The Riverview Murders

by Michael Raleigh

  There was no chance that he’d sit in the dark and make a sandwich of room-temperature ham and listen to the Uptown street noises—tonight largely consisting of Uptown residents, old people and immigrants and black people and white people, all cursing out the windows at Com Ed for its inevitable, clockwork screwups.

  I need someone to cook me something, I need food that will bite me back, he told himself. That narrowed it down to Thai, Pakistani, Korean, or Mexican. Leaving the actual decision-making process largely to chance, Whelan got into his car and hit the radio buttons till somebody gave him a little jazz. Somebody playing a Hammond B-3, Jimmy Smith or Brother Jack MacDuff.

  He hadn’t gone more than four blocks before he realized he was being followed. He couldn’t see the car clearly but he couldn’t shake the feeling. At the corner of Sheridan and Irving, he pulled into the Shell station, drove out again and went up Sheridan going the opposite direction. No one followed him and he couldn’t tell which car the tail was. He kept going back in the direction he’d come, then turned west on Montrose, skirted the great dark sprawl of Graceland Cemetery, and this time he was sure no one was behind him.

  Time to pick food. Driving up Clark Street, he realized he had almost limitless choices: Filipino food from Filipiniana, spicy Chinese from Little Hunan, Cantonese from Mr. Chop Suey, where the two smiley guys over the woks professed a great admiration for Reagan and Bush. He slowed down at Clark and Belmont and toyed with the idea of Ethiopian food at Mama Desta’s but realized that he wanted something with a little more edge and then he knew what he wanted.

  Like the bodacious sign the boys had purchased for the House of Zeus, the massive display of bulbs, paint and bravado marking the location of Taquería Las Americas took advertising to a new level. It was almost as big as the restaurant whose existence it announced to all of Belmont Avenue. a solid field of illuminated white surrounded by flickering bulbs. In the middle was a somewhat impressionistic representation of a taco nearly four feet long and overflowing with brown, red, orange and green material. It didn’t look so much like a taco as a boat carrying a shipment to the Botanical Gardens. Above it, for reasons unclear to Whelan, was a large American flag. This was clearly advertising that worked: Whelan had first discovered the place because he’d seen the sign from a half-mile away.

  The food was good, authentic Mexican done up by authentic Mexicans, three or four of them behind the crowded counter at once: a woman wrapping tamales, a young man greeting customers and taking orders in unaccented English, and The Chef, a big middle-aged man with Emiliano Zapata’s mustache and a potbelly that jutted out like the Yucatán. There were several dozen things one could have here, the gamut of standard Mexican fare, and a few things one might not see, such as orchata, a sweet drink made with rice, milk and sugar. Yes, there were quite a few things one could have, but Chicago had five hundred good Mexican restaurants; there was only one real reason for coming to Las Americas, unless one was a connoisseur of signs: you came for a burrito.

  At Las Americas, they cost almost five bucks with tax but no one had ever complained. A Las Americas burrito weighed a pound and a half and carried its load of skirt steak, avocado, lettuce, onion, tomato, cheese and beans without complaint, all bound up in a tortilla the size of a sombrero. The whole package had the weight and solidity of lead shot, the aftereffects of a grenade. The hot sauce was fiery and green from the pureed tomatillos, and the tables were set with little relish bowls filled with chopped and pickled jalapeños. To eat a burrito here, Whelan felt, was to understand burritos on a profound, even primeval level. He felt that if he ate enough, he’d eventually understand Mexico, and this seemed a worthy pursuit.

  Whelan ordered a burrito and a completely unnecessary tamale, then stood at the counter and watched the big Mexican chop and shred a long charbroiled skirt steak. Eventually he would take an improbably thick double handful and drop it onto the layer of beans on the tortilla, then fill in the blanks.

  He took his plate over to a little table along the far wall, next to a mirror that created the illusion that this was a big place. A few feet away, a young Mexican family sat at a large table amid enough food for a whole village, and at the far end of the room, a striking young Anglo couple sat and made eyes at each other over a plate of nachos.

