Chapter 3: Public Payphone And Concrete Proof
The county records office smelled like old paper, damp wool, and floor wax. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting a harsh, sterile glare over long rows of oak tables where researchers and title searchers pored over leather-bound plat maps. I sat at a corner terminal, feeding quarters into the ancient microfilm machine while the hum of the city outside faded into the background.
It took two hours of cross-referencing parcel numbers from the deeds in the manila envelope before the map of downtown Chicago began to reveal a darker picture. The properties my mother had signed over in trust back in the late nineteen-eighties weren't residential houses or quiet storefronts. They were the strategic commercial blocks surrounding the old shipping docks—the exact waterfront territory that propelled Falcone from a street-level enforcer to a regional syndicate kingpin.
My mother hadn't just lived in Bellandi's house; she had unknowingly financed the launchpad of Falcone's entire criminal enterprise through her inheritance.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as the final screen loaded—a probate court filing from nineteen-ninety-two, stamped and sealed by a judge who had retired twenty years ago. The administrator listed on the estate liquidation was none other than Salvatore Falcone himself, newly minted as Bellandi's primary heir, executing a transfer of assets that left my mother with a monthly stipend and a one-way ticket out of the district.
He hadn't just hidden my existence; he had built his entire fortune on the legal erasure of our family's assets.
I stood up from the terminal, the vinyl chair scraping loudly against the linoleum, drawing a sharp look from an elderly clerk behind the central desk. I walked out of the municipal building into the sharp autumn wind, my boots clicking rhythmically against the concrete sidewalk. Two blocks away, tucked beneath the rusted steel girders of the elevated train tracks, stood an old-fashioned public payphone booth with a shattered glass pane.
I pulled the slip of paper from my pocket, fed a quarter into the metal slot, and dialed the number Falcone had given me.
The phone rang twice before a familiar, gravelly voice answered without a greeting.
"Speak," Falcone said.
"I saw the probate filings from nineteen-ninety-two," I said, keeping my voice steady against the roar of an oncoming commuter train overhead. "You didn't just inherit Bellandi's business. You bought it out with my mother's signature."
A heavy silence stretched across the line, broken only by the crackle of static and the distant scream of train brakes. When Falcone spoke again, the edge in his voice was razor-sharp.
"You're digging where the ground is hollow, Audrey. Some doors shouldn't be opened unless you're ready to see who's buried underneath."
"I'm already standing in the hole," I replied, gripping the receiver until my knuckles turned white. "Where do we talk?"
May you like
"Davenport's Diner on Ninth Street. Booth in the back. Come alone, or don't come at all."
The line went dead with a sharp click. I hung up the receiver, stepped out from beneath the tracks, and hailed a yellow cab idling at the corner.
