Such as, he thought, the fact that Sam had a son here. Whelan shook his head. “Sorry. I guess you were right. Our business is concluded.”
At the door, Whelan turned and nodded to Hill. The attorney was watching him with an unmistakable look of confusion.
In the outer office, Whelan waved to Pilar Sandoval.
“Good-bye, sir. I hope you enjoyed your interview with Mr. Hill.” She grinned.
“Oh, I don’t know if you could say either of us enjoyed it, but I think I liked it more than he did. I tend to leave people confused after they’ve talked to me.”
The visit to Hill had clarified things and satisfied hunches. There was nothing unusual about a lawyer withholding information about a client, but they didn’t normally do it with the intensity of Mr. David Hill. Whelan remembered Hill’s description of Sam Burwell and understood now why it had struck him as odd.
On the corner of Wrightwood and Clark there was a restaurant with classic 1960 Chicago decor, a masterpiece of imitation pine paneling and Formica countertops and Naugahyde stools and booths. The door opened and the morning smells of bacon and sausage and eggs fried in butter wafted out in the chill air. The restaurant beckoned to him with a paper sign that claimed BREAKFAST ANYTIME.
What the hell, he thought. It’s been a productive afternoon and I got paid and I never had a proper breakfast and I missed lunch entirely. He went into the restaurant and slid into one of the green booths. A middle-aged woman with badly dyed black hair pushed herself off a stool near the register. She approached and raised her eyebrows.
“Coffee?”
“Sure.” He pointed at a sign for a three-egg special. It showed a mound of scrambled eggs and a pile of sausages. “I’ll have the cholesterol plate.”
He stopped on the way back to the office and grabbed a quick cup of coffee. At his office he tossed the windows open and let the warm air in. He could smell the onions grilling at the little basement greasy spoon down the street. He took a sip of his coffee and got on the phone.
At Area Four Violent Crimes, a Detective Ryan told him that Durkin and Krause were unavailable, so he left a message for either one to call him.
Time to live dangerously.
At Area Six, he was told that Detective Bauman was on furlough.
“God help us all: Bauman with free time. Do you guys think that’s wise?”
The detective on the other end chuckled. “I take it you are—uh, familiar with Detective Bauman’s habits, sir.”
“Yeah. We’re almost friends.”
He put down the phone and tried to imagine what the obsessive Bauman would do with enforced free time. When Whelan had first made the belligerent detective’s acquaintance two years earlier, someone had told him that Bauman’s nickname was “the Constant Cop.” A brusque, difficult man, Bauman spent his off-duty hours haunting the streets and nosing around into old unsolved cases. He was hostile and argumentative, lived alone, drank prodigiously, suspected everyone, and delighted in jerking the chain of whatever unfortunate soul was partnered with him. These days, he shared a gray Caprice with a perfectly put-together young detective named Landini, who owned a rainbow of knit shirts, wore medallions, and apparently started each morning by diving into a pool of cologne.
The building at Kedzie and Polk was indeed yellow, and stood out from among its gray limestone neighbors like a hooker drumming up trade. Men on stairways watched Whelan get out of the car, checked him out, checked out his car, and then studiously ignored him.
The building manager was a shriveled black man with a shaven head, and he remembered the tenant named Covington.
“Covington’s long gone.”
“He moved?”
“Had to move. Couldn’t pay no rent no more. He’s gone.”
“You know where?” The man shrugged his narrow shoulders and Whelan added, “I’m not a cop.”
“Look like one.”
Whelan gestured to the rusting bones of his car. “That’s what I drive.”
“You right. You ain’t no cop. But I don’t know where he at. None of my concern. I got to take care of this.” He jerked his bald head at the building behind him, and the note in his voice made it plain that “this” was more than enough to keep any man occupied.
“How long’s he been gone?”
“Couple years. Could be dead by now.”
“Anybody in the building that would know him?”
The man pursed his lips and shook his head. “Wasn’t nobody here he was friendly with. Covington kept to hisself.”
