A Body in Belmont Harbor

by Michael Raleigh

  Something was changing in the lighting. Rain clouds were forming to the west and had just begun to cover the sun as it began its slow descent. A storm was coming.

  Rain might not make it any cooler, but a storm, a nice summer storm, might clean it up a little and bring some relief from the humidity.

  He took the El to the Loop and it almost cost him his appointment with Victor Tabor. All the trains into and out of the Loop were frozen in time because the bridges were up. One after another the huge gray trestles swung slowly up into the air to allow a single high-masted sailboat to pass up the Chicago River to the locks leading into Lake Michigan.

  He got a look at the boat as it passed the Merchandise Mart on its way east. It was a twenty-five footer and there was one gnarly looking old man on it. As far as Whelan could tell, the man never once looked up to see all the traffic that hung in suspended animation overhead.

  Victor Tabor’s office was in the Pittsfield Building, a relic of a more genteel time, when office buildings were expected to have a little brass-and-marble to tell visitors they were going someplace special. He found Tabor’s business on the eighth floor, a small suite of offices with clouded glass door and windows. The sign on the door said RELIABLE FINANCE COMPANY.

  A good-looking woman in her forties led him immediately into the inner sanctum and closed the door behind him as though she were late for lunch.

  Victor Tabor looked up at him briefly over dark-rimmed reading glasses. “Right with you, sir.”

  He was a small, tidy-looking man with red cheeks, a drinker’s nose gone swollen and purple, a thick shock of silver hair, and the most amazing mass of eyebrows Whelan had ever seen.

  He scribbled a few notes in the margin of the document he was studying, shook his head briefly, and shut the manila folder. “Everybody needs a dollar these days, sir.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “But they all want you to make it easy on them. Perfect strangers come to me for the cash to underwrite major business ventures and expect favors from me. People I’ve never even heard of, people that got our name from the Yellow Pages. And they want to borrow for the damnedest things. This guy plans to open up a video game parlor in a ritzy neighborhood—‘for the youth of the community,’ he says here. The place he’s picked out isn’t even zoned for commercial properties. Neighbors’ll kill this guy.” He laughed a brittle, high-pitched laugh and his face was transformed. He looked like a bad boy in a nice suit.

  “You’re looking into some companies that we made loans to a few years back, or so I’m told by my secretary. She’s not too free with the information, my girl Estelle. So who you with?” The joviality disappeared and the reading glasses came off and Whelan knew he wouldn’t want to be the one to tell this man he couldn’t pay back a loan.

  “I’m not with anyone.” He took out a card and tossed it on the desk. “I’ve been hired by a party interested in starting legal proceedings against a firm that I believe did some business with you and a number of other lending institutions over the past five or six years.”

  Tabor studied the card, turned it over as if to find some explanation on the back, then handed it back to Whelan.

  “Who is it you’re interested in?”

  “A firm that was called High Pair and run by a Richard Vosic and a Philip Fairs. You remember the company?”

  The red cheeks went a shade darker and Victor Tabor blinked several times. “Do I remember? Is this the first time you’ve dealt with a private lending organization? I lend money to people, mister, I don’t ever forget them. I remember who I lent money to and how much and what happened when it was time to pay it back, and some people I remember a little more, uh, vividly than others. And I remember High Pair Enterprises because they almost put me out of business.”

  “I’m sorry. It was just a figure of speech. What can you tell me about them?”

  “I can tell you one of them is dead. And I can tell you they were a couple of punks, they were bad people.”

  “In what way?”

  “The simplest way. They were crooks. They borrowed money they never intended to pay back. They used the same properties as collateral for different loans—yeah, I know, that’s just the stupidity of the lending institutions—and they lied about the purposes to which they would put the money they borrowed. In my case they took out a note for a sum of money to be used in an ongoing project in the North Loop. They were renovating an old tavern and turning it into a small nightclub. What they really did was to use my money to pay off a pack of other creditors, particularly a couple of the big banks.”

  “Did you ever get any of your money back?”

  “No. Not one penny. Less than four months after I made the loan to them, they were out of business. Their money was gone, their company was defunct. And then I got the news that the guy Fairs had killed himself.” Tabor made a little shrug of helplessness.

  “And whatever they pledged as security was already gone?”

  “No, I didn’t do anything like that. I made them a special little, ah, package. I lent them a lot of money and took a couple of their newer company cars as security.” He shrugged again and laughed. “A Buick and a Lincoln, for a hundred and a half. And the Lincoln was already collateral in a previous loan.”

  He smiled and looked almost embarrassed. Whelan realized that he was waiting for the inevitable question.

  “Why did you lend them so much for such small collateral?”

  “They played me for an old sucker, that’s why. Couple of earnest young guys with a lot of ideas and what seemed like a lot of money. This was to be a very short-term note. They were going places and they needed a little help, very temporary, it was. And they mentioned a project they were going to be starting in a year or so. Big one. And I knew they’d be needing help with that.”

  “Or a partner.”

