Maxwell Street Blues

by Marc Krulewitch

  Audrey relaxed a bit. “Of course. Jason probably found a card here. I never returned Dad’s calls, so he would write me letters and stick a card in the envelope. I guess he thought it was funny. In one week, two people I know are dead.”

  “Having junkies for clients will do that. Let’s keep Snooky’s death in a different category.”

  “You look really serious. And I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I killed someone yesterday.”

  Audrey looked at me with a little girl’s fascination. “Yeah, how was that?”

  “I’ll never be the same,” I deadpanned.

  Audrey studied me. “I don’t think you will be.”

  I started for the door. Just before I walked out, Audrey shouted, “Call me?”

  25

  The combination of Audrey’s bizarre personality and learning what a bullet could do to a man’s head had cluttered me with conflicting emotions that needed suppressing. But my existential tendencies would have to wait.

  I thought I should visit my father soon and also call Kalijero to see if they’d found the dump Jason called home. The sun baked the moisture off the streets, adding to the humidity. I walked in a northeasterly direction, unsure of my destination but gradually succumbing to the call of Diversey Harbor, my favorite place to catch a breeze.

  There were closer lakefront beaches, but for some reason the stone amphitheater seats of Diversey Harbor had become my little zone of comfort. I was pretty sweaty by the time I crossed Cannon Drive and passed the Goethe statue. Once at the huge concrete blocks, I sat and tried to assemble my thoughts. From the lake came only the occasional puff of cool air, but the calming effect of the harbor’s shimmering beauty made the visit worthwhile.

  “Your eye looks better.”

  The voice came from my right periphery, which accounted for the eye remark. Without turning I said, “I bet you followed me all the way from Halsted, Voss.”

  “And I’ll bet you got a little crush on Miss Tattoo Skank, eh, Landau?”

  “Is it really necessary to talk like a sleazy degenerate?”

  Voss smiled, stepped down to my row. “Tell me the truth. You think I’m stupid?”

  “You care what I think?”

  “I bet you know what ‘cliché’ means, college boy. When I was in uniform, not one cop in a hundred knew what cliché meant. A lot of those guys were walking clichés but would never recognize themselves.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “What are you doing, Landau? Trying to make up for the sins of your ancestors? Or are you living out some fucked-up Hollywood gumshoe fantasy? Wouldn’t you rather be working in an air-conditioned office like your North Shore pals?”

  I turned, faced those teeth shining through his fleshy face, and wondered what he gnawed on to keep them from growing into tusks. “What is it with you and my family? Can’t you insult me without dragging my forebears into the fray? I mean, what’s the point? Do you have a point besides the one on top of your head?”

  “Forgive me. I didn’t realize how sensitive you were about the Landau legacy. See, my blood is as Chicago blue as yours. Get it? Lots of old trees with roots all tangled up with each other. And trees live a long time. Anyway, falling for Miss Tattoo while investigating a murder. How cliché of you, private investigator.”

  “It’s boy meets girl. Happens all the time with humans.” The insult sailed over Voss’s head.

  “So true. Ever thought how screwed up your judgment gets while strolling in cliché-land? Okay, Landau, I’ll show one of my cards: I still have a few friends who work in Homicide. One of them picked up the phone the Monday morning after Snooky’s body was found. Turns out the call came from an address on Armitage. Turns out that address has a tattoo shop for a tenant. Now tell me, when was it you first spoke to the tattoo tootsie?” He handed me two pieces of paper: a warrant signed by a district court judge and a phone record from the Armitage address with one line highlighted in yellow.

  “Audrey knew Snooky was dead before I spoke to her? Running to the toilet and puking out her guts was all an act? What exactly did the caller say?”

  “Show me a card, Landau.”

  “I got nothing to show on Kalijero.”

  “I just busted your case wide open, and you still got nothing for me? You sure are an ungrateful bastard. Runs in the family, I guess.”

  “There you go again—for all I know, you made that phone call from Audrey’s shop. Maybe you’re trying to blackmail her for some fictional book that exists only in your diseased brain.”

  Voss shook his head. “Are you really this stupid? Wouldn’t she have told you if I was blackmailing her?”

  He had a point, but I was done talking. I stood and dropped the documents in Voss’s lap. As I walked away he shouted, “My patience is running out, Landau!”

  By the time I reached Taudrey Tats, I had a fist-sized knot in my stomach. Audrey was still working at the tracing table; she looked surprised but happy to see me.

  “Back so soon?”

  I detected no residue of shock or sadness from the news I had given her two hours earlier. “Do people ever come in and ask to use the phone?”

  “All the time.”

  “They use your phone?”

  She gave me a puzzled look and said, “My cell phone is for business. They use the shop’s phone. Local calls only.” She pointed to a cordless unit on a small foyer table beside two phone books. “Go ahead and use it if you want.”

  Anyone could have made that call, I told myself, then dialed Kalijero’s number.

  “It’s Landau.”

  “Good timing. Meet me at Area B in an hour.”

  “You want to give me a hint?”

  “No,” he said and hung up.

