Whelan turned casually and his heart sank. The new customer was a figure out of the world of nightmare, a hulking red-faced man in a salmon-colored sport coat, who leaned one thick elbow on the bar and studied Whelan the way a hawk watches its dinner. Whelan returned the stare, telling himself that Death or Fate probably looked something like this. The man down the bar grinned.
Nothing is ever simple, Whelan told himself.
“What’s up, Snoopy?” the newcomer said across half a dozen stools.
“Albert Bauman. Gee, this is pleasant. What a surprise to find you in a saloon.”
“Oh, you know me, Whelan. I like to visit all the spots of local color. Pull up a stool.”
“Excuse me, guys,” Whelan said, and moved down to sit next to Bauman. “This is business.”
The bartender came over and smiled, tossing a coaster on the bar, then poured a new shot into Bauman’s oversized shot glass from the bottle he’d been working on. “You gonna drink with this fella?”
Whelan looked at Bauman’s shot and beer. “Against my better judgment.”
Whelan sat down and busied himself for a moment lighting a cigarette, aware that Bauman never took his eyes from him. He nodded toward his money on the bar when the man set up his drink, then indicated Bauman. “And one for him, if he’s ready.”
Bauman grunted, “I’m fine,” and continued to stare at Whelan.
The barman patted Bauman on the arm and moved back down to the far end.
Whelan sighed and looked at Bauman. The other man raised his thick dark eyebrows and gave Whelan a loopy smile, but Whelan was fairly certain he wasn’t drunk.
“Imagine my surprise, Whelan. I come into one of my many hideouts, Crown Liquors, for one quick one before I head home, and here’s the famous detective Paul Whelan buttonholing the locals.”
“Name a tavern I could go in without running into you.”
“Gay joint at Halsted and Cornelia. No, wait a minute, I been there, too.”
“I just stopped in for a drink.”
Bauman nodded, took a sip of his bourbon, washed it down with his beer and then began fishing in the pocket of his plaid jacket for a smoke. After an irritable moment plumbing the depths of his inner pockets, Bauman came up with a badly wounded pack of the evil little cigars that he smoked, then located one that wasn’t broken. Whelan watched him light up and spew smoke out into the air, and waited for the conversation to enter stage two.
“So now we both lied to each other. Now what, Snoopy?”
“You tell me. I still think maybe we both came into the same tavern for a shot.”
“No, you don’t. All the gin mills in this town, including a bunch that I know you like, and you walk into one I never seen you in before. Although”—and here he scanned the noisy little crowd at the bar and the raucous pool players—“I can see Paul Whelan in a joint like this. Anyhow, we both come into the same joint on the same night, and neither one of us believes in coincidences. So why are you here?”
“See those guys down there? Tall one’s Fred, the other guy, looks like an owl, that’s Archie.”
A tiny but malevolent light came into Bauman’s eyes. He ran his big hand over his brush cut and sniffed.
Whelan smiled. “Let me guess: those are the guys you’re here to see.”
“Could be. This is the part I don’t like, Whelan. Where I got to tell you you’re crossing that line again.”
“I don’t think so. Not this time.”
“Yeah, you are. This is about that old guy we found down at Montrose Beach, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean, ‘Not exactly’? It either is or it isn’t.”
Whelan drank some of his cognac. His second shot and the sun hadn’t fully set yet: trouble coming. He sighed. “What I’m doing has nothing to do with your investigation. I am working on something, but not that. I’m looking for somebody who was a friend of his. This guy’s sister’s been looking for him for years, and when this Michael Minogue’s story hit the paper, she hired me to help her. Basically, Minogue was the last person to know the whereabouts of this woman’s brother and she thinks there has to be somebody who knew this Minogue and also knew her brother.”
“Why didn’t she just pick up a phone and call Minogue?”
“She never knew he was here. He apparently left town in the early fifties with her brother. For a while they ran a tavern together in Miami. She lost track of both of them, never heard from her brother again after about the mid-fifties, thought she had a shot at finding out something about him.”
