The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  There was a small light on in the back that went out as soon as Whelan began to make his way down the aisle. Nate sat in the same place Whelan had seen him before and watched his visitor approach. A newspaper was spread out on the card table. Beside it were the remains of a hamburger and a battery-operated radio, and the Coleman lantern that explained the light Whelan had just seen.

  Whelan stopped a few feet from Nate and waited. The old man made the faintest nod and took a pull at a filterless cigarette. He blew smoke out the side of his mouth and glanced out the mud-streaked window next to him, and Whelan realized Nate wasn’t going to speak first.

  “You called me.”

  A purse of the lips, but Nate went on looking at the scenery.

  Whelan dropped himself onto a seat and took out his own cigarettes. I’ve seen this movie, he thought, and when Nate stole a sidelong glance at him, he grinned. “We gonna talk, Nate, or just share a smoke together like army buddies?”

  Nate looked up at him from under thick eyebrows shot with silver. “You the one needs information.”

  “Got some?”

  Nate suddenly discovered that his cigarette was a thing of utter fascination. He looked for a moment at it, plucked a string of tobacco from it, then pulled a matching shred from his lip. He flicked ash into a Hills Brothers coffee can and peered into its depths. He pinched the wet end of the butt, put it back into his mouth, and puffed on it.

  Props. Where would we be without props? All right, we humor him.

  “Whatcha got, Nate? You must have something, or you wouldn’t have called me.”

  Nate squinted at him. “Ain’t gonna give it away.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to.” Whelan pulled out the money clip and took out a five. He folded it over and laid it on the card table.

  Nate looked at it as if it were a roach. He looked at Whelan again, and Whelan dropped another five on top of it.

  “That better?” Nate hesitated and Whelan could see him decide to play this out. “Because if it’s not, I’m leaving.”

  Nate glanced at the money and then glared up at him. “You the one said you was interested in finding things out.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the Bank of England.”

  The old man hesitated and then covered the bills with his hand. The hand spoke volumes: long and scarred and bony, and the last joint of one finger was missing.

  “So what do you have, Nate?”

  “You was askin’ about anybody come looking for Sam.”

  “Right.”

  “Saw somebody with ’im.”

  “Who’d you see?”

  “Somebody talkin’ with ’im.”

  “Got a name?”

  “Don’t know everybody’s name on the street.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Nate shrugged. “White man. Think he had black hair. Mighta been a Mexican. He was wearin’ a sweatshirt with a hood.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “The man, he seem to want somethin’ from Sam. Money, maybe. I see Sam give ’im some money. Look like he wanted to get rid of this man.”

  Nate took a noisy puff at the tiny cigarette butt. Whelan wondered why he wasn’t burning his fingers.

  “Ever see anybody else talking to Sam—recently?”

  Nate gave him a shrewd look and Whelan could tell he was trying to decide whether to hold out for more money. Then he said, “Saw a man watchin’ ’im. This was a brother.”

  “Did he talk to Sam at all?”

  “Naw. Watched him. Just watched him.”

  “A black man with glasses? Young?”

  “The fuck I know if he was young?” Nate glared at Whelan and shook his head. He took a puff, blew smoke into the stagnant air of the bus, and gave a short nod. “Shades, though. He was wearin’ shades.”

  “What else did you see, Nate?”

  “Didn’t see nothing.”

  Whelan nodded and stared at Nate for a moment and then decided to go fishing. “When’s the last time you remember seeing Sam?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “They think he was killed two weeks ago on Sunday. Think you saw him that day?”

  Nate seemed to chew on that for a moment, then made a little nod. “Maybe. That was that fire. It was a fire that day. Big one, whole lot of them tires.”

  “There’s always a fire down here, Nate.”

  “Not like this one. This was a big one. ’Bout the end of the day. Everybody went on down to look at it.”

  “Including you.”

  Nate said nothing.

  “And you saw Sam?”

