“Yeah, Big one with a crewcut. They was two of ’em. Told ’em I didn’t see nothing. Now I’m telling you the same thing. Now you gonna let me be?”
“All right. I’m leaving.”
He went down the stairs and walked back up the alley toward Leland, and when he’d gone fifty feet or so he turned quickly. The green curtain moved back suddenly. He took a last look around him at the alley, shook his head and left.
He walked distractedly up Broadway, and when a tall black man accidentally jostled him, he realized his heart was pounding with anger.
Halfway up the block, in front of an African import shop where he’d never seen customers, a small crowd had gathered and seemed to be watching an altercation. When he got closer he could see that some of the onlookers were amused and others appeared worried.
An old man was involved in a shouting match with a group of teenage boys. Whelan lost no time choosing sides. He’d seen the kids before, including once coming out of a gangway on his block. They sported denim vests over T-shirts, and the vests were covered with a mad amalgam of Confederate flags, Nazi insignia and military buttons. They were white, they were losing their long fight with acne, and they were having a fine time at the old man’s expense. They were what Whelan had been looking for.
Not that the old man needed much help. He was small and stooped but he wore an old brown suit and his tie was carefully knotted, and in one hand he carried a reticule sort of shopping bag in which Whelan could see groceries.
“You’re all a bunch of punks. You’re…you’re thugs. That’s right, thugs. You got no respect for people, you think you own the world, tough guys, real tough guys.”
“Fuck you, old man. We don’t need your shit.” The speaker was not as tall as his companions but was the most muscular-looking, a stocky kid who had shaved most of his head except for a little strip of fur down the middle. It wasn’t enough to be considered a Mohawk yet but that was its obvious intent. The kid stared at the old man and then let his eyes wander over the audience.
“You got a problem, old man?”
“You, you’re the problem. Pushing people around—”
“Aw, eat it, old man.” He folded his arms and grinned.
“Excuse me,” Whelan said. The stocky boy looked at him, still smiling but clearly surprised that someone was complicating his good time.
“Why don’t you fellas leave this gentleman alone.” He made certain it didn’t sound like a question. Behind him, he heard a voice or two in uncertain agreement.
The kid shrugged. “Talk to him, man. We’re not doing shit.”
“No, I don’t want to talk to him. What exactly was he doing? Walking on your sidewalk?” He looked at the old man. “Is that it? Were you walking on their sidewalk?”
“He was hasslin’ us.”
“Hasslin’. I see. You were hasslin’ these youngsters, huh?” He took a quick head count. “All six of them. You were hassling these fine young men.” The trace of a smile appeared on the old man’s lips and Whelan heard a snicker from the crowd.
“Listen, sir. These young men and others like them, they serve a purpose, which is to terrorize the community. If people like you continue to hassle them, they might go elsewhere. Is that what you want?”
“Hey, fuck this guy.”
He turned to see who had spoken but they were all simply staring.
“You guys are the Rebs, right? You’re heavy. Didn’t you guys just get busted for breaking into cars? Manly work.”
The stocky one spread his legs. “You trying to jerk us around?”
“Trying? I thought I was doing a pretty good job. Did you want to do anything about that?” He wondered what he was getting into but seemed unable to stop himself.
The stocky one opened his mouth but could say nothing. His face reddened and he began clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Wait up, Ronnie, I think he’s heat.”
Whelan looked at the one who had spoken, a tall kid in a baseball cap. Then he looked back at the leader.
“Whatcha got in mind, Ron? I’m not an old man. You want to be embarrassed? Lot of people here. Your friends won’t be able to help you and you can’t use a weapon in front of witnesses. Be just you and me in the bright morning sun.”
“You don’t look like you can do shit, mister.”
“I got surprises. I got a left you won’t believe.”
It occurred to him that he might not actually be able to take this nasty punk but he was fairly sure he’d mark the kid’s face for him, and that would be enough.
“He’s a cop, Ron. Let’s go.”
