City Blood

by Clark Howard

  “And you’ve got a cop in your pocket,” Kiley accused.

  “Absolutely not!” Touhy disclaimed. “See, that’s your problem, Kiley: You’re too fucking cynical about everything. I never once asked this guy for nothing. Now, I admit, since we’re off the record here, that every once in a while I get a phone call from him with a piece of information he thinks might interest me. Sometimes he’s right and sometimes he’s wrong. But he never asks nothing in return, and I never offer him anything; I wouldn’t insult him like that. You understand?”

  “Very touching,” Kiley said. “But what does it have to do with my partner’s murder?”

  “You wanted to know how I found out about the unauthorized stakeouts,” Touhy said, shrugging. “That’s an example of how I might have found out.”

  “Cuts no ice with me,” Joe told him. “I still think your brother is involved.”

  Touhy shook his head. “You’re a fucking hardhead, Kiley.”

  The label reminded Kiley poignantly of Nick, because his late partner had called him that a hundred times over the years. Called him that for refusing to buy stylish suits at the Maxwell Street “discount” prices; for not playing along when Stella tried to fix him up with eligible women; for always going to the well first in a potentially dangerous situation. Nick used to always say, “You’re a fucking hardheaded shanty mick and I’m giving up on you. I’m putting in for a new partner.”

  But he never did, Kiley thought. He stayed around right up to the time I got him killed.

  “You’re wasting your breath, Touhy,” he told the mobster. “I think your brother either did it or had it done—and I’m going to get him for it.”

  “How?” Touhy asked, eyebrows raising inquiringly. “Working B-and-A?”

  “Know everything, don’t you?”

  “Everything worth knowing.” Touhy pondered for a moment. “Let’s see: Kiley, Kiley, Kiley— Did I know your old man?”

  “Not unless you were a bartender.”

  “Hey,” Touhy smiled broadly, “I hear that. I had the same problem: the old man a lush, my mother a saint. You too?”

  “Pretty close.” Watch it, Kiley warned himself. This guy was good; he was very good. Charm the goddamned birds right out of the trees.

  “Let me ask you something, Kiley,” the mobster lowered his voice to another level of confidentiality. “What’s a fucking snake-eater like you carrying a badge for, anyways? Come to work for me and I’ll put you next to something really choice. You can have your pick: gambling, women, vending machines, whatever. I’ll make a place for you. Give you three grand a week to start, in cash, no taxes.”

  “Now I know for sure your brother’s dirty,” Kiley replied with a tight smile. But Phil Touhy only smiled back, shaking his head again.

  “Wrong. If Tony was dirty, I wouldn’t have nothing to do with you; you’d be the enemy.” He held his hands up in resignation. “Well, can’t say I didn’t try. Good luck in B-and-A, Kiley. Don’t let nothing blow up in your face.”

  Touhy walked back up the stairs from the landing, still shaking his head.

  At four o’clock that afternoon, Kiley parked near the Belmont Avenue elevated station and walked two blocks down to the Bel-Ked Tavern. Dressed now in old khaki trousers and a pullover shirt, the only weapon he carried was his backup piece, a Smith and Wesson model 60, in an ankle holster. The 60 was a little bulldog of a pistol: snub-nosed, small, round butt with rubber grips, internal hammer, and one of the few palm-size revolvers capable of firing .38 Special power loads without warping the cylinder. Kiley carried nothing but power loads; what, he figured, was the point of anything less? If a man had to carry, he might as well carry right.

  At the Bel-Ked, he went in and stood just inside the door for a moment while his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. Then he went over and sat at one end of the bar. There were only two other drinkers in the place, and they were at a table. When the bartender walked up, Joe said, “Pabst, tap.”

  The place, Kiley saw as he looked around, was a generic small neighborhood tavern, standard issue all over the city. The bar ran the length of one wall immediately to the right of the entrance, with maybe twenty low-backed bar stools up against its front and two ends. On the left wall was a line of four-person booths, upholstered in maroon vinyl. Between the bar and the booths were a few tables with straight chairs in the same maroon vinyl to match the booths. Against the back wall was a Majestic jukebox with a cabinet of red, white, and green illuminated plastic. On the front wall, facing into the tavern, were several arcade games and a shuffleboard table.

