Whelan thought about the dead man in the apartment below. “Makes you wonder. He was probably a better guy than either of us.”
Bauman put the flash in his eyes again. “Speak for yourself, pal.”
“So. You taking me in again?”
“The hell for? Rooney’d have a baby. We talked to you enough. You didn’t do it.”
Whelan waited a beat and then let it out. “Did you?”
Bauman took a step closer. “You got balls, fella. I’ll give you that. No, I don’t beat old men to death. Not my style. Sometime maybe I’ll show you my style.”
He looked over at the body. “Wonder if we’ll turn anything up with his prints. I wanna know who this guy was. Gotta be a reason for all this.” He looked at Whelan. “We ran a little check on the name. Only Sharkeys we found are dead; burglars, a whole family of ’em in New York. But dead. I’m thinking Sharkey ain’t his name.” He looked off at the night skyline again, then at Whelan again.
“You go home, Shamus. I need you, I’ll be by.”
“Fine with me,” Whelan said, and walked toward the trapdoor.
“And don’t forget your, uh, brogans, Mr. Whelan,” Bauman said, and laughed.
He called her again and she was there, and he wanted to come down and be away from his life, from his world.
“Paul? I was wondering, could we go to your place? I just…this room is getting to me. I spend half my day and my whole night here. I just have to get out. And…I think I’m starting to get…you know, a little paranoid.”
Warnings went off. “What do you mean, Jean?”
She laughed nervously. “I mean…it’s really nothing, you know? I know it’s nothing. I walk around and I think people are watching me or something.” She laughed again.
“I’ll pick you up in a half hour.”
“Okay. Are you all right?”
“Not entirely. But it’ll pass.”
He was in his car in ten minutes, and five minutes after that he was doing sixty in the forty-five zone on the Outer Drive. He had no idea whether it was her imagination or reality, but he would take no chances with this girl.
They ordered Chinese food from the Hunan Express and he tipped the delivery man two bucks when he saw how nervous he looked.
“Thank you, sir,” the man said, making three little bows. “Not good neighborhood. Not so good.”
“I know, but I’m stuck here.”
They watched TV and made small talk. In the darkest recesses of his pantry he found a bottle of Chianti; he’d had it over a year and the wine seemed a little vinegary.
“I forgot I had this. You think it’s turned?”
She sipped hers, winced, shrugged. “How would I know? I don’t know anything about wine. In Michigan we make wine out of apples and, you know, boysenberries.”
As they talked, it occurred to him that this place was no safer for either of them than her hotel room, that someone had already gotten in once. The sour wine took the edge off his fear and slowed the conversation. Eventually they stopped talking and made love on the floor to the drone of a late-night talk show, and when they went to sleep in his room, he lay awake for a long time, long enough for his contentment to leave him. In its wake was the image of a man nearing middle age, making a fool of himself over a girl just past school age, and he began to hope that he would soon find the trail of Gerry Agee, that the trail would lead south or west and they could follow it together and perhaps have an outside shot at something that might last out the year. But he didn’t think so.
Twelve
He woke long before Jean and lay there indulging himself with the sound of her easy, slightly noisy breathing. He listened to her and watched her the way he had once watched Liz. He told himself he would trade a lot of things for the guarantee of a life just like this. Then he pulled himself out of bed. She got up on one elbow while he was carrying his clothes into the bathroom for a shower.
“What’s your hurry, Mr. Detective?”
“I’ve got work to do. I want to finish this, all of it.”
“Can I come with?”
He laughed. Mr. and Mrs. North. Nick and Nora. “No, you stay here. Or go shopping again. There must be a few places along Michigan Avenue that you missed.”
She laughed. “A lot of them are so pricey that I was afraid to go in. Why don’t you come with?”
“Can’t. You go, I’ll talk to you later. Just be careful, and when you’re done, come on back here. I think it’s…better.”
She tilted her head to one side. “You think it’s safer, don’t you?”
