Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  “Police?” Laura asked.

  I was thinking FBI, but I didn’t say that. “Maybe.”

  “What if you find this man before the convention’s over?” Laura asked.

  “I’m going to assume he’s not working alone,” I said. “I want to wait until the strangers leave town.”

  She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. The long blond strands fell about her face, messy and attractive.

  She caught me staring at her. I looked away.

  “Why do we have to leave town?” Laura asked.

  “I want Jimmy out of here,” I said. “If they find me, then they’ll know he’s here.”

  “But they won’t know he’s at my place.”

  “We have to assume they’d find out.”

  Laura’s gaze met mine, and in it, for the first time, I saw real fear. “Where should we go?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

  “But how will you find me?” Jimmy’s voice rose. His hands were trembling and he grabbed on to his knees to steady them.

  “I thought of that already,” I said. “Laura, when you’re safely out of town, you’ll find a pay phone miles from where you’re staying. Then you’ll call the two phone numbers I left you. You will not stay on the line longer than thirty seconds. You will not leave a message or give your name. If I’m not there, you’ll promise to call back later.”

  “Thirty seconds?” she asked.

  “Phone calls can be traced in about a minute, sometimes less. Thirty seconds is safe.”

  She nodded.

  Jimmy’s eyes grew wide. His Adam’s Apple bobbed. He was swallowing compulsively.

  I wanted to go to him, to put my hand on his shoulder and calm him. But I didn’t dare. He needed to be uneasy. He needed to understand the stakes.

  “If I don’t sound like myself,” I said, “or if I sound funny, as if my voice is strained or slightly unfamiliar, hang up.”

  “You think someone else could impersonate you?” Laura asked. “I’d know your voice anywhere.”

  Those words hung between us for a moment. Slowly color built in her cheeks.

  “We’re being cautious here,” I said. “That’s the key. If you can’t reach me in two more days or you’re not satisfied with the way I sound, find some place to hole up for a month. Then contact my friend Roscoe Miller in Memphis. You met him at the Peabody. Pick a place to have him meet me. Make sure it’s far away from you. Don’t let him know where you are. Leave a message with the doorman of your building, so that I know where I’m supposed to meet Roscoe and when. Roscoe will know me, and he’ll know if something’s wrong. If he has a doubt, any doubt, make sure he tells you. If he has none, then set up a place, through him, where the three of us can be reunited.”

  “This sounds so convoluted,” Laura said.

  “It is,” I said.

  “You’re really scared of these people, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not scared,” I said, and it was true. I was focused and maybe even a little angry. “I know who we’re dealing with. I just worry that we’re not being cautious enough.”

  SEVEN

  WHEN I LEFT LAURA’S OFFICE, I walked to the “L” station. It was time to head north, to look for Elijah. I hoped I would find him with the hippies. Otherwise the search might take longer than I expected.

  The midafternoon heat was grueling, made worse by the tall buildings around me. The humidity got trapped in the city’s canyons, making it hard to breathe.

  The oppressiveness had a weight to it; the air so thick that I glanced at the sky, hoping for a storm. The storm would come, I knew, but probably not the kind I wanted. And the oppressiveness would only get worse.

  The news had been trumpeted for days that the antiwar protestors were meeting in Lincoln Park. The bulk of them were in town that day for a “Festival of Life,” which the Yippies had been promoting since January. The Yippies called themselves the Youth International Party, but from all I’d seen in the various media, they’d mostly devoted themselves to street theater.

  They didn’t seem to be serious. Just the day before, they’d announced their presidential candidate in the Civic Center Plaza. They called the candidate Pigasus, whose platform was garbage, and they brought an actual pig into Chicago’s downtown. That got the attention of the media, caused an uproar in the middle of the business day, and got poor Pigasus a new home at Chicago’s Humane Society

  The serious ones were the Students for a Democratic Society, who were also gathering in the park. They had been planning some kind of protest against the Democratic Convention since December. Their agenda seemed a lot more professional—assemblies at the various parks, speakers, and eventually a march on the Amphitheater.

