Killer on Argyle Street

by Michael Raleigh

  “Harry Palm. There was a piece of work. I sort of miss him.”

  “Jimmy Lee had that same, you know, outlook, only he didn’t have Harry’s nice taste in clothes.”

  “Maybe we’ll find Jimmy Lee Hayes in the lake, too. Like Harry.”

  “The river, is what we think. We’ll find ’im sooner or later, I know that. And he won’t be tellin’ stories no more.”

  Whelan watched Bauman for a moment and then let it drop. “I heard he had a partner. An older guy.”

  Bauman showed him nothing. He drained his beer and shoved it out onto the edge where Joe could see it. When the tavernkeeper made his way down again, Bauman took Whelan’s half-empty glass and shoved it out, too.

  “Put a head on Whelan’s beer, there, Joseph. And give us a couple more shots, and then I’ll order us a pizza from the lovely Fena, that artiste.”

  “Slow down, Bauman. I haven’t finished the last round.”

  “Drink faster.”

  Joe grinned at Whelan. “You fell in with that fast crowd your mother used to warn you about.” A row of paper plates hung from the top of the back bar, just above the Chinese brandy with the snake in it and the Mexican stuff with the dead scorpion. Each of the plates bore a portrait of Joe: an art class had taken to coming into the Bucket and each half-inebriated student took his shot at the definitive sketch of Joe Danno.

  Whelan stared at the array of shots and beers in front of him and shuddered, remembering other lost evenings when he’d gone drinking with Bauman. When he looked up, Bauman was staring at him.

  “You were sayin’.”

  “I think I was finished.”

  “No. You were tellin’ me stories. You were holdin’ me fucking spellbound. You were tellin’ me about a partner. Tell me more.”

  “I think I’ve exhausted my store of knowledge. Mrs. Pritchett said she heard Tony talking about doing something for a partner of Jimmy’s. She said she thought he was an older man.”

  “You know, Whelan, you got this gift. You get answers where other guys strike out. Now, I talked to that lady—nice lady, too, although I don’t think she liked me.”

  “She thinks you’re a paragon of poor health, and she’s a nurse.”

  “Whatever. Anyhow, she didn’t tell me about no partner. That’s a funny thing, ain’t it? I bet she gave you a name, too.”

  “No. I was kind of hoping you’d supply the name and anything else that you conveniently left out when you set all this up.”

  “Hey, you know what I know, probably more,” Bauman said, and neither man believed him. He smiled, a little glint in his eye. His cheeks were flushed now from his whiskey intake and his breathing was audible.

  Bauman pursed his lips. “Listen, Shamus, I’m just wondering, if you got this one item, what else did you get? Not that this piece of information is gonna change the world. ’Cause as far as we know, the only partners old Jimmy-the-Sleazebag had are in the joint or fertilizing the tulips in our fair city.”

  “Now I’m disappointed. I thought I had a new angle, somebody new to look for.”

  “No, brother, they’re all dead. If they were partners with Jimmy Lee Hayes, they’re dead. If he had a real partner, you’d just be givin’ me another stiff to look for. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t no partner.” Bauman filled the air around him with a dirty gray corona of smoke. “See, Whelan, old Jimmy was forty-five goin’ on fourteen, and all the guys he surrounded himself with were half his age, guys that would kiss up to him and treat him like some kinda Mafia Don. He didn’t work with a real grownup partner in a long time. Long time,” Bauman said, and then stared off into space.

  “What about this garage, Roy’s? The kid worked there. Is there a connection between the garage and these guys?”

  “Yeah, they used to meet there. But Roy got nervous and made them find a new clubhouse.”

  “He wasn’t a club member himself?”

  “Nah, Roy’s just an old fuck. They threw a few dollars his way and he thought it was great. Then back about six, seven months ago they stopped using his garage. Jimmy Lee felt the need for a little more privacy, I guess.” After a moment’s silence, he smiled at Whelan. “So, you gonna help me with this pizza I ordered?”

  “Not this time. If I stay any longer, Joe’ll have to let me sleep in the kitchen tonight. Got any last-minute suggestions for me?”

  “Do what you want. Mostly, I want you to find that kid for that lady.”

  “You’ve got me looking for a body.”

  Bauman took out another of his little cigars and stared at it. “Do what you can, Whelan. You don’t find him, then maybe he is dead.” He spoke quietly, as though tired of it all.

  “Anything else you want to tell me, Bauman? Anything that maybe slipped your mind?”

  “Nah. Settle down, Whelan. Nobody’s running a game on you.” Bauman watched him for a second, then said, “Take it easy, Snoopy.”

  “See ya, Paul,” Joe Danno sang out, and Whelan waved as he left.

  The night had crept in while he’d been in the Bucket and a bitter wind knifed its way up the street. It had passed across the lake, and Whelan thought instantly of Sandra McAuliffe. He got into the icy front seat of his car, fumbled getting the key into the ignition. He was light-headed and a little giddy, and he realized he was in no condition to visit Ms. McAuliffe. After their most recent evening, the last thing, the very last thing they needed now would be Whelan showing up at her house breathing whiskey on her and mumbling. The Jet, his rusting hulk of a car, started on the second try, the radio came on with Randy Crawford singing of the “Street Life,” and Whelan decided that this was a night for food with teeth.