  Over the years, he’d brought several women here. One had found the burritos “gross” and wanted to eat hers with a knife and fork; she had also found Joe Danno’s bar too dingy, so the relationship had died young. He’d brought Sandra McAuliffe here as well, and, as she always did, she’d come in intending to find something to like simply because Paul Whelan liked it. She’d been pleasantly surprised at the food but thought one burrito sufficient to feed the Red army. Watching Whelan polish off a burrito and two tongue tacos, she’d decided that she finally understood the most mysterious of all the sins a Catholic girl learned about: she now knew the meaning of gluttony.

  Whelan doused the innards of the burrito with the green hot sauce and bit in. Violence mixed with other sensations and he realized he’d chosen well. He was absently surveying the other diners, in particular the handsome dark-haired Anglo girl beside the jukebox, when a bulky form bisected his field of vision and tossed a dark green sport coat on a chair.

  This form was larger even than the Mexican with the cleaver, and it was dressed in red, the red of jungle flowers and strawberry soda, and he had no doubt that it was going to join him for dinner. He put down the burrito and sighed.

  “Nice-looking dinner there. Snoopy.”

  “That was you behind me on Sheridan.”

  Bauman gave him a little heavy-lidded smile and tipped his head to one side. “Ah, it was just something to do. Hone my rusty detective skills. I was driving around and there was Paul Whelan, well-known investigative genius, so I thought, Hey, I’m bored, let’s see what Whelan’s up to. And here you are.”

  He could feel the irritation beginning in his stomach, meeting the hot sauce and creating a presumably combustible mixture that would visit him in the wee small hours of the morning.

  “Thought I lost you.”

  “Awright, to be fair, you did. Then I circled around in the direction you were originally headed and I got lucky. Then when you were within a few blocks of this joint, I knew I was watching one of the famous Whelan food runs and I knew just where a guy with style and taste would go.”

  Whelan blinked. “You know this place?”

  “I don’t know ’em all like you do, I don’t go to a lot of those places where they serve you sheep’s innards and goat on a skewer, but this kinda place I know about. Don’t sell me short, Whelan, I’m a sophisticated guy. I know about the burrito here and the pizza at the Bucket of Suds and the fish sandwich at Berghoff’s and the greasy burger at Mr. G’s.”

  With that, he walked over to the counter and waved at the big man with the cleaver.

  “Hey, Hector. How’s tricks?”

  The Mexican grinned and waved the cleaver. “¡Hola, Alberto! ¿Qué pasa?”

  “Ah, nothing new goin’ on. Listen, I’ll have what my friend over there is having. And a pop.”

  Whelan watched in surprise as Bauman leaned on the counter and made easy small talk with the big Mexican, his Americanized son and his quiet daughter, who favored Bauman with a luminous smile.

  Bauman paid his bill and muttered something Whelan couldn’t make out but which left his three acquaintances laughing and shaking their heads. The big detective hitched up his pants, picked up his plate and came back to Whelan’s table.

  Whelan said nothing as Bauman inserted his heavy frame into a tight barrel chair, spread a napkin on his lap, and paused for a moment to survey his food with satisfaction. A little half smile appeared on Bauman’s face as he spooned hot sauce everywhere, and Whelan was reminded of Jackie Gleason.

  “You appear to be some kind of prized customer.”

  Bauman gave him a happy smile and nodded. “I am. I been coming here since they opened. I told ’em what kind of locks
they needed and put ’em in touch with an insurance guy I knew, I got ’em a little extra attention from the beat guys when they thought somebody was casing the place. Yeah, I’m a prized customer. Uh, excuse me, Whelan.” He picked up the burrito, gazed at it the way new mothers look at red-faced infants, and then bit into it.

  Whelan let him eat for a while and then said, “So what are we going to talk about?”

  “Mexican food.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Bauman looked around at the other diners, took a quick glance over his shoulder. “I usta come around here a lot.”

  “For what? You never worked up here, did you? This is Town Hall.”

