The man in front of him wrinkled his brow in disbelief.
“I spoke to the doctor who writes his insulin prescriptions and he told me that Gomez had an X-11 gang tattoo on his back.”
“But that’s…ridiculous,” said Lunde.
“Why?”
“Because he told me that the boys who shot him and his daughter were wearing X-11 jackets.”
A sound cut through the silence. A solitary police siren that rose and fell somewhere out there. Bob checked his watch. “Do you think he’ll be coming back here, Lunde?”
“Maybe. I can’t read people, but as long as his cat’s here there’s a chance. People who have lost loved ones often end up feeling closer to their pets.”
“Will you let me know if and when he does turn up?” Bob offered him his card. Lunde hesitated a moment, then took it.
“I do things slowly,” he said as he placed the card inside his calendar. “As you’ll have noticed, I think slowly, and I talk slowly. So if he does show up, I might be a bit slow about calling you too.”
“But you will call?”
Mike Lunde nodded slowly. “I guess I probably will, yes. This innocent man he shot…?”
“The name is Dante and he’s a gun dealer in Jordan. Probably works with several gangs, but mostly the Black Wolves.”
“So he…”
“Yes, I lied, he probably has a few lives on his conscience. Always assuming he has a conscience.” Bob pushed the notebook back into his pocket.
The bell above the door tinkled as Bob left. And jingled again when he came back in moments later.
“Yes?” said Mike Lunde, who was squatting in front of the wolverine with a spray.
“So then what did you talk about?”
“What did we talk about?”
“If you didn’t talk about jobs, friends, family.”
Mike Lunde stopped spraying and looked up with a sad smile. “We talked about loneliness.”
Bob Oz nodded.
As he emerged onto the street the sun was shining over the whole city.
16
Alice, October 2016
Kay Myers stood in the doorway of an office that was being painted. In her hand she was holding a coffee mug with I LOVE CHICAGO written on it. She watched the man rolling the ceiling. He reminded her of a crime scene technician, masked and dressed in white. Maybe that was why she had decided she liked him even though they had only said “Hi” to each other when she passed the office. He climbed down from his ladder and turned to her.
“It’s going to be nice,” she said. “You’re good.”
The dark eyes behind the mask twinkled as though he was laughing. “This is just a job. You should come see my art.”
She liked his deep, calm voice too.
“You paint…er, paintings?”
He shook his head. “Not quite. I can show you.” He spoke with a very slight accent. She wondered how old he might be.
