Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re saying.”

  Shutting the door behind him, Jason hobbled into the room. “Don’t I? Mr. Rosen, what can I do to help you?”

  Rosen glanced from father to son. “Maybe I’d better go.”

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “How to get at Ellsworth.”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. I wish I could help.” He narrowed his eyes. “About a year ago, we were looking into the relationship between Ellsworth-Leary and a Chicago alderman. It had to do with a zoning variance downtown EL was seeking. We had a tail on Ellsworth—”

  “Jason!” Hermes shouted.

  The words came quicker. “One Friday night, our man followed Ellsworth to the Palmer House. We knew EL kept a suite there for out-of-town clients, but that time Ellsworth was the client. He spent the night with a call girl. Green eyes, long blond hair—very nice.”

  Rosen shook his head. “I don’t see how that helps me.”

  “Last month—it was a Saturday night, Sherry and I attended a small dinner party at the Palmer House. As I was walking to the men’s room, who do I see but Ellsworth in the lobby. He met a woman near the elevator door, and they went up together to the company suite.”

  “Another blond?”

  “No, she was dark—Latino. Nice looking but not the type you’d expect to be hooking. Dressed real plain.”

  “So you think Ellsworth has these trysts every weekend.”

  Jason shrugged. “I don’t know, but it might be worth a try. At least Masaryk wouldn’t likely be around.”

  Rosen walked to the door, then turned. Bent over his desk, Hermes seemed even older. In contrast, Jason stood ramrod straight, as if the father’s energy had flowed into the son.

  Rosen said to Hermes, “I guess this means you’re retracting the job offer.”

  “Uh . . . yes. I don’t think it’s wise for us to continue any sort of relationship.”

  “I understand. I don’t really know if I would’ve taken it. Thanks anyway.”

  Hermes asked, “You know James Williams—Denae Tyler’s uncle—the one who was in court? The one who threatened your daughter?”

  A chill ran down his back. “What about him?”

  “Last night one of the boys who murdered his niece made the mistake of walking down Williams’s street. Williams came out of his house with a gun, ran after the boy and put three bullets in his back. Killed him dead, then turned himself in.”

  Rosen gripped the door handle so hard his knuckles whitened.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Hermes continued. “The man who threatened your child is in jail. Bixby, the man who killed her friend, can’t hurt anybody else either. Yeah, you can fly back to Washington tomorrow without a worry in the world.”

  Rosen nodded slowly. “Sure, and now there’s a scholarship named in honor of your grandfather. That makes us both lucky, doesn’t it.”

  Staring into the empty legal pad, Hermes ground his fist against the desktop.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After leaving Hermes’ office, Rosen walked back to Michigan Avenue to spend the afternoon at the Art Institute. It had been one of the places he’d enjoyed with Bess and Sarah. They’d especially liked the turn-of-the-century French painters—Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon, cliffs and beaches transformed under the sun strokes of Matisse’s brush, Degas’ dancers about to step onto the stage. And their favorite, Renoir’s Two Sisters. Each time he’d take a few steps back to admire Bess and Sarah as they admired the beautiful girls sharing a hushed moment on the terrace.

  It had never been the same since the divorce. In Renoir’s world even the simplest acts, like bathing and combing one’s hair, were done with the hands of angels. As long as Rosen had his family, he could forget for a moment the real world’s deceit and cruelty. He’d come home each night to Sarah’s eyes, innocent as the painting’s little red-haired girl. One stroke of vermilion on a coal-black canvas.

  But that afternoon he’d stayed away from the Impressionists. Wandering through the museum’s exhibits, he stared into the stained glass world of Chagall until he saw his grandparents walking alongside a creaking wooden cart to escape the Tsar’s pogrom. Stared into Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks until he stood at the counter with the other customers, drinking black coffee in the midnight silence. Wandered through the museum but never found what he was looking for. Never found the eyes that stared back at him the same way as the woman in Lucila’s painting, The Flowers of Madness.

  It was nearly five o’clock when Rosen walked downstairs to call Sarah.

