The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  “No, man, you don’t want one of those kiddie burgers.” Bauman fished in his pocket and pulled out a handful of crumpled bills and change. A dollar fell out, and a couple of pennies, as well as lint and what appeared to be a yellow dry-cleaning receipt.

  “Here, take this,” he said, handing the man a ten. “Buy a—whaddaya call it? A Big Mac. Buy your buddy one too.”

  The man stared at the ten and looked wide-eyed at Bauman. “Thanks, mister.”

  “It’s okay, now get outta my way.” Bauman looked over at the second man and grinned. “Your buddy’s got a sawbuck. Don’t let him tell you it’s a single.”

  The two men hurried up the stairs to the McDonald’s on Michigan Avenue, where a sawbuck might just barely get the two of them a meal.

  Bauman marched ahead. “C’mon, Whelan.”

  “Why? Why are we walking through the only underground street in Chicago? Let’s go up aboveground where there’s fresh air.”

  Bauman mumbled something that sounded like “I hate fresh air” and continued on his way. Up ahead, where the tunnel became Lower Wacker, there was a late-model car parked with its hazard lights on. A man poked his head out the driver’s side window and peered around in the darkness. Bauman said something to the driver and Whelan saw the man pull his head back inside like a nervous turtle.

  When Whelan drew closer to the car, he saw it had Indiana plates. Bauman was asking the driver what he was doing parked there. The man gripped the steering wheel tightly and stared till Whelan stuck his head in. The driver leaned back from the window.

  “What’s wrong?” Whelan asked.

  The man opened his mouth and nothing came out. He was sweating and his face was red, and he had a bug-eyed look to him.

  Whelan nodded. “Been having a few cocktails?”

  The man looked from him to Bauman. His eyes widened and he quickly glanced back at Whelan. His breath came noisily through his mouth; Whelan wondered if he were about to hyperventilate.

  “What is this place?”

  “What?” Whelan looked at Bauman. The cop was grinning.

  “What is this place? Where’s…I was driving through Chicago, and all of a sudden…”

  The man stared around him at the dank wet walls of the tunnel and the dark staircases that led up to the surface world, where people could see the moon. He leaned with his head against the steering wheel and mumbled something.

  “What did you say?” Whelan asked.

  “I wanna go home. I just wanna go home.”

  Bauman snorted. “Home’s in Indiana, huh? Bet they don’t have nothing like this in the Hoosier State.”

  Whelan watched the man for a moment, noted the unusual brightness in his eyes. “Been doing a little blow there, huh? A couple of beers, a little toot.” He looked at Bauman. “He’s really disoriented.”

  “Hallucinating,” Bauman said, barely mouthing the words.

  “You think you’ve entered the Twilight Zone, right?” Whelan smiled, feeling sorry for him.

  The man stared at him and shut his mouth tightly, unwilling to speak his deepest dread. Then he looked down at the steering column and said, “I want to be in Chicago. I just want to be in Chicago.”

  “You’re in Chicago. This is Lower Wacker Drive. It’s a little spooky, but it’s just a street that runs through a tunnel under the rest of the town.”

  The man winced. “Under the town? I’m under Chicago? Where the…the giant rats are?” He looked as though he were about to cry.

  Whelan patted him on the arm. “You’re all right. There are no giant rats anymore. They’re all dead or in the City Council. You keep on this street for a mile, not even that, and you’re out in the fresh air again; then you keep going south and eventually you get to Indiana.”

  At the mention of his beloved state, the man seemed to relax. “This goes to Indiana?”

  “You bet. Can I give you a little advice? Stop somewhere and get some coffee. Give yourself some time to calm down and sober up.”

  The man nodded, then shrank back as Bauman pushed Whelan aside and filled the window.

  “And here’s some more advice, there, Opie. What line of work you in?”

  “I sell office furniture.”

  “You wanna keep sellin’ desks and filing cabinets, you lay offa that shit you put up your nose, hear? Or you’ll be sellin’ down here in the underworld.”

  At the mention of his worst fear, the man blinked, turned, and nodded. Then Bauman flashed his detective’s shield and let it hang down in front of the man’s face.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Now go home.” Bauman straightened up and the driver started his car. They waved as he drove off, his headlights off and his hazard lights still flashing.

  Bauman hitched his pants up over his big hard belly and looked at Whelan. “See? Nothing like a nice walk after a good meal.”

  They resumed their stroll through the tunnel and didn’t speak. Whelan shot a quick look at Bauman and tried to put himself in the position of the inebriated salesman from Indiana. This was the stuff of nightmare: a green-faced giant in the tunnel that runs under the city.

  “You do this often, Bauman?”

  “What, come down here? No. You mean roam around the city at night? Yeah.”

