Death in Uptown

by Michael Raleigh

  They questioned him for a while, Bauman and Rooney; Bauman asked most of the questions and Rooney chewed Rolaids nonstop and left the room half a dozen times. They were the standard questions, making him reconstruct his movements and regurgitate his story over and over again, each time from a different angle. And then he stopped answering.

  Bauman leaned over him and blew cigar breath on him and stared into his eyes. “I asked you a question, Whelan. Answer it.”

  “I think I’ll call a lawyer.”

  “Oh, yeah? Think you need one?”

  “I think you’re dicking me around and if I get an attorney here I can tie up your time for a while and return the favor. You don’t have shit on me, Bauman. And I don’t think you actually suspect me.”

  Bauman snorted in his face. “You keep lookin’ for people and they keep turnin’ up dead. People we want to talk to.”

  “You’re connected to both of these dead men,” Rooney said.

  “So are you, as far as that goes. Come on, Bauman. What are you looking for?”

  Bauman took a couple of steps back and put his hands into his back pockets. “Seems to me, you been a couple steps ahead of us lately.”

  “No. I’ve been playing hunches. Going to that building, that was a hunch. Nothing more.”

  “So maybe you got other hunches. Maybe you got something else I should know, maybe to keep somebody else from turning into a stiff.”

  “I don’t know anything. I’d tell you if I did.”

  “Nothing? Come on, Whelan, think. Dig down, babe. Gimme something. This Sharkey, you got anything to tell me about him?”

  He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Another hunch.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I think he’s got a record. That’s what I think. This guy was on the run because of something he did, something in his past.”

  Bauman looked at him for a long time and then shrugged. “And that’s all you got? A guess? That’s it?” Bauman watched him for any sign of hesitation, any sign of deceit.

  “That’s what I’ve got. Now you’ve got it. Now let me out of here.”

  “Okay, Whelan. You can go,” and he looked at Rooney. “But only ’cause Rooney’s gotta eat dinner, right, Roon?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Rooney said, and Bauman laughed.

  It was evening when he returned to the neighborhood. His shirt stuck to his back like wet newspaper and he felt dirty. He was hungry, irritated that he’d had to pay for a cab back home and furious with Bauman.

  He thought of calling Jean and decided not to push it yet. When a lady says, “Call me tonight” it doesn’t mean ten after six.

  He took a shower, then sat in his living room with the shades pulled down to fight the setting sun. He sipped at a can of pop and eventually made himself an omelet: green peppers, tomatoes, onions, a little monterey jack and a couple of sliced jalapenos. It broke when he flipped it but it was still good, and he ate it with gusto as he watched the evening news. It occurred to him that none of the local stations would be carrying stories of the deaths of Billy the Kid or Hector. Unimportant lives, unimportant murders.

  After dinner he went out, drove to a liquor store and bought a six-pack, then drove over to the Wilson Men’s Club Hotel. Wade Sanders was standing in front, watching traffic dull-eyed, rapping halfheartedly to women who refused to look at him, and when Whelan hit the horn, Wade looked up. Whelan waved him over to the car.

  “Hey, Mr. Whelan.”

  “Get in, Wade. Let’s go have a couple pops.” He indicated the six-pack on the passenger seat.

  Wade chuckled. “Sounds righteous to me, man.” He hurried around to the other side and got in, grinning.

  Wade smelled up his car but Whelan didn’t mind. He drove to the park, stopped in the lot beside the bridge at Montrose, where the evening’s traffic of make-out couples and underage drinkers was just beginning to assemble. Whelan made small talk, listened as Wade catalogued the jobs that might be coming down the pike for him soon, and Whelan found himself watching the young face intently, looking for a shred of promise. It was an open face, surprisingly without fear or hostility. A drunk’s face. Genial and malleable and pitiful, and he knew this young man could be dead inside of two years.

  “When you gonna put the brakes on, Wade?”

  Wade stopped in mid-sip, looked at Whelan with surprise and shrugged. Disappointment came into the blue eyes.

