Maxwell Street Blues (10 page)

Despite the ominous cloud formations hiding the sun, the park across from Tate’s house was crowded with early evening Frisbee games and couples on blankets sipping wine. At seven I arrived at the parking lot and waited for Tate’s garage door to open, which it did forty-five minutes later.

Since I knew where he was going, I didn’t have to follow too close. In the Racine-Addison area, he parked in an alley under a “Loading Zone” sign. Fifteen minutes later, a taxi pulled into the alley and picked up Tate. Now I had to pay attention. The cab headed west on Addison for several miles before turning into a quiet middle-class neighborhood. A few blocks farther, it stopped in front of a nameless corner tavern with a single neon advertisement for “Half Acre Beer.” I watched Tate pay the driver and then shake hands with the bouncer sitting on a bar stool outside the door.

I walked across the street unsure what I felt first: the evening’s first raindrop or the bouncer’s icy stare. “Hi,” I said. He was chomping loudly on gum. His neck was wider than his head. “Is there a cover charge?”

“We’re full.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fire code says no more can go in.”

“I just saw a guy go in.”

“He’s the last one.”

Two young women approached from the sidewalk wearing tight leather skirts barely reaching mid-thigh. The bouncer jumped off the stool and held the door open. Then he sat again and ignored me.

“Sorry, but I gotta ask—?”

“We got room for more girls.”

“You sure they’re old enough to be in a bar?”

“Mom and Dad are inside.”

I held up a stiff hundred-dollar bill and asked if the Franklin pass was valid here. Mr. Neck stared at it a moment and then looked away. I produced two more bills and asked if I could just run in and use the toilet. In one motion, the three bills disappeared into Mr. Neck’s fist. Then he jumped down from the stool and disappeared around the corner.

Unlike the building’s exterior, the inside boasted panels of stained glass mosaics, a tile floor, upholstered booths, and fancy crystal-and-brass chandeliers. The room was full of sixty-something men in silk suits sidled up against their dates. It looked like intermission at the annual father-daughter dance. I made my way to the bar and ordered a beer. When the bartender returned with my drink he said, “You wasted a lot of money, my friend. You’re too young for this crowd.”

“I’m meeting my daughter here,” I said and we both laughed.

I saw Tate sitting with a redhead in a skimpy halter dress. They were leaning in to each other while looking at something on the table. I made my way toward them until I was close enough to see several photographs spread across it. They appeared to be of Tate in his younger days wearing a bathing suit. I moved to the opposite side of the table. Tate wore an ear-to-ear grin while his date giggled and played with her hair. I felt sick.

“Excuse me, Dad?” I said, leaning over the table. “Mom would like a word with you outside.”

A horrified university chancellor stared at me in disbelief. “Get out of here!” His face had turned crimson. I thought his head might burst.

“Please don’t do this to Mom! Her hair will grow back when she’s finished the chemo. She doesn’t deserve this, Dad …” Tate’s date vanished into the crowd, leaving only the chancellor and his photographs. I sat next to him and said, “We need to talk. In here or outside—your choice.”

“I don’t believe this,” Tate said.

“Believe it, because I ain’t going away until we talk.”

Tate stood and led the way outside into a steady drizzle. He was taller than I remembered. As soon as we cleared the door, he yelled, “What are you doing here?” Then he looked at the bouncer. “Goddamn it, why did you let him in?”

The bouncer continued chomping but said nothing. “Let’s talk in my car,” I said.

“You’re harassing me!”

“You want to stand in the rain like an idiot or talk in the car?”

Tate followed me to the Civic and cursed as he squeezed into the passenger seat.
“The girls in that bar are all legal age,” he said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You’ve been lying to me. And you’re scared shitless. Why else would you follow me all the way into my car?”

Tate rubbed his eyes. “What do you want?”

“You know what circumstantial evidence is? People are sent away because of it, and I’ve got a whole bunch. You claimed you had no business with Snooky. That’s a lie. You claimed you never met Snooky. That’s a lie. You acted as if you barely knew Linda Conway or about her relationship with Snooky. That’s a lie. I also know that Snooky was sending you kickbacks from Baron and that Snooky was Audrey’s bookkeeper. Those two became pretty close friends, and close friends tend to confide in each other.”

