Rodriguez and I talked for another half hour. He promised to see if he could dig up anything on the whereabouts of Eddie Ward or Paul Goggin. Before he left, Rodriguez urged me again to empty the hundred grand out of the account before it disappeared of its own accord. I told him I’d think about it and followed him out the door five minutes later. I hailed a cab and looked out the window as we crawled through the evening rush on Lake Shore Drive. I had the cabbie get off at Fullerton Avenue and head west until we hit Lincoln. Then we backtracked a couple of blocks and pulled up in front of a bar with a hanging sign of a gigantic carrot.
Sterch’s had been a tradition on Lincoln Avenue since the early seventies. The place was, and always had been, a drinkers’ bar. Serious drinkers. The kind who put their keys and money on the bar because they knew they were gonna be there awhile. I walked in around half past five. The bar was full, and there wasn’t a TV in the place. Boxing gloves and carrots hung from the ceiling and walls. An ALCOHOL FUTURES chalkboard was pegged above the register. On it were the names of six or seven regulars who’d had drinks bought for them in absentia or had been too lubricated at the time to take advantage of someone’s largesse. Beside the board was a stack of citations from the city of Chicago for violations of its no-smoking laws and a white-and-black sign that read: THE MORE CORRUPT THE STATE, THE MORE NUMEROUS THE LAWS. TACITUS. In the back of the place, the bar had been kind enough to set up its own no-smoking section. It consisted of an empty rectangle made of aluminum tubing and hanging a foot or two from the ceiling. Nice.
I caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a longneck Bud, then took my beer to a seat by the window and watched the people walk past. I’d been coming into Sterch’s a couple of times a week for the past few months. The “craic,” as my Irish-born friends liked to call bar conversation, was “mighty”…even if you were just listening. Which is mostly what I did. Listen to the chatter, drink my beer, and stare out the window. She usually caught the 5:45 bus up Lincoln Avenue. She used to drive to work, but now she took the bus. Sometimes, it ran a little late. Tonight was one of those times. Rachel Swenson was the second-to-last person to get off. She wore a black jacket with a collar she lifted against a sudden patter of rain. Rachel hustled across Lincoln and turned to urge someone behind her to beat the blinking light. She stretched out her hand and laughed. My eyes tracked back through the crowd, hunting for her companion. A couple of taxis cruised into the intersection and blocked my view. Then they laid on their horns just for fun. By the time the people and cars had cleared, Rachel was gone. As was her friend.
I had two more beers at Sterch’s and eavesdropped on the conversations floating through the place. At a table to my left, a man and woman were comparing Royko to today’s crop of scribblers. Not much of a comparison. Not much of a conversation. Behind me, a couple of guys debated the merits of our mayor. One guy thought he was setting himself up for a run at the White House. The other figured that to be a lateral move at best. And not a very smart one. My mind wandered back to Rachel, standing in a soft rain in the middle of the street, living her life and filling it up with people. I figured that was a good thing. No matter how much it hurt. I finished my beer, picked up my money, and headed out.
Maggie’s nose was at the front door as soon as I cracked it. She ran around in circles until I opened up a cabinet for the dog food. Then she was all business, sitting at attention, eyes riveted on my every move. I filled her bowl, crouched down, and stared at her. She held my gaze for about ten seconds before her eyes flicked toward the bowl.
“Maggie.”
Her eyes came back to mine and held on for another thirty seconds. Then the drift again, accompanied this time by a soft whine.
“Mags.”
She barked once and slapped her tail against the floor. I nodded toward the bowl. She dove in up to her ears. Ten seconds later, she was done. I pulled her leash off a hook sunk into the wall.
“Park?”
She streaked to the front door and sat. I leashed her up, and we walked three blocks to a field next to a local middle school. The rain had stopped and the turf was just wet enough to be sloppy. Springer-spaniel weather. I unsnapped the leash and threw a tennis ball into the night. Mags brought it back and dropped it at my feet. I threw it again. The city felt empty—the only sound the metal clink of Mags’s tags as she ran. I thought about Ray Perry. Maybe he was on a beach somewhere. Maybe he was dead. Maybe someone just wanted him dead. The tennis ball rolled against my shoe. I picked it up and looked at Mags, tongue out, tail thumping against the grass. I tossed the ball from hand to hand and smelled the smoke and sweat of Sterch’s coming off my clothes. Mags barked. I’m still here, she said. I wound up and leaned into a throw. When I was in high school, I played center field. No one ever ran on me. If they did, it was at their peril. A couple of years back, I took a bag of balls out to my old position. In my mind and heart, I knew I could still do it. Then I picked up a ball and fired toward home plate. The mechanics were fine. Better, even, than I could have hoped for. The ball, however, barely reached the pitcher’s mound. I remembered taking a look around. Maybe they’d changed the dimensions of the diamond. Maybe I was in deep center field. I grabbed another ball out of the bag and tried again. This one rolled up on the mound and bounced off the rubber. My shoulder was on fire down to my fingertips. I told myself I just needed to build up the arm again. If I came out once a week for a summer, I’d be back to where I was. That’s what I told myself. Then I threw the bag of balls into the trunk of my car and slammed it shut.
