Killer on Argyle Street

by Michael Raleigh

  Marty walked past the places where Whelan had first made inquiries about Tony Blanchard: past the grocery stores and the little Vietnamese restaurant and the markets. In the window of the restaurant, Whelan thought he could make out the elderly Vietnamese man watching the street from his window.

  When he was across the street from the Apollo restaurant, Marty Wills dropped the white paper bag into a trash can and kept on walking, casually now. It struck Whelan that the trash can was approximately where he’d glimpsed the shadowy figure that he’d pursued. Whelan ducked into a doorway and watched. When Marty reached the El tracks, he stopped, leaned against the wall of the El platform and lit a cigarette. A moment later, a slim figure in denim appeared, moving quickly through the foot traffic. His sandy hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and though he was too far away for Whelan to see the scar, he knew this one. Like the other boy, he was a study in nonchalance, moving casually toward the trash can, hands in pockets and a little bounce to his step. Under one arm he had what looked to be a newspaper. When he reached the trash can, he stood beside it for a moment and scanned the traffic as though waiting for a ride. Then he dropped the paper into the basket, retrieved the white paper bag and backed up a few feet. As he turned to retrace his steps, he cast a quick glance inside the bag. Then he looked up and scanned the street till he met the gaze of Marty Wills. He nodded once and smiled, and Whelan was surprised to see the sallow face of Marty Wills transformed by a wide grin. Then both boys melted into the background, one across the street and into the Argyle Street El station, the other back up Argyle. Whelan followed from across the street and saw what he expected to see: at the corner of Kenmore and Argyle the boy turned and slipped into the alley, the same alley where Whelan had been jumped.

  For several minutes Whelan remained in a doorway. He lit a cigarette and watched the street. One by one, he scanned the stores and businesses across Argyle and then his gaze rested on the little restaurant. The kids were gone, the old Vietnamese was no longer in his window, and Whelan finally put it together. He nodded to himself. Nice job, old fella.

  He made his way back to his car. He waited several minutes, then pulled out and made a long, slow circuit of Argyle Street and the side streets and alleys, but now he saw no one but the natives and the tourists. As he slowed down to a crawl at an alley, he noticed a young Vietnamese man staring at him and realized he was becoming obvious. Time to pull out.

  The image of Mickey Byrne in the doorway came back to him and he refused to think about it.

  Not now, he told himself. I didn’t bring him into this, I don’t think I can get him out.

  A station wagon full of kids cut him off. Whelan hit the horn. The driver, an enormously fat man, took both hands off the wheel and waved as though helpless. Whelan passed, took a look inside the car. The man shot him an irritated look and muttered something. Behind the driver, half a dozen chubby faces frowned Whelan’s way.

  Whelan tried to focus on the road and fought the images trying to gnaw their way into his consciousness. Gradually he gave it up, and saw the two boys, fifty yards apart, grinning at one another like teammates in an alley baseball game. A couple of street kids with no idea how this all might end.

  No: they knew. They both knew, they understood as well as Whelan himself did. The thought forced him to admit several things to himself: the first was that Marty Wills had a bit more heart to him than Whelan had thought him capable of. The second idea was more complicated, and he wasn’t comfortable with it, for it meant breaking a personal rule. He still had no real idea why all these people sought Tony Blanchard, and he’d been hired by a well-meaning client—with a healthy shove from the Chicago Police—to find him. And now he’d found him. He could tell Mrs. Pritchett the boy was alive and let her keep her five hundred dollars. There was no law that said he had to finish something. And he no longer wanted to finish this one.

  On his way back to his house, he told himself there was one piece of good news in all this: he no longer had to keep his appointment at Roy’s Garage.

  Fourteen

  Whelan sliced an onion and arranged the pieces atop a pair of chicken breasts. He was about to douse the whole thing in some of Joe Danno’s homemade barbecue sauce when the phone rang, and he found himself hoping it was Sandra McAuliffe.

