Chicago Noir

by Neal Pollack

Ward slammed the door shut.

  The Police Superintendent raised his eyes from the file and saw menace, tall and bony, standing in his office. If he was surprised that someone had been watching him, he didn't let on. He wet his thumb against the blotter of his tongue, picked up the file between wet thumb and dry forefinger, and placed it on top of a stack of papers at the corner of the desk. He curled his small and enormously pink lips into a smile, placed both palms against the desk edge, and scooted his chair backwards. Then he gripped the padded armrests, rose up from the seat, and came around the desk, carpet muffling the sound of his white cordovans shined with a high polish, and came over to where Ward stood, with a hand extended in welcome.

  "Ward," he said. "You've decided to come."

  "I had to see you for myself," Ward said.

  "Pleased to have you with us."

  Ward stuck a finger inside his nose and worked it around. Only then did he offer to shake hands. The Police Superintendent looked at the finger, looked Ward straight in the face. Ward seized one cuff of the Police Superintendent's white linen shirt—so out of season, the thinnest fabric in the coldest weather—and cleaned the finger on the sleeve.

  To Ward's regret, the Police Superintendent slowly raised his line of sight, offering a face lacking any signs of anger or distress or revulsion, a face betraying no emotion other than authority and duty. He spoke to Ward in polite, even tones, asking that he be seated, motioning to a leather armchair directly in front of his desk. Cautiously Ward settled into the chair. The Police

  Superintendent walked over to a second picture window and stood looking out, dust drifting like unmoored astronauts in two smoky shafts of sunlight on either side of him.

  "A damn nice secretary you have," Ward said.

  The Police Superintendent seemed to be looking off at a skyscraper surprisingly small and dull in the afternoon sun. He was a heavy man, so heavy that he might at any moment sink through the floor and plunge forever downward.

  "'Go right in.' Damn nice. It can't be easy for her."

  The Police Superintendent made slow steps away from the window, then sat down leisurely in his big leather armchair, eyes trained on the desk, giving Ward time to study the lumpy mass of his head. Light from the window gave the desk a liquid glow. The Police Superintendent joined the fingers of both hands into a meaty cup. He cleared his throat.

  "Might we get to it." He lifted his eyes to Ward's face. "I cannot stress enough"—gesturing with his hands—"how important it is that we follow our plan to the letter"—his palm held upward in supplication. "Unless you can adduce any legitimate grounds for some fresh course of action." He locked his fingers before him on the desk.

  Ward watched him in silence.

  "I am sorry. Profoundly sorry," the Police Superintendent said. "Every one of us should be entitled to a private corner in the garden." He shook his head, weary, defeated. "Alas—" He parted his hands, nothing to offer. "If your associates had been more careful in their actions, perhaps we could—"

  "My associates?"

  "Yes. Speaking plainly."

  "Let me ask you a question. Did you spend your lunch hour bobbing for turds?"

  Just like that. He began unbuttoning his black overcoat.

  The Police Superintendent watched the unbuttoning without comment, blinking each time a button snapped free. He stirred heavily in his seat, then pushed himself up from his chair and walked to a third massive window. He extended his arm stiffly out in front of him as if preparing to bend it in salute, caught the soiled shirt cuff between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand, unsnapped the button, and rolled the sleeve to the elbow, revealing dense wiry hair on his wrist and forearm. He did the same with the other sleeve. Stood still a moment with his arms hanging at his sides. He brought both hands to his chest and pulled violently at his shirt, buttons catapulting into air, like some high-story flasher exhibiting himself to the world. He twisted backwards and began freeing himself of the shirt, tilting his torso to one side then the other until both sleeves were free. That done, he crumpled up the shirt between both hands, his violent belly hanging like a mound of descending lava over his belt, and moved forward, the sausage rolls of his sides quivering with each step and the shirt trailing along the carpet behind him. He dropped the garment into a wicker wastebasket and resumed his station behind his desk, hands folded in his lap, watching Ward with murderous hate. His chest rising and falling. He cupped his hands underneath his belly and began rocking in the chair. Continued:

  "As you know, in this suspect we are dealing with a man who has been fortunate enough to travel in some of our most distinguished circles, not to mention the access he has …"

  "I've been thinking," Ward said. "Would you take my hand in marriage?"

