Chicago Stories: West of Western Read Free

building around her.
    She nodded, lifting one corner of her mouth in a half-smile, remembering what Vitruvius had said: a good building has commodity, firmness and delight. Ignore the stink and under the debris and bad 1960s remuddling, this one had them all. Good space, sound structure, beautiful lines. Her eyes crinkled, the faint smile still on her lips. She could be happy here. Half-way down the stairs, her thoughts deep in plans for the work ahead, she remembered Ellie, now leaning on the horn outside. Damn. She checked her watch. Seventeen minutes, not bad.
    “What the hell took you so long?” Hiding in the car with the windows rolled up and air conditioning on high, Ellie started talking as soon as Seraphy opened the door. “Those guys down there by that wreck were watching us.” She pointed. “Drug dealers. This place creeps me out. No, don't look at them, they'll see you.” Her cell phone in hand with 911 on speed dial, she stared as Seraphy lifted her foot to get in the car.“Stop right there. You can't get in my car like that, you're filthy.” Nose scrunched in disgust, she tossed Seraphy a clothes brush and the package of wipes and waited, her mouth working, her acrylic nails tap-tapping the steering wheel. “You took long enough. I was about to call 911,” she said once her client had reached an acceptable level of hygiene and slipped into the leather seat. “What the hell were you doing in there?” She relaxed against the seat as the big Mercedes rolled up the street to Division, where she could turn east and escape back across Western Avenue.
    “Looking. Planning. Ellie, calm down. You're imagining things. Those guys are just working on the car.” Seraphy didn't want to talk now, she had too many things to think about.
    “No, they're not. They're dealing drugs. That's how they do it, pretend to be working on a car so the cops can't get them for loitering. Okay.” Ellie failed to notice the change in her client. She needed this commission. A deep breath and she forced professional cheer into her voice. “So . . . while you were in there I was thinking. Tomorrow I'll look over the new listings and give you a call. This time we'll stay on the good side of Western, okay?” She smiled, monitoring her reflection in the windshield. The time her client was in the dump she'd spent repairing her makeup and fluffing her hair. “You saw what I was talking about, so we can start again and stay east of Western. We're both tired, but tomorrow is another day.”
    Seraphy didn't answer, wondering how to scrape up enough cash, how soon she could close and which contractors she could talk into starting ASAP.
    Hell. Ellie wasn't going to like this.

Chapter 2
     
    Seraphy had spent her first five years in the Middle East with the Marines in Iraq and had accumulated a tidy sum by the time her hitch was up. Her next five years she worked undercover for Darkpool, the most clandestine of defense contractors, the work was dangerous and they paid their agents accordingly. Seraphy banked that money as well. When an IED ended her career and she was invalided back to the United States, she returned to Chicago with a $400,000 nest egg.
    Furnishing her apartment with family cast-offs, she began to orient herself to civilian life. Her cheap and reliable fifteen-year-old Jeep Cherokee had no fear of potholed building sites, her chambray work shirts and neatly pressed jeans worked for both field and office. Jerrod & Etwin Architectural Investments provided living money and her nest egg sat unhatched until the day she fell in love with the abandoned drapery workshop west of Western Avenue.
    With cash in hand, closing on the abandoned workshop was the easy part. Then, while she waited for Chicago's notorious building department to issue permits to convert her building to a residential loft upstairs and garage and workshop down, she worked alongside her friend Aldovar and his flock of Mexican immigrant workers to clean out