Whelan handed him a card. “ If anybody hears anything about him, give me a call. It’s worth a couple bucks.”
“All right, sir,” the man said. When Whelan left, the man was still frowning at the card.
The place was called the Alley Cat, and Whelan had always thought it was named for those who drank there. It was on Lawrence just down the street from his office and he wouldn’t have gone there on his own but Bauman had taken him there once when, like tonight, Joe Danno’s was closed.
He pushed open the door and was greeted by the time-honored sounds of a bar fight.
Two men grappled against the bar a few feet from the door. They were both in their fifties or sixties, and it was more likely that they’d damage the decor than themselves. Each man had the other by the hair; one had a hand on his opponent’s throat and the other had his fingers in his companion’s eyes. The bartender, a bald, chubby man in a wrinkled white shirt, stood nearby. He watched them and shook his head in disgust.
At the far end of the bar, his broad back nearly blocking out the TV screen set at bar level, was Detective Albert Bauman, enjoying his furlough. He sat with his elbow on the bar, his face resting on one hand, and puffed at one of his nasty little cigars. There was a bottle of Beck’s in front of him, and next to it an empty shot glass.
A few feet away from him, a man in a badly wrinkled brown suit lay facedown on the floor.
Whelan walked up to Bauman and put a hand on his shoulder. “Nice place. You bring all your dates here?”
Bauman looked around slowly. His cheeks were glowing—he had a slight buzz on—but his eyes were still clear: he probably hadn’t been here more than a couple of hours. A smile tried to come out of its hole but retreated immediately.
“Hey, Snoopy. What brings you out? Sit down and have a cocktail.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Whelan pulled out a stool and dropped onto it. He looked over at the man on the floor as Bauman signaled the bartender.
“Hey, Ralph. We got new blood down here. How about a Beck’s for this guy.”
Whelan indicated the man on the floor. “Maybe we should pick him up.”
Bauman snorted. “You fucking pick him up. I picked him up twice already. I set him on a chair and he fell on his face. He’s safer where he is. Name’s Gibby. He’s got what you’d call a problem with liquor.”
“Not like you, huh?”
The bartender brought Whelan’s beer.
“Fuck you. No, not you, Ralph, this guy I’m with. Here. Take it outta here.” Bauman shoved a pile of singles at the bartender.
Whelan ran the palm of his hand across the mouth of the bottle and took a drink. “Thanks.”
Bauman nodded and sipped his from a glass. His eyes changed focus till he was looking directly past Whelan’s shoulder at the two aging pugilists. He looked amused.
“Do you get the winner?”
Bauman smiled. “I keep thinkin’ of callin’ it in. One of the coppers out on the street tonight is this Hungarian asshole named Kovacs. Maybe I’d get lucky and Kovacs would get the call. He’d come in here like, you know, James Arness, and find these two old farts wrestlin’ in the sawdust.”
“And he’d see you, and he’d know who called it in. And that would make you happy.” Whelan took a sip of his beer. “So you’re on furlough. Having any fun?”
Bauman paused with his beer halfway to his mouth and shot a sidelong glance Whelan’s way. “What do you think?”
“I think Albert Bauman with time on his hands is a dangerous thing for society.”
Bauman fought off a little smile and drained the rest of his beer. He shrugged. “I watch TV, I have a few beers. I drive around. I took a drive out to the country yesterday, drove all the way up to Lake Geneva.”
“What did you do there? Fish? Swim?”
Bauman grinned. “I had a few beers.” He waved to the bartender, who was at the other end again, trying to calm down the fighters. The old men had at least separated and now leaned against stools and faced each other, red-faced and panting and looking in need of medical attention.
“Hey, Ralph. You come on down here and serve me, and I’ll call the paramedics for Dempsey and Firpo there.” He turned toward Whelan. “So what brings you to a sleazy joint like this?”
“Nothing better to do. I was gonna go out anyway, and I thought I might find you here. Guess who I ran into.”
“The Pope?”
“Mark Durkin.”
“Oh, there’s an old favorite of mine. Thought he’d be in the joint by now.”
