An Echo of Death

by Mark Richard Zubro

  5

  I woke the next morning to Scott sitting on the side of the bed, his hand resting on my shoulder. I felt comfortably warm. He had dressed in the same clothes he had worn yesterday. He needed a shave and a shower although his five o’clock shadow was incredibly sexy. I got up, dressed, and made a foray to the bathroom. It was the kind of space that it was better not to turn the light on in, much less inspect closely. It had only a toilet and a washstand. Where the tub might have been was a gaping space with a small circular hole in the ground where a pipe might once have been.

  I called the Hotel Chicago number the mystery man had left. Brad Stawalski was still registered at the hotel, but his room did not answer. No one at the desk knew where he was or when he might be in; but check-out time was noon, so he’d have to have contacted someone by that point. I left Glen’s name as the person who was calling.

  I tried the number for Mrs. Proctor. The answering-service person, who had a nasal voice and should have been chewing gum, said that Mrs. Proctor was not in but she had left a message that we could come by after two that afternoon and meet with her. I didn’t like the idea of meeting anyone in a set place where a trap could be sprung on us. I wrote down the address.

  The lobby of the hotel was deserted. No one sat behind the registration desk. I paused at the door and searched the street. As I was about to open the door, I thought I caught a glimpse of a dark sedan with two men sitting in front parked illegally half a block down.

  “Trouble?” Scott asked.

  “I don’t know, but let’s not risk it. There’s got to be a back way out of this place.” The alley behind the hotel was as unsavory as the inside, but it was empty of possible killers. Maybe the two I’d seen out front hadn’t been bad guys or had anything to do with us. If they were, wouldn’t they have had someone in the alley? I hoped I was right, but didn’t mind taking the precaution.

  On our way to the hotel, Scott asked, “What if someone gets into the penthouse and listens to the messages? Won’t they be able to track down this Brad Stawalski, too.”

  “I used the touch tones on the phone to erase the messages last night.”

  “Somebody could have already gotten them,” Scott said.

  “They wouldn’t be expecting us to get calls. I don’t want our only option to be total paralysis based on fear. We just have to be extremely cautious.”

  We grabbed a cup of coffee from the Rock-and-Roll McDonald’s on Ontario Street.

  We parked on Kinzie Street west of Wells right behind the Merchandise Mart. We walked east to Dearborn and up to the Hotel Chicago.

  The Hotel Chicago was the newest, most exclusive, and most modern hotel in Chicago. It was just north of the Hotel Nikko and across from Marina City.

  “How are we going to meet him without alerting our pursuers?” Scott asked.

  “Simple,” I said. I checked my watch. “We’ll set up a rendezvous point. Then, instead of being there to meet him, we’ll shadow him and see if anybody is stalking him. If they are, we’ll call it off.”

  “Won’t they be just as likely to kill him as they did Glen?” Scott asked.

  “I hope he’s not dead yet, although I’m sure he’s in danger, but we’ve got to try.”

  In the lobby we found the pay phones. First I called the penthouse. Glen had another message from Brad. He said he’d be in his room from ten to twelve and then would be checking out. He sounded extremely frightened.

  I relayed the information to Scott.

  “He still doesn’t know Glen’s dead?” Scott asked.

  “Hard to tell,” I said. “I think you better call him. He’ll recognize your voice. I’m hoping he’ll trust you enough to meet us.”

  “Do I tell him about Glen?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  This time someone in the room picked up the phone. I listened to Scott introduce himself. I caught the syncopated effect of listening to one-half of a phone conversation.

  “This is Scott Carpenter … I’m calling for Glen Proctor … . He’s in trouble … He wants you to meet him on the steps of the Art Institute at eleven … Michigan and Adams … Big building, takes up most of the block on the east side of the street … I can’t tell you over the phone … . We’ll talk when we meet … .” He hung up.

  “Our Brad isn’t an art lover,” I said.

  “Never heard of the place,” Scott said. “He may not be too bright, but he knows enough that he should be scared. Now what?”

