The Riverview Murders

by Michael Raleigh

  Oh, I like this fella already, Whelan thought.

  The secretary emerged from the office and raised her eyebrow again. “Wait till he’s off the phone. He doesn’t really want to see you.”

  “Can’t remember the last time anybody did.”

  “Perhaps you ought to get a straight job, then.”

  “Nope. Then I’d have a boss. Maybe one like that.”

  “You’ve got a point.”

  “Charming guy?”

  “I can handle him,” she said, gazing at the address on a letterhead.

  “I believe it.”

  She shot him a sly smile and went back to her keyboard. Whelan took his eye off her and saw that the man in the office was waving him in impatiently.

  “Paul Whelan, Mr. Landis.”

  “Yeah. Sit down.” Landis made a stiff-armed gesture of minimal politeness and Whelan slid onto the visitor’s chair in front of Landis’s desk. The desk was almost bare, a startling contrast with the walls of the little office, which sported two dozen framed photographs, most of them showing Landis shaking hands with politicians and retired ballplayers and posing with teams of little boys wearing the name LANDIS REALTY on their Little League uniforms.

  “You seem to know a lot of people.”

  “I’m active in the community,” Landis recited. “You got a responsibility to the people that enable you to become successful. I wanna give something back.”

  “Right,” Whelan said, and reminded himself that he’d always wanted to kill someone who said “I want to give something back.”

  “So…what can I do for you, Mr. Whelan? I assume you’re not looking for a house or a building.” Landis pursed his lips and did his best to show his utter indifference. Whelan found himself admiring the tan suit, cut so well that it almost concealed the protruding gut beneath it. But it would take more than a tailor to cover what this man had created in a lifetime of eating. Landis still had all his hair, much of it still dark, but the rest of him wasn’t wearing nearly so well. His nose had broadened and was shot with burst capillaries, and the skin beneath his eyes was dark. The eyes were close-set and heavy-lidded, giving Landis a wary look.

  “I’m trying to track down some people, and your name came up.”

  “What do you mean, it ‘came up’? Who from?” Landis tried on a smile. “Maybe we got friends in common,” he offered, but his eyes said it wasn’t likely.

  “Margaret O’Mara hired me,” he said, and Landis was already pursing his lips and shaking his head. “Margaret Colleran, you’d know her as.”

  “Maggie Colleran?” Landis blew air out and reached for the pack of Camels on the desk. Whelan took the opportunity to light up one of his own.

  “Maggie Colleran—boy, you’re goin’ way back there. Way back.” He gave Whelan a sidelong look. “So what’s she need a detective for? Why did she hire you?”

  “Basically to find out what ever became of her brother Joe.”

  Landis frowned and the confusion seemed genuine this time. “Her brother? God, I don’t know what to tell you there, Mr. Whelan. I never had much to do with her brother. Oh boy, I can’t even remember the last time I heard his name. He left town a long time ago. I heard a few things back in—oh, gotta be the fifties. He was roamin’ around like, you know, one of the beatniks. Him and, uh, another guy.”

  “Michael Minogue.”

  “Yeah.” Landis watched Whelan for a moment, then added, “He just died. Somebody killed him, actually.”

  “I know.”

  Something flickered in the close-set eyes, but Landis just shrugged. “Fucked-up world, ain’t it?”

  “In many ways. I wonder if there’s anything you heard about Joe Colleran over the years, anything that sticks in your mind. I’m basically trying to trace a guy no one has seen in thirty years, so anything you can give me…”

  Landis was shaking his head before Whelan could finish. “I can’t tell you a thing about Joe. We weren’t…we were in the same group, you see, but we weren’t as close as some other people. I had my friends, he had his. Couldn’t tell you what happened to him. Tell you what I think, if you want the honest truth: I think he’s dead.”

  “Do you know anyone who might know something?”

  “God, I don’t even know who’s left from those days. I woulda said Michael Minogue ’cause, like I said, they went roaming around…but now he’s gone. I didn’t even know he was back in Chicago until…” He shrugged. “Anyway, I lost track of these guys; they were down there in Florida for, like, years.”