  Thirty minutes later he was home with a miniature Mexican feast from the gaudy but dependable Campeche restaurant across from the wide white hulk of Wrigley Field. The Cubs were due back at the end of the week after a week and a half in the east, where they’d lost considerable blood and self-esteem. On Thursday they would limp back like the remains of Napoleon’s Grande Armée, hoping never to see New York, Philly or Pittsburgh again.

  He was tunneling into the second burrito when the phone rang.

  “Hi. It’s Sandy,” she said unnecessarily, and he was glad to hear her voice.

  “I knew that. How are you?”

  “Oh, I’m all right. How are you? You sound like you have a cold.”

  “Not really. I just came in and it’s nasty out.” He relaxed a little, happy to hear her voice and surprised.

  “Oh,” she said. She sounded disappointed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I mean…you just came in, you probably don’t want to come out again.”

  He suppressed a sigh. He was tired, his feet hurt, he’d had too much liquor and too much fighting the spring winds to want to go out again. He thought of inviting her over but she didn’t like to do that for reasons she’d never given but which he thought he could guess. In her own place, she was a woman receiving guests, not a visitor or a transient spending a night.

  “Well, I suppose I could—” he began and her laughter cut him off.

  “It took you about a ten-count to answer. I think I get the message. It’s okay, we can get together some other night. I don’t blame you for wanting to spend a quiet night. Maybe I haven’t been very good company lately anyway.”

  Whelan looked around at his darkened living room and the television that was going to be his only company. He stared at the burrito in his hand.

  This is crazy, he thought. I’m spending a quiet night at home with a burrito and reruns of Gunsmoke.

  “Actually, I was going to call earlier but I had a few drinks in me and I wasn’t sure you’d be all that wild about my company.”

  “You don’t sound drunk.”

  “I’m not. I had a burrito and about a quart of hot sauce. I might be dying of indigestion soon, but I’m not drunk.”

  “Come on over. I can pick you up if you want, I don’t mind.”

  “Best offer I�
��ve had in days.”

  “I’m on my way,” she said, and hung up.

  He had enough time to wash up, put on a clean shirt, and toss a few things into closets before she showed up. He stood back from the door to let her in and she took two small steps in. The confusing Ms. McAuliffe had put on mascara, her only concession to makeup, and she was wearing a pair of jade earrings, his first present to her. She was smiling and the green eyes held a little light as though she knew something secret that hadn’t occurred to him yet.

  “Hi,” he said, and was about to say something else when she shook her head.

  “Men spend most of their day saying stupid things,” she said. She moved toward him, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. Her lips and cheeks were cold and she smelled as though she’d just left the shower, and just as he was about to break off the kiss, her tongue found its way into his mouth.

  She took a step back and he saw her reddish glow: the only woman he’d ever known who blushed when she kissed.

  “I’ll be ready in ten seconds. Less than that, even.”

  Eventually they made it to her place, and had a beer and made quiet contented small talk through the first half of an old movie. Whelan was gazing around her tidy living room when he realized she was watching him.

  “What?”

  “I was a little worried.”

  “About what?”

  “I think we were both actually angry last time.”

  “People get mad, it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t have a significance of its own.”

  “I know that, that’s not what I was worried about. I think people get angry and let something unimportant become an issue and then they have to take a position. Sometimes, early in a relationship, people look for an excuse to fight, just to establish for themselves that they’re still, you know, free.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “You think that’s what I was doing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can’t I get pissed off?”

  “Sure, and I’ll give you more reason than anybody you’ve ever been with, but you can’t make little things into something more than they are.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You didn’t call me. How long were you going to go without calling me?”

  “It wasn’t something I planned out.”

  “How many days do you punish somebody for pissing you off?”

  “I was going to call you tonight but, like I said, I had a couple drinks in me…”

  “It was probably because you had a couple in you that you even thought about calling me.”

  “Are we gonna fight again?”

  “Might be healthier than what we were doing.” She moved closer to him on the couch. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought you cared about me.”

  “I do.”

  “You ever gonna tell me?”

  “Sure.” He looked away from her.

  “Afraid to talk about it?”

  “No. I’m not.” He studied the label on his beer. It said the beer was made from natural products and ingredients. “I’m not afraid to talk about it.”

  “You’re afraid to tell me you care about me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “So do it.”

  “Don’t you know by now?”

  “Know what?” She seemed on the verge of laughter.

  “All right, have a few laughs at my expense.” A moment later he said, “I care about you. I’m glad you called me.”

  “This ends our first lesson,” she said, and put her arms around him.

  When he woke the next morning, she was in the kitchen, singing in her bent voice to an old Beatles song on the radio and making her uniquely cheery but raucous kitchen clatter. He shook his head: a woman given to long silences, who cherished quiet afternoons sitting in a window sipping tea but could rouse the ghosts of her ancestors with her noise in the morning.

  Eventually the smell of coffee pulled him out of bed and he padded to her bathroom.

  Still crooning, she was scrambling eggs when he made it out to the kitchen. She smiled. “Morning, sunshine.”

