Cold Was The Ground

by B A Black

  “That’s dramatic,” Sal says.

  “Man who taught me that was awful dramatic, too, I guess,” Houston allows. “He was an actor. He had that bird-heart we spoke about yesterday.”

  “Bird heart?” Sal lights, then steadies the match for Houston’s cigarette.

  “Yeah. Always fluttering in the cage,” Houston pulls a deep drag off his cigarette. “Half the time, you couldn’t find him. He had habits, but he’d break them just to show he could. Then, he’d make a break for real and change his mind.”

  Houston remembers several frantic days looking, checking the same places over and over and hoping that this time—this time, Lucas would be there, smiling, blinking and wondering what all the fuss was about.

  “Sounds like you were in pretty deep.”

  “Sure,” Houston admits. Then, he lies. “Probably the deepest I’ve ever been in.”

  “What happened?”

  “It finally stuck. I woke up and he was gone. He stretched out his wings, and the wind bore him up. That was ‘23. I looked for a while, but the world’s a big place, and he wanted all of it.”

  “Shit,” Sal says. It’s all he seems to be able to. It’s alright, it sums up the situation pretty well.

  “I’m not the same man I was then, anyway” Houston says. He drops his smoldering cigarette filter in the snow, pressing it out with the sole of his shoe.

  “You think he’s okay?” Sal asks.

  “Probably,” Houston admits. “Hard to know, these days. The world seems to get more dangerous every day.”

  Sal doesn’t argue. He doesn’t ask any more about it. “So what’s our next move, Mars? You say he hasn’t flown the coop, but he’s got a wild side and his wife’s missing him.”

  “We ask around,” Houston says. “That’s what detectives do.”

  ◆◆◆

  The inside of the Sappho hasn’t changed in the years since Houston stopped visiting it. Nearly a decade of booze, old sweat, and sex could crawl up out of the floor—a potent cocktail for tribute to Bacchus. The god is painted naked and rolling on one wall, indecency covered only barely with grapes, holding a toast to the gathered assembly with wine. The purple aspect of the wine has faded out now, the extended glass seeming to be filled with a more vibrant liquid—a heartbeat-red that tells the tale underneath.

  Subject to frequent and brutal raids, the Sappho attracts the sort of patron who is either so desperate as to not mind, or who feels some extra allure in the chance of being uncovered and arrested. For a thrill seeker, Houston thinks it’s a first choice. It guarantees at least some level of success on a hunt, and the risk of harm in this case does not come to the exclusion of the chance of pleasure.

  Houston pays a due fee, checks his coat and hat, signing a false name for them. He’s left his wallet with Sal out on Cullerton St. He can’t discount the possibility of a Saturday night raid on this place, and without his ID he has a better chance of escaping future police harassment.

  Inside, he doesn’t attract much attention. The regulars have changed in the nearly ten year interim, like if you watched a movie real close and after the jump, all the extras were different.

  Houston’s not looking for extras. He needs leads. He knows where.

  In the back by the stairs up to the private rooms above, there’s the long term player’s table. The only patrons allowed to sit there are years-long regulars. Currently, it’s occupied by five bodies, draped in casual ownership over the booth. For all the languid posing, they are not uninvolved. They are the voyeurs and the unofficial inside “police” of the place.

  Houston ignores the warning eyes they pin on him and sits down at one end of the table anyway.

  “Kid, this table’s invite only,” one of them says. All five sets of eyes are on him, leery.

  “I just need a minute,” Houston says, polite.

  The ring of men at the table are all older than Houston, all with the tough, flinty expressions of men who have been knocked around by life. They don’t trust anybody, and they have very little reason to.

  “You ain’t got a minute,” a voice behind Houston says. It’s familiar.

  Houston turns halfway in his seat, looking up at his old nemesis, Halward Exeter. It surprises him to see the police detective here, and from the look on Exeter’s face, the feeling is mutual. An uncomfortable silence of great depth follows.

  “You know this clown, Hal?” one of the old guard asks. “He an undercover?”

  “No,” Exeter says, answering only the second question as he shifts uncomfortably. “He ain’t a cop. He’s a P.I.”

