The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  O.C. Brown studied the front of his tavern and then looked at Whelan. “Sam had himself a run of trouble. Money, most of it. And women. Women loved Sam, Mr. Whelan, but they give him a world of trouble.”

  “What was the money trouble?”

  “He liked the horses, got into the habit. Even started running a little book out of the place where he worked, lounge over on South State—the King’s Ransom. Big place. So he was layin’ money on a lot of things and he started to lose, and word got around that Sam owed money to some people you didn’t want to owe money to.”

  “Was it true?”

  “Oh, coulda been true. It was a real wide-open place, all kinds of people went there. White people too, to dance and hear the bands. I never did find out if what I was hearing was true, ’cause right after that, some other things happened and Sam left town.”

  “What other things?”

  “Place got hit. Somebody broke in on a Sunday night after closing and took the safe, just took the whole thing out. There was talk on the street later on about who hit the place.”

  “And people thought it was Sam?”

  “Had to be somebody inside. Most folk thought it was a couple boys from over on Forty-seventh Street but everybody figured they needed somebody inside to set it up.”

  “Anybody ever find out?”

  “Not for sure. One of these men got himself killed in a fight in a tavern up on Wabash. Couple years later, this was. The other one, he spent some time inside for something else, but he got out eventually. Name was Covington, George Covington.”

  “Like the ballplayer.”

  Brown smiled. “You remember him, Wes Covington?”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember him with the Sox, but mostly I remember him with the Phillies, hitting a frozen rope over the right field bleachers in Cubs Park once to end a game. The thing never got more than twenty-five or thirty feet off the ground. George Altman thought he was going to catch it.”

  “Well, this Covington fella, he used to gamble. Used to lay it down pretty heavy. I’m pretty sure he’s the one that hit the King’s Ransom.”

  “Did Covington ever give Sam any trouble that you know of?”

  “No. But he was inside when Sam come back.”

  “Sam ever say anything about Covington?”

  “No. But he remembered. Covington’s name come up one time, and Sam got real quiet.”

  “And Covington’s still alive?”

  “Last I heard. He was livin’ over on Polk. Big yellow building on Kedzie and Polk.”

  “Do you think Sam was involved in this robbery?”

  Brown tilted his head and squinted. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, as though he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Finally he shook his head. “Naw. He wasn’t a thief.”

  “Okay. Still…it might have had something to do with his leaving.”

  “Hell, Whelan, everything in the man’s life had something to do with him leaving. His book went bad on him, the place he worked at got robbed, he had woman trouble—”

  “There were problems between him and Erma?”

  “Yeah, but nothing like that.” Brown looked away for a moment. “That was one sweet woman. I had a little thing for Erma myself. But she wasn’t interested in me. She liked Sam. She was also seeing this other fella, name was Ray Booker. I think Sam was the one she really wanted, but this was a serious woman, you understand what I’m sayin’? She didn’t want no life hanging around in clubs and listenin’ to jazz. That’s no kind of life for a woman. And Sam wasn’t about to settle down. So there was some trouble there. After Sam left, she married Ray Booker. Ray was about twenty years older than Erma. Didn’t last long, though. He died. Lung cancer. Took a lot of folk I know.” Brown shook his head.

  “But Sam married her when he got back.”

  “Right. And for a time he was keeping it together. He give up all that stuff from the past. Even tried to—you know, get past that drink.” Brown gave him a shy smile. “I didn’t see him much in those days. He was a married man, he was a settled-down man. I was a tavern owner. Had my saloon by then.”

  “And they had a child, and she died.”

  “Right. She had a stroke. Young woman like that, dying from a stroke. This was about twelve years ago.”

  “And since then? These past years, what’s he been doing?” He couldn’t have been making a living down on Maxwell Street.”

  O.C. laughed softly. “No, man, you don’t make no kind of money down on Maxwell unless you got something special to sell—nothing regular, anyhow. Sam just set up on Sundays, most of the time. Once in a while on a Saturday.”

  “How did he get by?”

  “Odd jobs. Worked as a house painter sometimes. Did some work for me around the tavern, carpentry and electrical. He picked up a little of everything along the way, Mr. Whelan. Wasn’t anything wrong with his brain.”

  “Where did he live?”

  “After Erma died, her sister took the boy and Sam stayed with different folks for a while. Then Sam had a room someplace on Madison.”

  “And lately?”

  “Last time I saw him, we had a drink together in my place. Said he had him a new place up north.”

  “Up north? With the woman you mentioned?”

  “No. His own place. He was feeling pretty good about that. He had himself a little apartment up there. Man that’s been living in a little room gets himself a real place, it does him some good.”

  “You have an address?”

  “No. I know it wasn’t far from this woman. Let’s see. Had a used tire shop downstairs of his place, and he said there was a Salvation Army place up the street where folks lined up for food.”

  “I know where that is. Anything about the woman? Like a name?”

  “Mary, he told me once. She was white, like I said, and ’bout Sam’s age. Waitress in a little coffee place underneath the El tracks.”

  “Which station?”

  “That big one, the one’s all marble out front.”

  “Wilson Avenue. Got anything else?”