  When the bartender brought his pilsner glass of draft beer, Kiley handed him a ten and said, “Let me have some quarters in change, will you?” “You bet.” The bartender was a young guy, husky going to fat, with a droopy blond moustache. When he returned, he put down a small plastic tray holding eight quarters and the rest of Kiley’s change. Kiley passed him a dollar tip.

  “Harold been in today yet?” he asked.

  “Harold?”

  “Harold Winston. He’s a regular. Don’t you know him?”

  “Maybe by sight,” the bartender said. “Sometimes I can’t remember the name until I see the face.”

  “Kind of like a schoolteacher, huh?”

  “What do you mean?’

  “When you’re a schoolteacher, everybody knows your name—what is your name, by the way?”

  “Nate.”

  “Nate, I’m Joe. That’s an easy one to remember.” Kiley extended a hand over the bar and Nate shook hands. “Like I was saying, Nate, everybody in a class in school only has to remember one name, the teacher’s, but the teacher has to remember everybody’s name. Pretty much the same for a bartender and the regular customers in a bar, I’ll bet.”

  “Never thought of it just that way before,” Nate said, “but you’re right.”

  “Say, Nate,” Kiley pointed, “let me have a bag of those mixed nuts, will you?”

  After Nate gave him the nuts, the bartender went over to the table to check on his other two customers. Kiley took his glass of beer and the quarters and went over to the arcade games. He dropped one of the coins into a Pac Man machine and began playing. He was in his fourth game, half an hour later, when Harold Winston came in, carrying his mail.

  Winston froze when he saw Kiley, stopping almost in mid-stride halfway between the entrance and the end of the bar. Kiley could see him in his peripheral vision without turning his head away from the Pac Man screen. While Winston was standing there, watching him, Kiley purposely ran Pac Man into one of its pursuers and let it be eaten, ending the game. “Damn,” Kiley said to himself, but loud enough for Winston to hear. “I almost made it to the banana level that time.” Still without turning in Winston’s direction, he took a long swallow of beer, dropped in another coin, and pressed the button for a new game. As Kiley began to play again, he saw Winston put the mail in his jacket pocket and walk toward him.

  “Detective Kiley, are you following me?” Winston asked sternly when he got to where Kiley stood.

  “What?” Kiley asked, looking at him, frowning. Pausing in the game, he tilted his head as if trying to remember. Then he said, “Oh—uh, Mr. Winston, right?”

  “That is correct.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you ask me?” Kiley shifted his eyes between Winston and Pac Man, and kept playing a little.

  “I asked if you were following me.”

  Kiley pressed the game’s pause button. “Mr. Winston, how could I be following you? I’ve been here an hour; you just came in. Are you following me?”

  “Of course not. What are you doing here?”

  Kiley sipped his beer and shrugged. “Playing Pac Man.”

  “No, I mean what are you doing here, in this bar? In this neighborhood?”

  “I live in this neighborhood, Mr. Winston. I think I told you that when we met at the jail. Now look, I’m off duty, okay. I’m just playing a little Pac Man and having a few beers, see. I’m sorry if my b
eing here makes you nervous—”

  “You don’t make me nervous at all,” Winston declared. “You just surprised me, that’s all.”

  Kiley made his voice very low. “Listen, I’m not going to say where we met, if that’s what’s worrying you. We can just pretend we know each other from the bar here. Hey, what do you drink?”

  “Why, uh—I drink Miller’s—Miller’s Lite—”

  “Hey, Nate,” Kiley called over to the bartender, “can you bring my friend a Miller’s Lite and me another Pabst tap?”

  “Coming up,” the bartender said.

  “You play Pac Man, Mr. Winston?” Kiley asked, then said, “Hey, how about I call you by your first name so it doesn’t sound so formal in case Nate hears?”