  “Yeah, I know. I never hassle you. Well, just this once, kid, just this one time let me hassle you. Go back to Ottawa, Wade. Or go someplace else.”

  Wade looked sullenly out the window. “Ain’t nothing for me in Ottawa.”

  “Your ma ’s there. See your ma. Then go somewhere else. Anywhere. Anywhere else is better than this.”

  Wade gave him a surprised look. “Better than Chi? This is a happening town, man. There’s something going down every—”

  Whelan leaned over and clapped a hand on his shoulder, hard. “Not for you. Maybe not for me either but I’ve got a house here. But there’s nothing here for you. At least not as long as you suck those down all the time.”

  The boy looked at the beer can and opened his mouth to protest.

  “I know, I know: you’re gonna quit. Well, maybe you are, and maybe you aren’t. But right now, in this town, you’re going nowhere fast. You oughtta get out. Try someplace different, someplace smaller, maybe.”

  “Smaller? How’m I gonna find anything in a smaller place, man?”

  “Beats the shit out of me, Wade, but I know it’s easier to get lost in a big place. Easier to get swallowed up.”

  Wade watched him for a moment. “So what’s this all about, man?”

  “I was going to ask you a couple of things about this…this thing I’ve been working on and I guess I just got off on this other stuff. I like you. Always have.”

  He looked at the boy. Wade shifted uncomfortably in the seat, made a little shrugging motion and said nothing.

  “And this week I saw two guys who were living like you, one of them your age, and they’re both dead. Did you know Billy the Kid?”

  He shook his head. “No. I knew who he was, though. Heard he got killed.”

  “But you knew Hector.”

  “Hector? Hector’s dead, man?”

  “Somebody stuck him, Wade. I found his body this afternoon.” Wade stared out the window for a second, shaking his head. “I heard about Billy but I didn’t know about ol’ Hector. Hector was good people, man.”

  “And a week ago my friend Artie was killed, and he was a good guy, and he was a little like you, a little bit lost and a little too much of a drinker, and he is dead. Like you’re going to be soon.”

  He couldn’t believe he’d said it but he was glad. He could tell he’d made his point. Wade looked down at his beer, then took a sip just to be doing something.

  When he could speak, Wade shook his head, still looking away, and said, “I dunno where to go.”

  “Go where you have somebody. Go home. Tell ’em you’re in a little trouble. Tell ’em you booze if you have to. Force yourself, kid. Give yourself some room and some time. You know you’ll be welcome at your ma’s. You told me she can still tell your stepfather what to do, am I right?”

  The shaggy head nodded, but Whelan wasn’t convinced.

  “Wade, Billy was your age, and nobody from his family is ever gonna see him again. They might not even find out what happened to him.”

  The boy looked over at the parked cars; when he spoke, his voice was thicker, and Whelan thought he seemed like nothing so much as a lost child.

  “You’re right, Mr. Whelan. Ain’t doin’ myself no good here. I just…Jesus, I don’t wanna go shufflin’ home like a bum, have everybody see me in the shit like this.”

  “Happens to us all, kid. Just do it in style, if you’re gonna do it. I’ll give you a few bucks, you can go back wearing decent clothes. Clean yourself up, go home, tell ’em you got sick of the big town and let the word out you�
�re looking for work.”

  Wade laughed and sipped his beer. “You make it sound like a piece of cake. It ain’t like that. It ain’t no easy thing. And Ottawa, man, there’s not a whole lot in Ottawa.”

  “I didn’t say it would be easy. I just said that was how I thought you should do it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’s how I’d do it. Just go back for a while. What the hell, if it doesn’t work out back there, you can always split again, try someplace else. What have you lost?”

  This time there was no rebuttal and Whelan took a long pull at his beer. It tasted flat and cheap and made him want a cup of coffee.

  “You got to get out of here, Wade. These guys are all dying. You can’t tell because you’re with them, but they’re all dying, and it’s a hard way to go. Go home for a while. Use the time to think about your next step. Maybe Ottawa isn’t the place for you, maybe you’ll think of someplace else. But if you stay here, you’ll die here.”

