I sat on an overpass, sipping coffee and staring down at the Eisenhower Expressway. It was just past 6:00 a.m., and a crew from Hi-Top Construction was arriving at the job site. There were ten of them in the pickup. Two up front in the cab. The rest piled into the back. A man with a belly like a cast-iron tub got out of the front and opened a gate so the truck could drive through. The work area ran for almost two miles and was bounded on both sides by a black privacy fence. The pickup stopped near a Hi-Top trailer, and the men in the back climbed out. I pulled a small set of binoculars from my jacket pocket for a better look. The men were dressed in dark pants and long-sleeved shirts. Each carried some sort of suitcase. One wore what looked like a priest’s collar. Iron Belly gestured for them to put their luggage in the trailer. Then he began handing out picks and shovels. The workers hefted their tools and lined up at a long table on the far side of the trailer. That was when Iron Belly brought out the vodka.
I punched in a number on my phone. Jack O’Donnell picked up on the first ring.
“What do you want?”
“Hey, Jackie. I figured you’d be up. How you doing?”
“I thought I was doing fine. Now, I’m not so sure.” For ten years, Jack O’Donnell had worked for the Chicago Tribune as their transportation editor. Now he ran an industry newsletter called The Guard Rail. O’Donnell had spent his professional career studying the men who broke rocks and built highways for a living. If there were bodies buried under the blacktop, O’Donnell knew how to find them. Whether he’d tell me was another matter entirely.
“Where are you?” O’Donnell said.
“I’m sitting on the Ike. Looking at a work site.”
“Which job?”
“Just past Twenty-Fifth Avenue. Let me ask you a question. You ever hear of an outfit called Beacon Limited?”
“Fuck you, Kelly. Everyone knows Beacon.”
“Not me. Not until last night.”
“They like to spread their business out over a bunch of subsidiary contractors, but they’re one of the biggest players in the country. What do you want with them?”
“You sound a little tight, Jack.”
“I’m fine.”
I looked again at the site. The workers were still clustered around the table. Iron Belly was passing out orange vests.
“You got some time, I’d like to pick your brain.”
Silence.
“Jackie, you hear me?”
“I heard you. You want to talk about Beacon?”
“Just a couple of questions.”
“It’s never just a couple of questions. Not with you.”
I waited.
“Let me think about it.”
“You got my number?” I said.
“I got it. Make sure you pick up when I call.”
“Fine, Jackie. I’ll talk to you.”
O’Donnell cut the line. I sat for another minute, watching the ebb and flow of early morning traffic, light stuff streaming smoothly around the construction zone. I started up my car and drove down onto the highway, parking just inside the fence and walking toward the work crew. As I approached, I heard a babble of voices. Best I could tell, all of it was in Polish. I got to within thirty feet before someone noticed me.
“Hey.” It was the priest. He had a cold hot dog, no bun, in one fist. There were more dogs piled on the table along with two half-gallon jugs of vodka and a stack of paper cups. The priest said something to me I didn’t understand, so I smiled. He smiled back. The other workers moved closer. Some had paper cups full of vodka. A couple had shovels. I nodded as they broke out again in Polish. Then Iron Belly stepped out of the trailer.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Name’s Kelly.” I stuck out my hand. Iron Belly didn’t take it.
“You’re trespassing.”
“Sorry. I’m an insurance investigator. Looking for a man named Albert Striker.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He works for a company called Beacon Limited.”
“Never heard of it.” Iron Belly glanced at his work crew, then back at me. “Now piss off before someone gets hurt.”
“Can they understand a word of what we’re saying?”
“They understand enough to kick your ass.”
I nodded and smiled at the crew. “You just pick ’em up at O’Hare?”
Iron Belly grabbed a shovel. Up close, I could see the rotted holes where his teeth used to be and a wad of tobacco stuck in his cheek. “You want to play fuck-fuck, mister. I love to play fuck-fuck.”
I wasn’t sure whether his Polish army would stand and fight. Or just offer me a drink. Either way, I’d stirred the pot. And that was enough for one morning. I was halfway back to my car when I saw them. Four of them. Not Polish. Not illegal. One had a red beard and a bat in his hands. They spread out in a semicircle. Red Beard did the talking.
“This your car?”
“It is.”
He swung the bat and spiderwebbed the passenger’s side of my front windshield. “You’re trespassing.”
“You work for these guys?” I said and hooked a thumb back toward the trailer.
Red Beard nodded. He was six feet plus. Maybe two thirty. And the smallest of the bunch. “This is how we give out tickets to trespassers.” He smashed in a side window. “Next time, it’s your fingers. After that, knees and ankles. You understand what I’m saying?” He turned and started in on the passenger’s-side door. That was when I pulled out my gun and shot him in the thigh. Red Beard went to the ground with a heavy grunt.
“Next one goes in the kneecap,” I said as the other three circled. “Whoever catches it walks with a limp for the rest of his life.”
I waited to see if anyone wanted to play hero. Hired help usually didn’t, and this bunch was no different. They pulled Red Beard to his feet and began to back up. He cursed and tried to come at me again, but his leg buckled. I figured he was the leader and was glad I’d shot him first.
“Back away from the car,” I said.
They gave me fifty feet. I insisted they give me fifty more. Then I slipped in the front seat and started up the car. I ran over a half-dozen cones as I pulled out of the work site and back onto the Ike. I was two miles down the road, windshield nicely smashed and no one in the rearview mirror, when my phone buzzed. It was Rodriguez.
“You up yet?”
“Up and out,” I said.
“Where are you?”
“Just went for a run.”
“Sounds like you’re driving.”
“What’s going on, Vince?”
“I got a little information this morning on one of your pals. Paul Goggin.”
“Where is he?”
Rodriguez gave me Goggin’s last-known address. It was one all Chicagoans found their way to sooner or later: 2121 West Harrison Street. Also known as the Cook County Morgue.