“Yeah, a little.”
She thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”
When he left, he kissed her and let his lips linger, and told himself how good it felt to be leaving a woman in his house.
He had coffee and some toast at the New Yankee, bantered halfheartedly with Eva, the waitress, and watched the crowd, his real reason for being there.
He wanted to look at them again, all of them, see them through someone else’s eyes. Some of them he’d seen many times, and in other places: working guys stalling before going in, old ones on Social Security or a pension, mashing their food into a pile in the center of the plate and nibbling at it to stretch the meal. At the bend of the counter, a sad-eyed man with a bruised cheekbone stared out onto the street; eyes red, hands shaky, trying to remember last night.
He watched them come and go, for a cup of coffee, cup of tea, plate of biscuits and gravy, day-old rolls, ice water, handout, use the washroom, start an argument, stand in the air conditioning, look for a woman who’d split. One of these? One of them somewhere out there. One of them had killed Artie Shears and four other men, all in the space of a couple of weeks, and he was still out there doing a fast dance, pretending to be something else. Someone he’d talked to. Yes, had to be. Someone he’d talked to.
He set his cup down and stared off into space, unaware that he seemed to be staring at Eva. She smiled at him, then saw that he wasn’t really looking at her and busied herself at the coffee urn. He sat there and turned it over and looked at it as many ways as he could manage, and it all came up the same: the man he was looking for wasn’t hiding in a basement somewhere. He was out on the street, he was no stranger. He was someone who was a regular on these streets, whose presence would go unremarked.
He sipped at his coffee and had a cigarette and went over the faces, the hangdog men in Captain Wallis’s food line, the Indian men slurping soup at Dr. Ludwig’s drop-in center, the men standing aimlessly outside the newsstand or waiting with Wade to turn in a day’s work at the day-labor office. Who else?
He saw the angry red face of Bauman.
No. He refused to accept the simplicity of it all. Bauman hadn’t killed all these men. No reason. No motive. He was sipping at his coffee when it struck him: no, Bauman hadn’t killed all of them, but he could have killed one, maybe more.
“Oh, shit.” And if he’d killed one, it was certainly possible that he’d killed them all, that there was no other killer to look for.
He remembered Bauman’s face as he touched the dead man called Sharkey and refused to believe the cop had killed Sharkey. He tried to remember Bauman’s face as he came up the ladder through the trapdoor: no, Bauman hadn’t even known where to look for the body. No, there was a killer out there, a free man, man without a face.
Are you Gerry Agee? he wondered. Why can’t I see your face? What am I overlooking? He decided to do it all over again, retrace his steps and talk to the same people again till something shook loose.
Abby was standing on the porch of the Indian Center, talking to a pair of very sunburned Indian boys. She asked Whelan if he wanted to become an Indian and he laughed. They made small talk for a few minutes but she had nothing to tell him: nothing new, no funny behavior, no newcomers, no one acting strangely, no one who’d dropped out.
Same story at the Sal Army, where J.B. gave him a quizzical look and Captain Wallis smiled patiently.
“Anybody acting strangely, huh?” He raised his blond eyebrows and looked at the guard.
“They all be acting strange,” J.B. said.
At the door, he stopped and turned. “I’m really sorry about Billy, captain.”
The captain made a gesture of futility with his hands. “It’s what I always thought would happen to him. I just wanted to prevent it.”
The clerk at the hotel told him Wade had gone out with a work crew from Readymen, and his Public Aid contact was in the field. He caught up with Woodrow outside the Burger King on Sheridan and gave him a buck for a hamburger, but Woodrow had nothing for him.
“No, nothin’ out of the or’nary. Least, not for here, ya understand?”
“Yeah, I do. I really do.”
