The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  The door closed, the chain came off with a metallic snap, and the door swung open. The heavy woman he’d seen in the window now stood in the doorway and threatened to fill the hallway. She still looked uneasy, but she had thirty pounds on him, maybe more.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She nodded. “I’m Mrs. Greenlee. What you need?”

  “I’m trying to find a man named Sam Burwell. He used to live in one of these apartments.”

  She looked him in the eye.

  “You sure you not the po-lice?”

  “Used to be. People shot at me, so I got a new line of work.”

  She laughed quietly, but her whole body rumbled with it.

  “That man don’t live here no more.”

  “Did you know him when he did?”

  “Just a little while. He lef’ ’bout a month after I got my place.”

  “What about the other tenants, would any of them know him?”

  “He in trouble, that man?”

  “None that I’m aware of.”

  She thought for a moment. “No, don’t nobody here know ’im. They all moved in after I did. But you could try Mr. Ellis.”

  “Where would I find him?”

  “He live across the way. Maybe he’s on the bench right now. He likes to sit there with Mr. Crawford.”

  “Is one of them blind?”

  She nodded. “That’s Mr. Ellis.”

  “All right. Thanks for your help.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  She nodded and said good-bye, and the door and chain were returned to their places.

  Whelan went back outside and walked around the little rectangle of grass. The old man who had watched him enter looked up now and paused in his conversation. The blind man stiffened a bit, took on an air of anticipation.

  “Hello,” Whelan said.

  The sighted man nodded and said “Hello.” The blind one said “Morning.”

  “Mrs. Greenlee across the way there told me you might be able to help me. My name’s Whelan. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired by an attorney who is attempting to find a man for one of his relatives. The man in question lived around here for a time, probably back in the seventies, maybe earlier. His name is Sam Burwell.”

  The blind man nodded almost imperceptibly. He was thin, almost emaciated, with high cheekbones and a narrow nose that gave him an ascetic look, and the hair that showed from under his Sox cap was white. The other man looked down. Neither said anything.

  “You know him? Mr. Ellis?”

  The blind man straightened slightly. “Yes, sir?”

  Whelan smiled to himself: too polite. You call him by his name, he answers, even when he wants to ignore you.

  “You’re Mr. Ellis, so that might make this gentleman Mr. Crawford.”

  The blind man smiled. “It might.”

  The other man laughed. “That’s me. I’m Crawford.” He looked Whelan in the eye. He was shorter than Ellis, and heavier, almost pudgy, and it took no time at all to see that he was clever and alert and he hadn’t yet made up his mind whether he was going to tell Whelan anything.

  “Why can’t this lawyer go lookin’ for him his own self?” Crawford squinted up at Whelan and inclined his head slightly.

  “He’s not exactly what you’d call streetwise. He’s also from New York. They’re different.”

  “That explains something,” Mr. Ellis offered, but Mr. Crawford made a little shrug as though he wasn’t convinced that it explained anything.

  Whelan watched Crawford chew on that for a moment, then asked, “Can you tell me anything about this man?”

  Crawford pursed his lips.

  Mr. Ellis nodded. “We know ’im. He moved in over there where Mrs. Greenlee lives after his wife passed, but that was a long time ago. He moved back out to the West Side, over there by Douglas Park.”

  Crawford looked at Ellis. “That was a long time ago.”

  Ellis nodded. “He was from around there. Let’s see. Last I heard, I think he was up north. Up by Foster Avenue. My daughter lived up there once.”

  “No, he didn’t live up that far,” Crawford said. “He live on Wilson, one of them streets.”

  “My neighborhood,” Whelan said.

  Crawford looked at him. “S’pose to be pretty rough.”

  “It can be. I like it, though. We’ve got about forty-nine kinds of people up there.”

  “Sound like forty-nine kinds of trouble to me.”

  “We’ve got that too. You wouldn’t have an address for Sam Burwell, would you? Either on the West Side or up by me?”