  “Right.”

  “That’s where I’d like to be. You can sell anything, any kinda property in Florida right now, that’s where it’s at.” He chuckled and swept an arm in a gesture meant to include his vast empire. “Not that I’m complaining, you understand.”

  “Course not.”

  “So you got my name from Maggie?”

  “Yes. She gave me a couple of names and you were the first one I was able to track down. She also mentioned Herb Gaynor.”

  “Herb.” Landis nodded, feverishly processing this last card of Whelan’s. “Herb Gaynor,” he said. “What’s he doing now?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him. And you haven’t heard from him?”

  “Nah. Boy, these names. You’re really taking me back.” Landis puffed at his cigarette and tried to look like a man reminiscing. “Like I said, Mr. Whelan, I don’t see any of those folks. I keep busy here and I’ve got my other interests. To be honest with you. I’m trying to give myself a break these days. I’m only working about two-thirds time now and pretty soon I’ll cut that down to maybe two mornings a week. I’m gonna turn the business over to my son.” He nodded toward the window. Whelan followed his gaze and saw that he was indicating a good-looking young man in a blue suit. He could see the resemblance, though Landis’s son was a little younger than Whelan would have expected.

  “Maybe you can tell me a little about this fellow, though,” Whelan said.

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve gotten the impression that at one time or another this man Colleran and maybe Minogue and some other people from their crowd were in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Landis furrowed his brow and looked interested.

  “I was hoping you could tell me. I mean, maybe I’m looking for a guy that’s going to be hard to find because he spent most of his time on the run.”

  Landis tilted his head to one side and nodded. “Makes sense. Maybe that’s why they left town together?”

  “Not exactly. I think this would have been before the war. I think this problem, whatever it was, may have made these guys pretty eager to serve their country. I think this happened in 1940 or ’41.”

  Landis opened his mouth and then shut it immediately. “I never heard of anything back then, and I think I would have.”

  “I think you would have, too. I got the impression you were involved. Doesn’t ring any bells, huh?”

  Landis gave him a wide-eyed look. “Me? I never got into any kinda trouble, nothing more than any kid in those days…”

  “This apparently involved all or most of the guys in your group. And Michael Minogue told people you were involved in whatever happened.”

  Landis passed a hand over his face and let his gaze wander over to the photos on his far wall. After a moment, he shook his head.

  “There just wasn’t nothing like that. Nothing I can recall, and if there was, it didn’t involve me. And as far as everybody running down to enlist, well, you got to understand how we all felt back then. Yeah, guys went down right away to sign up but…I know I wasn’t in a hurry to go overseas, Mr. Whelan. You see, I was already doing something the other guys all envied: I was making money. I was the one guy who always had a buck in his pocket.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Oh, I had a bunch of different things going. I’ve always been able to make money. I had a job downtown in a big store. Remember the Fair? I worked there. And I had a
little book on the side. Parlay cards—you’ve played the parlay cards, right?”

  “Sure. Never won.”

  Landis grinned. “You’re not supposed to.” He jabbed his chest with a thumb. “I’m supposed to win. Anyhow, I had a connection and I was selling the cards, and it brought in a good buck. So, no, I wasn’t in a big hurry to leave it all, even though we all wanted to do right by our country. So this thing you’re talking about—it didn’t have anything to do with me. And I don’t know who else you can ask. I just don’t know who’s around anymore.”

  “So you’re really not in touch with any of the people from the old days?” He made a show of putting away his cigarettes and zipping up his vest.

  “Nah. I haven’t heard from anybody from the old neighborhood in years. And, listen, I hung around with a lot of people in those days, different groups. I didn’t like to stay in one place too long. I guess what I’m saying is, I wasn’t all that close to these fellas you’re asking about.”

  Whelan nodded and then pulled the brown envelope from his pocket. Still looking at Landis, he drew the photograph from the envelope and laid it on Landis’s desk.

  “So you wouldn’t know where I could find any of these people?”

  Landis eyed the photograph and blinked. His gaze went rapidly from the picture to Whelan and back to the picture. He reached down for one last smile and came up short.

