The next day was a momentum day, something that—if you’re lucky—happens when the pieces you’ve been studying, turning, and scratching your head about suddenly start to fall into place. I had just picked up my ’86 Porsche Turbo from storage when my cell rang. It was Ice.
“Sounds like you’re on a racetrack,” he said. “Surprised you’re not on the golf course, weather like it is.”
“I’m supposed to be playing tomorrow,” I said. “And I’m not on a racetrack. Just picked up my car for the summer.”
“A car for the summer,” Ice said. “Pretty damn fancy for a private detective.”
“A private detective whose parents both went to Ivy League schools.”
“Which makes you a flunky, since you broke tradition and went to a regular school.”
“True, but a flunky who can hit a golf ball three hundred yards.”
“And I can shoot an apple from the same distance.”
“Mediocre,” I said. “I’ve seen Mechanic hit a seedless grape at that distance.”
“Bullshit,” Ice said. “The man is good, but ain’t nobody got gun skills like that. Not even them damn snipers in the army. Anyway, I’m calling about your kid with the tattoo. I found him.”
“Took you long enough.”
“I got an organization to run, man. Playin’ cops and robbers ain’t high on my list. His name is Jalen Duncan. They call him Puddin’. He’s a twenty-three-year-old knucklehead out in the streets, trying to make a name for himself.”
“Is he affiliated?”
“Nope. Don’t know which gang would want his sorry ass. Used to work at an auto parts store til he got caught selling shit out the back of the store.”
“You have an address for him?”
“He lives with his girlfriend, LaShonda Brooks, over in Chatham. But he’s in and out most of the day and night.”
Ice gave me the address. I could hear babies in the background.
“Sounds like you’re in a nursery,” I said.
“My great-nieces are with me for the day. Their mother dropped them off an hour ago, and they already tore up half the damn office.”
I smiled, imagining Chicago’s biggest gangster babysitting twin babies, the daughters of his nephew who had been murdered because he and his girlfriend had discovered the deceptions of her wealthy family.
“Are they talking yet?”
“And talking back. Smart, just like their father.”
“You still miss him.”
“Of course I do. Every day of my life.”
“Thanks for the info. I’d like to see the girls one of these days.”
“They spend a day with me once a month. Next time I have ’em, I’ll let you know.”
As soon as I got off the phone with Ice, I called Burke and told him about Duncan. He looped in Delacorte, and we agreed to put a team together and head over to the girlfriend’s house to see if we could find him. Just as I was unlocking the door to my office, my phone rang. It was Kantor’s assistant Pedro.
“You asked about the flight manifests for Elliott’s plane,” Pedro said. “I know you wanted six months, but I was able to get the last three months. They changed their computer system or something and can’t find the other three months, but they’re working on it.”
“How many pages?”
“About twenty.”
“Did you look at them?”
“Not really. I just got them in a few minutes ago.”
“Can you send them to me right now?”
“They’re on the way.”
I walked back to my computer and found Pedro’s email sitting at the top of my inbox. I opened it, then downloaded the attached manifests. I quickly scanned through the pages. There were twenty-two total. Each page represented a different flight. There was lots of information at the top of the page, including the flight date, departure, destination points, and times, as well as the pilots, crew, and passengers. I took each flight separately. Kantor was on board for at least half of the flights. I took out three colored highlighters. Any name except for Kantor’s that I saw twice, I marked in blue. If a name appeared three times, I marked it in pink. If it appeared four times, I marked it in yellow. The most passengers a flight had was ten. That was on February 4, going from Chicago to Albany in the Bahamas. The plane came back to Chicago on February 12. All of the passengers returned. There were plenty of flights without Kantor. I already had the former football player Lance Greene on two of them. He went down both times with a woman named Fiona Manheim. I knew he wasn’t married. Maybe it was his girlfriend. I kept reading and marking.
