High Chicago Read online

  It was the perfect example of what Chicago does right and Toronto does wrong. The entire Chicago waterfront was easily accessible, from the southern complex that housed Soldier Field, the Field Museum and a planetarium, to the northern end, past the restored Navy Pier to Oak Street Beach.

  Granted, Millennium Park opened four years late, but it looked like it was worth all the time and money spent on it. Toronto’s waterfront is cut off from downtown by the Gardiner Expressway, neglected and hamstrung by a hodgepodge of commissions and different levels of government that want the glory that would go with a revitalized harbour without committing a nickel.

  I walked up the Chase Promenade to the Cloud Gate sculpture, a giant blob of highly polished chrome shaped like a huge molar resting on two edges. Like a drop of mercury being pulled into two by surface tension. Buildings reflected in its surface looked like they were listing dangerously to one side. Closer up, it was the people themselves who looked warped. There was space enough beneath the sculpture to walk between the supports and gape up at my reflection. A funhouse of sorts. When I craned my neck, I saw a version of myself I didn’t much care for. Distorted face, stretched-out head, much too wide for its body.

  Another in a long line of selves I had issues with.

  I continued up toward the great lawn, past a music pavilion that looked like someone had blown up a campy sixties spaceship from the inside. Every once in a while I stopped as if to get my bearings, read a plaque, take in a sight, all the while looking for goons, gunmen, leg breakers. Didn’t see any. Didn’t relax either.

  There were already a few great buildings that faced the north end of the park: One and Two Prudential and the Aon Centre. The Birkshire Millennium Skyline was going up on a prized lot next to them, much higher now than it had been in the promotional video Jenn and I had watched. An awesome sight looking up from ground level. All glass on the south side. More rounded than the severe Aon Centre, tapering as it went up, the highest floors like the bridge of a great ship setting forth into the lake. The tower appeared to have risen to its full height of eighty-six storeys, the first seventy-five or so fully clad in glass. Through a pair of field glasses, I could see a dozen floors above in different stages of completion. Six with all-concrete floors, copper plumbing set into their undersides. Three more had temporary flooring made of corrugated plastic or metal sheets. The top two or three were nothing but the central column and a bit of flooring and then bare girders meeting at the extremities. And still men walked up there as casually as if stepping out for a smoke. Granted, they had harnesses, but you had the sense they’d walk up there just as easily without them.

  I watched a tower crane lift a girder high into the sky and ease it alongside the frame. Workmen hundreds of feet in the air guided it into position, silhouetted by the sun as they hammered rivets into place with heavy mauls. Through my binoculars, I could see hard hats covered in decals—American flags and union symbols—dusty clothes and tool belts hung on hips like gunfighters’ holsters. About half the men looked Mohawk. They were legends in the business, had been since tall buildings and bridges first started to rise out of the North American landscape: men from Six Nations, Kahnawake and other reserves who were said to have no fear of heights, who could walk the high iron as if strolling down a garden path. One man, his long black hair in a braid halfway down his back, shimmied down a vertical girder, gripping it with his gloved hands and pressing his workboots against it to control his descent.

  Give me terra firma any day.

  One route up the east side of the building had not been glassed in but was covered in plywood. A crane was bolted to the bare concrete of every floor and on it ran the workmen’s elevator—more of a hoist really, sliding patiently down the side of the building while a counterweight went up the other side. When it came to rest on the ground, a dozen or so ironworkers exited, then the weight began to descend and the hoist started its slow return run up.

  As the men walked through the gate in the hurricane fence that surrounded the site, heading toward a canteen truck parked at the curb, I asked one of them who the site manager was. He shaded his eyes, scanning the site, then pointed at a burly man who wore a shirt and tie under a windbreaker, a canary-yellow hard hat barely covering his skull, talking on a cellphone as he scanned a set of plans spread over a sheet of plywood that was balanced on two sawhorses. When he closed the phone, I slipped through a gap in the fence and approached him with a notebook and pen in hand.

  Time to throw the first stick at the tiger.

  “Got a minute?” I asked.

  He looked like he could play centre for the Bears in nothing more than his street clothes. “Who are you?” he asked, looking at my bare head and then down at my feet. “And where’s your hard hat and safety boots?”

  “My name’s Jonah Geller.”

  “Good for you. Now get off this site.”

  I showed him my ID. “I’m a licensed investigator and—”

  “I don’t care if you’re a registered nurse. No one gets on this site without a proper lid and boots.”

  “I’m already on the site,” I said.

  “Then get off. Now.”

  “Just answer a couple of questions about Simon Birk.” It didn’t really matter whether he answered them. I just wanted Birk to hear that I’d been asking.

  “Call his publicist. I’m sure he has one.” He thrust his chin out at me. It was a hell of a chin. Hit it with a crowbar and call it a draw.

  “He’s in a world of trouble,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Simon Birk. His Canadian project? It’s all based on a fraud.”

  “What are you, nuts? He’s one of the richest guys in town. In the goddamn country, for Chrissakes.”

  “Cops there are looking at him for three counts of murder.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “It woulda been in the Sun-Times if that was true.”

