A police car stopped alongside the Jet and the cop inside told Whelan to move. Whelan pulled out and drove around for a couple of minutes, eventually returning to the same block. This time luck was with him as a long, dark blue Buick pulled out and handed him a parking space. Rick’s Roost was across the street and two doors down, and Whelan had a perfect view of the front door and all its comings and goings. There was, at first glance, nothing to separate Vosic’s tavern from forty or fifty other places within a quarter mile—the same unending file of single men, alone or in groups, and same steady influx of young women, always in pairs or groups. A bouncer at the door, young, very tan, tall, and muscular and wearing the obligatory knit shirt to show off the result of his thousands of sit-ups and push-ups and all the miles of roadwork. This one was a smiler; some bouncers believed they were Wyatt Earp, others smiled at the world in confidence of their physical ability to meet all situations. At some of the taverns in the area the bouncers screened their customers. Drunks were turned away, of course, but people who weren’t particularly well dressed, people who looked like they didn’t have a lot of money, people who were the wrong ethnic persuasion, and even people who weren’t particularly attractive, all were told by a large man at the door that the tavern premises were filled to overflowing and could not accommodate any more customers. On his first night in town a new center for the Chicago Bulls had been turned away by a singles bar down the street on Division, ostensibly because the saloon was too crowded but in reality because he was black and seven feet tall.
Whelan watched the door of the tavern and listened to a jazz station. Twice cars pulled up alongside to wait for his parking space and he had to wave them off. He sat in his car with the window rolled down and listened to music and savored the slightly acrid smells of summer in the city and now and then caught a trace of perfume from the young women passing by, and he remembered times when he’d come down with friends and wasted his time and money in hot, dark rooms athrob with loud music and tried to pick up women. He looked at these young—very young, half-his-age young—women passing by and told himself he was retired from the bar scene.
He had been at his post for forty-five minutes when he saw him—on the crowded sidewalks of Rush Street, among the hundreds of strutting, preening males stepping out to show the female world their stuff, this man stood out. He was bigger than most, maybe six three, and heavy, with a pronounced stomach and big shoulders and thick arms. He wore a dark blue knit shirt that hung loose over a pair of white deck pants and dirty white tennis shoes without socks. He was big, all right, and dark and his shaved head caught the glints of the street lights, and Whelan could see the dark point of the beard.
Half the people on the street were tanned, but his was different, a reddish color obvious even in the mixture of artificial lighting of the street, the color of a man who lives in the sun. There was a cocky roll to his walk and he kept his hands loose at his sides, and he had the look—it was the same everywhere, universal, and on this night there were thousands of men in Chicago wearing the look that said they were here for a fight. And Whelan could see that with this man the look was a way of life. It was there in his posture, in the way he kept his hands, in the way he stared at other men passing by.
Whelan watched him walking toward Vosic’s tavern. The bald man stopped at the door and lit a cigarette, surveying the street as he held lighter to tobacco. Whelan watched how this man took in each face around him, and for a fraction of a second he thought he saw this man’s eyes rest on him. Then the bald man turned, looked the young bouncer in the eye, and walked past him without speaking. The bouncer stepped aside to let him in and Whelan saw the smile fade for a moment.
I’d get out of his way, too, kid, Whelan thought.
He continued to watch the door, saw the bouncer turn away a trio of staggering middle-aged men in Cubs hats, and then decided to call it a night. He thought of the bald man again and sighed.
Somehow, he thought, somehow I was hoping for somebody a little softer.
He started the Jet and then changed his mind, turned it off again, listened to the engine make strange gurgling sounds, and then got out. He walked the two blocks to the tiny hamburger place, pushed open the door, and let the cold air envelop him. The place smelled of grilling onions and potatoes turning gold in the deep fryer, and he wondered what he was doing there.
She was there again, taking an order from an elderly man in a sport coat and open-collar shirt. The same short, dark, dangerous-looking man was working the grill, his hair still jutting out from underneath the white paper cap at right angles to his head. Set this guy down in a playground and you could guarantee nightmares in small children.
The cook turned and gave Whelan a wild-eyed glance, then scratched at his chest and turned back to the omelets and burgers that lay in little crackling, spitting mounds on his grill. Whelan took the last booth and the woman came over.
“Hello again,” she said and tried on a half smile.
“Hi,” he said. He felt himself grinning. Good, Whelan, let her think you’ve never talked to a woman before. Make a nice first impression, like your ma told you.
She clicked her pen and folded over a page of her ticket pad.
“Just getting off work?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah, I am.”
She nodded slightly to the west. “You work out of Chicago Avenue?”
He laughed. “Not in a long time. Do I look like a police officer?”
She shrugged and laughed a little. “Well…more or less.”
He looked down at his tropical shirt and painter’s jeans. “I know it’s not the way I dress. So do I have that cop strut? I thought I got rid of that. They sent me to finishing school to learn posture.”
“It’s the way you scan a place when you come in. And the way you were watching those kids last night. Like it was routine to you, nothing special.”
