Without being asked, Joe poured Bauman a German draft and then a dark for Whelan. He looked at Bauman and raised his eyebrows. “The usual, Al? A little G & U?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Joe poured Bauman a shot of bourbon from a bottle in the first row. Bauman put money on the bar and pushed it toward Joe. “I’m buyin’ tonight, Joe. Don’t take this guy’s money, all right?”
Joe walked away. “I’ll run a tab.”
Whelan looked around. The decor hadn’t changed, would never change. Black walls and a yellowed ceiling, strings of Italian lights and five thousand liquor labels pasted to the back wall. At one end of the bar a sea turtle hung from the ceiling, and the wall near the kitchen still bore a marlin Joe claimed to have caught. A few feet away from Whelan’s head a stuffed merganser dangled at the end of a piece of twine.
Bauman inhaled the shot and sucked down half his beer. A dark-haired woman in her fifties stuck her head out from the kitchen.
“Hello, fellas.”
“Hey, Fena,” Bauman said. Whelan waved. Bauman burped quietly and looked at Whelan.
“You want to split a pizza?”
“You just ate.”
Bauman looked at Whelan as though he was speaking in an unknown language.
“This is the greatest pizza on earth. Come on, Whelan, loosen up. Hey, Fena. We’ll split a small special.”
Whelan shook his head. “You’re a sick man, Bauman.”
They drank in silence for a while and Whelan waited. Bauman finished his beer and signaled to Joe for another round. When the drinks had been poured he looked at Whelan.
“So. Did he do one of his accents for you, Whelan?”
“Who?”
“Wardell Gibbs.”
“I’m missing something here, Bauman.” Bauman smiled. “Let me guess: Wardell Gibbs is the name of the black gentleman.”
“That’s right.” Bauman took a sip of his beer and wiped his lips with his finger. “So did he? Do one of his, uh, voices?”
“He did an African accent. Nigerian, I think it was.”
Bauman nodded approvingly. “He can do about eight of ’em. He can do that Nigerian bit, and Jamaican, and Haitian, he can pass as a black Puerto Rican. He’s got some other ones, I hear. I don’t remember ’em. And of course, he can slip into that ‘down home.’ He can talk like one of the brothers when he wants to.”
Bauman stared at him for a while, a half smile on his face. The cheeks were already flushed from the first drink and there was a little more life in the gray eyes, but he seemed more relaxed.
“So you guys didn’t exchange names, huh? I’m surprised you two didn’t know each other. Sooner or later, Whelan, you meet everybody. How old would you say he was?”
“Late thirties.”
“He’s fifty-two. Know what I think, Snoopy? I think you had a meet with this gentleman. I think somebody clued you in that this guy was a business associate of the late Harry Palm and you decided to see if he had anything for you.”
“I told you what happened. I was looking for anybody that had a problem with Harry Palm. Your friend came to see me. He told me to stop looking for him and I believe he threatened my well-being. I should fill out a report, right?”
“Right. That’s exactly what you should do.”
“What do you want from me, Bauman? I’m trying to find out what happened a couple years ago when a guy with a lot of money and a lot of reasons to go on living torched his own boat with him on it. We can go over this same ground a dozen more times if you like, Bauman, but my story will stay the same. The guy I’m interested in is a big white guy with no hair. I don’t know if he had anything to do with Harry Palm becoming an obituary but I think he may have killed the man he worked for.”
Bauman puffed at his cigar and shook his head. “I don’t know, Whelan. You been straight with me in the past, so I got no real reason to think you’d lie to me, but…you got a tendency to make grandstand plays. You made the last one personal; maybe you’re making this one personal.”
“That other time, that was a mistake.”
“A mistake in judgment, Shamus. Maybe you’re making another one right now. Keeping a little bit back, just a little bit.”
“No. I gave you what I had. You were just hoping for a little more. These guys probably don’t have anything to do with one another…”
“Oh, I’m not saying they don’t know each other. Here’s what I think: I think the guy I’m lookin’ for is the real deal. I think this black guy is the one that did old Harry Palm. I think your guy might be able to tell me something, but I think he’s just a player. Maybe him and Wardell did some business together, who knows? But Wardell Gibbs is a special guy, Whelan.”
