Purcell misread the pause. “Bad news?”
“No, no, not about that at least. He’s fine. What happens to him next is anybody’s guess but he’s still alive.”
“Great,” Purcell said and stepped back. “Come on in.”
Whelan entered the hallway and stood at the entrance to the tiny living room. He was about to speak when Purcell beat him to it.
“Jack’s not here. He went out to get a sandwich.”
“Should I wait?”
“Oughtta be back any minute.”
“Well, then I’ll wait.”
A boy yelled out from the back of the house and Purcell excused himself, shaking his head and moving with the slow, weary steps of an older man. Whelan picked up an old issue of Sports Illustrated and leafed through it. A few minutes later he heard the door open.
Jack Mollan entered the room wearing a Cincinnati Reds cap and carrying a white paper bag about to give way to wet grease stains along the bottom. He raised his eyebrows when he noticed Whelan.
Whelan put the magazine down and got to his feet and nodded, wondering how to begin. Then he saw the look of comprehension that came into Mollan’s eyes and realized he didn’t have to say a thing.
Mollan took off his cap and scratched at the back of his head. “You’re here to see me, right?”
“Yes.”
Mollan nodded and then seemed to notice that he was about to lose the bottom of his bag. He laid it on a magazine atop a side table and turned to face Whelan.
“So you know.”
“I’m in the dark about a lot of it, but I think I do, yes.”
“And you expect me to talk about it?”
“I don’t expect anything. I just know what you did.”
“Think anybody cares? A couple of scumbags are history…”
“More than a couple,” Whelan said, prodding. He held up his fingers and ran off the list. “Makowski, Nelson, Rory Byrne, Bobby Hayes, Whitey, an old fence named Les, and Mr. Jimmy Lee Hayes.”
Halfway through the list Mollan was shaking his head. He kept shaking it after Whelan had finished. “No, those don’t have anything to do with me. Except two. Just two.”
“The first one and the last one. I know.”
Mollan nodded again. “How? I mean, not that I sat up at night and tried to create the perfect crime but…how’d you figure it out?”
“Couple things. I found Tony.”
Mollan gave him an appraising look. “Nice work.”
“A guy showed up on Argyle Street right after I did. As a matter of fact, right after I talked to you. I asked you if you remembered Tony hanging out with anybody there. And then this guy shows up looking for him. A guy in a cap,” and he nodded toward the Reds cap Mollan’s fingers were worrying.
“Doesn’t prove it was me. Even if it was…so what?”
“And then there was something else he said. He said you told him something and it was the same advice you gave Sonny Portis. You told me you never knew Sonny, that he was gone from Archer before you got here.”
“That part was true. He was gone before I took the job.” Mollan looked off into space and then studied Whelan for a moment. “Tony’s okay?”
“Yes. Should I be glad you never found him?”
‘No. I wasn’t going to hurt him. Just ask him where these animals were.”
“I need to know the ‘why’ of this.”
“Because they were scumbags, like I said. That’s why.”
“The world’s full of them. Far as I know, you’ve only gotten rid of two.”
“Those were just the ones I caught up with. I don’t know what happened to these other ones, didn’t have nothing to do with me. I was just glad about how it turned out. The papers seemed to think it was some kind of infighting so I figured I’d just hang back and catch the survivors. Any of ’em left?” He feigned a look of curiosity.
“No, you’re finished. They’re all gone. But I need to know why you started this.”
“You got a long nose. Maybe that’s why you’re good at what you do. But you got that look in your eye like you know why.”
“I think it was about Sonny Portis rather than Tony. I’m not sure how it all played out but I’ve got an idea. I’m guessing that Jimmy Lee Hayes or one of his people killed Sonny, that they suspected him of informing. They killed him and you decided to kill them.”
Mollan made a little sideways nod and said, “Not bad. Yeah, I knew Sonny. I knew him in another place.”
“Another group home?”