  So far, the city had been able to stonewall the protestors on the issues of permits and marches, and seemed to think that would be enough. Up until this point, all I had cared about was the way these demonstrations would affect the Hilton. I hadn’t expected to go to Lincoln Park. It wasn’t a place I usually frequented.

  The “L” train going north from the Loop was mostly empty. I took a seat near a grimy window and waited for the darkness go by. Finally we surfaced from the underground station and I could see the hazy sunshine spreading over the city like a cloud.

  I got off at Sedgewick. My side of the island platform was empty. On the other side, two girls wearing headbands, love beads, and ankle-length dresses leaned together, laughing. They swayed slightly as they did so. I wasn’t even sure they noticed me.

  I took the metal steps down to the street level. The Sedgewick Station huddled underneath the tracks. It was an old brick building with new windows, crosshatched with steel to protect them from destruction. The door was closed and the blinds were pulled. The entire place looked like a fortress, locked against an impending attack.

  I walked east on North Avenue, heading toward the park. I hadn’t been to the Old Town section before. It was dingy and run-down, a remnant of an age gone by. The air smelled faintly of marijuana and regular cigarettes. Down a side street, I heard a guitar being played badly. The stores I passed were businesses that thrived on cheap rent: a psychic with her own storefront boasted tarot readings; a head shop displayed drug paraphernalia in the window; and a record store positioned a bin on the sidewalk, the album covers faded and frayed.

  In the distance, I heard chanting, too faint to make out, and more music. There were also ripples of laughter that floated toward me and seemed to come from nowhere.

  Most of the people on the streets were young, and most of them wore casual clothes—blue jeans, shorts, or T-shirts. A few of them raised the index and middle fingers of their right hand as they passed me—they had co-opted the old V for Victory sign and made it into something they called the Peace Sign. I still wasn’t used to it.

  Instead of making the sign in response, I nodded my head and continued walking. The atmosphere seemed festive, but what disturbed me—and what the kids didn’t seem to see—were the huge number of police cars on the streets. In less than a block, I had passed three police cars, and seen five officers conversing in a small group. They watched me pass, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise.

  As I got closer to the park, a girl-woman with dreamy, unfocused eyes and bad skin gave me a flyer. On the top, it said: Daring Expose—Top Secret Yippie Plans for Lincoln Park. I scanned down the sheet. The next two days would be devoted to “training in snake dancing, karate, and non-violent self-defense.” After the convention started, there would be a music festival, a beach party that included “folksinging, barbecues, swimming, lovemaking.” One day would be set aside for the Yippie Olympics, the Miss Yippie Contest, “catch the candidate, pin the tail on the donkey, pin the rubber on the Pope, and other normal, healthy games.”

  I began to wonder how anyone could take these kids seriously, until I saw two other notations. On August 28, there would be a march to the convention itself. That one didn’t worry me as much as th
e one scheduled for Sunday. It read:

  AUGUST 25 (PM): WELCOMING OF THE DEMOCRATIC

  DELEGATES—DOWNTOWN HOTELS (TO BE ANNOUNCED).

  I sighed. Amid the fun and games there would be some serious protesting after all.

  I folded up the paper and stuck it in my pocket. The girl who had given it to me was handing out the sheets to anyone who passed. But beside her, a young man watched everyone she gave them too. His gaze met mine and I felt the coldness in his eyes.

  Finding Elijah, if he were here, wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought.

  When I reached the edge of the park, I saw activity on Clark Street, just beyond the Moody Church. Some young men with short hair and serious expressions were tacking up signs made from poster board and magic marker.

  Welcome to Chicago, U.S.A. one read, and instead of an S, there was a swastika. A woman was dragging a chair toward them. She seemed trim and competent, moving with purpose.

