Lucky Bones Read online

  He tried the business phone number from the contact page. A recorded voice – Latin accented and enthusiastic – identified itself as JollyOllie and promised a ‘big party for your next big occasion’ if you would leave your name and number. Kelson left his name and number, then dialed again, this time Oliver’s private cell number, which Genevieve Bower had given him – knowing that if he reached Oliver he would have to phrase his conversation just right to avoid making the man ask the wrong questions. On the third ring, an unenthusiastic Latin voice answered, ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Jeremy Oliver?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I want the Jimmy Choos.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t make me say “Jimmy Choos” again.’

  ‘Who told you I’ve got Jimmy Choos?’

  ‘See?’ Kelson said. ‘That’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. Genevieve Bower.’

  The man’s voice got sly. ‘Tell her if she wants her stuff, I need cash.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Kelson said. ‘You give back the shoes, I won’t drop a brick on you.’

  ‘A brick?’

  ‘His name’s DeMarcus Rodman. Let’s meet tomorrow – to talk in person.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea,’ the man said. ‘Why don’t you fuck off?’ He hung up.

  ‘Progress,’ Kelson said.

  Before shutting his office for the night, he googled G&G Private Equity. The website told him nothing worth knowing. The site was done up in black, brown, and white. ‘I smell mahogany,’ Kelson told it. He googled Sylvia Crane, Harold Crane, and Chip Voudreaux, the people who Marty LeCoeur said had tried to hire him. He found only a single hit, for Chip Voudreaux, who appeared on a list of sponsors of a charity called Second Chances. ‘Like ghosts,’ Kelson said. ‘Hard to stay that invisible. Pay someone to wipe the internet clean of them.’

  FIVE

  That night, Kelson slept hard and woke at dawn with Payday nestled against his mouth. He blew fur from his teeth and went into the bathroom to shave and shower. He fried bacon, laid two strips on a plate with scrambled eggs and toast for himself, and set a strip for each of the kittens on the floor. Payday attacked the meat, pouncing as if Kelson had bought her a pet gerbil. Then the kittens eyed each other, seemingly unsure whether they would fight. Then each bit into her bacon and disappeared with it under Kelson’s bed. ‘Huh,’ Kelson said, and ate his breakfast.

  The windows in Dr P’s office at the Rehabilitation Institute faced an alley and, beyond the alley, a one-story utilities building topped with air-conditioning units, cooling pipes, and a bunch of brightly painted metal boxes of unclear purpose. Dr P was staring at the boxes when Kelson came in.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about metaphors for you,’ she said, without looking at him. ‘All those machines – the fans and tubes, the shiny, noisy things that belong inside – you’ve got them on the outside. It’s fascinating.’

  Kelson looked out the window at the rooftop. ‘And ugly.’

  ‘No, only fascinating,’ and she turned her eyes to him. ‘How are the breathing exercises working?’

  ‘Not so well at Big Pie Pizza. Fine afterward.’

  ‘Were you drinking?’

  ‘Only if Sprite counts.’

  Dr P narrowed her eyes, as if that would help her see inside Kelson’s head. ‘Instead of asking for assistance, some people self-medicate.’

  ‘I know,’ Kelson said. ‘Got any advice for keeping my mouth shut during a civil trial if the pizza woman sues?’

  ‘Sure. Settle out of court. You live … a complicated life. Still, some people with disinhibition have it much worse. You’re a lucky man.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Bet for me next time you go to Arlington Park. Win, place, or show.’

  After Dr P kicked him out, Kelson went back to his office, checked his guns as he’d checked them the previous night, and turned on his laptop.

  He googled ‘Jimmy Choo’. He brought up the website and scrolled through the women’s sneakers, stopping at the Norways – black tennis shoes with strips of fur, like squirrel tails, pasted where the laces belonged. ‘Cool,’ he said, ‘and creepy.’ They sold for $875. As he scrolled through other styles, he said ‘cool’ again for the Malias – gray suede high-heel sandals with a go-go dancer fringe. $1,150. ‘But these,’ he said, clicking on a pair of studded and leather-strapped black boots called Bikers – $1,795 – ‘I like.’

  The site linked to ‘A Style Lesson with Blanca Miró Scrimieri’, a Spanish fashion expert with fashion model cheekbones and severe shoulders. ‘For you, Blanca,’ Kelson said to her picture, ‘the Teslers’ – high-heel boots with a rabbit-tail puff at the top. The Jimmy Choo ‘Celebrity Sightings’ included pictures of Emma Stone and Nicole Kidman. ‘Whole worlds I didn’t know about,’ Kelson told Natalie Portman.

  Then he closed the computer on Jimmy Choo, locked his office, and went down to the street. As he walked into the parking garage, the attendant wished him a good morning, and Kelson said, ‘Keep your pants on.’

  He drove to the address Genevieve Bower gave him for Jeremy Oliver – on North Hermitage, a mile and a half west of Wrigley Field.