  “It hasn’t made the news yet.”

  “’Cause it’s all in your head, whackjob.” He moved in on me until I could smell his sour breath. “Simon Birk might be a rich bastard but right now he is our rich bastard. He’s putting up this building and paying our wages, which means nobody fucks with him till the job is done. So get off the site before you get curb-stomped.” He stepped on my right foot, his steel-toed boot trying to mash my running shoe flat and not doing a bad job of it.

  “See what happens when you come in here without boots? Without a hard hat, bud, plenty worse can happen.” He pointed up to the top of the unfinished steel tower. “Someone drops a penny from that height, it would put a hole in your head. They drop something bigger, like a bolt, your head splits like a melon.”

  I could have argued the point—could have stuck stiff fingers up under his ribs and rearranged his organs—but I had done what I’d set out to do. I was pretty sure he’d be on the phone as soon as I was gone, my name burning up a line that would lead to Birk’s ears. And if this little action didn’t do it, the next one would. Or the one after that.

  I said, “I think I’ll be going now.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” he said.

  I’ve never been sure of the origin of that expression. I didn’t think it was time to ask.

  CHAPTER 28

  If you didn’t know who the mayor of Chicago was before arriving at City Hall, you certainly knew it after. The name seemed to be on every door, sign and plaque in the place. Everything down to the elevator buttons brought to you by Hizzoner. And what a place: a huge neoclassical structure that takes up an entire city block, its top half dominated by fluted columns. A symbol of the power handed down from the former boss to his son, more in the tradition of Pakistani democracy than the Midwestern American brand. I walked through the building, trying not to look like a gaper and failing miserably. The lobby of Toronto’s city hall feels like a giant library; Chicago’s is more like a train station or cathedral with its vaulted ceilings and dim brass lamps, the gleaming filigreed brass around its elevator
s.

  The Department of Buildings is on the ninth floor. This is where you come to get zoning permits, arrange inspections, obtain forms, fill out forms, hand in forms. Apply for licences to work as plumbers, electricians, masons and crane operators. To comply, voluntarily or otherwise, with the city’s codes regarding repairs and maintenance.

  I guessed I was the only one coming here to raise hell about Simon Birk.

  The elevator opened onto a long, bright hallway that echoed with every footstep. There was a counter with computer monitors where visitors could look up city maps, real estate lots, city regulations or their horoscope. Beyond that was the entrance to the Department of Zoning and Licensing. On my left when I walked in was a reception area where dozens of people sat in various stages of impatience, boredom and resignation, four rows of them in the mayor’s chairs. I took a seat, anticipating a long wait.

  “Six fucking inches,” said the man next to me, a stocky middle-aged fellow in a Cubs jacket. “That’s what I’m here for—six fucking inches.”

  “I think Urology’s down the hall.”

  He laughed and clapped my shoulder. “My deck, I’m talking about. Back of my house. Building inspector comes around, tells me it has to be torn down and rebuilt because it’s five and a half feet away from the interior lot line, and the minimum distance is six feet. I say to him, ‘Fella, we’re talking six inches, gimme a break here.’ You know what he says? He says, ‘Measure twice, build once,’ the little prick. ‘You don’t like it,’ he says, ‘you can always appeal.’ So that’s what I’m doing here, wasting my time, wasting their time, over six fucking inches. I mean, it’s not some landmark building or heritage property, it’s my goddamn house. My next-door neighbour doesn’t give a shit. Nobody gives a shit. I probably should have offered the guy something, huh? What do you think? A hundred bucks? Five hundred? Gonna cost me five grand to tear it down and rebuild—if I can reuse all the wood—and that’s not even counting my goddamn time.” He looked at his watch, at the number of people around us waiting, and sighed deeply.

  “Enough of my bullshit,” he said. “So what are you here for?”

  “High-rise demolition,” I said.

  “I think you’re in the wrong line for that,” he said. “You want to be down the other end of the hall where the project managers are.”

  I thanked him and he wished me luck, which I appreciated. Tearing down an empire is bound to require some. Then I walked past three long curved desks, each of which housed three workstations for project managers. People sat in chairs along the wall—architects or contractors, the architects with smooth hands and expensive pens clipped to their shirt pockets; the contractors with dusty clothes, scuffed boots and rough hands with cuts in every stage of healing.

  A middle-aged African-American woman with long hair extensions said, “How can I help you today?”

  I asked, “Are you familiar with the developer Simon Birk?”

  “Honey, everyone knows Simon Birk. What is it you want?”

  “Information.”

  “What kind?”

  “Everything. His permit reviews. Zoning variances. Work place safety. Citizen opposition. Soil and water reports.”

  “For which building?”

  “All his buildings.”

  There were half-moon bifocals perched at the end of her nose. She gave me a long look over the glasses and said, “You sure that’s all? You don’t want to know what he eats for lunch?”

  I already knew what he ate for lunch. People like Rob Cantor. Suckers who thought they were his partners.

  “Well, fortunately for me, it’s Developer Services you want,” the clerk said. “They process applications for high-rise buildings. Did you have an appointment?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “Oh, yeah. If you’re asking, I’m guessing you don’t have one.”

