The Black Book Read online

“Even…the mayor?” I asked. “She offered the mayor immunity?”

  Kim nodded. “My sources say that that prosecutor, Lentini, told the mayor that if he could get her access to the little black book, and if he would agree to resign from office, she’d drop the charges.”

  I ran my hand over my mouth but didn’t speak.

  “You didn’t know,” said Kim, a conclusion, not a question. “You’re the main witness in the case, and you didn’t know.”

  No, I didn’t, and it burned in my chest.

  I could understand why Amy might consider the little black book important, but more important than prosecuting the people caught in the brothel? What—she hadn’t caught big enough fish? The mayor and the archbishop weren’t big enough heads to mount on her wall?

  Who could possibly be bigger?

  I started walking away from Kim to give myself some space, to work this through. I wasn’t sure what bothered me more—that Amy never shared this information with me or that I cared so much that she didn’t.

  Kim walked along with me. “So now you owe me one,” she said. “C’mon, sport. This is the biggest story in years around here. The mayor’s blood is in the water. I’m hearing Congressman Tedesco is just waiting for the conviction before he announces he’s running. That’ll be quite a race, don’t you think? Congressman Tedesco against Maximum Margaret.”

  I stopped and looked at her. “What do you mean, Maximum Margaret? For mayor?”

  “Wow, you really are out of the loop.” Kim smirked at me, pleased with herself. “I hear her political machinery is already gearing up. She’s going to convict the mayor and then run for his job. Oh, she’ll wait until the trial’s over before she announces. You know, the crime fighter, the corruption buster, the tough broad who’s gonna clean up this town—that whole angle.”

  It made sense, I supposed. But it hadn’t occurred to me. Sure, I’d lived in Chicago my whole life, and I followed the circus of politics from a distance, but I was no insider, and I didn’t want to be.

  “Are you sure you’re working on this case, Billy?” Kim asked. “Because I seem to know a lot more about it than you do.”

  She certainly did. Amy was Margaret Olson’s prized subordinate, her right-hand aide, and I’d never heard a single utterance about political ambition or any talk of plea deals. Maybe, I tried to tell myself, it was none of my business; she didn’t mention it because I didn’t need to know.

  But it burned all the same. Every time I thought I’d figured Amy out, I learned something new.

  And if she was willing to keep this information from me, what else had she kept from me?

  Fifty-Six

  I WALKED into Amy’s office at our scheduled time, ten o’clock—preparation for the big trial. My head was still ringing from all the booze I’d drunk last night. And from what Kim Beans had just told me. And from my conversation with my sister, Patti, at the crime scene. Take your pick.

  Amy greeted me formally outside her office—Good morning, Detective, so good of you to come—but when she closed her door, when it was just the two of us, she put her hands on my chest. “Hi, there,” she whispered.

  I drew back, surprising her. Last night we’d kissed, but it was more than a kiss; it had unleashed things in me I hadn’t felt in years. She felt it, too, or so I thought. She read the look on my face and waited for me to explain.

  “I need to ask you something,” I said.

  She looked at me as though she didn’t understand. She also looked, by the way, radiant, dressed in a light gray suit, her hair pulled back professionally. She was smart—very smart—and beautiful, a deadly combination for me.

  “Did you offer Ramona Dillavou immunity if she turned over the little black book?”

  Amy blinked, just once, but otherwise didn’t flinch. “Yes,” she said.

  “And the other defendants? The archbishop? The mayor? The celebrities and businessmen—did you offer them immunity if they could help you find the little black book?”

  “I did,” she said.

  “And you never mentioned it to me?”

  She shook her head. “I’m the prosecutor. You’re the witness. It isn’t my job to keep you apprised of every step of my trial strategy.” She angled her head at me. “Anyway, that was before. Before I got to know you. Before I started to…”

  “To what?” I asked, realizing how much I want to hear the words.

  “To trust you,” she said. “And care about you.”

