The Devil's Pet

Chapter 9

Friday Evening June 20, 2008

After stepping out of the cab Sean had to force himself to continue into the restaurant. Upset and confused, he was still coming to grips with the conversations he had this afternoon while asleep in the hospital. He was especially confused by the conversation with The Priest. Sam had a straightforward agenda, it was depraved and wretched but Sean understood exactly what he wanted. The priest talked a lot but didn’t say much other than confirming that Sean was caught in the middle of some game played between heaven and hell, God and the Devil. Which, when distilled down to its essence meant that the object of the game, in this case him, was fucked.

If God felt I was important enough to send one of his angels, or whatever he was, to speak to me then why wouldn’t he help other than providing some interesting, yet useless information about Sam? The last thing he said before Sean woke up in the chair next to Cathy was that “your God has not forsaken you” Well, he thought it damn sure feels like it.

After leaving the hospital in a daze he remembered his commitment to meet with Bill Campbell at seven pm. At this point in time Sean didn’t want to see anybody. He pulled out his cell phone and held it with Bill’s number on the screen for a long confusing discussion with himself over cancelling the meeting. In the end he lost the argument and headed for Gibson’s. He reasoned that he needed to stay in Bill’s good graces both to support a budding friendship and discover valuable information. That’s how he found himself walking in the door on a Friday night, elbow to elbow with everyone else who thought it was a good idea to go out on a Friday night.

Gibson’s restaurant was a go to place for the well-heeled and powerful people in Chicago. It was in a small cluster of high end restaurants that was locally known as the ‘Viagra Triangle’ for the powerful older men who frequented the area in the company of younger women.

Tonight Gibson’s was bursting at the seams with the beautiful people waiting for tables. The crowd started at the door and became thicker with each step. Most everyone milling around had either a wine or martini glass in their hand. Sean hadn’t considered dressing for dinner when he left the house this morning and now his black jeans and planetary society shirt seemed a poor choice. A well dressed man in his late fifties, arm in arm with an eye-catching young woman, looked him over and quietly commented to his date. She broke out laughing, but winked at Sean like it was no big deal. It was just entertainment for the client. Sean caught the suggestion that she would rather be with him and it brought a smile to his face. That is, until he realized she was a professional and could probably do that to any man in the building. He pushed the encounter out of his mind and moved past the mass of people in the hallway heading farther inside.

Sean didn’t want to sit at a table and eat a full dinner, besides it would be a shorter wait to get seats at the bar. Bodies blocked his view of the bar, but he didn’t need to see it to know there would be no empty seats. As he worked his way inward from the hostess stand the crowd began to thin enough to reveal the bar. As soon as it came into view he noticed Bill waving him over. He was seated with an empty stool next to him.

Although there was a large crowd in the bar area it was mostly transitory people waiting for a table so their two seats offered an oasis of sorts. They had a compact but sufficient personal space that had an unspoken suitability for both of them. The noise of the crowd was more insulation than distraction.

After they had dispensed with the small talk, and Bill had convinced Sean that he actually did have to flash his badge to get their two seats, they spiraled into the conversation they came together to have. Bill took another sip of his beer and began talking about the case,

“This case is going to be the death of me Sean, it just keeps getting deeper and deeper. I think that crew operated all over the suburbs as well as in the city, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went into Indiana and Wisconsin too. They really got around.”