The Black Book Read online

  Okay, Billy thought to himself. I know you’re all eager to thank us for doing a good job last night. Who wants to go first? Raise your hand!

  Billy glanced at Kate, who was visibly shaken. Her reaction prompted one in him. It pissed him off that they were being treated this way, this obvious attempt at intimidation. He felt his protective instinct take over and reached for Kate’s hand, but then thought better of it.

  “We have some questions for you about last night,” said Amy Lentini. “We assume you’ll want to help us understand a few things.”

  That was a nice way to put it, a friendly, we’re-in-this-together offer delivered by a woman who looked like she wanted to lop off their heads.

  “Why were you there in the first place?” she asked. “The Gold Coast isn’t your jurisdiction.”

  Billy said, “I was investigating a homicide. The one by the U of C campus, the girl who was strangled. I had a suspect. I saw him go into this brownstone the week before, and I sat on the place long enough to figure out that it was some kind of brothel.”

  “A Vice case,” she said.

  “Sure, a Vice case, except I didn’t like it for a Vice case. I wanted to catch my suspect there.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you ever been a cop, Amy?”

  She recoiled. Billy wasn’t sure what bothered her more, that he turned the questioning on her or that he used her first name.

  “See, Amy,” he went on, “when you have a suspect like I had, a guy with all the money in the world, it’s easier to get him to talk if you have something on him. If I caught him with a prostitute, I’d have leverage over him.”

  Amy Lentini opened her hands. “You thought if you caught him with a hooker, he’d up and confess to murder?”

  “Okay, so you answered my question.”

  “What question did I answer?”

  “You’ve never been a cop.” Billy sat back in his chair and crossed a leg.

  “This will go easier for you if you cooperate,” said Tristan Driscoll, the superintendent—Billy’s boss, ultimately.

  How about you, Tristan—have you ever been a cop? A real one, I mean?

  Billy coughed into his fist. “If I just hauled this guy in off the street, he’d lawyer up in two seconds flat,” he said. “But if the conversation began with him being terrified that his wife and kids would find out about a hooker, I could make him an offer he wouldn’t refuse. If he could answer a few questions for me, maybe I would forget about this hooker thing. No, he wouldn’t answer the big question, the did-you-kill-her question. But I could have made him admit that he knew the girl, that he’d sent her text messages, that kind of thing. I could have started laying the groundwork.”

  Lentini stared at him, blinking a few times. “And how’d that work out for you? Did your plan work?”

  “No,” Billy conceded.

  “No,” she said, mimicking him. “Because your suspect lawyered up right away. Because the media heard about this massive bust—this Vice arrest, made by a homicide detective—before he’d even made it to the police station. So this concern he might have had about his wife finding out—that ship had already sailed.”

  It was true. But once Billy saw all those men go inside the brownstone, he couldn’t ignore it. He wasn’t supposed to ignore it. He was a cop, witnessing a crime in progress.

  But Lentini had made her point. Once Billy rounded up all the men and the prostitutes, his plan to interrogate the murder suspect had been blown.

  Lentini had him on that point, and everyone in the room knew it.

  Billy felt the first chill through his body.

  “Let’s talk about the little black book,” said Lentini.

  Fourteen

  “WHERE IS it?” Amy Lentini asked. Not Have you been able to locate it? Do you have any leads? She was saying it as if Billy already knew the answer.

  “I don’t know,” said Billy. “We stripped down the brownstone and the manager’s house. We searched her laptop and her iPhone. There must be some record. They’d have to keep a list of clients. Maybe not a book, but a disk, a flash drive, even a pad of notes. There must be something.”

  “I agree.”

  “Good,” said Billy. “I’m glad we can agree on something.”

  Lentini didn’t think he was funny.

  “We have reason to believe it was there,” she said. “In the brownstone.”

  “You do? How?”

  “We’re not at liberty to discuss that.”

