1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader (8 page)

I take the pictures to my cubicle, pin them up on the wall and stare at them for two hours. My fellow detectives think I am nuts. Nobody cares about gangbangers, because they are usually killed by rival gangbangers; a thinning of the criminal herd, a win-win for the citizenry. After all that staring, I finally see, amidst a slew of painted skin, one small tattoo, a replica of a handgun, is shared by the victims.

The next night two more gangbangers are shot to death beneath the Harlem
“L”
platform on the Westside. Again, nothing matches, except the handgun tattoo. If this is two gangs having it out, the least they can do is identify themselves. More pictures are tacked to my wall.

I go to work and question every gang squad cop to discover if they have ever seen similar tattoos
. T
hey think I am either kinky or gay. I review three years’ worth of cases and find gang crimes are surprisingly boring
. O
ne kid shoots another kid and that kid’s buddies shoot back, etc., etc. I visit with every gangbanger doing time in Cook County and make them take off their shirts to find a match of tats and find none. I am sure they also suspect I am gay.

I take the photos and question hookers, ER nurses, tattoo parlor artists; nobody knows or won’t say a word. I keep asking questions and, although I didn’t realize it at the time, what I was doing was fueling more talk on the street than a free cell phone offer.

Two nights later two more teenagers are found shot to death in an abandoned school bus; interesting transportation angle at work here. Plus, same tats.

With the total at six, the newspapers increase circulation, the local TV stations have plenty of grisly video to kick off their broadcasts and the mayor’s office is screaming bloody murder, so to speak. And my wall is filling up.

The buzz on the street has grown meaner than a cocaine addict trying to free-base baking soda. Fingers are pointed, alibis are established, snitches are reeling in the money; tongues are wagging with anonymous tips and there is a massive covering of one’s own ass from the top down in a number of gangs. The Insane Unknowns are blaming the Latin Kings, the Crips are ratting out the Bloods. The Blackstone Rangers say it’s the Mongols and on, and on, and on.

I have no murder weapons, no stack of cash for a motive, and no connection between crimes, except six kids with one similar tattoo. All I can do is keep asking questions. I pull one leader from each gang in for questioning and put them in the same room. Although they are all in the same business, the leaders are not the type to kibb
i
tz with their personal trade secrets or exchange favorite recipes. What happens? Stupidity rises to the surface like a fart in a swimming pool. As each blames the others, facts surface, the story takes shape, and motives are revealed.

It took me about twenty minutes to learn that six gangbangers, from rival gangs, joined forces in an attempt to start their own gang. Ah, the American dream in all its glory. Unfortunately, the upstarts didn’t write a very good business plan, because once the word of their new biz got back to their respective chiefs, each was destined to pay the ultimate exit fee.

In the end we arrested nine, got great press, and I received an accommodation for a job well done. A day or two later, life was back to normal with the same amount of gang-related drug dealing, violence, and mayhem in the City of Chicago. Isn’t it great to make a difference?

This case, one of my firsts, defined my career, because it taught me: 1. If you keep asking questions, somebody will eventually spill enough beans for you to make soup. 2. Newton’s law of physics applies to crime. 3. Given the opportunity, people will undoubtedly become their own worst enemies. 4. Put everything you know up on a wall, because it becomes easier to see what you don’t know, what you want to know, and what you should know.

___

It is late in the evening. Television
is
boring
. Y
ou would think with all the channels they have now, something interesting would be on all the time.

I go into my kitchen and from the top cabinet I pull out a recipe box, a small, metal container. I remove the six or seven never-cooked recipes and lift out the blank three-by-five index cards. In no particular order I begin to fill in the cards with a hodgepodge of information, starting with the family.

Alvin had two sons and one daughter, Clayton, Brewster, and Christina. Clayton’s mother was Alvin’s second wife, Joan. Brewster’s mom was Doris, the walking Botox prescription. Christina was a product of wife numero uno, Didi, who Alvin was married to for about sixty seconds and divorced even quicker.

I place the completed cards back in the box and stuff some empties into my coat pocket for later use. I call Tiffany and mention that I’m meeting Brewster Augustus after the markets close that afternoon.

At
3 pm
I wait at the State Street door of the Board of Trade. On this particular piece of concrete the sun never shines. Somehow, the way it was built, direct sunlight never hits this spot. This fact should tell you a lot about life at the Board of Trade.

Tiffany arrives, dressed down, way down in a pair of used designer jeans with holes in the knees and a man’s dress shirt, which could use a good pressing.

“Don’t you look ravishing?”

“I don’t want to be mistaken for one of those gold-diggers,” she says.

Women have been known to wear wedding dresses, sexy cocktail numbers and stripper outfits to parade themselves in front of the wealthy traders and brokers on the floor. Whether this method of display has produced any marriages is anyone’s guess, but it does beg the question: women’s lib, where art thou?

We take the elevator to the fourteenth floor, walk down the hall to #1406 and enter a door with no name plate or identifying label.

There is a small foyer, empty of chairs, desk, or couch. If there was once a receptionist, she took everything with her when she left. We proceed into a large open room, where there are six long tables, the kind used at a VFW Hall. Computer terminals and telephones crowd onto each surface. The chairs vary, leather secretarial, folding, patio mesh, and one is the kind you need if you have a bad back. Wish I could afford one of these. All in all, a collection of what was either left by the last tenant or what was left next to the dumpster. The carpet is worn. The walls are bare, except for a few hand-drawn charts on easel-size paper stuck to the wall with push pins, and they scream for a fresh coat of paint. Empty beer cans lie next to trash baskets, having missed their mark. Four guys play baccarat; three play poker. The players range in age from thirty to sixty. Tiffany is the only woman in the room, but the boys are too busy gambling to notice.

