“Thirty-two. My own byline at the Sun-Times. Phone calls from New York. Newsweek had its eye on me. Did you know I was short-listed for a Pulitzer?”
He looked over, a bit of challenge in his eyes.
“No, I didn’t. Congratulations.” I said it neutral, enough to keep the conversation moving. The old man wasn’t stupid. He knew I didn’t really care about his would-be Pulitzer. He also knew I had to listen, so he sunk into it.
“A seam corruption out of the First Ward. Alderman’s name was Frank Raymond.”
I’d heard the name but not much else.
“Before your time,” the reporter said. “A throwback guy. Big cars, silk suits, cigars, the whole thing. First Ward was filthy with the bent-noses. Still is, I assume.”
I nodded. Smitty ignored me and plowed ahead.
“Anyway, Frankie liked sex. Problem was, he liked it with little girls.”
“Hold on. I remember that.”
That got a cackle. “Figured you might.”
“Maybe 1975, around there?”
“That’s right. Even got a picture of him with a kid. ’Course, back then we didn’t use photos the way they would today.”
“I bet.”
“Look up the clips. Story ran on the front page for two weeks. First, it was the sex stuff with Frankie. Then he started talking and they took down the largest child pornography ring in the Midwest. Wound up passing new laws on child prostitution as a result of that story.”
The old man’s gaze crept up and over my shoulder. I let him sit with his memories. After a while, he came back.
“They sent Frankie away for two years. I thought it was light time. One of those country-club pens.”
“What did Frankie think?”
“Never got a chance to ask him. He took a slug of bleach a month into his sentence.”
Smith coughed up a bit of phlegm. He spit it into a napkin, looked at it, folded the napkin, and put it in his pocket.
“That’s the way it goes, you know. Highlight of my career. At the time I thought it was just the beginning. But it turned out to be the end.”
“How’d you wind up down here?”
It was the second time I had asked the question. This time I got the glimmer of an answer.
“I rode high for another year or two. Downtown loved me. Mostly because they thought they owned me. See, Wilson’s men gave out the tip on Frankie. Not the Wilson you know. This was his old man. Alderman out of the Tenth Ward.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Sure you have. Red face, white hair, and pinkie rings. Never made it to mayor, but he ran Chicago’s City Council in the seventies. Anyway, he wanted to put one of his pals in the First Ward chair but couldn’t move on Raymond.”
“So he dropped a line to the press.”
“To me, in particular. I checked it out. All true. So I ran with it.”
I nodded and thought about Fred Jacobs: his green pants, white socks, and two Pulitzers. In Chicago, most things never change.
“You were tight with the old man?”
“No one was tight with old man Wilson. Never really wanted to mingle, that guy. Nothing like the son. Still, for a while I had a number to call. Then I got on the wrong side of the books. Didn’t know it, but managed to, anyway.”
“How?”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“It was the fire. The big one, 1871.”
Somewhere a coin dropped.
“I’ve heard of it,” I said.
“Course you have. Here, let me show you something.”
The reporter unfolded from his chair and shuffled down a linoleum corridor. In a back room were some boxes and a wooden filing cabinet that looked like it came from the public library of my youth. Smitty opened up the second drawer and pulled out a folder.
“This article right here. Read it and weep. My ticket to Palookaville.”
The clip was bound up in a plastic binder. It was the same clip I had pulled out of the Chicago Historical Society, the reason I had come down to Joliet. I felt the society’s copy in my pocket and read the headline aloud.
“FORGET O’LEARY’S COW. DID A WILSON BULL KICK OVER THE LANTERN?”
Underneath was a short blurb.
Two historic families linked to Chicago Fire conspiracy.
“Seemed harmless enough,” Smitty said, and lit up a cigarette. “Just an old story I got onto. Crazy theory. Started by Mickey Finn, of all people.”
“Mickey Finn? As in slip-him-a-mickey Mickey Finn?”
“Sure. Finn was a Chicago guy. Didn’t you know that?”
I shook my head. Smitty exhaled a cloud of blue velvet and picked a piece of tobacco off the tip of his tongue.
