Shadow of the Bomb (A Snap Malek Mystery)

by Robert Goldsborough

  I thanked Lazar, who left. I then settled the bill with Chester and headed back to the Hyde Park precinct station to phone one Irene Bergman.

  Chapter 13

  Back at the station house, I phoned the other precincts on my beat. The only thing I came up with was a currency exchange heist in the Grand Crossing district that netted a pistol-toting robber $213 and change. I called it in to the Trib, where an ever-bored rewrite man, Chick Henson, took down the information with his usual lack of enthusiasm. After hanging up, I made it three-to-one that the item would never run. For the record, it didn't.

  Next, I paged through the new phone book and found a number for 'Bergman, I.' at

  4950 S. Chicago Beach Drive. She answered on the third ring. "Mrs. Bergman?" I asked.

  Her "yes" sounded guarded.

  "My name is Steve Malek. I'm a reporter for the Tribune and would like to talk to you about your ex-husband."

  A pause. "What is it you wish to know?" The tone was somewhere between icy and standoffish.

  "I realize this is a painful subject, but if you could spare a half hour or so, I'd like to stop by. Or we could meet for coffee somewhere in the neighborhood. I'm just a few minutes away. I'm calling from the Hyde Park police station over on

  Lake Park Avenue." Another pause, this one longer. "I really don't know how I can help you. You probably are aware that we were divorced."

  "Yes, I am. And I don't mean to be presumptuous, but I'm hoping you might have some insights."

  "What kind of insights?"

  "On his life, his work, the people he knew."

  "Is this for some sort of feature story?"

  "I honestly won't know until we've talked. But I can assure you that I'm not looking to do a sensational article."

  "Well, I shouldn't think so; that's hardly the Tribune's style, is it?" I sensed a slight thaw in her voice.

  "No, it's not. And I'm no Johnny-come-lately. I've been with the paper for more than ten years."

  The next pause was the longest of all. "All right," she said with a sigh. "Why don't you come over here? As I guess you know, I'm at the Powhatan. The doorman will send you up to my place on the tenth floor."

  "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  I had never seen anything like the Powhatan Apartments. The ornate double doors at the entrance had metal grilles in the shapes of American Indians. The oval foyer was a sort of gold color, and mosaics around the ceiling showed exotic colored images of women and animals and flowers. I was probably gawking like a rube on his first trip to the big city when a deep voice asked, "Can I help you, sir?"

  The uniformed doorman sat at a desk against one wall. "Quite a sight, isn't it?" he said. "I can always tell the first-time visitors to this building. Who are you here to see?"

  "Mrs. Bergman."

  "Your name?"

  "Steve Malek. She's expecting me."

  He picked up his phone and dialed a number, saying something into the receiver that I couldn't hear and then nodding in my direction. "The elevator's right over there, sir. Marcus, take this gentleman up to Ten."

  The elevator's interior looked like a small foyer, with a streamlined ceiling fixture, vertical gold fluting on the walls, and a modernistic mirror that had a geometric pattern cut into the glass. "This is quite a deal," I said to Marcus, as we started upward. "All it needs is a sofa, an end table, and a reading lamp."

  "Glad you like it, sir," he answered primly. "Going to see Mrs. Bergman, correct?"

  "Correct, Marcus."

  I felt I should tip him when he opened the doors at the tenth floor. I resisted the temptation, but did thank him–it seemed the thing to do in these elegant surroundings.

  I rang the buzzer at her door and heard the clicking of heels from inside. The woman who opened the door was even lovelier than I remembered from the funeral. I'm not good with ages, particularly with women, but I put her at about thirty-five. She was close to my height, and I'm a fraction over six feet. Her hair, a shade too dark to be termed platinum, but solidly in the blonde spectrum, framed a face that would have been right at home on a motion picture screen. Bergman must have been out of his mind to walk away from this.

  "Mr. Malek?" she said, arching one eyebrow. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning, either, which was a start.

  "At your service," I responded, grinning and holding up my police press card, which had my mug shot on it.