I made it to the seventh page. It was a flight from Chicago to London. There was only one passenger: Monroe Connelly. He had flown over in March and turned around and flew back home the next day. I checked the other manifests. Connelly had taken three flights in the last three months. His last flight was in April. There were eight people on the plane, including Kantor. All men. The plane left April 4 and returned April 7. Connelly’s name, however, was not on the manifest of the return flight. There could’ve been lots of reasons why he didn’t fly back with everyone else, but I starred the flight anyway, just to follow up on it.
I had combed through half the flights when my phone rang. It was Delacorte.
“You want a ride to the party?” he said.
I thought about driving myself, then remembered I had the Porsche.
“I’m at my office,” I said. “I’m ready to go.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
I took one last look at the manifests where I had highlighted Connelly’s name. Something bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I put those manifests to the side. I’d take another look at them first when I got back.
We picked Duncan up without incident. Of course, he tried running out the back door of the tiny bungalow-style house, only to run into six cops who had their guns raised and were itching for any small reason to pull the trigger. Duncan now sat alone in a small interview room in the Third District. Burke, Delacorte, and I stood in the observation room, watching him. He tried to look confident, but I could tell he was nervous by the way he was tapping his foot. Even the most hardened criminals try to play it tough, but they all have apprehensions before the initial interview.
“You go in first,” Burke said to Delacorte. “We’ll roll tape just in case he confesses. Push him as hard as you can, but don’t back him into a corner screaming for a lawyer. Let’s get as much as we can out of him right now.”
“Plan B if he doesn’t cooperate?” I said.
“Then you take a spin at him,” Burke said. “You can be the good guy. Delacorte softens him up; you come in to close it.”
“I’m getting nostalgic,” I said. “The interview tag team. I miss the repertoire.”
Burke rolled his eyes. Delacorte bumped my fist and left. We watched as he entered the room. Duncan remained slouched in the chair, seemingly unfazed.
“So, how did you get the name Puddin’?” Delacorte said, taking a seat across from Duncan. I already liked his style. Conversational. Disarming.
“Same way you got the name asshole,” Duncan sneered.
Delacorte absorbed the jab and smiled. Professional. “So much for small talk, I guess,” he said.
“I don’t want no kinda talk,” Duncan said. “Big or small. I ain’t did shit. Let me the fuck go.”
“You answer a few simple questions, and you’ll be on your way.”
“What kind of questions?” Duncan said. “You tryna set me up. I know how you crooked cops do.”
“Not at all,” Delacorte said, raising his arms in a surrender gesture. “You answer my questions truthfully, everything checks out, and you’ll be good to go.”
Duncan smirked and tipped his head back.
“Do you know a man named Elliott Kantor?” Delacorte asked.
“Nah. Never heard of him.”
“You ever visit 1425 West Fullerton up in Lincoln Park?”
“What the fuck for? You must got bad eyesight.” Duncan lifted up the back of his hand and pointed to it. “I ain’t got no business on the North Side. Everything I need is south of Soldier Field.”
Delacorte got the message and nodded. “You ever drive a Bentley before?”
“A Bentley? How the fuck I’m gonna get a whip like that? Maybe you ain’t ever been to Chatham, but you ain’t ever gonna see a car like that on our streets.”
Delacorte smiled. Congenial. “Have you ever stolen a car before?”
“Man, what kinda questions is these? Fuck nah, I ain’t stole no car.”
Delacorte looked up from his notebook. “I’m sorry. We’re looking into a burglary, so I need to ask these questions. I’m not trying to get you upset.”
“Well, you are, because I was minding my own business, and you dragged me down here without telling me what was going on. Now you asking if I stole some damn car. What the fuck? I look like a car thief to you?”
“Just doing my job and covering all the bases,” Delacorte said.
“Then do your job right and get the muthafucka down here that really stole the car. I ain’t stole shit.”
“I hear you loud and clear,” Delacorte said, closing his notebook. “Anything else you wanna say?”
“Yeah. Can I get the fuck outta here now?”
Delacorte pushed his chair back from the table as if he were about to get up. Then he stopped and said, “Oh, one more question before I go. That tattoo on your neck and arm. What is it?”
“What the fuck that got to do with a stolen car?” Duncan said.