  “Whoa, that’s an oldie but goodie. That goes way back. Way back. I don’t even know if I remember all these names.”

  Whelan said nothing and Landis scrambled to fill the silence.

  “But there’s me, and there’s Joe Colleran right there. And…” He paused and shot Whelan a little smile. “It all comes back to you. There’s Mike Minogue. Tall one’s Fritz Pollard, there’s little Casey—Casey Pollard. Herb Gaynor.” Landis looked up and Whelan made it clear that he was in no hurry. “Tommy Moran, Tommy Friesl. Gerry Costello. Couple other guys from those days. And the babes, of course.” He nodded and let his eyes linger for a moment. He grinned at Whelan, one old buddy to another now. “You can’t tell from the old pictures—you can’t tell nothing with these old bathing suits but lemme tell you, a couple of these were hot numbers, these broads. There’s Maggie right there. She was something, Maggie was. Lot of personality, good sense of humor. Nice figure, too. There were better-looking girls in our crowd but she always had guys around her.”

  Landis had his attention now. Whelan leaned over and pretended to be admiring the women. There were three of them in a little group off to one side, far enough so that he’d assumed they were merely onlookers. He studied the faces and found the smiling, confident younger version of Mrs. O’Mara, light-years from the slightly dithering old woman who’d been in his office.

  “Who are the other women?”

  “The tall one, that’s Betty Henke. The one in the middle, that’s Ellen Gillette.” Landis grinned at him. “She was really something: big brown eyes, a body like Marilyn Monroe, and a smile that would light up a room. She married this guy with the long face, Herb Gaynor. What a waste.” He pointed to Gaynor’s face in the photo. “Never seen it to fail: there’s always a good-looking dame that takes up with a guy that don’t have much going for him. I think they just want to settle down so bad…” He grinned at Whelan and shrugged. “Ah, we had some good times. And then the war happened. The war came and everybody had to grow up real fast.”

  “That’s what my father always said.”

  “He was in the service?”

  “Navy.”

  “I was in the Air Corps.”

  “See action?”

  “No, never saw any action.” Landis took another look at the photograph and shook his head. “Different world, different world back then.”

  “And you don’t have any idea where any of these people are?”

  Landis chuckled. “Hey, if you know where Maggie Colleran is, you’re way ahead of me. No, Mr. Whelan, I really couldn’t tell you…”

  “You haven’t seen Herb Gaynor, then?”

  “Hearing his name from you is the first clue I got that he’s still alive. Last I heard, he was on his last legs.”

  “Gerry Costello?”

  Landis shrugged. “He was a kinda spooky guy. Don’t have any idea where he is.”

  “What about Casey Pollard, or Fritz?”

  Landis met his gaze for a moment, then put on a look of distaste. “You never know when you’re a kid how your friends are gonna turn out. I wouldn’t wanta know either of them now. Casey, he was a drunk. He was out on the street—he was a bum, Mr. Whelan. You know what I’m sayin’? A bum. And Fritz, well, I suppose you could say he turned out better: he’s in, uh, precious metals.” Landis grinned. “He was a junk dealer, last I heard. You throw out your old muffler, Fritz might be the guy to come along and pick it up for you.” Landis laughed again. “You know, you’re in your car and you’re in a hurry to get somewhere and the guy ahead of you is in an old truck full of junk going eight miles an hour ’cause he’s afraid his truck’s gonna fall apart before he makes the next light. That’s Fritz Pollard, Mr. Whelan. That’s how he makes his living. He picks up your garbage and he hauls it to a junkyard and they give him five bucks and he buys, I don’t know, he buys a bottle of Thunderbird.” Landis leaned forward, putting both hands on his desk. “I don’t know guys like that anymore, Mr. Whelan. I’m a businessman.”

  He handed Whelan the photograph and said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

  “No, you’ve been very generous with your time.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Whelan got up, nodded once more, and left. In his car, Whelan stretched, turned the key in the ignition. He pulled away from the curb and tried to sort out what Landis had given him. First, Landis had said enough to convince him that he’d been involved in whatever sent them all running to the recruiting station back then. There was one more thing as well, Whelan decided, a bonus: not from anything Landis had said, but from what he hadn’t.

