I spread my hands, pleading, distraught.
The technician and the clerk exchanged glances, minute head nods. The technician called up Lydia’s chart on his tablet. Jane Doe, brought in by ambulance at 8:03 a.m. They couldn’t recognize her from the younger pictures, but the homeless woman under the viaduct was definitely their patient. She didn’t speak, didn’t answer questions about her name, age, day of the week, but there was no obvious sign of injury or head trauma.
“We wanted to send her to Stroger for an MRI—we don’t have imaging facilities here—and we’d moved her gurney to the hall for transport, but when we came back about an hour later, she was gone.”
Stroger was the main hospital for the county system.
“Do you know what she was wearing?” I asked.
“She was in a hospital gown when we last saw her. Her clothes were foul; we threw them out and put a pair of jeans and a T from our donation chest in a bag under her gurney, but I can’t tell you what design was on the T. She had lesions on her haunches, bruises up and down her body. One of our LPNs sponged her off and put some ointment on her wounds.”
“Do you have any idea who came for her?” I asked. “I thought maybe my brother—but he says not.”
The two shook their heads. “One of the patients who was also waiting for transport said your sister got up from the gurney and wandered into the main part of the hospital, but someone would have stopped her. Unless she’d gotten dressed, I suppose. Someone else said a man came in and carried her away in his arms. I’m sorry—but we’re so short-staffed and overcrowded—” The clerk gestured at the waiting room.
The shifts were changing; her replacement needed briefing, the angry and scared crowd of patients needed attention. It was time for me to thank them and take off.
Two different stories of how Lydia had left, but my money was on the man lifting her fragile body from the gurney. Had to have been Coop. He’d come to me, vented his rage, and then raced back to the South Side. He must have a car to get around town with that big dog.
I drove over to the Forty-seventh Street viaduct, wondering if Zamir might have returned. Murray had been right, though—she’d vanished without a trace. Streets and San had made a thorough job of cleaning out her nest: they’d been through with a power hose to wash down the walls and sidewalks. Even the graffiti was gone. The only trace of Lydia’s residence was three bouquets laid on the ground where she’d played.
The evening rush hour trains had started. Most raced past, heading to the south suburbs. Whenever one stopped, I’d buttonhole the commuters to see if anyone had witnessed this morning’s event. No one who bothered to talk to me had been here for the drama, but everyone had watched it on their devices during the day.
I stayed on the platform for another hour, so I could intercept homebound commuters. Everyone knew Lydia by sight, because they’d passed her for the last year or so. The news coverage gave everyone strong opinions about her flight along the tracks, the city’s destruction of her home, and Metra’s abysmal attention to passenger safety.
Some people were focused on their screens or on getting home, but most listened to me eagerly when they realized I knew something that hadn’t been on the news, namely that Lydia had left the hospital.
A lot of people sort of knew Coop, enough to say hi when they biked or ran the lakefront. No one could tell me his last name, though, or where he lived. He sounded like a genie—when Lydia rubbed her piano, he sprang from the soundboard.
In between trains, I sat in the platform shelter, away from the sun’s glare, to answer emails and do a little work on some of my current projects. The walls were covered with the usual graffiti, as well as ads for eldercare, childcare, expert tutoring and tailoring.
There was also a notice from SLICK, announcing their next community meeting on the lakefront landfill. The type was so small that a suspicious person might think they didn’t want the public to know they were going to meet.
Bernie had wanted me to attend to help support Leo. She’d texted the meeting details to me, but I hadn’t seen any point in going and had forgotten about it. Fortuitously enough, the meeting was taking place tonight. I’d go—after all, I was already down here. And it was possible Coop would turn up.
I wandered back along Forty-seventh Street toward the bank building. I was hungry again—the tortilla soup hadn’t been that substantial. One of the new restaurants on the street, African Fusion, was bright, clean, and full. No better testimonial than that.
8
Dining Out
A harried staff member told me to take a seat anywhere. Only one table was free, and I was lucky to get it.
After a moment, as I peered at the food the people around me were eating, I realized that the trio who’d run the first SLICK meeting I’d attended was in the corner next to me. Their table was covered with so many documents that when a waitress arrived with their food, the woman gestured impatiently for her to set the dishes down on my table.
“Sorry—I don’t think you were planning on buying me dinner,” I said, startling them into looking up. Actually, in a reprise of the meeting, only the man who’d been banging the gavel and the woman looked at me—the guy who’d been bent over his notes at the meeting continued to hunch over a series of maps of the lakefront.
“Mona, isn’t it?” I said. “I was at SLICK’s last meeting. Do you think tonight will be as exciting?”
The gaveller puffed out his cheeks and growled, “Better not be,” but Mona said, “Are you new to the neighborhood? I don’t remember seeing you around here before.”
“Just someone who enjoys using the lake,” I said. “I’m trying to find the man called Coop, actually, which is why I wanted to come tonight. Do you know how to reach him?”
“Are you working with him?” Mona demanded.
“If I were, I’d know how to find him. Do you have his last name or a phone number?”
“What’s this about?” the gaveller said.