“Just curious,” Delacorte said. “I’ve seen a lot of tats before, but nothing like that.”
“A ship anchor wrapped with DNA,” Duncan blurted out. “Ain’t nuthin’ out there like it. It’s my original creation.”
“Mean anything special?”
“Remain true to who you are, and that will always keep you anchored.”
“Poetic,” Delacorte said.
“Turn off the camera,” Burke said to the officer at the controls. He nodded at me.
I left the observation room and entered the interview room. Duncan sat up in his chair when I entered. I took a seat next to Delacorte, opened up the thin folder I had carried in with me, then pulled out the photograph of Duncan in Falcon Fuel with his tat showing. I slid it across the table. Duncan looked at the photograph, and the cockiness quickly drained from his face.
“How about we have a little chat?” I said. “Toi et moi.”
Duncan scrunched his face.
“My French is a little rusty,” I said. “Translation: just you and me.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Duncan said.
“Maybe the only person standing between you and a long trip downstate.”
Delacorte stood up. “You’ve answered my questions,” he said, “for now. As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to leave.” Delacorte walked out of the room.
Duncan looked at the open door, then back at me. He was calculating his next move.
“You walk through that door, and the second you step foot outside of it, they’re gonna arrest you for burglary and suspicion of first-degree murder.”
“Man, you talkin’ some bullshit. I ain’t murdered nobody.”
“I know you didn’t, but it’s not me you need to convince. It’s those guys outside with those shiny stars hanging around their necks. I can help you convince them.”
“You ain’t a cop?”
“Not anymore.”
“Then what are you?”
“The closest thing you got to a savior without going to church. You tell me what really happened that night, and I’ll talk to some people I know and see if we can work something out.”
“Alright, man, fuck. I stole the car. Drove it a little and got rid of it. That was it. I didn’t touch nobody. Didn’t hurt nobody. Just took the car.”
“How did you get it?”
Duncan sighed audibly and tilted his head to the side. “It was all a setup,” he said. “I got paid to take the car and leave it.”
That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. “Someone hired you to steal the car for them?” I asked.
“Pretty much.”
“Who hired you?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know who hired you to commit a crime?”
“Because that was the deal. I wouldn’t know who hired me. I was supposed to get the job done, get paid, and that was it.”
“Help me understand how this works.”
“I got a message on Snapchat. It said if I wanted to make some quick cash, to call this number. I called the number and spoke to some girl. She told me she was pulling a prank on her friend’s father. She wanted me to steal his new Bentley, drive it to the South Side, and leave it in an abandoned lot near Washington Park. Once I dropped the car off, I would get paid.”
“How much?”
“Three stacks.”
“That’s a lot of money just to pull a prank. That didn’t make you suspicious?”
“Man, I wasn’t even thinking like that. I figured she rich. The other family rich. Rich people do crazy shit.”
“No argument from me there,” I said. “But how did you get the car?”
“She gave me the address and simple instructions. I had to be there exactly at eleven. I couldn’t be late. She left a side door open so I could get straight into the apartment. The door took me into a bedroom, and I walked from there straight to the garage, just like she said. I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t go into any rooms I wasn’t supposed to. I went to the garage fast as I could and got in the car. I used the remote to open and close the garage door. Then I drove it where she told me to and left it.”
“That’s it?” I said.
“That’s it.”
“What about the stop at the gas station?”
“That wasn’t what I was supposed to do. She told me to take it straight to the parking lot so it had a full tank of gas. Ain’t every day a bruh gets to drive a Bentley, so to be honest, I took it for a little ride. I drove the tank down to half, so I needed to get some gas. She said if I didn’t leave it full of gas, then I wouldn’t get paid.”
“How did you get paid?”
“Cash. All hunnids.”
“Did you see her when you picked up the money?”
“Nope. She left it in a shoebox near the train tracks over in Washington Park. I took the money and left.”
“You still don’t know whose car you stole?”
He shook his head. “No idea.”
“Elliott Kantor,” I said. “The richest man in Chicago.”
“Goddamn,” Duncan said. “What the hell I get myself caught up in?”