  “All right,” Whelan said to himself, and hit the buttons on his radio till he found something with a lot of horns.

  Back in the office, Whelan called Mrs. O’Mara and she answered on the third ring. Whelan almost laughed aloud at the change in his client. On her own turf, Mrs. O’Mara was transformed: Her voice was brisk, sure of itself. This was the voice that got rid of salespeople and made certain that wrong numbers got it right the next time.

  “Paul Whelan, Mrs. O’Mara.”

  “Oh, Mr. Whelan. Have you found out anything yet?”

  “No, ma’am. It usually takes more than one day.”

  “Oh, it does. Well…”

  “But I’m glad you called. I was wondering if I could drop by for a few minutes this afternoon.”

  “To my house?” She didn’t exactly sound irritated, but it was obviously an odd notion. “Well, it’s a mess but…you can come over, Mr. Whelan.”

  “Say around one o’clock.”

  “All right, Mr. Whelan. I’ll give you some tea.”

  “That’ll be great. Where am I going?”

  “I’m at nineteen forty-eight West Wellington.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  Next, Whelan pulled out the Yellow Pages and looked under “Metals” and “Scrap Metals” and found nothing. Under “Recycling,” he found a few obvious junkyards and the directive “See also Junk Dealers.”

  Of course, he told himself. You want to find junk, look under “Junk.”

  Under “Junk Dealers” he found three columns of listings for dealers scattered all over the city and Cicero; many were on the South Side, and if you knew the city, you could picture them. Most were in vacant lots in run-down areas, a couple were on Maxwell Street and several more right around the corner from Maxwell along Halsted, and at least half a dozen were clustered along the Chicago River. Some of the dealers presented themselves as “recyclers” or “hauling services” and many claimed to specialize: in aluminum, brass and copper, auto pa
rts or steel, glass and plastics. But a couple of honest souls just advertised themselves as “junk dealers” and one declared his interest in “all types of junk.”

  He called half a dozen of them, asking if they knew Fritz Pollard or did business with a dealer or hauler named Fritz. One knew a Fritz who brought in aluminum cans in a small pickup, but the Fritz in question was apparently black. Dealer number seven occupied a large area along the river and sounded like serious junk; Whelan decided this one was worth a visit.

  He sped south on Ashland to the bridge at Webster where the river passed a couple of big junkyards, one for scrap metal and the other a haven for deceased tires, and slowed down for a moment to admire the great pyramid of black rubber in the tire yard. As you drove along the river, you passed a number of great heaps of the city’s detritus, little mountains of tin cans and scrap iron. He’d even seen a hill made up of crushed, discarded automobiles, but nothing that was quite the urban folk art of this dark wonder of bald tires. Carefully inserted atop one another so as to interlock and prevent the whole business from coming undone in a strong wind, the tires formed a curious herringbone pattern that ran unbroken around the perfect pyramid of used rubber.

  In a more logically constructed city, Whelan thought, there would be a single street that followed the river, but not here, and it was just as well. It wouldn’t be the safest street and it might offend the town’s more delicate noses. But it would be a very interesting street: it would take a person through quiet tree-lined neighborhoods where boathouses stood in place of garages, past vast boatyards, little forests of masts where people with money stored their yachts for eight months of the year, past housing projects, past vacant lots overrun by weeds up to a man’s chin, past railroad yards and abandoned sidings, past discarded automobiles, slag heaps and little mountain ranges of assorted junk and scrap metal.

  There was a population as well: groups of small children scrambling around the banks, homeless people carving out small campsites in the old railroad yards, wild dogs on a constant search for food, feral cats with scrawny bodies and bad attitudes, and the rats. Big, sleek, well-fed rats inhabited the banks of the Chicago River, the meandering brown stream that had been the big town’s birth mother. And if you were patient and stared long enough as the water went by, you might see a fish. It might be a fish out of your darkest nightmare but more than likely it would be a catfish, a fat brown catfish. Whelan shuddered at what a bottom-feeder like a catfish would be munching on during the course of a day.