In a Pig's Eye Read online

  Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Praise for Edgar Award-Winning Author Robert Campbell

  “Campbell writes with wit and vigor. The comparison not unflattering is to Elmore Leonard.”

  — Los Angeles Times

  “Robert Campbell has his own sound; he is an awfully good writer.”

  — Elmore Leonard

  “Robert Campbell is one of the most stylish crime writers in the business.”

  — New York Times

  Praise for

  Nibbled to Death by Ducks

  “A pure joy. . . .Nibbled to Death by Ducks provides an entertaining look at the workings of Chicago ward politics even as it exposes the cynical greed of the health care industry. . .Campbell is skillful enough to tickle and chill us at the same time. This is a good one.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Campbell combines some memorable faces with a moody, atmospheric sense of life in a nursing home. . . .Reading a Flannery caper is always fun. . . .” — Chicago Tribune

  Praise for

  The Cat’s Meow

  “A mystery series that. . .just keeps getting better.”

  — Chicago Magazine

  Praise for

  Thinning The Turkey Herd

  “Fast, lean, offbeat entertainment.”

  — Kirkus Reviews

  “Flannery is Robert Campbell’s most endearing character, a down-to-earth political small-fry who believes in the system despite its faults. . .He’s at his best in Thinning the Turkey Herd. . .a delight—a man who reason's, coaxes, makes end runs, compromises but never gives up until he’s satisfied that he’s got it right.”

  — The Cincinnati Post

  Praise for Edgar Award Winner

  The Junkyard Dog

  “Dialogue so breezy it stings your eyeballs, spirited characterizations of Jimmy’s proud ethnic neighbors, and the ward healer’s cocky defense of the old ways, the old politics . . . You can’t help liking Jimmy Flannery.”

  — New York Times Book Review

  “This truly innovative private-eye character moves credibly through a brawling, tough-guy atmosphere in a plot that’s both twisty and witty.”

  — ALA Booklist

  “Written in an appealing argot, this mystery has full characters, a satisfying ending and a nice balance of hardboiled action and romantic tenderness.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  IN A PIG’S EYE

  Robert Campbell

  Publisher’s Note

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1991 Robert Campbell

  All rights reserved.

  Ayeshire Publishing

  ONE

  Sometimes I go over to the play park and watch the kids playing softball. There's a couple of minutes there, just after the sun goes down but there's still plenty of light in the sky, when things look very sharp and sounds are very clear. The crack of the bat on the softball sounds like the whack of a long fly ball over to Comiskey Park. I watch the ball going up, up, up and I watch the batter racing down to first base, maybe second base, maybe even third, with his hair flying—her hair flying—and there's this look on his face—her face—like the kid'd just won immortality.

  And all of a sudden I'm in that kid's body—I don't care if it's a boy or a girl—and I just know for sure that I'm going to be twelve years old forever.

  Then that golden instant breaks—pops like a soap bubble—and I ain't a twelve-year-old kid. I'm a grown man who's already lost his mother—God rest her soul and whose father is retired from the fire department for a few years now, already eligible for Medicare. I'm married to a girl—a woman—by the name of Mary Ellen Flannery and we're about to have a baby in a couple of weeks now, which naturally means that I'm going to be a father.

  I been working in the sewers for a number of years and I been a Democratic Party precinct captain for Committeeman Francis Brendan "Chips" Delvin in the Twenty-seventh Ward for a number of years and I'm very comfortable doing those jobs.

  Which ain't to say I don't get promotions. I get promotions. I been promoted to inspector in the sewers and I been asked, more than once, more than twice, to step up in the party. I even passed up a chance to run for alderman, which maybe was just as well because I had a feeling that Janet Canarias, the Puerto Rican lipstick lesbian who whumped the regular Democratic organization's candidate, would've whumped me too. Especially because, if I'd run, my heart wouldn't've been in it. I liked it the way things were. Maybe I wanted to stay twelve years old forever.

  But when a man's got a wife and a kid on the way, it means he's got to put aside certain things and accept new responsibilities. Which I done. Which I'm doing.

  Like the other Saturday afternoon Delvin calls a meeting of all the precinct captains, which means about twenty-nine people. Men and women. Plus my old man, Mike.

  We're gathered over to Brennan's Tavern in the back room where Delvin has his meetings whenever there's too many to fit into his living room. Also Brennan gives him a price on sandwiches and a free first round of drinks which everybody thinks is very nice of him.

  We're past the first round and it's now a no-host bar. So all the ones who've had a whiskey or a highball are ordering beers or glasses of white wine which they'll nurse through the rest of the evening unless somebody else springs for a round.

  Delvin stands up and clears his throat which is his way of asking for order.

  He stands there with his hands flat on the table, his head lowered between his hunched shoulders, looking like some old gorilla, and glares at everybody like he does when he wants to show you how much he loves you.

