“Does she have access to her own money?”
“A very small part of her trust fund was recently released to her,” Mrs. Gerrigan said. “All of the children get their first check at twenty-five.” She turned her attention to Connor. “Just a small amount so that they can demonstrate responsibility before the bulk of it is released. Accountability is important in our family.”
“And how much was Tinsley’s first check?”
Mrs. Gerrigan cleared her throat and shifted a little in her chair. “Two million dollars,” she said in her clipped voice. It was as if she had just said two hundred quarters.
“And exactly when was this two million dollars made available to her?” I asked.
“The same day she disappeared.”
“Do you or your husband still have access to the money?”
“Not at all. It’s in a private account that only she has access to. She has full control.”
“Can you ask the banker or trustee if there’s been any unusual activity?”
“I already have. Legally, they can’t tell me anything. One of our attorneys is working on it.”
5
I WAS SITTING IN my apartment on East Ohio Street trying to divide my attention equally between the filet Oscar I had ordered from the Capital Grille and the report Burke had put together on Tariq “Chopper” McNair. A generous glass of 1998 Dunnewood Cabernet sat between the two like an intrepid referee. The lobster and filet were winning. Stryker, my fearless rust-colored cockapoo, sat at my feet, waiting for an errant morsel of food.
I was halfway through my dinner when the reading started to get good. Chopper McNair was no stranger to the criminal justice system. He’d grown up in the tough West Side and had been arrested at least five times, most of them misdemeanors—disorderly conduct, public intoxication, and a couple of fights. He had avoided a trip to the big house, but in his twenty-four short years he had become mighty familiar with what the inside of the county lockup looked like. He was last arrested seven years ago for loitering and had been clean since. His current address was a significant step up from the urban decay of the West Side. He owned a two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise in the 1500 block on Wabash Avenue, right in the center of the fashionable South Loop.
I couldn’t stop staring at Chopper’s picture. I was surprised by how clean cut he looked. His hair had been neatly trimmed and not worn in the popular cornrow braids or unruly Afro that had become the signature hairstyle of thug life. He wore a sizable diamond stud in his right ear, and his smooth skin was absent the scars you’d expect to find on a young gangbanger who’d spent most of his formative years running the streets. His teeth were perfect and noticeably absent of those gold caps and diamond studding designs that were all the rage in hip-hop mouth fashion.
Chopper’s life read like a modern-day Shakespearean tragedy. His mother had died of a drug overdose when he was a teenager, and his father was wasting away in the Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama for drug trafficking. Chopper had bounced from one foster home to another, but he had been able to finish high school and get accepted into DePaul. He’d majored in sociology and had graduated with honors two years ago.
It was the contribution from the Organized Crime Division, however, that pulled me away from the now half-eaten filet Oscar. Chopper McNair was a one-time thug who had pulled his life together, but it was the name of his uncle that sat me back in my chair. Chopper had been raised since his early teens by his mother’s brother, Lanny “Ice” Culpepper, the notorious leader of the Gangster Apostles, the toughest, most murderous gang the Chicago streets had ever seen.
6
ARNIE’S GYM OPERATED in the sweaty basement of Johnny’s IceHouse, a large skating rink on the corner of South Loomis and Madison in the West Loop. Arnold “the Hammer” Scazzi was pushing seventy, but he still reported to work every day to open the gym and give hell to the young boxers who had dreams of making it to the big fight. Hammer remained a formidable-looking man with wide, square shoulders and a barreled chest that sagged a little but retained enough power to knock the shit out of two thugs who had tried to rob him last year as he’d walked to his car one night. Hammer had not only been the youngest Golden Gloves champion, but he had accomplished this feat two years in a row back in 1955 and 1956. His name hung up there with the giants in the sport, including Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Had it not been for a freak car accident that took away the peripheral vision in his right eye, Hammer might’ve become one of the best professional fighters of all time.
Hammer was against the back wall doing one-handed push-ups when I walked into the gym.
“Look who’s making a guest appearance,” Hammer said, finishing off a flurry of push-ups, then springing to his feet. Not a bead of sweat. “Figured you’d be out on the course chasing that pissant white ball.”
“I should be,” I said. “My handicap is in the crapper. But I’m doing a little detecting right now.”
“Mechanic’s in the shower,” Hammer said. “He just finished working the heavy bag. You should’ve been here too.”
Just as I turned toward the locker room, Hammer threw a left hook at me. I blocked it with my right, ducked a little, then rolled and quickly threw a left jab that tapped him square in the chest.
“Reflexes are still there,” Hammer said approvingly. “Get back in here before you lose everything I taught you.”
Dmitri “Mechanic” Kowalski sat on a small locker-room bench toweling off his compact body when I walked in. Mechanic was an even six feet and all hard muscle. Pound for pound he was the strongest man I had ever met. Those who had been punched by him in the ring would often compare it to the impact of a metal wrecking ball that destroys buildings. But beyond being a physical specimen, Mechanic was absolutely fearless. He had grown up on some of the toughest streets in Chicago, and with his immigrant parents barely scratching out a living, Mechanic had seen things growing up that no child should ever see. He had earned his nickname as a teenager when he was getting his trial-by-fire education in the unforgiving ways of street life. For Mechanic it was all about survival, whether that meant intimidating, fighting, or killing. He was an expert with a gun, sometimes demonstrating his prowess by shooting a bee that had come to rest on a flower fifty feet away. The neighborhood kids started to call him Mechanic because he had an unrivaled knack for fixing people’s problems. The understanding in the community was if you had a problem, take it to the Kowalski kid. He could fix anything.
Mechanic was officially my unofficial partner. We had done some mixed martial arts training together when we wanted to expand beyond the traditional confines of boxing. To those of us classically trained boxers, MMA was street fighting with a couple of rules thrown in to prevent someone from getting killed. We enjoyed it immensely. I called Mechanic when I needed extra muscle or some help with surveillance or intel. His fee never amounted to more than a good meal and a couple of bottles of imported beer.
“Gotta make a visit to K-Town,” I said, taking a seat across from him on one of the wooden benches.
“You’re moving up in the world,” Mechanic said. He stretched down to dry off his feet. Veins popped over his muscles like spiderwebs. He had been this way since the first day I’d met him at the Carrington Construction Company. We’d worked there one summer digging up roads around the city and pouring concrete. It was backbreaking work, but we were making our own money and spending it the way we saw fit.