At the Way Mission he pushed open the door and was met by the most hostile pair of blue eyes he’d seen in years. They belonged to a trim white-haired man whose face seemed to have been shaved and scrubbed pink and who hadn’t had an extra calorie in ten years. There were no wrinkles on him, no smudges on his gleaming black shoes, no hair out of place. He was tall and slender and the picture of conservative taste in white shirt, blue slacks and a narrow blue tie. The man turned slightly and Whelan saw that he’d been standing over Don Ewald. The boy was sitting in a chair in the little waiting room. He was red-eyed and his nose was slightly swollen. There was a scratch along his neck. He was wearing his usual blue shirt and dark pants, and at his feet was a small black suitcase. He looked up, noticed Whelan and looked down quickly.
“May we help you, sir?” the white-haired man asked.
“You must be the Reverend Roberts.”
“And you are…”
“That’s Mr. Whelan, the detective,” Don offered.
The older man took a step closer to Whelan, his face flushing. “So you’re the gentleman responsible for my people having ludicrous notions about ‘investigating’ when they’re supposed to be about something quite different. And you see the results.”
He gestured toward Don.
“Sorry, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Look at him,” the man commanded.
“What happened to you, Don?”
The boy looked up, blinked, and a tear squeezed its way out of one eye. He shrugged. “I wanted to see if I could help you. I stayed out on the street last night, asking people questions. I thought if I waited till it was dark, there might be different people out.” He shot a frightened glance at the Reverend Roberts. “I thought it would help my ministry, too.”
“Oh, Donald,” the Reverend said.
“Anyway, I was getting ready to leave and I tried to take a shortcut down Racine to get to the bus stop, and three men were standing in a vacant lot and they started to walk after me. I walked faster but they caught me and…they took my wallet and they took…my medallion.” He pointed to the scratch on his neck. “And they beat me up.”
“You hurt bad?”
“Not really. I had a bloody nose. But they got my medallion. It was a gift from my parents.”
“Are you happy, sir?” The Reverend Roberts put his hands on his hips and thrust his face out toward Whelan.
“Now what do you think? You think I wanted him hurt? You have rocks in your head, Reverend?”
“You will not talk to me in that tone, sir. This isn’t much of a place but it is a chapel. We pray here.”
“I’ll calm down if you will.”
Reverend Roberts stared for a moment, then seemed to relent all at once. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. It…I just got very angry over this. My people run enough risk in their ministry, so they don’t need to be taking unnecessary chances playing at detective after their day is done.”
“I didn’t think he’d go out asking questions at night.”
“Well, he did. And now he’s going home for a time.”
“You’re sending him home?”
“We’re…he’s not certain this work is for him. Are you, Don?”
Young Ewald shook his head, looking at his scuffed shoes. “I don’t seem to be any good at it. I’d like to come back but…I seem to mess things up.”
“He’s never been quite comfortable up here, have you, Don?” The boy shook his head and the Reverend shrugged. “He’s a fine young man and he’ll find his place, but not everyone is cut out to preach on the streets.” He seemed to lose himself in thought for a second and then gave his head a little shake.
“And another of my young men got himself into some danger last night.”
“Tom,” Don Ewald said.
“Tom Waters? What happened to him?”
“He was mugged in his neighborhood. Some young boys asked for his money and he resisted. He fought them.”
“That’s pretty stupid.”
“Of course it is. Especially since we are not sympathetic to violent responses in anyone. He should not have fought back. It was unnecessary and foolhardy. It…it is a problem with Mr. Waters.”
“And how’s he?”
“He has a shiner and a fat lip and his watch is gone.”
“A hard night for the street ministry.”
“You might say that. Don is leaving, Tom is still spouting pugnacious nonsense and I have another young man out with a mild case of food poisoning.” He stared out at Broadway for a moment and then smiled, and the smile grew into a grin.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, it’s just that I’ve got myself a street ministry in one of the toughest neighborhoods I’ve ever known, and I have almost no budget for anything, and I never thought for a second that any of it would be easy, so what am I getting so upset about? This is about what I expected.” He smiled. “I have no wife or family, just this work, which is exactly what I thought it would be. Now how many people can say that?”
