A Body in Belmont Harbor

by Michael Raleigh

  She shook her head, then stopped. “Couple times. A man come looking for him, couldn’t find the apartment, ’cause it was the one in back on the second floor—the second and third floors is divided into two flats, you see. Nice lookin’ man, you could tell he was money. Tall young man in a nice car, curly hair and nice eyes, nice suit.” She reflected on the memory and shook her head. “I think it was that one’s boss, that’s what I think. I think that one was drunk and didn’t show up for work and the boss had to come looking for him.” She pursed her lips.

  Whelan thought for a moment. She was probably right: it sounded like Phil Fairs. And it sounded exactly like a supervisor looking for a wayward employee who had a habit of not showing up for work when he was on a bender.

  “Ever see a shorter man, also a prosperous-looking guy, blond, about the same age as the big one with curly hair?”

  She shook her head.

  “Describe Brister for me.”

  “He was big and kinda fat around the middle. People like that don’t take care of themselves.” She shot a glance toward the man in the living room and wrinkled her nose. “Big and heavyset, and bald, just a little hair left on the sides. Didn’t take care of his hair, neither.”

  He suppressed an urge to laugh. Brister’s lifestyle was even responsible for his baldness.

  “And nobody else ever came to look for Brister.”

  “Not while he was here. That nice young fella, he come back one time, just before that one left without paying his rent.”

  “He did? Did he say anything?”

  “Just asked me did I know where George Brister was, and I told him no. The rent was past due already and I was thinking that one was gonna try something funny, and I was right.”

  “But Brister wasn’t gone yet?”

  “No. I heard him up there that night, walking around with those big feet of his, stomping around. I think he was clearing out his stuff. That’s what I think. Running out on his rent.”

  “Did he take everything?”

  “Just about. Left a couple of odds and ends in the bathroom. Toothpaste and a razor. You know what else? He left his dirty clothes in the hamper.” She raised her eyebrows and then shrugged in amazement at the depravity that this suggested to her.

  Whelan thought for a moment. “Did he leave the utilities on?”

  “The gas was shut off. Turned off the electric, too.”

  “Phone?”

  She snorted. “Never had one. Who’d call him? Didn’t have no friends that I ever heard of.” She leaned forward. “So, can you tell me what he did that you’re lookin’ for him? Or is that, uh, confidential?”

  “There’s evidence that he defrauded the company he worked for. He seems to have left town in a big hurry, and some people are very interested in finding him. That’s all I’m at liberty to tell you.”

  Apparently it was enough. She nodded slowly and gave Whelan a knowing smile. Her life had been filled with deadbeats—she could tell them a mile off. Whelan sipped at his coffee and then, just as Mrs. Majewski opened her mouth to ask another question, he said, “I’d like to see that apartment. Is that possible?”

  She paused with her mouth open, considered, then nodded. “I don’t see why not. Come on. They’re not home now.”

  Whelan followed her out her back door and up a narrow wooden stairway in need of paint. She took him to the back door of a second-floor apartment, knocked briefly, listened, then opened the door with her key. She entered, flicked on a light, and beckoned him in.

  “Here you are,” she said. “This is your kitchen, you got a small living room just through that hall, and this room here’s your bedroom. Bathroom’s in the hall there.” He watched her and realized that this was the sales speech she gave each time she showed one of these little carved-up apartments. And little it was. The linoleum was yellowed, the kitchen wallpaper stained in places, and both paint and plaster were coming undone on the ceiling. The whole place smelled of rotted wood and ancient plumbing. He crossed the room and peeked into the bedroom, where the tenants had left the bed unmade and had piled dirty clothes on chairs and in corners. The bedroom walls were painted dark brown and posters were taped on two of the walls.

  He smiled at Mrs. Majewski. “Let me guess: you rent this one to a young couple, early twenties. Casual dressers, maybe odd hairstyles.”

  She looked at him with eyes wide and let out a little chuckle. “That’s right. Young couple. He wears his hair with a little kinda tail in back and she dyes hers red like a fire engine. They both wear black all the time. They told me they’re married, but I don’t think so. None of my business, though. Least they pay the rent. The two in front, they’re always late.”