Bauman blew out smoke and grinned through the little cloud between them. “Sounds like another one of your ‘special cases’ there, Whelan. Hope your client’s throwing fistfuls of money at you. Or tossing something else your way.”
“She’s about sixty-eight years old and she’s not going to toss anything at me but lint from her purse. Anyway, somebody referred her to me, and no, she doesn’t have money and she doesn’t have a clue, either. She’s a simple old Irish lady who can’t figure out what happened to her little brother and why the big bad world swallowed him up. And there really isn’t anyplace to send her, so I thought I’d poke around a bit, see if I turned up anybody who knew her brother. The major problem I’m running into is that her brother doesn’t seem to have left any kind of trail and this old guy Minogue didn’t have much of a family. I’ve really got nowhere to start.”
“He had a nephew.”
“I met him. I got nothing from him but where the old man drank and who he drank with. Same thing he gave you, apparently.”
Something changed in Bauman’s face. For a moment he looked around at the tavern, then he turned to Whelan again. “Nah, he didn’t send me no place. I come here ’cause I know these guys.”
A look of something like fatigue came into Bauman’s eyes and a sudden thought struck Whelan. “And Minogue—you knew Michael Minogue.”
“Ah, you know how it is. Yeah, I knew him but I didn’t know anything about him. I knew him to say hello to. I’d come in here sometimes on Sunday nights and he’d be there watching the tube, him and these other guys. Never bothered nobody. I drank across the bar from him on Sunday nights, Whelan, and now I’m investigating his murder. It’s a helluva world.”
“So you haven’t talked to Archie and Fred yet.”
“No. They give you anything?”
“Not about the guy I want to find, no. Like I said, he doesn’t seem to have left any trail.”
Bauman cocked an eyebrow at Whelan and smiled. “You said not about the guy you’re looking for. So what else you get?”
“Not much.”
“Give.”
“Archie said Michael Minogue thought somebody might be following him.”
“Like who?”
“He didn’t seem to know. He said Minogue asked if a guy had been in asking for him.”
Bauman put his elbow on the bar and cupped his fleshy chin in his hand. “Description.”
“Sounded like a street guy to me. Windburned, poorly dressed—windbreaker and a baseball cap, a red baseball cap.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“And did he? Did this guy come in asking for him?”
“No. But this guy with the baseball cap—it’s not the first time I heard him mentioned. I talked to one of Minogue’s fishing partners and he said the same thing. And he actually saw the guy.”
“Same description, you didn’t help him out?”
“No, this was before I talked to Archie. He said he saw a guy watching them, a guy in a dark blue windbreaker and a red baseball cap. Not young, but not as old as Minogue. Fifties, maybe.”
“So who’s the fisherman?”
“A black guy named Franklin. I found him down there not far from where it happened.”
“Not bad, Whelan. You’re saving me all kinds of work. What say you wait here while I slide on down the bar and have a chat with the boys?”
&nb
sp; “Fine with me. By the way, where’d you ditch Landini?”
“We don’t sleep together, Whelan. He’s on his own time, he’s got women to chase, cologne to buy, that kinda stuff. Me, I’m a simple guy. Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Whelan watched Bauman move down the bar. The material of the sport coat was stretched so tightly across the detective’s back that the lines in the plaid were curved in the middle. Archie blinked his wise eyes in Bauman’s direction and then looked away. Fred glanced up, saw Bauman bearing down on him, and looked like a sailor watching a squall line. Bauman set down his shot and beer, then came up with his badge and showed it around.
Archie stared behind his magnifiers and Fred looked as if he’d found a worm in his drink, but in a moment, their body language showed that Bauman had them both calmed down. He signaled for the bartender, called him Chuck, and ordered a round of drinks, including another jumbo shot for himself.
Whelan had watched Bauman work dozens of times, but this was a new persona. The two old men watched Bauman wordlessly for a moment and then all three exploded in laughter. Whatever he’d said had left Archie and Fred shaking their heads and chuckling as Bauman wiped his eyes. They talked for several minutes and then Bauman broke up his audience again. A moment later, he lifted his beefy form from the stool between them, patted each of the old men on the back, and waved.