  "So, how many of you figure that I'm going to live forever?"

  Everybody's hand, but one, goes up.

  "So, you don't think so, Packy?" Delvin says.

  "Well, now, Mr. Delvin," Packy Cooley—the one who didn't raise his hand—says, "there's no doubt you'll live for all eternity in the hereafter, but good sense suggests—"

  "For Christ's sake, Cooley," Delvin says, beside him self with frustration at the man, "the question was by way of being a little joke. An amusement to break the ice. A proper way to start the proceedings with a little laugh, you understand?"

  "Oh, pardon me, pardon me," Cooley says.

  Delvin takes the weight off his right hand just long enough to wave Cooley quiet and then he says, "Cooley's let the cat out of the bag. I ain't going to live forever and ain't that a relief?"

  Expressions of dismay and protest. "You've got another fifty years at least," Cooley says, making up for lost ground.

  "Nah, nah, nah," Delvin says, grinning at their affectionate response. "I've got a few, but you never can tell whe
n that certain somebody's going to tap you on the shoulder."

  "Who's that?" Cooley asks belligerently, like he's ready to defend Delvin against all comers.

  "The Grim Reaper, you silly sonofabitch. Will you drink your beer, eat your corned beef, open your ears, and shut your mouth, Packy? If you'll stop interrupting, maybe we can be out of here in an hour, maybe less."

  Cooley tucks his chin into his chest, indicating his intention of remaining silent from now on.

  "It's time for me to lay down some of the burdens I've been carrying these many years," Delvin says. "It's time for new blood in the party, especially now that Hizzoner—God rest his soul—Richard J. Daley's kid, is sitting in the mayor's office. It's time for the regular organization to be a power in Chicago once again and we need young men to lead us."

  Everybody under forty in the room starts looking this way, that way, to see if other people got their eyes on him or her which could mean that they've been tipped about who Delvin's nominee to take his place as warlord of the Twenty-seventh is going to be.

  I don't look around because Delvin's already told me a hundred times that I'm going to be the man and he's invited my father, which he wouldn't do if he intended to humiliate me. However, in case he's changed his mind—which he's been known to do—and he ends up naming somebody else—which is always a possibility I don't want anybody to be looking at my face when Delvin gives us the news.

  "There's one of you that's always been right out there doing the job, registering the voters, serving the people in his precinct, getting out the vote on election day. Even turning a couple of Republicans around from time to time. I ain't saying he's the only one who's worked hard . . ."

  So, okay, right there he said he which means the ladies are not in the running.

  ". . . there's plenty of you who've worked hard. But the candidate I got in mind has always put out a little extra. Sometimes he's put out a little extra where maybe he shouldn't've put out a little extra, but that's okay, too, if you don't carry it too far. Also I got to admit . . ."

  A little extra could mean Dinny Kiernan's work with the Boy's Athletic Club or Billy Scanlan's activities in the Knights of Columbus or Charlie Bill's run, without benefit of the party's sanction, for the state legislature a couple of years ago or even Jack Maggioni's volunteer work over to the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary. So now I got it whittled down to me and four others.

  ". . .this person I got in mind has done me a personal favor from time to time, not because I was the committeeman or the alderman—when I was the alderman—but out of friendship, pure and simple."

  Which could be practically anybody in the room because Delvin has a way of getting people to do personal favors for him, but I don't know of any special favors Kiernan, Scanlan, Bill, or Maggioni's done for him lately and I just kept his picture out of the papers not long ago.

  Anyway he's got his eye on me, enjoying the little torture he's putting me through. Knowing how my mind works. How I'd be sitting there taking clues from what he's saying, figuring out step by step who it was he was about to hand the crown to. Letting me twist and turn in the breeze a little bit before cutting me down.

  "Without further ado, in these few moments before I ask you to vote for the next committeeman of the Twenty-seventh Ward from among yourselves—under standing that I am not exerting any undue pressure in this democratic proceeding—I would like to offer the name of James Flannery for your consideration."

  There's some applause and a lot of smiles on the faces turned to me. Mike grins from ear to ear and grabs my arm with his big hand, which reminds me of the time I won a prize for baseball when I was in high school. It's electric when your father does something like that when you've done something good.

  But it's also this part of doing something grand or doing somebody a favor or getting a promotion that makes me feel uncomfortable. All the grinning and clapping and the eyes on you.

  I get uncomfortable when somebody thanks me for doing them a favor. I mean if I can do something to help a person, why shouldn't I do it? The way I figure, you help somebody else, you help yourself, because it's always better to spread a little cheer instead of a little gloom. It's always better to give somebody a helping hand than to walk on by. You never know when you're going to need a hand, and if everybody gets into the habit of taking care of number one and the hell with everybody else, there's not going to be very many hands reaching out to save you when you start going under for the third time.

