Pigeon Pie, page 2
part #11 of Jimmy Flannery Series
"You'll have six, seven months to make a mark on the council before you come up for election. That should give you a nice edge," the mayor says.
When I sit there without saying anything the mayor finally adds, "And you'll have my blessing, too."
I've got no reason not to believe his offer which, if you listen close enough, is not exactly an endorsement but more like a pat on the back for handling the business with Lundatos in a quiet and discreet manner.
However, though a blessing is nice it ain't exactly a promise of all-out support.
He's keeping his options open. You never know what tomorrow will bring.
TWO
So I leave the mayor's office, ready to forget all about the offer or blessing or whatever you want to call it, but first I mention it to my old man just by way of handing him a laugh.
But he don't laugh. Instead, he's hardly able to contain the pride and pleasure he obviously feels having a son who shakes the hand of the mayor, who is the son of the mayor who once shook Mike's own hand. This mayor who, according to Mike, has definitely made me an offer to put a foot on the big ladder which becoming the committeeman and alderman in the Eleventh would be.
Some of you might wonder why being committeeman in the Eleventh should be more important than being the committeeman in the Twenty-seventh. Or why the alderman of one ward should have more clout than the alderman in another. Well, it's like they say, among equals there's always some people more equal than the others by reason of where they sit and who sat there before them.
"In a way the mayor was just keeping a promise he made to Lundatos," I say.
"How do you make that out?" Mike says.
"When the Greek wanted to rehabilitate hisself by entering local politics, first he convinced O'Meara it would be a good time to retire and let him slip in."
"With your help."
"For all he thought that was worth."
"Which was plenty," Mike reminds me.
"Okay. So when Leo can't perform, the mayor's probably relieved at first. He don't need any critics accusing him of using his influence in behalf of a disgraced congressman under indictment. Then Lundatos makes a deal and takes the time. No chance of his running for anything. Which gives the mayor the opportunity to extend the favor he was going to extend to Lundatos to me."
"Yeah? So?"
"So it's an easy win for the mayor. He don't expect me to leave the Twenty-seventh. What reason would I have to do that without Lundatos pulling at me?"
"Yeah? So?"
"So it's like he's paying off his debt to Lundatos. Proving he's a man what keeps his word even when he's got no obligation to do so. Clearing his books."
"You got a very devious mind," Mike says, looking at me with what I can only call admiration. "But I see you got a genuine offer and I say you should take it."
I say I'll think about it, hoping that'll give Mike enough time to forget about it, but I don't intend to think about it and he don't intend to forget about it.
He practically gets on the six o'clock news, broadcasting the word of the mayor's offer to everybody he meets. Naturally he tells the family and they all get as excited as him.
Charlotte and Sada are all for it. Charlotte because she sees a better life for her daughter and grandchildren, Sada because she thinks I'm the most honest politician, next to her dead husband, Monroe Spissleman (Mo Spice, the Socialist), she's ever known.
Wally Dunleavy, who sits there in his office running Streets and Sanitation, hearing every fly that farts in the entire city, the oldest and trickiest civil servant I know, calls me the next morning and tells me to grab the offer while the grabbing's good.
Janet Canarias, the lipstick lesbian alderwoman of the Twenty-seventh, says how proud she'd be to sit on the council with me and help bring some justice into the system.
After a show of reluctance, Mary admits that she wouldn't mind if I went for it. Why not? Why shouldn't a man's wife want to see her husband rise in the world? But she makes it clear she's not going to say any more about it. It's got to be what I want and she won't try to influence me.
Well, I could go on, but for them what knows me and also knows the friends I'm happy to have, I'll just leave the subject by mentioning the fact that everybody I ever knew says I should run.
Even Lundatos calls me from the federal prison camp in Duluth and tells me to go for it.
"Jimmy," he says, "this is the Lion."
"Hello, Mr. Lundatos," I say. "What can I do for you?"
"Call me Leo, Jimmy. Will you do that? Whatever happened I still think of you as a friend and I hope you feel the same about me."
"I got no reason to think otherwise, Leo."
"Well, I'm certainly glad to hear that. You know, Jimmy, when we met at old Chips Delvin's funeral I took to you right away. I admit I wanted your help but that don't change the fact that I liked you right off the bat."
I don't know what else to say so I say, "Thank you, Leo."
"We both lost a good friend and mentor in old Delvin. So, what I'm going to suggest here may seem a presumption but I'm going to say it anyway."
When he pauses, I say, "What's that?"
It's a politician's trick he pulled on me. He gets me to ask a question to show I'm interested so he can make it look like I'm the one instigated the conversation, otherwise he never would've brought it up.
"I'm older than you, just like Delvin was older than me, so maybe I know a couple things could be useful to you just like Delvin taught me a couple tricks. I never stopped keeping my eye on Chicago all them years I was in Washington, so I ain't completely uninformed about the ins and outs of city politics."
"Nobody could accuse you of not knowing the ins and outs," I say, which I immediately see could be taken as a comment about some of what got him here in prison.
He sees it too. "Is that a little joke, there, Jimmy?"