“Not many at all,” Whelan said, deciding that he liked the Reverend Roberts. He looked at Don Ewald. “Can I do anything for you, Don?”
The Reverend looked at the boy and smiled gently. “He’s too shy to ask, but I believe he’d like very much for someone to drive him to the Greyhound Bus station downtown. He could take the el but I know he’d like company.”
“I can give you a ride, Don. What time’s the bus?”
The young man looked up shamefacedly. “There’s a bus at one and another one at three. Or there’s one at six this evening if you’re too busy—”
“No. I’m not busy. I’m just spinning my wheels this morning. Want to go now?”
He nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Whelan.”
Whelan and the Reverend exchanged a quick amused glance at Don’s obvious relief that he wouldn’t have to be standing alone on el platforms, his suitcase and facial expression announcing to the world that here was another rube who couldn’t handle what the Big Town had to offer.
The minister gave Whelan a thoughtful look. “I hope I don’t seem unfeeling. I understand that your investigation has to do with the, ah, death of a friend. Have you had any success, Mr. Whelan?”
“Nothing I could put into a resume.”
“Well, if there’s anything I can do…”
As an afterthought, Whelan drew out the picture of Gerry Agee. “I’m still looking for this one.”
The minister held it out at arm’s length and squinted, then shook his head. “No. I remember faces. Haven’t seen this one.”
“Well, thanks anyway. Should we get going, Don?”
Don Ewald stood, held out his hand to the Reverend Roberts. “Thank you for everything, sir. I’m sorry I didn’t do much of a job for you.”
“You weren’t working for me, son. You were working for the Lord, and I’m sure he knows how hard you tried. Perhaps after you’ve had some time to think, talk things over with your parents, you’ll arrive at a more suitable ministry for yourself.”
The boy hung his head and appeared to be on the verge of tears. “I’m just real…real embarrassed right now. I don’t even want to face my father.”
The Reverend Ro
berts surprised Whelan by laughing, a loud, surprisingly hearty laugh, and he clapped the boy on the shoulder.
“I was sent home from my first ministry in total disgrace. I got into a fight with a local boy who heckled me while I preached to passersby. And there was…some trouble with a young lady and her parents.” The minister colored slightly and Whelan smiled.
“And the gentleman for whom I worked said I didn’t so much preach the gospel as harangue people—his very word, ‘harangue.’”
Don looked at the minister with a beatific smile and Whelan knew the Reverend Roberts had just gone from respected supervisor to cherished hero. The kid might be back after all.
He drove east to the Drive and left the boy to his thoughts. Don stared out the window as they left Uptown and his expression was unreadable. Whelan tried to concentrate on his driving, but in his mind was the picture of Jean Agee in his bed, watching him undress, her brown shoulder nestled against his pillow, leaving her scent everywhere in his bed. For a moment he fancied that he still had her smell in his nostrils, and for a time the neighborhood and this poor country boy and the string of brutal killings shrank in importance. He cruised the Drive at fifty and turned on the radio.
Bob Seger was singing “Night Moves” and reminiscing about summer romances in Michigan twenty years ago and Whelan realized that in all his adult life he’d never had one. To his left, people rode gracefully along the bike paths or walked along the beaches; in five minutes he was nearing the Loop and the lake to his left was dotted with sailboats. He was heading into what he’d always believed to be the most beautiful stretch of city in all of America. A little dishonest, a little misleading to the visitor, for it gave no hint of the urban horrors growing through the cracks a mere mile to the west, but it was breathtaking, nonetheless, and he felt sorry for the boy staring out the window, who wasn’t having a summer romance and was going to be sitting moodily on a crowded bus in a few hours, breathing body smells and filtered air and exhaust and trying to figure out his life.
“You ought to think of it as a vacation, Don.”
Death in Uptown Page 25