“Guy was five feet nothing. In the 1890s, he ran a place called the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant. Nice name, huh? Down at the ass end of old Whiskey Row.”
“Whiskey Row?”
“Today it’s known as home to the Chicago Public Library. Back then, Mickey offered his own sort of education. Taught the local kids how to lift a wallet. Then he’d set them loose on his customers after they’d had a few.”
“Mickey got a cut, of course.”
“Like something out of Oliver Twist was Mickey. Little bastard invented a special drink. Called it the Mickey Finn Special. When one of his waitresses saw a big billfold, the customer got himself a Special as his next drink, whether he ordered it or not. Guy would wake up in an alley somewhere, wallet and money gone. And that was if Mick was feeling generous.”
“Sounds like Chicago,” I said.
“Crazy town.” Smitty took in another lungful of cancer and offered up a smoky chuckle in exchange. “Jesus, I do miss it sometimes.”
The reporter dropped his cigarette to the floor and rubbed it out with his foot. “Enough of that. You want to know how Mick fits into the article I wrote.”
“Be nice.”
“Okay, it goes like this. Around 1895 or so, Mickey Finn began pushing a story around town. Claimed Charles Hume started the Great Fire. Hume was the editor of the Chicago Times. Heavy hitter around town. Last name like Kelly, you gotta be Irish, right?”
I nodded.
“So was Mickey Finn. I’d pour us some Jameson now if I had any. But those days are long gone.”
I got us a couple more warm Buds from the reporter’s desk. Smitty liked the idea and produced a bottle of Ten High bourbon. It didn’t have a cap, but that didn’t seem to bother Smitty. He poured it on top of the Bud and screwed it straight down. I lifted my glass and drank. The reporter waited until I was done before he continued.
“Hume hated the Irish. Do you know he actually wrote an editorial suggesting Chicago should hang its Irish from the city lampposts. Be a nice decoration, according to Hume.”
“Sounds like a real visionary. How did the Wilson family fit in?”
The reporter held out a hand for patience. “Our current mayor’s great-great-grandfather. Man he was named after. John Julius Wilson.”
“Seminal seed of the clan.”
“One and the same. In 1870 he’s a shanty Irishman just off the boat. Like tens of thousands of others. But not so. According to Mickey Finn, Wilson finds himself a friend in Mr. Charles Hume. A powerful friend who suggests Wilson dabble in real estate.”
“And…?”
“Wilson was the straw man. Winds up buying a flock of land for Hume and the Times. In the Irish tenement section of Chicago.”
“Where O’Leary’s barn was located?”
“Exactly. So they bought this land low-”
“Planned to burn out the area, clear the land, and sell it high.”
The reporter smiled. “That was it. Burn out the Irish. Hume hated the Irish. Did I tell you that?”
“You did. And it’s duly noted. Of course, John Julius Wilson was Irish himself.”
“That wasn’t the color green old man Wilson’s heart went pitter-patter for.” Smitty tapped out a bit of rhythm on the birdcage he called a chest and hauled out the rest of his story.
“October eighth, 1871. The plans are laid and the match is lit. One problem.”
“Wind?” I said.
“You know your fire, young man. Yeah, wind. Forty miles an hour’s worth. Whole city goes up like the fucking stack of kindling it was. Burns to the ground. But these guys, they come out smelling like a room full of roses.”
“Wilson and Hume got rich?” I said.
Smitty shrugged. “Finn was a little soft on his figures, but he thought they may have taken in over a million dollars each.”
“That would make them…”
“In Chicago? In 1871?”
“The foundation for an empire,” I said.
“Witness the empire.” Smitty pointed to a picture of the Chicago skyline, tacked over a hole in the corner of the room. “So that’s the story I wrote in 1978. Leaving out specifics on the money, mind you. A weekend piece, sort of a soft feature. Figured it might be good for a laugh.”
“You didn’t believe it?”
“Believe it? We ran it on April Fool’s Day. City editor thought it was a neat joke.”
“Not so much, huh?”
“I never talked to anyone downtown before it ran. Never even checked to see whose toes I might be stepping on.” Smitty pulled at the plastic and rubbed the yellowed edge of his old clip.