Tate glanced out the window. The light rain had turned into a steady downpour. “You think I killed Snooky?” The fear in his voice had disappeared.

“Lying about a dead man will attract suspicion.”

Tate closed his eyes for a count and then opened them. “I didn’t kill anybody. But I knew if someone started snooping around, it wouldn’t look good. Then you showed up, and I didn’t know what to do so I denied everything.”

“You weren’t scared Snooky knew too much about you?”

“Why would I be? Everyone knew him! Everyone said he was the best, completely trustworthy, a goddamn legend. You don’t get that way by screwing people.”

The chancellor was smarter than I thought. “Why did you tell Audrey that Linda Conway introduced you to Snooky?”

Tate hesitated and said, “I never told her that.”

“She says you did.”

“Well, she’s wrong. And keep her out of this. She’s got nothing to do with any of this. Just because she and Snooky were friends doesn’t mean she knows anything.”

“Baron thinks you and Mildish know more than you’re letting on.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m the novice here. They approached me just to get access to the trustees—”

I waited for Tate to continue and then said, “Something you want to tell me?”

“Look, I have influence. Lots of people do. I made a case for using Baron Construction, then I just let it go and it turned out for the best.”

“You mean Baron got the contract and you got paid off.” Tate didn’t respond. I said, “When were you approached?”

“In November. The trustees could’ve told me to go to hell, could’ve gone with some other company, and I wouldn’t have made an extra dime. We got lucky that Snooky’s murder didn’t raise any eyebrows regarding the redevelopment contract. Just
another dead guy in the big city. If you go explaining to them who exactly that dead man was outside their office windows, they’re going to look at me and start asking a lot of questions.”

“I understand what you’re saying, although I’m having trouble feeling sorry for you.”

Tate groaned. “I knew it! You’re going to hold this over me until you get whatever it is you want. What do you care if my life is ruined?”

“Relax, Tate, I’m just trying to find the truth. I’ll only get mean if I think you or your pals have been holding out on me. Got it?”

He didn’t answer but I think he got it.

23

The rain had all but stopped by the time I found a parking place in my neighborhood. I wasn’t ready to call it a night, so I decided to take a walk and think about what my next move should be. Water ran through the gutters of Halsted, and a mist hung in the air, forming halos around streetlamps. The sidewalks were full of youthful revelers intoxicated with the boozy urban charm a muggy summer evening in Chicago cast on the young. I walked through crowds lingering outside blues bars and jazz clubs, paused at specialty boutique windows full of scented soybean-wax candles, organic cotton chenille baby blankets, and natural venison dog food. I observed a common man’s bar struggling to maintain its seedy image despite its inevitable slide toward de facto Bohemian hangout status.

When I stopped in front of a display of colorfully painted wood-framed mirrors, I caught a whiff of something putrid. I turned back to the crowd but saw only people moving through the night. A few minutes later the odor returned, this time spilling across the back of my neck, and for the second time in a week a blunt object poked me in the ribs.

“Go into the next alley and raise your arms,” the voice said. I did as told, thinking a meth-head would just as quickly shoot me on a crowded sidewalk as on a deserted side street. The alley was fairly wide and ran behind several warehouses and a restaurant. Floodlights along the roofs created various shades of darkness. We had walked about thirty yards when the voice ordered me between two semitrailers backed up to a loading dock. I stood in darkness from the waist up, knowing I was in the deepest shit of my life.

“You have a gun,” the voice said. “It’s on your left side. If you try it, you’re dead. Just toss your wallet behind you.”

“Why don’t you just take my gun so we both can relax?”

Bad suggestion. “Because I’m not that fucking stupid to get that close to you! Now throw me the fucking wallet!”

I pulled the wallet out with my right hand and flicked it backward. I heard him rifle through it and curse.

“Forty dollars? Are you kidding? You carry at least a grand. I
know
you do!”

“Who told you that?”

“I
know
you do!” he said, and I remembered offering two hundred to Shit Breath, who escorted me to Mildish’s car.