  “Nah. I had a place I liked. This was a long time ago, even before I was coming to this place. I had a saloon down the street that I liked. Old place, real old, everything inside was dark wood. Oak, inside and out. The Oakwood Inn, that was the name, but nobody ever called it that.”

  “Mindy’s,” Whelan said. “Bartender’s name was Pete. They served food in the back room, great food.”

  Bauman smiled. “You’re a man of the world, Whelan. You drank there?”

  “Sure. And when I was a kid, my ma used to take us there for dinner sometimes.”

  Mindy’s had been easily the most interesting of the little neighborhood places of his youth. The walls, ceiling and back bar sported paintings of happy red-cheeked Germanic types holding huge steins of beer, beneath which were slogans intended to edify the drinker: “If you drink, you’ll die. If you don’t drink, you’ll die. So drink.”

  “And I still want to know why you’re here.”

  “I thought we’d talk. Have an exchange of ideas.”

  “Nothing to exchange. That’s what you said.”

  Bauman gave him the heavy-lidded half smile again. “Still pissed off there. Snoopy?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea? Got a guilty conscience?”

  “I don’t have a conscience. That’s for sensitive guys like you. But the girls probably like you for it.”

  “Not lately.”

  “I thought you had somebody you were seein’.”

  “We gonna talk about my social life now? How about a little focus here, Bauman?

  Bauman gave Whelan a benevolent look. “So what’s got your B.V.D.s in a knot?”

  “Tell me what I gave you the other night.”

  “It wasn’t any big deal. And it’s a police matter, not something for Paul Whelan the international sleuth and bloodhound.” He chuckled again.

  “Have a good time, Bauman.”

  “The fishing partner, for one. Couldn’t find him at first ’cause he moved his spot.”

  “What else? I know there was something else.”

  Bauman shrugged. “The guy in the windbreaker and the baseball cap.”

  “What did that do for you?”

  “Sorted it out, Whelan. That’s what. You sorted it out for me. We talked to a lot of people down at the lake, and they gave us what they saw. I had a whole list of people they saw roaming around the rocks there communing with the coho salmon.”

  “Names?”

  “Come on, where would I get names? No, I had descriptions.” Bauman leaned back and recited. “Young Hispanic couple, old guy on a bicycle, kid with long hair on a bicycle, your completely uniformed and armed Yuppie type on a bicycle—you know, helmet, goggles, gloves—old man in an overcoat, black guy with fishing gear—your fisherman—pair of black kids in Bulls shirts, couple of college guys with a football, old lady who talks to herself, street guy in a windbreaker”

  “But nobody saw the killing, or a fight or anything like that?”

  “If they did, they aren’t sayin’. So you see? You helped me out.”

  “I feel so fulfilled.”

  “Hey, lighten up. Here, I got something for you for free. Your guy that you were lookin’ for, this Joseph Colleran? No record on him whatsoever. Yeah, I checked. Just for my good friend Paul Whelan. Nothing on him or this Michael Minogue, either. No records here, not wanted in other states, no outstanding federal warrants. See? I did a little work for my old buddy Whelan.”

  “You made a call and somebody else spent five minutes at a computer.”

  Bauman gave him a peeved look. “Hey, I ran both of ’em myself, even though it meant spending more time inside the ivied walls of Area Six than I like.”

  “I can’t imagine you on a computer.”

  Bauman shrugged. “I can dance, too. Anyhow, now I figure you owe me.”

  “Nothing on either of them—how far back?”

  “Birth, Whelan, since birth. Neither of ’em ever did shit anytime in their lives. No juvie stuff, no panty raids, no strong-arm robbery, no ax murders. Nothing. Okay? See, now you got everything I got.” Bauman squinted at him and shook his head. “And you’re still not grateful.” He picked up the last section of his burrito and attacked it.

  Whelan watched him for a moment and said nothing. “All right, thanks. I’m grateful. And I still think you’re holding things back, and I think they’d make my life easier.”

  “Nah, you don’t get the picture. I get information, it’s mine. There’s no ‘holding it back’: It’s police information about police business, and in case you suffered memory loss from the hot sauce, you aren’t a cop no more.”

  “Fair enough,” Whelan said in a monotone.

