Henley slid off the stool and slammed the arm wrestler openhanded in the middle of his back. The arm wrestler lost his balance, lost his wrestling match, fell into the bar, and came up in a half crouch, fists cocked and face red.
Henley put his weight on his back foot and let his hands hang loose at his sides. The arm wrestler panted and stared and Henley gave him a little half smile and cocked his eyebrows. He made a little shrug as if to say, What’s next? The kid rubbed his wrestling arm and Henley nodded.
“You were in my way.”
The kid started to say something but Henley turned away and took his stool. He nodded to the bartender and turned his back on the bar. The kid came back toward Whelan, to the center tapper, and drew a beer without being told what kind.
Whelan leaned over the bar.
“Hey, young fella. That’s Frank Henley. You know, the guy you never heard of.” The kid looked at him briefly and then looked at the beer he was pouring. He looked embarrassed and miserable, and Whelan wondered what it was like to tend bar all night with Frank Henley in your crowd.
As he walked away the bartender called out to him.
“Uh, you want to leave a message for Rich or something?”
“Tell him I’ll see him at lunch.”
Whelan paused at the door, turned and saw, as he had known he would, that Henley was watching him. It was a predator’s stare, made harder and colder by the eerie green color of the eyes. He held Henley’s gaze for a moment and then had to look away.
Okay, he thought. So now we’ve been introduced.
He went by the hamburger place and saw that she was taking orders from a couple of girls. He walked past, got to the corner, stopped, thought about it for a few seconds, then walked back. She looked up as he opened the door and he wondered if she’d seen him go by. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she colored slightly as he came in, and he found himself grinning. She smiled back and he wanted to laugh. A couple of adults, a couple of streetwise city folks, a man pushing forty and a woman close to it, and both of them were overcome by fits of “Aw, shucks.”
He walked to the back booth and slid into it and she came over quickly.
“Hello, Paul.”
“Hi, Pat. What’s new?”
“Oh, not a whole lot. How about you?”
What’s new? Oh, excellent, Whelan, way to put the moves on. Dazzle her with your rap, you smoothie, you.
He picked up a menu to disguise his sudden embarrassment and the thought struck him that this was probably exactly the way Bauman would try to pick up a woman.
He set the menu down and shrugged. “I’m putting on airs, Pat. I’m pretending to read the menu but I’m just a cheeseburger guy at heart. I’ll have a cheeseburger and some fries—”
“And a chocolate malt, right?”
He smiled. “Yeah. Some of us fight adulthood tooth and nail.”
She laughed and went back behind the counter and gave his order to the wild-haired little Greek. The Greek had three or four meals on at the same time and Whelan watched him flip a burger patty onto the grill and a double handful of fries into the fryer basket. He could probably put a dozen meals together simultaneously without making anybody wait. This was art, high art, an old and honored art, and Whelan never tired of watching a good short-order cook.
She brought back a glass of water and he lit up a cigarette. He was about to say something when she turned and went to the girls in the front booth. He watched her talk to them for a second and then she went back to the mixer, where his malt was churning away. He waited for her to come back and realized that he had absolutely no idea what to say next.
What comes next? What do I say now? He thought back to other women and no situation within memory seemed to match this one. A couple of women he’d dated had been people he met at weddings, there had been one who tended bar in a tavern he’d frequented for a while, two more whom he’d been introduced to by matchmaker friends. And there had been Liz, who had taken up the better part of his adult life, who had occupied center stage of his thoughts and plans and finally gone off to live in Wisconsin and forget her past mistakes—one of which, in her opinion, had been an intermittent and at times very painful relationship with Mr. Paul Whelan. He wondered what he’d said to Liz the first time but he couldn’t remember; after all, Liz had predated Vietnam in his life and had then outlasted it and his police career and a lot of other things.
Pat came back with his malt and he found himself shifting nervously in the booth.
“How about joining me for a cup of coffee?”
She looked quickly around the room and began to nod, and then the door opened and three young guys in yellow T-shirts came in, and immediately after them, a white-haired man with the newspaper folded over to the crossword puzzle.
He saw her wrinkle her nose in disappointment. She looked at him and shook her head.
“I don’t think I can, Paul. It’s been busy all night. Maybe in a little while.”
He fumbled for words and then shrugged. “That’s all right. We…we did this already anyhow, didn’t we?”
She gave him a look, quick and surprised, and he smiled.
“We had a cup of coffee the other night. Maybe…we should move off square one. Maybe we could go out for a sandwich or a beer some night after you get off.”
A half smile appeared and she nodded. “That would be nice. But I get off at midnight. Are you a night owl, Paul?”
“Sometimes. It doesn’t bother me. Or we could do it another night. When you’re not working.”
She shot an anxious look at her new customers, then at the cook, who was looking over his shoulder at them.
“I’ll be back.”
“Right.”
When she came back she had his burger and fries and a nervous look in her eyes.
“Here’s your food.” She set them down and looked at his table. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I’m okay.” He nodded and then nodded again and suddenly realized that he was paralyzed, forty years old and paralyzed at the prospect of having to ask a woman out.