  “No, but a rich uncle. They were going to need a rich uncle. There’s money to be made over there in that River North area. You’ve got all kinds of celebrities putting their money in and they’re going to be rolling in it soon. And I was looking for a vehicle, I was looking to provide capital in something like that. These two, they seemed to be what I was looking for, so I lent them the hundred and a half, thought I was dealing with genuine people.”

  Tabor looked away for a moment and Whelan could see the wrinkles around his eyes more clearly. He seemed older, smaller, deflated.

  “Too bad about that boat going down, huh? Too bad they weren’t both on it.” He looked away, then back at Whelan. “I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not the money. I have plenty of money.” Tabor stared as though daring Whelan to contradict him. When Whelan said nothing, Tabor said, “Tell your client I’ll be rooting for him.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  “I’m afraid I have nothing that you could use in a court of law, Mr. Whelan.”

  “Maybe not, but you’ve been helpful.”

  He got up and Tabor showed him to the door. When he had gone through the outer office he turned to say thank you to the secretary. Victor Tabor was behind the half-closed door, staring at him.

  It was almost six when he got back to the office. The humidity sucked the oxygen out of the air. His feet burned and his shirt stuck to his body in a dozen places, and as he walked up the stairs to his office he didn’t see the man in the hall till he was almost on top of him.

  The visitor was black. He was a little over six feet tall, thin and long limbed, and wore a loose-fitting striped shirt that was vaguely African. He had very large eyes, a little wispy goatee shot with silver, and a smile that made him look positively jovial.

  “Mister Whelan?” The accent was heavy—Nigeria or Ghana, Whelan thought. He nodded to Whelan and made a little half bow.

  “Yes. Can I help you?”

  The man made a shy shrug and inclined his head to one side.

  “I don’t know, sah. I was going to ask you the same question.” The big eyes narrowed and put a new color on the smile, and Whelan be
gan to understand who his visitor was.

  “We don’t know each other.”

  “No, we sure don’t.” The accent left town and the voice took on an edge to match the look in the eyes.

  “So you tell me why I keep hearing about a white man asking about me up and down the street. Asking about my business.”

  “I wasn’t asking about you.”

  The black man stared at him for a moment. “I have other information, sir.”

  “I was asking about people who had been doing business with Harry Palm. Several people mentioned you. I didn’t even get a name, didn’t ask for one; you weren’t the one I was after.”

  “And who are you after?”

  “A white man. A big white man with a shaved head. Green eyes.”

  “And this man is supposed to be…an associate of mine?”

  “No. He was an associate of Harry Palm. I got the notion that he might know what happened to old Harry.”

  The black man brought up a long, slender index finger and pointed it in Whelan’s face. “But you were asking about me. About a black man. Why was that?”

  “At the beginning I wasn’t sure who I was looking for, so I asked for information about people who Harry Palm had had business dealings with—”

  The man wrinkled his face with distaste. “I didn’t do business with Palm.”

  “—and people who might have reason to wish old Harry some harm. Shoe fit?”

  “If I did Palm, they’d still be looking for him.” He moved a step closer to Whelan. “You’ve caused me some trouble, Mr. Whelan. I don’t need trouble. I am a businessman. I go into places where I am known and I hear that a private detective has been asking questions about me.”

  The man moved still closer and Whelan held his ground.

  “How can I convince you not to make more trouble for me?”

  “You keep coming at me, you’re going to have more.”

  The visitor smiled. “I could kill you with my hands.”

  Whelan let his hands hang loose at his sides. “Maybe so, but I’d mark you up for life. All your friends would laugh at you.”

  For a moment the visitor studied him, then he shrugged. “It’s not worth my time. And I think you understand me now.”

  “I wasn’t looking for you before, and I’m not interested in you now. You want to complicate your life, it’s your decision.”

  “You just better hope I don’t hear any more about you, Mr. Whelan.” He nodded once and then walked past Whelan.

  Whelan opened his office door and went inside. From his window he watched the black man walk west on Lawrence.

  He sat down and took a notebook from the desk and began to jot down what he knew about George Brister. When he had listed all the known facts, he sat for a long time looking at them. The shadowy profile of George Brister was unlike any resume he’d ever seen. There was something more there, something he wasn’t seeing, and no matter how long he looked at it, he couldn’t find whatever it was.

  It was dark when he came out again two and a half hours later. There was rain in the air now, a heavy, imminent presence, and the steady breeze had become a wind, a cooling wind that seemed to be getting stronger. Leaves and paper and street grit swirled down Lawrence toward the lake and the dry dust of summer in the city was in his eyes as he made his way home.

  Just beyond the El tracks he stopped in a doorway to light a cigarette out of the wind, and when he turned, the one-armed man stepped back into a gangway across the street just a beat too late.

  Whelan crossed Lawrence but the man was gone, as Whelan had known he would be. He stood near the curb and smoked his cigarette and looked around, half watching, half listening. A visitor to the office and now his very own tail. Life was becoming interesting.