  * * *

  The Area B district station was the picture of drab in an otherwise quaint neighborhood of century-old bungalows, frame houses, and walk-ups. I sat on a backless wooden bench outside the detectives’ room and admired the framed photo of the chief of detectives. Against the wall were two vending machines, one for soda, another for delicious sandwiches sealed in plastic. A bulletin board held posters for the “Battle of the Badges” and the “Area B Memorial Motorcycle Ride.” There was also a congratulatory letter from the assistant superintendent for Area B’s professionalism at the North Side Irish Parade.

  Kalijero stuck his head out the door, motioned for me to enter, and closed the door behind us. Deputy Chief Hauser sat with his arms folded, leaning back in a steno chair behind a metal desk. He was a short, round-headed man with a crew cut and matching mustache. He wasn’t smiling, and Kalijero didn’t bother introducing us.

  “Meth-head had a cell phone,” Kalijero said. “Your pal Tate is on his call list.”

  I glanced at Hauser, who stared straight ahead. Kalijero handed me the phone record. “This is the office reception number,” I said. “Do we know if he got through?”

  Kalijero pointed to another number and said, “That’s a landline. Each call was about ten or fifteen seconds long. We traced it to Tate’s Evanston address.” Then he tossed a GO Flames! button on the desk.

  I said, “Tate’s business card on meth-head’s body? Phone calls on meth-head’s cell phone? Tate is smart enough to be a university chancellor but at the same time a complete idiot? Why didn’t he just bring meth-head as a guest to the University Club?”

  “We’re pushing five hundred murders this year,” Hauser said. “Schoolkids getting shot left and right. City council doesn’t give a damn about some mob ass-kisser getting rubbed out. But if you got a university chancellor dealing meth, that’s something else.”

  “He’s being framed for murder,” I said. “The meth thing is a distraction.”

  Hauser leaned forward in his chair and looked at me. “Fine. But if you get information suggesting it’s more than a distraction, I want to hear from you. And I don’t give a shit if he’s your star witness in the flunky’s death. You tell us what you know. Got
it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’re done. Kalijero, you stay.”

  I sat on the bench outside the door and listened to the tone of Hauser’s voice waver between threatening Kalijero and pleading with him to focus on cases the brass cared about. When Kalijero emerged, he was surprisingly charitable. “He’s getting it from all sides—city council, superintendents, the public, the press.” As we stepped outside the building, he changed the subject. “You’re sure Tate’s being framed?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.”

  “Great. What’re you going to do about Tattoo Girl?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just said Tate’s not the killer.”

  Kalijero’s implication hit me hard. “She thinks he did it,” I said. “But she’s a piece of work. Would she rat out her own father?”

  “If she had a good enough reason,” he countered.

  “Why should I believe anything she says?”

  “She called from her shop—”

  “Anyone could’ve made that call—” I said.

  “She said she knew the deceased—”

  “When I told her Snooky was dead, she puked her guts out!”

  Kalijero glared at me and then spoke slowly like an angry father. “Don’t ignore facts just because everything doesn’t fit together. And don’t let a young piece of ass cloud your judgment.”

  I conceded his point and said, “Have you found meth-head’s flop?”

  “An abandoned building. We just cleared out the trash.”

  By “trash,” he meant junkies. “How about letting me have a look around?”

  Kalijero wrote an address on the back of a business card and handed it to me. “Show this to one of the uniforms and they’ll let you in.” Then he walked away, leaving me alone in front of Area B district station.

  26

  The address was a boarded-up one-story brick storefront on Ashland near North Avenue. A uniformed officer stood in front. I showed him Kalijero’s card, and he stepped aside without saying a word. A urine stench greeted me at the entrance. Graffiti covered the walls. Chunks of broken drywall, syringes, glass pipes, metal spoons, and fast-food containers covered the floor. Filthy mattresses occupied two corners of the room. A building inspector walked around shaking his head. Under his arm, he held several large “Building Condemned” signs.

  “You should’ve seen the two they pulled out of here an hour ago,” the inspector said. “It was like one of those zombie horror shows. What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said and started shoving debris around with my foot. The building inspector walked outside and began hammering the signs into the structure. I kicked a small vial across the floor and for some reason felt compelled to pick it up. A couple of fingerprints were preserved in a dried milky residue. I dropped the vial into my shirt pocket. It wasn’t long before the noise and pee odor combined to give me a headache. As I gave the room one last look, my eye caught a sparkle near one of the mattresses. I walked to where I thought I had seen the flash and squatted down, careful not to touch my knees to the filthy floor. I saw, partially covered by a piece of drywall, a glass figurine of an elephant. I picked it up. It seemed miraculous that it had not been chipped or scratched. Voss told me he’d sent a warning to Snooky. Voss had a good memory for who did business with mobsters.

  * * *

  The debris pile on Maxwell Street looked the same despite Snooky’s body no longer lying on top of it. A fifty-five-gallon metal drum overflowed with rubble, as if someone had the idea of keeping the area tidy and then gave up. In cold weather, the drum would’ve been ablaze and surrounded by bums keeping warm.