  "Oh, yes, I recognize you from the funeral. You were the only person there I couldn't identify. Come in, please," Irene Bergman said, stepping aside gracefully. She wore those satin lounging pajamas now all the rage, according to the fashion pages in the papers. If the apartment wasn't as ornate as the lobby downstairs, it seemed pretty close to it at first glance. I found myself in a sleek foyer complete with an inlaid tile floor, mirrors on three walls, and indirect ceiling lighting that cast a warm glow.

  Two steps down was a white-carpeted living room larger than my entire apartment, with two sofas, a love seat, a half-dozen chairs, several floor lamps, a chrome-and-mirrored bar in one corner, and three large windows looking out over the slate-gray lake.

  "Beautiful place," I observed as she took my coat and hat. "And in a beautiful building, as well. I had no idea what was down this way."

  "Aha," she said, clapping once and allowing herself a smile. "I believe I am in the presence of a North Sider. True?"

  "Guilty as charged. I live on Clark, north of Belmont."

  "Well, I am delighted to report that there is indeed life far south of

  Madison Street, Mr. Malek. You are now in one of the buildings of the so-called 'Indian Village.' Our neighboring towers also have the names of tribes: Algonquin, Chippewa, Narragansett. Can I get you coffee…or something stronger?" "Nothing, thanks," I said, stepping into the room and pulling a reporters' notebook from my suit coat pocket. "I like the style of the building, and of your apartment. What would you call it?"

  "Art Moderne is the term I hear most frequently from those who know more than I about such things. Please, sit down anywhere."

  I dropped into a boxy beige chair that was surprisingly comfortable, while my hostess sat at right angles to me on a sofa, crossing one slender ankle over the other. "So, Mr. Malek, before you get started with your questions, let me answer one that you haven't asked but would like to."

  "Oh? I can hardly wait."

  She made a sweeping gesture with one arm. "You are wondering how I–or even Arthur and I together when we were married–could afford to live like this."

  "I guess it might have been in the back of my mind."

  "That's only natural. Mr. Malek, I'm fortunate to have come from a very enterprising family. My father came over here from Bohemia at the start of the century and founded an extremely successful home construction business–Vorchek Builders."

  "Of course. I've seen yellow-and-green Vorchek trucks all over the city," I said.

  "Yes, they're hard to miss. You could choose to call my father's achievements good timing on his part, given the housing boom that came along after the Armistice. But that would be overlooking the terribly hard work and long hours that he–and my mother–put into establishing and operating the company. While he was out building the houses–whole blocks of brick bungalows in some city neighborhoods and in suburbs like Berwyn and Elmhurst–she was at home tending to my brother and me and doing the bookkeeping until he could afford an office staff."

  "I'm impressed."

  "That wasn't my purpose," Irene Bergman said quietly. "I merely wanted you to know how things were with Arthur and me. Some friends of his, and some of mine, thought that he pursued me and married me for, well, for my…money. But the truth is that it was I who pursued him. Are you surprised?"

  "I've been a newspaperman for a lot of years now. Very little surprises me."

  "A very diplomatic answer indeed. I know that people have wondered what I saw in him, although almost no one came right out and asked. While he was hardly physically attractive, he
was a brilliant man–brighter by far, I believe, than most of his contemporaries at the university. And he had a certain off-beat charm that I found quite appealing. I take it that you never met him?"

  "Actually, I did, one night at the University Tavern not long ago. We were on adjoining stools at the bar."

  She considered me with interest. "How is it that a North Sider happened to be down here in one of our watering holes when you've got all sorts of high-toned places up there along

  Rush Street?" "I'm currently covering the South Side police precincts for the Trib, so I spend quite a bit of time down here," I replied evenly, skipping over the circumstances and the sequence of events that led me to this part of the city.

  "I'm interested in your impression of Arthur," she said.

  I laughed. "I came here with questions, and it's you who is interviewing me."

  A slight rosiness colored her alabaster cheeks. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said as if she meant it.

  "Please don't be. As to your husband–ex-husband–I found him somewhat cryptic and mysterious."