He sighed. “You know, I’m a little bit out of practice at…at asking a woman to go out, so…”
She smiled. “You already asked me out and I said yes. Now all you have to do is name the time. Or the time and place if you want to meet somewhere.” She shrugged. “It’s easy.”
“Right. So let’s go out.” He was about to say “Tonight?” and caught himself, though he wasn’t sure why. “How about tomorrow night?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Friday night? I happen to be off on Friday nights, and free tomorrow. Want to meet somewhere?”
“I can pick you up. I have what passes for a car.”
“Fine. What time?”
“Let’s be traditional. How about seven and we’ll go out to eat somewhere.”
“That’ll be nice.”
“You like Chinese food, right?”
“No, I love Chinese food.”
“Okay.”
She gave him a cryptic smile and then wrote down her address, on the 1300 block of Roscoe. He stared at it for a moment and then realized he probably looked like a rube. He stuffed it in a shirt pocket, she nodded to him, and then she was off taking care of other tables. He ate and watched the street, the brightly dressed groups of young women and cocky-looking young men and the staggering bands of conventioneers, and he liked it all.
All men are my brothers, he told himself. I have a date.
He looked around and caught her watching him and grinned, and she smiled and went on with her work. When he was finished he lost a moment worrying about how much of a tip you left a woman you were about to take out, then paid his bill at the ancient black register at the far end of the counter. She took his money, gave him his change and said, “See you tomorrow, Paul.”
“Good night.”
He sat on his porch and smoked and listened to the night noises of Uptown. Across the street somebody was playing his stereo too
loud and on a porch down the block a group of blacks were working on a couple of six-packs, and in the distance he could hear sirens, a lot of them, and he knew that somewhere on this hot night something was burning in Uptown. Something was almost always burning in Uptown. He sipped at a dark Beck’s and tried to get a line, the merest clue, on the shadowy figure of George Brister. He matched what he knew of the accountant with the face, the volcanic persona of the man called Henley, and shook his head.
Are you what I think you are, Henley? Did you do what I think you did?
Whelan went through what he’d been told of the personalities behind High Pair, and now he saw something quite different from what everyone else had seen—a couple of arrogant young men on top of the world, cutting deals and cutting corners and doing a fast dance and trying to pull off one more outlandish deal. For this they needed a dupe, a patsy, a fall guy, and they’d brought one in from the outside. And instead of a fall guy they got a predator, someone at least as smart as either of them. He visualized the scene witnesses had described to police—Phil Fairs setting fire to his own boat. A horrible way to go. Was that how a man despondent over gambling debts and bankruptcy killed himself? He tried to find the sense in that and couldn’t. He could see something else, though—he could see a man torching his own boat and expecting to get off, and he could see someone else killing that man. That he could see. And the man he’d seen tonight, that man could kill. Whelan would have bet the rent on it.
He had another cigarette and finished his beer and tried to focus on this new woman in his life.
And then the car came by. Same car, same four men in it, watching the street, watching the people on the porches and stairs. They were drinking, and as they passed the yellow frame house across the street he heard laughter and saw a beer can fly through the air. It missed the main front window by inches, spattering beer across it.
Whelan told himself the cops could take care of it when the time came, that it wasn’t his fight, that it was another man’s trouble, but a part of him knew it wasn’t true.
Twelve
He killed part of the morning in the doughnut shop beneath the Wilson Avenue El station, shooting the breeze with an old man named Woodrow. It was ninety-four outside and the air-conditioning felt heaven-sent, and he believed he was the only man in this crowded, noisy, smoky little shop who had a date on this night. He bought Woodrow’s coffee and threw in a doughnut, then bought breakfast for an old black man named Floyd who had given him information on the street more than once.
At the office there was mail, interesting mail—a brief letter from Ken Laflin, attorney-at-law and aspiring real estate mogul, informing Whelan that there was a need for his professional services and asking him to contact Laflin’s office at his convenience. Whelan sat back in his chair and grinned. This was a wonderful turn of events; if Laflin needed him, then they could talk first about the money the lawyer still owed him from the last “service” Whelan had performed for him, and after that was paid up, they could talk about future services.
He stretched and yawned. The stifling little office didn’t even seem hot at the moment. He had a date and it was a fine world. He looked at the other mail, a brochure from a roofer offering to put a new top on his building and a plain white business envelope with no return address. No postage, either. It had been hand delivered and dropped through his mail slot. He looked at it, turned it over, found nothing helpful on the back, and studied the handwriting—a woman’s, a delicate but confident hand. What have we here? he asked himself and tore it open.
Inside was a short note and a check for twenty-five hundred dollars. Both bore the signature of Janice Fairs. The note was a marvel of brevity.
Dear Mr. Whelan:
Thanks in part to your efficiency, I will have no further need of your services. I want to thank you for your admirable work. I will not hesitate to recommend you in the future.
Enclosed, you will find my check. I assume this amount will cover all your expenses and make a final billing unnecessary.
Sincerely
Janice Fairs
He stared at the letter for several minutes, reread it, and looked at the check. He set them down on his desk and shook his head.
