Page 92 of Spades

I grab my car keys out of my pocket. “Let’s go.”

She looks at my keys and frowns. “Your Rolls-Royce might be a little conspicuous. We’ll take my car.”

“You have a car?”

She nods. “Of course I do. My father bought it for me when I moved to the States. Took me a long time to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, but I’m a decent driver.”

“Then how come you’re always taking the train downtown?” I ask.

She raises an eyebrow. “The hospital doesn’t pay for my parking. Only the doctors get that privilege. And I’m sure as hell not tanking a third of my paycheck for a spot in a garage when a round trip on the L only costs five dollars.”

“Right, of course.”

Sometimes I forget that, unlike me, most people didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth. Luckily, my membership at the club entitles me to a spot in a nearby garage. Rouge takes care of her members.

Alissa puts on a puffy coat and leads me out her back door and down a few flights of exterior stairs. She points to a beat-up blue Nissan Sentra parked in a tiny spot behind her building. “That’s Molly,” she says.

“Molly?”

“Named for Gustav Mahler, of course. My second-favorite composer.”

“Another dead guy I’ve never heard of?”

“We’ll fix that soon. The finale of his second symphony is like opening the gates of heaven.” She unlocks her car with her key fob. “But that’s neither here nor there. Would you like to drive?”

I’ve been driving the Rolls for so long that I’m worried a modern car might feel weird, but I always prefer to drive, even if it’s not my car.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind.”

I open the passenger side door for her.

She gets inside. “Always the gentleman.”

I get in her car and start the engine. It takes a second to roar to life—God, this car could use a tune-up—and then I pull out of her narrow parking spot and drive onto the city streets.

“Can you pull up Monument Park on the GPS?” I ask her.

“Already on it.” She places her phone on the hands-free mount above her car’s stereo.

Because it’s late at night, the drive doesn’t take long. Rush-hour traffic to O’Hare is normally brutal, but we make it in a cool twenty minutes. Alissa’s radio plays the local classical station, and she hums along, her eyes closed.

I park at one of the hotels along I-294. We walk across River Road to Monument Park. Even in the chilly winter air, the waterfalls are pouring over the stony structures. It’s pretty loud, and I guide Alissa a few steps away from the falls so we can call the number on the top of the note. I dial the number and put it on speaker so Alissa can hear.

It rings once, twice, three times. I fear it’s about to go to voicemail, revealing that this is indeed some elaborate prank to embarrass the son of the disgraced former Mayor of Chicago, when the call clicks.

It’s an artificially low voice, clearly distorted in the same way it’s done on the news when a person’s identity is being obscured.

“Are you there?” the voice asks.

“I think so,” I say. “Monument Park in Rosemont, right?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Now what do we do?”

A pause, and I hear the shuffling of papers in the background. Finally the person returns, reciting in a singsong voice. “North on the river, you’ll find a nice clearing. The darker it gets, the closer you’re nearing. Quadruple the instants you’ll say ‘good God damn!’ This won’t be a picnic, you’re likely to scram.”

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