  The men at the table laugh, somewhere between openly taunting and relief.

  “What are you doing here, Mars?” Exeter challenges him.

  “Missing persons,” Houston says tersely.

  “The hell you are,” Exeter spits.

  “God’s own truth,” Houston says, then; “Your boss know you're playing enforcer at fairyland, or would I be bringing him some surprise information?”

  Exeter’s nostrils flare, a red bloom of anger spreading up his thick neck. First point to Houston, though if it came to blows, he’d regret it.

  “Alright, alright.” The voice is tired, from the deepest part of the booth, full of the gravel of age and wisdom. “Leave it, Hal. I think I remember this hotshot.”

  Exeter curls his fists up like big Christmas hams, and gives Houston one warning glare. He recedes then, like a gargoyle in a movie and just as big and craggy, into the shadows.

  “You used to come around here years ago,” the man says. He’s passing sixty, with bright green eyes and hair that’s graying past silver into white, a face that’s picked up lines over the years like a wino’s crumpled booze bag.

  “You’re Jacob,” Houston remembers, belatedly. The owner of the Sappho, in the flesh.

  “Yes or no, kid. You used to come up here with Lucas?”

  Houston wonders how often that will ambush him before they get through this case. He nods, seeing no use in denying it.

  “Alright, hotshot, you ain’t been around in years, now you’re back up here rattling the natives,” Jacob assesses the situation astutely. “What gives? You forget how this works?”

  The other men at the table laugh. Houston smiles too—if you take yourself too seriously at the Sappho, no one else will.

  “I’m looking for somebody,” he says.

  “Kid, ain’t we all,” one of the Greek chorus chimes in. Laughter passes around the table. Houston figures he’s out of the woods. His past proves a little more valuable than he expected.

  “A specific someone,” Houston says, sliding a hand into his vest pocket. “His folks are worried, and he’s got a friend who says he comes around here.”

  “Some friend,” Jacob says.

  Houston slides a picture Mrs. Winsome left with him onto the table. Charlie Winsome is the sort of man who would catch an eye around here, but the response Houston gets is not the one he expects.

  The picture gets passed hand to hand. Heads shake. Finally, it winds up in Jacob’s hands. He looks a long time, then whistles a low note of recognition. He doesn’t say a name.

  “I’ve seen him in the papers, but I ain’t seen him in here,” Jacob says, the final word on the subject. Houston believes him. “Frankly, kid, I don’t even know why anyone that caliber would consider setting foot south of the loop. It’s a different society, kid. Money buys off any indiscretion. This guy, he probably runs with movie stars.”

  Houston takes the picture when it’s returned to him, easing it back into his pocket. He isn’t sure what to make of the information, of the contrasting views of Charles Winsome.

  “You’re sure?” Houston says.

  “Not even once,” Jacob says. “If I had missed it personally, I’d have still heard about it.”

  “Alright,” Houston says. “Thank you, Jacob.”

  “Hey, kid,” Jacob says, as Houston starts to pick himself up to go. “How come you don’t come around a
nymore? When I first saw you, I thought, that’s a lifer.”

  Houston tucks his hands in his pockets and glances over the faded and tired interior of the Sappho, up at the glass of blood-colored wine. Bacchus grins at him from beyond, a sly promise, a knowing familiarity. How often did he see Lucas emulate that smile?

  “Too many old memories, sir,” Houston says.

  “Whatever happened to Lucas?” Jacob asks next. It’s a question Houston anticipates, but isn’t ready for.

  He closes his eyes against the ghost of laughter and an old smile, against memories of a dozen nights that played out the same in this very room or the private spaces above and slowly disarmed his heart, only to empty the safe.

  “I don’t know,” Houston is forced to admit.

  ◆◆◆

  Houston’s recovering his coat and hat, signing for them under the same assumed name, when Halward Exeter catches up to him.

  “If this gets around, Mars,” he threatens, and he’s good at it. Years of police work have honed his tone and attitude to a sharp edge that he can direct at will. If Houston wasn’t holding all the cards, he might feel the weight of intimidation.