He smiled at Whelan as he set his empty shot glass down.
“I’ll have another when you’re in the neighborhood, Chuck. And take care of my pal here,” Bauman said with a nod in Whelan’s direction.
The barman was on top of him before the sentence had cleared the air, pouring a shot and grinning and asking Whelan if he wanted one.
“No thanks. Not yet.”
“Come on, Whelan. You used to be such a good time.”
“All right.” He took a sip of his shot and studied Bauman. “I thought I’d seen all your moves, Bauman.”
“Ah, they’re okay. That little Archie is a sharp old fucker. Now Fred there, he wouldn’t notice a bus in the men’s john, but he’s good people.”
“You looked like one of the boys there.”
“You gotta know when you can’t be a cop. I tell fucking Landini this all the time, but he don’t get it yet. Thinks he’s gotta sound like fucking Rommel on the march no matter who he’s talking to.” He drained the jumbo shot, took a sip of beer and belched. “So. Do yourself any good?”
“Not as far as I can see. Neither of them knew anything about this Joe Colleran.”
“What do you do now?”
“I think I’m pretty much finished. Now comes the part I don’t like. I have to tell this old lady there’s no trace of her brother.”
“Could be worse, Whelan. You could be tellin’ her he’s dead.”
“I think he is. I’ve pretty much thought that from the beginning.” Whelan took a sip of his beer, which had by now gone to room temperature. He’d talked to four of Michael Minogue’s friends and a relative and not one could remember Minogue mentioning Joe Colleran by name.
That probably meant two things: the first was the obvious, that Colleran was dead and had been for some time. The second was vaguely troubling: a man who avoided talking about an old friend and business partner, living or dead, had a reason. He thought about the photograph Mrs. O’Mara had given him, of the happy group of pre-World War II kids on the beach at North Avenue—and decided he needed to know more about them. At least one of them was still alive and there had to be others. No, he told himself, he wasn’t finished with this one, not entirely. He took a sip of the lukewarm beer and noticed Bauman staring at him, grinning.
“Know what I think, Whelan? I think you’re blowin’ me smoke, that’s what I think. I don’t think you’re finished at all.”
Whelan looked at him calmly. Sometimes you spook me, Bauman. Aloud he said, “That’s news to me, Bauman. And I don’t care what you think.”
Bauman shrugged and turned back to his beer. “Besides, you hurt my feelings. You never asked me how I made out.”
“Okay. How’d you do?”
Bauman beamed at him. “I did good, Whelan. I did real good—but I didn’t get anything from these guys. I didn’t even ask them anything, actually. I knew you had it covered already. So I did okay, but not with them. With you, Whelan.” He sniffed, rubbed his nose, finished his drink and left the bar with a wave to the bartender and a cheery “See ya, Whelan.”
What the hell did I give you? he wondered.
Six
Morning broke sunny and chilly and the new day made the usual false promises not to be like the one before. Whelan made himself toast and coffee and listened to the radio, then decided to walk to work. He stopped at the Subway Donut Shop for a quick cup of coffee. Steam coated the windows, and the long counters that faced Broadway were lined with patrons drinking coffee, eating biscuits and gravy, or smoking. There were times when it seemed that all the world’s smokers collected in the Subway—to pool their efforts and turn the air gray. Whelan grabbed a cup of coffee to go, scanned the faces, looking for Tom Cheney or one of the other old men he liked to talk to, then left.
He opened the door to his office and all the breath was sucked out of him into the airless room. He opened the windows onto Lawrence and felt perhaps a two-degree change. During his absence, a large fly had apparently invaded the office, checked out the entertainment and food prospects and then died on his desk.
