Maxwell Street Blues (17 page)

I stared out the window watching the city blocks pass as we moved closer to my apartment. “So who’s going to inform Tate of your executive decision?”

“Do not trouble yourself with such details.”

“And what does the Windy City Wizard have in store for me should I not be satisfied that Tate acted alone or acted at all?”

“This is the last time I will tell you that I don’t kill people. But if you want to work anymore in this town, you should know that destroying someone’s reputation is not beyond my reach.”

The limo pulled over in front of my building. I left without saying goodbye.

39

Frownie wore a black silk bathrobe with matching slippers. He placed a small, ornate glass on the end table next to me and then sunk into a huge leather lounger and put his feet up. “These are specially made for single malt,” he said. “See the outturned lip? That’s supposed to channel the whiskey to the tip of your tongue so the smoky taste is emphasized.” I sipped and nodded and sipped again. When I didn’t say anything else, Frownie said, “You don’t give a shit. So what’s up?”

“Mildish is giving Tate the choice of confessing to Snooky’s murder or being exposed as a child molester. And he said he’d pay me off to drop the whole thing.”

Frownie sipped and held the whiskey in his mouth. When he finally swallowed, he said, “How much he gonna pay you?”

His response annoyed me. “Is that really the point?”

Frownie sipped again and repeated the routine. “Sometimes you gotta step back and reassess things, Julie. Not all crimes are solved. You did your best for now. Maybe somethin’ else will come up later. But in the meantime if you can get paid, that’s not such a bad thing.”

“So Mildish wins and the truth never comes out?”

“What did he win? You got him shittin’ his pants so he’s gonna pay you. With guys like him, you don’t wanna go too far if you can help it. He’s a coward and cowards take the easy way out. Destroyin’ someone’s life is easy for a guy like Mildish. If you had rock-solid proof of who killed Snooky, then maybe you stick to your guns. But if you got nothin’, then you gotta ask yourself if it’s worth riskin’ your life anymore.”

“What about Tate? If he’s the killer, no way he acted alone.”

“What about the molestin’ thing?”

“I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess. Audrey suggested he was a pervert.”

“So he cut deals with crooks and he’s possibly a child molester. He made his bed, Jules—and you can’t protect people from themselves. Remember, Snooky also chose to do business with criminals.”

The day had begun with Frownie’s three
A.M.
freak-out about Voss. Twelve hours later, Frownie casually sipped whiskey and told me to take the money and run.
Play the game
was what he was really saying—and be thankful you got a few bucks for your
trouble. The disappointment stung, but I stayed in Frownie’s company and listened to him mellow with each sip, gradually sliding into the ocean of memories that shaped so many lives of his generation, who had lived through an economic calamity and a world war. It was not difficult to understand how the promise of easy money influenced Frownie’s world. A quick payday was a no-brainer when images of hardworking Americans waiting in line at soup kitchens were as real as the late-twentieth-century crack whore. Prohibition gangsters and crooked politicians lived in my consciousness only as romantic images of Hollywood history. The bad guys I had recently dealt with were hardly larger than life. Despite having killed a hopeless junkie, I had seen too little of what it really meant to live and die in America. Frownie had seen too much.

* * *

I left Frownie’s place troubled by the idea of taking Mildish’s money. Lack of sleep caught up to me. At home I lay on the couch where Punim joined me, nestling between the crook of my arm and my rib cage. I fell into a deep, black sleep from which I awoke three hours later with no memory of dreaming but with the idea that I should inform Audrey that her father’s life had just become more complicated.

“You sound sad,” Audrey said.

“Yes, I’m a sad guy. But I need to talk to you about some new developments.”

“Good, I can show you some of my wolf drawings! Come by any time before ten.”

I splashed cold water on my face. Refreshed from the nap, I was struck by the strangeness of Audrey’s response. Considering our sober discussion a few hours earlier, I didn’t expect wolf sketches to outweigh new developments in a murder case. But she was an
artist
after all.