"I didn't mean it that way. I just meant—"
"Let it go. Let it go. I guess I'm just getting sensitive, being up here and all. Anyway, what I want to say is that I'm ready to give you what advice and counsel I can, just like our grand friend Delvin used to do."
"I appreciate the offer, Leo. If anything comes up, I'll certainly get in touch."
"I'm talking specifically about you taking over as committeeman in the Eleventh. And about you maybe running for the aldermanic seat. I think I can help you with your strategy there. I'd like to do that for you. Will you do that for me?"
"Do what?"
"Let me help you?"
"I'll certainly do that."
"You want to get in touch call me at this number any time," he says. Then he gives me the number. Then he says, "If I'm not available you can leave a message on my voice mail."
"You got voice mail?"
"Well, I got to keep up with my affairs, Jimmy. I ain't going to be here forever."
After we hang up I sit there thinking about what it is Lundatos wants or will want from me. The way it works is you get somebody in your debt for doing them favors you maybe even forced on them so that, later on, you can ask the other person to balance the books and do you a favor.
A couple of days after that—I don't know if Leo puts her up to it—Maggie Lundatos sends me word that there's no hard feelings over how I handled the thing with her husband and would I like to sit down with her and have a chat.
I think about that one a long time, but finally I send her a note, thanking her for her generosity and interest, but saying I don't know when I can find the time to have a meeting with her.
I'm very pleased with myself, thinking what a mature and prudent thing it is for me to do. Avoiding Maggie Lundatos like that. This older woman who, since I met my wife, is the only woman who ever stirs certain strong feelings in me.
THREE
For almost a week, I don't tell anyone about this request from Maggie Lundatos. I tell them about the call I get from Lundatos but I don't mention the note I get from Maggie.
If I ain't going to make any career moves, if I'm going to stay right where I am as warlord of the Twenty-seventh, helping Janet Canarias, who's the alderman, and helping the people in my neighborhood, who I know all my life, then I don't see any reason to mention Maggie. Especially since I doubt I'll ever see her again except maybe we bump into one another at some political function or party fund-raiser.
On the other hand, if you can learn anything from some of the shenanigans that have been going on the last several years in Washington, D.C., it's that the crimes and misdemeanors ain't what causes most of the trouble the politicians get themselves into. It's the cover-ups. You got nothing to hide, why hide it?
On the other hand, there's the one about letting sleeping dogs lie.
On the other hand...
On Saturday afternoon—it's the first week in April and I pretend that I can smell spring—I go take a walk with Alfie, who's a lot slower on his feet than he used to be. Which I suppose you could also say about me. I like talking things out with Alfie because he'll look at me from time to time as though having a conversation but he'll never make any comments except for an occasional sigh. Also I know he ain't going to lay down any judgments on things I might admit—like lusting in my heart after beautiful and desirable women, the way our ex-president Jimmy Carter once confessed he sometimes did, much to his regret—and he sure ain't going to go around blabbing any confidences to anybody.
"I been married—what?—ten years now?" I say.
Alfie gives me a sidewise and upward look as though to say, "Work it out, fella. If you been married ten years that also means Mary's been married ten years."
"I ain't saying I never looked at a nice pair of legs or balconies but that's all I ever done, just looked," I say. "But this Maggie—I don't know what it is about her—could maybe light a fire I don't want lit. You see what I'm saying?"
Alfie blinks at me as though he sees very well what's going on here.
"What I'm thinking is I could avoid altogether meeting with Maggie Lundatos, even though it means giving up any influence she could have with people who might throw some votes my way. Just in case I should decide that it might not be a bad idea for me to run for alderman in the Eleventh, you understand?"
He blinks. Of course he understands, his look says. I've been gotten to. All the flattery's gone to my head. I'm walking around protesting that I don't want to put my foot on the fast track but here I am tying the laces on my running shoes.
"I'm doing the smart thing. I'm avoiding temptation."
Alfie coughs, like it's all he can do not to call me a liar.
"Of course, there's common courtesy." Then very quickly I add, "Which is not to say I feel obligated to meet with her. I'm just wondering if we ain't got a case of me presuming too much. I mean whatever I felt them two times we met, under entirely different circumstances, could've been a passing emotion."
Alfie glances up. He's saying that, yeah, the circumstances are different. Now there ain't going to be any husband standing by.
"Sure, it could be just a case of common courtesy. An acquaintance wants to meet with me, why shouldn't I meet with her? Maybe she needs a favor. I do favors for people every day. Why shouldn't I do her a favor? On the other hand, I'm sure she's got plenty of people ready to do her a favor."
Alfie tosses me another look as though to say there's nothing he likes better than a man who can make up his mind.
"So the only question is, should I tell Mary about Maggie's invitation to have a chat?"
Alfie don't say yes, he don't say no, but I get the feeling he's saying that if you're worried about whether you should tell your partner something, then you probably should tell your partner something. But be careful what you say. It's not a good idea to go in for what-ifs, the bare bones should suffice. On the other hand it's never a good idea to withhold anything and certainly not to downright lie.