“It’s probably routine to every bartender on earth.”
“The bartenders I get in here don’t watch the room the way you do. And they’re usually not quiet, they’re kind of…they’re unwinding, you know?” She shrugged and watched him and he realized he was in the process of lighting a cigarette he couldn’t remember taking out. He could see that she was letting him take his time. The laugh lines at the corners of her eyes were a little deeper and darker and he knew she was reading him like a book. Take a shot at it, Whelan.
“Your name’s Pat, right?”
She nodded, hesitated for a second just to keep him honest, and then smiled. “What’s yours?”
“My name’s Paul. And I’m not a cop.”
“Hi, Paul. I bet you’re hungry after all this talk, huh?” And she laughed, a young girl’s laugh that brought a touch of red to her cheeks, and he couldn’t help joining her.
“No, I ate already. Actually, eating’s kind of a late-night hobby with me. I don’t really have to be hungry.” He realized that he was babbling and took a puff of his cigarette.
“I can think of a lot of worse habits you could have.” She clicked her pen again and put it to the pad. He ordered a cup of coffee and a chocolate malt. She wrote and nodded and started to say something as she walked backward toward the counter.
He looked at her and caught her taking a quick glance at him. He shrugged. “You have time for a quick cup of coffee or something?” He started to shrug again and felt self-conscious. No, I’m not good at this anymore.
“Sure,” she said quickly but stared at her pad as though unable to read her own writing. She went back around the counter and stuck the bill in a little clamp that hung over the grill. The cook looked up briefly and nodded, then went back to the little mounds of eggs and hash browns sizzling on his grill. Whelan watched the woman pour coffee refills for the three customers sitting apart from one another at the counter. She grabbed two mugs and a pot of coffee, then made a wide swing around the counter to the occupants of the other two booths, refreshed their coffee, spoke to the older man, and then joined Whelan
. She smiled and set down her cup.
“Is this…does the boss mind?”
She looked over at the cook. “Nick? No, he doesn’t care. People come in all night and we only have one waitress on, so I don’t get a real break.”
“And he’s not the jealous type?”
She laughed and looked at him for a second before answering, and he was slightly embarrassed. She leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “He just got married. He doesn’t even know there are other women in the world. You should see his wife—he went back to Greece for four months just to find a bride. Came back with an eighteen year old with eyes the size of headlights; she thinks he’s Alexander the Great and he’s not telling her any different. Says he’s gonna have ten sons.”
“Oh, yeah? Wait till she has the first two or three: we’ll see if she still thinks he’s Alexander.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Are you married, Paul?” She took a sip of her coffee.
“No. Never been married. I’m just talking about married couples I’ve known. How about you, Pat?”
“I’m not married. I’m divorced.”
“Were you married a long time?”
She sipped her coffee and studied him over the rim.
“I’m thirty-nine and I’ve got a daughter in college.”
He smiled. “I wasn’t asking about your age. And I’m forty, so you’re a mere toddler. A daughter in college, huh? You married young.”
“That’s when most of our mistakes happen, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I still manage to make a lot.”
She smiled and was about to say something when the cook rang a little bell to tell her an order was ready. She went back to the counter and brought food out for the older man and came back to Whelan.
“Your malt is almost up, Paul. Where were we?”
“I’m not sure. What do you like, Pat?”
“What do I like? You mean like hobbies or something like that?”
“I was never much good at this. I think you find out more about a person by asking what they do for fun than if you go through the whole twenty-questions routine. So I won’t ask you your sign or where you went to school or how you vote or how business is or how much you like working here.”
“How about a cigarette, Paul? Save me the steps from here to my purse.”
“Oh, sure.” He shook a cigarette up from the pack and held it out to her, then flicked his lighter.
She blew smoke up and away from him, in the way that women always seem to. “Let’s see. That’s a nice question, what do I do for fun. I like to read, for one. I like mysteries set in big old English houses. And I like the beach. And I like old music and I like to dance to it, but I don’t get much chance to do that. And I like old movies. And I like Chinese food. Any kind of Chinese food—Cantonese or Hunan or any of them.”
“Ah, my favorite subject.”
“Chinese food?”
“No, restaurants. Any kind.”
“You got a favorite?”
“I’m pretty far gone on Korean. And I like Thai food.”
“You like spicy food, then.”
“Yes. If it hurts me, it’s good.”
She laughed and then left the booth to get his malt. The cook hit the bell and she made a wry face.
“Back to work, huh?”
“Has to happen eventually. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay.” He watched her walk away and told himself again that there were few women in the world who could wear those unpretentious little black uniforms, and that this was one of the better-looking thirty-nine-year-old women he was likely to run into.
A pair of street cops came in and sat at the counter, and Pat was immediately involved in a conversation with both of them. The conversation was animated and friendly and one of the cops was good at making her laugh. Whelan sipped at the malt and looked out the window at the foot traffic on Rush and tried not to listen to the laughter from the counter.
