The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  A few feet from Nate’s makeshift table he stopped and held his breath and listened. When he was certain that he was alone on the bus, he moved forward. On Nate’s table rested the remainder of a meal, a Styrofoam cup half filled with coffee and a beef sandwich with a few bites gone. Whelan touched the coffee, then the sandwich. Both cold.

  He sat on the corner of the seat in front of Nate’s living space. He could hear the traffic on Halsted and a pair of men arguing over money. Whelan looked at the old man’s cot and easy chair and didn’t like any of it.

  He left the bus and looked around the yard, calling Nate’s name. Dark had bled into the sky, and in a little while he wouldn’t be able to see his way around the junkyard. He went out through the gate and stood for a moment on the broken sidewalk. There was a single tavern on this stretch of Halsted, a forbidding place with barred windows and a front untouched in thirty years by paint or soap or anything resembling a human hand. He went inside.

  The bar was already lined with drinkers, some on their way back from work, others who’d been there all afternoon and would leave when the bartender decided he’d had enough of them. Whelan could tell the sober ones; they looked up when the door opened and took a moment to size him up. Most of the drinkers were black, a couple were white, a small group near the back of the place looked to be Latino, and they were all drinking beer from cans. Several of the men along the bar looked down when he met their gaze; it was easy to tell which ones could see cop in him. The bartender, for one.

  Whelan took a stool near the door. In a corner to his right a young Latino in a leather jacket whispered and smiled into the phone.

  The bartender was a middle-aged white man who took his time coming over. Eventually he got there. He sank back against a beer cooler and thrust his chin at Whelan.

  “What’s it gonna be?”

  “I’ll have a ginger ale.”

  The bartender packed ice into a plastic cup, poured soda into it from the gun, jammed a straw in it and set it down in front of Whelan.

  “Dollar.”

  “I’m trying to get a hold of somebody who works up the street. Name’s Nate.”

  The bartender pursed his lips and shook his head, then took one of the bills from Whelan’s small stack.

  “He works next door. In the tire place.” The bartender was starting to shake his head when Whelan added, “The one that lives in the bus. Old guy.”

  He had the barkeep’s attention now. The man looked Whelan up and down and made no secret of his distaste. “What you want with him?”

  “I told him to keep an eye open for something for me—a little something for my car—and I think he came up with it.”

  “He don’t come in here much.”

  “No, I guess he doesn’t hang out anywhere except the bus. But he’s not there. You seen him lately?”

  “He comes in to use the phone sometimes. Came in today.”

  “He made a call?”

  The bartender nodded.

  “How long ago?”

  A shrug. “I don’t know. It was afternoon.”

  “Was he with anyone, or did he talk to anyone?”

  “Mister, nobody wants to talk to him.”

  “Did he leave right after he made his call?”

  “Wasn’t any reason for him to stay. He smells. We don’t need nobody in here smells like that.” The bartender studied Whelan for a moment. “You plainclothes?”

  “I’m not a cop. He called me, like I said. I think he had something for me, and now I can’t find him.”

  The barman shrugged again. “You wait by that bus of his, he’ll be back. He ain’t goin’ nowheres.” Down the bar, a man tapped his beer can on the bar. The bartender gave the customer a sullen look, glanced briefly at Whelan, then moved away. Whelan took a sip of his ginger ale, left a buck, and went back out onto the street.

  A chill had come into the air, and on the corner across from Nate’s bus a group of men stood around a garbage drum and warmed their hands over a fire. They looked up in silent question as he approached.

  Whelan nodded, and one of them moved away from the drum.

  “Whatcha need, sir, tires? Got new Firestones, Michelins, give you a good price.”

  “I was looking for Nate.” He gestured with his thumb in the direction of the bus.

  “Ain’t seen ’im.”

  “Seen anybody go inside the bus?”

  “Don’t nobody go in that bus.” A couple of the other men laughed. “Ain’t nobody goin’ in that bus ’less Nate take a bath.”

  “It was another dude lookin’ around that bus.”

  Whelan looked at the speaker, a tall, thin man with heavy-lidded eyes and a stocking cap. “When?”