I arrived at Taudrey Tats around eight. Audrey had set up a display rack of pencil drawings. The first sketch showed a furry, angelic face worthy of a Hallmark greeting card. As much Siberian husky as wolf. With each subsequent sketch, the face changed until it gradually morphed into a vicious, bloodthirsty hellhound.

“It’s the potential in all of us,” Audrey said. “Hungry sexual violence just beneath the surface.”

I didn’t want to consider the possible scenarios that may have influenced this interpretation. “Let’s get some tea or coffee,” I said, and Audrey suggested a place down the street called Blind Roasted.

“The owner really is blind,” she said as we walked. “He buys coffee and tea by sense of smell.”

The shop was softly lit by small spotlights illuminating landscape paintings of various Asian and South American countries whose seeds and leaves we drank. Audrey ordered a cup of Peruvian dark whole bean, and I got a cup of lemon lavender mint. We sat at a table under a watercolor of Brazilian fruits and vegetables.

“Your father will be given the choice of confessing to Snooky’s murder or being exposed as a child molester.”

Audrey raised her eyebrows and stared at me as if waiting for the punch line. “Who told you this?”

“The people I’m in touch with are deadly serious about protecting their asses. They’re tired of having this murder hanging over their heads, so they’re outing Tate as the guilty party.”

“He’s not going to admit to anything.”

“I said they’re deadly serious.”

Audrey turned pale. She looked confused and then incredulous. “They’re going to
kill
him if he doesn’t cooperate?”

Her sudden awakening to the gravity of the situation appeared genuine. I wanted to believe that from this realization the real Audrey would emerge, an Audrey who didn’t speak ambiguously or forget crucial details, an Audrey who stayed focused on the tragedy at hand and didn’t digress to frivolous thoughts. I wanted to like Audrey. I wanted to trust her.

“At the very least they’d
ruin
him, that’s for sure. And they threatened to ruin me, too.”

She slumped in her chair. “I hate him,” she said. “Ruin him but don’t kill him.”

“He’s got money. Do you think he’d run?” Audrey stared at me. “What’s worse, death or life in prison?”

“Depends who you ask. I can’t picture your dad in prison. If he did run, he’d probably be okay if he stayed away from Chicago.”

“You sound as if you want him to run.”

“I’m putting myself in his place. Choices are easier when you have money.”

“What if he went to the police?”

“He’d run the risk of incriminating himself. The others involved would pull every string they had. But if he’s truly innocent, maybe he’d do it.”

“But who exactly is going to give my father this ultimatum?”

“I don’t know, but guys like Mildish have connections for everything. They
probably know someone who specializes in giving people lose-lose propositions. Maybe
you
should consider telling him what’s going to happen.”

Now she looked past me. I was about to repeat myself when her head began nodding slowly, and she said, “I should go.” After unhooking the enormous bag from the back of her chair, she hoisted it over her shoulder and walked out.

40

It was dark when I got home. I left the lights off, fired up the laptop, then grabbed a diet ginger ale and a bag of black market tortilla chips. For some reason, I also grabbed the glass elephant from the windowsill and put it on the coffee table. An elephant’s emotional attachment to other elephants is said to equal that of a human’s. Elephants dwell upon and grieve over loved ones. Their grief is said to last many years.

I came across a website quoting a British World War II commander who credited elephants with helping defeat the Japanese in Burma. I flashed to orange flames of the diving fighter plane’s guns depicted in the artwork at the firehouse. Next, I found the fighter pilot exhibit at O’Hare International Airport, an airport formerly called Orchard Field but renamed in 1949 after the death of World War II hero Edward “Butch” O’Hare. Then I thought of the strip joint, O’Hare’s Tailspin. Snooky’s alias for Kalijero had just been revealed: Butch.

The next thirty minutes were spent staring at the shadows on the wall, listening to my thunderous crunching, trying to decide if I should tell Kalijero anything about Butch. When the bag was empty, I gulped the last of the ginger ale and dialed his number.

“Yeah, well, that kind of crap is standard operating procedure,” Kalijero said, referring to Tate’s predicament.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when pros like Mildish bring in fledglings like Tate for dirty business, they think of ways to get rid of them if they can’t be trusted.”