  “He still hasn’t been captured or spotted, or he’d have suffered Glen’s fate.”

  “What if they’re using him as bait to get to us?” Scott asked.

  “We’re reversing the process. If someone is after him, we follow him and them. We can follow them back to their source, but he’s got to still be free of them. They wouldn’t let him live.”

  “What if they try to kill Brad?” Scott asked. “Do we let them and then follow them to get ourselves killed? We should tell the cops about this Brad guy and let them question him. We can make a call to Quinn. He can follow up.”

  As we talked, I maneuvered so we could see the elevators.

  “What crime is it that we’d be reporting?” I asked. “That this guy left a message for Glen on our machine? That is not a violation of criminal statutes as far as I can tell.”

  “Won’t they want to talk to anyone who can give them information about Glen’s death?” Scott asked.

  “Brad probably thinks he’s alive. According to the cops, he’s not dead, remember? Maybe they think we’re the ones who have fallen afoul of some criminal organization for reasons that we are unable or unwilling to tell them.”

  “What if he just skips town and doesn’t go to the Art Institute?” Scott asked.

  “If this doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. Maybe you could come up with an idea that keeps us safe, has the cops take us seriously, and solves Glen’s murder. I’d be happy to hear any suggestions.” I surprised myself with my vehemence and sarcasm.

  “I’m sorry,” Scott began. Then an extremely muscular man with slicked-back black hair, wearing running shoes, blue jeans, and a sweatshirt, walked off the elevator. He headed straight for the door and turned south.

  “That’s him,” Scott said and began to follow.

  “Wait,” I said.

  I let my eyes rove over the characters seated in the lobby. Two men in business suits chatted near the potted palm. One in a Ralph Lauren warm-up suit strode toward the elevators. A couple in their late teens or early twenties talked earnestly with a blue-rinsed matron, perhaps their grandmother or a maiden aunt. A bellhop moved a flatcar of luggage toward the street. No one seemed to take any notice of us or Brad Stawalski. Certainly no one wearing sunglasses and toting a machine gun burst out from behind a pillar and started spraying the lobby with unpleasantness.

  I waited another minute; then we spun through the revolving doors. The doorman at the curb asked if we needed a cab. I spotted Brad on foot at the midpoint on the bridge crossing over the Chicago River. I told the doorman no on the cab.

  We moved a few steps away from the door. I turned to Scott and said, “Let’s pretend we’re having a pleasant casual conversation. Each of us carefully looks over the parked cars and pedestrians in our view.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything that looks remotely suspicious.”

  Several minutes’ observation revealed nothing.

  “We’ll lose him if we wait much longer,” Scott said.

  I looked toward the river. Stawalski had reached the red light at Wacker Drive. I could tell he wasn’t a native Chicagoan because he waited for the light to change before he began to cross. Good Chicago street crossers, if they see the slightest chance to take a step or two ahead, are already well off the curb and daring traffic.

  Glancing at my watch, I saw we had nearly half an hour before the appointed time. Brad seemed in no particular hurry although he checked every corner and looked back several times to
see whether he was being followed. We crossed to the east side of the street, strolled easily, and kept to shadows and gazed in windows, doing everything but holding hands to show that we couldn’t possibly be following him.

  As we crossed Randolph Street, he disappeared to our west on the farther side of the Daley Center. He had turned the wrong direction for the Art Institute. We poked along until we could see through the glass in the Daley Center to the plaza with the enormous Picasso statue of whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be . I spotted Stawalski among the tourists gaping up at the construction.

  We continued on past the plaza while Brad lingered to gawk. The autumn sky was gray, but the day had warmed up and the wind was calm. We walked with our jackets open.