  “You’re not at liberty to…” Billy almost came out of his chair. “What does that mean—you’re not at liberty to discuss it? I’m the investigating detective. If we have a lead, I need to know about it. We’re supposed to be working together.”

  Lentini didn’t answer. The superintendent and state’s attorney kept faces of stone.

  “What the hell is this?” Billy said, this time popping up from his chair. “Since when does the state’s attorney’s office not share information with the police department?”

  “Since now, apparently,” said Kate, speaking for the first time, the color drained from her face.

  “It’s no longer your case,” said Lentini. “You’ve been removed.”

  “You don’t get to decide that. The state’s attorney doesn’t—”

  “I decided,” said the superintendent.

  Billy looked at Tristan Driscoll, a slow burn coursing through his chest.

  “What do you know about that video that surfaced today?” asked Lentini. “The one showing the Packers quarterback visiting the brownstone this summer?”

  Billy took a moment to recover, his legs feeling unsteady.

  It could be the last arrest you ever make, Wizniewski had warned him.

  “I saw the video on that website,” he said. “That’s all I know.”

  “Did you shoot that video, Detective?”

  Billy finally took his eyes off the superintendent, turned back to Lentini. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would I shoot that video?”

  “Would you consent to a search of your house and personal belongings?”

  Billy moved toward the special investigator, who stood as he approached. He faced off with her, almost nose to nose. She was almost daring him to do something, to make a situation that was already spiraling downward worse. He could feel the Irish rising within him, an anger that closed his fists and drew heat to his face.

  “Now, why would you want to search my house, Amy?” he hissed.

  And then the door to the office opened. Lieutenant Mike Goldberger walked in with another man, a man wearing a suit—a civilian, Billy thought.

  What the hell was Goldie doing here?

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Superintendent, Madam State’s Attorney,” he said.

  The superintendent did not look pleased. “Lieutenant, what in the—”

  “I heard about this meeting, and I just wanted to make sure you were properly covered, sir.” Goldie motioned to the man next to him. “This is one of our union reps. Since this is an inquiry into a police officer’s conduct, obviously the detectives here are entitled to union representation before being questioned. I didn’t want there to be any reason for you to come under criticism.”

  Billy, in spite of everything, couldn’t help but smile. Goldie to the rescue, rushing in with the equivalent of a lawyer, but pretending he was doing it for the superintendent’s benefit.

  “This—Lieutenant, you’re out of line,” said the superintendent. “And for your information, this is not a police department inquiry.”

  “Then what is it?” asked the union rep, a man on the short side wearing a crew cut and a defiant expression. “Sure looks like an inquiry to me.”

  “This is an investigation being conducted by the state’s attorney’s office,” said Amy Lentini.

  “But with the police superintendent present. Oh, so you tried to circumvent the detectives’ right to union representation by technically calling this a state’s attorney’s
investigation?”

  That’s exactly what they did, Billy realized.

  “That—no, that wouldn’t look so good, either,” said Goldie. “That’s why I figured it was better to protect you, Mr. Superintendent.”

  Billy marveled at how Goldie could keep a straight face during all this. When I grow up, Goldie, he thought to himself, I wanna be just like you.

  “Probably better to reschedule,” Goldie suggested. “Make sure all our t’s are crossed and our i’s are dotted.”

  Driscoll looked at the state’s attorney and Lentini.

  Billy and Kate walked out with Goldie and the union rep.

  “Harney,” Amy Lentini called out, following them into the foyer.

  Billy stopped and turned. So did Kate.

  “You’re the comedian, right?” she said. “We’ll see how funny you are when I’m done with you.”

  Kate, who was white as a ghost, decided to answer nonverbally. She gave Amy Lentini the finger.

  “That sounds about right,” said Billy. He flipped her the bird, too, before they walked out.

  Fifteen

  “THE PLAYOFFS are different,” said Sosh, dropping his pint on the table with a splash. “You gotta have a shooter and a goalie. We got Kane, but I’m not so sure about Crawford.”