“I don’t believe Mildish really thinks Tate killed Snooky.”

“Doesn’t matter what you believe. If Mildish decides Tate did it, then he did it. But I gotta be honest, Jules. We’re focusing on larger fish.”

“A university chancellor being framed for murder by a state rep? Too small? Just toss it back.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Kalijero said. “Look at the overall view. The police brass know
what a crook Mildish is. If Mildish doesn’t already know about their secret strip-club/whorehouse, then he could easily find out if he needed some dirt. Voss knows I facilitated the whole thing, and I just found out that Voss has been greasing palms on the Liquor Control Commission, and on and on it goes. Everybody in this town has something on everybody else. It’s a balancing act. When something upsets the balance, you get shifting loyalties, and then bodies start showing up in construction sites. This is how the
city that works
works.”

“And an antisocial lunatic named Voss is in charge. Business as usual.”

“Don’t give me the babe-in-the-woods routine, Landau.”

“You’re right, Jimmy. Why should I be surprised to hear nothing has changed in a hundred years?”

“Why
should
it change? Are people any different? Is greed losing its popularity? Look, if I hear something new, I’ll let you know.”

“Oh, by the way,” I said. “I figured out who Butch is, the alias in Snooky’s book.”

The ensuing silence told me Kalijero understood what I wasn’t saying. “Okay,” he finally said then hung up.

I resumed staring at the shadows and thought that my friend’s murder had become an afterthought sinking into a swamp of big-city political corruption. I needed to find a way to keep the investigation moving forward. I thought I would have to be more aggressive and stop relying on the obvious. A good accountant was an asset to a petty mobster until the accountant made a mistake. What was Snooky’s mistake?

* * *

A plan of action eluded me, as did sleep. From the beginning of my investigation, I had always had a plan for the following day. At one
A.M.
I tried to surrender to an unnamed force I always imagined ran my life. This was my way of dealing with the fear and doubt pounding on the door. The next four hours were spent thinking I would never sleep again. At five
A.M.
I sat up in bed and vaguely recalled traveling the convoluted paths that had brought me to this station in life. Dreams disguised as sleep.

I dressed and stepped outside into a warm breeze of early August that felt almost tropical. It was quiet enough to hear the rustling of the ash trees that lined the sidewalk, and for a few moments I understood how people fell in love with cities. I headed south, not feeling at all special or cool despite legally carrying a handgun. By the time I reached the Armitage neighborhood, the sun was above the horizon and I was hungry. I walked
into a diner known for its herbivorous fare. Not coincidentally, it was across the street from Taudrey Tats. The restaurant was already half-filled with young, sleepy-faced white kids mellowing out with a good breakfast after a hard night of partying. I sat in a row of two-tops along the front window and watched the neighborhood slowly transform into Saturday morning. My waitress was young and cute and absurdly cheerful for such an early hour. I ordered vegan buttermilk pancakes with fruit sauce.

I wondered if Tate had learned of the judgment recently passed on his life. A man of wealth and privilege suddenly in a world crumbling into shame. The waitress brought my breakfast. The primeval joy of ravenous hunger meeting hot food temporarily eclipsed my worries. When I looked up from my plate, a woman I recognized as the gaudy Boutique Lady stood on the sidewalk watching me. She wore the same sequined lavender head scarf. She smiled and waved as if we were old friends. I acknowledged her with a nod, and she hurried to the entrance. Moments later, she stood in front of me.

“Can I help you with something?”

“You really don’t eat meat?”

I stared a moment. “Have we been introduced? I mean, who are you?”

She took a seat. “We looked at each other through the window the other day, and we have Audrey in common. And now here you are sitting by yourself eating breakfast.” She reached across the table and offered me her hand. “I’m Susie. I don’t eat meat, either.”

I shook her hand. “You want to talk to me about something?”

Susie gave me a blank look. “I know it’s none of my business but I’m really curious about all the screaming and yelling.”

“What screaming and yelling?”

“I just assumed Audrey discussed it with you. A few weeks before the murder. Every time he came over, they ended up shouting. I could hear them through the walls.”