Half a million dollars. That was build-a-home-in-the-burbs money or add-a-really-nice-second-story money. I also couldn’t imagine Judge Reynolds and his wife taking on a construction project of that magnitude in the middle of her cancer treatments. Modifications to the home for her physical restrictions wouldn’t cost anywhere near that much. Even if he had found someone willing to give him the loan, it made no sense.
I was walking north, snaking back through Daley Plaza for my meeting with Sebastian, the burn victim Mateo Ortiz had connected me with from The Chicken Shack, and scrolling my phone, trying to search for information on Selciatto Holdings, all while dodging tourists and hoping to avoid a pratfall off a curb. The three-block walk wasn’t even close to enough time for an adequate data dive.
Sebastian worked as a prep cook at Petterino’s these days, an upscale Loop tradition, nestled between the Goodman Theatre and the Nederlander Theatre, that catered to business lunch types and the theater crowd. A little bit steakhouse, a little bit Italian, and a little bit seafood. In other words, something for everyone. Its claim to fame was the framed cartoons on the walls of all the famous people, actors and politicians alike, who had dined there over the years. It was hardly an innovative design statement, but I imagined decades of tradition were hard to change.
It was just before eleven when I arrived, and the mouthwatering scent of marinara sauce was pungent. Although too early for the first lunch seating, prep was underway, and two young men in crisp white shirts and navy aprons were laying out the table settings and small bud vases filled with red carnations.
I waited on the sidewalk, shooting off a text to let Sebastian know I’d arrived, but my mind was on loans and suburban pizza joints.
It wasn’t long before a man pushed through the revolving door and locked his eyes on me expectantly. I nodded, and he came toward me.
“Sebastian?”
He was tall and thin with dark, chiseled features and a pencil mustache. His high-waisted baggy jeans were cuffed and belted, and he wore a simple white pocket T-shirt that showed off his intricate sleeve tattoos. He reminded me of someone from a different era, Salvador Dalí perhaps, minus the crazy bug eyes and bandana around his neck.
“Yeah. Are you the reporter who wants to know about inspectors?”
“I’m Andrea Kellner. As Mateo told you, I’m working on a piece about your former boss, Orlando Gaetano.”
A crooked smile tilted up one side of his mouth. Interesting.
“Look, I gotta make this quick, okay? Midday crowd and all.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at me.
“How long did you work at The Chicken Shack?” I asked. The length of time he’d been employed mattered, as the longer the stint, the more he might have seen.
“I put in almost two torturous years at that shithole. The job was crap, but it only took me ten minutes to get to work and I liked the people. Made some good friends.” He shrugged. “Or maybe we just all had collective PTSD. I don’t know. Feels like we alums ought to get medals once a year for breaking out of purgatory like they do in AA.”
“You think of working there like an addiction?” I asked, uncertain if he was being literal or simply felt the need for a reward after putting in the time.
“Kinda. Or maybe it’s more like a cult. They prey on folks who don’t have options. Broke-ass poor. Illegals. Addicts needing cash for the next fix. It’s the job-of-last-resort stuff. If they could get away with running a Craigslist ad that said, ‘When no one else will hire you, we will!’ they’d do it. Once you’re in the door, you’re stuck. Then they break you down, find your weak spot, remind you your status is shaky. Anything that keeps you afraid. Then they use it.”
“Use it how?”
“Long hours. Low pay. A little ass grab here and there. More if they can manage it. Basically sweatshop stuff. You’re trapped. You need the dough and there ain’t much else, so you shut up and put up with it. ’Cause what choice is there? You gotta eat.”
“But you complained.” I watched his gaze turn direct.
“I’m legal. I may have had a shit-filled history when I walked in that door, but they couldn’t hold an ICE raid over my head,” he said, a challenging edge in his voice. “It was always an empty threat. Gaetano and his boys aren’t going to be stoking the fryer all day. But real or not, the threat spooked people, and no one wanted to test them. I was dealing with some personal stuff and needed to be close to home, but after a while, ya get fed up. It ain’t right to work your ass off and not get paid, right? Gaetano’s makin’ his. Livin’ in a big-ass mansion. I had to say something ’cause no one else could.”
“But that didn’t go over well, did it?” I watched his face, trying to gauge his level of hostility.
He glanced behind him before continuing.
“No, but I kept at it. Every few weeks when Gaetano would show his fat ass at the restaurant, I’d corner him and remind him of the laws he was breakin’. Didn’t take long before they put me on probation and told me I’d better shape the hell up and be grateful for having the job at all. Then one night after closing, Gaetano and his boys—his club, he calls them—they were hanging out, a full feast on the table, all of ’em loud and laughin’ it up like they always do. I’m in the kitchen doing my thing, anxious to get the hell home. I had just turned off the fryers and was skimming the vats when the night supervisor comes over. He reaches up to get something off the shelf where I’m working, which ain’t cool, anyway. Knocks a metal bowl into the hot oil. Splashes up over my arm. Burns the fuck out of me. I’m howlin’. That stuff is 450 degrees. He gives me an ‘Oops, sorry about that,’ all with a smile on his face. I wrap my arm in ice and head for the door, on my way to the emergency room. Gaetano looks at me and says, ‘You take care, now.’ I’ll never forget that smirk as long as I live.”
He held out his right forearm.
“Look close, under the tat. I had a partial before, but the burn mangled the hell out of it, so I went next level, got the full sleeve to cover up the scars.”
I stared at the tattoo, seeing the uneven, wrinkled skin poking through the patchwork of ink, wondering about the additional pain on the new, sensitive tissue and what other atrocities had occurred under Gaetano’s watch. His callous disregard for his employees disgusted me and, looking at this, health code violations might be the least of Gaetano’s ugliness.
“Were you around during any of the health inspector’s visits?” I asked as Sebastian pulled back his arm.
He gave me another smug look. “Why don’t we get right to the point? You want to know if the inspector was on the take. Who do you think was sitting at that table with Gaetano, shoving down fried chicken as fast as he could get it in his mouth, grease dripping down his chin? Mr. Nestor Morales, of course. Health inspections are supposed to be unannounced, but we always knew. Not the exact day, but you could tell it was coming. The supervisors would start having us clean shit that never got cleaned, harp on us about how we bagged the trash. Suddenly the refrigerator had to be at the proper temp.”
“How often did that happen?”
“The city assigns risk levels based on history, and we were a level-one risk based on past complaints, so that means inspections twice a year. That’s the worst category. Best is three. They only get hit up every other year. But Morales, he’d come in and blow through the place in ten minutes, and half of that would be schmoozing with the supervisor. It was a joke. What I don’t get is why Morales would eat the food knowing what he knows. I sure didn’t.”
“And Morales spent time at the restaurant socially, outside of his inspection duties. Correct?”
“Every Wednesday night, like clockwork. Gaetano and his boys. His squad. There was a revolving door of them coming and going after close, like it was the private social club in Goodfellas. His suburban goons snuck into the city all the time for whatever it is these guys do after the shop closes. And knowing Gaetano, I would bet that there is money involved. Probably dirty money.”