  The man made a little shrug and Whelan nodded. He pulled out a five and handed it to the man. “Nothing’s free, huh?”

  The man took the money and jammed it in the pocket of his jacket. “’Bout a hour ago.”

  “What did he look like?” The man pursed his lips and shook his head. Whelan decided to fish. “Tall skinny white guy like me?”

  The man shook his head. “Dude wasn’t white.” Then he became aware of the stares of his companions, self-conscious that he was offering too much information, and the well went dry.

  “Okay, thanks.” Whelan nodded to the men and walked up Halsted.

  The streetlights had gone out on the west side of Halsted for a full block, so that people on the other side moved in a no-man’s-land of shadow. Here and there he could see the flames of a garbage drum fire and a handful of dark figures moving about on the street.

  Whelan stood in a doorway and watched the man in the gray hooded sweatshirt as he dug in a garbage container at the corner of Halsted and Maxwell for his dinner. The trash belonged to a sandwich stand called Matty’s, a matchbox of a place that advertised Polish and kielbasa and dogs, and the stretch of Maxwell that ran behind it was little more than an alley. Whelan leaned against the side of the doorway until the man came up with something edible and began to eat.

  He was across the street in seconds and positioned himself so that the man in the sweatshirt would have no clear avenue of escape.

  The man ate greedily, noisily, focusing all his attention on the stale sandwich in his hand. Whelan could smell him from six feet away. Up close he was unshaven and ragged and filthy, with what appeared to be fresh stitches over one eye and a distended stomach that stretched the dirty cloth of his sweatshirt. There was something childlike in his posture and movements. Whelan watched him for a moment more and then moved quietly till he was just behind the man. He held out a bill till it dangled just to the left of the man’s face.

  “Ten bucks.”

  The man froze like a deer in the crosshairs. Then, as the wondrous presence of the ten-dollar bill wore through his fear, he relaxed a little. He dropped the half-eaten burger in his hand and chanced a look at Whelan from the corner of his eye. His breathing came raspy and quick, through his mouth.

  “It’s okay, you can turn around,” Whelan said, still holding out the bill.

  The man turned and faced Whelan. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Whelan, and he wet his lips. Whelan could see him trying to see a way out of the little dead end he’d gotten himself into.

  “You’re not in any danger. I just want to talk to you, and it’s worth ten bucks to me. You can get a hamburger that’s still hot.”

  The man blinked, and some of the stiffness went out of his shoulders.

  “You knew Sam Burwell.” The man froze again. “You did, right?”

  “I knew ’im.”

  “You know he’s dead?”

  The man nodded. “I went. To the funeral.”

  Whelan stared for a moment. “How’d you get out there?”

  “Walked. I walked. I can walk all day, mister.”

  It’s your whole life: you walk and you sleep in doorways, Whelan thought. “I’ll bet you can,” he told the man. “You know about the kids they brought in for Sam’s killing?”r />
  The man nodded. “Little bastards. I hate those little bastards. They shook me down. I smacked one of ’em in his mouth.”

  “They hurt you?”

  “Busted up my eye. Cops took me to County for stitches. Ten stitches.”

  “Think they’d kill you?”

  “Who knows? They’re little animals.”

  “When they jumped you, did you see a gun?”

  “No. Biggest one, he had a knife, like a butcher knife. Didn’t have no gun.”

  “You’re Buddy Lenz, aren’t you?”

  The man’s eyes widened, but he shut his mouth tight. Whelan grinned and wiggled the ten again. The other man nodded, watching the bill.

  “Okay, Buddy. My name’s Paul. You used to play the drums in the old days.” The other man shot him a quick, nervous look and Whelan added, “O.C. Brown told me about you.”

  Buddy seemed to relax. He nodded. “O.C. Brown. Played a good horn. Cornet, he useta play.”

  “Did you and Sam get along, Buddy?”