  “The thirty-two hundred block of Douglas Boulevard, that’s what I recall,” Mr. Ellis said. “But I know you won’t find him there. He’s long gone from there.”

  “Okay, what about an address for his place up on the North Side?”

  Ellis smiled. “No, young fella, I don’t have that.”

  “What was his wife’s name?”

  Ellis shook his head. “Erma. Name was Erma.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Sam used to tend bar at a place over on Roosevelt. Rundown kinda place. This was a long time ago, you understand.”

  “I was told he used to sell a few things down on Maxwell Street. And he had a partner named Oscar.”

  Mr. Ellis gave a little start and snorted. “Oscar? Oscar.” The old man smiled to himself.

  Whelan studied the rigid pose of Mr. Ellis. “What did I say that was funny?”

  “Who told you the man’s name was Oscar?”

  “The lawyer. Why?”

  “That’s how they are, lawyers. This man’s name is Oscar, young man, but can’t no one call him Oscar. People call him O.C.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Oh, yes. O.C. is still alive.”

  “Got a last name?”

  Mr. Ellis hesitated, and Whelan saw Crawford give the blind man a sidelong glance, as though hoping he wouldn’t answer.

  “Brown,” Mr. Ellis said at last. “The man’s name is Brown.”

  Whelan glanced at Crawford, who gave him a quick look, then looked down at his shoes.

  “Any way I can get a hold of him?”

  “O.C. been gone from here a long time,” Crawford said. “He lef’ before Sam did.” Ellis nodded agreement.

  “And where could I find him now?”

  Mr. Ellis shook his head and Mr. Crawford looked straight ahead and the interview was just about over.

  “Okay, let me tell you what I think. I think you know where I can find this man, but you don’t want to tell me because you think I’m a cop.” When neither man responded, Whelan dug out his wallet and let Crawford see the license.

  Crawford glanced at it and shrugged.

  “It’s legitimate. I’m what I said. I’m not a cop—”

  “Look like one,” Crawford said, looking straight ahead.

  “I was a cop a long time, but I work for myself now. I’m not working with the police, and as far I know there’s no reason the police would be looking for this man. You can check me out, or check my story out, and I can come back.”

  Crawford met his eyes this time. “So you got a license, so what? Could be somebody hired a detective to give this man trouble.”

  Mr. Ellis made a little nod and cleared his throat. “And you aren’t the first one.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “You’re not the first one to come looking for Sam Burwell. But I suppose you know that.”

  “No. Who was looking for him?” He looked at Crawford. “Did you see him?”

  Crawford made a little shrug and indicated Ellis with a nod. “Naw. I wasn’t here. Luther talked to him.”

  “Who was this man, Mr. Ellis?”

  “Somebody saying he was an old friend of Sam’s. A white man.”

  “How do you know he was white?”

  “I heard the man talk. There’s some voices that are just white, some that are black. This man wa
s white. Sounded like Fibber McGee.”

  “Did he give you a name?”

  “Yeah. Said his name was Charlie something. I don’t recall the last name. Said he knew Sam in the old days.” Mr. Ellis shook his head.

  “Did he say why he was trying to find Sam?”

  “Just said he wanted to look him up. Didn’t sound like it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “He asked his questions very fast. He was an impatient man, and I could hear things in his voice. He was angry, I’d bet good money on that.”

  “And you told him less than you’re telling me.”

  “You’re a smart young man,” Ellis said quietly.

  “I spend a lot of my time around smart old men. It’s catching.”

  Ellis laughed and Crawford tried on a half smile.

  “Was this recently?”

  “About a year ago, this was.”

  “Well, thank you for your time. Now I’m going to go find O.C. Brown.”

  “How you going to do that, young man?”

  “I’m good at what I do. I’ll find him. And when I do, I’ll tell him you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  Ellis chuckled.

  “Here’s my card.” Whelan handed it to Crawford, who gave it a dubious look. “Give me a call if you hear anything. I’ll see you around.”