The one called Ron moved one foot back and Whelan knew there would be no fight.
“Bunch of thugs,” the old man muttered. “Look at his hair.”
“Ron” made a move as if to sidestep Whelan and go for the old man, and Whelan stepped in front of him again.
“Easy, kid. These old guys got no eye for fashion. I like your hair.” The boy shot him a hostile look.
“No, really, I like it. Makes you look like a Trojan warrior.” He heard laughter from the onlookers and knew the kid’s moment had passed. He took the old man by the elbow and gently but firmly ushered him around the crowd. The old man still had a few things he wanted to say.
“Look at how they look. Look at that hair. Why do they do that to their heads?”
“I think it’s a visitation from God,” Whelan said. “And I think you ought to watch what you say to kids on the street, friend.”
“I’m not afraid of ’em. But thank you for your assistance.”
“My pleasure,” Whelan said as they reached the corner and the old man turned to be on his way. But he didn’t feel much better as he made his way to the office.
He threw open both windows and couldn’t feel any difference in the temperature. He called his service and this time got Shelley.
“Hey, Shelley. Glad to hear that Lauren Bacall voice.”
“Didja miss me, baby?” Shelley laughed her hoarse laugh. “I went on a little vacation with my new honey. Took me to Lake Geneva and we went out on his boat and drank martinis and did naughty things.” She laughed again and said, “How’d you like Abraham, honey?”
“He’s…different. He’s got quite a phone manner.”
“You should see him. Looks like Gandhi with hair. He’s about five foot four and weighs about eighty pounds. I keep thinking I should take him home with me and show him how much fun a big girl can be.”
“Turkish delights? Maybe you should show me.”
“Baby, my new fella would have to hurt you. Abraham, he wouldn’t mind, but you—”
“Any calls for me?”
“Liz called.”
“Oh. Anybody else?”
“That’s all so far.”
“Okay, thanks, Shel.”
“Toodle-oo, baby.”
He put off calling Liz. Instead he called Marie Shears, got her son, Matt, and learned that the wake would be that night and Thursday at Earhardt Funeral Home, with burial on Friday morning from St. Mary of the Lake over on Sheridan.
He called Area 6 and asked for the Violent Crimes Unit. Detective Bauman wasn’t in, and he asked to leave a message with the detective who answered, a Detective Skronski.
“What is this regarding, sir?”
“I’d just like to talk to him about the Art Shears killing, that’s all.”
“Are you a member of the family, sir?”
“No, an old friend.”
“The detectives are pretty busy, sir. Is there any information you’d like to add?”
“No. I really just want to know if they’ve got anything.”
“Sir, if they do, they’re working on it. It won’t help anything to bother them now. Several members of the family have already called—”
“Look, I just thought I could be of some help.”
“Sir, these are experienced detectives. They know what they’re doing.” He could tell that Skronski was being patient.
“Would it help if I told you I was a former police officer?”
“You know the answer to that already, buddy. It wouldn’t change anything. Listen, leave the guys alone. They’re good. Especially Bauman.”
“I’d still like to talk to him.”
“Fine. I’ll give him your message. And if you’re lucky, he won’t call.” Skronski laughed.
“Something I should know?”
“I don’t ask Bauman about his cases, friend.”
Whelan left his number and hung up. He was fairly certain that Bauman would greet this as civilian meddling, that he probably wouldn’t return the call. But he knew there was a likelihood that Art Shears would soon be a statistic. He wondered for a moment if he was simply being stubborn or reacting from guilt or helplessness. But he’d seen the alley. Art Shears had died fifty or sixty feet from the alley entrance. He hadn’t been dragged in by a mugger, and Whelan was left with a simple question: Why would a man who by his own account went around the streets of Uptown looking over one shoulder go into an alley at night? He turned it over in his mind, looked at it from each of its angles and found no answers. A robbery, they were saying. He shook his head and then thought of Art’s tape recorder. The recorder would tell him if it was really a robbery. If it showed up somewhere, it was a robbery.