  How badly I wanted to give in to that, to believe that, to let down my guard and let her in. But I didn’t speak. I saw the look of hurt on her face when I didn’t respond, but I needed more answers.

  “You know I suspected you took the little black book,” she said. “I never hid that from you. I wanted that black book. I didn’t care how I got it.”

  “Do you still?” I asked.

  “Do I still what?”

  “Do you still think I took the little black book?”

  She paused, just one beat of my heart, before she said, “No, I don’t.”

  “But you still want it. You still want your hands on it.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Actually, no. I mean, I do, but it’s not up to me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well, I’ve been told it’s not a priority anymore. I was told to drop it for now and just focus on winning this sex-club trial.”

  “And why’s that?” I asked. “Why the change?”

  “Why? Because the entire country is following the sex-club case. It’s a heater case. And we don’t want to lose. Why else?”

  “Maybe you want to win so your boss, Margaret Olson, can take the mayor’s job after she convicts him.”

  Amy made a face. “That’s ridiculous. Margaret’s not going to run for mayor.”

  “No?”

  “No. And I don’t appreciate your questioning my motives. I’m prosecuting this case because I believe in it.” She thought for a moment. “Who told you Margaret wants the mayor’s job?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t say.”

  “Well, whoever told you is wrong. Margaret Olson will not run for mayor. You want me to say it again? Margaret Olson will not run for mayor.”

  I didn’t know where to go from there. She confirmed one thing Kim Beans told me and denied the other. I wanted to trust Amy. I wanted to more than I’d wanted anything in a long time.

  “When the sex-club case is over, I’ll go back to finding that little black book,” she said. “For now, my plan is to win. And with Ramona Dillavou dead, you’re more important to the case than ever.”

  I nodded. That much was true.

  She approached me again, put her hands on my chest again. “Y’know, after that moment we shared last night, I wasn’t expecting to be greeted with an interrogation this morning. I was expecting something like this.”

  She leaned up and kissed me softly. I felt everything melt away.

  She drew back just enough to speak, her lips so close to mine I could still feel them.

  “So,” she said more quietly. “Are we still okay?”

  My heart was racing. I drew her in and kissed her, this time not softly.

  Amy Lentini, for better or worse, had cast a spell on me.

  Fifty-Seven

  AFTER PREPPING for the trial for two hours, I left the Daley Center and walked through the plaza, worn out, my stomach rumbling, hungry for lunch. It was dreary and cold today, pedestrians walking with their heads low, bundled from head to foot. Among the government vehicles parked alongside the plaza, I spotted a fire-engine-red Corvette.

  Not very hard to notice. It was like spotting a ball of fire against a dark sky.

  Nice ride. The kind of thing I’d never be able to afford. You didn’t become a cop for the money.

  The driver’s-side door opened, and who got out but my partner, Detective Katherine Fenton.

  It took a moment, though, to register. The lithe, athleti
c figure; the stylish coat cinched at the waist; the long legs, the knee-high thick-heeled boots—that was the same, that was Kate. But from the neck up, different. Her hair was cut very short, no bangs, the ends curling severely along her cheeks. The color was different, too. Less of the flash of the red. A deeper, darker crimson. More like the color of blood.

  And a Corvette.

  She saw the look on my face. “Like it?” she said, but not in the way that indicated she was fishing for a compliment. It was more of a challenge, more like Fuck you if you don’t.

  I wasn’t sure if she was referring to her new ride or her new look. Probably both. Probably asking what I thought of Kate 2.0. “Sure,” I said. “You inherit some money or something?”

  She kept walking toward me, that confident strut she had, the heels clicking loudly on the pavement, her mouth set in a come-hither smirk. Her new tough-chick look, to my mind, was overkill. Look, she couldn’t have had a better body if she tried, and the curve of her face and those high cheekbones—she had sexy oozing off her at all times, day and night. But it worked for her, I always thought, because it was so effortless. Now she was making an effort. She was practically wearing a sign around her neck.