  "Any other nominations?" Delvin asks.

  A couple of hands go up. Millie Jefferson, who's been wanting a black committeeman or woman for years, raises her hand. Helen Reeba, who wants the same for the Hispanics, raises hers. Dan McGuire—who's never been very friendly to me ever since I made it look like I was going to let Baby, the gorilla, get to his friend Big Buck Baily over to the zoo—sticks up his paw. Also, Packy Cooley clears his throat and gets to his feet.

  Delvin looks a little surprised.

  Now the way it works, when and if a ward committeeman steps down, and unless the president of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee or the mayor or some other party boss has somebody for the job, then the retiring committeeman makes his or her choice for his or her successor and the precinct captains toe the line and that's that.

  However, any captain can offer a candidate and it's even happened that a retiring warlord ain't been too popular, or the man or woman he chooses to take his place has made a lot of enemies, and the committeeman don't get his way. His pick loses the election. This could maybe be one of those times the warlord's pick don't get the crown. Not because Delvin's unpopular or even that I'm unpopular but because times are changing and the old ways are dying out.

  "What is it, Packy?" Delvin asks, with this attitude that says he's being very patient with Cooley but it ain't easy, when all the time I know and maybe everybody else knows that Cooley and Delvin were boyhood chums and Cooley would never do anything to really harm or thwart Delvin but just liked to get his goat now and then.

  Cooley clears his throat again and takes a swallow of his beer.

  "Is this going to take awhile?" Delvin asks. "Committeeman Delvin," Cooley says. "Chips. I'd like to enter into nomination for the position of committeeman of the Twenty-seventh Democratic Ward of the great city of Chicago, one Francis Brendan Delvin." There's a burst of applause because here's Cooley paying the old man this great tribute. Jefferson and Reeba have their hands occupied clapping but they're working out the consequences, now that Cooley's handed the palm back to Delvin, if they toss somebody else's hat in the ring.

  "Wait a second, wait a second," Delvin protests, pleased as Punch. "I ain't running for the office. I'm giving it up. You understand what I'm saying? I can't be a candidate."

  "But that don't mean I can't put your name into nomination," Cooley says. "After we vote you back into office, you don't want the job, all you got to do is appoint somebody to serve out your term and then resign."

  Well, that's not the way it's supposed to work, and everybody knows it. But anything less than going along is going to be a big insult to the old man. Jefferson and Reeba glance over at me and smile.

  They know and I know that Cooley's snookered them and pulled their claws before they could give me and Delvin even a little scratch.

  "Call the vote! Call the vote!" Cooley yells out.

  "Show of hands! Show of hands!" somebody else shouts.

  "All those in favor of James Flannery?" Cooley says, taking over the chair without protest.

  Not a hand goes up.

  "All those in favor of Francis Delvin."

  Every hand goes up.

  Delvin gets up on his feet, wipes a tear from his eye, gives Jefferson and Reeba one of his sweetest smiles, and glances over at Dan McGuire, who's sitting there glowering. Delvin, knowing he's been snookered, too, gives Cooley half a wink, thanks everybody and turns the chair and the job over to me to another round of spontaneous applause.

  I'm the wa
rlord, the committeeman of the Twenty-seventh, the ward leader. I ain't twelve years old any more.

  It's time for me to make a little thank you speech, which I do, keeping it short and sweet, and then I call for drinks all around on me, which everybody thinks is a grand way for me to start my term of office. I don't even drink but the tab comes to a small bundle what with everybody switching from beer and wine to boiler makers and fancy cocktails.

  TWO

  Mary's very happy to hear about the honor that's been handed me, even given the fact that Jefferson and a couple of others wanted to put up people to run against me. To be very honest I think it was more by way of pushing forward their personal agendas than to mount any serious challenge to me becoming ward leader. I mean I think I would've got the job no matter what, even though I'm still not so sure I really want it.

  It could mean two things. One, I probably won't see as much of my own people—my friends and neighbors—from my own precinct, and two, I'm going to have to find a place where the people in the ward can come to me at least once a week and make their complaints and ask the favors that the precinct captains can't manage on their own. Also, the captains will be coming to this place once a week to give me a report on how things are going in their precincts, people moving in, moving out, coming of voting age, and passing away. In other words, instead of me walking around saying hello and asking what I can do to help, I'll be waiting for them to come to me simply because a ward's too big for me to get to know that well on foot. I'll be like a cop who used to walk a foot patrol and knew everybody on his beat but now has to ride in a car through fifty times as many streets and don't know scarcely a soul.

  We'd already agreed not to make any special fuss about it at home. It was only supposed to be Mary and me; my father; her mother, Charlotte, and her Aunt Sada; my dog, Alfie; and the tenants who are part owners with Mary and me in the apartment building.