Fena came in with the pizza, a thin-crust masterpiece on an aluminum plate, covered with razor-thin slices of mushrooms, peppers, onions, and pepperoni and then sprinkled with homemade sausage and anchovies. She set it down in front of them with a bottle of Joe’s legendary hot sauce. Bauman had a piece in his hand before the plate hit the bar.
Whelan watched him for a moment. “Why is this guy special, Bauman?”
“He just is,” Bauman said through a mouthful of pizza. “And he don’t work with nobody ’cause he don’t like nobody.”
“Kind of like yourself, huh, Bauman?”
Bauman grinned. “I like you, Whelan. I like old Joe, here. I’m in love with his sister Fena, who makes the best thin-crust pizza I ever ate. Let’s see…”
“You’ve exhausted your list.”
Bauman shrugged. “Maybe.” He gave Whelan an odd look. “I’m for sure not a good Sam like you, Whelan. I don’t come runnin’ out of my house with an ax when there’s somethin’ goin’ down on my block.” He winked. “Had some excitement there on Malden Street, huh? Couple apemen decided to burn a cross. Yeah, I know about it. I know everything, Whelan.”
For a moment he suspected that Bauman had been there, had watched it all.
“Come on, Whelan. I can hear your wheels turning. I heard. That’s all, I heard.”
“The sergeant.”
“Mike Shea. Yeah, me and Michaeleen, we go pretty far back.” Bauman looked smug. He drained the rest of his beer and said “How ’bout a couple more, Joe?”
The old man carefully poured a couple of steins, waited till the thick head of foam settled a bit, then poured in a little more. Whelan had once seen Joe Danno pour a pousse-café, a legendary drink of six layers of liqueurs, six perfect, separate stripes of color in a pony glass, a drink that had to be served with perfect symmetry, without so much as the smallest drop of one layer of color mixing in with the next. The next day Whelan told a bartender acquaintance what he’d seen. The other bartender had simply shrugged and said “Gimme a break. Nobody makes them. I don’t think anybody ever did.”
“Joe Danno,” Whelan said. The bartender thought about it, then nodded. “Maybe Joe Danno. Maybe.”
Bauman looked at him. “You gonna eat any of this?”
“Yeah. It’ll hurt her feelings if I don’t.”
He took a slice of pizza, put a couple of drops of Joe’s pepper sauce on it, and bit in. Bauman took a sip of his beer and gave him a sidelong glance.
“So, Shamus. You got anything for old Bauman? Any little old thing at all?”
“Not a thing you don’t have already. You’ve got more than I’ve got.”
“No surprises there.”
“So tell me why you’ve got such a hard-on for this guy, Bauman.”
Bauman chewed his pizza and looked at the rows of old bourbon bottles and cognacs and dark rums. “We go way back, me and Mr. Gibbs. I busted him twice when I was a uniform. He was Maceo James then, small-time thief is all he was. He’s done it all since then, though. He’d have a sheet as long as the fucking Nile but he’s smart. Hell on partners, though. Guys he does business with are either inside or they’re dead.”
“Harry Palm, for instance.”
“Yeah. But old Harry wasn’t a partner. He w
as tryin’ to establish himself. Do a little dealin’, make a little book. We even heard Harry was fencin’ a little here and there. And you see, Mr. Gibbs, he thinks he’s got some prior claim to all these, uh, business ventures.”
“I’m still waiting to hear what makes this guy so special.”
Bauman looked down at his thick, red hands and seemed to lose himself in his train of thought. “Whacked a guy I useta use. Just a wino, street people. Fucking guy was retarded. And old Wardell Gibbs took him out. Couple years ago, this was. He’s been out there a long time. Long time.”
“You don’t think maybe you’re doing what you say I’m doing? Rearranging the facts so they’ll read the way you want them to?”
“No. And besides, this guy’s dirt, Whelan. Any way you look at the facts, he’s dirt.”
“Yeah, he is, but you’re still seeing what you want to see.”