I took a piece of fried something from one of their bowls, which they’d left in front of me. Normally I don’t tell anyone my business, but I wanted help more than hostility.
“The homeless woman under the viaduct, Lydia Zamir. I’m sure you saw the news about her.”
The capillaries in Mona’s mottled face turned a deeper red. “I complained about her to the alderman and to the Metra authorities for almost a year. There are rats and raccoons in that wildlife corridor next to the embankment. Her sitting out there with open food was like an engraved invitation for them to come eat and have bigger litters. Every time someone got her into a hospital or shelter, though, she’d run back to our neighborhood. Helped by that creep Coop.”
The fried something was spicy, which I liked, but gooey, which I didn’t. I tried a spoonful of a slaw, which was crunchy with a pleasing peanut under-taste. I was about to cut into a whole grilled fish when the gaveller noticed.
“You’re eating our food!”
“It’s been on my table getting cold,” I said. “I thought you’d decided you didn’t want it.”
The note-maker finally looked up as his pals grabbed the food and slapped it onto their own table. “Watch out; you’re spilling sauce on the map. It’s the one Taggett gave me—I haven’t had time to make a copy!”
He dabbed anxiously at the document in front of him. Glare from the overhead lights made it hard for me to see, but I could tell it depicted the lakefront. A thick black line showed the current shoreline; dotted lines a few inches to the right, filled in with orange and green, presumably showed the proposed landfill.
Mona saw me looking. “This is private business! Simon, put all those papers away so we can eat. Taggett’s coming tonight—we can go over it with him after the meeting.”
Gifford Taggett was superintendent of the Chicago Park District. Like every other office in the city or county, who you knew mattered more than what you knew. Taggett had served as ward committeeman, fronted deals for road construction, roughed up
opposition to garbage dumping in the marshes on the far South Side. As a faithful foot soldier for the Cook County Democrats, he’d been handsomely rewarded with the patronage-rich post of park superintendent.
“If the map belongs to the Park District, surely it’s public business,” I said. “I’m a Cook County taxpayer, so I have an interest in it.”
“These are preliminary drawings.” Simon rolled up the map after one last anxious dab with his napkin.
“They’re not the ones your boy Leo showed at your last meeting?”
“The process is iterative,” Simon said stiffly. “After tonight, we’ll have a sense of which way public reaction is leaning.” Assisted by an impatient Mona, he shuffled the other papers into a haphazard stack and set them next to him on the bench.
The harassed server came to take my order. I pointed at the crunchy slaw and grilled fish my neighbors were eating and she raced off again.
“By the way,” I said, “you never did tell me whether you saw what happened this morning with Lydia Zamir.”
Simon nodded. “That’s all anyone could talk about in the office today. Metra needs to get fencing in place so no one else can get onto those tracks.”
“You know she’s missing, then?”
“Hadn’t heard that,” the gaveller huffed.
“I called Streets and San and they came out with a power hose to clean that underpass,” Mona said. “If she shows up there again, I’m going to take stronger action.”
“Right,” I said. “The rats and all. Did you know her name before she made today’s news?”
All three shook their heads, but Mona added, “Even if we’d known she was some kind of singer, that didn’t make it right for her to camp out under the tracks like that. The noise she made—we’re trying to attract tourists and businesses here. A smelly loud homeless person, even if she’s a musician, drives people away. She used to sleep on the university campus, but they managed to force her to leave. SLICK doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“I think we’re inured to the homeless in America,” I said. “I see them in front of Neiman Marcus when I’m on North Michigan, but that doesn’t keep people out of the store. Why do you think Coop cares about her?”
Mona’s thin red lips flattened. “To make himself into a nuisance. If we want x, he demands y, simply to be as obstructive as possible.”
“So you don’t think he has a genuine interest in her well-being?”
“You mind telling us your name and why you care?” The gaveller’s eyes were bright with suspicion.
“V.I. Warshawski.” I handed out cards.
“Investigator?” the gaveller growled. “What does that mean?”
“Someone who carries out inquiries into the causes or background of events.” I smiled brightly.
“Did Coop hire you to follow us?” Mona demanded.
“Funnily enough, Coop thinks you hired me to follow him. Unfortunately, my trailing skills have gotten soft in the online era. I have no idea where he is. That’s what I was hoping you could tell me—his last name, a phone number, an address.”
“He’s never signed in at any SLICK meeting,” the gaveller complained. “He only shows up when he wants to cause trouble.”
“Which means he’ll probably be there tonight,” Simon added.
“He has anger management issues,” Mona said. “People tell me he can’t hold down a job because he ends up blowing up at his boss or coworkers if they rub him the wrong way.”
She couldn’t tell me what people had said this—just people.
The three finished their meal as my food arrived. They paid quickly but had some trouble extricating themselves from the table—they kept dropping spreadsheets and maps, but the gaveller put his substantial bulk between me and their table to keep me from lending a hand.
9
A Super Meeting
Even though I got to the Prairie Savings and Loan building late, a lot of people were still in the lobby. Community groups—birders, fair housing advocates, community benefits supporters―were handing out flyers. Everyone was eager to talk to me about the need to protect the lake or to make sure local people got jobs if the city undertook a major reconfiguration of the shoreline.