  The Police Superintendent grabbed the edges of the desk and leaned in close. "Look! I am appealing to your—"

  "Don't refuse me."

  "—better nature." His nostrils blew hot air onto Ward's face. "A selfless act. Lives in the balance. After all, you gain as well. Your time to shine."

  "So thoughtful of you. Such abundance of caution and concern."

  The Police Superintendent glared at Ward and remained poised over his desk like some indecisive highwire acrobat.

  It was cold where Ward lay. The yellowed glow of streetlamps seeping under and around the edges of the window shade, frail wisps of light spinning like ballet dancers in the dark. A reserved wind tapped modest applause against the paned glass. He shut his eyes and let the world spin free. The next thing he knew he had spun out of orbit, his brain ricocheting off the black walls of his skull. He opened his eyes and found darkness in slow dissolution.

  "Everything all right in there?"

  A hand pounded muffled words into the door.

  Ward turned his face in the direction of the sound. No visual evidence that the door even existed, but he knew it was there. Shadowy crabs crawling in the strip of light under its frame.

  He listened to the wet whine of the rusty radiator.

  "Hey!"

  "Just relax."

  "The Police Superintendent will be here soon."

  "Just relax."

  He turned back the bedcovers. Shivered to a cold greeting of air. Kicked his feet from under the sheets. Sat upright in the bed, a cot really, a narrow iron frame small and set low. The lax springs sagging under his insignificant weight. He placed his feet on the cold wooden floor. Bent forward and fingered the shade, which snapped back upon its roller, allowing morning light to rush like gatecrashers into the room. He shut his eyes.

  "Hey!"

  "Relax. I'll be right out." Ward placed a blanket across his shoulders.

  Hands shoved in his pockets, a young officer who had spent the entire night outside Ward's door sat slumped over on a stool wearing his department-issued cap and jacket, the side of his young face barely visible in sixty-watt gloom. He turned his head and peered up at Ward, one corner of his mouth twisted as if he were biting down on something. The sight of Ward changed the look in his eyes, the angle of his chin, the red polish of his cheeks. He pulled his hands from his pockets, sat as straight as he possibly could on the stool, and redirected his gaze to a neutral wall.

  Ward pulled one side of the blanket tighter about his shoulders. "Fine job," he said.

  The young officer remained perfectly still, like someone sitting for a photograph, though Ward detected faint suggestions of some forbidden emotion rising to the surface of his face.

  Some time later, Ward returned from his shower and was dismayed to find the Police Superintendent stretched out on the cot, arms folded pretzel-like behind his head, not unlike how Ward himself might have been positioned in times past, less somber days. The mattress sagging under him, its white bottom almost touching the dark floor. The Superintendent's breathing did not come easy, a labored wheezing and blowing, some beached sea creature. He made several slight shifts and turns of the body, incremental adjustments of arms, torso, legs, a model responding to a paint
er's instructions. The bedsprings strained and squeaked. It was only then that Ward saw a white derby adorning his windowsill, drawing attention like some ill-placed trophy.

  Ward stood there, astounded. "Glad you see fit," he said.

  The Police Superintendent turned his head and looked Ward up and down in disgust, an action of such surprising force that Ward's lips parted.

  "Have a seat."

  Ward collapsed into the chair beside the bed.

  "Crazy damn hours."

  "Don't blame me."

  "No, I won't. I can send your friend a note of thanks and—"

  "He's not my friend."

  "Oh no, then how would you describe him?"

  Ward sat there watching his other.

  "Please, hold nothing back. I wish to make every effort to understand."

  Ward shrugged the shawl from his shoulders onto the chair back and bent forward, his plastic-lined shoes at his feet. "There's nothing to understand."

