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AFTER LOOKING OVER a rickety shack off Roosevelt Road, I decided to park around the block.
A TV antenna had been jerry-rigged on the roof. A weatherworn picket fence was collapsing under its own weight. Weeds constituted the better part of the front lawn, and packed dirt comprised the parking pad. My knock on the screen door set off vicious barking from inside and shouting from the owner. Scratching paws and plodding footsteps followed. The barking died down. The man who came to the door was in his fifties but looked older. He smelled like a distillery and needed a shave, a haircut, and a change of clothes. Mostly he needed a blood transfusion to replace the alcohol in his veins. When he got a gander of me, his turgid eyes filled to the brim. It was probably the first time he’d focused on something other than Jack Daniels since waking up this morning, if he woke up at all.
“Nick Testa?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Jane Smith with the Post-News.”
He belched and scratched his crotch. “Why don’t I believe that’s your real name?”
“I get that all the time,” I said, laughing.
He was looking me over, sizing me up, and deciding whether I was friend or foe.
“I’m writing a piece on O’Hare,” I said.
His eyes focused. “Airport or lawyer?”
“Are you the same Nick Testa who owned a piece of property out near Mannheim Road?”
Becoming instantly sober, he scratched his chest through a hole in his T-shirt and belched. “What’s it any of your business?”
“As I said, I’m writing a piece for the Post-News, and I was wondering if we might sit down and have a chat.”
He pushed open the screen door, the springs groaning, and invited me inside with a hand-flopping gesture. We shuffled into the kitchen. He cleared a spot for me at the table. Dishes were stacked everywhere. The sink was a repository for flies. The dog ran rabid around a fenced yard. Nick Testa poured an inch of whiskey into the bottom of a tumbler. As an afterthought, he offered me a drink.
I declined with a polite shake of my head. “I’ve been doing some research down at the Recorder of Deeds, Mr. Testa, and found your signature on several land deeds.”
“How do you know the signature’s genuine?”
“Actually I ... well ... I guess I don’t.”
His mouth swept into a smirk. “You pro’ly think I need someone to clean me up and that you’re just the lady who can scrub the stink away.” He threw his head up and roared. “You don’t have enough cleanser for the job. Nobody does.”
I learned a long time ago that silence is the greatest inducement for truth-telling. Put two people in a room together without the benefit of distractions, add utter quiet, and at least one of them is bound to confess his deepest, darkest secrets. Willingly and eagerly.
He poured another drink into the cracked tumbler. The more he drank, the soberer he became. After considering me through bloodshot eyes, he came to a decision. Maybe he decided he could trust me. Maybe he just didn’t give a damn. Maybe the silence got to him. “Want to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth according to Nick Testa?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“Ever hear of Joey Arezzo?”
“Who hasn’t.”
“Back, I dunno, seven, eight years ago, he sent over a smooth-talking lawyer and a six-foot German packing a blade. Smooth as honey, the lawyer. Sat down with me across the kitchen table like you are now. Same table, different kitchen. Knew him from the neighborhood. He didn’t remember me. Or made a point not to.”
He drank off the inch of whiskey.
“The property you mentioned? Picked it up for a song. Back then, I was running numbers for Esposito. This jamoke ... forget his name ... doesn’t matter anyway ... owed me a ton, and when he couldn’t cough up, put up a consolation prize. His hand shook when he signed the deed over to me. I was holding a pistol to his head at the time.”
He poured himself another inch of rotgut. Layers of fingerprints smudged the green-tinted glass.
“I decided to hang onto the land. Figured it might be worth something someday. Took out a legit loan at two-and-a-half percent. Told the bank I was putting in improvements. Only improvement I put in was a family of Mexicans. Turned over half the cash to Esposito’s underboss—Arezzo—and told him the deal was square.”
He lit up a cigarette and took his first puff, coughing and hacking into a soiled sleeve.
“So there I was eighteen months later, sitting at a kitchen table, stinking of fear. Figured this was payback time. Didn’t know why they wanted cow land so bad, but I wasn’t enlightened back then like I am now.”
He set down the tumbler and held up his left hand. The tip of his pinkie was missing. “The German only mutilated the one. Didn’t need to take another.”
“And you signed.”
“The handwriting on that deed is as legit as the days are long.”
“And the man who threatened you?”
“Used to run numbers like me. We were eleven, twelve years old when we first met up. Learned our ABCs the hard way. On the streets. I got rousted every other Tuesday, thrown in jail a couple times, sent to the big house once. Him? He’s carrying a rabbit’s foot in his back pocket. Keeps his cuffs clean and his running shoes greased. Makes connections. Moves up the corporate ladder, so to speak. Mind like a steel trap. Girlies dripping off him like diamonds. Gets into a couple of jams but manages to snake his way out. Until one day, luck runs out. Police lieutenant from Bloody Maxwell corners him, pats him down, finds a wad of dough, brings him in. Goon squad does its thing. At first, he won’t squeal. Then he can’t squeal. They dump him in the woods and leave him for dead. He crawls his way out. Winds up in the hospital with broken fingers, broken nose, broken ribs. The docs had to wire his jaw shut. Few months later, the looey is found face up in the Chicago River. Guy’s got guts, a way of handling himself. Charming but vicious, know what I mean? Next thing you know, he’s driving for Arezzo. Dresses like a banker. Gets arrested one more time. Charges don’t stick. He protects himself the only way he knows how. Goes to night school. Gets a law degree. Passes the bar. I ask him why he wants to stuff his head with all that crap. Tells me he’s got a wife and kid to support and another on the way. By then, Arezzo has taken him under his wing. The Zipper wasn’t much back then. But as he moves up, so does my old pal. Course now, he don’t know me from an asshole.”
He poured himself another drink. Leaned back in his chair. Threw his eyes to the ceiling. Pondered his wasted life. Shook an impotent fist. Realized it would take a second lifetime to get even with everyone who’d done him wrong. Wasn’t worth the bother, especially when he was thirsty.
“The day he took the tip of my finger, I figured out something. An inch at a time can kill a man slow but sure.” He hoisted the tumbler in a toast, emptied the glass, and belched.
“And the name of the man who convinced you to sign over the deeds?” I asked.
“Name of Grenadine. John Grenadine.”