  Oliver rented rooms in a green single-story bungalow with a high attic. A dried flower wreath hung on the front door, and an empty flowerbox balanced on the porch railing. Kelson climbed the porch steps and stared in through a window at a living room furnished with a green-and-white striped rug, a set of raw pine bookshelves, a blue overstuffed armchair, and a matching sofa. A child’s crayon drawing of an elephant hung over the fireplace mantel. ‘Don’t think so, JollyOllie,’ Kelson said, and went down the steps. He walked around to the back of the house. A set of painted wooden stairs went up to a separate entrance to a dormered attic apartment.

  Kelson went up and again peered through a window, this one facing into a little, dark kitchen. He knocked on the glass and waited. When no one came, he knocked again – and then harder on the wooden door. No one came. He moved close to the door and listened. Nothing.

  He went back down the stairs to the backyard. A detached garage faced an alley behind the house. On the brown lawn between the alley and the house, someone had built a brick fire pit and surrounded it with a mix of wooden and plastic chairs. Years ago, while working a case as an undercover cop, Kelson had chased a crack dealer through a backyard like this. He’d caught the dealer when he tried to vault a fence separating the yard from the alley. ‘The world gets bigger and bigger, and I get smaller and smaller,’ Kelson said. ‘Chasing a damned shoe thief.’ He climbed the back stairs again and tried the doorknob.

  It turned, and he pushed the door open.

  ‘Bummer,’ he said.

  He stepped inside and patted a wall until he found a light switch. ‘I’ll get killed this way someday,’ he said. The kitchen smelled like new paint, though the walls were grimy with cooking grease. The attic ceiling slanted from the low walls. He called into the apartment, ‘Mr Oliver?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Jeremy Oliver?’

  Still nothing.

  Kelson moved around the kitchen. ‘I know better than this,’ he said. There was a scraped breakfast plate in the sink. In an open garbage can next to the stove, there were broken eggshells, a balled paper towel, and an orange juice carton.

  Kelson called into the house again. ‘JollyOllie?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t answer either,’ Kelson said.

  A hallway led toward the front of the house. As he walked up it, he poked his head into a bedroom. A shade covered a dormer window. A red velour bedspread was bunched at the bottom of a black-sheeted bed. A row of shirts, most of them black, hung inside an open closet door. The top drawer of a dark-wood dresser was open. A half pint of Hennessy – the cap off, the last of the cognac skimming the bottom of the bottle – stood on a night table. Kelson peered under the bed. No Jimmy Choos.

  Kelson moved on to the bathroom – filthy enough to give him a niggling pain above his left e
ye and make the eye twitch. ‘Compulsive risk taking,’ he said. ‘Ask Dr P.’ He pulled back the shower curtain on an empty tub.

  The hallway ended in a living room with a slanting ceiling, exposed ceiling beams, and a broad front window facing the street. In the middle of the room, a red throw rug, little bigger than a bathmat, covered a patch of floorboards. A large-screen TV and short shelves stood along one low wall. A black fabric couch stood against the other. A barefoot man in black jeans and a black silk shirt sat on the couch. Kelson recognized him from the picture Genevieve Bower showed him on her phone and the images on the JollyOllie website. But now the man’s olive skin looked gray. His hand – limp – held a small black pistol. His head – hanging – had a spot of blood above the left eye, just where the headache had started to niggle Kelson in the bathroom, and a spray of blood on the cheek below the eye.

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said, and, though he already knew, ‘Mr Oliver?’

  The man said nothing.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Kelson said.

  SIX

  When homicide detective Dan Peters heard Kelson’s voice on the line, he said, ‘What now?’

  ‘I respect you professionally,’ Kelson said, ‘but I dislike you personally.’

  ‘Same here,’ Peters said, ‘but forget the professional part.’

  ‘That makes you the perfect person to dump this on,’ Kelson said. ‘Got a pen? Jeremy Oliver – dead.’ He recited Oliver’s Hermitage Avenue address and added, ‘Attic apartment, rear entrance. Single bullet in the left temple.’

  He hung up before Peters could ask questions he didn’t want to answer. When his phone rang a moment later, he silenced it. Then he stared at Oliver’s dead face. ‘The thing is – why?’ Yesterday evening, Oliver had sounded anything but suicidal.

  So Kelson searched the apartment, opening drawers and cabinets, lifting cushions, leafing through a pile of mail on the kitchen counter. He found nothing of interest. He went back to the living room and stared at Oliver some more. ‘Sorry, buddy,’ he said, and dug into the man’s pockets, pulling out a wallet and a phone.

  Oliver’s wallet contained $103 in cash, a driver’s license, a Visa card, and a Discover card. Kelson laid the license and credit cards side by side on the couch and snapped a picture of them with his own phone. Then he returned the cash and cards to the wallet and put it back in Oliver’s pocket. Oliver’s phone would take more work, and so Kelson removed the battery and put the components in his pocket.

  He went out the back then and down the stairs. He walked around the house, checking for outside basement access. There was none. He walked to the detached garage and peered into the dark through the side door. The garage was empty except for two bicycles and, in a corner, gardening tools. He tried the knob. Locked.

