No Show of Remorse Read Online Free PDF Page B

manhood.”
    She slammed the door and I told the cabbie to take me to the Art Institute.
    *   *   *
    I KNEW R ENATA about as well as I knew anyone. Even though she had a right to be angry, she’d already be feeling bad about yelling at me. She might even call and apologize … or maybe not. But either way it wouldn’t be long before she put the incident—and Johnnie Lee’s sentence, too—behind her, as part of a past she couldn’t change. She had a place to go home to, and a woman there who loved her—not to mention a baby girl they’d adopted, and an application in for another. She had a life, and that helped her through the absurdity.
    All I had was my own sense of right and wrong, and the sense that it was right to follow through on something you started, and wrong to let the bad guys scare you off, even if the bad guys were—in Maura Flanagan’s words—“not above violence.” Of course, maybe I’d have felt differently if I’d had a woman at home who loved me.
    *   *   *
    I N FRONT OF THE A RT I NSTITUTE I paid the fare while two people waited to replace me in the cab. Even on a sunny day like that, there were always lots of tourists unwilling to take a chance on how long a walk it was to the next red star on their maps. I strolled north on Michigan Avenue and went into the park to sit on a bench and figure out what the hell to tell Stefanie.
    â€œHey, big mon!”
    â€œHey,” I answered, and twisted around. It was the little yogi with the dreadlocks and the bare feet. Today, though, he wore ragged blue jeans and a bright yellow T-shirt. On the front of the shirt was the news that Bob Marley lives! along with an illustration that was beyond my comprehension, but may have included snakes and palm trees. His left eye was swollen shut.
    He grinned. “How you doin’, big mon?”
    â€œI’m all right, but what did you run into?”
    â€œThat bread you gave me? ’Member that?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œGone, mon,” he said. “Some dopey traded me for it. Gave me this here.” He pointed to his eye and grinned again. “Say, mon, I don’t guess—”
    â€œNo problem,” I said, and gave him another twenty.
    â€œThis be good karma for you, hey?” He slid the bill into his jeans. “Plus maybe I do somethin’ for you sometime. For the bread, hey?”
    I stared at him. “You see anyone watching us now?”
    â€œNo, mon. Sure no.”
    â€œYou have a name?”
    â€œLotsa names. You gimme ’nother one. That be best, I tink.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Yogi. Like in Yogi Bear. How’d that be?”
    â€œBe fine. So what you want?” He patted his pocket, where he’d put the twenty.
    â€œYou busy at five o’clock?”
    â€œNever busy.” He winked his one good eye. “Almost never.”
    â€œI need you over at the Prudential Building.” I pointed. “Five o’clock. And you got any shoes?” He nodded, and I told him what I had in mind. “There’s another twenty in it for you,” I said.
    His smile grew even wider. His skin was very dark and his teeth were very white. “I be there, mon. Reeboks an’ all.”
    I couldn’t have explained why, but watching him scamper off across the grass I had the sense he was honest and reliable. He’d show up. And if he didn’t, I’d have to come up with another idea.

CHAPTER
    7
    I CALLED THE DISCIPLINARY COMMISSION and got through to Stefanie Randle. “We need to talk,” I said. “Did you drive to work?”
    â€œNo, I usually take the el.”
    â€œGood. And you’ll be available today, say about five-fifteen, down in the lobby?”
    â€œYes, but … I mean, what if somebody sees us?”
    â€œI won’t be there to be seen. There’ll be a small, dark-skinned man,