  He was sitting in his darkened living room and the Cubs were leading the Mets again when the storm broke. He crossed the living room quickly and threw open all three windows, then went to the back of the house and opened the kitchen window to create a cross-draft. The wet-smelling air filled his house and scoured it, and the heavy rushing noise of the rain drowned out the sound of the baseball game. The rain fell in a dark, slanting wall and danced loudly on the car tops and drove all of the urban life forms inside.

  He realized that there were people cursing the rain right now, men and women who lived in the streets and couldn’t get to a doorway in time. He went to his window and looked out at the street. The men in the beater wouldn’t be out tormenting his black neighbor tonight and he was certain that nobody was watching the Whelan household, either.

  He was thankful for a little rain.

  Ten

  When he woke in the morning there was a fresh coolness in the air and the birds were going crazy with the morning’s worm crop. The air in his house was filled with the rich, rank smell of the aging cottonwoods that lined his street.

  He had scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee at the Subway Donut Shop on Broadway, then walked to his office and called his service. To his relief, Shelley answered.

  “Nice to hear your voice, Shel.”

  “Nice to hear yours, doll. I been trying to get ahold of you.”

  “I was out for my constitutional. Any calls?”

  “Two. Your friend Mr. Personality.”

  “Bauman? What did he want?”

  “He didn’t leave a message, hon. He just grunted when I said you were out. Tried his rap on me, though.”

  “Does he have a rap, Shel?”

  “Yeah, very low-key and, you know, restrained, kinda like Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. And he wheezes into the phone. Also, you had a call from the Ice Maiden, Mrs. Janice Fairs.”

  “I bet you like her, Shel.”

  “Yeah. She wasn’t pleased, either, about not getting ahold of you. Gave me the impression she thought I should come over and do her floors. These people all think it’s my fault you don’t stay in one place for more than ten minutes.”

  “She leave a message?”

  “She said she’d catch up with you later. At the office.”

  “Well. That’s probably not such a good idea. I’ll call her at home.”

  “She have servants?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She should have servants. An attitude like that, it’s a waste if she doesn’t have servants.”

  “I’m running into a lot of people like that lately, Shel.”

  Bauman breathed into the phone. “So where you been, Snoop?”

  “Out taking the air. You called before?”

  “Yeah. I called. So you feelin’ all right today, Whelan? You didn’t, uh, sustain any permanent damage in that little disturbance there, did you?”

  “I’m contemplating retirement; boxing’s not for me.”

  Bauman laughed into the phone and then sniffed. “Listen, you ain’t been runnin’ a con on me, Shamus, have you?”

  “Not knowingly.”

  “You’re looking for a bald guy, a fat guy, you said.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he’s, uh, Caucasian.”

  “Uh-oh, you just slipped into that cop talk. We’re on official business, huh?”

  “Aw, I don’t know if you’d call it that, Whelan. It’s just that I come by some information and it don’t, you know, it don’t jibe with what you and I talked about the other night. Least it don’t jibe with what you said.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Let’s just say I got some information that maybe you aren’t really looking for a white guy that killed Harry Palm.”

  Whelan could see what was coming. He smiled into the phone. “What did you hear? Or don’t you want to share it?”

  “I don’t share, Whelan. I wasn’t brought up right. Do you share, Whelan?”

  “Not all the time, but I gave you what I had the other night, or what I thought I had.” He listened to Bauman wheezing into the phone for a long moment.

  “You know, Whelan, the thought has occurred to me that maybe you were, you know, fish
ing the other night. Feeding me burritos to see what I knew about the guy you were really after. You wouldn’t do that, would you, Whelan? That would, you know, shake my faith in human nature.”

  “Why don’t we cut to English and you tell me what you really want.”

  “Whelan, I want you out of this Harry Palm deal. You tell me you’re looking into this fair-haired yuppie type and what do I hear on the street? I hear you’re meeting with an acquaintance of mine, a guy of the African persuasion.”

  “Oh, you heard that, huh?”

  “That’s right. I heard you had a meeting with this gentleman. At your office.”

  “I don’t think you heard that. I think you were watching. Maybe you were watching him, maybe you were watching me. Hell, it wouldn’t be the first time you followed me around, Bauman.”

  “But you met with this soul brother, am I right?”

  “No. I didn’t meet with him. He was waiting for me in the hall outside my office. Told me he’d been hearing that a white private investigator was asking about him. He seemed unhappy about that. He told me not to do that anymore. I believe he made threats to my person. Want me to fill out a report?”

  “Yeah, you do that. Fill out a report. Can’t have people threatening you. Especially since you don’t even know this guy, right? This guy you didn’t meet with.”

  Whelan cupped his hand over the phone and looked out the window. He knew how it looked. There wasn’t much he could say.

  “Whatsamatter, Whelan? Got nothing to say for once?”

  “I’m still looking at the same guy I told you about. And I’d like to find out a little more about the big, bald guy that did some business with Harry Palm. But I’m not interested in this black guy.”

  “So this meeting you had with him, this was all just a misunderstanding, huh?”