  “I suppose that’s all right.”

  “This is kind of embarrassing, though,” Kiley said with a grimace. “I don’t remember your first name.”

  “It’s Harold.”

  “Thanks, Harold. Hal for short?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Winston said. “No one has called me Hal since high school.”

  “So pretend you’re back in high school. Call me Joe. Ah, here’s the beer.” Kiley took the two glasses off the bartender’s tray and said, “Money’s on the bar, Nate. Take another buck for yourself.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” said Nate.

  Kiley resumed playing Pac Man, but was careful not to let lull the dialogue he had established. “Speaking of high school, I went to Crane Tech, Hal. Where’d you go? Wait, let me guess. I’ll bet you went to Austin.”

  “No, I, uh—I didn’t go to high school in Chicago.”

  “Oh. So where you from originally?”

  Winston’s expression became sly. “You’re not by any chance doing a little detective work now, are you—Joe?”

  Kiley pushed pause again. “Look, pal, I told you I was off duty. I mean, I’m just making conversation, you know. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. As a matter if fact, just because I bought you a beer doesn’t mean you have to talk to me at all. Go sit at the bar by yourself if you want to, and I’ll just keep playing Pac Man.”

  “I didn’t intend to be rude,” Winston said. “It just sounded as if you were prying.”

  “Just being friendly, Hal. I really don’t give a shit where you’re from.”

  “Well, I’m from Detroit originally, if you want to know. But I went to high school in Dayton. Ohio.”

  “I don’t know what you’re so jumpy about anyway,” Kiley said, seeming not to pay any attention to the background information. “You haven’t done anything. You were turned loose, not charged.” Kiley resumed his game.

  “I’m not jumpy exactly,” Winston interpreted the impression he was giving. “It’s just that seeing you was such a surprise. It seems very curious that we’ve never run into each other before.”

  “Damn,” Kiley said, after deliberately sacrificing Pac Man again. “I’m going to give up this game.” He turned to face Winston directly. “Look, the reason we’ve never run into each other is that I’ve only just started back working the day shift. I was just transferred over to the Bomb-and-Arson squad. Before that, I was working nights on General Assignments out of the Warren Boulevard station. And,” he sighed heavily, “the reason I was transferred is because my partner was shot and killed recently—”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that—”

  “Yeah. You may have seen it on the news or read about it in the papers: a detective found dead in an alley—?”

  “Yes!” Winston said, suddenly cognizant. “I do recall that. He was your partner—?”

  “For eight years,” Kiley confirmed. “I’m godfather to his youngest daughter; she’s seven. He left another daughter too; ten. And his wife, of course—” Shaking his head sadly, Kiley raised the glass of beer and drained it. “Want to sit down and have another?” he asked. When Winston did not accept immediately, Kiley shrugged and added, “You don’t have to—”

  “No, no,” Winston said at once then, “let’s have another. My turn to buy—”

  “Nate!” Kiley called, holding up the empty. “Couple more, please.”

  Kiley and Winston sat in a booth, and Nate brought the fresh beers and what was left of Joe’s money from the bar. Winston handed the bartender a five to pay for the new round. When the bartender brought his change, Winston promptly picked it up and put it in his pocket.

  “Listen, I’m very sorry about your partner,” Winston said, after the bartender left. “I’m not a big fan of the police after them keeping me down in that filthy jail for seventy-some hours, but I can certainly sympathize with someone who’s lost a close friend.”

  “Thank you, Hal,” Kiley said, making his voice sincere. “And I don’t blame you for not being a fan of the police; I’m not too crazy about them myself right now. They’ve refused to let me work on finding my partner’s killer, which I think is pretty low.”

  “Well, I should say,” Winston agreed. “Why in the world won’t they let you help?”

  “They say I’m too close to it. They say I won’t be objective.”

  “People in charge,” Winston grunted softly, “always seem to have an answer, don’t they?”