I got back to the apartment around 8:00 p.m. No messages. No e-mails. I made myself some mac and cheese and threw in a can of tuna because I thought I needed the iron. I wasn’t sure if tuna had any iron, but figured the mac and cheese didn’t and the upgrade couldn’t hurt. When I was done, Mags licked the bowl clean. Maybe she needed some iron, too. I fixed up a pot of coffee and took a cup into the living room, where I sat down with my laptop. Mags curled up on the other end of the couch and stared at me. I googled Ray Perry and began to pick through articles. Then I googled his wife. The picture I pulled up was taken at a community forum years ago. Even in the best of times, Marie Perry’s face was better seen through the lens of a camera. Some people were just like that. Not unattractive in real life, just never quite living up to the magic of being “photogenic.” I studied the elegant set of her chin and clean line of her jaw but couldn’t find any of the pain I’d seen today. Still, there was something inescapably sad wrapped up in Marie Perry’s smile, and I wondered where it came from.
I clicked the photo shut and opened up my black notebook. On the first blank page, I wrote down three names. EDDIE WARD. PAUL GOGGIN. RAY PERRY. I drew a line between WARD and GOGGIN and wrote VENDING MACHINE underneath it. Then I drew a line between PERRY and WARD and wrote ELEVATOR RIDE. Off to one side I scratched out MARIE PERRY and drew a final line between her and her husband. I stared at my little diagram for a while, then logged on to the website for the Illinois State Board of Elections. After about an hour, I had a working list of Ray Perry’s major donors from 2005 through 2010. My routine was the same. I took each name in turn and did a search for any media coverage. Then I did a litigation search, cross-referencing the donor’s name against civil and criminal court cases filed in Cook County. The donor list was an impressive one. A lot of high rollers. A lot of corporate money. I didn’t really know what I was looking for but figured I’d recognize it when I saw it. It wasn’t the best plan, but right now it was all I had.
I took a sip of coffee and typed in a name off the list. Hi-Top Construction. It was an Illinois corporation that had donated almost two million dollars to Perry spread out over three years. I pulled up the articles of incorporation for Hi-Top from the secretary of state’s office. The company’s registered agent was a local lawyer named Albert Striker. I shuffled through my handwritten notes. Striker had also acted as the registered agent for another Perry donor, an outfit called Eagle Cement. Neither company listed any corporate officers other than Striker. Not unusual, but interesting. I plugged Striker’s name into the state’s database. Five more corporations popped up. One of them, Railway Steel, was also on the Perry donor list.
I got up and poured myself some more coffee. Then I walked back into the living room and opened a fresh document on my laptop. Under the heading STRIKER GROUP, I typed the names of the three privately held corporations. Between them, they’d donated more than eight million dollars to Ray Perry over three years. When I expanded the window to five years, the donations jumped to more than fifteen million. Each outfit had won bids for significant highway construction projects during Perry’s time in Springfield. I dug into the online clips and pulled up details on the state contracts. I printed out some articles and added names to my list. Spokesmen, contractors, more lawyers, a half-dozen vice presidents. Around 1:00 a.m., I found the entity I’d been looking for—Beacon Limited, a holding company that appeared to own all of the other outfits. Not surprisingly, Albert Striker was the only individual listed on Beacon’s corporate charter. I put the name in caps and highlighted it in bold. By 2:00 a.m., I’d gone through two-thirds of the donors and filled up twenty pages with notes. I’d identified a couple of other key Perry supporters and listed them alongside the Striker group. I turned off the computer, collected my handwritten notes, and locked them away in a drawer. Then I drank a glass of whiskey and smoked a cigarette by an open window. Maggie was curled up on the floor of my bedroom and yawned when I came in. She gave me a quick scan to see if I had any food, then went back to sleep. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Smart dog. Stupid owner.