  Now it was her turn to laugh. "That sounds like Arthur," she said. "He always enjoyed giving the impression that he knew more about almost any subject than he was letting on."

  "Did he? Know more, I mean?"

  She leaned forward. "I'm going to have a cigarette. Would you like one?"

  "Sure," I said, reaching into my pocket. "Let me–"

  "No, I've got some, if Chesterfields are all right with you," she said, offering me one from a silver case. "They're just fine," I answered, lighting both of ours with my Zippo.

  "As to how much Arthur knew about goings-on at the university," Irene said, taking a long drag from her cigarette, "I was never really sure. He loved to play the man of mystery."

  "The reason I'm asking is that he may have been working on some sort of super-secret war weapon. Do you know anything about that?"

  She shook her head. "I've heard rumors, but only at places like cocktail parties, and then just very vague references from people who didn't sound like they knew what they were talking about. Arthur himself never alluded to a weapon in our conversations, but of course we were already separated at this time last year, which was even before Pearl Harbor. So if he was working on something big, it probably began after we parted ways. What exactly did he say to you?"

  I gave her the gist of our conversation, including the "you don't know what I know" part and the "at the place where we surrendered, that's where we shall rise again" riddle.

  She ground out her cigarette butt in a triangular crystal ash tray. "As I said before, that sounds like Arthur, dripping with intrigue. And as I also said before, he was a gifted man, dazzlingly brilliant in his field, as several of his colleagues told me. Never mind that he had a roving eye, particularly for nubile coeds, who seemed drawn to him–but that's another story. If any younger member of the Physics Department were asked to participate in the development of some kind of advanced weapon, I'm sure it would have been Arthur."

  "Do you know of anybody who would want him dead?"

  "The police asked me that, too, as you would expect," she said. "And I'll tell you exactly what I told them: My former husband was far from being gregarious and outwardly likeable, but to my knowledge, he didn't have any real enemies. Oh, I think there may have been some professional jealousy within the department from time to time, and it's possible that some colleagues may have resented Arthur because of grants he was given and trips he got to conferences, some of them overseas. There can be a lot of pettiness in the academic world."

  "Anybody specific who intensely disliked him?"

  "No one that I am aware of, although I know he wasn't particularly fond of some people in the department."

  "Who?"

  She frowned. "I don't like to sound like a gossip–there's enough of that on the campus."

  "I never reveal my sources," I assured her.

  "Well, there are a couple of professors, associate profs actually, whom Arthur didn't get along with. You might have met them at the funeral: Miles Overby and Theo Ward."

  "Yes, I did spend a little time with them. What was the problem?"

  Irene shrugged. "Arthur didn't think they were first-rate scientific minds and felt they tended to be somewhat lazy, especially Ward. And my sense from meeting them in social situations is that neither of them had any great fondness for Arthur, either. Having said that, I would not call them enemies of his. That's much too strong a word. And murder…" She waved the idea away with a manicured hand. "Unthinkable."

  "What about one of the others that I met at the funeral–Edward Rickman?"

  "I think he and Arthur had a mutual respect, even though they both were ambitious."

  "And Lazar?"

  "Nate is a real sweetheart," she said, "a dear. We used to get together socially with him and his wife on occasion and had good times. He was Arthur's one true, loyal friend in the department. Please give him my best when you see him. Mr. Malek, if you're looking for reasons why Arthur was killed, I'm afraid I haven't been much help."

  "Everything's helpful," I said, then shifted gears. "I understand from Lazar that you are an author."

  "Of sorts. Before we get into that, would you think it terribly rude if I poured myself a scotch?"

  "Not at all."

  "Can I mix you one, too?" she asked, gliding over to the bar.

  "Do you have beer?"

  Irene reached into a refrigerated cabinet in the bar and came up with a Schlitz, which she poured into a tilted Pilsener glass.

  "That's exactly the right amount of foam," I said as she handed me the glass.