  Brown pursed his lips and shook his head almost imperceptibly, as if reluctant.

  “And as far as you know, there was nobody Sam had a problem with lately.”

  “No.”

  “White or black.”

  O.C. Brown studied him for a moment. “It was a white man came looking for him.”

  “And it was a black man that followed him.”

  “That could’ve been a whole ’nother thing.”

  “It could have, but I’m betting it was related. And the man looking for him doesn’t have to be the man who actually killed him. One of these men could have been someone hired to find him. Like me.”

  Whelan watched the street traffic and realized the old man was staring at him.

  “I know; it could have been the man who hired me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but you wanted to. I just said it for you.”

  “Come on inside, Mr. Whelan, and have a cup of bad coffee.”

  “I can still feel the last one I had in your place,” he said, but he got out anyway.

  He wound up spending more than an hour in the Blue Note, sipping O.C.’s horrible black coffee and shooting the breeze with O.C., an old railroad man named Harris, and O.C.’s porter, Winston, who handled the bar in the morning.

  When he left, O.C. walked him to the door. “You let me know if you find out something. Hear?”

  “Sure.”

  “You need some money for expenses, right?” O.C. pulled out a roll of bills.

  Whelan patted him on the back. “Calm yourself, and put your money away. We’ll talk about money some other time.”

  “You ain’t no businessman, Whelan.”

  “Nicest thing anybody’s said to me in ages.”

  On the way back to the office, he drove by the Subway Donut Shop, a busy steamy collecting point for half the street people on Wilson Avenue and anybody who liked strong coffee and good d
oughnuts. He took a long look at it and reminded himself of one of his oldest beliefs: that there’s something wrong with everyone’s story. So far there was something wrong with everybody’s story in this one, even O.C.’s. Whelan had bought coffee at the Subway an average of four times a week for the past seven years, and the waitress there was seventy-one and named Ruth. She had been the waitress there since the beginning of time, the only waitress. There was no waitress named Mary.

  In the afternoon, he tried to reach David Hill and was told the attorney was in court. The young woman he spoke to said that Hill would be in court most of the next morning as well.

  “Is he ever coming back?”

  The young woman giggled. “He’ll be in the office late in the afternoon, sir. Do you want to leave a message?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll surprise him.”

  Seven

  Day 4, Monday PM

  Whelan parked down the block, then walked back up to the little office complex on Clark that housed David Hill’s office. The building was of very recent construction, which meant it had gone up in a month and a strong lake wind would knock it over. On one side of Hill’s office there was a record store and, on the other, an eye care center that promised two pairs of glasses for the price of one. One or the other would be gone inside of six months. Things didn’t last long here. This was New Town, once the trendiest neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, still one of the most crowded, with enormous high-rise apartment buildings and four-plus-ones on narrow streets never meant for automobile traffic, and a hundred places where young singles could grab fast food.

  Hill’s office was in the middle of the building on the ground floor. It said so on the window, in large gold and black lettering: LAW OFFICES OF DAVID C. HILL.

  Whelan nodded. A couple of months in town, and David Hill was already writing his name on windows and paying lots of rent.

  He pulled open the door and heard music, sleepy music, the kind called soft rock, makeout music for preteens. A young singer whose voice hadn’t changed yet was telling his love that he couldn’t live without her.

  Inside, a young Mexican-looking woman was sitting at a large oak desk and proofing something she’d just typed. She shook her head.

  “Could be worse,” Whelan said. “I could type it, and then you’d really be shaking your head.”

  She held up a left hand with a badly swollen middle finger.

  “My fingers don’t work anymore.”

  The nameplate on her desk said she was Pilar Sandoval. The clutter on her desk said working for David Hill was no walk in the park. There were piles of typescript, a well-used shorthand pad, a dictaphone, and half a dozen letters ready to be mailed, all of them on a smooth ivory stationery bearing the name DAVID HILL, in large sepia letters.

  The young woman put down the page she was reading. “May I help you, sir?”

  “I need to see Mr. Hill.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” Her voice said she knew he didn’t.

  “No, and I don’t think he wants to end his day by seeing me, but I think he will. My name is Paul Whelan. He knows me.”

  “You’re the gentleman I spoke to earlier.”

  “ Right.”

  She glanced at the phone buttons. “He’s on the phone. Will you have a seat?”

  “Sure.”

  Whelan dropped himself into a steel-and-leather chair that smelled like the inside of a new car. He picked up a newspaper and stared at it. A moment later he saw Pilar Sandoval pick up her phone. She spoke briefly, then listened for a moment. When she spoke again she looked flustered but determined to be heard.

  “Yes, sir,” he heard her say. “I know that. The gentleman said you know him. I can send him away if that’s what you want, sir. His name is Paul Whelan.”

  Color appeared in her cheeks. She set her jaw and waited for his answer. David Hill had pissed off his secretary.

  “Thank you, sir.” She replaced the handset on the receiver. “Mr. Hill will see you now, Mr. Whelan.” Her face was fully flushed, but there was a little gleam of triumph in her eyes.

  “Thanks. I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble. But if I did, I think you can handle it.”