  “I give you what I had on these other guys.” When Whelan said nothing. Bauman forced conversation. “Maybe sometime we’ll go have something to eat at that crazy guy’s place. What’s his name—Raul?”

  “Raul. Right, but—”

  “There’s a guy that missed his calling. Oughta be running a small village somewhere, wearing a white suit and a lotta rings. You been by there lately?”

  “It’s closed.”

  Bauman looked genuinely disappointed. “What happened?”

  “Went back to Mexico.”

  “What’s he doing there? Same thing, restaurant?”

  Whelan found himself smiling. “He’s the alcalde, Bauman.”

  “He’s what?”

  “What you said. He went back to his ancestral village with a suitcase full of money. Now he’s the mayor.”

  Bauman grinned. “Helluva world, ain’t it?”

  “It sure is. Complicated world.”

  After they ate, they stood for a moment outside the restaurant, and the gaudy flickering sign had great fun with the colors of Bauman’s shirt. They each lit up a smoke and idly watched traffic. Finally Bauman shrugged.

  “You feel like a cocktail?”

  “Not tonight. I think I’m going to be a good boy and go to bed.”

  “Arright. See you, Whelan.”

  Whelan nodded and walked across Belmont to his car. As he drove home, he thought about his crumbling case and the wall he’d run up against.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw Bauman giving him a smug wink and lighting up one of his cigars, but he didn’t think Bauman really knew any more than Paul Whelan. Mrs. O’Mara, it occurred to him, would be able to put a name to the man in the windbreaker. Mrs. O’Mara would know him.

  Eleven

  When he woke up the next morning, a crisp breeze was having its way with the curtains, so this might be a lovely fall day in Chicago, which would be a fine start. There was electricity, and it might even be on when he came home. There might be good weather, he might get a letter or a card from Sandra, something might turn up so that he wouldn’t have to tell Mrs. O’Mara her brother had been dead for a decade.

  Over a cup of instant coffee and a couple pieces of toast, he thought about what he’d learned the day before. He had no great confidence in the subconscious as a tool, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere in his conversation with Mrs. O’Mara or Fritz Pollard or the Gaynors, he’d picked up a fact that meant something more than he realized. His brief talk with Betty Henke stood out for its obvious information, and he went over it again, panning for something overlooked.

  She’d said that Mich
ael Minogue had taken care of the funeral and had made what few calls he’d been able to make. If only someone could give him the particulars to take back to Mrs. O’Mara. The funeral: a small funeral for an old-country Irishman. An Irish Catholic funeral. Now he recalled his conversation with Minogue’s great-nephew in the Empire Hotel, and then he had it.

  The old man’s wallet. Of course.

  He pulled out his own wallet and found the business card, dialed the number, and got a recording. Whelan left his name and number and then hung up.

  There was something else in all these conversations, he knew, and he’d have bet the rent that Fritz Pollard could tell him all sorts of interesting things, but for the moment the clue Betty Henke had given him was all he had.

  Not much, but more than he’d had. He studied the sun flooding his living room window and listened to the radio on his kitchen counter. It was giving him Maynard Ferguson’s exuberant version of “Birdland.” A clue, some music, bad coffee, and lunch with his mentor, the great Walter Meehan.

  Things were looking up.

  At the office, he threw open the windows to let in the autumn smells and then checked in with his service. No calls.

  He was standing at the window watching a couple of young Latino men putting up the letters on the marquee of the Aragon Ballroom, when he sensed rather than heard the noise. He stood motionless for a moment and then heard the scrape of feet. Another footstep against the silence told him it wasn’t Nowicki coming to work late.

  Silently, Whelan crossed the office. At the door, he paused for a long ten count, and when he’d almost convinced himself he was hearing things, his visitor moved again. Whelan peered through the clouded glass door into the dark hall and silently cursed the building’s owner. He held his breath, then grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open. He was out into the hall in a half-second, in time to see a figure moving fast down the stairs, a small bony shadow disappearing into the darkness. Whelan was conscious of the heavy smells of sweat and tobacco.