I point out to Alfie that men have been lying to their wives by not telling the whole, unvarnished truth since the world began.
And look at the trouble that's caused, Alfie says with his look.
"Why poke the cat when it's smiling in its sleep?"
Alfie lifts his leg against a tree. I take it as his final comment.
So I go back to the house and ask Mary is it all right we ask my father and her mother, Aunt Sada and Janet Canarias over for supper the next night.
Also I invite Willy Dink, who used to be an environmentally correct vermin exterminator, living in a wood butcher's van with a dog, a ferret, a snake and other assorted natural enemies of roaches, spiders, ants, mice and rats, who then becomes a private investigator of sorts. More like a surveillance expert since he's learned how to crawl into the smallest spaces and plant listening and spying devices in unlikely places.
I think I already told you that he was the one got me the tapes on Leo Lundatos visiting the love nest which Lundatos claimed he knew nothing about.
He's living in our old apartment over on Polk Street now after I got the rest of the people in the building to let him keep his animals of which he's still got a few.
After a meal of chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and Irish soda bread, I help Mary stack the dishes in the new dishwasher while the others have coffee and dessert in the living room.
Then I join them with my own cup. Mary brings a glass of water with her, having given up coffee altogether since she learned about the new pregnancy.
"This is all quite grand," Mike says, "coffee and dessert in the living room."
"I was just thinking the same thing," Charlotte says.
"We never had the room before," Mary says.
"A suitable setting for an alderman," Sada says.
"Well, I don't know," I say. "I wouldn't go up against Janet here. I'll just hang on as committeeman in our ward and help her out every way I can."
"I was thinking alderman of the Eleventh," Sada says.
"I thought we agreed to shelve that for a while," I say.
"Jim Buckey, the new chairman of the Democratic Party, thinks it's an option," my father says.
"Johnny O'Meara's ready to step down if you'll take the offer," Janet Canarias says. "You could fill out his term by appointment and be settled in long before you had to campaign for the job."
"He'll step aside as committeeman, maybe," I say.
"Step aside for both committeeman and alderman is the suggestion he made to me when I spoke to him at City Hall day before yesterday."
"Didn't the mayor, hisself, practically say as much?" my father says.
"You should know better'n me that practically don't count for much," I say. "I ain't had any conversations with Johnny O'Meara lately."
"Then maybe it's about time you did," Sada says.
"You could pick up both jobs," my father says, like he didn't even hear my doubts and objections. "You could be the power in the Eleventh and then who knows what?"
"Why are we telling James all this?" Charlotte asks in her soft voice. "He knows it all just as well as we do and I'm sure he's thought about it a lot more than we have."
I understand that Charlotte's trying to be like a mother to me even though I was far too old for any of that sort of thing when she met and married my father after I was already married to her daughter. But I can tell she's getting as conflicted as I am about this whole business and is ready to come down on my side whatever I decide to do.
Then Mary, who wasn't going to speak about it again, finally drops in a word.
"What's the real reason for this family conference, James?" she asks.
And right there I know I've made up my mind to go for it and Mary knows it too. And knows that there's something else besides their blessing I want them to give me their judgment on.
"Leo and Maggie Lundatos," I say, feeling the relief of getting the cat out of the bag.
"What about them?" Mary says.
"Leo's in Club Fed cooking up gourmet Greek meals for the other three or four inmates in his cottage," Mike says. "Maybe working on his waistline pumping a little iron, working in the garden. Maybe just sunning hisself."
"He called me and offered his advice and support."
"Is it Maggie you're wondering about?" Sada asks, giving me the shrewd eye. "You afraid she'll muster the considerable influence she's got against you because you were the one helped put her husband out of business?"
"What're you talking about, Sada?" Mike says. "The word's going around that Maggie Lundatos is ready to leave a sinking ship."
"That doesn't necessarily mean she's developed a liking for Jimmy."
"The fact is," I say, "she sent me a message telling me she forgives me for anything I did concerning Leo."
Mike doesn't get it but the women get it. Especially Mary.
"When did Maggie Lundatos get in touch with you, James?"
"Oh, maybe a week. Almost a week."
"And all she wanted to do was forgive you?"
"She wants to sit down and have a chat."
"Very nice. Very nice," my father says. "She's got friends. A few of those upmarket cocktail parties and afternoon teas, and you can sleep through the elections when the time comes."
"That's a long way to go," I say.
"No reason in the world you can't start building your organization and lining up your support, sooner instead of later," Sada says.
All of a sudden the conference turns into a victory celebration for something that could never happen, everybody except Mary and me acting like it's a done deal.
I know she's still thinking about Maggie Lundatos who, if the rumors is true, may soon be a gay divorcee.
There's no way of stopping it. The good feelings and confident chatter go on for another hour and then everybody goes home.
Willy Dink's the last to leave, having sat through dinner and the conversation in the living room afterward without saying hardly a word.
"I want to thank you for including me in your family conference," he says.
"I value your opinion, Willy."
"So you won't mind if I give you a little piece of advice?"