The last time I talked to this woman she was delighted with me, and now I’m terminated.
The letter was complimentary enough but there was no mistaking her intention: she didn’t want to hear from him again, was even willing to pay through the nose to make a final billing superfluous. Counting the retainer she’d given him, the bonus, and this final check, Mrs. Fairs had paid him forty-five hundred dollars for less than a week’s work.
He’d given her a name and she’d been happy; whatever the name did for her had also made Whelan’s services no longer necessary. The name had given her something, a handle on things.
He made a quick call to her hotel and was told that Mrs. Fairs was not in but that he could leave a message. He said it wouldn’t be necessary and hung up.
So she hadn’t checked out yet. Whelan had a feeling that that meant she was sticking around for the duration. If Janice Fairs was going to hover around Rich Vosic’s life, old Rich was in a world of trouble.
A while later the phone rang, and when he picked it up, Shelley’s whiskey voice came through the wire.
“Well, up bright and early this morning, baby, aren’t we?”
“You know what they say, Shel, if you want to get ahead…”
She laughed hoarsely. “Yeah, if you want to get ahead you have lunch in trendy places with hotshots. You had a call from a Mr. Rich Vosic.”
“Lunch is canceled, I hope.”
“Sorry, sailor. It’s on. Only he wants you to meet him at the place. Jerome’s.” She lingered on the second syllable and chuckled. “So we have lunch at Jerome’s these days, huh?”
“It’s like the guy said in The Godfather, Shel—it’s just business.”
“Business, huh? Well, watch your purse around that one, baby. I know voices. Voices are my hobby, and that’s a snake-oil salesman there. I bet I can tell you exactly what he looks like.”
“I bet you can.”
“I know what you look like, too, hon.”
He laughed. “Okay, let’s hear.”
Without hesitation she said, “I’m guessing you’re tall, and I’m sure you’re on the thin side ’cause I know your eating habits…”
“But I love to eat.”
“Yeah, but you eat on the run too often. Let’s see, I think you have brown eyes.”
He said nothing and she laughed into the phone. “Ha! You just told me I’m right. And I imagine you have a serious kind of face. I think you’re probably nice looking ’cause there’s been some women in your life, young ones, even, but you’re no Paul Newman, they don’t throw their panties at you or anything.”
He laughed. “Okay, genius. What color is my hair?”
She hesitated. “I always kind of imagine you with brown hair, you know? But…I think you just told me your hair is, you know, different. Like maybe you’re bald, but I don’t think so. Or maybe you got silver fox hair, but…” She took what sounded like a long drag on a cigarette, made a sound like “mmmmmm,” and then giggled, a surprising sound coming from Shelley, a young girl’s laugh in a streetwise woman who was no longer young.
“I’m gonna say red! How close am I?”
“Close enough to be irritating, Shel.”
She laughed with delight, and she was still laughing when he told her he’d talk to her later.
Jerome’s was an upscale place, but more important, it was an open-air restaurant—of course it was, he would have bet lunch on it. On a ninety-degree day, Rich Vosic would choose an open-air restaurant, a place to be seen, to watch the street traffic, eye the women, have conversations loud enough to be heard by passersby. Whelan circled for ten minutes in a neighborhood whose streets had been laid out in the days when cars were a curiosity, narrow streets lined with maples and big houses and nary a parking space, a
nd eventually settled for a spot three blocks from the restaurant. He walked up to Clark Street, then over to Arlington. He’d been to the restaurant before but would have found it in any case because Vosic’s Lotus was parked in front of the hydrant just outside the restaurant. He went inside. It was dark within, icily cool, and there were shelves and shelves of homemade pastries for dessert. He wanted to sit across from them and stare, but when he gave Rich Vosic’s name to the hostess he was shown to a table outside.
Years before, on a day like this, he’d been to Jerome’s with Liz. They’d eaten inside, over her objections.
Vosic was at a table next to the wrought-iron railing that surrounded the outer dining area. He was perusing a menu and sipping from a tall iced tea. The hostess took Whelan halfway to Vosic’s table and then seemed to linger, and Whelan realized that she was trying to catch Vosic’s eye.
Eventually Vosic looked up, melted the hostess with an easy smile, and waved Whelan over to the table. He stood and extended his hand. “Hello, Paul. Hot enough for you?” He flashed teeth at Whelan.
“It’ll do till something hotter comes along.”
“This place all right?” Vosic asked.
“Sure.”
He sat down and a dark-haired young man skated over to the table.
“Are you ready to order, Mr. Vos—”
“My name’s Rich to you, Tony,” Vosic said, waving a chastising finger in the waiter’s face.
“Okay, Rich,” he said, obviously uncomfortable with the concept.
“You need a minute to order, Paul?”
“No.” He scanned the menu quickly.
“Remember, I’m buying.”
Whelan smiled behind his menu and then ordered an appetizer, a bowl of soup, sauteed scallops, and coffee.
Vosic blinked a couple of times, put on an awkward smile, and ordered a salad and a bottle of Heineken.
A Body in Belmont Harbor Page 20