  “Whattya doing home, Sleuth? No date?”

  “I was hoping you’d be a female caller.”

  “No such luck.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s the kind of day I’ve had.”

  “Is that right? Well, I know a guy who’s had a worse day. Know where I am?”

  “No. Should I?” And the answer began to form itself in his mind.

  “I’m up here at Roy’s Garage, Whelan. Roy ain’t here. Somebody else is, though. Know who?”

  “No.”

  “This guy Bobby Hayes. And know what? He’s dead.”

  Whelan felt his stomach tighten. He was barely listening when Bauman added, “Why don’t you climb into that sleek machine of yours and motor on over.”

  “Why? You have something I should see?”

  “I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. But I know you won’t mind coming down to look things over with me.”

  “I was getting ready to eat.”

  “I’ll buy you a hamburger or something. Come on down, Whelan.”

  Whelan was about to try one more protest when Bauman hung up. Looks like I’m going to the garage anyway, he told himself.

  Whelan could smell rain in the air and by the time he made the swing on Broadway that took him to Roy’s, he could smell trouble in it, as well. This was probably as busy as Roy’s Garage would ever get: it was overrun with cars and people, most of them representatives of the Chicago Police. Four squad cars and three unmarked, a wagon that they wouldn’t need and an ambulance they’d need even less, and an evidence technician’s car. Blue shirts and plainclothes: one wore a flannel shirt and jeans with holes in the knees, and Whelan saw a young black female officer in a suede jacket with fringe. He spotted Landini in animated conversation with two uniformed officers, demonstrating his baseball swing and presumably giving them a fashion lesson at the same time. Here, Whelan thought, was masculine splendor: beige sport coat over a pale yellow shirt, open at the throat to reveal tonight’s choice of chains, medallions, and bangles. Chocolate brown slacks over cowboy boots.

  Off to one side he spotted Bauman talking with a couple of middle-aged sergeants: he recognized one as Michael Shea, an old friend of Bauman’s. They were standing next to a black Mustang with Tennessee plates. Bauman looked up as Whelan pulled into Roy’s driveway.

  Whelan walked slowly toward the three cops. From the corner of his eye he saw Landini watching him. He met the young cop’s gaze and nodded, and Landini returned it with as little effort as possible.

  Bauman was gesturing with a fat hand that held one of the evil cigars and the two white-shirted sergeants were laughing. Bauman grinned, took a long drag on the cigar and then blew smoke in Whelan’s direction.

  “Okay, here’s my guy the private operative. You guys know Whelan here?”

  The taller of the two sergeants shook his head.

  “Oh, I know him,” Michael Shea nodded and gave him an interested look. “I’ve been in his house for coffee,” he said brightly.

  Whelan smiled. “That’s right. Interesting night.”

  Shea looked at the other sergeant. “Mr. Whelan was involved in a disturbance with several individuals who were exercising their right to burn a cross on somebody’s lawn. I show up, I see this big guy down on the ground, still holding a baseball bat and Mr. Whelan here is wrecking the windshield of a guy’s car, he’s using an ax like he’s Arky the Arkansas Woodchopper, and there’s this cross burning on a guy’s lawn, and these two other mopes start running as soon as they see us. You needed a scorecard to figure out who were the bad guys.” Shea smiled. “Good coffee, though.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  “That guy still live there, the colored
guy with the white wife?”

  “Yes.”

  Shea shrugged. “What do I know? My wife says I’m a dinosaur, I got no new ideas.”

  Bauman pointed at the other cop. “This is George Nugent. George, Paul Whelan. Used to work out of Eighteen.”

  The sergeant nodded. “How you doin’.”

  Whelan returned the nod.

  “C’mere, Whelan.” Bauman moved around the car to the passenger side and peered down. He motioned Whelan over, then backed away and let him have a look.

  Bobby Hayes sat flat on the concrete, head back against the door of the car, eyes fixed on something in the distance. The front of his shirt and jacket were wet and dark. Bobby Hayes had not bled overmuch but Whelan was conscious of the smell. He turned to Bauman. “Stabbed?”