Mollan laughed a mirthless laugh. “Oh, yeah. Another group home, one that I ran. But this one was in Ohio. He was placed with a family, they couldn’t handle his personality—he was a good kid but he had a temper and this family, I guess it wasn’t their fault. They weren’t prepared for a kid like him, they wanted somebody, you know…”
“A kid out of their dreams,” Whelan finished.
“Yeah, that’s what they wanted. Anyhow, it just didn’t work out for him. Next thing we knew, he was in a state agency, then on the streets and then he disappeared. Later on we heard he was in Chicago, had an uncle or somebody here.”
“And you came here looking for him?”
“More or less. I mean, I came here to get situated again. Things didn’t work for me back there, I didn’t have…I got divorced. I wanted to go someplace new. And I didn’t have a family, no wife, no, you know, responsibilities, so…I guess I started trying to track him down. Eventually I ran into him on the street up by Clark and Diversey. He looked like he was living in the sewers, for Chrissake, weighed about seventy-five pounds. I thought it would break my heart. He didn’t want to talk to me and I couldn’t blame him. I’m fairly sure he was turning tricks up there.”
“Was he the first kid from your home to be back on the streets?”
Jack Mollan gave Whelan a look of disgust. “No, he wasn’t, and don’t patronize me, Whelan. You’re a smart guy, and maybe I’ve got some things to work out, but I’m not an idiot.”
“I’ve never thought you were. I’m just trying to understand—”
“He was special. He was a good kid, a kid with a sense of humor and a lot of individuality; there’s never any logic to why one kid’s got a life and another one doesn’t, but this was a good kid. Anybody’d be proud to have a kid like this. Shoulda been proud, anyway,” he said, and Whelan could read his thoughts.
“He was special. We’re not supposed to be, you know, we’re not supposed to get involved but…He was my favorite kid. My favorite. He reminded me of me, when I was growing up. He came from…he had the same kinda background I had. Same kind of family.” Jack Mollan’s voice began to break and show stress, and Whelan found himself looking away, unable any longer to meet Mollan’s eyes.
For a minute or two there was silence and when Mollan spoke again it was in a softer, more controlled voice. “I tried to get him into a program, found out he’d just been in this one. I saw him on the street one other time and he looked better, he was cleaned up a little and had decent clothes on. He told me he was doing odd jobs for a guy at a garage.”
“Roy’s.”
“Yeah. And I asked around and found out that Roy’s was where this Jimmy Lee Hayes and his people ran a small-time chop shop and got rid of stolen goods, shit like that. So I knew how he was making his money. I talked to a couple cops I know over at Town Hall and Area Six and they told me what a scuzz this guy was. And I watched him. I sat outside that garage and found out who he was, what he looked like, who his, you know, his people were. And all along, Whelan, I had a bad feeling about it.
“I tracked Sonny down a couple of times after that and tried to talk him out of it, told him he was in with real shit people, but I wasn’t reaching him. He had money in his pocket and new clothes and the bullshit that seems to make a difference to a teenager and he thought this guy Jimmy Lee Hayes was hot shit. I was just a counselor.”
Mollan ran his fingers through his hair. “Eventually I think they got in
to stuff that scared him.”
“Jimmy Lee graduated,” Whelan said. “He was moving into drugs and more lucrative commerce.”
“Yeah. And Sonny started talking to a couple cops. Next thing I knew, he was dead in an alley.” He raised his eyebrows and looked Whelan head-on. “And I knew who killed him, and I couldn’t see straight, I wanted that big asshole so bad. A lot of things make me angry, Whelan. A lot of things, maybe more than other people. Always been that way. And this…this was it. So I went out looking for this guy. Took me a while, but I found him.”
“You should have left it alone. Hayes wasn’t a real smart man, the cops would have had him eventually.”
“Then he’d still be alive,” Mollan said in a dead voice.
“With his record, he would have been in for life. No matter what people say, prison’s no substitute for freedom. Jimmy Lee would have been inside forever.”
