The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  “What if I told you I didn’t buy it?”

  Bauman chuckled hoarsely into the phone. “You wouldn’t be Whelan if you did. You never want anything to be simple.” And he hung up.

  The obituary was small and marked by an American flag to indicate the death of a veteran. It gave the skeletal details of Sam Burwell’s passing and the particulars of his wake and funeral. The wake was to be held for one night, at the Porter and White Funeral Home on South Kedzie. There was one other detail in the obituary, a detail Whelan had hoped to see. The obituary said that Mr. Burwell was the “loving father of Perry.” Whelan put down the paper and wondered if David Hill’s client was reading the same notice.

  Whelan pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home and found a spot in a far corner of the lot, away from the rows of cars already there. He sat in the car for a moment with the radio tuned to a station that played old jazz for twelve hours a day and then went off the air by ten. He had no clear idea why he was there. He acknowledged a curiosity about this dead man whom he’d never even seen in life and a professional interest in the people who might show up at his wake. But the more he turned it over in his mind, the better he realized he was here simply for O.C. Brown’s sake.

  A steady stream of mourners entered the funeral home; he wondered if they were all there for Sam Burwell. The jazz station gave him a tinny-sounding recording of an obscure jazz quartet led by a saxophone player, and he listened to the sax wailing and had a cigarette. He waited vainly for someone he recognized to go into the building and then gave it up.

  Inside, he found a sign, white plastic letters on black, that told him there were four visitations in progress. Samuel Burwell’s was in Chapel C, and an arrow pointed him to the rear of the building.

  Whelan walked in the direction of the arrow and paused at the entrance to Chapel B. It was a tiny room dominated by a plain brown casket. Overhead in the doorway a smaller version of the previous sign told the onlooker that this man’s name was Harold Melton. There were four chairs in a little row just before the casket, but they were empty. Without knowing why, he stepped into the room. The casket held a small black man in his sixties or seventies. The funeral home had been powerless to disguise the fact that this man had been emaciated: the man’s shirt collar was at least a size too large and the ancient-looking wool suit had been bought for a heavier man.

  Whelan looked at the man’s face and wanted to leave. Instead, he found himself saying a short prayer for this old one who had died without enough mourners to fill a small room. The last of his family, perhaps, a man who had outlived all those around him. He finished and made the sign of the cross, then left, half embarrassed by his own intrusion, half hoping someone would come by and see that Harold Melton had a visitor.

  Samuel Burwell was not alone. There were already fifteen or twenty people in the chapel, but he recognized none of them. Most of them turned to watch Whelan when he entered but no one stared for more than a second; this was a man’s funeral.

  He walked to the front of the room and stood a few feet away from the casket to see this man he’d never met in life.

  The body in the casket was that of a tired-looking man, a tall, thin man with a mustache gone gray and silver in his hair. A scar had torn a whitish path through one eyebrow, and the skin around the eyes was deeply wrinkled. Whelan said a brief prayer and then moved away.

  He took a seat in the back of the chapel and looked around. The Porter and White Home had been a part of the community for generations and, like the rest of this old and battered neighborhood, was showing its age. Cracks spidered their way across the ceiling and down walls; the carpet, once a dark rich wine color, was faded and threadbare in several places.

  The room began to fill up, and a number of the newcomers were women, their perfumes mingling with the pervasive aroma of the carnations and roses around the casket. Whelan saw well-dressed black couples in middle age, old ones whose threadbare clothes told of their fortunes in a society that shelves its elderly, and good-looking younger men and women who made a startling contrast with the faded man in the casket.

  One of the later arrivals was a skinny little white man in a baggy suit who entered crushing his cloth hat in his hands. Whelan recognized him as one of the vendors from Maxwell Street, the man who’d tried to sell him a flashlight. A few moments later a middle-aged Mexican couple entered, said a prayer at the casket, and then found seats near the back of the room, where they huddled together.

