The Skeleton's Knee (35 page)

I rose to a sitting position, found the wall with my back, pulled out my handkerchief, and wrapped it around my head to staunch the bleeding. Then, like an old and stubborn dog with only one purpose in life, I got to all fours, then to one knee, and finally rose to my feet again, as determined as ever to see this through to the end.

I wasn’t driven by the image of Shilly’s mutilated body or the humiliation of having been duped by Shattuck. I kept going because I saw no other option. Only in Korea, decades ago, had I experienced such a seeming loss of choices, when, cold, starving, exhausted, and shell-shocked, I and dozens like me had held on to positions that could easily have been abandoned. Then, as now, retreat—or even common sense—hadn’t appeared as an alternative.

The heavy clang I’d heard had not come from a door but from a large hatchway in the floor. I pulled it open by a ring mounted to a bracket and was thrown off balance by how easily it came away. It was counterbalanced by a weight below and stayed in whatever position I left it, which explained how Shattuck had vanished so quickly. He had already opened it before trying to blow my head off at the entrance, planning a quick escape.

Below me was yet another passageway, lined by dozens of thick, insulated electrical cables. It was narrow, cramped, and as black as night. I cautiously climbed down the short steel ladder at the edge of the hole and looked around. The tunnel was just six feet in circumference but was actually very cramped due to the bundles of cable. It extended in opposite directions, but whether for eight feet or eight miles, I couldn’t tell in the dark. I did hear some noise straight ahead, however, along with a distant, reflected glimmer of light that died almost as soon as I’d noticed it.

I quickly looked around, hoping the absence of light was something the subway work crews were equipped to overcome, and found not a master switch or fuse box but six large flashlights strung together through their handles by a busted chain mounted to the wall, presumably some more of Shattuck’s handiwork.

I took one of the lights, switched it on, and began to trot in the direction of the distant flicker I’d seen.

My momentum didn’t last long. At the first corner, I came to an opening halfway up the wall of a large junction area, square, high-ceilinged, and fed by a dozen or so tunnels similar to the one I was in. A second steel ladder led down to the floor of this chamber. It was anyone’s guess where that flicker of light had vanished to.

Dispirited, drained by the thought that all the effort I’d expended—not to mention the blood—had been for nothing, I climbed down the ladder for a last look around. It was unlikely, I knew, but maybe in his haste, Shattuck had left some sign indicating which tunnel he’d used.

The entrances weren’t all at the same level. Some were flush with the chamber’s floor; others were located atop high ladders near the ceiling. I checked them in order, working counterclockwise, flashing my light down each one, listening carefully, until I got to the tallest of the ladders, about fifteen feet up.

By this time, I’d lost whatever edge my nerves had been keeping sharp. The roller-coaster plane ride, the drenching walk through the storm, the street sign totaling Norm’s car, the near-suicidal jump off the train, the hunt-and-go-seek with guns, all had pretty much done me in. I’d been battered, bruised, kicked, scraped, cut open, and shot at. I was beginning to feel like hell.

So I was unprepared, three-quarters of the way up the last ladder, gripping the railings with a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, to see Shattuck pop out above me like some evil jack-in-the-box, complete with a sinister grin, and jam his pistol square in the middle of my bandaged forehead.

“Hi there.” His voice was flat and quiet—a serpent’s hiss.

· · ·

I was sitting at the foot of the ladder, my back against the rungs, my hands tied to the rails, my feet sticking out ahead of me. Shattuck rested cross-legged on my shins, his weight crushing my calves and causing my knees to spasm in agony. He played with his revolver—a brushed steel .357 Magnum—with a practiced nonchalance.

“It was Joe, right? Vermont Joe. You’re not looking too good. You do put up a hell of a fight, though, for a man your age.” He tipped my head toward the dim light to examine the burns left behind by his earlier muzzle flash.

“Nasty. What makes you so persistent?”

I didn’t answer, nor had I said a single word since he’d caught me.

“Is it Shilly? Did it bother you what I did to him? He was a hypocritical prick. I knew about him from the old days—big on bringing medicine to the people, saying the Establishment was ripe for burning. He was just killing time, figuring out how he could cash in, especially after he got thrown out of the hospital.