  Whelan nodded distractedly. “Well, thanks a lot.”

  She gave him a doubtful look. “Did you find out…did this help any?”

  “Oh, sure. You’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate the time you took. The coffee was good, too.” She gave him a little smile and they went back downstairs. She led him out through her apartment to the front door.

  “You come back if you need to ask any more questions,” she said.

  “I’ll do that,” Whelan said. He went to his car, got in, and lit up a cigarette. Each place he visited seemed to raise more questions than it answered. He turned on the ignition, then the radio. It seemed to be working better. He hit a couple of buttons till a jazz station came on and his car filled with Jimmy Smith running his magic fingers over an organ keyboard. He listened for a while and then drove off.

  As he drove he found himself wondering several things, like why a man skipping out on his rent would turn off his utilities, and why a man who apparently embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars wouldn’t just pay the rent and be done with it. And he was puzzled by one more thing. Why would an accountant who was making a pretty good buck with a firm like High Pair live in a dump like Mrs. Majewski’s rear apartment?

  The Caprice was parked in front of his office building, in the bus stop.

  He went quickly up the stairs and laughed when he saw the door to his office open. He went in and slammed the door behind him. A good-looking young man in a lavender sport shirt was standing at the window watching traffic and turned to look at him. Bauman sat on the edge of Whelan’s desk, tearing the paper off a long, thin cigar. He had dug into his bottomless store of ugly sport coats, this one being a bright red-and-white plaid with some sort of piping along the lapels.

  “A little late summer breaking-and-entering, Bauman?”

  The young one looked at Bauman. “This him?”

  Bauman looked up, lit his little cigar, puffed at it, and said, “Detective Rick Landini, meet Paul Whelan.”

  Whelan nodded at Landini and the young cop gave the faintest movement of his head, as though worried that his unutterably perfect head of hair would come undone. Bauman grinned.

  “You guys should get along great, you got a lot in common—you both think you’re hot shit.”

  Whelan crossed the room and sank into his chair and spoke to Bauman’s broad back. “I just try to be like you, Bauman. I walk around in bright-colored jackets and stick my belly out and put the arm on people.”

  He heard a snicker from Landini.

  “And our boy Whelan’s got a smart mouth on him, too. Don’t make fun of me in front of my high-class new partner, Whelan. He already thinks I’m nuts.” He turned to face Whelan, then nodded toward Landini.

  “This here is the new police detective, Whelan. He’s not like me, he’s real smart. This guy here was valedictorian of his high school class, and he went to college. Whelan here’s a college man, Landini.” He indicated the shabby little office with a sweep of one beefy arm. “See what that sheepskin can do for you, Landini? Got his own car, too, right, Whelan?”

  “I hate to interrupt you when you’re having a good time, Bauman, but believe it or not, someone’s paying for my time, so why don’t you let me in on the purpose of your visit. Or did you just come up here to introduce me
to your newest partner?” He looked at Landini. “Careful, Detective, this guy runs through partners like Zsa Zsa Gabor goes through false eyelashes. Boot hill’s full of guys that used to run around with old Albert here.”

  Landini’s eyes widened and he laughed. “He calls you Albert and he’s still alive? I’m impressed.” Bauman looked at Landini for a long moment and said nothing. Then he shifted slightly on the desktop.

  “Easy there, Bauman, this desk isn’t used to having that kind of weight on it.”

  Bauman stared at him, heavy-lidded, then nodded. He took a puff on his little cigar and exhaled, and the room was rich with the smells of cheap tobacco and Right Guard.

  “You’re your own good time, right, Whelan?”

  “I’m just having a little fun with you, because I know you didn’t come up here to do me any good. Fair is fair. What do you want?”

  “No, babe, what do you want? All over the North Side, I’m working on something and everybody tells me I got a helper I don’t know about, I got another guy asking questions about Harry Palm. Why is that, Whelan? Why would you be dicking around with an ongoing police investigation, huh? Will you tell me that?”

  “I’m not working on the same thing you’re working on, Bauman. I’m doing something else.”

  “I thought you and I straightened all this out. But no, you’re asking around about who Harry Palm did business with, asking who he pissed off, asking who people seen him with, and like that. I don’t hear anything about you working on something else, Whelan.”