  “Morning.” She was wearing a brightly flowered blouse and dark blue slacks. He shook his head.

  “You look like Donna Reed.”

  “I do not. I’m dressed for work. You’ve caught my act on a Saturday morning once, I believe.” She gave him a sardonic look. “Did I look like Donna Reed then?”

  “As I recall, you looked wonderful and burned an omelet in an attempt to impress me.”

  She laughed. “There’s coffee. Get it yourself.”

  “You’re not going to wait on me?”

  “Lincoln freed the slaves. All of them. Put some toast in, why don’t you.”

  He poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it back to the table, then put four slices of whole wheat into her ancient toaster. In seconds, she came over with the pan full of eggs and scraped some out onto his plate and the rest onto hers.

  She sat down across from him and put salt and pepper on her eggs, then looked up at him. “What are you waiting for? I even put out a bottle of ketchup. My concession to your odd tastes.”

  “I saw. I’m deeply moved.”

  “So eat.”

  “I was watching and listening to the toaster.” From the fat, boxy old toaster a steady whirring noise could be heard, then something that sounded like the coiling of a spring. Little plumes of steam rose from the dark openings at the top. He shook his head. “Maybe it’s time for a new toaster.”

  “It was my mom’s. I intend to use it till it incinerates my toast.”

  “Your mom’s? ’Nuff said.”

  They ate quietly for a few moments and Whelan told himself this was a fine way to begin a day. The sound of her quiet laughter brought him out of his reverie.

  “What’s so funny? What did I miss?”

  “You are one of the few people I’ve ever met who smiles at his food.”

  Embarrassed, he said, “I was just thinking…”

  “You were thinking about your food. You smile at your food a lot. You smile at pad thai, you smile at burritos, you smile at bibim bop. Paul, you smile at hot dogs.”

  “But today I’m just in a good mood.”

  She raised her eyebrows slightly. “Some people like waking up with someone. Folks do it every morning.”

  “I know.”

  She picked up her coffee and took a sip. Then she leaned forward, still holding the cup in both hands, and regarded him over the cup. “About what we were saying last night. I just want to make one little point. It’s not a plea on my own behalf or anything like that, because I think you know I kind of like being single. In a lot of ways. But if we were together, it would be a nice life, nicer than both of us have most of the time.” She looked at him with something like defiance and took another sip of her coffee. “I know you, some mornings you’d be in a hurry to leave for work and get away from me, and some mornings I probably wouldn’t want to talk to you, but every morning we’d be together. Some people think about the nights, I always think about the mornings. Starting the day.”

  He sipped at his own coffee and thought about the difference it would make in his life, and nodded slowly. “I’m thinking. I’ll admit I’m thinking.”

  “Fair enough,” she said. Then she looked at the bold red stripes of ketchup across his eggs and shuddered.

  Five

  It was 9:20 when he finally made it into the office but he was only mildly irritated at the slow start.

  A logical man, Whelan told himself, would be back looking for the boy, but Detective Albert Bauman had complicated things, and Whelan realized he was already deep into a different process. The boy would keep. The boy would keep because he was dead.

  The restaurant was on the northwest corner of the street, directly across from the King’s Palace, where there was a FOR SALE sign out front.

  “Say it ain’t so,” Whelan muttered. The King’s Palace, the ultimate lounge an
d home of the Hightones, three middle-aged men with dyed hair and white shoes who couldn’t sing, dance or play but for almost two decades had been mining the music of their betters. Whelan had long assumed that the King’s Palace would outlast Chicago, that in some post-nuclear-Armageddon Chicago there would be this one building, and in it, till the end of time, there would be these three guys doing their Beatles medley and their Tribute to the Motown Sound. If the King’s Palace went under, what would become of the Hightones? The other sign was still there, the miniature marquee that screamed out DIRECT FROM LAS VEGAS, THE HIGH TONES! Well, not exactly direct. They’d been playing here in 1967. He took another look at the newly vacant little lounge and went across the street.

  The restaurant was a twenty-four-hour diner that boasted ice cream specialties. Whelan had been there several times: roomy booths and a long laminated menu, soda fountain, cheap dinners and two dozen kinds of sandwiches, breakfast any time—all the signs of a Greek-run Chicago eatery. He waited outside and peered in through the window for a minute or two.

  Four customers sat at the counter, one of them an unshaven older man who sat jotting things into a small spiral notebook and shooting sour glances at the other patrons. A sweat-stained fedora rested beside his cup like a pet rat, and Whelan could see a folded newspaper peeking out from beneath the man’s plate of sausage and eggs.

  Whelan went in and slid onto a stool beside the old man. The notebook disappeared into a pocket of the blue raincoat, but Whelan thought he saw the names of baseball teams and dollar amounts. The waitress finished taking an order from two men in a booth and came back behind the counter. She was a fiftyish woman with a round face and the bearing of a grandmother.

  “Be with you in a sec, sir.” A moment later she was poised to take his order.

  “You have a lot of ground to cover.”

  She lifted up one foot to show her new sneakers. “That’s why we wear track shoes, dear. Breakfast today?”

  “Just coffee.”