Death in Uptown

by Michael Raleigh

  “This guy shouldn’t be hard to pick out in a crowd, Mr. Whelan,” Don said, putting as much nonchalance into his voice as he could manage.

  “Should be easy,” Tom added. He put his hands on his hips and looked out the window, trying mightily to look world-weary.

  “I’m glad you guys are so interested in this stuff. I’ve got another puzzle for you. This fella’s family wants me to find him” He took Gerry Agee’s picture from his wallet and let them each have a look at it. “Try to imagine him with a little dirt on his face and maybe a week’s growth of beard.”

  Both young men leaned forward and produced more intensity, and Whelan suppressed the urge to laugh. After all, these were his colleagues now. Tom Waters inclined his head to one side. “Seems to me…I could be wrong, but I think I’ve seen him.” He looked up at Whelan. “But he looks different now, just like you say. He’s going bald in front. And he’s…he looks a lot older, in his thirties.”

  “No, Tom. This kid is your age and he’s still got all his hair, at least to my knowledge.”

  “Oh,” Tom said, crestfallen. Don Ewald was squinting at the photo.

  “It’s okay, guys. Just let me know if you see anybody like him, or if you run across this red-haired kid.”

  Ewald looked at him, blinking. “You’re looking…for a lot of people.”

  “Yeah, sure seems like it to me.”

  “This Billy the Kid,” Waters said. “Mr. Whelan, is this guy…you know, that name and everything…”

  “You mean, is he a hard guy? Well, don’t try to hold on to him till I come. He’s a handful, they tell me.”

  Tom Waters frowned slightly. “I’m not afraid of any of these men, Mr. Whelan. You can’t do the Lord’s work in a place like this if you’re afraid.”

  “I can see that, Tom. Just be careful. You don’t want a face like mine.”

  They both laughed nervously and Whelan left.

  He spent the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon hitting all his contacts again. He stopped by St. Augustine’s and this time talked to Father Collins, the slender Episcopal priest who was the actual administrator of the Indian center. The priest was a different type of source than Abby, and a conversation with him was a chess match. Shrewd and thoughtful, and said to possess a wondrous memory for faces, the priest was also intensely protective of his Indian clients. Whelan knew that when the priest looked at him, he still saw a blue uniform. Whelan accepted these limitations on his questions: the priest was a good guy, the Indians could use all the help they could get, and if you pumped your source for information he wasn’t inclined to give you, you lost a source. There were few things dumber that an investigator could do. Whelan asked him about Billy—whom he said he knew but hadn’t seen since Billy had scuffled with a couple of Menominee boys a few weeks earlier—and about Gerry Agee. Father Collins studied the photograph, shook his head and said simply, “Poor small-town boy like that will never know what hit him.”

  Whelan popped over to the Public Aid office on Broadway, tried the day-labor places and a rooming house on Lawrence and Gino the barber on Racine. Then he hit the taverns: the Wooden Nickel and the Red Rooster, and the Golden Goose, a striptease bar where the girls gyrated to jukebox music and provided their own quarters for their music. No one could tell him anything. Outside the Goose he saw Bauman and Rooney. They were parked across the street. Rooney leaned against the Caprice and Bauman blocked off the sidewalk and they took turns asking a pair of wobbling old men the same questions Whelan had been asking all day.

  Why not? he thought and crossed the street toward them. Both of the detectives looked around as he approached, and Bauman nodded slightly.

  “Afternoon, gents. How’s business?”

  Bauman shrugged and Rooney gave him a sour look, shaking his head at Whelan’s new face. The two old men took this opportunity to waddle off and Bauman boomed out, “Hey, you two!”

  The old men stopped as though shot. Bauman stalked over to them. “I ain’t done with you yet, so don’t go shufflin’ off the first time I turn my head. You see these people, you get in touch with me, you hear? Call me at the number I gave you or leave a message with the Greek in the coffee shop. Awright? Now, go on, get outta here.”

  The taller of the two old men gave Bauman a look that should have withered his halls and Bauman laughed. “You don’t like me, huh? Well, okay, fair enough.” He grinned at them and then turned to face Whelan.