He looked at the clock, saw that the morning was passing him by, and picked up the phone.
She answered on the fifth ring, sounded hurried and distracted as always.
“Liz?”
“Oh, Paul.” She said his name with that unique mixture of easy familiarity and irritation that made plain his status.
“You called me.”
She gave an exasperated laugh. “I’ve been calling a lot. I kept getting some Indian guy I couldn’t understand. Couldn’t get you at home. Finally I got through to that woman who answers your calls.” Whelan allowed himself a smile. Liz had always been put off by Shelley’s voice and Whelan had never understood why it made a difference to her. A hard, fascinating creature, his Liz, former obsession, frequent fantasy, occasional “project” whose flinty shell he never quite succeeded in denting, and now a closed chapter in his life.
“So what’s up?”
“Well, I’ve got your stuff.”
“I know. We talked about it.”
“No, I mean…I’ve got it here.”
Whelan laughed, at both of them. “You mean you’ve got my stuff in a box and it’s—what, next to the phone? In front of the door? Did you put it on your porch, Liz?”
“You think this is easy for me, Paul?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. You’ve put it off forever and I think you’re doing fine.”
She sighed into the phone. “I’m late for work. Did you call just to—”
“Oh, knock it off. I called because you called me. You want me to come over and get my stuff, right?”
“Uh-huh. Whenever.”
“Well, you’re working today till—when, nine?”
“Yeah, but a couple of us are going out later.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Sure, that’d be fine. Morning, afternoon. Whatever. I’ll—I’ll make you lunch if you want.”
“Well, we’ll see. How’s Charlie?”
“He’s fine. He—he’s sending you a letter. I gotta go.”
“Right. Bye.” He hung up and thought of Liz’s son, Charlie, an eight-year-old with his mother’s dark hair. He was already missing Charlie, though Charlie was not his child and he’d been careful over the last couple of years not to allow himself to become too attached to the boy, a hedge against the day when Liz made good on her constant promise to get out of Chicago and make a start somewhere new. Now Charlie was in Wisconsin with his grandparents and Liz would soon be joining him.
He went home to check his mail. The sun was reaching its high point and people moved listlessly in the heat. Here and there old men shrank back into doorways to find shade and a clump of younger men passed a bottle back and forth in the shadow of the el tracks. A few feet away from them, oblivious to the men and all else, a pair of long-skirted Vietnamese women in sweaters went through the garbage and stuffed aluminum cans into a large green trash bag. Whelan paused for a moment and admired their work. All over Uptown at this very moment little groups of Southeast Asian women, Vietnamese or Cambodian or Laotian, were digging through the refuse of Chicago and scratching together a few cents by selling cans. Whelan knew a waitress named Tho at a small Vietnamese place on Damen called Little Home Saigon; Tho had once told him that some of these women digging through the alleys were less than two or three months removed from the terror of the open boats, that their quiet preoccupation gave no hint of the horrors they’d seen at the hands of the soldiers in their own country or from the ravages of the Thai pirates on the open sea.
He got home just as the letter carrier was coming down the warped stairs, stepping gingerly on the old planks. He waved when he saw Whelan.
“You ever gonna fix this?”
“No. And if I did, then I’d get a Doberman. Take your pick.”
The mail carrier, a wiry young black man named Bruce, shook his head and laughed. “Don’t fix nothin’ on my account.”
The home version of the mail was in no way superior to what he’d gotten at the office. There was an offer to join a record company, an offer from Ed McMahon to buy life insurance and an advertisement for a furniture store: it was written in Spanish.
He tossed the mail in the wastebasket and made himself lunch, a smoked-turkey sandwich with tomatoes grown in his desolate garden.