  Next to the mess, the Juketown Community Bandstand stood relatively unscathed. Perhaps the spirits of the blues performers who had stood on that stage kept the evil developers away. Down the street, crews worked on constructing a chain-link fence that would gradually encompass the entire block. The arrogance of the signboard’s sleek architectural rendering of the residence hall earmarked for Maxwell and Halsted was not lost on me. I tried and failed to picture my father’s romantic immigrant world that once occupied this corner. Thanks to Granddad’s stories, I saw just a pathetic fish peddler who had tried to challenge Great-Granddad’s authority only to watch the cops toss the poor man’s kippered herring, halibut steaks, and A1 haddock to the “huddled masses” eager to receive this manna, apparently from heaven.

  Across the street, a university chancellor was being framed for murdering a man whose body was dumped practically at his office doorstep. The evidence was circumstantial yet compelling—and completely illogical.

  “What’s all the noise?” Audrey said when I phoned her.

  “I’m on South Halsted. Lots of construction.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I need to talk to you about the case.”

  “So talk.”

  “In person. When are you done tonight?”

  No response. I repeated the question. “After seven,” she said and hung up.

  I walked north on Halsted and stopped in front of a man about my age holding a large sign that read, “Extinguished Flame, Campus of Shame.” He handed me a flyer outlining the so-called premeditated process by which the neighborhood was “stolen.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “To fight back,” the man said.

  I looked at the paper and read of an alleged scheme developed decades earlier and implemented gradually. First there was the piecemeal purchase of land followed by buildings demolished or mysteriously burned. Then the phony rumors of the city’s plan to impose eminent domain on property owners who refused to sell. Bit by bit, a struggling neighborhood capitulated. Those who had defiantly remained moved out and took with them any hope of new investment reinvigorating a once-thriving marketplace for the poor.

  “It’s an old story,” I said. “Nothing changes, nobody cares.”

  “I care,” the man said and then politely told me to fuck off.

  I deserved that, I supposed, and continued walking. At Roosevelt Road, I turned east a few blocks and then back north on Desplaines Street, in search of the new Maxwell Street Market. But instead of a neighborhood block party atmosphere, I saw throngs of people milling about a concrete expanse bordered by the expressway on one side and anonymous warehouses on the other. Tables and booths selling everything from tacos to ceramic statues of the Virgin Mary lined the margins, while the blues and jazz performers who would have been scattered throughout the old market were now exiled to a designated area. Sequestered from the privilege of intramural university ball fields and stylish condos, the Maxwell Street Market was now a flavorless bone thrown to the poor.

  As I headed back to campus, I thought of Tate’s comment about having access to the trustees. Typically, trustees were prominent members from the business, legal, and financial communities mixed with a smattering of career educators and a few students. In Illinois, trustees had the final decision regarding the university’s use of funds appropriated by the state’s general assembly. Historically, political corruption and cronyism had cracked this ivory tower—despite its ostensibly honorable façade—early and often.

  I stopped at a cybercafé, bought thirty minutes of Internet time, and downloaded the trustees’ website. Twelve photographs appeared in four rows of three. Under each picture was a hyperlinked name caption. I scanned the photos, unsure what I was looking for but curious about those people known by the term “trustee.” It was a cryptic title, under the radar of the general public except when one was caught paying for call girls with the taxpayer’s dime.

  Had there been several women trustees instead of only one, my brain might not have registered the familiarity of her face, and I might not have noticed among the staid portraits of corporate manhood the glowing, confident smile of Linda Conway. I clicked on her link and examined her résumé, which boasted titles of “Principal and CEO” and several corporate chairmanships�
��and then I checked her voting record.

  27

  Through the opaque glass of her office door, I saw the fuzzy outline of Linda Conway sitting behind her desk holding a phone to her ear. I heard the excited inflection of her muffled words while she offered encouraging advice to a prospective client. When the conversation ended, I tried the doorknob and was surprised it wasn’t locked.

  She looked up and said, “You should’ve called first.”

  “Your line was busy.” I walked in and closed the door.

  Conway’s chair screeched backward. “You’re very unprofessional, Mr. Landau. And I really don’t have time—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were a trustee?”

  Conway stared at me. “Why would I? What does that have to do with Snooky?”

  I walked to one of the leather chairs in front of her desk and sat. “That depends on what else you might not be telling me.”

  “Out of respect for your friendship with Snooky, I’ve been trying really hard to like you. But your cheeky arrogance is making it difficult. And right now I can tell you, sir, that I don’t like you and I want you to leave my office.”

  “By the way, I took your advice and checked the bylaws.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The rules that govern faculty members conducting private business from their offices—and then there’s that evangelizing thing.”

  “I’ve done nothing illegal!”

  “I don’t know. With the language they use, it’s a really gray area. Ultimately the ethics committee should decide.”

  Conway closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. “What do you want?”

  “For five years you were on the record for voting against the redevelopment of Maxwell Street. Then in January, you voted for it. What changed your mind?”

  “The buildings were in disrepair. There was no evidence of the cultural continuity that once defined the neighborhood.”

  “And you just realized this in January?”