  “So, Shamus. How’s your face? Lookit his face, Roon. He was out boxin’ last night. Right, Whelan?” Rooney pursed his lips and looked away, shaking his head again, an aggrieved pro in the presence of amateurs.

  “He’s not much good at this part of the work, our boy. Are you, Whelan?” He caught the malice in Bauman’s eyes and read the message: Friday night was an aberration, this is reality.

  “Guess not. Not like you professional law enforcement officers. Making a lot of progress, are you?”

  “You doing any better? You’re looking kind of sweaty, Whelan. No air in that beater of yours? Better wring that fancy shirt out, guy.”

  “I don’t know about you, detective, but I don’t wring mine out. I wash ’em. I’ll put on a clean one if I decide to go out dancing.”

  “What’s that mean? You wash ’em. Meaning what? Like I don’t?” Bauman took a step in his direction and Whelan stood his ground.

  “What’s the matter, Bauman, I thought English was your native language. You have a problem with English?”

  “No, no I don’t. I don’t have a problem with English, asshole. You got a problem?” Bauman’s lips parted slightly and a thread of saliva hung from the upper lip.

  “Detective Bauman, sir, fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

  Bauman looked at him for a moment, and Rooney muttered, “Jesus,” and then Bauman surprised him with a laugh.

  “It’s hot, Whelan.”

  “Yeah. It’s hot and I’ve been out cruising all day. I’ve had all the sun I need for a month.”

  Bauman nodded and looked around idly. Halfway up the block, horns blared and a pair of motorists got out of their cars, apparently intent on doing battle.

  “Lookit this. Lookit these two assholes,” Bauman said. The motorists, a Latino and a Korean, gestured violently at each other, yelled, indicated stoplights and the relative merits of each other’s driving, questioned each other’s parentage in three languages and were about to come to blows when Bauman yelled out in a voice that could have brought down buildings. “Hey. HEY, YOU TWO!”

  They turned and he held up his badge and walked a few steps toward them and gestured angrily.

  “Get back in your cars and get the hell outta here. Get in your cars, you assholes, or come with me.” He kept walking till both men slid back behind the wheels of their cars. He kept yelling and brandished his badge as they drove by, and Whelan could see both drivers crouching down behind their steering columns for protection from the wrath of Albert Bauman. Bauman laughed as they drove off. At the next corner the Korean blew past a stop sign and Bauman laughed hysterically.

  He walked back toward Rooney and Whelan, still laughing.

  “Summer in the city, eh, Whelan?”

  “You throw yourself into your work, Bauman. I’ll give you that.”

  “Aw, I just like to have a little fun.” He tucked his wallet back into a jacket pocket.

  “So how about some help, Bauman?”

  The detective looked at Whelan and frowned. Rooney gave a little irritable shake of the head. Bauman was right: Rooney would drive anyone crazy.

  “You’re shaking your head, detective, and you haven’t even heard what I want yet.”

  Bauman laughed. “He wants ya to go through channels, Whelan. Right, Roon?”

  Bauman looked at his partner. Rooney curled one side of his lip and Bauman laughed again.

  “Okay, Whelan. So whatcha got, huh?”

  “Got a case. A real one. With a client and a fee and the whole enchilada.
Missing person.”

  “Family report it?”

  “It’s nothing like that. There’s no evidence of foul play or anything like that. As far as I can make out, the guy was a drinker and ran into trouble and just dropped out.”

  “Went under, huh?” Whelan nodded. “You know he prob’ly don’t want to he found, right?”

  “Sure. I’ve got a picture. Sort of.” He handed Bauman the photograph and the detective let out a whoop.

  “Oh, lookit here, a choirboy. Whelan, this ain’t a picture. It ain’t a picture of anybody, you know that?” There was genuine mirth in Bauman’s eyes.

  “It’s his mama’s impression of him but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “Lookit this, Roon.” He showed the photograph to Rooney. “This guy prob’ly don’t look anything like this. He’s probably got warts and buckteeth and an Adam’s apple like a pumpkin, and look what comes out of the darkroom. Shoulda seen my graduation picture. I looked like a priest. Your picture look like you, Roon? Oh, what am I sayin’, they didn’t have cameras when Rooney was a kid.”

