She shook her head. “If he is, he hasn’t made it there yet. I talked to my mom this afternoon. She calls me all the time now. Afraid the big city’s gonna gobble up her little girl.”
“Well, she’s already afraid it gobbled up her son. Who can blame her?”
She stared at him for a moment, waited till the waiter cleared away their plates, and then leaned forward, putting her hands on the table. “You really don’t think he’s here, do you?”
“I honestly have no idea. I’m almost certain he’s nowhere I’ve been asking about him.”
“But you haven’t been able to find the other men, and you still think they’re in Uptown.”
“Yeah, but they know people are looking for them. They’re hiding. Besides”—he pointed to his bruises—“I found them.”
She smiled and shook her head. “So you’d probably rather stop looking for Gerry.”
“Well, not exactly. I can give it another shot. And if it seems pretty certain that he’s not around there, then we’ll have to talk about the next step.”
“Which is?”
“Looking all over the city for him.” She smiled and he jabbed a finger at her. “And that will cost you.” He gave her a wolfish grin and she laughed.
“And if it comes to that, Jean, you probably should go back home, and I’ll report to you there. Save yourself some money.” He sipped at his beer. He was glad he’d said it; it was the only honest thing to tell her.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, Paul. Thank you.”
She hadn’t seen Buckingham Fountain at night and he thought no one should ever visit Chicago without seeing it. The night was actually almost cool and the sun had finally set, and the fountain’s lights exploded on the night in all their gaudy glory. City of the Big Shoulders, maybe even City of Poor Taste, but an original, one-of-a-kind place. In another city, the fountain might be smaller, the lights more subtle, perhaps all of one color, but here, the fountain was a party hat. Jean was dazzled.
“It’s wonderful, it’s like a Christmas tree! I think I’ll stay here all night.” Whelan had a cigarette and said nothing. He remembered other nights here, long ago, himself and Liz.
After a moment, she turned to him. “Do you mind this? I mean, I’ve taken up your whole evening. Would you rather get going? I know this is an imposition.”
“Hell, no. When I get back home tonight, it’ll be hot in my house and I’ll be thinking about this other thing. No, I’d rather be here.”
“Are you afraid at all? I mean, about your case.”
He considered for a moment. “I don’t think so, at least not in general. On specific occasions—like last night when I got caught in that abandoned apartment and knew there wasn’t anyone around to help, I was shitting in my pants, if you’ll excuse the expression. But in general, I don’t think about it. Lately, I mostly think about how badly I’m screwing this up and how the police aren’t even doing as well as I am.”
“The two old men you’re looking for—do you think they’re the ones that killed your friend?”
“No. I think they know something about it, though. I think if I could get them to stop running long enough to talk to me, they might tell me why somebody had to kill him.”
She gave him a little frown. “Why don’t you think they killed him? Because they’re too old?”
He laughed. “Hell, no. One of ’em did all this good stuff to my face. He’s not that old. But I’ve got a couple of reasons why I don’t think it was them. There was another killing a week earlier, a little wino named Shinny who was a buddy of theirs. Derelicts don’t kill people. They don’t kill each other, especially. The police involved in this think the same person killed Art Shears, and for once I think they’re right.”
She nodded. “So you look for these two old ones because you haven’t got any information about the real killer. How am I doing?”
“Not bad. It’s where I started, basically. But I’ve got someone else I’m looking for now, a young one.”
“And he’s the killer?”
He hesitated because he wasn’t sure what would come out, and then let it out.
“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know what to think, but I can place this guy at the alley at the time Art was killed.”
“Did anyone see the actual killing?”
“Someone saw this street kid at the alley. It’s possible he was a lookout, but I think he was just there by coincidence. I think he saw it all go down.”
“You mean maybe he watched your friend being murdered and didn’t try to do anything?”
“Maybe he knew he couldn’t stop it. Maybe it was already over when he happened along. Who knows? Besides, this is the big city, Jean. People don’t always behave the way you’d expect civilized, sophisticated beings to behave.”
They began to walk back toward Michigan Avenue. After a while, he realized she was shuddering.
“I didn’t really mean to talk about this kind of thing. Give you nightmares.”
She laughed. “I’ll be all right.” She walked in silence for a few moments and then looked up suddenly, smiling. “Want to go watch TV?”
The question blew away Whelan’s equilibrium and he laughed long and loud.
“Is that what the girls in Hope, Michigan, do on Saturday night?”
She stopped walking and squinted at him. “It’s what girls everywhere do, Paul. They sit inside and watch TV or play records or read, and wait for some conceited jackass to work up the nerve to pick up a phone. And it’s what I do when I’m feeling a little…nervous. The TV’s like a person in the room. I keep it on when I’m ironing and doing housework, too.”
“Okay, let’s watch TV. I was going to offer to buy you a cocktail somewhere.”
“I have wine,” she said brightly.
“Wine’s fine,” he said.