“Excuse me,” I pipe up. “Is Brewster Augustus around?”

Without looking up from his hand of cards, one player responds, “He’s taking a leak.”

“Good answer,” Tiffany remarks.

We stand watching mini-Vegas in action until Brewster walks in the door.

“I didn’t do it.” This is his initial comment; his next is, “Let me get a beer.”

The three of us leave the den of gambling iniquity to sit at a card table in a room not designed to house a large side-by-side refrigerator, a microwave oven, and one outdoor trash can.

“Like I told the other guys, I was at the bar with my brother.” Brewster finally notices my very good-looking, so-called assistant. “Who are you?”

“Tiffany, detective in training.”

I get the conversation back on track. “When was the last time you saw your father?”

“Week or so ago.”

“Any special reason for the visit?”

“Usual stuff.”

“When was the last time you two spoke?”

“Thursday.”

“Why?”

“Usual stuff.”

“Which would be?”

“Asking for money.” Brewster finished his beer. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Why not?”

“He said yes.” Brewster rose, went to the refrigerator, pulled out another beer, pops the top. “I’d offer you one, but you shouldn’t drink while you’re working.”

“Thanks for reminding me,” I say and continue, “What would your father be doing on a Saturday morning dressed in a suit out by the lake?”

“Beats me.”

“Did you see him the Friday before?”

“No.”

“Where were you?”

“I told you. Out with my idiot half-brother until he gets picked up and leaves me flat.”

“Where?”

“Some club.”

“You know where your dad was?”

“It wasn’t my turn to watch him.”

“Let me guess; you and
d
addy were not close?”

“The old man came up the hard way and wanted us to do the same, which is difficult to do when you’re brought up in an eighteen-room mansion. He’d preach all this bullshit about hard work, nose to the grindstone, earning your keep; then go out and buy me a Porsche so I could keep up with the other kids at school.”

“But since you have obviously followed in his footsteps, how has your relationship been since?”

“We were joined at the wallet.”

I was trying desperately to find some aspect of Brewster’s personality to like, but was having no success.

“Your father an alcoholic?”

“No.”

“You?” Tiffany jumps in.

“I used to be,” Brewster finishes the beer. “I’m better now.”

Tiffany sits up straight, as if sizing up a foe.

“Being joined at the wallet,” I ask, “does that mean you worked for your father?”

“I trade off one of the seats he owns.”

Traders and brokers have to own a seat to be able to trade and, since there are only so many seats to be had, they are a valuable commodity at the Board, no pun intended. Some pay rent well into five figures monthly.

“Do you pay rent?”

“No.” Brewster burps.

“How much actual jail time did you end up serving?” My question surprises Tiffany as much as it surprises Brewster.

“How did you know about that?” Brewster places the beer on the table and leans forward.

“I have ways.”

“The file was sealed; it was part of the court order.”

“I told you; I have ways.” A good detective can find out just about anything, if he wants to take the time and effort.

Brewster sits, contemplates.

Tiffany is about to speak, but I kick her under the table to keep her quiet.

Brewster tries to wait us out, but no way. “Sixty-eight days,” he says, pretending to read the back of the beer can. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“You got drunk, you got stoned, you got in a car, and you hit a rival frat brat. What part wasn’t your fault?”

“The idiot ran right in front of the car.”

“Which you were driving at eighty miles per hour down a back alley at two in the morning.”

This is all news to Tiffany and she soaks it in.

“If it really would have been my fault, it would have been Marion, not Cook County.”

“Maybe.” I pause. “Was AA part of the deal?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t work, eh?” Tiffany says.

“Not a DUI since.”

“Hard to believe,” Tiffany says.

The rich-brat verbal battle roars back, full throttle.

“I went cold turkey.”

“That ain’t no O’Doul
’
s you’re drinking.” Tiffany uses the double negative for effect.

“I haven’t been behind the wheel in years.” Brewster grins from ear to ear. “After AA, I went DA.”

“Never heard of it,” Tiffany admits.

“Sold the car, cleaned out the garage, and tore up the license.”

“Driver’s Anonymous?” I ask.

“Think of what I save on car insurance, gas, and oil,” Brewster says with a smirk.

“Not to mention what you’re doing for the environment,” Tiffany adds without missing a beat.

I can’t believe how well these two have hit it off. I get up and wander over to the microwave, which is surrounded by thousands of crumbs of every variety. “How well do you think you’ll do in the settlement, Brewster?”

“I have no clue.” Brewster crushes the beer can and tosses it into the trash, a two-pointer, not long enough for a three. “My father was a funny guy, not ha-ha, but peculiar. All he really loved was money, not what it could buy, but making money. Money was his booze. He was addicted to his bank account. He didn’t care how he made it, who he took it from, how it got into his wallet. Money to him was the trophy, his daily validation he was alive. He once said to me, ‘I’m rich, therefore I am.’”

“Why don’t you trade on the floor like your daddy did?”

“Different generation.”

I waited. Brewster twisted a diamond pinkie ring around and around. I sensed he was going to wrap this up.

“I’m sorry to inform you, but I didn’t have anything to do with his death. I feel sorry that he died. I promise I will try to shed a few tears one of these days, but
d
addy wasn’t much of a daddy.”