He watched the last part of the midday news and turned off the TV. After a while, he went into the living room, put on a Crusaders album and listened to a little jazz. He tried to force his mind onto other things, but the same picture insinuated itself again and again: the last moment he’d seen Art Shears alive, head down, walking up Lawrence and hoping his luck would change. He shook his head and wished he’d had a chance to say goodbye, a short visit in a hospital, maybe, a moment to say…what? That he’d always, every moment he’d known him, understood that Artie Shears was special, and that he couldn’t say that about more than a handful of the people he’d known.
He thought of Liz, sullen and hostile and as attractive to him now as she’d been the day they met, eighteen years ago. He shook his head: no time for that now.
Later that afternoon, listless and uncomfortable in the growing humidity, he threw some water on his face and went back out. To save time, he took his car, a rapidly decomposing ’76 Olds Cutlass that he called “the Jet.” When he turned the key in the ignition, the Jet made a grinding sound and died. He cursed. He had a car that didn’t start on cold days, on rainy days, in humidity. At that moment, he believed that he had the only car in Chicago that had trouble starting on a ninety-degree day. He pumped the accelerator four times, tried again, got a longer grinding noise. He waited a moment, tried again and the engine turned over. And died. On the fourth try it started and stayed with him. He drove up Lawrence, turned onto Broadway, made a left onto Leland and turned into the alley. He drove a few feet in, parked in front of a sagging cyclone fence and got out. He spent half an hour in the alley, walking slowly up and down, examining the ground, looking for something out of place, something different, something of Art’s. He stooped down and stared at the bloodstain, already appearing faded in the midafternoon sun, losing color and outline, vanishing evidence of a murder of no significance.
He looked up and down the alley. At the south end, a pair of older men argued over a bottle in a paper bag. He looked up. In the third-floor window, the green curtain moved and the white-haired man appeared again. He watched Whelan for a moment, squinting. Whelan looked at him and then waved irritably. The curtain moved back and the man was gone.
He sat down on the dusty surface of the alley and had a cigarette. A pair of kids on bikes came shooting up the alley from Leland and he just looked at them. They stopped talking when they came near him, gave him an an
xious look and went on their way. It began to cloud up and the humidity grew almost unbearable. He watched the darker layer of clouds move in from the west and was thankful for the coming rain. From the far end of the alley a group of people moved uncertainly toward him, a woman and two men. They staggered and chattered and argued; the woman pushed a shopping cart piled high with rags and cans and an odd assortment of objects. Occasionally she stopped, went over to a trash can, rummaged for a moment and came up with a new addition to the pile. Whelan watched them come closer: the primal unit, three sun-darkened faces, three aging, sickly bodies tramping through alleys hoping to find something to make tomorrow a little better than today. The woman and one of the men, an Indian, wore winter coats. The other man wore a T-shirt and an open flannel shirt, and a Cub hat.
They slowed when they noticed Whelan but kept coming. The Indian looked at him for a moment and then asked, “You all right?”
Whelan laughed silently and then nodded. I’m sitting in an alley and behaving irrationally and the old winos are worried about me.
“I’m fine, buddy.”
The woman gave him a sidelong glance. “Any spare change, mister?”
She made it a statement, a perfunctory exercise of the required questions one asks a stranger.
He lit another cigarette. “Yeah, I got spare change.”
“You got a cigarette?” the second man asked, apparently encouraged by a little friendly banter.
“Yeah. I got spare change and cigarettes.”
The Indian gave him a sheepish look and smiled uneasily. Whelan read the look and shook his head.
“No, I’m not jerking you around. I can spare a couple bucks.” He got to his feet, gave them five bucks and the remainder of his cigarettes. The woman grabbed the bill and tucked it quickly beneath her several layers of clothing. The Indian and the other man tore the top off the pack and pulled out cigarettes. Whelan lit them.
“Friend of mine got himself killed here the night before last. You hear anything about that?”
“Heard something,” the Indian said. “Din’t know ’im. Little guy, name of Shinny. That him, mister?”
“No. No, this was somebody else. Different guy. Thanks anyhow.”
Death in Uptown Page 4