“Taggett’s coming. It’s our chance to confront him.” I heard this a dozen times: no matter what project or political viewpoint, everyone knew that the park superintendent was the first and last court of appeal.
When I’d pushed my way into the meeting room, I looked around for Bernie. She was in the front row, close to the stage where Leo Prinz sat. From the back of the room, I’d seen Simon push Leo away from the table where the SLICK officers were seated. He was laying out charts and maps and apparently told Leo to move his computer—the uproar from the crowd meant I couldn’t be sure what anyone was saying. Leo was balancing his computer on his knees, frowning at the machine, which kept sliding off his legs. He looked up once at Bernie, but blushed and turned instantly back to his laptop.
I managed to work my way to the front and tapped Bernie on the shoulder.
She sprang up, oblivious to the people she bumped into. “Oh, Vic! You’re here! Merci mille fois. Leo is nervous; it does him good to have friends in the audience. He is brilliant, you understand, but shy.”
“That’s okay, Bernie—you have enough energy for two. Or sixteen, for that matter.”
I found a chair near the back, behind the white-haired woman I’d spoken to after the previous meeting. Nashita, that was her name.
From the snatches of talk around me, excitement over Lydia Zamir appeared greater than interest in Gifford Taggett and the lake. Landfill and federal guidelines weren’t as gripping as learning that a singer with a tragic history had been camping nearby.
I tried picking out strands of conversation: people were vehement about the quality of Zamir’s music—some thought she’d been a talented and fearless artist, others that they were tired of so-called artists hammering their audiences with political messages. Still others were focused on Metra’s responsibility for this morning’s near-tragedy.
“They should never have let her camp out underneath the tracks to begin with,” a white man on Nashita’s right harrumphed.
Nashita rolled her eyes. “Marshall, get a grip: the streets are the city’s responsibility. They’re nothing to do with Metra.”
On my own left, an older African-American man said that Hyde Park–Kenwood was an exclusionary community. He wasn’t surprised no one helped out Lydia Zamir before they knew she’d been famous. “This neighborhood likes to think they’re full of liberals but they’re as bigoted and hostile to the homeless as any other place in America.”
Mona Borsa couldn’t figure out how to get on top of the chaos. She paced up and down, whipping her pointer against her jeans. Not even her teammates were watching her.
Nashita shook her head. “Mona’s screaming herself into an early grave. And Curtis is just as bad.” She looked at her wrist. “I’m giving them ten more minutes before I take off.”
Someone in the lobby had handed me a SLICK flyer, which identified Mona’s brother officers. Curtis Murchison was the gaveller. The man with the charts and maps was Simon Lensky. Along with Mona, they were the elected unpaid managers of SLICK. The flyer also thanked Leo Prinz for his stellar work digitizing SLICK’s papers this summer.
I read about SLICK’s activities: a youth sailing program, group swims at the Sixty-third Street beach, fishing trips from the Thirty-first Street harbor, beach and shoreline cleanup days. The trio rubbed me the wrong way, but I had to respect their commitment to the part of the city I treasure most.
Leo finally grew exasperated enough to move some of Simon’s documents away from the table in front of him. The older man glared and ostentatiously picked up the pages one at a time to lay them into a squared-off stack.
I was calculating how much more time to give Coop when crowd attention abruptly shifted to the back of the room: Gifford Taggett had arrived. I’d never seen
the park superintendent in person, but his horsey face was prominently displayed in every park building I ever went into. He had thinning reddish hair combed severely back over his ears; that and the horsey face made him look a bit like England’s Prince Philip. The superintendent was flanked by a young African-American woman and a Latinx man—more subtle than wearing a T-shirt proclaiming taggett supports diversity.
Mona and Curtis applauded enthusiastically. Audience members joined in, muted, wary, but conversations quieted. Taggett grinned easily at the crowd, shook hands with people on the aisle, stopped to talk to a few who apparently knew the superintendent well enough for him to linger with them, laughing and buffeting their shoulders before moving on.
A couple of older men were also with Taggett. They had the look of money, even though one, who might have been in his seventies, was wearing baggy khakis and a faded T-shirt. The other was about ten years younger and could have posed for the Wall Street Journal’s Off Duty section: what the wealthy board member wears to community meetings in the summer—linen jacket over open-necked raw silk shirt.
There were a couple of empty seats in the middle of a row. The Off Duty man tapped Taggett on the arm and gestured at the chairs. Taggett gave a command to his support team, who grimaced at one another but buffeted their way across people’s knees to carry the chairs to where the two men directed them—along a wall so they had an easy escape route if they became bored.
Taggett leaned against the wall where the moneymen were sitting, his acolytes still on either side, but standing upright: acolytes cannot slouch in public. Several cops followed Taggett and stationed themselves near the main exit.
Mona got things going, although not quickly: she needed Taggett to know how hard she, Simon, and Curtis were working, and so she detailed the sailing and fishing and cleanup and youth sports SLICK had accomplished recently. Most people, including the moneymen, were focused on their devices, but Taggett, good politician, led the audience in applause.
Dead Land Page 6