  Bess answered. “I’ve been trying to get you all day.”

  “I had some things to do.”

  “What happened with Chief Keller yesterday? It was about Bix’s death, wasn’t it? God, how awful.”

  Rosen hesitated. What should he say; what did she expect him to say?

  “Nate, what in God’s name happened?”

  “Keller drove me to Bixby’s apartment.”

  “Why?”

  “Just routine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think Keller wanted to close the book on Nina’s death. He believes that Bixby killed her, then, out of remorse, committed suicide. How’s Sarah?”

  “Shaken up, like everybody else at school. Linda Agee—you remember, Sarah’s counselor.”

  “Sure.”

  “Linda spent about a half hour with Sarah this morning. As terrible as Bix’s death is, I guess because it makes some sense—”

  A soft click, as someone picked up another receiver.

  “Daddy?”

  “Hello, Shayna. How’re you doing?”

  “Daddy, is it really true? Did Mr. Bixby kill himself because of what he did to Nina?”

  “It’s possible. Look, I don’t want Bixby’s death to hurt you the way Nina’s did.”

  “It’s not. I mean, Nina was my best friend. If Mr. Bixby really did kill her—”

  “We don’t know that yet, not for sure.” He heard her breathing heavily. “Shayna?”

  “Mrs. Agee and I talked for a long time. We talked a lot about Nina. You know, we didn’t really like Mr. Bixby all that much. I once said he was kind of twerpy—the way he always tried to act like one of the kids, and she laughed—”

  “Wait a minute. I’m a little confused. Who laughed—Mrs. Agee or Nina?”

  “Sorry. It was Nina who laughed. She called him a ‘mojón.’ That’s a Dominican expression. It means . . . well, it means a turd.”

  Rosen shook his head. “But the way Nina described Bixby in her diary. She seemed quite taken with him.”

  “I know. I don’t understand. That’s why I didn’t say anything about it before.”

  “Maybe Nina was pretending to agree with you and hiding her real feelings. I guess having a crush on a teacher could be embarrassing.”

  “I’ve thought about that. Maybe, but Nina . . . I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Bess said on her extension, “Don’t start cross-examining her.”

  “Daddy, can you come over? It’d be nice if you were here tonight.”

  All the times Rosen had wanted her to say just that. To really need him. All the times, and yet he said, “I can’t. I have something to do that just won’t wait. But I’ll be over tomorrow morning. We’ll spend the whole day together. All right?”

  “All right.”

  Bess interrupted again. “Sarah, would you hang up, please. I’d like to talk to your father.” After a receiver clicked, she continued. “There’s something more, isn’t there? Something not right about Bixby’s death.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “For a lawyer, you never were a very good liar.”

  “I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow.”

  And so, instead of taking the train to his daughter, Rosen turned up his collar and walked through the Loop for another hour. He stopped at some pancake house where, according to the menu, breakfast was served all day �
�with a sunny-side-up smile.”

  The booths were pink, the walls alternating pink and black tiles, with little art deco lamps hanging on chains from the ceiling. The waiter, a thin East Indian whose complexion resembled a meerschaum pipe bowl, took Rosen’s order. Only a few tables were occupied, each by a single customer—an old woman with a coat too heavy for April, a man in a threadbare suit reading the New York Times Book Review, and a teenaged boy with dirty hair and bright eyes who kept spooning sugar into his coffee, as if that would make him forget about the fix he needed. It could have been another Nighthawks.

  The potato pancakes were surprisingly good, coarsely grated and cooked to a golden brown. He swirled each piece in sour cream and felt its weight on his fork before biting into it. The tea was hot, the lemon fresh, and the meal made him full and almost happy. After all, tomorrow was Saturday, and no matter what happened, he’d spend it with his daughter.

  After dinner Rosen walked for another half hour, then entered the Palmer House. He’d often visited the hotel but was always amazed by the lobby’s nineteenth-century opulence. With the same brashness a young Chicago had used to link the nation with railroads and stuff its mouth with slaughtered meat, the city’s first great hotel had condensed centuries of European art into one room.