  A block farther, Bauman stopped, shrugged, and looked at Whelan. “Okay, let’s go up to the bright lights and look for girls.”

  Bauman had no more to say aboveground than he had below. They walked back up Michigan Avenue, crossing the bridge, and neither man spoke. Whelan watched his companion, who was studying the buildings as if seeing them for the first time.

  “I used to like it down here.” Bauman turned to see if Whelan was listening.

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  Bauman shook his head. “No, I don’t mean I walked around lookin’ at the buildings and shops. I used to hang out down here.”

  “Doesn’t seem like your style.”

  Bauman gave him a quick look, amusement mixed with irritation, and then said, “I was going out with somebody down here.”

  “Oh,” Whelan said, suddenly speechless.

  “Waitress,” Bauman said. A half block farther, he pointed to a building across the street. “She worked there.”

  Whelan looked where Bauman pointed. On the second floor, above a swank women’s shop, was Changsha, a Chinese restaurant known as much for its elegant service and decor as for its Hunan food. Whelan had been there once.

  “Chinese?”

  “She was Vietnamese. Chinese parents.”

  Whelan waited for more information and soon saw that none was coming—or would be coming in the foreseeable future. Evidently Bauman had exhausted his conversation on all other subjects as well, for he said nothing more till Whelan dropped him off at the Alley Cat.

  “Thanks, Whelan. Stay outta trouble—if that’s possible for you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m just a quiet guy on furlough.” Bauman hitched up his pants and went inside the bar for a nightcap.

  As he drove back to his house, Whelan thought about Bauman’s cryptic reference to the Vietnamese woman and realized there was no one on the planet who knew the man’s private thoughts.

  What a way to live.

  His thoughts turned to this case that might not even be a case, this favor for an old man that was taking him into places he didn’t know. Once or twice before, his work had sent him into neighborhoods that were alien to him, rich people’s communities where the mere sight of his rusted-out car would send people to their phones. This case was different. He was going into places where he wasn’t welcome. There was nothing new in that: he’d experienced it before, even in Uptown. But this was different, the differences were more fundamental.

  He wasn’t even sure where to go next on O.C. Brown’s case, but he was certain that someone would give him a nudge. He half expected that it would be David Hill.

  Eight

  Day 5, Tuesday

  There was a FO
R RENT sign on the glass of the door to his office building. It claimed that two “spacious offices” were available on the first floor. Good news and bad news. The good was that maybe they’d let him move down where there was still life, where PAUL WHELAN INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES wasn’t the only occupied suite on the floor. The bad was that two more businesses had left the North Side’s least promising professional location, and the death of the building couldn’t be far behind.

  He expected no one and didn’t look up till he heard the scraping of feet against the marble floor. Then he heard the rustle of thick leather, and a dark shape separated itself from the shadows at the top of the staircase. He sensed movement in his direction.

  Whelan was still several steps short of the landing when the visitor addressed him. “You Whelan?”

  “Yeah.” Something in the man’s monotone told him this wasn’t business. “Can I help you?”

  His caller stood on the top step and blocked Whelan’s path, a black man in sunglasses and a Bulls cap. Whelan wondered whether the visitor was the man who had followed him in the white Ford. Whelan figured him for early twenties, with close-set eyes, small features, and close-cropped hair. He was five-nine or five-ten and slender, and his movements showed tension. He removed the sunglasses and tucked them into his jacket pocket.

  “No, man, but I’m gon’ help you.” And Whelan recognized the voice.

  Whelan was just setting his front foot on the landing when the man threw a punch. He moved his head slightly to the left and the first one whizzed past his ear, but a second punch caught him on the bridge of the nose. It was a good shot; an inch up or down and it would have broken his nose. As it was, he saw bright colors and odd shapes and needed some time to right himself. He backed away to get his balance, blocked another punch, and landed a straight left. It caught his assailant somewhere on the mouth and made him grunt but didn’t stop him.

  The other man threw a right and then brought his foot up in a sweeping arc that caught Whelan just below the ribs. He fell against the banister and caught himself with one hand as the man came at him.

  Whelan ducked another punch and grabbed the other man’s jacket. He used the man’s lunging motion to swing him off balance and threw him into the far wall. The Bulls cap came off and went sailing down the stairs.

  The other man pushed off the wall and cocked his right for another punch. Whelan could hear him breathing heavily.

  “I told you I’d kick your white ass if you came back.”

  Whelan looked up and saw the man staring at him, fists clenched at his sides. His eyes bulged in rage and he ignored the blood that seeped from his lower lip and stained his teeth.