  Whelan studied the people around him and wished he hadn’t come. The depth of his discomfort surprised him. Many times he had been the outsider in a group of people, people of another race or ethnic group, and it hadn’t bothered him. He had in fact usually found it interesting. This was different: this was a gathering on the most profound level, and his presence seemed an intrusion.

  After twenty minutes that seemed like three hours, O.C. Brown entered. He had an entourage of sorts: two old men Whelan didn’t recognize were with him, as was his porter Winston, Mr. Wells from O.C.’s building, and an elderly black woman.

  He scanned the room again and realized there was something missing, or at least odd in the gathering. Finally he understood: there was no central group in this room. At the front of the chapel, where a family would have bunched in a tight little knot, greeting people as they arrived, there was no one. As though to acknowledge this difference, the mourners had left the front row empty, so that the closest people to the casket were eight or ten feet away.

  None of these people belonged to him, Whelan thought.

  Whelan thought about going over to speak to O.C. Brown and then decided not to call attention to himself. He folded his arms and stared down at his shoes and took in snatches of the many conversations around him. A slight lull in the volume caught his ear and he looked up.

  Standing in the doorway to the chapel were two men and a woman. The first man was undoubtedly the funeral director, an imposing man, easily the tallest person in the room, and broad at the shoulders. He was extremely light-skinned, almost white, with a tiny, perfectly trimmed mustache, and his manner was solicitous but professional.

  Whelan knew the woman, knew her name as well: Willis. He had questioned her on his first visit to the West Side, an irritable young nurse on her way to work.

  The third person in the group was by far the most interesting. He was a slender young man of average height and very dark, with close-set eyes that looked almost black. He listened to the funeral director and nodded, and there was a tension to his body, a tightness to his back and shoulders and neck, as though he were about to lash out at something. Whelan had already seen him lash out once, in the hall outside his office.

  He could not keep his eyes off his assailant. After a moment the funeral director excused himself. The young man stepped into the room with the woman and they greeted the people nearest the door. The woman did most of the talking, and the young man’s eyes scanned the faces in the chairs. His gaze met Brown’s a few feet away, and they nodded to each other. The young man continued to survey the room, nodding a couple of times and once raising his hand in a halfhearted wave. Then he saw Whelan. The young man blinked in spite of himself and made a little half turn as if to say something to the woman, then caught himself. He stared at Whelan and seemed to be about to approach him when the funeral director reentered the room and took him aside.

  Whelan was watching their conversation when he heard the voice beside him.

  “Kinda far from home, there, Whelan.” O.C. Brown stood over him, smiling. His eyes had a little gleam to them, and Whelan realized the man was genuinely glad to see him. They shook hands, and Whelan patted the seat beside him.

  “Take a load off.”

  “All right.” O.C. sat with a slight groan and tilted his head to one side as though listening. He caught Whelan watching him and said, “You get old, you make a lot of noises when you sit down.”

  “I’m almost there myself. Not a bad crowd,” Whelan said, just to be say
ing something.

  O.C. looked around slowly and nodded. “Pretty fair. Pretty fair. Would have been a big crowd when he was young. Had a lot of friends then, knew everybody on the street. Not just black people, neither. Knew a lot of white people. Wouldn’t have been able to use this little bitty chapel.” He paused. “You checking out his people? You thinking maybe something interesting is gonna show up here?”

  Whelan shrugged. “Maybe. But, no, I didn’t come to observe these people or anything like that. These are his friends. I just came…it seemed like something I should do. I feel like you’ve gotten me involved in his life.”

  O.C. studied his face and then nodded. He seemed pleased.

  “I just hope it doesn’t offend anyone for me to be here.”

  “Nobody gonna be offended because you come to pay your respects.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, O.C. The young man over there by the wall, I can just about guarantee he doesn’t want me here.”

  O.C. looked over at the man who had assaulted Whelan. “Perry? Perry Willis? The boy say something to you?”