He shook his head in wonder. “What a mind fuck, you know? Tracking me down after all those years, looking for a name for your skeleton… Like a babe in the woods. You smarter now?”

I remained silent.

A furrow appeared between his eyes, and he leaned forward slightly, causing me to clamp my teeth against the jolt from my partly inverted knees. “I need to know what you’ve learned, Joe.”

Through the pain and the fear, I knew he was telling me the truth. Norm
had
shaken him off on our way to visit Penny Nivens at her fancy school, and the mobsters that interviewed her later obviously hadn’t communicated their findings to Shattuck, which confirmed he was working alone and beginning to feel left out.

For all his seeming confidence, he hadn’t gained any ground since he’d kidnapped Shilly. Which made me his one reluctant ally.

Nevertheless, I didn’t want to answer his question, or reveal how little I knew. “What do you want after all this time? The money?”

His face tightened with emotion. “Don’t sell money short, Joe. Money is power, when you use it right. And I want those who betrayed me—all of them. They stole my future with that money, and the hopes of everyone I would have saved. And when I find them, you’ll think Kevin Shilly died a peaceful death.”

I watched the swollen vein pulsing on his temple and the hard glitter in his eye. The intensity of his anger made me think of Alfredo Bonatto—his interest barely perceptible beneath a demure, discreet, almost bland exterior—the exact opposite of the firecracker facing me. I wondered whether I could get the two of them to keep one another off my back. Given my position, it was as realistic a notion as any, and perhaps a good way to keep Shattuck off balance.

“You may not get your chance. You and I aren’t the only ones interested in this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Shilly told you what he did for Pendergast, didn’t he?”

“You mean putting in the metal knee?”

“Because the real one had been blown off by a mobster named Tommy Salierno.”

Unconsciously, Shattuck leaned back slightly, easing the pressure on my knees. He sat there thinking for a while. Finally, he rocked forward, bringing his face close to mine and the pain to new heights. I couldn’t swallow the groan that gargled in my throat.

“So the Outfit’s in on it. Tell me, Vermont Joe, you think this buys you some slack?”

It wasn’t the question I wanted to hear, but the leering quality he dressed it in cut through my fear. I was angered that he thought somehow he’d be able to walk away from all this—untouched and a winner. “I think it puts you in a worse position than I am.”

The gun settled in his right hand and his index finger slipped around the trigger. “Yeah?”

He straightened slightly, slipping the pistol between us, so that our eyes met just over the front sight. The only light came from the flashlight lying on the floor, which dimly caught the gleam of sweat on one of Shattuck’s hollow cheeks, his wide, unnaturally bright eyes, and the dull gray glow from the revolver’s burnished barrel.

“You don’t know shit about me. I’m the bear who’s been hibernating for damn near twenty-five years, and now that I’m out, I don’t give a rat’s ass who gets in my way—you, or the Outfit, or the fucking National Guard. I’m real hungry, and the last thing anyone wants to do is to get between a pissed-off, hungry bear and his food.”

His voice was a whisper, a farewell sigh, and I knew then that I’d miscalculated, that I’d allowed him to count me out of his plans. The pain from my legs melted away, along with the hope I’d been collecting and hoarding. I watched those dark, gleaming, too-wide eyes and felt nothing but weariness. He wouldn’t survive in the long run—that was a given—but I knew now I wouldn’t be a witness to his end.

Shattuck’s thumb pulled back the hammer. I could see the vague outline of his mouth, still locked in its smile—friendly, comforting, supportive, or so I worked to make it, to remind me of the sweet things in life—a little something to take with me.

His index finger tightened slowly on the trigger, like a good shooter’s should. The barrel didn’t waver. His eyes narrowed slightly in anticipation of the explosion.

I closed my eyes.

And the hammer fell.

There was a sharp, brittle click, like the sound of teeth snapping shut, but louder and more painful.

Shattuck lowered the gun as my eyes reopened. The smile widened but the voice remained a whisper—barely audible. “Shucks—must’ve forgot to reload.”

And then he left me alone in the dark.

I SPENT THE REST OF THE NIGHT
and part of the next day in the hospital, getting stitched, X-rayed, medicated, poked, and questioned. I felt like a used car getting a wax job so that everybody around me would feel better.

