I, of course, had the answer, and I raised my hand earnestly. If Mrs. Carter also knew, she chose not to participate.
Father looked to me, then Mrs. Carter, and back to me. “Well, you did get your hand in the air first. Why don’t you tell us their names?”
“Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru.”
“You are correct! Give that boy a well-deserved prize.” Father grinned. “Bonus points if you know the meaning of their names . . .”
Surely he knew that I knew, but Father was fond of games, so I played along. “Mizaru means see no evil, Kikazaru means hear no evil, and Iwazaru means speak no evil.”
Father nodded his head slowly and tapped Mrs. Carter’s knee. “You’ve probably seen the depiction. The first ape is covering his eyes, the second his ears, and the third has a hairy paw over his mouth.”
“So when Mrs. Carter used a bad word, she violated Iwazaru’s rule,” I said confidently.
Father shook his head. “No, son, although foul language is bad and a sign of lesser intelligence, she would need to say something bad about someone else to violate Iwazaru’s rule.”
“Ah.” I nodded.
Mrs. Carter growled and tugged at her handcuffs.
“There, there, Lisa. You’ll get your turn, but you must be faster with your hand,” Father told her.
She yanked at the handcuffs again. They clattered against the pipe and the cot. She groaned in frustration.
“Perhaps your foot, then?”
“There is a fourth monkey, but nobody really knows about him,” I explained.
Father nodded. “The first three monkeys define the rules we should all live by, but it’s the fourth that carries the most importance.”
“Shizaru,” I said. “His name is Shizaru.”
“He stands for do no evil,” Father said. “And that, of course, is the rub. Should someone see or hear evil, there is little one can do. When someone speaks evil, there is fault to be had, but when they do evil . . . well, when they do evil there is no room for forgiveness.”
“Those people aren’t pure, are they, Father?”
“No, son, they most certainly are not.” He turned back to Mrs. Carter. “Unfortunately, your husband fell into the latter group, and there is simply no need for people like him on this great planet of ours. I would have preferred to rid the world of his filth with a little more discretion than my wonderful wife deemed appropriate, but what’s done is done and there is no use fretting over that which we cannot control. I’d also prefer you did not discover our shenanigans last night, but alas, your detective skills were exceptional, and discover you did. Hence, our current predicament: What to do with you?”
“Is she pure, Father?” I had to ask, for I did not know the answer. Surely she had seen and heard evil, but Father had told me before that those offenses were forgivable. Had she spoken evil? Had she done evil? I did not know.
Father brushed a strand of Mrs. Carter’s hair from her eye. He stared at her for a long time in silence, then: “I don’t know, son, but I plan to find out. Mr. Carter was an unsavory man, there is no question of that, but something set him off—something pushed a final button and caused his steam to come billowing out.” He reached up and touched Mrs. Carter’s black eye with the tip of his index finger. “I can’t help but wonder what that little something was, and whether or not our dear Mrs. Carter here was behind it.”
My mind shot back to the image of Mother with Mrs. Carter. I couldn’t tell Father. Not yet. If Mrs. Carter’s actions caused Mr. Carter to break the rules, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that Mother was partly responsible for the actions of Mrs. Carter? If Mother broke the rules . . . I couldn’t bear the thought.
Father watched me closely. Did he know? Had I given it away? He didn’t delve deeper, though. Instead, he stood and gestured to the breakfast tray. “Now I’m afraid your breakfast has gone cold. I guess it will have to do. Perhaps next time you will accept such a gracious meal with a smile rather than such harsh negativity.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Remember, son, no utensils for our guest.”
“I know, Father.”
“Atta boy.”
He retreated up the stairs.
I turned back to Mrs. Carter and reached for her gag. “How about we give this another go?”
She nodded, her eyes fixed on Father’s back as he disappeared.
34
Porter
Day 1 ? 5:23 p.m.
Located just northwest of the Loop and bordering downtown Chicago, the Fulton River District was at the center of the city’s urban renewal, with old warehouses converted to high-rent lofts and former shoe factories now turned to spas and coffee shops. Scattered among these hipster meccas stood the occasional condemned building. If they had thoughts, Porter supposed they were nervously monitoring their neighbors and waiting their turn at a facelift, hoping the reprieve would come before the wrecking ball arrived, ready to make room for something altogether new.
Such was the case for 1483 Desplaines.
Squat compared with the surrounding structures, it was only three stories tall and maybe ten thousand square feet at most. Upon closer inspection, the original red brick veneer poked out here and there but for the most part was lost beneath layers of paint—colors ranging from green to yellow to white. Most of the windows were either boarded or broken.
At one point it had probably stood proud, but history had not been kind to it. This building had lived through the worst of times. Prohibition had grown from the bowels of politics only to be snuffed out by the gangsters who had once stood in its windows. It witnessed the birth of the city and watched the Great Chicago Fire as neighboring buildings across the river burned to the ground. Porter swore he could still smell the flames and soot in that neighborhood, even though a hundred winters had tried to wash the stink away.
A single sign adorned the rooftop in faded wooden letters, reading MULIFAX PUBLICATIONS, all that remained of its former glory.
“Not much to look at,” Nash said from the passenger seat of Porter’s Charger. They were parked on the corner across the street with a direct view of the building. His phone buzzed with a text message, and he glanced down at the screen. “Clair is two minutes out, with SWAT at her back.”
Porter checked his rearview mirror; Watson was busy typing away on his own phone. Porter had never seen fingers move so fast. “Christ, Doc, that thing is going to catch fire.”
“Mulifax Publications shut their doors in 1999. This building has been empty ever since,” Watson said without looking up. “Apparently their parent company kept up with the bills until 2003; then they went bankrupt and the city took possession. They tried to rent the place out but couldn’t find a taker; the city condemned it in 2012.”
“Why not renovate, like these other buildings?” Nash asked. “This neighborhood has gone ritzy. We’re not getting in on a cop’s salary, that’s for damn sure.”