Read Online Penance: A Chicago Thriller by Dan O'Shea - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dan O'Shea
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bed.
A number of old pictures lined the hall outside the bedroom. The husband, mostly. Even one of him with Hurley the First, the mayor’s grandfather, the first Hurley to stake out the fifth floor at City Hall. He’d ridden his Southside Irish Bridgeport connections to the top prize back in 1952. Hurley the Third had the fifth floor now. Better than fifty years in the Hurley line and no end in sight.
Couple of pictures of Eddie Sr in his hard hat. Blue, with the city seal on it. Streets and Sanitation guy. Picture of Eddie Sr in his Knights of Columbus getup, with the cape and the Three Musketeers hat. Picture of Eddie Sr with the Cardinal. Eddie looking older in the last two, Lynch betting the ALS had already kicked in before the last one was taken.
Bedroom in the back must have been Eddie Jr’s. Old Cubs pennant on the wall, picture of Ernie Banks. Bears’ spread on the bed. Picture on the dresser, Eddie maybe thirty years and ninety pounds ago, standing in a football uniform. Scrapbook. Lynch picked it up. Eddie as a baby. Eddie holding up a fish on a pier somewhere. First Communion picture, Eddie and the parents standing on the steps where Lynch had seen the body. Graduation shots, high school and college. Wedding shots – all three wives. First one with the tux, the next two just suit and tie. Newspaper clippings. Eddie making partner at Morgan Stanley twenty years ago. Eddie setting up his own shop. Eddie yukking it up with the current Hurley at some ribbon cutting. Eddie throwing out a first pitch at Comiskey – the old one. Mom was prouder than she let on, prouder than Eddie knew.
An old desk was tucked into a corner in the hallway. Lynch went through it. Checking papers – bank statements, insurance policies, satisfaction of mortgage on the house. All of it pretty vanilla, nothing there. Lynch found a three-hundred-sheet spiral notebook in the center drawer, black cover. A sort of journal, Helen Marslovak’s account of her illness. The diagnosis back in October. Metastasized colon cancer. Deciding pretty much right off not to fight it – no chemo, no surgery – docs having told her there wasn’t much point. Writing about the pain with a kind of gratitude, thankful to know it was coming, to have a chance to put her soul in order. No self-pity that Lynch could sense.
Lynch went to put the notebook back, saw a piece of cardboard in the bottom of the drawer. He pulled it up. On the other side was an eight by ten photo, black and white, Eddie Sr and Hurley the First in the Hurley box at Wrigley, right behind the Cubs on deck circle. Eddie Sr and Hurley were up against the brick wall, leaning on it with their elbows. Ron Santo was standing on the field to the left of the mayor, Don Kessinger over to the right. Son of a bitch, Lynch thought, one of Hurley’s favor shots. Walk into any alderman’s office where the guy’d been around during the first Hurley reign, any mover and shaker in the city, you were gonna see his Wrigley shot. And the ballplayers in the shot, they told it all, in a kind of social ranking system as esoteric as any court ritual at Versailles but one that every politico in Chicago understood. Santo, he was Hurley’s favorite, even more so than Ernie Banks, because Santo was a white guy, and Hurley the First, he didn’t have much use for Schwartzers. Not racism of the white-supremacist type. Just he liked the balance of power the way it was, and the way it was when he took over left the blacks pretty much out of it. You’d see Ernie in a lot of the shots. Ernie had just enough step’n’fetchit in his act to keep Hurley happy. He was the only black guy you’d see, though. Never saw Billy Williams, never saw Fergie Jenkins. If you had Ernie and Santo, that was top drawer. Lynch’s old man had a Wrigley shot, Santo and Huntley, which was hot shit, too. But Lynch’s old man had hauled a lot of water for the Hurley family in his day. Now here’s Marslovak, Streets and San line grunt
A number of old pictures lined the hall outside the bedroom. The husband, mostly. Even one of him with Hurley the First, the mayor’s grandfather, the first Hurley to stake out the fifth floor at City Hall. He’d ridden his Southside Irish Bridgeport connections to the top prize back in 1952. Hurley the Third had the fifth floor now. Better than fifty years in the Hurley line and no end in sight.
Couple of pictures of Eddie Sr in his hard hat. Blue, with the city seal on it. Streets and Sanitation guy. Picture of Eddie Sr in his Knights of Columbus getup, with the cape and the Three Musketeers hat. Picture of Eddie Sr with the Cardinal. Eddie looking older in the last two, Lynch betting the ALS had already kicked in before the last one was taken.
Bedroom in the back must have been Eddie Jr’s. Old Cubs pennant on the wall, picture of Ernie Banks. Bears’ spread on the bed. Picture on the dresser, Eddie maybe thirty years and ninety pounds ago, standing in a football uniform. Scrapbook. Lynch picked it up. Eddie as a baby. Eddie holding up a fish on a pier somewhere. First Communion picture, Eddie and the parents standing on the steps where Lynch had seen the body. Graduation shots, high school and college. Wedding shots – all three wives. First one with the tux, the next two just suit and tie. Newspaper clippings. Eddie making partner at Morgan Stanley twenty years ago. Eddie setting up his own shop. Eddie yukking it up with the current Hurley at some ribbon cutting. Eddie throwing out a first pitch at Comiskey – the old one. Mom was prouder than she let on, prouder than Eddie knew.
An old desk was tucked into a corner in the hallway. Lynch went through it. Checking papers – bank statements, insurance policies, satisfaction of mortgage on the house. All of it pretty vanilla, nothing there. Lynch found a three-hundred-sheet spiral notebook in the center drawer, black cover. A sort of journal, Helen Marslovak’s account of her illness. The diagnosis back in October. Metastasized colon cancer. Deciding pretty much right off not to fight it – no chemo, no surgery – docs having told her there wasn’t much point. Writing about the pain with a kind of gratitude, thankful to know it was coming, to have a chance to put her soul in order. No self-pity that Lynch could sense.
Lynch went to put the notebook back, saw a piece of cardboard in the bottom of the drawer. He pulled it up. On the other side was an eight by ten photo, black and white, Eddie Sr and Hurley the First in the Hurley box at Wrigley, right behind the Cubs on deck circle. Eddie Sr and Hurley were up against the brick wall, leaning on it with their elbows. Ron Santo was standing on the field to the left of the mayor, Don Kessinger over to the right. Son of a bitch, Lynch thought, one of Hurley’s favor shots. Walk into any alderman’s office where the guy’d been around during the first Hurley reign, any mover and shaker in the city, you were gonna see his Wrigley shot. And the ballplayers in the shot, they told it all, in a kind of social ranking system as esoteric as any court ritual at Versailles but one that every politico in Chicago understood. Santo, he was Hurley’s favorite, even more so than Ernie Banks, because Santo was a white guy, and Hurley the First, he didn’t have much use for Schwartzers. Not racism of the white-supremacist type. Just he liked the balance of power the way it was, and the way it was when he took over left the blacks pretty much out of it. You’d see Ernie in a lot of the shots. Ernie had just enough step’n’fetchit in his act to keep Hurley happy. He was the only black guy you’d see, though. Never saw Billy Williams, never saw Fergie Jenkins. If you had Ernie and Santo, that was top drawer. Lynch’s old man had a Wrigley shot, Santo and Huntley, which was hot shit, too. But Lynch’s old man had hauled a lot of water for the Hurley family in his day. Now here’s Marslovak, Streets and San line grunt
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