  She used her remote to lock her Corvette. “Last I checked,” she said, “I don’t need your permission to buy a new car.” She stopped in front of me, daring me to be unimpressed. “So no more Ramona Dillavou,” she said. “Who do we like for it?”

  Whom did we suspect in Ramona Dillavou’s death? Well, nobody had asked my opinion so far, and it wasn’t my case. I didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to confront it, but I knew deep down that I hadn’t crossed my own sister off the list.

  Still, it seemed pretty obvious that Dillavou’s murder was tied to the little black book, and I also hadn’t ruled out Kate’s taking it from the crime scene.

  Which meant she was on the list, too.

  “No idea,” I said. “You?”

  “How would I know?” Again, the hostility, the challenge in her voice. She nodded toward the Daley Center. “How was your prep session? I’m up next.”

  That made sense. She was a witness, too, in the sex-club trial. It just highlighted the distance between Kate and me that I didn’t even know she had the appointment. We still partnered every day, but it was all business, no talk in the car, no sharing of thoughts or secrets. Not long ago, I knew everything about her. I knew what she had for dinner the night before, her plans for the weekend, every thought or opinion that cascaded through her brain. Now I didn’t even know when she was meeting with the prosecutor on one of our cases.

  “Is your girlfriend Amy in a good mood today?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Well, at least you’re not denying it anymore,” she said in a strange way, like she’d won a small victory but wished she hadn’t.

  I couldn’t think of anything I could throw on that fire that would douse it, so I let it go, didn’t say a word.

  “Please tell me you didn’t just fuck her in that office,” she said. “I have to sit in there.” Still no response from me, because she didn’t need any help. “A little dangerous office sex, people standing just outside the door, you’ve got her bent over the desk—”

  “Kate, for crying out loud.”

  Her eyes stayed on me. “Just checking. I know Billy likes it a little kinky every now and then.”

  A reminder of our recent past, our fling, delivered with icy relish. But it felt like cover for her hurt. Do you really like Amy more than you like me?

  There wasn’t anything I could do with that, standing in the cold in the middle of Daley Plaza, the wind punishing us. Not the place for an intimate chat about our feelings. Only time for a hostile confrontation.

  I had to leave, head back to the station, but she wasn’t done with me.

  “She still on your back about the little black book?” she asked. “Should I be prepared for another inquisition?”

  “Nope,” I said, relieved to change topics. “Just the facts of our case. They put the little black book on the shelf for now.”

  Kate went silent, looked at me, tried to read my facial expression. Gray fog escaped from our mouths. The wind whipped up and slithered inside my coat.

  “She doesn’t care about the little black book anymore?” she finally asked. Her words had an edge, though she was trying to sound casual. “I thought that was the only thing in life that motivated our Miss Amy. Now she doesn’t care?”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t my job to speak for Amy.

  “Well, Billy, congratulations on getting her mind off that. You must be fucking her good and proper.”

  “Kate, enough.”

  She cocked her head, an eyebrow rising. “Don’t tell me she’s playing hard to get. The innocent, doe-eyed girl from Wisconsin? Saying she wants to take it slow, wants to wait for the right moment, it’s a big deal for her? Leaving you high and dry at the end of the night, stringing you along like a pup—”

  “I’m done with this,” I said, moving past her. “I’m not playing this game.”

  “No,” she called out to me. “You’re playing her game. And you don’t even know it.”

  Fifty-Eight

  LIEUTENANT MIKE Goldberger carved up his eggs with a knife and fork, like a general executing some divide-and-conquer strategy. He was fidgety, which was unusual for him, and the eggs were paying for it. We used to do this a lot—breakfast at Mitchell’s before work. It had been a long time, but Goldie wanted to rekindle our tradition this week, probably because it was the week of the sex-club trial.

  “So what’s the latest on Ramona Dillavou?” I asked. “And Joe Washington? Any leads on those murders?”