  Walking away, Whelan took a quick look over his shoulder at the two old men. Crawford appeared to be staring at Whelan’s business card and Ellis looked straight ahead. Old men on benches.

  He suddenly remembered a moment from his boyhood. They were leaving his grandparents’ house in the projects and walked past a trio of old men on a bench in front of a building very much like these. His father had said simply, “Old men on benches,” and his mother had said, “I think it’s so sad.”

  “Sad?” He could remember the surprise in his father’s voice. “What’s so sad about it? I hope I live long enough to be an old man on a bench.”

  It was less than a mile from the projects to the little bottleneck along Halsted where Maxwell Street really began, but Whelan ignored the temptation to drive by. It was only Friday, and the open-air flea market and junk emporium that was the true face of Maxwell Street wouldn’t appear until early Sunday morning.

  Maybe it wasn’t time to cruise Maxwell, but it was time for a late lunch, it was always time for a late lunch, and the Almighty had sent him to an address three blocks from Little Al’s. Had to be an omen.

  At Al’s he had a beef groaning under its heavy load of hot giardiniera and an order of fries. They made their own giardiniera, a mix of chopped peppers and celery and olives and half a dozen spices, including anise, and though Al’s was famous throughout the city for its beef, Whelan was certain they could serve him an old running shoe with these peppers and he’d like it.

  He spent the afternoon on the phone, calling Ma Bell, People’s Gas, Com Ed, Public Aid, Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, the Veterans Administration and the two area VA hospitals. The VA Lakeside Hospital had a record of treating Samuel Burwell for emphysema in 1979. The address they had on file wasn’t the same as the one Hill had given him but was in the same block.

  He ran the same kind of check on O.C. Brown and struck out. There was no shortage of Browns in Chicago—you could have created an army division with them—but there was no O.C. The Chicago phone book told him there were a couple of Browns within blocks of the address he had for Sam Burwell, an O. Brown and an Oscar Brown, and he wrote them both down.

  Driving time.

  He called his answering service and heard the husky, reassuring tones of Shelley, like Lauren Bacall with a smoker’s cough.

  “Well, hi, hon. Thought maybe you went on vacation without telling anybody.”

  “Hello, Shel. No, no vacations here. How’s your life?”

  “Oh, things are looking up. I got a new fella on the line. Who knows?”

  “What happened to your—uh, main squeeze.”

  “Ray? He’s history. He broke the rules. Broke the two big ones, baby. He went in my purse, and then he got drunk and took a swing at me. I showed him the way out. He’s on the street where he belongs. You’ll probably run into him on one of your cases. You talk to all those folks.”

  Ray. He never heard her use names until it was over. For several years it had been simply “My old man.”

  “So who’s the new guy?”

  “The milkman!” She burst into joyous laughter, a deep throaty rumble that soon took off, gained altitude, and became a high cackle. He found himself laughing along with her.

  “The milkman, huh?”

  “That’s right. My old milkman was this pretty little black guy, and he quit and they replaced him with a tall, skinny guy. Walks like Gary Cooper and wears a—you know, a sun helmet? Like Ramar of the Jungle. He’s adorable. And he likes big girls, baby. Thinks he died and went to heaven.”

  “Well, he did.”

  She laughed again, a delighted laugh.

  Whelan had never seen Shelley, but he had a vivid mental image of her: a heavily made-up woman in her forties, with dyed red hair and a shape somewhere between Mae West and Kate Smith. She was tough, smart, and streetwise and liked martinis and a good laugh. She was also lonely and never without a man for more than a short period of time. He had long since made up his mind to drop in and surprise her some day, just to meet her in the flesh, but he put it off. Something told him it would embarrass her.

  “Shel, I’m going to be out of the office for a while. Probably the rest of the day.”

  “Goin’ out to play hooky?”

  “Gotta go digging up information in strange neighborhoods.”

  “Well, that’s what you do best. Where you going?”

  “West Side.”