It wasn’t the Hilton but it was better than he expected. It was a decent room, a good deal bigger than she’d have been able to afford at another Michigan Avenue hotel. There was a double bed, a large color TV, by a manufacturer he’d never heard of, a desk and chair, a small armchair and a bed table. It was cool and had the sterile institutional smell of old motels, suffused just slightly with her scent. He stepped inside the door, nervous and a bit giddy, lightheaded, like stepping out of a dark tavern into harsh sunlight. He realized he hadn’t been inside a woman’s room, other than Liz’s, in years. It’s not a date, he told himself.
Jean walked a few paces into her room and then stopped, unsure what to do with herself.
She’s going to say, Well, this is it, he thought.
“Well, this is it.”
“It’s nice. And cool. So what’s on TV?”
“I don’t know. Is there a ball game on, maybe? Do you watch ball games?”
“Sure. There’s nothing as relaxing as a ball game. Next to sleep, that is.”
She went into the bathroom and came out with an ice bucket. There was a bottle of white wine in it, sloshing around in melting ice cubes.
“I’ll get you a glass.”
“Are you going to have any?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He took the remote from the top of the TV set and sat at her desk chair. The remote was a novelty to him: he’d never had one of his own. The Cubs wouldn’t be on for another half hour but the motel had cable and that meant the White Sox. He shook his head: baseball had always been a poor man’s game, and a man who had no money could always count on seeing his Cubs or his White Sox on TV. The White Sox, however, were under new ownership—slick, energetic, visionary types,—and their first official act had been to take the Sox off regular television and plant them on a cable station they owned. Now, for the first time in years, the Sox were winning while the Cubs were looking for a soft place in the canvas, and you couldn’t see them.
He flicked the remote and searched for the orphaned White Sox. On the far side of the room, Jean bustled about, looking for the spare plastic cup the Estes Motel had provided. Sh
e located it, held it up to look for dirt or fingerprints, rinsed it in the bathroom, tossed six ounces of wine into it and filled the other glass. He found the Sox eventually, playing Cleveland and pounding bloody lumps on them. He stole a glance at Jean, who caught him looking and smiled. He looked away and focused on the game. I am thirty-nine years old and I’m in the room of a pretty young woman in her twenties who probably goes out with young guys that can dance and look good in T-shirts. He calmed himself: you’re not on a date, asshole. She needs the company. Everybody needs company.
She came over to him with the wine and sat at the foot of the bed, tucking her tanned legs under her. He refused to look at them. He sipped at his wine and his nervousness made him gulp. He was halfway finished before she’d gotten a decent swallow out of hers. In a couple minutes his was gone and she noticed.
“Here, there’s plenty more.” She brought the bottle over, poured it into his glass and then frowned when it ran out. There were about three ounces in his glass. “Oh, dear. I wonder if I can get more.”
“You can probably get some from the motel, but don’t worry. I don’t drink a lot of wine. I just tend to gulp it. I have some rough edges, Jean—you couldn’t take me to a proper French restaurant and expect me to blend in with the ambience.”
She leaned back on one arm and sipped her wine and he wondered how it was that women could assume the simplest positions and radiate sensuality. He shifted positions in the little wooden chair every thirty seconds. The ball game helped puncture the tension, for the Cleveland Indians were a bad ball club and their ineptitude was catching, and by the seventh inning there had been a total of seven errors, nowhere near the major league record but sufficient to generate comedy. He was sorry to have missed the early ones. As he watched, the Cleveland center fielder collided with his right fielder and both were helped off the field. While new players took their positions, scores from other games were flashed on the screen. The Detroit Tigers were beating the Yankees 11 to 0.
“Oh, the Tigers are winning!”
“You like the Tigers, Jean?”
She gave a little shrug and a rueful smile. “I don’t follow them much myself.”
Whelan nodded. “But Gerry does.”
She nodded and looked down.
“Jean, I’ll find your brother or I’ll get you some outside help that will, if he’s already gone from here. But you can’t let it take over your mind or you won’t be able to function. It’s not healthy. We’ve got…there’s no evidence that anything has happened to him.”
“You’re a very kind man.” She smiled. “And do you mean to tell me there are better detectives out there?”
“Oh, you bet. There are some real hotshots operating around the country. There’s a man in Texas who’s about the best there is at tracking people across the country. And for your slick types that have the wherewithal to change their identities and set up new lives and new bank accounts and new businesses, there are two agencies that do incredible things with computers, do most of their tracking from a desk. There’s a woman in the suburbs here who finds people mainly by using a collection of phone books and a wonderfully accurate knowledge of human behavior. So cheer up: if you strike out with me, there are other detectives who might be able to do better.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and looked back at the TV. “Somehow I think you’re the person to have on this.” A moment later, she gave her head a little shake. “I just think…you know, Gerry could be going off the deep end somewhere. He could be sitting in a little room—like this, even, and drinking his life away.”
He watched her for a moment. “Gerry’s drinking…it’s a little worse than you told me, isn’t it?”
She looked at him quickly. “Well…I don’t know. What do you mean? Do you mean, is he drunk all the time and not responsible for what he does? I don’t think so. He wasn’t so bad at home, but who knows? I saw those people on the street yesterday, drunk and falling all over the place in the middle of the afternoon, and maybe Gerry’s like that now, but…who’s to say?”
