Boystown 2: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries

Veterans Day fell on a Wednesday. Normally, it's not the kind of holiday I notice, since it doesn't have decorations or costumes, but that particular day was busy. I'd gotten up early, fired up my Mr. Coffee, and toasted a bagel. I took my breakfast out into the living room and flipped on the TV. The news was reporting on a guy dressed in a Spiderman suit climbing the Hancock Tower. And if that wasn't interesting enough, the head of the fire department was using a fire hose to try and spray him off the thirty-sixth floor. I had to share this with someone, so I called my friend Ross.

"Turn on your TV," I told him when he picked up.

"I can't talk," he said. "I'm waiting for Earl to call."

"Just turn on the TV."

"I haven't talked to him in a couple of days. He promised he'd call this morning." He had the same note of desperation in his voice I'd been hearing for months.

"This guy is climbing the Hancock like it's some kind of mountain. Turn it on."

"Okay, but I have to go. I'll call you back after I talk to Earl." He hung up on me.

As I put the receiver back into the cradle, my eyes stayed glued to the TV. The reporters were going nuts. They tried to remain calm, but it was obvious they were thrilled to be reporting a life-or-death story.

I was wearing a pair of cut-off sweats I'd pulled on the minute I got out of bed and a T-shirt that said CPD in cracked plastic letters. The radiators attached to the ceiling of my garden apartment were radiating just the right amount of heat for me to go around barefoot. I was comfortable and ready to stay that way the entire day.

There wasn't much going on with my job. I had a couple invoices sitting on my desk down at my office in the Loop. I needed to type them up and send them out, but there was no mail pick-up that day, so why bother? The core of my business is running background checks for a company called Peterson-Palmer Investments, and I figured the next two months were likely to be a little slow. There wouldn't be a lot of hiring going on during the holidays.

Worry about my finances distracted me during commercials. I worked the door a couple nights a week at a nightclub called Paradise Isle, which would keep me afloat. But life is about more than treading water. I'd worked a lucrative case over the summer and gotten paid a large sum in cash. I used the money to catch up my bills and buy myself a nice little Browning "Baby" at a gun shop just outside the city limits. It was twenty-five caliber and fit nicely into an ankle holster I picked up at the same time.

It cost a couple hundred bucks, but there were good reasons to have it. Reason number one: I'd had to fire a weapon twice this year. That wasn't a reason to suppose I'd ever have to fire a gun again, but it also wasn't a reason to suppose I wouldn't. Reason number two: the city council was making noise about gun control, and I might not be able to register another gun soon ¬-- much less obtain a carry permit. I figured I should have at least one extra gun floating around. Reason number three: I wanted it.

Financially, I'd be fine. I knew that. Sort of. I was debt free and even had an empty credit card with a two thousand dollar limit. I wasn't going to end up on the street. Actually, I'd have been sitting pretty, but I had a client -- a well-known pornographer named Martin Dalton -- for whom I'd just done a job. Things had turned out just the way he wanted. He was a happy customer. Except his retainer check had bounced, and he hadn't paid the invoice I'd sent. When I called to remind him he owed me money, he offered me a box of videos he claimed was of equal value. Hanging around him for a week or so, I'd gotten the impression he was making money hand over fist; that made being stiffed a real pisser.

I kept getting up and flipping the channel from two to five to seven to nine. They all had similar shots of water being sprayed down the side of the building at a speck of a guy clinging to the side. Then, reporters on WGN said the mayor was on her way down to deal with the situation herself. This was getting good. The phone rang again. Obviously, it was Ross calling me back.

"Well, it's about time," I teased.

There was a pause on the other end, then a voice I recognized all too well said, "That wasn't exactly the way I wanted to start this conversation."

"Daniel," I said, though I was surprised I had enough breath to say it. Daniel Laverty was my ex-lover. We'd been together about three years when a couple of suburban assholes took a bat to Daniel's face and our lives.

"Hi, Nick, how are you?"

He asked so sincerely, it couldn't be passed off with just a "Fine, and you?" So, I thought about it and said, "I'm doing okay. Better than I have a right to. How are you?"

"I'm good. Thanks." He waited a moment. I couldn't stop myself wondering why he was calling. Did he want to see me? Had he forgiven me? Did he--

"Nick, I need your help."

"Sure, anything," I said, though I did hope it wasn't money he needed. I'd give it to him, of course. But it wasn't a good time.

"Actually, it's friends of my mine who need you. This couple I've met."

"What do your friends need?"

"They need you to find their boy."