  “Oh. ‘The West Side is the Best Side,’ ” Shelley sang into the phone. “Careful, baby. I’m from the West Side. It was never the best place to go wandering around, and now—”

  “I know. Talk to you later. You working the weekend?”

  “Sorry, baby. Abraham’s working the weekend.”

  “Goddam.”

  She laughed. “Him and a new girl. Cracks gum into the phone. Just like in the old movies.”

  “Oh, excellent. That’ll help business.” He sighed into the phone. A gum-snapper and Abraham Chacko, a little Indian immigrant whose eternal struggles with English made each conversation a foray into the unknown.

  He walked back from the office to his house and went inside to check the mail. Nothing interesting.

  He got into his car, pumped and turned the key, and listened to the Jet cough a few times before it started.

  You’d better start, he told the car. We’re going to a place where there are lots of cars like you.

  He drove Halsted to Madison, hung a right, and took the Grand Tour.

  West Madison Street. Willard Motley Country: “Knock on any door on Chicago’s West Madison Street and you’ll find a Nick Romano,” the book began.

  You wouldn’t like it now, Willard, Whelan thought. Your neighborhood’s gone.

  Entire blocks had gone up in flames during the riots in ’68. There were still buildings standing along the miles of bare concrete that had once been Skid Row, but not many: a few shelters and soup kitchens and the occasional greasy spoon. There were still homeless men and women and derelicts here as well, but now just a remnant. For several miles west, vacant lots took up the places of the old buildings, the small businesses and cheap grills and Skid Row taverns.

  As a child, Whelan’s grandfather had brought him here on the bus. Grandpa knew an old Irish tavern keeper who ran a small saloon. He would drag the boy down here for company on the long bus ride, always on the pretext of getting little Paul a haircut at the Moler Barber College, where inept men destined never to become barbers would hack away at the boy’s head till his left and right profiles no longer matched.

  Whelan drove past the empty lot where the “college” had been and shuddered. Grandpa thought
it was a bargain, a haircut for a quarter, but Grandpa had forgotten the anguish that a bad haircut could cause among a young boy’s social circle, and Whelan’s mother had given the old man hell for allowing these atrocities to be performed on her son’s head.

  The barber college was long gone, and there was hardly anything else left. Rumor had it that there were plans in high places to build things here on Skid Row—a new stadium, shopping centers.

  How about a few houses? he thought. A few houses wouldn’t hurt.

  Just past Ashland a great gray shape appeared, the huge concrete cube of the grand old lady of Chicago sports, the Chicago Stadium. It didn’t look so forbidding in the full glare of the sun, but Whelan had seen the Stadium at dusk on a cold day, and it looked like the ruin of some misguided civilization.

  David Hill’s second address for Sam Burwell was a vacant lot on West Ogden. At the moment there was a car in the lot, a car without wheels or doors. Along the sides of the lot, prairie grasses grew four feet high.

  The third address still had a building on it. It was a gray sandstone three-flat down the block from a modern-looking Catholic church. School was just letting out, and a group of black children walked by in the blue-and-white uniform of a Catholic school. There were eight of them, three girls and five boys, and they were all chattering away at once. The boys were doing their best to uphold masculine tradition by bedeviling the girls, and the young women were striving mightily to ignore the boys, and none of them paid Whelan any mind.

  He parked in front of the graystone. The front yard showed signs of someone attempting to grow grass. A pair of young men on the next porch paused in conversation to stare at him, made him for a cop, and quietly resumed talking; he could feel their eyes following him as he went up the front stairs.

  The first-floor windows were covered tightly with thick old-fashioned curtains with ruffled edges. He went up the stairs and looked at the names on the doorbells: McKee on the first floor, Willis on the second. He rang the lower bell first.

  A curtain moved in a first-floor window and a moment later the front door swung open. A fleshy dark-skinned woman in a blue T-shirt filled it and said, “Yes?”

  He looked back at the name on the bell. “Mrs. McKee?” A slight nod but nothing more.