  Kelson drove to his office, pulled into the parking garage, and wedged the Challenger into a spot. He stared at the concrete wall in front of him as he’d stared at Oliver’s dead body, and he repeated himself. ‘The thing is – why?’ Then he dialed Genevieve Bower’s number. After it rang four times and bumped to voicemail, he left a one-word message. ‘Why?’ He hung up, stared at the concrete some more, then dialed her number again. He left a longer message. ‘You lied to me.’ Five minutes later, he called once more. ‘Or at least you told me only part of the truth. Why would he do this over shoes? Call me.’

  As he got out of the car, his phone rang. He snatched it to his ear. ‘Did he even steal your Jimmy Choos?’

  There was silence. Then Dan Peters said, ‘My Jimmy whats?’

  ‘Goddammit,’ Kelson said, and hung up.

  Breathing hard, his eye twitching, he walked out of the parking garage and went up to his office. The computer training company that shared his floor had just finished a session, and a bunch of business casuals brushed past him on their way to the elevator. He unlocked his office door, let himself in, and yelled, ‘Yah!’

  Genevieve Bower sat in the client chair. She wore white yoga pants, which were a mistake, and a clingy white shirt, which wasn’t.

  ‘Like a super hot ghost – with lips,’ Kelson mumbled, then asked, ‘What are you doing here?’

  She looked at him as if he’d missed the obvious. ‘Waiting for you.’

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Building security – Steve. Cute. I told him I had an appointment with you.’

  ‘I just called you.’

  ‘Three times. You sounded incoherent.’

  ‘Why didn’t you—’ But another worry flashed through his mind. He went to his desk and checked the bottom drawer. His Springfield XD-S remained where he’d left it. He checked under the desktop. The KelTec hung from its mount.

  Genevieve Bower said, ‘What if you bump it with your knees? Would you shoot yourself in the nuts?’

  Kelson glared at her. ‘You—’

  ‘I got bored waiting,’ she said. ‘I looked around.’

  ‘You lied to building security. And you lied to me. Whatever you had going with Jeremy Oliver involved more than shoes.’

  ‘I didn’t lie. He stole them. I want them back.’

  So he hit her with it. ‘Jeremy Oliver’s dead.’

  She looked at him as if he’d come late to a party. ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Why do you think I’m here? You seemed to be doing nothing, so I went by his place. I found him on the living room floor.’

  ‘You mean sitting on the couch?’

  ‘The floor. I put him on the couch. He kept a .22 in his sock drawer. I put it in his hand.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘If the cops think he killed himself, they’ll move on. If they think someone killed him they’ll start poking around and I’ll never get my stuff.’

  ‘That was stupid in about a hundred ways.’

  ‘I thought it was pretty clever. I came right here. If I’d stood outside your door, people would’ve wondered about me. So I flirted with the security guard – to save us both from trouble.’

  ‘Why would someone kill Oliver?’

  ‘You mean besides him being a jerk? He probably ripped off someone else too. Or maybe he had another sideline going. Drugs? Maybe his DJ music sucked.’

  ‘Or maybe you did it,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Yeah, I shot a man who has sixty thousand dollars of mine in shoes. Because once he was dead he would, what, give them back?’

  ‘I’ve seen people do dumber things.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘Do you treat all your clients as if they’re guilty?’

  ‘Only the ones I don’t trust.’

  She considered that for a moment. Instead of arguing, she said, ‘Do you need to trust me to do the job?’

  ‘It would be nice to know what I’m getting into.’

  ‘Ask me anything,’ she said. ‘I’ll try to tell the truth.’

  ‘What exactly did you do when you went to Oliver’s house this morning?’

  She tugged on a sleeve, adjusting her shirt. ‘I parked on the street, two doors down. I walked to the back of the house and went up the stairs. I went inside.’

  ‘Was the door locked?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was that usual?’

  ‘I don’t know. We only dated for nine days. But I sensed something was wrong.’

  ‘Was that usual – for you to go into a place when you knew you shouldn’t?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ she said. ‘I called Jeremy’s name. When he didn’t answer, I went to his bedroom. His job kept him out late and he would go to after-parties. Sometimes he slept until three or four in the afternoon. But I didn’t find him in the bedroom. I went to the living room and found him. Dead.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘By the front window.’

  ‘There’s something you aren’t telling me.’

  She gave him a blank stare.

  He asked, ‘Did you take anything from the house?’
<
br />   She hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘His laptop.’

  ‘May I have it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It has – pictures on it.’

  ‘You dated him for nine days, and he has nudies of you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Videos?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘You got right down to it, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You should delete them.’

  ‘I plan to.’

  ‘And then you’ll give me the laptop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What else is on it?’

  Again she said nothing.

  ‘You know, when I found Oliver dead, I called the police,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to talk to them sooner or later. When they ask questions, I won’t be able to stop myself from telling them about you.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Jeremy.’

  ‘After I tell them what I know, you’ll need to convince them yourself.’

  ‘Will you keep looking for my things?’

  ‘I don’t trust myself. I tell the truth as far as I understand it. But that doesn’t mean I’m totally honest with myself. My therapist warned my ex-wife and my daughter that my perceptions of the truth might differ from reality. I might tell you you’re pretty and I might think I’m just describing a fact of nature – the way I might say a giraffe is tall or a hamburger is medium rare – while I really want to go to bed with you.’