  “I can.” Her voice said she’d handled much worse. She indicated Hill’s office door with a little nod of her head. As Whelan passed her desk, she added, “You were right. He doesn’t want to see you, but he’s seeing you.”

  Whelan stepped inside Hill’s office and closed the door behind him. David Hill sat holding a letter to the window light, away from his face. His face was compressed into a combination squint and frown as he struggled with either the typing or the message. He was in shirtsleeves, in a shirt starched marble-hard, and the cloth stuck to his back despite the comfortable temperature in the room. A cigarette was burning itself up in the ashtray.

  Portrait of an impatient young man.

  Hill put down the letter and shot a grimace in Whelan’s direction. He indulged himself in a hard stare for a moment, and Whelan was surprised to see genuine dislike there.

  “Mr. Whelan. What brings you here? Is this about your fee?” He stressed the last word with distaste, and Whelan laughed.

  “An attorney who doesn’t want to talk about fees. It’s a topsy-turvy world, isn’t it? No, this is not about my fee, and I’m sorry to bother you.” Hill continued to stare. “For starters, why don’t you show me the courtesy I showed you in my much humbler office?”

  Hill blinked. “Of course, forgive me. Please have a seat. I’m just in the middle of some rather draining negotiations and I…” He shook his head distractedly.

  Whelan took a chair across from him. “And you’ve talked to the police.”

  Hill shot him a look from under his brows. “Yes. I wasn’t at all certain why they would want to talk to me, till they mentioned getting my name from you.”

  “Any reason I shouldn’t have given them your name?”

  “Of course not, but the point of asking me about a man I never even met—”

  “They were interested in the fact that I was wandering around Maxwell Street and roaming the West Side looking for a man whose body they found stuffed into a cave under the sidewalk. They were curious about that, Mr. Hill. It didn’t look real good for me, so I had to tell them why I was there.”

  He noticed Hill’s face change slightly while he was talking. The lawyer looked just past Whelan, as though preoccupied.

  “Well, from what little they were willing to tell me, you’re off the hook. The officers I spoke to informed me that they have suspects in custody already. A group of your city’s fine young people.”

  Whelan nodded. “Durkin and Krause? Is that who you spoke with?”

  “Yes. Officer Durkin seemed to take an instant dislike to me and to my office. He kept looking around as though he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he was talking to a black man behind a desk.”

  “Oh, he believes it. He just doesn’t think it’s right. And how did your client take it?”

  Hill frowned in irritation. He seemed to study Whelan for a second before answering. “As well as could be expected, Mr. Whelan. How would you feel if you were searching for your last remaining relative and learned that he had recently died a violent death? I’m afraid I had given the client to understand that we were…close to finding Mr. Burwell.”

  “I’m not sure that was wise.”

  “I didn’t ask you. Now, as to the purpose of your visit—shall we finalize our transaction?”

  “Actually, I was hoping that since the case is finished, you could see your way clear to giving me a little more information.”

  “Information?” Hill squinted. “What kind of information?”

  “About Sam Burwell.”

  Hill stared at Whelan as though trying to see inside his skull. Then he gave a little irritated shake of his head. “How would these matters concern you, Mr. Whelan?”

  “I’ve spent the last three days digging up information about this man, and
now I find out that he’s dead. I just…I don’t know, there’s an unfinished feel to it.” He shrugged.

  “I’m sure there is, but you told me yourself that you’ve looked for people and found that they were dead. I’m sure those cases had an ‘unfinished’ feel as well. I’m sorry, Mr. Whelan, I can’t disclose anything further. Now, if we could, I’d like to deal with the matter of our account. Three days on the case at two-fifty per day, minus the retainer of five hundred. So there is a balance due you of two hundred and fifty dollars plus your expenses.”

  “Forget the expenses.”

  “That’s not how I do business.”

  “But it’s how I do business, Mr. Hill. You owe me two and a half and the courtesy of some answers to my questions.”

  Hill shook his head. “You have a basic misunderstanding of our agreement: I owe you money, nothing more. We have concluded our business, and I see no point in discussing this case any further.” Whelan marveled at the way Hill maintained the dispassionate tone of voice while his body language said he was thinking of coming across the top of the desk at him.

  The lawyer went through the elaborate little display of his fine pen and his lovely checkbook with their ornamentation of deceased reptiles. All his movements were now carried out at high speed, to leave no doubt that he was a very busy man. He made hurried little scratching sounds on the check and tore it loose with a sharp movement of his right hand.

  “There you are, Mr. Whelan.”

  Whelan took the check and inserted it in the chest pocket of his vest without looking at it. As he got to his feet, Hill stood and offered his hand. They shook.

  “Thank you for your efforts, Mr. Whelan. I won’t hesitate to recommend you in the future.”

  “You’re welcome. Please convey my sympathy to the client about Mr. Burwell’s death.”

  “I will do that.”

  “And let her know she is free to contact me at any time.”

  Hill looked amused. “I’ll make the client aware of that, Mr. Whelan,” he said in a monotone.

  “Good. The thing is, I may have uncovered information that would be of interest to her.”

  “Such as?” Hill raised his eyebrows.