  The lobby was two stories high. Chandeliers, their branches outstretched nymphs holding candles, hung on golden columns, which rose past heavily draped dark balconies. They supported golden vaulted arches, covered with carved flowers and vines, and a ceiling filled with more nymphs and angels than God Himself could create.

  In the center of the lobby, a large circle had been formed of high-back chairs, round end tables, sofas, and tall ferns. The furniture was green with a pattern of white moths. Sitting in one of the chairs, Rosen spent the next two hours reading Time and Newsweek. Every few minutes he glanced toward the elevators.

  Yawning, he thumbed through the Chicago Reader, pausing at the personal columns.

  “DWF seeking same to share bed and plan revenge against ex-husbands.”

  “SWM seeking tennis partner. Must be willing to play in the nude.”

  Rosen tossed the paper onto an end table with the magazines. Stretching, he walked slowly across the lobby. Only then did he notice the red carpet’s floral pattern. The flowers were roses, like the petals scattered where Nina had died. He followed them up an incline that led to the men’s room.

  After urinating, he washed his hands and face with cold water. Someone handed him several paper towels.

  “Thanks.”

  Looking into the mirror above the sink, he saw the reflection of a short, powerfully built man wearing a dark suit. The man was about thirty, his sandy hair receding prematurely and making his green eyes even more prominent. Eyes that glinted like jade as he grinned. He was a stranger, yet something about him was familiar.

  Rosen continued to watch in the mirror, as if the other man weren’t really there, but rather some projected image. Even as the stranger pulled out a gun and laid his other hand on Rosen’s shoulder, so that each man faced the other.

  Without breaking his stare, the man quickly patted Rosen down.

  “My wallet’s in my inside jacket pocket.”

  Rosen started to reach for it when the other man slapped his hand away. “Take it easy.” He unbuttoned Rosen’s shirt, running a hand over his undershirt. “I’m not after your money. Just checking to see if you’re wired. Okay, you can button up now.”

  Putting the gun under his suit coat, the man turned once again to face the mirror. He combed his hair, then nonchalantly adjusted the knot in his tie. In doing so, his cuff slipped down to reveal his watch, which looked just like Rosen’s. The man removed the watch and tossed it onto the sink between them.

  “Cheap piece of shit. Not worth even spare change.”

  Spare change—what the panhandler had wanted before mugging Rosen and taking his watch. The thickset panhandler with eyes the color of jade.

  “You’re the one who—”

  “Shut up. You lawyers always talk too much. Just pick up your watch and go back to the lobby.”

  The man waited patiently for his instructions to be obeyed. Finally, Rosen put the watch on his wrist and left the men’s room.

  A second man, wearing a light brown suit, stood against the wall just outside the door. Taller and thinner, with short blond hair, nevertheless he resembled the gunman. Arms folded over his chest, eyes fixed on some point on the other side of the room, he showed the same arrogance.

  The hotel was crowded. What was to stop Rosen from simply walking out the door? What could the two men do—shoot him in the back? He took a few steps toward the exit, then stopped. Why had he been frisked and told to “go back to the lobby”? Why had he come to the hotel in the first place, if not to get at Ellsworth?

  Walking through the lobby, Rosen returned to his chair. He straightened suddenly, gripping the armrests, then settled back, trying not to look too concerned that Edward Masaryk sat across from him.

  Masaryk wore a cocoa-colored turtleneck under a camel hair jacket. The blue sunglasses were tucked into a breast pocket, and his gray eyes were almost lost behind his dark brows. His clothes fit perfectly, the jacket sleeves smooth and tight over his arms like cylinders over two pistons.

  From an inside pocket, Masaryk opened a silver case. He removed a dark cigarillo, which he lighted and puffed contentedly for several minutes. The smoke trailed off into filaments delicate as a spider’s web. Rosen leaned back even farther in his chair.

  Finally Masaryk said, “I wonder what kind of animal you’d make. A beaver digging in the dirt trying to stem the tide. Or maybe a jackal—the way you’re always hovering around dead bodies.”