  Whelan remembered the obituary. He studied his assailant for a long moment. “So that’s his son. Yeah, he said something to me. Once on the phone—the call I told you about.”

  Brown nodded. “That was him?”

  “Think so. And then in person, this morning. He was waiting for me outside my office. He punched me and told me he should kill me. He didn’t say what for, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  O.C. looked from Whelan to the young man named Perry. He frowned and shook his head. “He thinks you had something to do with all this here?”

  “Yep. That’s what he thinks.”

  “Well, look here, Whelan, I’m sorry to be causing you trouble. I’ll have a talk with the boy. But you got to understand how he feels. He’s not himself. He’s not thinking clear.”

  Whelan nodded, still looking at the young man. He remembered the man in the baseball cap who’d tailed him on the West Side. “Does Perry drive a white Ford?”

  O.C. snorted. “No, he got him a red Thunderbird somebody oughta put out of its misery. Need new shocks, new paint, new transmission, new oil pan.” He interrupted his catalog of the car’s injuries and looked at Whelan. “He didn’t say who he was, huh?”

  “He was too busy swinging.”

  The old man nodded at Perry. “Yeah, that’s Sam’s boy.”

  “And the woman with him is his wife?”

  “Danielle, yeah. Ain’t been married but six or seven months.”

  “I think I ought to hit the road, O.C.”

  O.C. put a hand on his leg. “No, sir. You come to pay your respects and nobody’s gonna say anything to you. I told you I’d talk to the boy, and I will.” And before Whelan could say anything, Brown had lifted himself up off the chair and was moving determinedly in the direction of Sam Burwell’s son.

  Whelan saw him grab the younger man by the upper arm. He could see O.C.’s knotty fingers squeezing Perry through the cloth of his black suit and almost smiled when a look of pain came into the young man’s eyes. Perry said something and O.C. just shook his head, ushering the young man out into the hall.

  When O.C. came back, his face wore the look of a man who knows he has taken control. He glanced at Whelan, made a curt nod, and went over to join a group of older men standing near the casket. Perry entered a moment later, appearing sullen and hostile. He let his eyes linger for a moment on Whelan. Then he turned away.

  A moment later a Catholic priest entered the chapel. The priest was a white man in his late thirties, with a red Irish face and a wide nose, and he seemed to know most of those in the room. Whelan saw him put a hand on Perry’s shoulder and say something. The young man nodded and glanced over at the casket.

  Whelan decided not to stay for the prayers. He got up and made his way toward the door and was just about there when Perry cut him off.

  “O.C. thinks he needs your help, but I don’t.”

  Whelan looked at him and said nothing.

  Perry stepped closer. “I say I don’t need your help.”

  “Then I won’t offer it. I’m working for Mr. Brown.”

  “Don’t nobody here need your help, man.”

  Whelan checked the clock in the back of the chapel and said nothing to Perry.

  “Got nothin’ to say?”

  “It’s a funeral, friend. There’s a certain way I behave at them.”

  Perry seemed startled. He was about to say something, then just stared at Whelan for a moment before walking away. Whelan turned to wave to O.C. Brown, and the old man broke off his conversation to join him.

  “What’s the matter there, Whelan? You leaving before the man says the prayers?”

  “I think it’s time for me to go.”

  O.C. glanced over to Perry. “Don’t pay him no mind, Whelan. The boy’s got a lot of things to deal with here. Him and Sam, they had their trouble. Most of the time, they didn’t even speak. I know he’s thinking ’bout that now.”

  Whelan nodded. “In some ways, I’m sure that’s harder than if they were close. But he seems like the kind of man who brings himself trouble when nobody else gets around to it.”

  “Yeah, you got that right.” O.C. seemed about to say something else and then nodded to someone behind Whelan. Whelan turned and saw a tall muscular black man in a white sergeant’s shirt.

  The police officer came over and shook O.C.’s hand. “Hey, O.C.” He nodded in Whelan’s direction. His brass nameplate said BELTON.