“Never said I was smart, Whelan.” Bauman sipped at his beer.
“But if I hear something about this guy, he’s yours.”
“Anything, Whelan. If you hear anything, if you find even the smallest connection between what you’re doin’ and this guy, I want it.”
“Okay.” Whelan watched him for a moment. The only noise in the bar was the music coming from an old portable tape player behind the bar, Dave Brubeck.
“You ever get the crossbow guy? That one that shot the old guy on Lower Wacker?”
Bauman snorted and shook his head. “No, but I ain’t through looking yet.”
When they were finished, Bauman paid and they drove back to Whelan’s car in a silence broken only by Bauman’s occasional but heartfelt cursing at the foibles of other drivers. Bauman pulled up alongside the Jet, waved briefly when Whelan said he’d see him later, and then laid rubber pulling out onto Clark Street. Whelan knew Bauman would be driving to another bar.
He stared down the street after Bauman and wondered what this little encounter had really been all about. A little company for a Violent Crimes detective from Area Six, that was what it was all about.
He drove north on Clark, past the ballpark, where a cluster of people in Cubs hats were standing under the great orange sign. A couple of them still carried scorecards and one had a pennant. Five hours after the game and this bunch was still staggering through the neighborhood celebrating.
Mr. Ronald Vosic had tried to get in touch with him, and the only gentlemanly thing to do was to get in touch with Ron. He drove to the steakhouse on Irving that Susan Vosic had told him about and parked across the street. It was a small place, with a separate entrance for the lounge, but it had a big, bright sign with hundreds of bulbs and a fair share of neon and the sign said RON’S. Planes coming into O’Hare could see this sign.
I see more family resemblance the more I get to know these guys, Whelan thought.
It was dark inside, and cool, and the place smelled of grilled steaks and seafood. Some people were as predictable as the sunrise, and the younger Vosic was one of them. He was there, in a cream-colored suit, tanned and blow dried, greeting people and slapping backs and ordering drinks on the house in a loud voice. He was handsome and gregarious and looked like money, and the people ate it up as they came in for dinner. Ron Vosic laughed and made jokes and winked and grinned, and when he saw Whelan his smile died a horrible death.
Vosic looked around and then came forward. He was an inch or two shorter than Whelan but a lot younger, more muscular, another young guy obsessed with his own body. He lifted weights and worked out on ingenious devices and loved what he saw in the mirror, and right now he was scared shitless.
“What’s up?” he said, and showed teeth. He smelled like the perfume counter at Field’s.
“Paul Whelan returning your call. Something I can do for you?”
“What? What call was that? No, I think you’re mixing me up with my brother.”
“No. He threatened me over lunch. I figured the phone threat was yours. I put it all down to the contrast in styles. He’s more of a wheeler-dealer, you’re impulsive. So…what did you want to tell me?”
“Man, I don’t even—”
“Let me help. I assume it’s about Janice Fairs.”
Vosic bit his lip and then decided to assert himself. “Look, man, nobody’s trying to put the arm on you.”
Whelan laughed. “Everybody named Vosic is trying to put the arm on me. You guys are gonna have to fight a duel over me.”
Ron Vosic held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, whatever trouble you got between you and Rich is none of my business. That’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t work for Rich. I work for me. And I just wanted to, you know, get you to drop all this shit, stay out of Jan’s face, you know?”
Whelan watched Vosic’s eyes. “That’s all?” Whelan asked.
Vosic’s manner changed completely. He nodded and allowed himself a careful smile. “Hey, look, Paul—”
“Well, I’ll let go of this when I feel like letting go. And right now I think I’m in better shape than the rest of you folks. Your brother is having a baby about me sticking my nose into High Pair’s old business, and Janice Fairs is putting the squeeze on him, or about to, and you’re on her like a leech, which puts you in the enemy camp. Your brother finds out about you and old ‘Jan’ and he’ll have your balls.”
Ronald Vosic’s mouth worked and he nodded, but no sound came out. He put his hands on his hips and posed, then looked Whelan up and down.
