A WILD NIGHT AT THE END OF A PIER
THE POLICE HAD CORDONED OFF NAVY PIER. AS MR. Contreras and I showed our invitations at the barricade and were passed through, I couldn’t help thinking of Stateville. It’s true that the cops here treated us with deference since we had the VIP reception tags for people who gave ten thousand or more or who had connections to the campaign, but the barricades, the very idea that we were never far from a police guard, made me tense.
“You okay, doll? You want to ride?” Mr. Contreras looked at me anxiously and pointed to the trolley cars waiting to take guests to the east end of the pier.
I realized I’d come to a halt in the middle of the street. I smiled at him, determined not to ruin his pleasure with my fanciful fears. The evening was soft and warm, with the reflected sunset painting the eastern sky a rosy gray. I took his arm and said I needed the walk.
The pier is a strange, honky-tonk place, a tourist version of what Chicago means: gimcrack souvenirs of our sports teams and of the pier itself, the big Ferris wheel where you slowly rise above the city while listening to ads, the usual high-fat eateries, and the endlessly blaring, pulsing music. Loudspeakers placed on poles every ten feet guarantee that you can never escape the noise.
“Krumas for Illinois” had taken over the pier, with the small donors partying at the west end under the Ferris wheel, and the VIPs a quarter mile east. In a signal of Krumas’s star power, the state’s celebrities were moving around us: the Illinois house speaker, the attorney general, county officials, corporate chiefs, big lawyers, local media luminaries.
You can’t be a player in Chicago without crossing paths with many of the usual suspects. It pleased Mr. Contreras no end to have a number of people come out of the crowd to greet me by name. I saw Murray Ryerson from the Herald-Star, with a carefully fit young woman, and Beth Blacksin, who anchors Global Entertainment’s evening news.
“See, doll? I said you needed to be dressed up. And, look at you, best-looking gal in the place, and everyone knows it.”
I’d worn my mother’s diamond drop earrings and an ankle-length scarlet sundress I’d bought for a wedding last summer. I did it partly to please Mr. Contreras and partly, I confess, to flaunt myself. I wanted my young cousin to see that you could be circling my age and still be sexy. Dominatingly sexy. At that thought I gave an involuntary grimace. I hoped my time with Johnny wasn’t rubbing off on me. How depressing for a feminist to feel the need to dominate anyone, let alone do it with a red dress.
Still, I enjoyed it when my once-upon-a-time husband, a player himself, partner at one of Chicago’s international law firms, gave me a silent whistle in greeting and kept an arm around my bare shoulder a moment too long for his current wife’s peace of mind. When I introduced him and Terry to Mr. Contreras, the old man recognized their names and laughed with pleasure.
“He’s thinking maybe he made a mistake letting you go, cookie,” he whispered audibly as we moved on.
“Not when he remembers how I’ve treated some of his important clients.” I laughed, too, though, happy at the attention.
Mr. Contreras was jaunty in his one good suit. His battle medals and ribbons attracted their own attention from men like my brief husband, who had carefully constructed their lives to avoid any public service, especially the kind where other people shot at you. Now too old to serve, they had a wistful longing that they, too, could brag of their military heroics.
At the east end of the pier, we showed our VIP tags again and got admitted into the grand ballroom. The outsize space with its star-studded ceiling had been designed back in 1916 with this kind of event in mind. A band, lost in one of the alcoves, was playing a rumba, the music barely audible above the hubbub of the crowd. White-jacketed waiters offered us little snacks, members of the legislature and the governor’s entourage huddled with lobbyists and lawyers, PR staff and journalists kept firing camera strobes at obligingly grinning guests, and, near each entrance, city cops stood at grim attention.
We were handed Brian Krumas lapel pins by a twenty-something volunteer when we entered, and, everywhere we turned, Brian’s smile gleamed at us, tacked to tables, chairs, the support columns in the room. Topping it all was a floor-to-ceiling portrait of the candidate with his slogan, KRUMAS FOR A CHANGE IN ILLINOIS. He was flanked by the president of the United States, the governor of Illinois, and the mayor of Chicago.
We were working our way to the drinks table when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Arnold Coleman, my old boss at the county criminal courts. He’d been a political flunky who made sure not to step on the toes of a powerful state’s attorney, and he’d been given his reward: a state appellate judgeship.