  Bauman nodded. “More than once. I got a feeling the first one hit the bull’s-eye, though. Not much blood.”

  Whelan looked down at the dead man and visualized him leaning casually against the car as his killer approached. A killer whom he knew. He saw Hayes slide down against the car, coming to rest on the pavement.

  “So whaddya think?” Bauman watched him.

  “I don’t know. Why did you bring me down here? Let me guess, he had my card in his wallet.”

  “Well, it’s like this…”

  “Bauman, I pass that card around all over town, I order two hundred a month. If somebody walks in front of the number thirty-six bus and you find my card in his wallet, you going to call me?”

  “I won’t but somebody will. No, we found something more interesting, Whelan. He had your card, sure, but he also had this cocktail napkin with your phone number on it, your home phone number and your address. Now what do you think about that?”

  “He never called me at home. He called me at the office.”

  “When? Today, maybe?”

  “Yeah. He was trying to set up a meeting.”

  “A ‘meet’ huh? You been watchin’ old movies again, Whelan? Where was this ‘meet’ gonna happen?”

  Whelan pointed inside the garage. “In there.”

  “You’d be a dumb fucker to do that.” Bauman glanced at the dead man. “You’d be dead, too. So why did he want to meet with you?”

  “I don’t think he believed I was looking for the kid. He thought I wanted his brother.”

  “His brother, huh? You know something about Jimmy Lee Hayes that you’re not sharing?”

  “You know what I know.”

  Bauman smiled and there was a look of amusement in his close-set eyes. “So what do you think about this?” He indicated Bobby Hayes with a nod.

  “You already asked me that.” Whelan looked at the body again and shrugged. “I didn’t see him tonight. I talked to him late this afternoon.”

  “You had a meeting, you said. Looks to me like he was waitin’ on you.”

  “I wasn’t coming.”

  “He thought you were.”

  “Maybe. But he wasn’t alone. I think the guy sitting here,” Whelan pointed to the driver’s seat, “killed him and walked.”

  Bauman jerked a thumb in the direction of the garage. “Tried to break in there, too.”

  Whelan frowned. “Wonder why.” Bauman was watching him. “Anybody see anything?”

  “Vietnamese lady walking down the street, scared shitless, we’re not gonna get anything from her. Old street guy.”

  “One of your old regulars?”

  “Nah, they come and they go. Don’t know this one. Says his name’s Willie, stays in the alley here behind the garage. Skinny old guy with no teeth.”

  “What did he see?”

  “Says he saw a guy running away from this car.” Bauman was watching him. “Said it was a big guy, white guy. Black hair, kinda greasy, long sideburns. Clean shaven. Blue jeans, jean jacket. Sounds familiar to me. How about you?”

  “Could be.” He watched Bauman’s eyes. The detective scanned the traffic and then his gaze seemed to come to rest on the restaurants at the corner of Broadway and Argyle.

  “You ever been up there, Whelan? Argyle Street? Wait, sure you have. Stupid question for Paul Whelan, huh? You been in all these places probably.”

  “That one on the corner, Mekong. I’ve been there. It was good.”

  Bauman nodded absently, still staring in the direction of the restaurant, and Whelan remembered their conversation one night in which Bauman mentioned his improbable relationship with a Vietnamese woman. Bauman had mentioned that she was Vietnamese but of Chinese ancestry and worked in a restaurant on Michigan Avenue, and had never said anything about her again. Then Bauman gave him a sly look and Whelan wondered if a gray Caprice had been taking a more than passing interest in his movements.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I just wanna know that you didn’t talk to nobody else today about this ‘meeting.’ You’re sure you didn’t talk to anybody else about it?”

  “Like who?”