  I guided us west on Washington Street until we were halfway through the next block, with City Hall bulking large on our right. We crossed the street and ambled back. All the while I kept my eye out for anyone too interested in Brad. So far nothing. We hung around the Miró sculpture and watched Brad stare at pigeons for a few minutes until he moved south on Dearborn once more. We watched everybody who fell in behind him for the next few minutes, even the people on cross streets, and as well as we could those in cabs and cars. We saw nothing suspicious.

  We moved back to Dearborn. We strode past the First National Bank building, the Chagall Wall, crossed Monroe Street, past the Xerox Centre, to Adams Street, where Brad turned east toward the Art Institute. We crossed to the south side of Adams and followed. The mid-morning Monday crowds were thick enough so that we easily blended in. Brad now rarely checked to see if he was being followed.

  We crossed State Street and then Wabash Avenue. As we neared Michigan, Brad slowed perceptibly, then ducked into the Burger King on the corner of Adams and Michigan.

  I pulled Scott into the alley between Wabash and Michigan Avenue. “Let’s meet him in the Burger King,” I said. “We haven’t seen anybody the least bit suspicious, except maybe ourselves and him. He’ll recognize you, so he won’t be inclined to run. This is good enough.”

  Inside Brad sat at a corner table with a soft drink in front of him. Most of the time he watched the steps of the Art Institute across Michigan Avenue. He didn’t notice us until our shadows fell across his line of vision.

  He leaped to his feet. He stared at me, then caught sight of Scott and gave him a weak smile.

  Scott introduced us. We all shook hands and sat down.

  “What is going on?” Brad asked. “I’ve been trying to get hold of Glen. When I call his dad’s place, they won’t give me any information. I called the number he gave me to get hold of him. That must have been you guys?”

  Scott nodded.

  “What is going on?” Brad repeated.

  “Glen is dead,” Scott said.

  “He can’t be,” Brad said. “It’s not possible. He finally had everything together. He’d made his last deal. He was going to stop living on the edge.”

  Scott told him what we’d found.

  Brad shook his head. “It can’t be. Why didn’t they tell me when I called the house?”

  Scott explained what we knew about the situation in the Proctor home.

  “This is crazy,” Brad said. “You say you saw him?”

  “I saw the bullet holes,” I said. “I touched the body.”

  Scott nodded confirmation.

  Brad pointed at me. “Who are you? Scott introduced you, but you’re not a baseball player, although you’ve got the build for it.”

  “Scott and I are lovers.”

  Brad stared at Scott. “I heard the rumors you were gay. I want you to know I never believed them. I never spread them.”

  “What’s important now,” Scott said, “is figuring out who killed Glen, who is after us, and from the way you’ve been acting, who is after you.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Something screwy is going on. Just after I crossed the border back into the United States, a bunch of guys with guns seized the bus from Mexico. I could have been on it but I’d decided to drive over and see a former girlfriend of mine in Houston then fly up from there. From what you told me about Glen, I’m glad I wasn’t on that bus.”

  “Were you and Glen traveling together in Mexico?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Brad said.

  “But you didn’t come back together?” Scott asked.

  “Glen thought we shouldn’t,” Brad said.

  “You said he made his last deal and that he was going to stop living on the edge. What deal?” I asked.

  Brad gave a shrug of his massive shoulders, scratched his slicked-back hair, and glanced fearfully out the window.

  “I don’t know if I can tell,” Brad said.

  “Why not?” Scott asked.

  “It’s real complicated.” Brad eyed each passerby suspiciously, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped sweat from his forehead and above his lip.

  “You’re really scared,” I said.

  “Glen was supposed to call the cops,” Brad said. “He was going to arrange protection.”

  “What was going on in Mexico?” Scott said.

  “I’m scared,” Brad said. “I hate being in this public place.”

  We debated briefly about where to go. Brad suggested his hotel room. I vetoed that as too dangerous. I didn’t want Brad to know where our temporary refuge was. Scott suggested my lawyer’s office. I called, but got his answering service at work and his machine at home.