  The boy nodded slowly and drained his beer. Whelan pulled another can loose and handed it to him. “C’mon, let’s go for a little ride. The man fixed my air conditioner, so I should use it.”

  As they drove along the lake, Wade slumped down into the seat and made noises of contentment.

  “Man, this feels sweet. This feels pretty boss to me.”

  Whelan laughed, and then a thought occurred to him. “Wade, what do you do at night when it’s hot. Where do you go?”

  Wade laughed. “I look for someplace with air-con and hope I don’t get hassled. You know how it is, man. You get a little change, you go sit someplace cool and you make one cup of coffee last an hour.”

  “No, I mean at night. To sleep. When your room’s too hot.”

  “Oh. Like the song says, man, ‘Up on the Roof.’ That’s where I go. There’s a door at the back of the third floor, leads right out onto the roof. I get up there with a blanket and my pillow and it’s real nice, man. You get some breeze up there. That room’s a fucking oven.”

  “You have the roof to yourself?”

  Wade pursed his lips. “Mostly. Hardly ever see anybody else up there. I dunno why. It’s pretty nice.”

  They stopped for a light at Ohio.

  “Whoa, check it out, Mr. Whelan.”

  In the next lane, a young Latino couple in a powder-blue convertible were going at it, ten rounds of contact sport. Whelan watched them absently till the motorist behind him honked to tell him the light had changed. He was having trouble concentrating because he was remembering the two open trapdoors over the porch on Beacon. He leaned over and turned on the radio. “I need a little music. Okay?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  They drove for a while and eventually returned to Uptown and the heat and grit of Wilson Avenue. He let Wade off in front of the hotel and told him to take the remaining beer.

  “But go easy on this stuff, kid. You hear?”

  Wade smiled at him. “I’ll give anything a shot once.”

  “Good enough. I’ll be talking to you. You think about what I said.”

  “Hey, thanks, man,” Wade said, and went into the rooming house.

  And Whelan drove away, nodding to himself. I’m gonna have to do more than just “chat” with you, kid. We’re gonna get you out of here.

  On a day when nothing else had gone right, it surprised him not at all that Jean had left her room. The desk clerk told him she’d stepped out for something to eat. This time, however, she’d left a message for him to call her later. He hung up, mollified by the message and amused at himself. A grown man, elated when the new girl tells him he has permission to call back.

  He sat back and looked at the wall clock. He thought of the little derelict named Sharkey who had been the cause of so much death. He wondered how long Sharkey could stay on the run, how he could even survive without his bodyguard. How far can he get? And he thought about what Wade had told him and the more he looked at it, the more obvious it became.

  I found him.

  He thought of calling Bauman but held back, suddenly uncertain. He drove over to Beacon and parked at the corner and went around the back of the building. He stood in the alley just outside the back gate and studied the building for a long moment. There was no movement. The old man who’d been sitting beneath the staircase that afternoon was long gone now, probably scared off for good by the sudden onslaught of police cars and uniforms and potbellied detectives. A single bright orange street lamp illuminated a short span of alley. The outer edge of the glow just touched the back of the building, and the longer he stared at it, the more alien he felt.

  He went up slowly and quietly, stopping at each landing and listening for twenty or thirty seconds. At the landing halfway to the third floor he stopped and took off his shoes. He climbed the remaining half dozen stairs in stocking feet and stopped on the porch and listened.

  The steel rungs that formed the ladder to the trapdoor began three feet off the floor. He put his foot on a pile of boards to give himself a boost and went up the rungs; it was no easy climb and he couldn’t see an older man doing it without a supreme effort.

  At the top rung he paused, held his breath for a moment and then pushed his head slowly up into the opening. He looked around slowly, allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness and then let out his breath. There was no more reason for stealth.

  He pulled himself up onto the roof and stayed in a low crouch as he surveyed the roof. He was alone, except for the small dark form across the roof.