  "No?"

  "No." Ward tugged and pulled at the tongue of one shoe, as he began to squeeze and wiggle and stomp his foot inside it.

  "Indeed. Not surprising, your curious—"

  "Why don't we just go?"

  "—range of reasoning."

  "Kindly spare me the sermon."

  "Certainly. They don't pay me to preach. What would you care to hear? You would care to hear that—"

  "We have someplace to go." Ward squeezed in the second foot and stood.

  "No? Perhaps if I kneeled down and—"

  "You wallow!"

  The Police Superintendent popped upright on the bed. "Nothing could wallow like you." He sat there on the bed staring at Ward.

  "Are we going to sit here all day?"

  "May you rot."

  "Take comfort in the thought."

  Ward lifted his overcoat from its closet hook and slipped inside it, his body mockingly insubstantial, the padded wrapping loose on his frame like a hospital gown. But the Police Superintendent made no effort to move, anchored to stubborn place, unable to pull his hate back inside him, link by link.

  "Why don't I meet you downstairs," Ward said.

  These words might have gone unheard, escaped comprehension. It was only when Ward started for the door that the Police Superintendent took to his feet and blocked his exit. He smacked his palms against his trouser legs to rid them of lint, shook the lapels of his overcoat, and brushed his hair flat with the sides of his hands. Then he eased around Ward, lifted his white derby from the windowsill, and fitted it on his head. He pulled the door open, without hurry, and motioned for Ward to go through.

  The winter sky was high and clear above short snow-banked streets. Pancake-like flakes falling in rapid succession and blowing aloft again in fierce gusts. A car waited, idling. The hard-of-muscle young officer tugged harder at Ward's elbow. Ward bent into the car and settled back onto the rear passenger seat. The officer slammed his door tight against the wind and cold. At the same moment, the front passenger door hinged open, snow rushing in with malicious intentions of beating the Police Superintendent to his seat. Only when his door slammed shut did he thoroughly examine his white derby for damage. The young officer seated himself next to Ward and shut the door. He turned his face to the glass, a full yard of leathered space between their bodies.

  A second uniformed officer positioned himself behind the steering wheel and eased the smooth running car forward. "Coldest day of the year," he said, black-gloved fingers drumming on the wheel.

  Ward brushed snow from his coat, removed his own gloves, and blew hot air into the well of his joined hands. The wipers switched back and forth across the windshield. A second car moved ahead of them, venting smoke. A third car behind.

  "Coldest so far."

  "You're a genius," Ward said. "Now turn up the goddamn heat."

  "What?" The driver craned his neck to look back over the seat. Perhaps he would steer the car with one hand and shoot Ward with the other. "You want to repeat that?"

  "You heard me."

  "Officer," the Police Superintendent said. "Do the honor. Turn up the heat."

  The driver shot a quick unprotesting glance at his superior and clicked on the blower.

  "Thanks, you cocksucker."

  The Police Superintendent looked at Ward's reflection in the rearview mirror. "Take a moment or two, if you must."

  Ward offered no reply, only sat rubbing his palms together. The blower roaring like an untamed beast.

  "That warm enough for you?" the driver asked.

  "No. Have your mother send up a faggot or two from hell."

  The driver began rocking from side to side in his seat, his fingers tapping anxious rhythms on the steering wheel. The Police Superintendent gave him a sharp look and he pressed his shoulders into his seat.

  "Kiss him once for me, would you?" Ward said to the Police Superintendent.

  The Police Superintendent turned around in his seat and gave Ward his familiar look of disgust. He shook his head slowly. "Who would have ever thought," he said.

  "Certainly not you," Ward said.

  The ride was otherwise uneventful, the streets specked with people, black forms silhouetted against the snow.

  "Here." The Police Superintendent dropped a ring of keys into Ward's lap, letting them fall from his hand with the highest form of disregard. "The keys to the city."

  "You're so thoughtful."