Norm Runnion and his colleagues had found me a couple of hours after my brush with Shattuck’s version of Russian roulette. They’d traced the train back to the littered platform, to the blood-spattered floor and the open hatchway just beyond, but found no sign of Robert Shattuck—only the well-supplied hideaway he’d been living in for the past several days, at the end of one of those infrequently traveled electrical tunnels.

They did find out about my and Runnion’s involvement in chasing Shattuck down, however, which was enough to get me a ticket out of town on the next morning’s flight and to put Norm in the hot water he’d gambled on avoiding.

Norm came by around midday, cleaned up and looking rested, sporting a bandage around his head similar to my own. With his beard, it gave him a vaguely rakish air—the aging pirate wearing a tie.

He sat in the chair facing the bed and propped his feet on one of the bed’s lower rungs. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I was rolled in a cement mixer. They going to punch your ticket?”

“With three months to go? Not likely. They’ll huff and puff.”

He looked at his shoes for a moment.

“I’m sorry the Outfit connection didn’t work out,” I said.

He sighed. “Yeah—that would’ve been nice.”

“I told Shattuck about their involvement.”

He grinned at that. “No shit, really? He might be crazy enough to try something with them. That would be interesting.”

There was another pause. “I hear you got until sunset to leave town.”

“More like sunrise—earliest flight they could book. They filed an official complaint with my chief for willfully meddling in an ongoing investigation and for unprofessional and discourteous conduct.”

“How’s that going to sit back home?”

“They don’t give much of a damn about what outsiders think. It’s one of the advantages of provincialism.”

“What about the case? Did you get enough?”

“I would’ve liked to chase down the University of Illinois connection between Pendergast and Fuller—put a real name to Fuller. A yearbook might’ve done that. Then interview anyone who knew them, find out why Fuller never appeared with David except in that one shot.”

“Hell, I can check out some of that.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Norm.”

But he waved his hand dismissively. “Oh shit, Joe, don’t worry about it—it’ll give me a chance to use my contacts one last time. Believe me, the brass’ll never know.”

I nodded my appreciation. He stood up to leave, leaning over to shake my hand. “I better get back to work. This little stunt added about two feet to my paperwork. It was nice knowin’ you.”

I held his grip for a moment, spurred by an impulse that had hit me the night before, during my little chat with Shattuck. “There is one more thing, Norm—kind of a strange favor.”

“Shoot.”

“Is there any way you can contact Bonatto—ask him to meet me somewhere?”

He gave me a long look. “It’s a good thing for both of us you’re headin’ out tomorrow. I can do it, but I can’t guarantee they’ll agree to it, and they’ll want to set it up themselves, in any case. They’ll need to know where to find you.”

“Same motel—I reserved a room for tonight.”

He nodded. “All right, but only if you promise to tell me about it later.”

I thanked him for his help and apologized again for the way things worked out. He brushed it off but paused at the door. “In the report, you said that after he tied you up, you and Shattuck talked for a while before he left.”

“Yeah.”

“He didn’t do anything? I was thinking of Shilly, you know? It made me wonder…”

I thought back to those last moments, staring down the pistol barrel, watching that smile, my despair trying to turn it into something hopeful. “No. We just talked.”

Runnion nodded and left, obviously unconvinced. It seemed unfriendly, after all Norm had done for me, but how do you tell somebody about something like that?

· · ·

The old Navy Pier sticks out almost a mile into Lake Michigan—an ancient, crumbling artifact that the city is working to resurrect into some sort of tourist attraction. All of downtown Chicago lies like a jeweled crescent reflected on the water—distant, stellar, and magnificently still, its distant rumble quelled by the gentle lapping of the waves against the pier’s corroded cement sides.

I pulled into the near-deserted parking lot at midnight, as the phone call had instructed, got out of my car, and walked over to the pier’s entrance—a gaunt and shabby brick building with an archway in its center and two six-sided towers on the ends. Its once imposing aura had been diminished by the restoration crew’s efforts to beef up its failing frame—there were huge gaps where the brick had been torn away to reveal the original rusty I-beams. The whole structure looked like a doddering old lady whose sole remaining dignity had been removed along with her clothes.