  “He was gettin’ his stuff together, loadin’ it into his boxes. Didn’t pay it no mind, that fire.”

  “Anything else you saw?”

  Nate shook his head.

  “Anybody else around? Those kids, maybe, the ones the cops brought in for this?”

  “Didn’t see no kids. Everybody was goin’ the same way. Goin’ on down to look at that fire.”

  “When you came back, was Sam still there?”

  “No. He was gone. His boxes was gone. Table was still there, though. Don’t know why he lef’ his table.”

  Whelan studied Nate for a moment. “Do you think those kids killed Sam?”

  Nate gave him a defiant look. “Maybe. They’ll do anything. Those little gang-bangers be sneakin’ around here all the time, stealin’ and doin’ shit to folks.”

  “Did you tell any of this to the police?”

  “Didn’t no po-lice come to talk to me.”

  Whelan got to his feet. He looked Nate directly in the eye for a moment, and the old man looked away.

  “Got something else, Nate?”

  “Already told you what I had.” Nate glared. The interview was over.

  “Thanks, Nate. If you think of anything else, or if you see either of those men again, give me a call. And I’ll probably be back.”

  Since you’ve got something you’re not giving up.

  Nate snorted. “We talk about this shit again, it’s gonna cost you more than ten dollars.”

  “I believe that,” Whelan said, and left the bus. He stood on Halsted and looked south and thought of the dark-haired man in the sweatshirt.

  The sky was a dull red now. Another week and Daylight Saving Time would be finished and darkness would come in around six or six-thirty. Up the street, a Korean businessman was putting gates across his windows; on the other side of the street a gray-haired black man did the same thing. The dinner crowd had appeared at Jim’s, a couple of women and half a dozen men, all lined up waiting to be served a large Polish under a mountain of grilled onion.

  Why not? Whelan thought, and walked over to take his place in line.

  He could feel the waves of heat pulsing out from the little shack, and if he had any doubt about the temperature inside, he had only to look at the half-dozen wet-faced men inside, all of them humping to turn the onions and toss fresh sausages into the steamers and make sandwiches and take your money. Every one of them had perspired through his shirt, front and back. Whelan stared at the little hillock of limp onions resting at the back of the grill. There had to be something unhealthy about a pile of half-cooked onions sitting there for so long, but no one he knew had ever gotten seriously ill eating a Maxwell Street Polish. Rumors of people dying from the food down here were, as far as he knew, as unfounded as the frame that let Mrs. O’Leary and her cow take the fall for the Chicago Fire.

  He got a Polish and a root beer, then found himself a doorstep a few feet from the corner on the far side of the street. Like all evil-smelling street food, the Polish was wonderful and the onions, for all their ominous aspect, done to perfection.

  Artists. You were made by street artists, he said to his sandwich.

  He was finishing his root beer when he saw a dark green Chevy pull up in front of Jim’s. Durkin and Krause got out. The young cop was saying something to Durkin and appeared upset. Durkin waved him off and went around the fron
t of the car to the curb, hitching his pants up as he walked. His front foot slipped when he stepped up onto the curb and he almost went down, stopping his fall with one hand. He got up red faced, glaring around him. Whelan realized Durkin was drunk.

  Old habits die hard, Whelan thought, and got to his feet.

  Durkin moved to the front of the line and said something to the nearest man behind the counter. The people waiting for service muttered to one another but seemed to understand either that Durkin was trouble or that he was the law. Krause shook his head and stood a couple of feet behind his partner.

  Whelan came up quietly behind Krause and heard the young detective tell Durkin that he wasn’t hungry.

  “Evening, Detective,” Whelan said. Krause turned. He had a worried look in his eyes.

  “Hi, Whelan.” He shot a glance over his shoulder at Durkin. The older man turned, gnawing on his Polish. When he saw Whelan, he stopped chewing.

  “What’re you doin’ here?”

  “Eating, for one thing. I just had one of those.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Durkin chewed slowly. His eyes had a wet gleam to them, and the pale skin of his cheeks was marked by high points of red.