“Dude, I carry a few hundred at most—”

“Bullshit!” he shouted and jammed the gun into my kidney. The barrel bounced around my side as he tried to control his trembling. At any moment I could know the pain of a bullet ripping through my gut. I tried to imagine a quick movement to free myself, but with my body exposed at close range and the brightly illuminated space beneath a trailer the only place to go, my options seemed suicidal. How pathetic to die alone in a dank alley so a junkie who would probably be dead himself in a year could get stoned. I should’ve stayed on the sidewalk, but then innocent people could’ve been hurt. Martyrdom was little consolation.

“Okay, you win,” I said. “A bunch of cash is wrapped around my ankle.” The pressure on my kidney lessened, and for a few seconds I heard only his labored breathing.

“If you’re lying, I swear to Christ you’re dead,” he said then told me to kneel down and get the money.

“Think of what you’re saying. The money is on my
left
ankle. If I bend down, I’m probably gonna go for my gun since I think you’re gonna kill me anyway. I might get lucky and kill you first. And even if you shoot first, I might get off a shot and then you’ll slowly bleed to death. But if you just take the money yourself, maybe we can both walk away.”

I was gambling his brain cell damage would work in my favor. I heard him shuffling around on loose asphalt. When a hand touched my ankle I guessed he held his gun in his right hand near the middle of my left thigh, which meant a bullet’s trajectory was more likely to hit my leg muscle or buttock. I dropped my left arm and felt the barrel hit squarely on my palm—I had guessed right. I now had the leverage to keep his barrel immobilized, long enough for me to grab my .40-caliber with my right hand and fire point-blank into his forehead.

I stood frozen in that moment, trying to make sense of the previous minutes, aware of my choke hold on the gun’s grip but having no memory of the pistol’s report. Gradually, my focus returned to the dead body lying on its back, eyes open, legs folded unnaturally to the side. Despite the gooey mess oozing from the back of his head, there was a surprisingly neat entry wound. I trembled violently and almost stumbled when I stepped over the corpse. A lightning bolt zig-zagged across his bald head: Jason.

I walked out of the alley and merged back into the sidewalk traffic. After a couple of blocks, I stopped to make a call. My shaking hands produced two wrong numbers before Kalijero picked up.

“I just killed a man.”

No response, then, “Where is it?”

“West alley off Halsted, before Fullerton.”

“Go home and wait.”

Why had I called Kalijero? Perhaps because he had just laid bare his own weighty transgression. For some reason, I trusted him.

I didn’t remember the walk home, only entering my apartment and sitting down in the recliner. Punim jumped into my lap and started licking the back of my hand. Then she rubbed her head against my chest for a while before rolling over and offering me her white stomach.

An hour later the phone rang. “I’m downstairs,” Kalijero said, and I told him the door was unlocked. Kalijero walked in and sat on the couch. “It was a drug deal gone bad,” he said. “Just another dead meth-head. Nobody cares.”

“You ever kill anyone?” I said.

“You killed a scumbag. We should thank you.”

“He thought I walked around with a thousand bucks in my pocket. I wonder how he got that idea?”

“Mayor Daley told him. Their brains are cooked, Jules. Son of Sam took orders from his neighbor’s dog. You’re a hero. By the way, he had brass knuckles in his pocket.”

I waited for more info. “I give up. Why is that important?”

“That cheekbone gash of yours? That’s what brass knuckles do.”

The first time I saw Lightning Bolt was three days ago at Audrey’s shop. Jason looked at a magazine while I waited to ask Audrey out to lunch. That evening he followed me home to smash my face?

“You’re telling me the meth-head killed Snooky for drug money?” I said.

“Could be? Although you and Snooky both have that tattoo broad in common.”

“You just failed Detective 101. Snooky still had three hundred bucks in his wallet. I had eighty when my dad found me after my encounter with brass knuckles.”

Kalijero laughed. “Either way, we’ll try to find out where he lived and have a look around.”

“You’re a shade less burdened than when I last saw you, Detective.”

Kalijero shrugged. “I came to a realization. Sometimes a situation is so widespread it works in your favor. Too many got too much to lose. If those guys at the titty club talk, they’ll be lucky if
only
the club burns down. The brass got too many pensions at risk. If you talked, you’d be poison in this town. All Voss’s got is whatever that Audrey broad has to say. And you say she’s got nothing to show-and-tell.”