyone who thinks there’s a life outside St. Eloy’s. Joel looks at me like a sheep that wants to break through the fence and nibble on me but is too scared to. Oh, I can’t wait to be FREE, FREE, FREE.

September 14

All Frank can talk about is stupid fucking baseball. There, I said it, at least in here. Can’t wait to get away. Bryn Mawr, that’s where I want to be, pictures are SOOO gorgeous. Ma thinks Frank walks on water, all she talks about is how he’ll be with the Cubs and then I’ll see how stupid my college dreams are. She doesn’t hit Frank anymore. She broke my front tooth yesterday, dental bill is HUGE. Have to work more overtime.

Boom-Boom is getting Frank in shape for tryouts. Says Frank has good hand-eye coordination but out of practice. Frank loves B-B, Frank hates B-B.

September 18

Going to Wrigley for Frank’s tryout. Frank said, no Boom-Boom, he doesn’t want the Star to take the shine away from him, but B-B wants to watch. Told B-B I wanted to come along.

September 24

Boom-Boom so angry with me for ru

October 13

Mr. Warshawski says criminals feel an urge to share their cleverness, that’s how the police catch a lot of people. Now I know what he means, I’m aching to tell someone else, about the papers, and how I hid them, but who can I trust?

October 27

Mr. M tries to wheedle the papers out of me. Says I have a BIG Christmas bonus coming. I said I thought Jews didn’t celebrate Christmas. He said it’s a secular society, I’ll realize when I get out of the St. Eloy’s orbit.

December 20

Joel helped me with my college applications. Spike and the other guys make fun of him. If only he didn’t SWEAT so much I’d let him kiss me, he’s so sweet and vulnerable in a puppy kind of way.

He helped me write a piece of music to use in my college applications. I played it on Mrs. Warshawski’s piano; Mr. W said it sounded like Verdi, and that he was sure his wife was listening in heaven and loving it. I loved Mrs. W, I wish he hadn’t said that, if she’s listening in heaven she knows I didn’t do most of the work myself. Fail on your own merits, that was always her advice to me. Work hard and fail on your own merits, don’t succeed on someone else’s. Now—I’m disobeying her. Feels 1000 x worse than disobeying Ma. Who hit me AGAIN for bragging about the music. Maybe that evens it all out.

January 21

Joel was working late tonight, accused me of having sex with Mr. M, with Boom-Boom, said he thought I was too precious a person (can you believe that? Precious a person?) to sell myself even for college. Finally told him I found these financial papers about what Mr. M and Mr. S are doing with the client accounts. Told him I hid them in Wrigley Field and they can’t touch me. I’m free.