Oh, well, he thought, did you think it would be that easy?
He finished the malt and had a cigarette and took his time over it, and when he was finished he looked around for her. She was pouring coffee refills for the people in the other booths and gave him a little smile.
She came over immediately. “Anything else, Paul? More coffee?”
“No, thanks. I think I’m done for the night. How about my check.”
She nodded and set down her coffeepot, then leafed through the checks on her pad till she found his. She tore it off and lay it on the table, face down.
“Thanks for the coffee and the conversation,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Thanks for sitting down.”
The bell rang and she shot the cook a look over her shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t have more time. Maybe…another time.”
“That would be nice.” He was about to ask her what nights she worked but she sprinted off to pick up her orders. Like her laugh, it was a young woman’s run, exactly the way Liz used to run in her tight black uniform and white shoes.
Waitresses, he told himself, I’m a sucker for waitresses. He put out the cigarette, put money on the table for his bill, and tipped her, not ostentatiously but well enough so that it would be noted. Then he got up and left, pausing to give her a short wave as he pulled the door open. She was bringing the cops their food. She set the plates down hurriedly and waved.
“Good night, Paul.”
“See you, Pat.”
Whelan parked in front of his house and was about to go inside when he noticed the lettering on the porch across the street. It was done in black or dark blue and sprayed in letters a foot high and said NIGGER YOUR DEAD. This wasn’t something that was going to wear itself out. It was going to get worse, perhaps very ugly, and he wondered if it would eventually involve him. It probably would, and he felt very tired of other people’s troubles.
He sat down at the top step and had a cigarette. He thought for a moment about Pat, had a brief moment of jealousy about the two cops, and then was aware of the discomfort, a reluctance to start something, to go through all this again. Whelan wondered if he could compete for a woman again, go calling with hat in hand and try all the old dance steps and sell someone on the virtues of Paul Whelan. Perhaps there came a time when you refused to try to start relationships, when you simply put up little walls and clung to your routines and protected yourself.
Whelan looked at the house across the street and shook his head.
Come on, Whelan, he told himself. This guy across the street, now he’s got troubles. You’ve just got cold feet.
His knuckles were stiffening up and the welt on the side of his head was beginning to sting again, and he wondered if he’d feel any better in the morning.
I’m keeping the wrong company.
Nine
His head was fine but the knuckles ached. Whelan showered and had a cup of coffee and rye toast and listened to the news on the radio.
When he went out the black man was standing on the grass in front of his house, staring at the painted message, arms folded across his chest. He turned at the sound of Whelan’s door closing and watched Whelan descend the stairs. Whelan looked at him and nodded briefly and the black man did nothing but stare, and Whelan knew this man would be staring at every white face in the neighborhood, searching for some clue, some evasiveness in the eyes that would tell him who wrote this on his home. Whelan got into his car and drove to Rich Vosic’s office.
He parked around the corner from the building with the blue awning. The van and the Lotus and the Town Car were all there, as well as a station wagon he hadn’t seen before and half a dozen other cars. He watched and listened to music and when it became clear he was wasting his time, he went for coffee.
When he returned forty minutes later the Lotus was gone and it was time to go to work. He parked in the little lot and went in the front door. The boy security guard was there again and nodded.
Whelan stopped in front of him and point
ed to the door. “Rich’s car’s not here. He didn’t come in yet?”
“He was here but he left. He’ll be back at eleven or so.”
“Eleven?” Whelan made a pained expression and looked up at the wall clock. He sighed and pointed to his bare wrist.
“Know why I don’t wear a watch? Because nobody pays attention to time anymore. Damn.” He shook his head, the irritated businessman. “Carmen back there?”
“Sure.”
“All right. I’ll leave a message with her and get back on the road.” He gave the guard a friendly pat on the shoulder and then walked down the hall toward the double doors. Carmen was at her post.
Whelan found himself admiring the layout of the office. There were several people just barely visible in the smaller offices to the sides but the scene was dominated by Carmen’s desk, the visitor’s eye encountered Carmen. She looked up from her keyboard as Whelan entered and he was struck by how much Carmen did for an office. She was in yellow today, a sleeveless cotton dress, bright and tight and made for Carmen.
“Hi,” she said, but she didn’t smile, and he knew Vosic had said something to her.
“Morning. Your security force out there tells me I missed Rich.”
She gave him a tight smile. “That’s right. He’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Whelan nodded and pretended to be wrestling with scheduling problems. He glanced at the clock on her desk, bit his lip, shook his head, and shrugged.
“All right…just tell him I was here. I’ll call him later.” Then, as an afterthought, “While I’m here, can I take a look at those same files?”
She thought it over and then nodded. “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the little back room and came out with the personnel files again. Whelan took them from her and sat down at a desk a few feet away and began paging through the files again.
“Who’s the woman I saw him with, Carmen?” She looked up and he saw that he had her attention. “I saw him with her yesterday. I think it was yesterday.”
A Body in Belmont Harbor Page 14