“You’re gonna tell my big brother on me, huh? You know something, Whelan? Lemme tell you something. He don’t scare me, my hotshot brother. He don’t scare me and he don’t impress me.”
“His grammar’s better than yours.”
“Yeah? Maybe so. He was the schoolboy. I learned everything I know on the streets. I didn’t learn nothing from him except what mistakes not to make. He’s supposed to be so smart, how come he’s the one in deep shit right now, huh?”
“I never said I thought he was smart, Ron. He overreacts, for one. Doesn’t have any idea who he can trust, for another thing.”
Ronald Vosic went slightly red and shrugged.
“And he’s got neanderthals working for him. And then, of course, there’s Henley.” Whelan allowed himself a smile.
Vosic shrugged again and said, “Nothing to do with me,” but didn’t sound at all convinced.
“Oh yeah, he does. Mr. Henley’s got something to do with all of us. Especially you, now that you’ve joined forces with Janice Fairs. How much did she tell you about Henley? Maybe nothing, right? You have no idea what her angle is, do you?”
Vosic crossed his arms across his chest and forced another smile. “I know about Henley. Big fucking deal. He ain’t anything special, Whelan. He’s just a big, loud asshole thinks he’s hard. And he’s a fucking user, he’s a cokehead. Nothing to be impressed by, Whelan.” He sucked air in through his teeth and then took out a cigarette.
Whelan watched him tap the cigarette against his black leather cigarette case, light it with a thin, very elegant lighter covered in the same black leather, and then exhale with the air of a man who’s got it all covered.
“That’s all, huh, Ronald? That’s all you know? Then she hasn’t told you shit, which tells me exactly the depth of your, ah, relationship. You have a nice night, now, hear?” And he left the restaurant without looking back. He was certain that he didn’t need to look to know Ronald Vosic’s facial expression.
He saw the van as soon as he made the turn off Lawrence and onto his block. It was Vosic’s van and there were people in it and he had a fairly good idea which people they were. They were parked across from his house and they’d seen him already. He drove past the van and parked on the other side of the street, a couple of car lengths down from them, and then sat in his car and watched the van in his side mirror. After a few seconds the door on the driver’s side opened and the tall, thin one emerged. The other man came around the front of the van and they both started walking down the street toward him. The tall one was carrying a tire iro
n and the little one had a pipe wrench, and from the way they strode manfully, shoulder to shoulder toward him he could see that they watched a lot of westerns.
He pulled back out of the parking spot, put the Jet into reverse, floored the gas pedal, and laid rubber for forty feet as he went up Malden backward and threw pure terror into his visitors. He saw them in his mirror, frozen there openmouthed, suddenly gone lead footed and confused and cowardly. At the last moment they dove for safety, one in each direction, and he blew on by them for another thirty feet or so before stopping the car. He pulled over, got out, and walked toward them.
The small one was already up on one knee but Abe Lincoln had apparently done himself injury. He was wedged up against a parked car and holding his right leg up close to his chest, the way a child clutches his skinned knee to himself. He made long gasping sounds.
The smaller man got to his feet and hefted the pipe wrench. He hit it against his leg and advanced, and from the corner of his eye Whelan could see the tall one starting to collect his parts. When the one-armed man was just ten feet away Whelan heard the scrape of metal on pavement and saw that the tall one was up on one knee. Whelan ran over toward him and threw a left into the man’s rib cage that folded him over. Whelan pushed him against the car, kicked a leg out from under him, and watched him fall to the street. The man attempted to push himself up from the street and Whelan hit him in the gut again. The air went out of him and he went into the fetal position. He dropped the tire iron on the street.
The one-armed man froze, then raised the pipe wrench and came at Whelan. Whelan picked up the tire iron and swung it two handed just as the one-armed man brought the pipe wrench down. He caught the man a glancing blow to the shoulder as the wrench struck him. He took most of the blow on his forearm but the wrench caught the top of his ear. He heard himself howl and swung the tire iron again, and this time he felt the crunch as iron found bone. The one-armed man went down in the street in a sitting position, clutching his collarbone and gasping. Whelan staggered off, holding his head.
A Body in Belmont Harbor Page 25