  “I am, though. I’m looking into the circumstances around the death of a businessman who allegedly killed himself a couple of years ago. This guy did business with Harry Palm, and I—”

  “So what? If he was a businessman he probably did business with a hundred other people. You investigating everybody he did business with, Whelan?”

  “No, but nobody found any of his other business acquaintances buried in the sand in Belmont Harbor.”

  Landini turned from the window. “Was this guy Outfit or was he really a businessman?”

  “Far as I know, he was just a guy making a lot of money on computer software and gambling large amounts of it away with Harry Palm.”

  Bauman took a final puff of his cigar and tossed it across the room into a wastebasket, still lit.

  “Thanks, Bauman. Maybe someday you’ll have an office and I’ll come and torch it for you.” There were ashes all over the desktop. Whelan took out a tin ashtray and slammed it on the desk.

  Bauman shrugged. “You didn’t offer me an ashtray, Whelan. You’re a lousy host. But let’s stay on the subject at hand, okay? You got anything at all, anything remotely related to this Harry Palm thing, you give it to me, you hear? This is mine, and anything anybody finds out is mine, all mine.” He leaned forward and put his face close to Whelan’s. Whelan could smell whiskey through the tobacco on his breath.

  “Am I reaching you, Whelan? Anybody home in there?”

  Whelan sat back in his chair and said nothing.

  Landini moved away from the window. “I’m going down to the car and sit in air-conditioning.”

  “You do that,” Bauman said. “I’ll be finished with the private investigator in a minute.”

  Bauman took out another cigar and lit it, puffed at it, and waited till Landini was gone.

  “You can say all the cutesy things you want in front of this fucking teenager they give me for a partner, Whelan, but don’t get too carried away. Don’t fuck with me, Whelan. You know me.”

  “I don’t have any secrets, Bauman. But maybe you’ve got a few I should know. Tell you what—let’s talk. I’ll tell you what I have and you tell me what you have—” He held up a hand to intercept Bauman’s protest. “—if it has anything to do with this other thing I’m working on. Come on, Bauman, I’ll buy you dinner.”

  Bauman shrugged and looked around the room. A seam was coming apart in the shoulder of the jacket, and Whelan wondered how Bauman’s clothes stood the stress. Then Bauman nodded.

  “Arright. Where?”

  “We’ll go to Raul’s.”

  “I give a shit,” Bauman said.

  Seven

  The Caprice was parked in front of a hydrant just up the street from Raul’s when Whelan pulled up. Whelan parked under the El tracks between Raul’s and Kelly’s Pub and got out. So far the evening was airless and didn’t promise to get a lot better. He peered into Kelly’s. The saloon looked cool and dark. It was also empty—the bartender, a moonlighting firefighter Whelan knew casually, leaned into the window and watched the street. He nodded when Whelan waved.

  He walked over to the Caprice. Bauman sat at the steering wheel, staring straight ahead and smoking with the windows rolled up. Whelan knocked on the window.

  Bauman rolled it down, releasing a little cloud of cigar smoke. “Whelan,” he said.

  “Well, you going to come out and have din-din, or are you pretending to be on stakeout?”

  “Just waitin’ on you, Shamus.”

  Bauman pulled his heavy body out of the car, gripping the frame and the door. He was in his lime ensemble—a light green sport coat over a bright green knit shirt.

  “Does that shirt glow in the dark?”

  Bauman took the little cigar out of his mouth and looked at Whelan’s yellow guayabera. “You should talk. You look like a Mexican Christmas.” He brushed imaginary wrinkles from his jacket.

  Bauman gave off his familiar odor of cigar smoke and Right Guard. Whelan wondered if Right Guard had come out with a cologne.

  He indicated Bauman’s car with a nod. “Your car’s gonna smell like a hamster died in it from you smoking with the windows rolled up.”

  Bauman smiled and hitched up his dark green pants. “I know.”

  “Let me guess: Landini hates the cigars.”

  Bauman winked.

  “And you hate Landini.”