  “Got a load on, huh?” Whelan said.

  Durkin lowered the Polish and glared for a moment. “Got a problem with that?”

  “His shift’s over, Whelan,” Krause said, but it sounded like something he’d just come up with.

  “Doesn’t make any difference to me. I don’t care what he does.”

  “That’s good, ’cause I don’t give a fuck what you like.”

  Whelan looked at Krause. “And he’s got a nice personality.”

  “Like you don’t drink, huh, Whelan?”

  “Never lost a squad car, Durkin.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Whelan looked at him, then turned to Krause. “He ever tell you about that?” Krause shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Good, I will. When Supercop here was a street cop, he was assigned to cover the Bud Billiken Parade. You been to the Billiken?”

  “I’m from the North Side,” Krause said.

  “So am I, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pick up a little culture on the side. The Bud Billiken Parade is this great black parade they put on in August every year. It’s a big deal. All the black politicians and TV personalities and a lot of the white folks that want black votes: they all show up. All up and down King Drive, the black folk come out in force, and it’s one big party. Pretty easy duty, especially if you like parades. Sooner or later somebody at the Bud Billiken Parade starts passing around a flask or a bottle of screw-top.” Whelan glanced at Durkin and smiled. Durkin wet his lips and stared back. He was breathing heavily, as though he’d just come up a long flight of stairs, and his face was dark red.

  “So, big deal,” Krause began. “Every parade there’s—”

  Whelan held up a hand. “Right, at every parade there’s liquor. At the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade half the crowd is smashed, people pass out on the corners; at the Gay Pride Parade they used to fall off their floats. And at the Billiken, sometimes the black folk are feeling so good because they’ve got their own parade and nobody’s gonna hassle them today that they even offer the cops a little taste. And that’s what happened on the memorable occasion of which I speak. Some friendly black guy watching the parade passed a jar of homemade corn whiskey around. And then somebody else came up with a bottle of Richard’s, and some other guy whips out a half pint of vodka, and our man on the scene here, he dives right into the spirit of things, and before the afternoon’s over, Officer Durkin is shit-faced. He and his partner, older cop named Wroble, another good-time Charlie, hit half a dozen taverns on the way home, and someplace between Forty-seventh and Cermak, our boys forget where they parked the squad car.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Durkin said in a low mumble.

  Whelan ignored him. “They had to ride around the neighborhood in the back of another squad looking for their car. Took them two hours to find it.” He looked calmly at Durkin. “And Durkin became a legend.”

  “So? Everybody drinks, Whelan,” Krause said. He was sweaty and uncomfortable and kept running a hand across the back of his neck.

  “Almost everybody, Krause. But most folks wait till they’re through with work.”

  “Well, we’re off now.”

  Whelan looked from one to the other and told himself this young cop wouldn’t spend a minute longer with an alley rat like Mark Durkin than he had to. “I don’t think so,” Whelan said.

  Durkin pointed a finger at him. “What are you doin’ here, Whelan?”

  “Looking around. I come down here a lot. I’ve been coming down here since I was a kid.”

  Durkin tried a smile but only half of it came to life. “You’re down here ’cause of that old shine we found. That guy you were lookin’ for.”

  Whelan shook his head. “No, I heard you got that one all wrapped up. Nice collar for you, I heard. Both of you,” he said, with a nod in Krause’s direction. The younger cop seemed to hesitate and then nodded.

  “So what are you looking for, Whelan?”

  “Runaway.”

  “What?” Krause looked confused.

  Durkin snorted and wet his lips again. “It’s what he does, this guy. He finds kiddies that run away from Mommy and Daddy, ain’t it, Whelan?”

  “That’s about it, Durkin.” He nodded to each of them and left. When he was halfway down the block, he took a quick look over his shoulder. Durkin was weaving slightly and staring after Whelan. Krause was watching his partner with a worried look.

