Page 40 of The Bootlegger’s Bride

H e spied Bogdan sitting on the front steps of the Central Library along with dozens of workers on lunch break enjoying the warmer weather, face directed up to a noon sun that had just parted puffy clouds.

Dressed in sweatshirt, gym shorts, and basketball sneakers, A.J.

approached, perched beside him on the marble steps, and shook his hand.

Bogdan said, “Thought you might stand me up. Good April Fools joke.”

“Sorry. Up the street at the Y working out and lost track of time. Rushed out without a shower.”

Bogdan studied two miniskirted young women passing on the sidewalk.

“Just like your father. Always at the Falcon Nest flying around on the rings and horse. Me, I was more down to earth, working the weights and wrestling. If he wasn’t there he was here,” he said, tilting his head over his shoulder at the white marble structure behind them, “nose in the books. Guess the fruit don’t fall far from the tree. ”

A.J. looked across Olive Street to the park and the World War I Memorial set amid leafing oak trees. The pink-granite City Hall loomed in the background.

“Wish I’d known him better. Wish he was still around. How different things might have been.” Even after all these years working to stay in the moment and not dwell on the past and punish himself in that way, A.J. still pictured it. A fairy tale that would never come true.

“Life is suffering and loss, A.J., and you’ve had a good share. Best you can do is offer it up to God in redemption. He has plans for you, I am sure.”

“I have my own plans. Just hope He doesn’t interfere too much. Come, Godfather,” said A.J., glancing at others sitting nearby, “let’s stretch our legs.”

They crossed into the park where they passed downtown office workers out for a stroll.

Construction workers from a nearby project lounged on park benches.

Transients from the Salvation Army Harbor Light and other downtown flophouses stretched out on the grass.

All drinking in the warm, sunny day in their own manner.

As a man in a business suit walked past, A.J. said, “How simple life could be if I was normal. Get a job, go to work, go home to your family. Safe, secure, nurturing. Not God’s plan for me. Nor for these guys,” he said lifting his chin at those dozing on the grass.

“The workaday world takes a special sort of fortitude,” said Bogdan, “that neither one of us has demonstrated.”

They strolled on toward 12th Street. After covering a half block A.J. said:

“Visited the Sheriff’s Department in Edwardsville yesterday. Detective LaRose wanted to chat about the murder of Richard Dupuis.”

Bogdan stopped and turned to him, frowning. A.J. went on. “Showed me a sketch of a man, a customer at The Blue Note on New Year’s Eve 1962 seen talking with Dupuis. Who in turn was not seen alive again after that night. The customer—who went by the name Dan Boggs—resembled you somewhat, Bogdan.”

The older man lowered himself onto a park bench and stared up at A.J. as a nearby mockingbird improvised a medley. “Come. Sit.” He patted the bench.

A.J. sat beside Bogdan, who studied the trees, cocking his head as if listening to the birdsong.

“I was supposed to look after you if anything happened to Janusz. Didn’t do a very good job at godfather for years.

When he and I were kids I looked out for him.

Later he took care of me. Bankrolled me more than once when I was tapped out.

Which kept me afloat and stopped me from sticking my neck out.

I owed him for that. Felt I could square things if I could keep you from a risky act that could threaten your future. ”

He fixed his gaze on A.J. “I’ve done with my life what I had to. Followed my heart and my instincts, for better or worse. You still have your life ahead of you. You had more to lose.

“That night when you talked about taking him out, I thought it was the heat of the moment. Thought it would go away. But I didn’t know for sure.

How do we know what’s in someone’s heart?

How do we know what they’re capable of? People have surprised me.

I didn’t want to be surprised by you and see you in trouble.

So, I decided to tie up loose ends. You were right. Dupuis needed to die.”

A.J. nodded. “I guessed something like that. When my uncle sent me the newspaper clipping about Dupuis’s murder just two months after I told you I had to kill him, I figured it wasn’t just happy coincidence.”

“Sorry that it has the coppers sniffing around you.”

“Everything’s okay. The detective admitted having nothing much to go on and hoping I had nothing to do with it. Which I think he now believes.”

Bogdan reached into his pants pocket and withdrew a key with a gold medallion attached by a chain. He held it out to A.J. “For you.”

“What’s that?”