  "I learned that from my father, who always had me pour him his beer when I was a little girl," she said proudly, settling back into the sofa. "You asked if I'm an author. I've had one book published, a novel set in the British Isles at the time of Oliver Cromwell's rule. It got a couple of fairly good reviews, including in your Tribune"–she saluted me with her scotch on the rocks–"but it hasn't sold that well. My publisher is small, and on top of that, there's apparently not a big market right now for stories set in 17th Century England. I'm working on a second novel, this one about a family in Maryland torn apart by divided loyalties during the Civil War. Don't expect this one to crash the best-seller lists either. But as you can see, I love history, even if it doesn't sell copies."

  "Here's hoping book number two surprises you and takes the country by storm," I said, hoisting my glass to her. "Say, this is an interesting photo," I remarked, picking up a framed picture that was on the end table next to me. It was of a somewhat younger Irene in white shorts, white blouse, and tennis shoes posing with her arms spread as if caught in the middle of an exercise.

  "Oh, I don't know why I still keep that out," Irene said with mock embarrassment. "It's a shot of me at a Sokol gathering a few years ago. Sokol is–"

  "A Czech physical fitness and cultural organization," I interrupted. "Sokol is the Bohemian word for falcon."

  "Well, aren't you the smart one," she said, tossing her head.

  "I was in it for awhile growing up in Pilsen," I told her. "But then I discovered girls."

  That got a laugh. "Of course–your name is Czech, I wasn't thinking," she said, finishing her scotch. "Well, I've stayed with it over the years. I like to keep in condition, and I find it's a good counterpoint to my writing, which is so sedentary. Some women take ballet lessons or play tennis or swim to stay in shape. For me, it's Sokol."

  "It seems to be working," I observed.

  "You are too kind, Mr. Malek. Can I get you another beer?"

  "No thanks. I should go back to the Hyde Park station and try to justify my existence as a police reporter," I said, rising. "Again, I have to say that I'm really impressed with your place. I'm sure your ex-husband didn't live in anything approaching this style after the divorce, did he?"

  "I suppose not," she said smoothly. "He was in some building over on Cornell, but I'm not very familiar with that area.


  "I'm sorry that I wasn't much help with your story or your investigation or whatever you plan to do," she said in the foyer as she handed me my coat and hat. "Arthur's death just doesn't make any sense at all. Such a loss. Such a waste."

  "Agreed. If I think of anything else to ask, may I call you?"

  "Yes–absolutely. I'm here most days. Please feel free to stop by."

  I told her I might just do that.

  Chapter 14

  The war constantly changed the way we lived. I had now been issued my first ration book for food. Gasoline rationing was set to start in December. Since I didn't own an automobile, that did not pose a hardship for me; however, the street cars, buses, elevated lines, and commuter trains were now always packed, as motorists gearing up for the rationing were leaving their vehicles at home.

  On that Friday morning, my Illinois Central train south from the Loop was so crowded that I had to stand, even though we were running in the opposite direction from the rush hour traffic. I got to the Hyde Park precinct station a few minutes before nine, found out from Waldron that nothing worth reporting was going on there, and began calling the other station houses on my beat.

  There wasn't much of interest until I talked to the desk sergeant at the Wentworth district, Cavanaugh, whom I had met on a visit to that precinct the week before.

  "Ah, Malek, I believe I've got a good one for ye," he said in a brogue that I suspected he practiced at home every night. "Several people were waitin' for a northbound street car on State at 47th early this mornin' when this dip sneaks up behind them and tries to lift a wallet from a gent who was readin' his paper. A woman in the little crowd spots the pickpocket in the act and whacks him across the head with her purse. Two other ladies, and they weren't all that young, mind ye, join in, and start whackin' the fella, one of them with a damned umbrella. Soon he's down on the sidewalk, all huddled up, howlin' like a hoot owl and tryin' to protect his head with his hands as these ladies are whalin' away and kickin' him. Must have been quite a sight. Along about this time, one of our cruisers happens by and sees the fracas, and they haul the pathetic bloke in, bleedin' head and all. He's in our lockup now, name's Ferguson, Jack 'Nimble Fingers' Ferguson. Has a rap sheet for pickin' pockets that would like to strangle a horse. I've got the ladies' names if you want them, dear souls that they are. They're still here."