Page 77 of Fade Out
It felt weird knowing there were hundreds and hundreds of gay guys just a couple blocks away and I was over on Broadway. I felt disconnected, like I’d somehow wandered off and wasn’t going in the right direction.
I also didn’t see Brian anywhere. Could he have gone over to the street fair? No, that didn’t make sense. He wanted to celebrate that I wouldn’t be going to prison. If he wanted to go to the street fair he’d have come home and gotten us. He wouldn’t have gone alone.
As I walked by The Closet, I noted that the bar was packed to overflowing. I stopped and tried to stick my head in the door. Brian might have seen someone he knew and gone in. But I didn’t see any sign of him. After scanning the bar a few times, I continued up Broadway. The street veered slightly to the west and I walked on, passing a transient hotel, a parking garage, the boutiques had stopped and the apartment buildings had begun. I cut across the parking lot when I got to the market. I was beginning to worry.
Inside Treasure Island, I walked the length of the store looking down each aisle as I did. I didn’t see him. There were two checkers. One of them wasn’t busy. She was somewhere around sixty; gray hair, thick belly, exhausted eyes.
“Did you see a guy come in earlier, twenties, blond, good-looking?”
“Really? In this neighborhood? We get fifty guys who look like that in here every day.”
“I think he was wearing a blue shirt. Pink shorts?”
She gave me a disgusted look and said, “That doesn’t help.”
I made a point of thanking her, though for what I had no clue. I walked outside and stood there. This was ridiculous. There were dozens of things that could have happened, none of them sinister. He could have gotten pulled into The Closet and I just didn’t see him. He could be over at Big Nell’s. He could be at the street fair. It was really only a block or so away, he might have decided to spend five minutes there and then time got away from him. Or he could have decided to walk out to Lake Shore and take in the view on the way home. There were half a dozen ways I could have missed him.
I walked back down Broadway to Aldine, taking the time to peek into every little business on the way. I was halfway down Aldine when I saw the big, black limousine double parked in front of Brian’s building.
And I knew it was there for me.
Chapter Seventeen
This had happened before.A few years back, Jimmy English had shown up outside my apartment on Roscoe and asked me to find out why his grandson—who’d killed his stepfather—was refusing to assist in his own defense. It probably hadn’t been hard for Jimmy to find me. I was in the phone book, after all.
I knew Deanna Hansen was in the limo even before the chauffeur got out and came around to open the passenger door. The fact that she’d found me at Brian’s condo suggested she was pretty savvy. Or, more likely, that we shared the same attorney.
I climbed in and took a good long look at her. She wore khakis, Keds, a peach-colored Polo shirt and a thin, white cardigan. She looked like a nice young mom from a northern suburb who’d slipped away for a little Sunday shopping. The hardness in her face made a lie of the outfit, though. When I’d first met her she was an undergrad at Loyola. There had been an innocence about her, and a stubbornness too. That was long gone. Well, the innocence. The stubbornness was still there.
“It was you,” I said. Certain things suddenly made sense. “You paid my bond.”
She smiled. “I’m not hearing a thank-you.”
“I can pay you back,” I said, boldly. I had about seventy-five thousand from the Harker’s condo and Bert’s various savings accounts. I was pretty sure Sugar would lend me the other twenty-five.
Deanna laughed, though, and said, “You don’t have that much money.”
“I can pay you a hundred grand.”
“But you owe nearly twice that.”
“No, I owe you a hundred.”
“I paid your legal fees.”
“It’s been less a week. They can’t be that high,” I said. Actually, they could be. I’d taken up most of Owen’s attention. And, of course, if Deanna wanted them to be high, they would be.
“And then there’s the interest.” Which could also be as high as she wanted.
“Then fuck you,” I said. “I didn’t ask you to post my bond, I didn’t ask you to pay my legal fees. We never had an agreement. We have no contract.”
She gave me a look like I was being ridiculous—and I probably was. She went on, “We both know we’re not on our way to court, so whether or not there was a contract is a moot point. Five years. That’s all I’m asking. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you well. And in five years the debt will be gone.”
“Unless you change the contract,” I said.
“It wouldn’t be wise for me to do that. I don’t want to get a reputation as someone who can’t keep her word. That would be bad for business.”
“I never did anything illegal for your grandfather. I have a feeling you don’t understand that.”