  “Relax, Ex,” he says, casual as he can manage. “I came here to work.”

  Exeter has nothing to say to that, letting his threat hang open in the air between them.

  Houston pulls his coat onto his shoulders and can’t resist throwing out a jab. “Looks like you are, too. Working the angles, maybe, Ex?”

  “Don’t get smart,” Exeter says, his arms crossing over his chest—probably to keep from hitting Houston.

  “Whaddaya mean get?” Houston asks, feeling a bright grin crawl onto his face. “I shoulda been wise already, the way you run your mouth up at Hoolihan’s.”

  Exeter’s broad, craggy features twist into stormy anger and then with a visible effort he calms himself. Houston’s got the winning hand and knows what ear to whisper it into.

  “Alright,” Exeter says at last. “Alright, Mars. You win.”

  “Is there a reason you’re talking my ears off, Ex, or did you just want to throw your weight around?” Houston asks him. He enjoys having the one up on Detective Exeter for once. He’s hardly the golden boy of the Chicago Police Department, but he’s taken enough cases from Houston in the past that even this dirty pool victory is satisfying.

  “Yeah,” Exeter admits. “Is that partner of yours around?”

  “Somewhere,” Houston says, evading.

  “That guy you’re working,” Exeter says. “The department’s working it now, too. One of the brothers finally came in, says the kid’s missing, that the family is worried.”

  “Alright.”

  “They ain’t working this angle, though,” Exeter says. “Should they be?”

  “Are you trying to take my case, Exeter?” Houston feels bright anger well up.

  “Mars, are you a dope?” Exeter says, raising his voice, then lowering it sharply when people turn to look. “It’s not my case. I’m asking if you think this place is going to be crawling with uniforms in the next few days.”

  Houston sees, then, the logical reason for Exeter’s concern. He thinks about lying, about making something up and letting Exeter pay for his duplicity and two-faced lies. But even his past sins don’t deserve it, and in the end, Houston doesn’t have the heart to see another man pay for something that’s just his nature.

  “I’d be scarce around here for a couple days,” Houston advises him. “Maybe Mr. Winsome’s friends won’t mention this place to the cops, but I wouldn’t bank my career on it.”

  “Sure,” Exeter says. “I’m not a banking man since the crash, anyway.”

  “Hey, Ex,” Houston says, as the detective turns to head back into the Sappho’s main room. If he was expecting an apology, he should have known better. “You hear anything that might help me find this guy and save him some face, I think his wife would appreciate it.”

  Exeter gives him a sour look, like Houston is something the cat just dragged onto his porch. His jaw is tight, a muscle flexing on one side. The bitter taste of so recently swallowing his pride must be going down wrong. “Don’t push your luck, Mars.”

  Houston doesn’t. Instead, he goes to find his partner, considering the churning well of information in his mind. Something doesn’t fit. Either Charles Winsome was fooling everybody, or he wasn’t fooling anybody. Three times now, he’s come up clean, aside from one vice.

  An uncomfortable feeling settles in Houston’s stomach.

  “You got anything?” Sal asks, when Houston joins him at the Colosimo Cafe on Wabash. Just barely out of the bounds of the Levee, it seems to survive on the sexed-out and hung over. What few bright-eyed patrons are in the place are fortifying themselves on coffee and chicken-fried steak, getting ready to binge what little money they have scraped together over the week on booze and easy company.

  “Yeah,” Houston says. “Nothing.”

  He swings into the booth opposite Sal, noticing the way his partner’s leg is jigging below the table. He was just three blocks west at Clark and Cullerton yesterday morning.

  “What do you mean, nothing? You mean they don’t know where he is either?”

  “I mean,” Houston says, reaching for the ashtray, “they ain’t ever seen him.”

  Sal absorbs this, looking skeptical. “Never?”

  Houston shakes his head. “In the society pages, maybe. Never in person.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I’m inclined to. Look, we got the wife who says Charlie is careful, that his father didn’t know, and his brothers don’t know. Then, you go into 226. They know him there, but think he’s clean. Too clean to deal, too clean to blackmail. Right?” He ticks out points on his fingers, lit cigarette perched between the pointer and middle finger as he gestures.