  The two drank in silence for several minutes. A few more customers drifted in, singly and in pairs, and another bartender came on duty. A Slavic-looking woman with big arms went over to play Pac Man, causing Kiley to comment, “Hope she has better luck than I did.” Winston smiled and nodded.

  At one point, Kiley asked casually, “So what do you do for a living, Hal?” Then immediately held up a hand and retracted the question. “No, never mind. Forget I asked. Bad question. I don’t want you to think that I’m being a detective.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Winston replied, seeming to be a little more relaxed now. “I didn’t tell you at the jail because I was afraid the police might come around to where I work. Not that I have much of a job, really. I’m just an inventory control clerk. I work for Olson Rug Company, at their big warehouse over on Montrose.”

  “Nobody’s going to bother you on your job, Hal, I guarantee it,” Kiley assured. “Your file is closed; I sent it over to IF myself.”

  “What’s IF?”

  “Inactive Files.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good to hear.” Winston took a long swallow of beer. “Uh, anything new on the bus case?”

  “No, they’re still looking.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything on the news about it,” Winston explored. Kiley merely shrugged.

  “Like I said, I just got over to Bomb-and-Arson, so I haven’t been following the case. And with what happened to my partner and all, well—”

  “Yes, of course,” Winston sympathized, “you’ve had other concerns.”

  After a while, Kiley signaled Nate for more beer, and when it came gave him a five and said, “Take a buck for yourself, Nate, and put the rest in the jukebox.”

  “Sure thing, Joe,” the bartender said.

  “None of that bullshit rap music,” Kiley warned as Nate walked away. The bartender laughed.

  “I’m not sure I can keep up with you on the beers,” Winston said cautiously. “I usually only have a couple before I go home for supper.”

  “Quit any time you want, Hal. This will probably be my last one anyway. Got to try and get some sleep tonight. I’m having a hard time read-justing to the day shift, you know.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “So tell me, what’s inventory control like?”

  “Bor-ing,” Winston said, rolling his eyes. “There’s this huge warehouse, right? And these huge trucks drive up and unload these huge rolls of carpet. I log them all in by stock number, decide where they’ll go, then have them taken away on these huge forklifts. It’s eight hours a day of sheer tedium. Not exciting like I’m sure police work is.”

  “Police work isn’t exciting, Hal. It’s ninety-nine percent monotony.”

  “Yes, but what’s the other one p
ercent?” Winston asked, leaning forward on his elbows, eager for the answer.

  “The other one percent is cold fear,” Kiley said. “It’s when you don’t know what’s going to happen next, but you do know it could be very bad.”

  “What made you become a policeman?” Winston wanted to know.

  “My dad was a cop,” Kiley replied with a straight face. He realized that it was the first actual lie he had told the thin, intense man; everything else Kiley had said to him, oddly, had been the truth. It occurred to Kiley that it was a peculiar way to be handling a suspect—telling him the truth. But then, he reminded himself, Harold Paul Winston was a peculiar suspect.

  “Is your father still living?” Winston asked.

  “Yeah. He and Mom are retired, down in Florida.” Asshole, Kiley chastised himself. Now you’ve got to remember all this shit. “How about you? Any family?”

  “My parents divorced when I was in high school,” Winston said. He grunted wryly. “Both of them remarried within a year. My father married a woman he worked with, so I guess that’s what caused the breakup. My mother later married a man she worked with, also. It’s funny, but they live within half a mile of each other, buy groceries at the same store, shop at the same mall, but they never speak. Never say hello, never even look at each other.” Winston shook his head. “Strange.”

  “I’ve got a sister the same way,” Kiley sympathized. “She and her ex have two kids, and whenever there’s a program or anything at school, they both go, sit on opposite sides of the room, never talk. Even when her ex comes to get the kids every other weekend, he never goes to the door; blows his horn and waits for them out in the car. Only time my sister ever says a word to him is when the child support check is late.”

  Winston shook his head again. “It would be so easy for people to get along—if they’d just make the effort.”