If you ever wondered what it was like to walk onto the canvas of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, I’d suggest the Palace Grill on the corner of Madison and Loomis at a little after 5:00 a.m. Two cops, one fat, the other fatter, sat at one end of the long counter. Each had a newspaper, a plate of eggs, and coffee. At the other end was an old man, wrapped in an overcoat and peering into a bowl of oatmeal. Behind the counter was a skin-and-bones cook, standing guard over an empty grill, waiting for the breakfast crowd and a little conversation. I took a seat at a table in an area that looked like it was closed off. The counterman didn’t look my way, so I wandered up and ordered a coffee. He had just filled my cup when his ears stood up like a pointer’s in full flush. I didn’t need to turn to know who had just walked in.
The mayor went right for the table I had already staked out. The two cops took one look, got up, and left. The counterman pushed my coffee almost into my lap and ran to serve the mayor all the flapjacks he could eat. I gave the two of them a minute and then joined Wilson.
“You like this place?” I said.
“I come here now and then. Usually right after it opens. Thanks, Lenny.”
The counterman slipped the mayor’s joe onto the table and disappeared in a haze of grease. The mayor dumped sugar into his coffee and stirred as he talked.
“They were lucky. Just on the edge of a quarantine zone. Saw a good surge in business from all the cops working the perimeter.”
“Someone’s gotta make a buck.”
Wilson raised his eyebrows but let the comment pass. “Where you been hiding?”
“Never mind,” I said. “How’s everything holding together?”
Wilson shrugged. “You think I know? One minute we got dead people everywhere. Then it just stops. No more dead. No more sick. Now the feds tell me they‘re pulling down the fences.”
“You wonder how all that happened?”
“You think I got to be mayor by asking dumb questions?”
“You just take the bows.” I nudged the morning Sun-Times across the table. Wilson’s picture was on the front page.
“And I take the lumps, asshole. It’s the job. Now tell me what is it that can’t wait until the sun comes up?”
“You know this guy?”
Wilson looked at a photo of Peter Gilmore but didn’t touch it. “No. Should I?”
“He’s responsible for the release.”
Wilson took a second look at the photo, then back up to me. “Who is he? And why are we talking about this in the Palace?”
“I promised I’d give you a heads-up.”
“Only if my office was involved.”
I spread my hands, palms up, and sat back. Wilson swung a look around the diner.
I stood up. “Maybe you want a pat down?”
Wilson gestured me back into the booth. His face looked like a wall of old plaster, cracked from too much heat and trailing long threads of asbestos everywhere.
“When are you going to the feds?” he said.
“I’m not.”
A pause. “What’s my involvement?”
It wasn’t the sort of thing any politician wanted to ask. Certainly not if your name is followed by the title “Mayor of Chicago.” And definitely not if it involved the deaths of a few hundred Chicagoans.
“I can’t lay it all out,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not resolved yet.”
“And you’re going to resolve it yourself?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Wilson tapped a finger beside Gilmore’s picture. “Who is he?”
“Peter Gilmore. Former CIA.” A lift of mayoral chin at that. “Specially trained in the handling and release of chemical and biological weapons.”
“Who hired him?” Wilson said.
I shook my head.
“Why?”
Another shake of the head.
“I thought you told me this concerns my office.”
“It does. Just not directly.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think, Your Honor, that might very well be up to you.”
Lenny was orbiting at the edge of the universe with a plate of toast. Wilson waved him in. Lenny dropped off his order, freshened everyone’s coffee, and scampered away. Wilson pushed the toast aside, tapped his fingertips together, and waited.
“Mark Rissman,” I said.
“He’s picking me up here in a half hour.”
“Rita Alvarez has been investigating him for a year.”
“I hope you’re not telling me the pathogen release was put together by that puke?”
“No.”
“No shit. So why are we talking about him?”
“Rissman’s the guy from your office who was working with the Korean. Steering medical supply contracts and getting kickbacks.”
The mayor furrowed his considerable brow until he looked a little bit like Leonid Brezhnev. “You telling me Rissman was the guy who ordered the bags?”
I laid a finger on the photo. “Peter Gilmore was on the other end of the hospital scam. He worked the body bag order with Lee as a side deal. One that would have made both of them some quick cash.” I pushed some paperwork across the table. “These are documents from Gilmore’s computer. Alvarez’s legwork pretty much confirms Rissman wasn’t involved. At least initially.”
“So Rissman didn’t know about the body bags?”
“Not until we found them in Lee’s cellar. Then Rissman must have put it together.”
“And knew Gilmore was implicated in the pathogen release,” Wilson said.
“That’s when Rissman decided to drop the anonymous note to Danielson, fingering you.”
Wilson squeezed his eyes together while his nose sucked up most of the air in the room. “He set me up to take the fall.”
I was going to ask how it felt but let the moment pass.
“There was a file on Gilmore’s computer titled ‘City Hall,’ ” I said and slipped a flash drive onto the table. It disappeared into the mayor’s hairy fist. “There are also some photos.”
I took out a folder. Inside were photos from the mayor’s suite in the Colonial. Himself, clad head to toe in his NBC suit. Another with the protective mask off, drinking a Diet Coke, smiling. A third as Renee put on makeup. In the background were the camera and the fireplace setup from which he addressed the city during the crisis.
“After the tip to Danielson didn’t work, Rissman went to Gilmore himself and cut a deal. He’d keep quiet about the bags if Gilmore would help to take you down after the crisis was over. That’s what the photos were for.”
Wilson flipped through the pictures. “He thinks these would have taken me out?”
“That’s not all. In return for his silence, Rissman wanted Gilmore to create a paper trail that would link you to the body bags. Gilmore had all the paperwork. The Korean was dead. It would have been easy enough to drop it all in Doll’s lap.”
“And the weasel grabs my chair. Where’s the documentation on the bags?”
“It’s on the flash drive. Hard copies are in the folder.”
Wilson held up one of the photos. “Are there any more of these?”
“That’s all I have. One more thing. Gilmore was going to kill Rissman. Then blackmail you with the photos himself. At least that seemed to be on his to-do list.”
“But Gilmore’s gone?”
“Yes, Gilmore’s gone.”
A pause. “And you don’t think Rissman knows who Gilmore worked for on the pathogen release?”
“I know he doesn’t. But I do.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna take care of it.”
Wilson spread his thick fingers. “And all of this?”
“I can keep Rissman out of it. Or I can turn him over to the feds.”
“If you did that, then I’d go down.”
“There’s no evidence you knew what Rissman was up to.”
“I didn’t. But politically-”
“You’d be fucked, Mr. Mayor.”
Wilson took a sip of his coffee. “What do you want?”
“Cover in case what I do today goes south.”
“What kind of cover?”
“I want my friends protected. Rodriguez, Rita Alvarez. And Rachel Swenson. Especially Rachel.”
“From who?”
“If I fail, you’ll know.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
I shrugged. “We see what happens.”
Wilson dropped the flash drive into his pocket. “You got a deal.”
I got up to go. The mayor stopped me with a hand.
“Want to tell me what you have planned for today?”
“Want to tell me what you have planned for Rissman?”
“Fair enough.”
I left the diner, sticking the mayor of Chicago with the bill. And that was a first.