  “He was good, whoever he was,” said Goldie. “Pristine crime scenes. No forensics, no nothing. Almost professional.”

  He moved on to his sausage, carving the links up like his life depended on it.

  I picked up my cup of coffee and put it back down. “Jeez, Goldie, you’re making me nervous. I’m the one who has to testify.”

  “That’s what’s worrying me,” he said, and he rarely said things like that. Goldie didn’t show worry much, usually going with the cucumber-cool thing. “If this case goes south, if the judge says you had no probable cause to enter that brownstone—well, it’s on you, Billy Boy. Nobody else will take the blame.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Then act nervous, kid.” He waved his hands at me. “You’re sitting over there like you don’t got a care in the world. You always do. You always have. When you were a kid, your brothers, they’d share every single thought that came through their brains. And Patti? Patti was a freakin’ mess, always stressed out over this or that, always seeking approval—but there you were, cracking wise but never showing a damn thing, like you had every fuckin’ thing already figured out. It’s annoying is what it is.”

  It was just my way. I should have been a poker player.

  “I am nervous,” I said. “But Amy thinks we have a good shot. Me, I’d say I just went with my gut when I raided the brownstone, but she’s got my testimony sounding like I drew up some flowchart of reasons before I busted through the door. She’s good, Goldie. She’s a great lawyer.”

  He wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin and gave me a sidelong glance.

  “That look you’re giving me.” I sat back in the booth. “Speak.”

  “Why don’t you just admit you’re in love with that girl?” he said.

  A quick denial, an easy retort, came to my lips, but I didn’t say it.

  “Y’know, which is fine,” he went on. “Dandy. Great. About time you got back on your feet after Valerie. Nobody’s happier for you than me, my boy.”

  I leaned forward. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  He let out air. Took a sip of coffee, set the mug down. “But,” he said, “does it have to be Amy Lentini? No offense intended, but the lady’s a shark. She’ll chew you up and spit you out.”

  “N
o offense intended? What was that, a compliment?”

  “Hey, look.” He held up his hands in surrender. “The lady’s drop-dead gorgeous. On a scale of 1 to 10, she’s a hundred. No question about it. Have a good time with her. But Billy, that woman does not have your best interests at heart.”

  “No?”

  He thought for a moment, then leaned forward. “She’s going to find that little black book eventually. You said she put that on hiatus until the trial’s over—but the trial’s this week. And when it’s over, she’s back to looking for it. Am I right?”

  “Yes,” I conceded.

  “And she thinks you took it. Am I also right?”

  “She says no.”

  “She says no. She says no.” Goldie shook his head. “And you believe her, of course, because she’s never held anything back from you.”

  A fair point. But I did believe her. I could separate my brain from my heart.

  “You think I have it,” I said. “You think I took the little black book. That’s the only reason you’d be worried about it.”

  Suddenly Goldie took a keen interest in his coffee, draining the mug and adding some more from the copper-colored pot the waitress had left on the table.

  “I never asked you that,” he said. “Never once.”

  “Go ahead and ask me.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Whether you did or not, you’re the best cop I know and a credit to the force and one helluva fuckin’ kid, by the way.” A flush of red came to his face, genuine emotion in his eyes. Goldie never had kids of his own. His wife died of cancer at age twenty-nine, and they never got around to having children before she got sick. He was Pop’s best friend and our surrogate uncle. But he was still a copper’s cop, the tough exterior, not one to show emotion like this. I had to admit it disarmed me.

  “Sounds like you’re writing my obituary,” I said.

  He allowed a brief smile. “If you did take it, you had your reasons, and I don’t wanna know them. Okay? Leave it at that.”

  “Ask me,” I said. “Ask me if I took it.”

  “Shut the fuck up already. I’m not gonna ask ya.” He put a hand on the table. “Just do me this favor, okay? Don’t let anyone else ask you, either. Not Patti. Not Kate. And definitely not Amy.”