  “Oh, sure. We went way back. We never had no problem. Musicians don’t have no problem about people’s color. I’m a picker, I sold ’im stuff. I sold stuff to a lotta these people down here. I’m good, too.” He watched Whelan for any resistance to this idea. “You got to have a good eye about stuff. Lotta good stuff, it just looks like garbage, so you got to have a good eye. Sam useta be a picker but he wasn’t feeling so hot no more, couldn’t get out and look for stuff. So if I found something he could use, I sold it to him.”

  “You sold different things to different dealers?”

  Buddy nodded. “Right. You got to know what each one sells.”

  “You stay down here, Buddy?”

  A shrug. “Sometimes. I don’t stay just in one place. I move around a bit.”

  “Were you down here the Sunday when there was a big fire? That’s when they think Sam was killed.”

  Buddy Lenz looked away. “I was around. I didn’t see nothin’, though. I just saw, you know, the usual people and like that.”

  “I took you by surprise when I came up behind you.”

  “Yeah. You got to watch your back down here.”

  “Right. You seemed to recognize me, though. I thought for a minute it was me you were afraid of.”

  Buddy Lenz pursed his lips and shook his head but refused to meet Whelan’s eyes.

  “I get the feeling you know me, though. Have you seen me before?”

  “Yeah. I saw you before.”

  “You saw me down here when I was asking people about Sam.”

  Buddy nodded.

  “I’m a private investigator. Buddy. O.C. Brown asked me to look into Sam’s death. He doesn’t think those kids killed Sam, and I think he’s right.”

  Buddy flashed him a sudden look, his eyes shining.

  Whelan went fishing. “I wish I had you with me when I was talking to these people. I know somebody down here knows something. Probably somebody I’ve already talked to.”

  Buddy shuffled from foot to foot and moved almost imperceptibly a couple feet away.

  “Buddy, maybe you saw me talking to somebody who knows something. Is that why I made you a little nervous? Who was it, Buddy?”

  Buddy shrugged and scanned the street as if planning an escape route.

  “Take the ten. Buddy. I’ll be back, and maybe you’ll be able to help me a little with this.”

  The drummer took the ten in dirty fingers and stared at Whelan openmouthed for a moment. Then he pocketed the bill and nodded. “That black one I saw you with, you oughta be asking him.”

  “The black man you saw me with—when?”

  Buddy tried to look sly. “Last night. Right over there in the alley. I saw you come up behind him when he was in his car. He was watchin’ you.” Buddy pointed a grubby finger at him.

  “I know about him, Buddy. He was trying to find Sam before he died.”

  Buddy blinked, wet his lips. “He found ’im. He found Sam, mister. I saw ’im.”

  Whelan could hear his own heartbeat. “What did you see, Buddy?”

  “That one that was followin’ you, I saw him. He was standin’ on the corner across the street from where Sam set up. Just watchin’ ’im. He was watchin’ Sam just like he watched you, only he wasn’t sittin’ in no car then. Just standin’ there smokin’ cigarettes and watchin’ ’im.”

  “Did you see him here any other time?”

  “Just that time.” Buddy Lenz jammed the ten inside the waistband of his pants and nodded. “I gotta go.”

  “Thanks, Buddy,” Whelan heard himself say. Buddy took one quick final look and then hurried off across Halsted. In a few seconds he’d disappeared into the blackness.

  Whelan stood there for a moment and listened to the blood pounding in his ears. For just a fraction of a second he imagined himself wandering around, aimlessly searching through doorways, while another man stood a few feet away and laughed.

  The Jet was the only vehicle left on a desolate stretch of Fourteenth Place. Whelan made a hurried check around as he opened the door. He got in quickly, turned the key in the ignition, and heard nothing. He pumped the gas pedal a couple of times and tried to start the car again but there was nothing. He knew if he sat here and gave it gas and turned the key in the ignition all night, the car would make no sound.

  He sat for a moment in the darkened car and watched the street in his side-view mirror. A knot was forming in his stomach. With a quick glance around, he got out and looked at the hood. Where they had used the crowbar, the metal was puffed out, like a steel blister. He sighed and put the hood up and found exactly what he’d expected. The battery was gone.

  And I was having such a nice day.