“Well, we don’t have to assume he’s in the gutter yet. Sometimes personality problems exacerbate the situation. I know you told me he was having trouble adjusting to things, but…did Gerry have any other kinds of problems that you know of?”
“What kind of problems? Do you mean with girls, like that? He wasn’t gay, if that’s what you want to know.” She was leaning forward on the bed, aggressive: big sister defending little brother, and Whelan smiled.
‘‘No, no, nothing like that. I was just trying to see if there are other factors that I’m not aware of yet. No outward signs of major conflicts, then, other than drinking and general aimlessness and a few fights with his friends.”
“That’s right.”
“And what about them, the friends? Have you talked to any of them?”
“Oh, sure, but I knew it would be a waste of time and it was. He was never very close to the guys he was running around with and he sort of stopped talking to them a few weeks before he left. The ones I talked to didn’t even know he’d gone to Chicago. They haven’t heard from him and I doubt they will.”
She stared off into space for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek, and he watched her. Whether Gerry had kept his troubles concealed from his family or they had surfaced after he’d left home, it was clear the girl had no knowledge of her brother’s darker side.
“Should we see if there’s a movie on?”
“Don’t you want to watch the ball game?”
“It’s not a matter of life and death, and it’s a pretty bad game, so…
She smiled and took the remote from him. On one of the local channels there was a I940’s movie, a British tearjerker.
“Hot damn, Jean, here we go. When movies were movies. I’ve seen a hundred of these and without knowing which one this is, I can tell you the plot, which is totally irrelevant to the enjoyment of the movie.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“First, the Germans try to take over the world and they almost pull it off except for the Sceptered Isle, which fights them nobly. Second, a pair of unhappy lovers, who are both married to other people, meet, separate and are drawn into different branches of the service. Each one loses his mate to the war effort; the woman becomes a nurse, the man becomes a fighter pilot or commando or something and does manly deeds in the great tradition of epic heroes. Eventually he is shot full of holes and sent to a hospital behind the lines. There, he is nursed back to health by his long-lost lover, who hasn’t cracked a smile since Dunkirk. He survives, they become lovers again, the Germans are defeated, largely through the courage and brilliance of the British, peace returns, Churchill gains weight and the world is happy again.”
She laughed and pointed to the screen. “Oh, God, look, you’re right, the woman’s a nurse.”
“And all the male actors are named cither Alistair or Leslie, but in the movie all the men are named John.”
“You’re a movie expert, huh?”
“No, I’ve just watched a million of ’em and I go back a little further than you do. A lot further, in fact.” He looked at her frankly and was glad he’d gotten it out.
She gave him a matter-of-fact look and shrugged. There was a gleam of amusement in her eyes and for the first time he wondered if loneliness was her only motive for inviting him up. His pulse quickened.
“You don’t seem to be falling apart, Paul. You don’t strike me as old at all.”
“I’m thirty-nine.”
“Big deal.”
“You’re—what, twenty-five?”
She grinned. “But it’s an old twenty-five,” and she laughed. For a long moment neither of them said anything and he looked back at the TV, uncertain and tense. Finally he looked at his watch.
“I should get going.” And he realized he meant it. This was no place for him to be, and he’d never allowed himself any involvement with a client, not even wishful thinking. He stood up and she uncoiled herself from t
he bed.
“If you have to—”
“Yeah, I do. I’ve got some things to do tomorrow, early.”
“Even on Sunday, huh?”
“Yep, even on Sunday.” He walked slowly toward the door and she walked beside him, putting her hand gently on his wrist. Her fingers felt warm on his skin and he tensed a little.
“Thanks for coming down tonight, Paul,” she said, and there was unease in her voice. He wanted to laugh: she was as nervous about it as he was.
“My pleasure. I’m an opportunist. I saw a chance to have dinner with one of Michigan’s finest-looking women and I jumped at it.”
She laughed delightedly and put herself directly in his path with a neat little spin on her heels. She was standing no more than six inches from him and he could breathe nothing but her perfume.
“Thanks for the dinner and the company, Jean.”
“I needed the company more than you did, Paul.” She raised one hand as if to touch him, stopped with the hand in midair, gave him an exasperated look and suddenly put her hand to the back of his neck and drew his head to her. Her lips touched his lightly and he felt his throat thicken. He met the pressure and then her mouth was open and her tongue found his, and he was conscious of her slight, warm body pressing against his. He was surprised at the tightness with which she held him and realized that her eagerness was loneliness. He put his arms around her tightly and when she continued to press her mouth to his, began to move his hands across her body. His right hand went down to the top of her hips and she drew back, kissed him lightly, and shook her head.
“Oh, what am I—” She smiled in embarrassment. “I got a little carried away, I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
“I should never drink wine,” she said, and sighed.
He fought a sudden impulse to tell her he’d call her tomorrow.
“I’ve got a few more leads to follow Monday morning. If you haven’t heard from me by late afternoon, give me a call.”
“I will.”
“But I’ll probably call you first,” he said.
“You can call just to say hello, you know.”
Death in Uptown Page 18