  Bauman shrugged. “I don’t hate nobody, Whelan. You know me, I treat everybody the same,” and he laughed, a wheezy, hoarse whisper of a laugh. He looked at Whelan. “He’s a smart kid, real smart. Good cop, too, least he’s gonna be when he fucking figures out he don’t have all the answers. Let’s go, Whelan, I’m hungry.”

  Whelan pushed open the door and was hit by the archetypal smells of a Mexican restaurant, the odors of corn tortillas and chilies and pork stewing in its own juices and beef frying in lard. Raul stood at his cash register, staring across the street and working at his huge bandito mustache with loving strokes. Pale and pouch eyed, he nodded at Whelan from the depths of his hangover.

  “Hello, Pablo. How you today?”

  “I’m doing better than you, I think, Raul. Been partying too hard?”

  Raul shrugged. “A little cognac, you know? But I gonna be all right. Couple doubles, I gonna be all right.”

  Whelan looked at Bauman. “That’s his remedy for a hangover. Ancient remedy from the hills of his beloved Mexico. Two doubles and then some breakfast.” Whelan jerked a thumb toward Bauman.

  “This is Albert, Raul. He’s my date.”

  Raul laughed and stopped fondling his mustache long enough to extend a hand. “Hello, Albert. You Pablo’s date, eh?” He shut his eyes and laughed again and shook his head. “Hey, Pablo, your date’s bigger than you are. You like ’em big, huh?”

  Bauman shook Raul’s hand briefly but kept his eyes on Whelan. “Enjoy yourself while you can, Whelan.”

  Raul indicated the tavern across the street, a worn-out place that called itself the Friendly Tavern.

  “That gonna be my new cantina. Raul’s Cantina. Make this one look like…” His vocabulary gave out and he shook his head.

  “Looks the same size to me,” Bauman said.

  “He bought that cleaners right next to it and he’s gonna knock the walls out.”

  “Gonna knock the walls out,” Raul agreed. Then he seemed to rouse himself. He came out from behind his little Formica bar with a pair of ornate, laminated menus and took Whelan and Bauman to a li
ttle table in the very center of his little one-room restaurant.

  There were four other patrons in the restaurant. A young couple ate quietly at a table along the far wall and occasionally shot nervous glances at the other two patrons, though Whelan could see no reason to be nervous about these two, for they were the notorious Jack and Jamie, disc jockeys for a local radio station about to go out of business and self-proclaimed “party animals.” Loud, pushy, and obnoxious, both nearing fifty and fighting it tooth and nail. Raul’s was their favorite restaurant, and fans often came up to the North Side looking for them here. Jamie was hunched on a stool at Raul’s bar, face down in what appeared to be a plate of enchiladas suizas. Jack wasn’t immediately apparent, but Whelan used his detective skills and located him—on the floor, a pair of legs protruding from the restroom. Raul had only one restroom, with a single wet terry cloth towel and a primeval-looking condom dispenser. Jack’s legs moved slightly and Whelan saw that he’d lost a shoe.

  Bauman looked at the two drunks and raised his eyebrows. “Nice place. You got your style, Whelan. Gotta give you that.”

  “This is just the floor show. Wait till you try the food.”

  Bauman nodded toward the unconscious man at the bar. “Looks like he tried the food.”

  “That’s just his drinking style. The food’s good, Bauman. Best Mexican food I’ve ever had, and I eat everywhere.”

  Raul came back over. He looked fondly at Jamie and then at Jack. “Too many of Raul’s margaritas, eh?” He laughed and shook his head. “Crazy fuckers. They’re famous guys. They eat here all the time. Lot of famous people eat here. Look, you see?” He indicated a framed photograph of himself with the late mayor Richard Daley. Hizzoner wore a huge black charro hat.

  “That’s Mayor Daley,” Raul said. “He used to eat here all the time before he died.”

  “How many times, Raul?”

  Raul shrugged. “Ah, I don’t know. Once. His kid don’t eat here yet. It’s okay; he ain’t important yet. So, what you gonna have, guys?”

  Whelan suggested the enchiladas suizas and a burrito. “To say this burrito is the greatest burrito in the world is to do it an injustice. Greatest burrito of all time, maybe.” Bauman shrugged and said he’d have what Whelan was having. They ordered a couple of Dos Equis and Bauman also asked for a shot of Walker’s DeLuxe.