“That was my old man, may he rest in peace. Heart attack seven years ago.” We were at the outer gate, which swung open for the Patriot. Bagby stuck his head out the window to hallo at the guard.
“Kipple, this lady got lost out here, found her way to the Guisar slip. Ask Security to check the fences, make sure you don’t have any holes. You don’t want anyone else wandering in here after dark and dying in the coal dust.”
“You know he died in the pet coke?” I asked. “I didn’t think the ME had even started an autopsy.”
“Figure of speech,” Bagby said sharply. “Are you always this literal-minded?”
“Usually. People say what they actually mean more often than not. Lieutenant Rawlings at the Fourth District—you know him, right?—only told me a couple of hours ago that they thought Fugher was alive when he went into the coke.”
Bagby grinned again, his mask of good nature back in place. “In that case, I’ll check with Rawlings. You know how to get home from here?”
I thought about making a smart remark, something Chandler-like or Bunyanesque, like “I am home here,” or “Here I have no earthly home,” but I only said, “Oh, yeah,” and started the long trek back.
THE PLAY’S THE THING
Yet another train had gone when I got back to the station. I was hungry and thirsty and cranky and sneezy. I also was sweaty and grimy, I realized, looking at myself in the dimly lit station bathroom.
After a day of hard slogging, on foot as well as with Conrad, the priest and the guys on the dock, I sought refuge in comfort food, a BLT with fries. While I ate, I looked up Fugher in a subscription database.
He hadn’t left much of a trail, which wasn’t surprising for a guy in the cash economy. He’d grown up on the East Side, son of Wilma and Norman Fugher, both now dead. He’d attended St. Francis de Sales High School, then done a degree in business at one of the local community colleges.
As far as I could tell, he’d never married and didn’t seem to be supporting children. He also didn’t seem to have any siblings, so he must have been a courtesy uncle to the woman with honey-colored hair. Which meant tracking her down would be difficult. Not that I had any real reason to look for her, except to validate my story with Conrad.
It wasn’t clear where Fugher had picked up enough electrical know-how to fix St. Eloy’s wiring. He didn’t seem to have been filing taxes, so it wasn’t possible to follow his work history.
Fugher’s last listed address was in Lansing, a small town sandwiched between Chicago’s southeast edge and the Indiana border. My map app showed his home as a garage behind a bungalow. A visit there would have to wait until I had a car. Which would never happen if I didn’t get back to the train station in time for the 12:21 train downtown. I wiped the mayonnaise from my iPad screen and scurried back to the station.
From the Loop, after three guys wouldn’t let me in their cars, I found a cabbie who was willing to drive me home. The cabbie had a news station turned on: police were not confirming the identity of the man who’d died in the coke until they’d located any relatives, so they weren’t confirming Global Entertainment’s report that his name had been Jerry Fugher. I smiled to myself: Murray hadn’t been able to sit on the ID. Good that Conrad was getting goosed.
Jake had left for a day of teaching, but I let Mr. Contreras know I’d returned without handcuffs and only minimal bruising. Bernie was presumably pulling shots for yuppies right now, which meant I had the luxury of a long bath.
My clothes were so crusted with mud and coke dust that I stripped on the landing and left everything there. I wasn’t sure the running shoes or jeans could be salvaged, they were so soaked with industrial oils, but I might be able to get the knit pullover clean.
I had to run water in the tub three times before I got all the pet coke out of my hair and pores. For the next day, every time I sneezed or coughed I left a gray residue on the Kleenex. Thank goodness the Pollution Control Board had assured us there was no known individual health risk to coal dust. Like black lung or epithelial cancer.
My plan had been to go to my office, get caught up on client reports, and map out a strategy for talking to Rory Scanlon, but I had gotten as far as putting on clean underwear when I couldn’t keep moving one minute longer. All those sleep experts tell you not to nap during the day, that your sleep urge will become so strong that you will get eight hours the next night, no problem. Those sleep experts, of course, aren’t wakened early by the police or tormented by thoughts of the Guzzos. I was out to the world within a second of lying down.
Jerry Fugher was covering the Stadium ice with soot. Boom-Boom skated in from the side and knocked him down. The buzzer sounded, the game was over, but Boom-Boom was rolling Fugher in the soot, and the buzzer kept sounding and I stuck an arm out to shut off the alarm, but it was my phone.
“Vic? Are you in there alone?” It was Bernie.