Mollan lowered himself onto a chair and sat perched at the edge, as though he’d just stopped in for a moment. He put his hands together and head down. For a long moment Whelan could think of nothing to say. He wanted to take Mollan by the shirtfront and put his face to the other man’s face and tell him what a fool he was, what a waste he’d made of his life. But this was no time to add cruelty to another man’s pain. Whelan thought about what Mollan had told him about his life: God only knew what other emotional baggage Jack Mollan had been carrying with him. An angry man doing angry things.
In the end he gave it up. He got to his feet and moved toward the door. Mollan looked up at him, a question in his eyes.
“I’m sorry about Sonny.”
“Yeah, thanks. You going to the cops, or have you already been?”
“I made a call. The rest is up to you. I’m out of it. I wish you luck, though. And don’t do anything stupid.”
Mollan made a little shrug, said “Thanks,” and looked off into the back of the house, seeing things only he knew. Whelan took a final look at him, a harsh man with a heart full of pain, and went outside.
The gray Caprice was waiting a discreet three car lengths away. Whelan walked slowly up the street and stopped at the driver’s side window. Bauman was tapping his fingers impatiently on the outside of the door and squinting at him. To his right, Landini sat, hickey and all, arms folded across his chest and staring up the street in what could only be described as a sulk.
“He in there?” Bauman asked.
“Yes. He won’t give you any trouble.”
“Talk to me.”
“No, I’m all talked out. He’ll talk to you, just take it easy.”
“Fuck this shit,” Landini said, looking out his window. “We spend half the day talkin’ to this hillbilly broad at the saloon and now we’re gonna jaw with this guy…”
Whelan felt something pop. He leaned closer. “Hey, why don’t you grow up, or rethink your career choice?”
Landini jerked around in his seat. “You wanta say something to me?”
“I just did. You’re baggage, you’re a teenager playing cop. You think this is some kind of game and you’re some kind of hard shit, you ride around in a car all day giving people your badass impression. Look at you, you smell like Sophia Loren and you’ve got a hickey halfway up the side of your head. What are you, fourteen?”
Landini was halfway out of the car, face dark red, an odd little pulse visible in his temple.
“You want a piece of me, asshole?”
“Grown men don’t fight in the street like animals. Police officers don’t fight in the street. You want to show me how bad you are, find a gym with a ring. A ring and two pairs of sixteen-ounce gloves, that’s all we’ll need. I think they’ve got a ring at Hamlin Park, right over by Area Six. You set it up, bring all your friends, and give me a call.”
Bauman blinked at Whelan, then looked at his partner. “You, get back in the fuckin’ car, act your age.” Then he leaned out his window. “And what the hell is with you? You got parts coming loose or what?”
Whelan watched Landini. “I’m having a bad day.”
“So what? Landini here’s havin’ a bad life. This thing on his neck won’t come off. I think the broadie sucked all his blood out.”
“Hey, you—” Landini began and then found Bauman’s finger in his face.
“No, you,” Bauman growled. “You let it go. This isn’t the fucking schoolyard. This is a homicide case, there’s people dead and I wanta sort it out and I don’t much care if you do it with me, but you ain’t getting out of my car and doin’ your Muhammad Ali. You get outta my car, you need a new partner. You got that?”
The younger cop kept his eyes on Whelan for a five-count, then got back in the car. Bauman lit up one of his little cigars and gave Whelan an appraising look.
“So, you need a tranquilizer? You need to get laid, you need more fiber in your diet, what? What’s with you?”
“I’m all right.”
“Couldn’t prove it by me.” Bauman puffed at the little cigar and filled the air with gray smoke and the smell of burning tires. Then he sniffed and rubbed his nose and Whelan waited.
“That kid they took out about a year ago, that was one of these kids from this joint, right?”
“Yeah.”
Whelan watched Bauman’s wheels turning. The detective kept his eyes on Whelan but said nothing. Then he nodded.