  Ward quickly deposited the keys into an inside pocket of his coat. He looked over and saw that the young officer who had kept vigil outside his door was snickering into his upturned jacket collar. When they made it to their destination, this same officer pulled Ward from the car and rudely bumped and shoved him into the snow, but in such a way as to make the action seem accidental, an inadvertent trip over the curb. Ward regained his feet, brushed snow from his clothes, retrieved his scattered thoughts, and checked his pockets to make sure the keys were still there. His outer garments were thoroughly soaked through.

  The Police Superintendent took a firm hold of Ward's gloved hand and led him forward like a child on the first day of school. They walked some fifty paces. Ward's breath coming a little harder as they went. The Police Superintendent stopped as if on cue and spun Ward in front of him like a practiced dance partner. "Please sign, here and here."

  Ward did as instructed. The Police Superintendent slipped the damp paper into his jacket and stood before Ward under his white derby, the hat tiny on his massive head like some ghastly baby bonnet. "I would be lying if I said it has been a pleasure," he said.

  "Spare me."

  The Police Superintendent turned and headed back for his car and left Ward to the snow and wind. Ward vowed to take away with him some memory of the man. However, the weather being what is was, he was already having trouble remembering exactly how the man's features fit together. So much so that Ward considered calling out to him and requesting a quick but comprehensive physical inventory, fully aware that, in all likelihood, the Police Superintendent would not even rebuff him with an insulting refusal. So he looked through the neutral and colorless distance and saw an old five-story walk-up building slanting away from the ground at a precarious angle, snow swirling around the leaning structure as if to lasso it upright. His appointed destination. What was keeping it standing? He turned for a final look at the Police Superintendent, who was now leaning against the car, white derby snugly atop his head. The two young officers were huddled over sharing a cigarette while uniformed men from supporting vehicles worked to cordon off the street with brass barricades they took from the trunks of their own cars.

  Ward reached into his coat pocket for the ring of keys but fumbled them against his chest into the snow. At once he dropped to his knees, biting at the ends of his gloved fingers until his hands were free of the leather. He stuck his bare fists into the snow and began clawing about, reacting to the cold in an almost clinical way. The snow both surprising and mundane. He scooped up two fistfuls and weighed them in each palm. Snow was actual
ly rising up from the street and fleeing into the heavens, but the domed sky would allow no escape. That thought took hold of him while he was kneeling at the very center of the world, its cold icy navel. He trembled to shake himself free.

  No sooner had he done so than he noticed twenty feet ahead a familiar figure trudging through the snow toward him. He stuck his hands back into the slushy mounds and worked more frantically after the keys. Heard the snow-crunching approach of the two young officers behind him. Looked up and turned his head to see them bobbing forward with pistols drawn. He thought about shouting, "The keys! I dropped the keys! " Instead, he burrowed down, trenched in this place that had already started to corrode beneath him, to melt and puddle around his knees.

  DESTINY RETURNS

  BY ACHY OBEJAS

  26th & Kedvale

  Destiny scratched the back of her neck with her left hand, the glistening pink nail on her index finger digging into the skin until it almost hurt. With the other hand she held a short, slim, and brown Romeo y Julieta to her thick, rubbery lips and breathed in. The tobacco indulged her, sweet and vaguely spicy, and she rocked for a moment, savoring her refuge from the freezing Chicago winds outside her window.

  The tiny coffee maker, stout and metallic, hissed, cradled by fire on the stove. Destiny shot up from her kitchen table to extinguish the blue and orange flames before the crude sprayed all over. No one at the bodega where she'd bought it would ever consider it was anything other than Cuban, certainly not provident from the island but from Cuba nonetheless: diasporic, exiled, absolutely imaginary. Using an oven mitt to hold the hourglass-shaped coffee maker, she poured herself an exact thumbful in a wee cup that sported a raised pink and green floral pattern. Destiny lifted the cup to her lips and let the heat rise like a wet, gentle fog around her mouth. She stuck her tongue out, a marsupial peeking from its pouch, then tucked it back in a flash.