  Rooney gave him an irritated look. “Yeah, they had cameras, for Chrissake, Bauman, they had cameras a hundred years ago. Mathew Brady—”

  “Aw, fuck Mathew Brady, Rooney, I was just makin’ a joke. Don’t be such an old lady.” He looked at Whelan. “He’s got no fucking sense of humor.” He handed the photograph back. “I never seen anybody remotely like this. How old is this guy?”

  “Early twenties.”

  “Nah. Haven’t seen him.”

  “Thanks, anyway.”

  “Don’t mention it.” As Whelan walked away, Bauman called out to him.

  “Hey, Whelan. I been doin’ some thinking. Maybe I’ll look you up in a day or so. Pick your brain a little about this stuff.”

  Just what I need, he thought. “Anytime” is what he said.

  Whelan parked at a meter that still had a half hour on it and walked east on Chicago for a block till he came to the Lawson YMCA. The desk clerk was a young man with a Wyatt Earp mustache and bright blue eyes. He gave Whelan’s face a quick once-over, smiled and said, “Howdy.”

  “Hi, My name’s Whelan and I’m a private detective.”

  “Outstanding!” the young man said, and Whelan laughed.

  He explained his investigation, allowed the young man to scrutinize his license, and asked him if he remembered Gerry Agee.

  The clerk nodded. “Oh, yeah, I remember Gerry. Okay guy. Real quiet, stayed to himself, you know? Lot of the other men here are older guys.” He consulted the registration record and nodded. “Yeah, here it is. He split in April. April fifteenth, he paid up to. Then he took off.”

  “What else can you tell me about him?”

  The clerk looked off into a corner of the room. “Not much. Like I say, he was real quiet. Just a nice guy. Seemed like, I don’t know, a small-town guy. Country boy, you know?”

  “Hope, Michigan.”

  The clerk laughed. “There you go.”

  “Did he have any places he went for fun? A tavern? Any friends among the men staying here?”

  “Not that I know of. Listen, if you want, you can go up those stairs to the second floor. Turn left and you’ll find the lounge. There’s usually a couple of guys watching TV and one of them might be able to tell you about Gerry.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate your help.”

  “No problem.”

  The lounge was a wide room filled with dark furniture and dominated by a large color TV. The air was blue with smoke and there were a half dozen men sitting around the room in various degrees of involvement with the TV. The Game of the Week was on, Dodgers at St. Louis, and no one looked up when he came in. One of the men was fishing surreptitiously in a large standing ashtray for smokable butts. Whelan crossed the room and sat down beside him.

  “Have a smoke?”

  A worried-looking man in his early fifties, he nodded eagerly and Whelan held out his pack. Whelan took one himself, lit both and took a lungful of smoke. The older man took a puff, gave the cigarette a funny look and then broke off the filter. He took another drag, exhaled, sighed contentedly, said, “Thanks,” and looked back at the TV.

  “Gerry Agee,” Whelan said quietly.

  The man looked Whelan up and down, studied the bruises. “You’re not a cop—right?”

  “Right. Private investigator. His family wants to find him.” He placed his pack of cigarettes on the wooden arm of the man’s chair.

  The man looked Whelan in the eye. “Could be he don’t want ’em to find him, you know?”

  “I know. But they hired me to do a job and I have to give ’em a break. I took their money, I have to make an honest effort to find the kid. You remember him?”

  “I remember him,” the man said, looking at the TV. “Younger than anybody else here. Didn’t talk to nobody. Just sat over there in that green chair and read the papers. Looked at street maps all the time, tryin’ to learn how to get around. You could see he didn’t know the city. Not from around here at all.”

  “Can you tell me anything about him?”

  The man shrugged. “He was just kind of a strange kid. Never said more than a couple words. Didn’t seem to do much except walk around. Took walks a lot. I used to see him sometimes, walking around. There’s not much I can tell you about him, but you could ask Harvey over there about him. He had the room next to that kid. He thought the kid was kinda crazy, he told me.”

