At a little after ten, just as I was getting ready to call Dal, Lily Conover arrived at our temporary HQ. My cable coproducer was dressed down in a little white frock, draped with a zebra-stripe-patterned cape.
She’d flown in from Manhattan to oversee the taping early next week of two Blessing’s in the Kitchen shows focusing on the varying styles of Chicago’s famous pizza, from the original deep dish to the more recent stuffed version, including thin-crust and pan-cooked pies.
“I assume you’ve seen the ad in the Tribune featuring tonight’s show?” she asked.
I admitted I hadn’t.
“I don’t understand you, Billy. Don’t you care anymore?” she asked, digging out a section of the morning paper from her black bag.
“I’ve had a few other things on my mind.”
It was a nice quarter-page ad featuring a still from the show in which I’m holding up one of Charlie Dann’s popular Puff Potatoes. The caption read: “Tonight, Blessing’s in the Kitchen salutes Chicago’s own Charlie Dann. Seven p.m., Wine & Dine Network.”
“You are going to be at the party tonight, right?”
“Sure. What party?”
She turned to face Kiki, who was staring into her laptop with a dreamy half-smile on her face. Lily frowned, then returned to me. “I thought I’d asked Kiki to tell you, but maybe I was mistaken. There’s a party tonight at Charlie’s restaurant. He’s giving away a lot of the Billy Blessing crap—the chef jackets with your picture over the heart, the kitchen essentials, the seasoning bottles. He was hoping you’d be there.”
“Okay. What time?”
“The show’s on at seven. Charlie would probably want you there at six-thirty, maybe?”
“Doable,” I said.
“Excellent. You can chat up the customers, watch the show with them, and maybe answer a couple questions after. Then Charlie’s putting on a feed for a few of us in a private dining room. It’d really be a downer if you didn’t—”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Lily said. “Very good.” She headed for the exit. “On to pizza land. Ta, Kiki—”
“Huh? Oh, right. Ta,” my surprisingly mellow assistant replied.
“Lily’s a breath of fresh air, isn’t she?” I asked her, when the fresh air had blown away.
“Definitely.”
“You okay?”
“Of course,” she said, trying to seem blasé. “Don’t I look okay?”
“You look like somebody with Cupid’s arrow stuck in her.…”
I stopped because my phone was vibrating again.
“Private Number.”
“Blessing. Who’s this?”
“Who do you think?” Nat Parkins replied.
“Where are you?”
“You got the five thou?”
“I can get it,” I said. It was in the hotel safe.
I had to call Dal, find out when he could come pick me up. “A couple of hours,” I said.
“That the best you can do?”
“Afraid so.”
“Okay, then. What time you got?”
I checked my watch. “About ten-forty-five.”
“Exact time.”
“Ten-forty-three.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at Lincoln Park at one. On the dot.”
“At the zoo?”
He was silent, then, “Naw. There’s this place called Grandmother’s Garden. Where Lincoln Park West meets Belden Avenue.”
I snapped my fingers to get Kiki’s attention, then pantomimed writing on a piece of paper. Ordinarily, she’d have handed the objects to me before I’d finished miming. That day, it took nearly a minute.
“There’s a statue of Shakespeare—”
“Hold on.” As I wrote, I repeated his instructions. “Grandmother’s Garden. Lincoln Park West and Belden Avenue.”
“Yeah. I’ll be waiting at the Shakespeare statue.”
“I want something more than my file, Nat,” I said.
He hesitated. “What else?”
“The file belonging to the guy who killed Patton.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Save both our lives, maybe.”
“Deal. But this time you come alone. Leave your honky leg-breaker at home.”
“That’s not—”
“I see anybody with you, I bolt.”
He didn’t bother saying goodbye.
“What’s that all about?” Kiki asked.
“Meeting somebody.”
“You mentioned ‘money’ and ‘the guy who killed Patton.’ Tell me you’re not mixed up in murder again, Billy.”
“I’m not mixed up in murder again,” I said.
“Not exactly,” I said. “The thing is—”
Thank God my phone began vibrating again. “Hold that thought,” I said, getting out the phone. “Actually, don’t hold it.”
“Private Number.”
This time it was Dal.
“You don’t need me right away, do you?” he asked.
I told him that I didn’t need him until around twelve-thirty.
“Okay. It’s official. The burn victim was Mantata. DNA verified it. And there was a leg bone. When Mantata was a young man, one of Jackie ‘the Lackey’ Cerone’s hard cases beat the crap out of him. Snapped his right leg in two places.”
Until that moment I’d been holding out the hope that the old man had faked his death.
“I’m trying to contact all of the crew, including the old-timers,” Dal continued. “The ones I’ve reached are taking it harder than I’d thought. Guess we criminals aren’t so tough after all.”
“What about his sister?”
“I called her. Did you know fucking Oakley was the old man’s nephew?”
“He may have mentioned it.”
“He answered the phone when I called. Still lives with his mother. Talk about arrested development. Anyway, I’m gonna drop by their place for a few minutes. And there’s some other stuff I’d better take care of. No problemo making it by twelve-thirty. I can get there earlier if you want.”
“Make it by noon and we can grab a quick lunch somewhere around here.”
“You’re on.”
I expected Kiki to pick up precisely where we’d left off, but she surprised me. “Could I depart now, Billy?” she asked. “There are a few personal things I should do, and I’ve a … meeting at noon.”
“Go,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your … meeting. With Richard, I assume?”
She smiled. “We’ll name our first boy Billy,” she said.