Family Affair: A Smokey Dalton Story Read Free Page A

You and Marvella have made it really, really clear
that Helping Hands doesn’t track people who vanish. So how about this? How
about I hire you to find her, Smokey. Does that work for you? I have a lot of
money. I’ll pay your standard rates plus expenses. I can put a check in the
mail today.”
    I almost told her that it wasn’t
necessary, that I would do this one for free. But I was a little annoyed at her
stubbornness, and besides, Jimmy was growing so fast that I couldn’t keep him
in shoes. My regular work for local black insurance companies and for Sturdy
paid the bills, but couldn’t cover the added expenses of a growing teenage boy.
    “All right,” I said, and quoted her my
rates. “I’m going to need a few things from you, too. I need some basic things.
I need the husband’s full name. I need to know where he lives and, if possible,
where he works. I need to know where he lived with Linda and Annie.”
    “Okay,” Valentina said.
    “But — and this is very important —
I don’t want you investigating or talking to him. If you can’t do the work by
phone, using a fake name, I don’t want you doing it. Is that clear?”
    “I know how to investigate, Smokey,” she
said with some amusement in her voice.
    “Good,” I said. “Because the last thing I
want is for this nutball to go after you.”
    “He won’t,” she said.
    But I got the sense, as I hung up the
phone, that Valentina Wilson — the new version, the muscular woman I’d
seen three months ago — would welcome his attack. She’d welcome it, and
happily put him out of commission.
    “Well?” Marvella asked.
    “Well,” I said, “it looks like I have a
missing persons case.”
    She rolled her eyes again. “And I thought
you were a tough guy.”
    “Sometimes,” I said, “it’s just easier to
do what the client wants than it is to convince them they’re wrong.”
    “Is she wrong?” Marvella asked.
    “Probably,” I said with a sigh. “Probably.”

 
    ***

 
    Linda Krag’s new apartment was in student
housing near the University of Chicago. The neighborhood had once been filled
with middle class professors’ homes, but now those homes were divided up into
apartments, with bicycles parked on the porch and beer cans lying in the lawn.
    Those lawns were brown. Winter hadn’t
arrived yet, despite the chill.
    In the early fall, when Linda Krag had
seen this place, it had probably looked inviting. Now, with the naked trees
stark against the gray skyline, the leaves piled in the street, the battered
cars parked haphazardly against the curb, the block looked impoverished and
just a little bit dangerous.
    Or maybe I was projecting. Linda Krag,
white and young, might have felt comfortable here, but I felt out of place,
despite the University neighborhood’s known color-blindness and vaunted
liberalism.
    I had the skeleton keys from Helping
Hands. Linda’s stuff had not been removed from the apartment — she had
until the end of the month before her belongings would become part of the
charity’s donation pile. I doubted anyone had visited this place once everyone
realized she was gone.
    The apartment was on the second floor. More
bikes littered the hallway, and so did several more beer cans. The hall smelled
of beer.
    Linda’s door was closed tightly. There
were scrapes near the lock and the wood had been splintered about fist-high. I
had no idea if that damage predated Linda’s arrival. With student housing, it
was almost impossible to tell.
    I unlocked the deadbolt and had to shove
hard to get the door to open. It had been stuck closed. As I stepped inside, I
inspected the side of the door and noted that the wood was warped.
    I pushed the door closed, but it bounced
back open. The warped wood made it as hard to close as it was to open.
    I had seen the apartment she had been
given on the South Side. That had been a two bedroom with a full kitchen and
stunning living room. I had put up another family there a year or so ago.