  O.C. clapped the taller man on the shoulder. “How you feel, Ed?”

  “I’m all right. I was real sorry to hear about old Sam. I know you were tight.”

  “That’s all right. Listen here, Ed, this is a friend of mine, Paul Whelan. Used to be one of you.” O.C. pointed to the tall cop’s badge.

  Sergeant Belton gave Whelan an interested appraisal. “That right? Where’d you work, Mr. Whelan?”

  They made cop talk for a moment before the sergeant moved on, and then Whelan saw David Hill enter the chapel. Hill had removed his glasses, and his eyes took on a wide-eyed stare that made him look like a college student. Hill stared a moment when he saw Whelan, a look that seemed to mix discomfort and hostility.

  Whelan returned the stare until the attorney broke off. Hill glanced for a moment at O.C. Brown and then scanned the room. He tugged at his collar, brushed the front of his jacket, then went to the casket, where he stood with his hands clasped in front of him. As Whelan watched, Hill took out his glasses and put them on again. Hill stared at the body for a long moment and then walked away. He spotted a seat at the far end of a back row and made for it.

  O.C. watched him and said nothing for a moment. Then he turned to Whelan. “I noticed you were watching that fella in the blue suit.”

  Whelan felt himself smiling. “That is the honorable David C. Hill. The man who hired me to find Sam.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. What’s he doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” Whelan said, and then realized that he’d been hoping Hill would show up with someone else. Something else the older man had said earlier now ran through his mind. “O.C., you mentioned other trouble Sam had just before he left town. You said his book had gone bad.”

  “That’s right. But he paid off everybody. Didn’t nobody come looking for him, talking about him owin’ money or anything like that.”

  “And woman trouble. You said he had woman trouble. Tell me about that.”

  “Not much to tell. You been in woman trouble, Whelan, I know you have.”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t left town because of it yet.”

  “Sam was seeing a lot of women, including Erma, who he eventually married later on, the one I told you about. And he was seeing a white girl for a while, young white girl.”

  “Young enough to send somebody to jail?”

  “No, not that young.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Just that some folk notic
ed he was seein’ somebody wasn’t his color. Give people something to talk about. This was a little girl he knew at a club on South State; she worked there. Waited tables. Once in a while she got up on stage and sang with the band. Wanted to be an actress but she shoulda been a singer. Turn out she was twenty.”

  “Let me guess: Daddy come looking for him.”

  “No. Didn’t last that long. The girl and Sam, they were just foolin’ around. Then she started seein’ this trombone player, white fella played in the clubs. That was the end of show business for her. Family made her come back home, to Springfield or someplace, sent some people out to put the fear of the Lord into the trombone player.” O.C. thought for a moment. “But if the girl hadn’t been white, it wouldn’t have been no big thing. Sam had lots of women around then.”

  “Anybody that was special?”

  O.C. nodded slowly. “It was another woman back then, real light-skinned girl named Mamie. Now Mamie got to Sam, Whelan. I’ll tell you that. She got to him. She was a beautiful woman. Kinda olive skin, big dark eyes, wore her hair real long. All the girls were straightening their hair, but Mamie liked to wear it over one eye, like a black Veronica Lake, Lauren Becall, you know what I’m saying? You know that look?”

  “I still see it in my dreams. What became of her?”

  “Chicago wasn’t big enough for her. She had ideas she was gonna be a movie star. She went out to California.”

  “About the same time Sam left?”

  “He didn’t go to California.” Whelan said nothing, and the older man thought a moment before shaking his head. “No, she left town after he did. Maybe a year later. And she didn’t have no time for Sam, Whelan. He run taverns and shot craps in back rooms, and this was a lady with—you know, ideas ’bout herself. They had a thing going for a long time. You know, off and on. But Mamie, she wasn’t gonna stay around here. She was goin’ to Hollywood. Some folks thought she’d go out there and pass. She was light enough.”