“How did they come for you?”
The old man’s smile broke off at the edges and crumbled into a sigh. “I was coming home off a late shift at the paper. Stopped at a light near Chicago and Halsted. All of a sudden, there are flashers in my mirror. Cop says I’m drunk. Gets me out of the car and searches it.”
“Dope?”
The reporter shook his head. “I drink beer and whiskey. Maybe too much as I get closer to a hole in the ground. I cheated on my wife. Once. Lasted less than six months. But drugs? Never had a joint in my hands. Not once. Would have been a tough thing for them to sell.”
Smitty muscled up as best he could for the last part. I held his eye and gave him enough of a nod to continue.
“I’m in the slam when this weasel of a prosecutor comes in. Now he’s the head asshole.”
“Gerald O’Leary?” I said.
“You got it. He’s carrying a Saturday night special in a plastic bag. O’Leary says they pulled it out from under my seat. Matched it to a strong-arm robbery and rape reported less than three blocks away. Of course, the victim had already picked me out of a photo lineup. I found out later she was a working girl. Imagine she was easy to convince.”
“He offer you a deal?”
“Oh, yeah. And he let me know why too. Said I should have kept my nose out of the fire. Didn’t belong there. And now I got burned. Then the fucker smiled. Thought that was funny as all fuck.”
I pictured a young O’Leary, making his bones with the city’s power brokers, stretching out Smith’s hide on the wall.
“I quit the Sun-Times; they dropped the charges. Course they made sure my wife knew all about it. Walked out on ten years of marriage with my two kids. I packed up my typewriter and hit it. That was the deal. Flush one life down the tubes.”
“What about the other big papers?”
“There was a saying on the Fifth Floor back then. When old man Wilson hates, he hates good. They put out the word. I was untouchable. No one would hire me. Finally sneaked under the wire here. Don’t know why, but I didn’t ask any questions. Thirty years later, the check still clears. I drink my beer, defrost dinner, and watch ESPN. That’s about all I want out of life.”
“Hell of a story.”
“Make a great movie,” Smitty said. “Unless you have to live it.”
“Why’d they do it?” I said.
“Well, that’s the kicker, isn’t it? The whole lot of them running scared from nothing but a rumor. Mickey Finn’s fucking fairy tale.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”
Smitty shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? Long time ago. What was it you came down here for, anyway?”
The table between us was now full of old records, clippings, and handwritten notes. Somewhere in there was a threat. Heavy enough to scare someone important. Heavy enough to ruin the career and then the life of the man before me. I pulled my copy of his article from a pocket and laid it on top of the pile. Smitty looked at it and then me.
“So you knew about this all along?”
I nodded. Then I told him about the old land records and the corporation bearing Wilson’s initials.
“The corporate records were destroyed in the fire?” Smitty said.
“That’s what my guy told me.”
Smitty rubbed the back of his thumb along his lower lip. I could feel the reporter’s instincts beginning to stir.
“Convenient,” he said. “If any of it’s true, they would have dumped all the property into different hands immediately after the fire. Never reincorporated J.J.W.”
“And the whole thing would have disappeared.”
“Could be. There must have been a hell of a lot of confusion after the fire. Here, grab a seat.”
Smitty pulled up two chairs near a computer terminal and began to type away.
“I can access the corporate records for Illinois. Let’s run a search on your company.”
Smitty typed in the initials J.J.W. The wait was not a long one.
“The only J.J.W. I get was incorporated in 1983. Looks like they sell rugs.”
“Not our guys.”
“Nope.” Smitty turned from the terminal. “Your company seems to have disappeared.” He was breathing a bit harder and reached for the cup of booze to settle himself.
“You okay?” I said.
“Sure. Just haven’t had the thrill in a while. Nothing in the world like sniffing out a story.”
“Fun, huh?”
“More dangerous than fun, son. Least from where I sit.”
Smitty put his cup down. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Why are you digging all of this up? I mean, if it were true, it’d be a hell of a story.”
“But you think there’s more.”
Smitty nodded. The air felt suddenly close. As if something was being offered. Something that, once accepted, could never be undone.
“You really want to know?” I said.