  Whelan stood leaning against his car for a couple of minutes and had a cigarette. He could call for a tow, but it would be cheaper just to come back with a new battery and install it himself. The Jet was probably safe for the night; they’d already taken out the only piece of the car worth money.

  Trying to shake the growing sense that he was not alone on the street, he headed back to Halsted.

  He walked past the row of stores with their steel gates locked in place for the night and tried in vain to find a cab. When one finally materialized, the driver gave him an aggravated wave of his hand and shook his head, then slowed down a few yards away.

  The cab backed up slowly and the driver, a burly man in a floppy Cubs hat, leaned out the window.

  Whelan trotted over to him.

  “I’m through for the night,” the cabbie said, and gave Whelan a sullen stare. “You goin’ north?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How far?”

  “Wilson and Broadway?”

  The cabbie hesitated for a moment, muttered, “Fuck me,” then said, “Get in.”

  Whelan slipped into the back seat and said nothing for a few blocks. The cabbie shot him an occasional look in the rearview mirror and broke his silence only to mutter curses at other motorists. Eventually he relaxed, turned off the dispatcher, and turned the radio to a jazz station. By Greektown he was ready to talk to his passenger.

  “You work down there? Maxwell Street?”

  “No. I was just down there to see somebody.”

  “Mister, that’s a shit neighborhood to be walkin’ around at night. Especially if you don’t have no car.”

  “I have a car. I parked it a few blocks away, and somebody stole the battery.”

  The cabbie eyed the rearview mirror to see if Whelan was serious, then laughed. “No shit. They took your battery?”

  “Yeah. And if I was a patient guy, I’d come down here on Sunday morning and somebody’d probably sell it back to me.”

  The cabbie shook his head and laughed again. “You see? I don’t mean to make fun of you, mister, but see what I mean about that neighborhood? It’s all boogies and bums down there.”

  Whelan let it pass. He studied the driver’s cab license and the typical cabbie picture that made each driver look like something out
of a lineup.

  “You do most of your driving out south? Is that where you were coming from?”

  “Nah. I try to stay north, or out by O’Hare or Downtown. Couple-three nights a week I pick up a fare from a saloon on La Salle Street. City Hall guy, one of these hotshots, lives in Bridgeport. So I take him out there and then I try to call it a night.”

  “Anybody important?”

  The cabbie made a snorting noise. “He was important, he’d have his own limo and a driver. Wouldn’t need no cab. He just wants to look like hot shit to his neighbors. He’s a young guy, about thirty, some kinda assistant to the assistant deputy commissioner for something.” The cabbie chuckled. He met Whelan’s eyes in the mirror again. “You’re a cop.”

  Whelan smiled. “I ask a lot of questions. But no, I’m not a cop anymore. I was just making conversation, actually.”

  “It’s okay. What kinda work you do?”

  “I’m a private investigator.”

  The cabbie grinned at him in the mirror. “No shit? I didn’t know they were for real.”

  “I’m not so sure we are. Am I taking you far out of your way?”

  “Nah, it’s okay. I’m up by Diversey and Broadway.” The tone of his voice said Whelan would still be standing back on the corner if it was out of his way. “You been in my cab before?”

  “Could be. I take them now and then. Haven’t been in one in about a year, though.”

  “You look familiar. Maybe I saw you somewheres else. Wilson and Broadway—you ever go in any of the joints up there?”

  “Taverns? Not much. I go to a few places outside the neighborhood.”

  “Neighborhood? That’s your neighborhood? Mister, you get to some interesting places.”

  Whelan smiled. “It’s interesting, all right. I eat in a lot of places up there, though. I know a couple of cabbies that hang out in a coffee shop under the El tracks.”

  “The one right at Wilson and Broadway? Sure, I know that place. I been there a couple times.”

  The cabbie seemed satisfied that he had placed Whelan and fell silent. Whelan watched the dark streets pass and thought of the events of the evening: a call from Nate, the empty bus, a man seen leaving the bus, and Whelan’s incapacitated car. He wondered whether the car had been a message to him or something more calculated, a way to strand him alone on a dark side street in a neighborhood where only the homeless lived. He thought of Nate again and felt a chill wash over him.