“Talk back then was, Jimmy Lee whacked that kid. No evidence, though. Nothing to hold him on, even. These fucking street kids, Whelan, they’re fair game for every kind of shit in the world.” Bauman shook his head, then opened the door and hoisted his big frame out of the car. He waited for Landini to emerge, then hitched up his pants, unaware that as soon as he let go of his waistband, the pants sagged down beneath the sheer bulk of his stomach. A few feet away, Rick Landini tucked his tapered shirt in over his washboard stomach and refused to look at either of them.
Bauman looked down the street at Archer House. “A guy like that.” He shook his head. “Now look at all this shit.”
“Yeah. Hey, Landini, I’m sorry. I lost it for a second.”
Landini fixed him with hard stare, then nodded. “My fault. I was outta line.”
“No, I was just—”
Bauman scowled. “So now you gonna fight about whose fault it was? Come on, I want to get this over with.” And with that, he strode heavily down the street. A beat later, Landini nodded to Whelan and followed him.
Whelan crossed the street and got into his car. For a moment he listened to the quiet of the street. When the detectives had been inside for a minute and there were no signs of a problem, he started his car.
Eighteen
Whelan sat for almost a half hour in his office with the shades down and the light off, sipping at a cup of coffee. There were moments when the frayed ends of things, the weight of final truths, were more than he thought he was willing to endure for the price of his freedom. If you looked for people in trouble, you sometimes took on their troubles. If you worked for people near desperation, you ran the risk of taking part in their desperation.
Now, sitting in the darkened office, he told himself this one could have been worse: the boy, Tony, could have been dead, and he would have had to break that news to Mrs. Pritchett. And there was one other way this one could have been worse. But it was bad enough: a boy who’d had no life at all was dead, an unhappy man had turned killer and ruined his life. An old friend was living on the streets.
The phone rang.
“Paul Whelan.”
“Well, don’t pay the ransom. He escaped!” Shelley laughed into the phone.
“Hi, Shel. Yeah, I was out.”
“You sound like death, baby. What did they do to you out there?”
“People keep letting me find out things I don’t want to know. Think it’s time for me to take a vacation to someplace where they don’t have electricity.”
“No, you don’t need a vacation, you need somebody to warm your bed up for you. What happened to—”
“You know
what I like about you, Shel? The utter professionalism with which you approach your work.”
“That social worker,” she said, ignoring him. “Sandra what’s her name?”
“MacAuliffe. Sandra MacAuliffe.”
“Yeah. What about her? She sounded nice.”
“She is. I think I’m screwing that up, Shel.”
“What’s the point of being a man if you can’t screw something up, huh?”
He found himself laughing quietly at her.
“Listen, babe, I hate to interrupt your depression but you had a call. Strange one.”
“How strange? I’m not really in the mood.”
“Said to tell you Stan Laurel called. Do you know who that is?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“He sounded nervous.”
“If you had his life, you’d be nervous, too.”
“Is that his real name?”
“No, just an old joke from a long, long time ago when we thought everything was funny.”
“He said he’d see you at the office.”
“I thought he might come here.”
“Is this guy dangerous?”
“Not to me.”
“You gonna be all right?”
“Probably. I’ve been worse. Thanks, Shel.”
“Take care, baby.”
Stan Laurel. That went back almost thirty years, to a time when half their conversations centered on what they were going to be someday and the other half recounted what they saw on television. The Mick Byrne of that time, with his long, sad face and surprising ability as a mimic, could do a fine Stan Laurel, and Paul Whelan could offer a passable Oliver Hardy. The two boys in that little skit thought the world was going to be an easier place than it had turned out to be.
It occurred to him that Mick had left the cryptic message to tell him something: to tell him there was no trouble between them.
Ten minutes later the knock came.
“Come on in, it’s open. It’s always open.”
The door swung a tentative six inches and a head poked in, a head rapidly losing the hair on top. He could just make out the man’s eyes.
Killer on Argyle Street Page 25