  The chanting had grown louder. It was clearly coming from the park. The guitar music had faded, but nearby someone was playing a flute. I thought I heard the beat of drums as well, but I couldn’t quite tell. The chanting had a rhythm all its own.

  I crossed Clark and went into the park. It felt slightly cooler here. The lake wasn’t that far away. I couldn’t see it, but I could smell it, vaguely fishy. A seagull circled overhead, reminding me that Chicagoans preferred to think of Lake Michigan as an inland sea.

  The grass was green and well tended. Obviously, in this hot summer, the park had been getting more than its fair share of water. The park was huge—I’d seen it on the city’s maps—and this section was an open expanse.

  Between the park and the lake, cars passed, their movement almost hypnotic, white against a sea of blue. The colors were brighter here than they were inside the city, the sunlight clearer, as if the haze that settled over the rest of the city was being blown away by the fresh lake breeze.

  A long line of people, six across and at least twenty deep, linked arms and were bouncing from foot to foot as they moved forward. They were the ones chanting, something that sounded like “Wah-Choy.”

  Reporters surrounded them, photographing them, and a man trailed after them, holding a television camera above his head. Crowds had assembled in the center of the park, most of them sitting and talking, many of them smoking or eating or waving their hands at each other.

  Near the trees, one of the few black men—more a skinny boy—led a group of doughy white kids in basic karate moves. As I watched, a blonde girl tried to stand on one leg, lost her footing, and fell. Others fell beside her, laughing.

  This didn’t seem like the big crisis the city had been preparing for. It would have felt like a party if it weren’t for all of the police lining the park’s pathways, hovering near the park entrances and driving by on large police motorcycles.

  I wandered through the crowd, looking for black faces. I found some, most of them male, and most of them college age. I asked a few about Elijah, but got no response. One white student, who overheard my questioning, laughed.

  “This isn’t a place for kids,” he said.

  I agreed. If I did find Elijah here, I would get him back to Grace Kirkland as quickly as possible.

  Near the field house, a group of twenty-five people sat on the ground. There were no love beads here. It looked like a college class meeting on a lawn. Young women, their hair pulled back by bands, sat in the front. A few young men were sprawled on their stomachs, resting their chin on their hands as they listened.

  The speaker was a woman wearing jeans and a tight T-shirt. Her close-cropped hair was boyish, her attitude all business. She held a sheet of paper in her hands and she was reviewing it with them. Her voice was strident and firm. As I got closer, I could just barely make out the words.

  “…help them avoid arrest by forming small groups, breaking out of the park, and heading toward the Loop.” As she said that last, she gestured behind her, pointing vaguely in the direction of downtown.

  A rail-thin young man stood beside her. I hadn’t noticed him at first. He took a step toward the crowd, and said, “It’s an awesome responsibility. You’re going to have heavy tasks. You have to make these demonstrations work.”

  I saw only one black face in the group, a serious man in his midtwenties, wearing a white button-down shirt and a pair of black pants. He had a notebook on his lap and was taking notes. Whenever someone whispered near him, he glared.

  He was not Elijah Kirkland.

  Two men stood toward the back of the group. They had taken off their shirts in the heat, and their stomachs were so white that they were startling. One of the men had long frizzy hair. The other wore a duffel bag over his shoulder, its strap cutting into his bare skin. Even though they were casually dressed, they seemed important, and they both noticed me at the same time.

  Frizzy hair spoke to his neighbor and then nodded toward me. I felt that same coldness I had felt earlier, the assessment, the way they all watched me.

  And then I recognized it. They thought I was undercover. They thought I was spying on them.

  I toyed with explaining myself and then realized how it would play. A middle-aged man asking them if they had seen a young boy, in a place where young boys were clearly not welcome. It would sound like an excuse, a made-up reason for eavesdropping on their meeting.

  I wandered down a park path, trying to look inconspicuous. But I was conspicuous partly because of my age and dress, and partly because of my color. I did not belong here. Despite the occasional black face, this was a white man’s movement and a white man’s cause. And I felt hopelessly out of place.