  “Like Martin Bixby?”

  “Like Bixby.”

  “We both know there’s a good reason for my interest. I wonder what kind of an animal you’d make.”

  Masaryk flicked his cigarillo over an ashtray. “I am an animal. I always act on instinct. Ever since we met at Nina Melendez’s funeral, I knew you’d have to be followed.”

  “You did more than that. What about the man—your man—who mugged me and took my watch?”

  “That was just to see what you were made of.”

  “Those Mexicans in Highwood, near Hector Alvarez’s house. The ones who tried to rape Lucila Melendez. Were they your men too?”

  Masaryk shrugged. “Aren’t you getting a little paranoid?”

  “That’s good coming from you—having me followed the past week. Aren’t you the one who’s paranoid, surrounding yourself with all these . . . what do you call them—‘security experts’?”

  “They’re not for me.”

  “I know.”

  After taking a few more leisurely puffs, Masaryk asked, “What’re you doing here?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “A good lawyer trick, answering a question with a question. Well, let’s see—you’ve had quite a busy day. After going to Brissard Jewelers this morning, you dropped by Elgin Hermes’ office for a chat. You spent the afternoon at the Art Institute. Better than a bar, I guess. By the way, what fascinates you so much about that Nighthawks painting?”

  Rosen remembered what Hermes had said about Masaryk, “That son-of-a-bitch knows everything!”

  “You had dinner in a two-bit pancake house, then settled here for a couple hours with your magazines. My first guess is that the public library is closed. No? Well then, maybe you’re waiting for somebody. Is that it?”

  Rosen nodded.

  “I don’t think he’s going to show. Will I do?”

  “Can you tell me what happened to Martin Bixby?”

  “I understand it was suicide. Why don’t you ask Police Chief Keller?”

  “I thought I’d cut out the middleman. We both know Bixby didn’t kill himself.”

  Masaryk leaned forward. “How about this? Your girlfriend Lucila Melendez and her sister-in-law murdered Bixby because he killed Nina.”

/>   Rosen shook his head.

  “Don’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind. Lucila has quite the Latin temper. And Esther . . . we both know she’s got a few screws loose. You’ve seen what she’s like. You’ve looked into her eyes. Don’t you think she’d have killed Bixby if given half a chance?”

  “Maybe, but she didn’t kill him.”

  “Who did?”

  “You.”

  Masaryk slowly crushed his cigarillo in the ashtray. Leaning back, he placed both hands on the armrests. “You’re right. I killed Bixby.”

  They sat in the lobby of the Palmer House, dozens of people passing within an arm’s length of their chairs, yet Masaryk spoke as casually as if discussing a baseball game.

  “I knew Bixby was home yesterday morning, so I went up his back stairs and let myself in with a skeleton key. I sat at the kitchen table with his dirty breakfast dishes until he came in. I used one of my old throwaways, a .38 revolver, to make him sit down across from me. Then I put the gun on the table, and we had a little chat. We’d met before at Kate Ellsworth’s art gallery.”

  Forcing himself not to shiver, Rosen asked, “What did you talk about?”

  “Mostly about the Melendezes. About how they thought he killed Nina, and about how I was going to have to kill him.”

  “How did you—”

  “When I moved toward him, Bixby picked up the gun and fired. Unfortunately for him, I’d emptied the first chamber. By the time he tried again, I’d grabbed his wrist and forced the revolver against his temple, then pulled the trigger.”

  For a moment Rosen closed his eyes, seeing Bixby’s head jerk back from the gunshot. He swallowed hard. “That’s why there were more powder burns on his face than his hand. Your hand covered his when the gun was fired.”

  “You’re a smart lawyer.”

  “What if Bixby had been able to fire that second shot?”

  “I’d be dead. But he hesitated, like I knew he would. No animal instinct for survival. Remember that. Don’t wait to fire the second shot.”

  Rosen stared hard at the other man. “You took a big chance killing Bixby. Shooting him in the middle of the day. Not even using a silencer.”