  Finally I said, “I know the perfect place.” I saw an empty cab at the corner waiting for the light. “Follow me!” I ordered. I dashed out of the restaurant and flung open the cab door. As we piled in, I did a quick reconnaissance of the nearby populace. An art student hurried by with her four-by-five-foot flat leather case for carrying artwork. A group of fifteen kids with two adults in tow, ascended the steps of the Art Institute. Several young couples walked hand in hand up the steps. Various sets of tourists and art lovers marched in and out of the museum, none of them carrying dangerous weapons, wearing snarling faces, or approaching us as nefarious characters.

  In the cab, I said, “North Clark Street just south of Diversey.”

  “Where are we going?” Brad asked.

  “Safest place I know of in the city,” I said. “No one would think to look for us there.”

  The Womb was the sleaziest bar in the city. It was on Clark Street south of Diversey, across from the post office. The bar was in the basement of a crumbling building. The color scheme, which had changed numerous times over the years, had been returned to lurid tints, generally suggesting walls spray-painted with vomit. The entertainment used to be lesbians strippers in leather. Now dancing boys performed in skimpy outfits. They alternately gyrated slender hips on a tiny stage to the rear of the bar, or circumnavigated the central well, shaking down customers for tips. The joint had a grisly reputation for prostitution, somewhat of a higher-class notoriety for transvestites, transsexuals, and other transgender folks, plus it had underground nationwide fame for its after-hours parties, rumored to be filled with vast quantities of illegal drugs, gallons of booze, and lack of clothes on the partygoers. It matched our hotel as one of the last places I could think of that anyone would look for us.

  I knew it would be open because they served a daily brunch. It was a lavish spread with over fifty different kinds of salads, cold pasta dishes, a plethora of meats, fruits, and vegetables. You could get omelets, waffles, and pancakes freshly made to your order, after which you could indulge in an enormous variety of desserts heavily weighted on the chocolate end of the spectrum.

  It was just after noon when we walked in. The first bartender I saw was dressed in a purple, pure silk, full shirt with double pleats in back and very full long sleeves. He had on black gym shoes with bright yellow socks and black 2(X)IST boxer briefs. He was among the more conservatively dressed of the staff. The cook at the omelet table wore a red chef’s hat and a single black strap of cotton around his neck which tapered down and connected to a contoured pouch. He also wore a carnation behind
one ear. Both these guys had lean muscular figures that looked terrific in their outfits. The Monday noon crowd filled half the place.

  When we were two feet inside the front door, Brad said, “What is this place?”

  “A haven,” I said.

  We asked for and received a seat at a booth near the back. Moments later, our waiter appeared in sheer Silvery Short and Robe. He gave us some tips on specials, flirted with the three of us shamelessly, and sashayed away.

  Brad shook his head. “Is this a gay bar?” he asked.

  I glanced around. “It’s more of a hallucination,” I said, “but it grows on you.”

  As we perused the buffet table, the dancing boy left the stage at the far end of the room and pranced over to us. He seemed aptly dressed in a gold-banded thong. Another few beers, and his figure would no longer be appropriate for this outfit. Maybe they only had the second-string guys gyrating at Monday lunch. Brad made shooing motions at the dancer, but I knew the drill. I stuck a buck in his pouch, and he left us alone.

  I picked up a broccoli-and-cheese omelet and a Caesar salad, along with some onion soup. Scott found the appetizer /finger food that he liked so much and loaded up. Brad stuck to waffles.

  After I’d consumed enough to take the edge off my hunger, I said, “We’ve got big problems. Brad, you said you were scared and Glen had made some kind of deal. What’s going on?”

  We spoke in soft voices, although the size of the booths, the distance we were from any other patron, and the sounds of music for the dancers wafting over hidden speakers were sufficient to mute anything we said.

  “How can I be sure I can trust you?” Brad asked.

  Scott said, “We can’t be sure we can trust you, either. We’ve been shot at. You’re scared. Who are you planning to turn to, if not us?”

  Brad’s immediate response was to wolf down huge quantities of waffle while glancing anxiously around the room.