  If I felt that way, then Elijah Kirkland would have felt it even more. Perhaps my instincts were wrong. Just because he opposed the war didn’t mean that he would come here. Perhaps Grace didn’t know as much about him as she thought she did. Maybe Elijah Kirkland had joined the Blackstone Rangers after all.

  I walked back to North Avenue, intending to return to the “L” stop. As I stood there, I looked down the row of stone buildings, with their rounded faces, speaking of an era long gone. People flowed into a building not far from me. Outside it, women in long skirts sat on the sidewalk, Indian blankets in front of them, displaying some kind of wares. The girl I had gotten my flyer from had worked her way to the corner. She still swayed to music only she could hear.

  I crossed to that side of North Avenue and walked down the sidewalk, pretending to be interested in the stuff on the blankets. Most of it was cheap jewelry, made from beads and thread. One blanket was covered in books, thick textbooks that had dented corners and ruined spines. Another held a variety of spoons, and it took me a minute to realize they weren’t for food.

  I reached the building. The door was propped open. The sickly sweet odor of marijuana was stronger here. I was surprised that the cops hadn’t done anything about it, but they didn’t seem that interested in this section of the street. They didn’t seem interested in much of anything. It made me wonder how many undercover officers they had inside.

  As I approached the door, two people came out. They were laughing and holding each other up. They both had long stringy hair and their clothing reeked of pot. I had trouble figuring out what gender they were. They saw me watching, laughed harder, and staggered away from me.

  I slipped inside.

  The air was a gray-green with smoke, marijuana mixed with clove cigarettes. A tinny radio blared Jefferson Airplane but the murmur of voices nearly drowned it out. I had expected to see people lying around in a drugged fog. Instead, this place was a hive of activity.

  Piles of paper were crowded in boxes. Three women were sorting through them, giving piles to the teenagers leaning against the wall. They were folding the papers into flyers. In the center of the room, poster board covered the floor. A man bent over one of the boards. With a pencil, he was carefully outlining letters. They were too faint to make out.

  My eyes stung in the smoke-filled air, and I could feel mysel
f getting light-headed. There was enough pot in this enclosed space to make anyone high. What a great way to go home, smelling like this. I hoped I avoided cops as I went.

  Here I was not the only black face. I saw at least a half dozen, maybe more, most of them male, but none of them were young, or at least, young enough to be Elijah Kirkland—even if he did look older than he was.

  As I stepped away from the door, a heavy-set man with black glasses and a thick black beard barred my way. My gaze met his. He held out his hand, fanning magic markers like they were a bouquet of flowers.

  “You here to work?”

  “Actually, I—”

  “Because we need signs, man. We got to have ways to let people know what’s happening, you know what I mean?”

  I didn’t, but I took a marker.

  “You can help Josh.” My instructor pointed to the young man sprawled on the floor. “He needs a colorer.”

  I walked toward Josh, wondering at how easily I was accepted. I sat down beside him. I still couldn’t make out the words. “What are you writing?”

  He sat up, squinted at me as if I had just appeared before him—which, judging by his level of concentration, I probably had. “It’s for Pigasus, man.”

  I looked at the poster board. In big loopy letters he had written The Pig in ’68.

  “I thought Pigasus had been arrested.” Arrested had been the Yippie term on the news.

  He chuckled. “Well, you know. When one pig disappears, there’s always another to take his place.”

  I leaned closer to him so that I could speak without being overheard. “Listen, I’m looking for a fourteen-year-old boy named Elijah.”

  “Oh, shit, man.” The pencil artist slapped his hands against the poster board. “And I thought you were on the level.”

  “I am on the level,” I said.

  “No, you’re not. You’re a fucking square.” That last word was so loud that it rose over the din of the radio. Several other people looked at me. A few took up a chant: Square, square, square. It grew louder.