Chapter 8 - The Fall of the House
Marcos Morales didn't leave the hospice in a police car.
He left through the back service entrance, escorted by four federal marshals who had been sitting in an unmarked van in the Highland Park parking lot for two hours—marshals who had received an anonymous envelope containing forty pages of tax records, dock manifests, and a digital recording of a conversation that had taken place in Cicero three days earlier.
Voss didn't stay to watch the hand-cuffs click shut.
He sat in the small private waiting room on the second floor, his hands resting on his knees, watching the cold rain start up again over the lake.
The door opened, and Dr. Bernstein—a small, silver-haired man with kind eyes and a blue tie—stepped inside.
"He’s signed the revised trust," Bernstein said softly, holding up a blue leather folder. "Everything—the docks, the real estate in Pilsen, the holdings in Indiana—goes into an irrevocable trust for Elena, managed by an independent legal firm in Evanston until she turns twenty-one."
Voss didn't look up. "And the conservator?"
"He named you," Bernstein said.
Voss looked up sharp. "Me?"
"He said you were the only man in Chicago who didn't want his money," Bernstein said simply. "He said a man who gives a hungry child a piece of toast and doesn't ask for her name is either a fool or an honest man. And he knew you weren't a fool."
Voss was quiet for a long time. He looked through the glass wall at the gray waves hitting the stone breakwater down below.
"How long does he have?" Voss asked.
"A few days," Bernstein replied softly. "Maybe less. But he’s peaceful now. She’s sitting with him."
Voss stood up. He walked down the quiet hallway to Room 312.
The door was open three inches.
Inside, Elena was sitting in the large leather armchair beside the bed, holding a bright yellow picture book about a red dog. She was reading aloud in a clear, small voice, her finger tracing the words on the thick paper pages.
On the bed, Ramon Morales lay with his eyes closed, his breathing slow and even, a faint, tiny smile lingering on his dry lips.
Marcus walked up behind Voss, his canvas jacket folded over his arm.
"The city’s going to be loud for a few weeks," Marcus said softly. "Marcos’s lieutenants are going to try to take what’s left of the south side."
"Let them try," Voss said. "The docks belong to the trust now. Any man who steps on that land without a permit from the Evanston firm gets picked up by the Coast Guard."
"And Brennan?" Marcus asked.
"Brennan’s in Iowa," Voss said flatly. "He took a job at a pig farm near Dubuque. He won't be coming back."
Marcus looked through the glass at Elena. "So what happens now, Hector? You going back to the West Loop?"
Voss looked at his own reflection in the double glass window—the gray suit, the dark tie, the hard lines around his mouth that had been there since he was twelve years old in South Chicago.
"The West Loop is for careful men," Voss said softly.
May you like
"And you?"
Voss didn't answer. He opened the door and walked inside, sitting down on the small wooden chair near the window, watching the little girl read her book until the sun went down over the lake.