“Not yet. I keep hoping, though. He paid me a visit at my spacious bachelor apartment.”
Bauman frowned and let out a melodious little burp. “What kind of visit? Isn’t he working out of Four?”
“The burp was a nice touch. Yeah, he’s still at Four. He’s working on a homicide, an old man down on Maxwell Street.”
“What’s that got to do with you? You selling your old furniture down there, huh? Selling the light bulbs out of your bedroom lamps?”
“Turns out the guy I was looking for was Durkin’s homicide.”
Bauman let out a little rumble of laughter and shook his head. “ Leave it to you, Whelan. Leave it to you to be putting your nose in someplace where there’s a stiff. So old Mark Durkin thinks you did this guy?”
“No. He just jumped at the chance to come hound an old buddy. He thinks he’s got the thing in a package already.”
“You two were romantically involved in the old days, huh?”
“We go way back. Knew each other in the Academy. We didn’t like each other then, either. I knew he’d be a rotten cop, and that’s how he turned out.”
“So what’s the skinny on this deceased client of yours?”
Bauman turned on an amiable smile. Whelan scanned his face quickly, then looked down at his beer. The dark red stain of broken blood vessels was spreading; little purple lines pushed their way across his cheeks like red lace. A furlough was no favor for Bauman. Free time was the last thing he needed.
“He wasn’t my client. I was working for a lawyer, allegedly for a relative of this man. The deceased was a neighborhood handyman type and had a spot down on Maxwell, sold odds and ends. He was shot and killed, probably a couple of weeks ago. Durkin wouldn’t tell me anything except that I’m probably not a suspect. He seems to think a gang of street kids pulled it off.”
“And Whelan thinks it’s more complicated.” Bauman smirked and took another drink.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And you’re lookin’ on your own. For your—ah, peace of mind?”
Whelan hesitated. There was no point in lying to Bauman.
Bauman laughed. “No, you’re not. You got a client. In an ongoing police investigation. Gee, what a surprise.”
“ I’m not investigating the same thing they’re investigating. I’m not investigating this man’s murder. I’m looking into something else.”
“Oh, yeah? Now why do I think you’re lookin’ into this guy’s killing?”
“Beats the hell out of me. You just have a suspicious nature.”
“Okay, let’s hear what you think you’re investigating.”
“ I’m looking into something that happened before the man died. I’m trying to get a handle on someone I met who…has a connection with the dead man.”
Bauman leaned his bulk against the backrest of the stool and laughed.
“You shoulda been a lawyer, Whelan. You can split hairs with anybody. Lemme see if I got it right: You’re not investigating this guy’s murder, you’re investigating his life. And you’re checking out somebody that knew him. Is that about it?”
Whelan kept a straight face. “Not bad. That’s pretty much what I’m doing.”
Bauman nodded. “If I was Durkin, I’d bust your ass. But you wouldn’t be sticking your nose into my case, now, would you?”
“Nope. So, since you don’t have any problem with what I’m doing, how about a little help?”
Bauman shook his head. “Nah. It’s got nothing to do with me. You wanta fuck around with Mark Durkin, you got my blessing. Best thing could happen to us is if Durkin went over to the other side where he belongs. But I’m not gettin’ tangled up in this shit, Whelan.”
“All I need is for somebody to find out if Durkin’s got the case he says he has. If he does, I don’t have to continue poking around. You think I want to spin my wheels on this? I told someone I’d look into it, and that’s what I’m doing. If there’s nothing to look into, I’m out of it.”
“Call Durkin.”
“Maybe some day I’ll do you a favor.”
Bauman gave him a sly look. “Like finding some missing person for me, Whelan? For free? Like that?”
“Got somebody special in mind?”
“Oh, you never know. But right now I don’t need no favors.”
“I do.”
Bauman drained his Beck’s and put it down. He massaged his eyes with his fingers. “Awright, Whelan. I’ll make a call over to Four.”
“I knew you’d still have a following on the West Side, Bauman.”
“I’m beloved everywhere I go.”