  “You talked to Bobby Hayes and nobody else, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay. You know why I really brought you down here?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Wanted you to see this guy. You’re dickin’ around with stuff that don’t concern you. I think you started lookin’ for the kid and decided it was all part of the same shit, so you think it’s all your case. I got the call tonight, and I had this feeling that I was gonna go to this garage and maybe find my old friend Paul Whelan.”

  Bauman stared at him and Whelan looked away. “And if you keep fucking around with this stuff, I think you’re gonna end up like this guy. Capisce?”

  “Yeah, I capisce. You’ll be happy to know I’m just about at the point where I give it up.”

  Bauman gave him an interested look. “Is that right? That don’t sound like you, Whelan. I thought you never let ’em go till they’re done.”

  “Yeah? Well, I think I’m letting this one go. It’s starting to turn my stomach.”

  Bauman pointed the cigar at him. “It was Lester. You didn’t like that, did you? You were lookin’ kinda green at the lagoon there.”

  “Not as green as you and your partner.”

  “What’re you gonna tell that nice lady?”

  “I’m gonna let you tell her what really probably happened to the kid.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you are,” Bauman said, but Whelan was already turning away. “Don’t leave town, Snoopy,” he said, but cracked up in the middle of it.

  Whelan waved without turning. Once inside his car he turned on his radio and lit a cigarette and rolled down his windows. As he pulled away from Roy’s Garage he told himself once more that you could throw a stone from Argyle Street and hit Roy’s. Maybe he couldn’t walk on this one, not just yet. He puffed at his cigarette and admitted that he’d been telling Bauman the truth: the whole thing was beginning to turn his stomach.

  The note was taped to the glass pane in the front door, up about eye level, where only a drunk could miss it—a visually impaired drunk at that, for the note had been written on Day-Glo orange paper. Whelan knew who it was from before he even read it. He opened it slowly, expecting a long, detailed accounting of his failings. Instead, he found two lines from an angry pen, plus a postcard.

  Dear Mr. Whelan,

  Please use the enclosed postcard to notify us if you are alive. Remember, the post office will not deliver mail without proper postage.

  Yours,

  S. McAuliffe

  He went inside and stared at his phone for a moment, then decided he didn’t have nerve enough to call just yet. He went into the kitchen and looked into the refrigerator. The uncooked chicken looked like old scar tissue. Instead, he pulled a beer from the refrigerator, took it into the living room. He glanced at the phone again and turned on his TV.

  The TV was willing to give him bad movies, two talk shows and roller derby. A few feet away, the phone lurked.

  He shook his head. My phone sends out signals audible only to small dogs and
Paul Whelan.

  He turned his attention to the television. The better of the two movies was about a talking cat. He sighed and got up.

  She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Paul…”

  “Well, it is, isn’t it. And you’re not even dead, as one might have thought.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “That is not completely true.”

  “Yeah, it is. I’m not hiding out from you. I’m not trying to figure out how to escape. I just…I’m involved in some things that…It’s just hard for me to think about us going to the movies on Saturday night until I resolve this.”

  “Your work is serious and getting involved with me is—what, frivolous?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “I went out with a cop once who would go off and get pie-eyed and then tell me I couldn’t possibly understand him and his manly work, with my little office job.”

  “It’s nothing like that. It’s simpler. They call it depression. I’m depressed. I’m also worried and I don’t know if I’d be any company at all.”

  “What do you think relationships are for?”

  “I’d be the last to know.”

  “Don’t you ever feel like talking about these things?”

  “Afterwards. Not when they’re happening. It never occurs to me, never would. For the better part of my life I’ve had no one that I could talk to at times like this. I just have no experience in it, so it doesn’t come naturally to me. My first inclination when trouble comes is to block everything else out till the trouble is somehow dealt with. Till I’ve done what I was supposed to do.”

  “And you’re in trouble now?”

  “Some.”

  “Physical danger?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Are you safe in your house?”

  He thought about the address in Bobby Hayes’s wallet, about the attempt on his life out on his street, and hesitated before he answered. “Well, of course I’m safe here.”