  The Blackhawks, the favorite topic in the Hole in the Wall. Detective Soscia was giving Billy a tutorial on the key to winning the Stanley Cup. It was the same lecture he gave Billy last week, but Sosh was too drunk to remember that.

  The Hole was jumping, as always. It was colder than a landlord’s heart out there, but the coppers wouldn’t be deprived of their drink. Cops hung together even more these days because it was becoming an increasingly us-against-them mentality. Especially now with smartphone cameras and videos. For every video someone took of a cop being too aggressive, there were ten they didn’t take of cops who had to chase an offender down a dark alley or go through the door on a domestic disturbance with no idea whether someone had a hand cannon waiting for them. It was very easy to judge a cop but not so easy to understand one.

  Billy stuck to beer. No shots, no clear liquids—not tonight. Kate was somewhere around here sulking, fearing the worst about what happened last night in the state’s attorney’s office. But then she always feared the worst, always jumped to the worst-case scenario.

  “You should be the coach, Sosh,” said Billy, deadpan. “Seriously. You should turn in your badge and coach hockey.”

  “I don’t know enough about the fundamentals,” he said, as if Billy were serious.

  “That never stopped you from being a cop.”

  Sosh wasn’t listening anymore. “Hey, Romeo,” he said, his chin down. “You got a bunny at three o’clock makin’ some serious eyes at you.”

  Billy never really understood the badge bunnies—the women drawn to cops. Why would a woman want to hang with a cop? Cops deal with the dregs, the shit, with death and violence and sorrow all day long. Then they come home, and they’re expected to say, Hi, honey, how was your day? That meat loaf smells delicious!

  That’s what Billy told himself, anyway. He’d never get married again.

  Billy lifted his pint and looked to his right.

  “Other side, Einstein,” said Sosh. “Three o’clock.”

  Billy emptied his pint and set it down. “I think you meant your three o’clock. Which is my nine o’clock. See? Because we’re sitting across from each other. Maybe you should have another pint.”

  “I gotta piss. If you don’t make a move on that bunny, I will. She looks like a fuckin’ movie star.”

  Sosh almost fell off his stool. Billy looked to his left, his nine o’clock.

  Yep, a beautiful woman, with her eyes directly on him.

  Assistant state’s attorney Amy Lentini. Her dark hair pulled back, dressed for a night on the town. She gave him an ambiguous smile. Then she gave him the finger.

  He made a point of looking surprised, even turning to look behind him, as though the gesture must have been directed at someone else. Then he looked back at her, placed a hand on his chest. Me?

  But no, he wasn’t going to take the bait. If she was here for him—and she must have been; Amy Lentini wasn’t a typical Hole in the Wall gal—she could make the first move.

  “The fuck is she doing here?”

  It was Goldie, looking out for him, as always.

  “She thinks I’m a dirty cop,” said Billy. “You could appreciate that.”

  Lieutenant Mike Goldberger started running the Bureau of Internal Affairs a few years back. IA was the least popular branch of the CPD for obvious reasons, but Goldie built a reputation for being fair and straightforward. If you fucked up, you got caught, but nobody got railroaded. He’d never be voted cop of the year, but generally cops respected Goldie for his approach to the job.

  “I catch bad cops,” he said. “I don’t smear good ones. That’s the difference between her and me.”

  “It’s not the only difference,” said Billy. “She’s not losing her hair.”

  “Don’t talk to her,” he said. “She’s trying to catch you with your guard down.”

  Billy got up to refill his glass and get one for Sosh, too. “You ever know me to let my guard down?”

  “I don’t think you know how.”

  “Exactly,” said Billy, but his tongue tripped over the word. Okay, maybe he’d had a few too many. So one more wouldn’t make that much difference.