  Whelan spent the best part of an hour roaming the deserted blocks of Maxwell Street, and when he was through he’d talked to three men and learned nothing. Night had arrived, and the men in the jumbled lots who sold hubcaps and tires had started their fires, and the chill air had an acrid bite to it.

  He was leaning against a wall across from the beef stand and had just lit a cigarette when he realized that he was being watched. He looked across the street, remained motionless, but let his eyes sweep the lots and passageways and doorways from north to south and saw nothing.

  He took a long puff and glanced to his left. A car backed into an alley till it was hidden behind the beef stand. Whelan waited a moment, then ran across the street and around the beef stand. The car was a few feet ahead of him. It was an impressive car, more than a little out of place on Maxwell Street, and Whelan had seen it several times before.

  He moved quickly up on the driver’s side and knocked on the roof.

  “Let me guess: you ran out of gas in the alley.”

  David Hill froze with both hands on the wheel and then shook his head, as angry at himself as he was at Whelan. He glared for a moment, then collected himself, and in a moment he was a lawyer again and at no loss for words.

  “I saw someone I knew lurking in a doorway, Whelan—you. So I drove around the block to get a better look.”

  “Not bad. The truth would be a lot better, but it’s not a bad story. You just happened to be in this neighborhood where you originally hired me to look for Sam Burwell. So all of a sudden you’re streetwise enough to cover it on your own.” He grinned at Hill.

  When the lawyer spoke, he sounded serene, confident. “What I am doing down here, Whelan, is no affair of yours. But a good lawyer never passes up free information, and when I saw you I decided to see exactly what brought you here.”

  “Well, Mr. Hill, if you’ve been watching me march up and down these streets for the past hour, your patience has been rewarded, and you now know exactly what I know. Make a complete report for your client.”

  Hill turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the alley.

  Whelan waved after him. “It was good for me, too.”

  When he walked back toward his car they were still selling dogs and Polish at Jim’s. A burly cabdriver with a crewcut leaned against his Checker and gnawed at a Polish. He was watching a business discussion: two young black men negotiating the
price of a gold chain. Capitalism in its purest form. Whelan paused for a moment and looked around for Durkin and Krause, but there was no sign of them.

  I run into all my best friends down here, he thought.

  Eleven

  Day 7, Thursday

  The house where Henry Bridgeman lived was indeed green, a memorable jade green, but Whelan had seen more outrageous painting—one of his neighbors had recently begun painting his house lavender and the porches and stairs violet. Bridgeman’s was an old frame building that had once been something special, with a cupola to one side on the upper floor and a porch that appeared to go all the way around the building. The screening of the porch was patched in a couple of places.

  Whelan parked in front, got out, and was halfway across the barren soil of the lawn when someone spoke to him from behind.

  “Looking for Henry?”

  He turned and saw a ruddy-faced white man in a neon-pink touring cap and a black shirt. It was the priest he’d seen at the wake.

  “Yes. How’d you know?”

  The priest pointed at the building and laughed. “Because nobody else lives there.” There was an air of suppressed energy about him, and with his wide blue eyes and round pink cheeks, he looked like somebody’s Christmas card.

  Whelan walked over to him and extended his hand. “I’m Paul Whelan.”

  The priest shook hands. “Mike Brennan. Somebody told me you’re a private investigator. I wanted to meet you at Sam’s wake. Never met a detective before.” He laughed again. “Everybody probably tells you that, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t mind. I’m popular at parties. Are you on your way to see Henry?”

  The priest hesitated. “No. Actually, I was just walking back to the rectory and I saw you get out of your car. Henry’s not there.”

  “Know when he’ll be home?”

  The priest squinted back in the direction of the rectory and shrugged. “Around dinnertime.” He faced Whelan again and smiled. “How about a cup of coffee?”

  Father Brennan seemed to be a man with something on his mind. If I have any more coffee, I’ll float, Whelan thought. To the priest, he said, “Sounds good.”