  Whelan looked across the room and saw a tall sunburned man with thin blond hair. The man seemed to feel Whelan’s gaze: he looked at Whelan for a moment and then looked away.

  “Thanks. Here, take a few more smokes.” He opened the pack and pulled out half a dozen, leaving himself three. The man mumbled his thanks and took the smokes eagerly.

  Whelan went over and sat down on the couch next to Harvey. The blond man turned, took his time looking over Whelan’s facial injuries, and looked away. Whelan was slightly uneasy. This was a man who did not take a lot from people. He held out his cigarette pack.

  Harvey shook his head without looking at him. “Got my own,” he said, with a slight twang.

  Whelan watched the game for a moment, biding his time. The Dodgers loaded the bases and the Cardinal pitcher, the eccentric, perhaps even disturbed, Joaquin Andujar, hit the next Dodger batter in the back. A brawl ensued, the Dodgers had a run and Andujar was warned for throwing at batters. He walked the next man on four pitches.

  “Aaaah, shit,” Harvey said, and fished a cigarette out of a pack in his shirt pocket.

  “Cardinal fan?”

  “I’m from Missouri.” He shook his head. “Whyn’t they take that guy out? Everybody could see he was losin’ his head, that one.”

  “Yeah, well, your team’s still better than my team.”

  Harvey looked at him with a small smile. “That’s a fact.”

  “Fella over there says you knew Gerry Agee.”

  Harvey raised his eyebrows. “Friend of yours?”

  “No. I’m a detective. His family hired me to find him. They haven’t heard from him since March, when he was staying here. What can you tell me about him?”

  Harvey looked back at the screen and shook his head, then looked back at Whelan. “He’s a strange one.” He tapped his temple. “Something missing up here. I don’t know as I’d want him back, if I was his kin.”

  “Why? What did he do that was strange?”

  Harvey shrugged. “Never talked to anybody down here but you shoulda heard him in his room. Had real interesting conversations in his room.”

  “In his room? With who? You mean with himself?”

  Harvey smiled and tapped his head again. “All by his lonesome. Arguments, he had arguments. And you know what the spooky part was? He did the voices.”

  “The what? The voices?”

  “The voices in the argument. He’d do both people, and his voice would get real deep when he was the other one.”

  Whelan thought for a moment of the cherubic
photograph and tried to imagine that face contorted by madness, stalking a narrow room and imagining confrontations with faces from his past. He suppressed a shiver, blew out a long sigh.

  Harvey smiled tightly and nodded. “Yeah, imagine wakin’ up in the middle of the night and hearing that comin’ through the walls.”

  “Was he…did he drink a lot before these episodes?”

  “We didn’t socialize, mister.” Harvey allowed himself a smile. “Oh, I heard the sound of a bottle and a glass now and then but that guy wasn’t just drunk. I’m telling you, he was crazy.” He leaned forward and held Whelan’s gaze. “That wasn’t just liquor I was hearin’. That one’s crazy.”

  “Do you know why he left?”

  Harvey shook his head. “Didn’t ask. Good riddance.”

  Whelan stood up. “Well, thanks.”

  Harvey looked up. “Sorry I can’t give you nothing good to take back to his people.”

  “It’s all right. It’s important, all the same.”

  He went downstairs to the clerk.

  “Did you get what you need, Mr. Whelan?”

  “I got an earful. Tell me, when Gerry left, did he give you a reason?”

  “No. But he talked a couple of times about trying to get into construction. He said somebody told him there were two big projects going up in Uptown.”

  “I live there and there’s nothing going on that I know of. Did he have money?”

  “Couldn’t have had a lot or he wouldn’t have been staying here.”

  “But, to your knowledge, was he in money trouble when he left here? Could that have been his reason for leaving?”

  “No, I didn’t get that impression. I think he just wanted to get out and find work. I told him he wouldn’t like Uptown, though. Told him there were a lot of winos down there, that he’d just be seeing a lot of people he wouldn’t like.”