  By the bar, he found Kate talking to a group of patrol officers, all men, as always. They were taking turns trying to impress her, sucking in their guts, trying for that one wise comment that would make her swoon into their arms. It wasn’t going to work, but Kate could use the distraction, being so worried about everything. At least these guys all were managing to keep their tongues in their mouths.

  Kate made eye contact with him and motioned, with her eyes and a nod of the head, in the direction of Amy Lentini. Billy made a zipping motion across his mouth, giving her the same advice that Goldie gave him—don’t talk to her.

  Goldie was right. She was trying to strike when his guard was down. He shouldn’t talk to her. Absolutely not. Goldie was spot-on with that call.

  He heard his name, someone calling to him. Then another somebody, and then they were chanting his name. “Har-ney! Har-ney!”

  He knew what they wanted. He wasn’t really in the mood, but he knew he’d give in sooner or later, and if it was much later, at the rate he was downing the pints, he might not even know his last name.

  On his way up to the mike, he passed by her table. She was clapping, along with the rest of the bar.

  After I do a few on the mike, he thought, I’ll talk to her.

  Sixteen

  “BY THE way, I’m sorry I was late tonight,” Billy said into the microphone. “There was a hostage situation downtown at the American Bar Association. The ABA was holding its annual convention, and a bunch of guys stormed the place and took all the attorneys hostage. They were pretty tough with their demands, too. They said if they didn’t get a million dollars and a plane to Mexico, they’d release one lawyer every hour.”

  The crowd seemed to like that. Billy took a drink from his pint and set it down, careful not to block his phone, perched on the opposite chair, recording his routine. “Nah—actually, I just came from a cemetery. I was paying my respects to an old friend. On the way back to my car, I saw a tombstone that said, ‘Here lies a lawyer and an honest gentleman.’ And I thought, y’know, that’s really great. I didn’t know they could fit two people in one grave.”

  Lawyer jokes: it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  “I should be nicer,” he said. “You can hurt people’s feelings. This morning, I yelled at one of the prosecutors at 26th and Cal outside court. I said, ‘All lawyers are assholes!’ This other guy comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, that comment really offended me.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. You’re a lawyer?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m an asshole.’”

  He could f
eel his tongue getting furry and his words becoming syrupy, so he put down the mike. He picked up his phone and hit the button that would instantly upload the video to the Facebook page he shared with Stewart.

  Stewart, the old man who stayed with him at the hospital all those nights three years ago. It was no time for laughing back then, but later, Billy started visiting Stewart at his nursing home and had him in stitches the whole time. He started uploading all his routines onto their shared Facebook page, which Stewart’s granddaughter had taught Stewart to access. She once told Billy that the first thing the old man did every morning was check his computer for a new video.

  He got off the stage, his eyesight adjusting again, and found himself heading toward Amy Lentini’s table.

  “You lost or something?” he said on approach. “Or just slummin’ it?”

  She smiled. It wasn’t a warm smile, but at least it wasn’t as cold as the temperature outside.

  “I heard there was good comedy here,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Should I have a lawyer present, Amy?”

  “I’m a lawyer,” she said. “One’s plenty.”

  “One too many.”

  “Yeah, I got that drift from your monologue. Very funny, by the way. Your reputation is well deserved.” She leaned closer to him. “We don’t have to be enemies,” she said. “I just want the truth.”

  Oh, you’re gonna “good cop, bad cop” me, Amy? I fucking invented that game.

  “And you’re sure you know what the truth is?”

  “Pretty sure,” she said. She put her mouth over the straw in her drink, something colorful, flavored.

  That mouth was nice. It was the first time in Billy’s life that he wished he were a straw.

  She was dressed to kill, too. Overdressed, in fact, for this place.

  “Are you checking to see if I’m wearing a wire, Detective?” she asked.

  He blinked and looked away. Better not answer that one.

  She got off her stool, her purse over her shoulder, her arms out. “Would you like to pat me down?”