  Sal nods slowly, and Houston measures his response to be sure he’s on the right track before continuing. Beneath the table, Sal’s foot isn’t jogging anymore.

  Houston ticks the next point off on his ring finger. “We only got one guy saying that Charlie’s got a wild side, that he comes down here and mixes with a bad crowd, so we follow it.”

  “But they say they ain’t ever seen him,” Sal agrees, following Houston’s logic. “Okay. So you think that we’re on a goose chase.”

  “I think that this points at one of two things,” Houston says. “Either Charlie’s up to something nobody—and I mean nobody knows about, or the last guy who was supposed to have seen him alive just gave us the runaround.”

  “I hate a liar,” Sal says, jamming his cigarette out into the ashtray. It splits, pouring thin smoke out of the ripped paper. “All they do is drag it out.”

  “Yeah,” Houston agrees, wondering what the time they’ve wasted on this has covered up.

  Sal sighs, a long sound. “What do you want to do about it, Mars? Seems like the sooner we get back up to Eddie Phillips’ place, the faster we might get some real answers.”

  “I’m gonna do it diligent,” Houston says. “Maybe at the Imperial they can give me something solid, or at the very least, give me a definitive that Phillips is full of shit.”

  ◆◆◆

  At the Imperial, Houston found an even sadder assortment of patrons, all sitting alone, orbiting each other with too much fear for any real collisions. He knows that as the night progresses, as more drinks are poured, the courage will build. Some will pair up, scratch a mutual itch without much interest beyond the physical, and wake up with hangovers that eclipsed their regret. For the price of a few drinks and some of his time—only talking—Houston’s suspicions are upheld. Edward Phillips is a liar.

  The question is: why?

  Why did Phillips send them down here? Was it just to get them as far away from him as possible, or was he covering for his friend?

  By the time Houston gets out of the Imperial club again the dark and cold Levee is crowded with bodies—people coming and going, women lounging and leering. Houston hopes they don’t have
to advertise too long out here in the cold.

  The walk back to the cafe is a thoughtful one. Houston considers the road ahead, wondering how best to approach Phillips when they return for the truth. He’s angry at the delay, at wasting a day in a dangerous pursuit, but hopeful that it will lead to a breakthrough. If Phillips is covering for Charlie, it’s likely that Mr. Winsome is alive.

  Houston realizes how certain he was that it was no longer the case. Hope is like a breath of fresh air, though it’s cold and crisp in his lungs. He wants Sal’s opinion.

  Inside the Colosimo, his partner’s booth is empty. Houston sweeps his eyes over the interior and sees no sign of his partner. Worry replaces confusion.

  “Ma’am,” Houston says, stepping up to the breakfast bar. “I was sitting here with a man earlier.”

  “Oh,” she says, her arms full of dishes. “The manager ran him off. We got a lot of deadbeats around here, so anybody sits more than a couple of hours, we gotta ask ‘em to leave. Shame, though. He was a good tipper.”

  “He say where he was going? We were supposed to meet up here.”

  She shakes her head. “Whole world of temptation out there, honey. I’m sorry.”

  Houston steps back out, momentarily numb. He lights a cigarette and waits for the duration of the time it takes to smoke it.

  He tells himself that’s fair to his partner. That he’s given Sal a chance to turn up, smiling, with a fresh pack of smokes maybe. When he doesn’t, Houston considers his options. The night’s dipped down under freezing again, the air cold, wind cutting and the sidewalks are slippery. Houston should just head home.

  He looks at his watch. 10 P.M. Houston drops the smoldering filter of his cigarette in the snow and twists it out under the sole of his shoe. In the slush, Houston sees the filters of two Lucky Strikes, and in that, clear evidence that Sal stood near here and underwent some long, slow, internal debate. Houston shivers once, then turns left up 22nd street, heading for Lee-Lee’s on Clark.

  Inside, the Den-missus looks at him with clear recognition. Houston tips his hat.