  Sharkey had made it to the farthest corner of the roof, to the building’s edge, and died there. Whelan stooped down and turned the body over gently. It was stiff but surprisingly light. Even in the darkness he could see that the face had been savagely battered, the nose broken, the eyes pounded shut. The old man’s shirtfront was dark with blood, and when Whelan put his hand beneath the old man’s head, he touched a mass of bloody hair. It was too dark to determine the precise cause of death but it was a good bet that this man had died of the beating.

  He lay the head back gently and remained in a crouch, staring at the elusive old man named Sharkey. He’d get no answers to his questions from this man and his killer seemed farther away than ever. I find them all when they’re dead. Anger and frustration welled up in him and he slammed the tar-paper roof with his fist.

  “Goddamn!”

  And then he heard the steps on the wooden porch below.

  He got to his feet quickly, looked around for a place to escape and saw that there was a ten-foot gap between this roof and the nearest one. As he stared through the darkness at the trapdoor, a part of his mind told him that this must have been how the old derelict had felt just before he was killed.

  He felt the pounding quicken in his chest and tried to calm himself, to keep his head clear. Advantages. Room enough to fight, time enough to get an angle on the man coming up through the trap. He rushed toward the trapdoor and got behind it, poised, ready to stomp barefoot at the head that came up.

  A large heavy head came up even with the rooftop but no farther.

  “You up there, Whelan?”

  The breath went out of him and he watched the round face and crewcut of Bauman taking shape in the darkness. Bauman looked around, pulled himself up another rung and squinted into the darkness.

  “C’mon, Whelan, quit fuckin’ around. I saw you come up. Show yourself or I’ll have an accident with my service revolver.”

  Whelan hesitated, then came around into Bauman’s line of vision. Bauman paused, grinned maliciously, looked him up and down and then took in what he could of the rest of the roof. He squinted off in the direction of the body and then looked at Whelan, without a smile this time.

  “Back off, Whelan. I’m coming up.”

  Whelan took a step back and watched the bulky body squeeze through the trap. Bauman walked over to the corpse, pulled out a pocket flash and had a long look at the dead man. Whelan saw him shake his head and then crouch down beside the body. He remained on his haunches for perhaps half a minute, examinin
g the wounds and shaking his head. Then Whelan saw him touch the dead man’s face, a quick but gentle movement.

  Then Bauman turned slowly in Whelan’s direction, and even in the darkness Whelan could read the urge to do someone some damage, lots of damage. Bauman stood up, came over to Whelan and put the flash in his face.

  “You know ’im?”

  “No, but I can guess.”

  “It’s Sharkey. It’s him, all right.” Bauman kept the light in Whelan’s face till he blinked.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Bauman.”

  “You’re fulla shit,” Bauman spat. “Nobody ever knows what I’m thinking.”

  “I didn’t do this.”

  Bauman stared at him for a moment and Whelan realized the detective just wanted to see him squirm. Finally Bauman make a little snorting sound. “You took off your shoes. You thought there was somebody up here. If you killed him, wouldn’t be any reason to sneak up. The body’s cold, been dead a long time. If you were just comin’ back to check, you wouldn’t have taken off your shoes.” He stared out at the lights of downtown Chicago in the distance. Whelan looked at the lights and thought they looked a lifetime away.

  “This guy was already dead when we were here today, Whelan. Know that?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to face Whelan. “How’d you know to come up here?”

  “A hunch. I know a kid who lives in the Men’s Hotel. He told me he goes up on the roof to sleep when it gets real hot.”

  Bauman nodded distractedly and looked around. “I don’t think they come up here to sleep, though. This is where they hid out. I think the old guy couldn’t get up and down that good.” He pointed the flash at the corpse’s legs. “See his ankles? All swole up. That happens with some guys when the ticker starts to go. He couldn’t be runnin’ up and down that ladder. I think they hid out in that apartment downstairs and got caught. And I think that Hector bought this guy some time to get up here.”