Bauman looked around at the tavern and Whelan saw the boredom in his eyes. He saw Bauman look at his empty shot glass.
“How long you going to be off?”
“Another week.”
Bauman’s tone left no doubt that “another week” was somebody else’s idea. Bauman started to raise the empty shot glass to signal the bartender, and Whelan tapped him on the shoulder.
“I didn’t eat dinner yet. You want to go get some food in your stomach, so you can drink some more?”
“Get off my back, Mother Whelan.” Bauman looked at his shot glass again and shrugged. “But yeah, I could eat. Nothin’ bizarre, though, no Himalayan cuisine or anything.”
“Your furlough has eaten away your sense of adventure.”
“Adventure’s fine, but I don’t need no heartburn tonight, okay?”
“Okay. How about a greasy burger and grilled onions?”
“There you go, Whelan. There you go. A no-nonsense American meal.”
“I’m hurt.” The man called Gibby had managed to pull himself up to a sitting position.
“Look, he’s alive.”
The man sat hunched over and made loud belching sounds.
“Easy there, Gibby. Don’t wanna get the floor messed up—you might have to sleep here tonight.” Bauman got to his feet. “Come on, Whelan. You can drive.”
They hit a White Castle, and Whelan watched Bauman tear through a half dozen of the odd little burgers known as “sliders” in ten minutes. When they were finished, Bauman wanted to go for a ride. In minutes they were cruising the Outer Drive at sixty and Bauman was giving directions.
“Speed limit’s forty-five, Whelan.”
“Yeah, but I don’t care.”
To their left, a cold wind was churning up the lake, and whitecaps came crashing against the shore in wall after wall. The water climbed high up the rocks and threatened to reach the very edge of the roadway.
“So where are we going?”
Bauman grinned. “Where the sunlight never shines.”
In the very bowels of the city, under the Michigan Avenue Bridge, ran a surreal tunnel of a roadway that snaked beneath the city for several miles without seeing the light of day. Small green overhead lights every ten yards or so lent the place a garish touch, like Oz gone wrong
. Half a mile to the east was the lake. A fishy smell betrayed the proximity of the Chicago River a few feet to the west. Whelan parked behind a loading dock.
A pair of homeless men crouching down against the concrete wall of the tunnel gazed at them for a moment and then looked away.
“Why are we here?” Whelan asked as they walked.
Bauman grinned and suddenly looked much more sober. “Let’s have an adventure.”
Oh-oh, Whelan thought. “Not me, Bauman. I still have pain from the last one.”
“Aw, come on, Whelan. You’re no fun anymore.”
Whelan thought for a moment. “You wanted to come down here to look for that guy. The crossbow guy.” For the two years Whelan had known Bauman, the detective had been obsessed with hunting down a man who had used a crossbow to kill a homeless man not far from where they were.
Bauman shook his head, blew out his cheeks till he looked like a red-faced Dizzy Gillespie, then sniffed. “Nah. That guy, you know what I think? I think he knows.”
“That you’re looking for him.”
“Right. I think he’s in—uh, semiretirement. But I’ll get him someday.”
One of the homeless men suddenly materialized at their left, as though emerging from the wall of the tunnel. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, stopping in front of Whelan.
“What’s up, Moe?” Bauman moved up till he was almost nose to nose with the man.
The man gave Bauman a doubtful look and his eyes moved to Whelan. “I need a dollar and thirty-seven cents.”
Bauman nodded. “What are you, an accountant? What do you need a buck thirty-seven for?”
“I want a cheeseburger and fries from McDonald’s. That’s what it costs with tax.”
Bauman stared at the man and screwed his red face into a frown. “I don’t think that’ll do it, pal. I don’t think you can buy anything for a buck thirty-seven. Wait, you mean one of the little cheeseburgers?”
The man nodded.
Bauman turned to Whelan and made a little measuring gesture with his thumb and forefinger. “He means one of those little fuckers where the meat is the size of a half-dollar. I just ate half a dozen of those.”
“Eight,” Whelan corrected.
The Maxwell Street Blues Page 11