Bogdan dropped it into his palm. “Key to a safe-deposit box at Cass Avenue Bank & Trust. If they ever come after you hard and I’m not available for some reason—like I’m dead or left town or something—you’ll find your insurance policy there.”

“What insurance policy?”

“A deposition. My confession to Dupuis’s murder with details only the killer would know. Gives the coppers my motive—that has nothing to do with you—and clears you or anyone else of involvement. All signed, witnessed, and notarized.”

“Many thanks, Godfather. For everything. But I doubt it will ever come to that.”

“Just in case.”

“Still, I’m curious what the deposition might say. Can you give me a summary?”

Bogdan laid a hand on A.J.’s shoulder.

“I can do that. Remember though that I’m just an amateur at these things, not trained Special Ops. It didn’t go exactly as planned. Promise you won’t judge my methods too harshly.”

A.J. raised his palm. “I do.”

Bogdan stared off through the trees toward the white marble library with its arched windows.

His eyes stayed focused there as he began to spin his tale.

He told of going to The Blue Note on New Year’s Eve, meeting Dupuis, and conducting their negotiations in his storage room/office.

When he mentioned the deal he’d put before Dupuis, A.J. turned to him.

“You offered him only five thousand? Why jew him down if you were planning to fix him anyway?”

Bogdan tapped his temple with his forefinger.

“Psychology. A wager can pull people in or scare them off. I could see the desperation on this mug, getting old, down on his luck. But he’d been around the block and wasn’t no sucker.

If I agreed too easily to the whole ten gees he might smell a rat.

But when I lowballed him he’s thinking about if he should take it or make a counteroffer rather than whether he’s being set up.

And as soon as I dangled the promise of a fast five gees in front of him I could see he was already wiggling.

“I read him like a book. Knew he was bluffing about the whole deal, about being able to feed Jan to the cops for the Leo Gold hit and having the Feds come after your money. The pissant had nothing to sell. And five thousand bucks for nothing is pretty good return on investment.”

Bogdan went on to detail the setup and his instructions luring Dupuis to the lakeshore. He explained how he baited him with the rental car in the driveway and hid behind the old maple tree atop the lake bank where he waited for his mark.

“Damn cold night though not much wind. But I wasn’t thinking about the weather. I never had to kill nobody before, not up close like that with my hands. Only with munitions. I felt shaky. Took a nip or two from a half pint while I waited. Courage in a bottle.

“He drove up in his Caddy—I heard the motor before I saw the headlights. Parked in the drive, walked to the lake bank, and looked down to the dock and the lighted boathouse. That’s when I stepped out and lassoed him from behind.”

Bogdan paused, rubbing his hands together and staring at the ground, as if reliving the moment. Again he looked to A.J.

“Used a double-loop garrote—Spanish invention—that a Filipino shipmate showed me. If he tries to free himself by tugging on one of the coils, he only pulls the other one tighter. So Dupuis was actually strangling himself though he didn’t know it.

He was choking, getting weak, ready to breathe his last breath.

So, I told him why he was dying. On whose behalf. ”

A.J. patted his godfather’s knee. “That took guts.”

Bogdan shrugged. “Guess I could have shot him. Had a .32 in my pocket just in case. No one gets jumpy about a gunshot on New Year’s Eve when everyone’s firing away.

But it was two in the morning, not midnight.

Could draw attention. Seemed risky. So, I figured it would be safer and more enjoyable to kill the bastard with my own two hands. ”

Bogdan scratched his beard. “Now here is where I screwed the pooch.

He took his last gasp, shuddered, and kicked out.

Went tumbling down the bank to the lakeshore and almost took me with him.

Not what I planned. I was gonna back his Cadillac to the maple tree and lever him up into the trunk somehow.

Then put the Caddy in the Chain of Rocks Canal.

Czeslaw was on standby to pick me up after I done the deed and telephoned him.

And eventually Dupuis would have been just another missing person. Not to be.

“I tried but no way I could drag two-hundred-fifty pounds of dead meat up the steep bank on icy stairs. So, I slid him out onto the thin ice that stretched from the shore. Got on the dock with an oar and pushed him out till he broke through and went under.

“Next I put the rental car in your garage and drove Dupuis’s Caddy back to St. Louis.

Tossed his gun off the bridge on the way.

When I got home I moved my DeSoto from my garage to the street, drove in the Cadillac, and removed the plates.

Next morning Czeslaw drove me back across the river to fetch the rental.