“I don’t blame you,” he said to the dead fly and brushed it into his wastebasket with a business card. He drank a quick cup of water from his cooler, listened to the comforting gurgle of the air bubbles in the lovely glass tank, and laid Mrs. O’Mara’s beach photo on the desk. For several minutes he thought about what he’d learned the previous day and wondered anew what it was that he’d given Bauman. Finally, against his better judgment, he put through a call. Predictably, Bauman was out and Whelan was glad: too early to go begging. Ten seconds after he put the phone down, it rang.
“Paul Whelan.”
He heard a snort and then the voice said, “That supposed to impress a client? You sound like you’re under sedation.”
“Morning, Shelley. That was my preoccupied voice. I’m trying to sound busy and distracted.”
“Lose that one, baby. You got a nice sexy voice. Don’t sound like you just got off the toilet.”
“Thanks for the professional advice.”
“Hey, you never know when you’re gonna be hired to handle phones. Anyway, you had a caller yesterday afternoon, called twice. A Mrs.…”
“Margaret O’Mara?”
“Yeah. She get hold of you?”
“No. What did she want?”
“I didn’t take the calls. I took the day off. Lydia was working.”
“Oh Lord.”
“Yeah. Anyhow, this is her note, in her own unique prose. And I quote: ‘For: Paul Whelan. From: Mrs. Margaret O’Mara. Message: Have you made any progress yet?’ Then she adds a whaddyacallit at the bottom.”
“A postscript? P.S.?”
“There you go. It says, ‘Caller gave off real intense vibes, rich peasant voice, many-layered life experience. France, Burgundy, Prussia.’ Then she’s got the word Goths. Question mark after Goths. Maybe she wasn’t sure of the spelling.”
“God Almighty. What does the other one say?”
“It says, and again I quote, ‘Mrs. Margaret O’Mara, second message. See previous comments.’ And then in, like, smaller letters, she writes ‘Kingdom of the Franks.’”
Whelan sighed. “Thanks. I think I’m going to be out of the office most of the morning…”
“So what else is new?”
“So if she calls again, tell her she’ll hear from me sometime today.”
“Okay. Later, Sweetie.”
Whelan sipped his coffee and thought for a moment, then reached behind him and grabbed the phone book. There were a number of Pollards listed, but neither Fritz nor Casey appeared. With the name Gaynor, he w
as a little luckier: a Herbert Gaynor was listed in the 4100 block of Addison and another on the 2300 block of School. Chick Landis would be even easier to find. Landis had paid a few extra bucks and gotten Landis Realty listed in block letters. The office was on the 3600 block of Marshfield. Just below it, Charles Landis was listed on North Oakley. Whelan wrote down both addresses.
Judging from the listings posted in its windows, Landis Realty was a prosperous concern and it appeared to be spreading. It currently occupied a pair of storefronts in a squat yellow brick building and was threatening, according to a building permit in the window of a third storefront, to spread to an adjacent building.
The current quarters were crowded enough to justify the move, and busy enough to justify Landis’s apparent confidence in his enterprise. Whelan pulled open the door and saw the signs of progress: busy salespeople. Two were speaking with clients in the office, the others were on the phone with clients. At the far end of the room, a trio of typists hammered away at their keyboards.
The oldest of the three, an animated-looking woman in her fifties, turned from her screen and gave Whelan a half smile.
“Can we help you, sir?”
She had large, startling brown eyes with a hint of humor in them. At eighteen, this one had been dangerous.
“I think I want to see that man.” Whelan nodded in the direction of the inner office. Through the window, he could see a fleshy gray-haired man in a tan suit addressing his speaker phone.
“He’s busy at the moment. Is he expecting you?”
“No one is ever expecting me.” He handed her a card and watched her eyebrows rise.
“One moment, please,” she said, and got up from her chair. She entered the man’s office and dropped Whelan’s card in front of him. He frowned at it, looked up at her and apparently missed something from the speaker phone. He gave the woman an irritated look, which she met with the same half smile she’d shown Whelan. The man made a helpless gesture, curled his lip at Whelan, barked something at the speaker phone and snapped at his secretary.
The Riverview Murders Page 7