  “No.”

  “You can make one now, or apply for one online, which is probably quicker.”

  “I’m visiting from Toronto,” I said. “Is there any way I could just speak to someone—”

  “Sugar, it doesn’t matter if you’re visiting from Tobago.”

  “So who would I make the appointment with? Who’s the most familiar with Birk’s new project?”

  “The Millennium Skyline?” She had long pink fingernails decorated with glittering pinwheel-shaped swirls. She tapped her keyboard and said, “The project administrator on that was Peter Stemko.”

  “Can’t I just—”

  “No.”

  “What if I—”

  “No! Not without an appointment. And Mr. Stemko’s only going to tell you what I’m going to tell you: there’s not much you can get without a freedom of information request, and that you will not get overnight.”

  “What if I had information about safety violations?”

  Her look was entirely skeptical, but the crane collapse, and the death of three workers, was too recent an incident for her to ignore me. “You said you wanted information. Now all of a sudden you got some?”

  “I do. I can say for a fact that a violation occurred not an hour ago.”

  “What violation?”

  “A man on site without proper equipment. No hard hat, no boots, nothing.”

  “That’s not something we handle.” She looked over my shoulder and called out, “Next person in line.”

  There was only one thing left to do in this situation. Get loud.

  “Is it because he’s Simon Birk?” I said, my voice rising. Other clerks at the counter looked our way—exactly the reaction I was hoping for. “People have died because of him. And not just those poor workmen.”

  “Sir?” she said. “There’s no need to raise your voice with me.”

  “The name is Geller,” I said. “Jonah Geller. And this department should be looking very closely at Simon Birk. He abuses the environment. His employees. The families of the men who died building his tower. The very process that—”

  “Please lower your voice!”

  “Lower it!” I thundered. “I’ll raise the roof if I have to.”

  “Kid has a set of pipes on him,” a man behind me said.

  Everyone was looking our way now. Clerks, other employees, the people sitting and waiting their turn.

  “Simon Birk,” I bellowed, “is getting away with murder, just because he’s rich.”

  “Hear, hear,” an older woman said. “I never did care for his attitude.”

  The clerk was on the phone now, calling security, no doubt.

  I put up my hands in surrender and walked to the elevator. People gave me a wide berth. “All right,” I said. “I’m going. But Simon Birk better look over his shoulder because I won’t rest until he pays for everything he’s done. Jonah Geller is not giving up on this. Jonah Geller never gives up.”

  When the elevator came, I stepped into it. No one else from the ninth floor got in with me.

  As the doors closed, I heard an elderly man say, “I know Simon Birk from the newspapers. But who the hell’s this Geller?”

  CHAPTER 29

  The Chicago Tribune building is inlaid at eye level with stones liberated from some of the world’s most recognizable buildings and structures by intrepid Tribune correspondents of days gone by. A tile from the Taj Mahal. Stones from the Berlin Wall, the Great Wall of China and the Alamo. Souvenirs of Notre Dame and Westminster Abbey and Lincoln’s Tomb. A twisted bit of metal from the World Trade Center next to a stone from the Mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent. Even chunks of the Pyramids and the Parthenon—the ruined temple, not the nightclub.

  The Tribune newsroom is on the fourth floor. Somehow I’d expected a scene out of The Front Page: a clamorous, smoky room filled with hard-bitten Chicago newsmen pounding out copy on clacking typewriters, phones jangling like alarm bells, flasks of whisky at the ready. Instead, the place was strangely quiet. Soft tapping on computer keyboards. Phones burring discreetly. No cigarettes, no cigars, no pipes, no booze. No copy boys running the gauntlet fr
om writers to editors, no pneumatic tubes whooshing stories over to rewrite. It could have been an insurance office or a call centre, except for one glassed-in area where police scanners squawked.

  Jericho Hale was a tall, lean black man about my age, which is mid-thirties. His head was cleanly shaved, which somehow makes black men look cool and white men unemployable. His eyes were focused on the screen in front of him as his fingers thrummed quickly over the keyboard, lips pursed as if he were about to plant a kiss on someone. The man was in a zone. I stood there watching him for several minutes until he stopped typing and without looking up said, “You had some information about Simon Birk.”

  I said, “Yes.”

  He said, “Wait.”

  He resumed typing, his eyes moving from the screen to a document on the desk next to him and back, until he was satisfied with whatever he had written. He saved his copy, then pushed back from his computer and took me in.

  He said, “Birk.”

  I said, “Yes.”

  He said, “Sit.”

  Hale had been writing about Simon Birk for years. He slid open a file drawer and showed me files jammed into hanging holders. “And that’s just one drawer,” Hale said. “The man has been something of a boon to me. I’m like one of those birds that ride around on the back of a rhinoceros.”

  “Better above him than below,” I said.

  “True enough. So what brings an investigator here from Toronto?”

  “I’m looking for information on Birk.”

  “And you came to me?”

  “You’ve written more about him than anyone else.”

  Hale smiled. “That’s because people give me information. Not because I give it to them.”