  “I should fuckin’ kill you, man.” The man breathed through his mouth. Then they both heard the street door open and the sound of someone coming up the first flight. The young man turned and ran down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  Whelan stood slowly, put his fingers to his nose. There seemed to be a trickle from the nostrils but nothing dramatic.

  A nice morning workout. Now, off to work.

  He let himself in and wet a handkerchief at the spigot to his water cooler. He’d been in the office four minutes when the phone rang. He picked it up to the sound of laughter.

  “Hi, Mr. Whelan. Think I got your patterns down, baby?” Shelley laughed delightedly into the phone. “You sound out of breath.”

  “I keep thinking I have to hire a more professional-sounding answering service.”

  “Uh-uh, sweets, then you’d have to start keeping professional habits and working hours. You’d have to come in at nine when you say you’ll be in at nine.”

  “So I’m ten minutes late. I—uh, ran into an acquaintance.”

  “My ma used to say, ‘How would you like to hang for ten minutes?’ Anyhow, you already had a client call. A Mr. Hill. Said he’d be in to see you around ten.”

  “I thought I’d be hearing from him. Something good has to happen today.” He patted the bridge of his nose and wondered if it would swell and leave him looking like a red-haired Jake LaMotta. “Anybody else? How about Detective Bauman. Remember him?”

  “I remember all my nightmares, hon. No, he hasn’t called.”

  “And a Detective Durkin?”

  “So many cops. No, not him either.”

  “Thanks, Shel.”

  “Toodle-oo,” she piped, and hung up.

  I have an answering service. My answering service consists of a little man from India who finds English a constant struggle, and a lady who laughs at me and says “Toodle-oo.”

  David Hill arrived exactly as the hour hand on the office clock crawled to the ten. Whelan suspected Hill had been out in the barren hall studying his watch.

  “Come in, Mr. Hill, and have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” The lawyer flashed his lizardly accessories and lit up a cigarette. He looked around the office as he exhaled.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Hill smiled. “I have another business proposition to put to you.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  “I conveyed your message to my client.”

  “And?”

  Hill raised his hands, palm up. “There is a certain amount of interest in your information, but I myself have reservations.”

  Where did they learn to speak like this? “What kind of reservations? I don’t understand.”

  “Quite frankly, Mr. Whelan, I think my client is going through a very vulnerable period. This is a time when anyone might grasp at straws to get information about a deceased relative. You must understand that.”

  “You think I might take advantage of your client when she’s not thinking things through clearly.”

  “I wouldn’t accuse you of anything like that. But my client’s emotional well-being is of great…personal concern to me.”

  Whelan nodded. “The client is a personal friend.”

  “I didn’t say that either, Whelan. But I will tell you that the client is someone I’ve known for a long time. And I have rather rigid views of an attorney’s obligations to any client, let alone one with whom he has some history.”

  “I respect that, and I have no intention of taking advantage of your client. I have my own interests in this case, though. I thought by sharing some information I’ve come across, I might gain some understanding about the situation. You showed no interest in giving me information about the dead man.”

  “It’s not your business!”

  Whelan shrugged. “I told you it was. I told you I needed to know a little more, and I think your client might be more inclined to share it with me than you are.”

  “There will be no contact between you and the client, Mr. Whelan. I can guarantee you that.”

  “Then you came to my grungy office for nothing. The local kids have probably stripped that Buick of yours by now.”

  “I am in a position to pay you for whatever you wanted to share with my client. And as you’ve probably guessed, the client is not without means.”

  “Oh?”

  Hill made a coy little sideways nod. “We can negotiate for your information, Mr. Whelan. There is no problem whatever with that.”

  “Okay. Make me an offer.”

  “For what?”

  “For information I’ve discovered.”

  Hill sighed. “Of what nature?”

  “That I must keep under my hat. But it’s something your client should know.”

  Hill blinked and then gazed at Whelan for a moment, eyes moving rapidly across Whelan’s face. Then Hill shook his head, rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked at Whelan in distaste.

  “I really don’t enjoy this sort of thing, Whelan. If you have something my client needs to know, you are bound to tell me. If your information is worth something, you’ll be compensated.”

  Whelan shook his head. “I’m not working for you anymore. Tell you what I think, though. I think your client probably needs to know exactly the kinds of things I’ve been finding out about t
he deceased. I think she’d be better off with me than she is with you.” He leaned back and studied the lawyer.

  Hill watched him for a moment, eyes wide, then gave him an incredulous smile. “Funny thing, Mr. Whelan: I mention that my client is not without resources and suddenly you want an introduction. Happily, that decision is still mine. And you are wasting my time.”

  “You came to see me.”

  Hill got up to leave. “Yes, but I thought you had information of a different nature. This nonsense about secret discoveries is unlikely to be of any interest at all to my client.”

  “If that’s so, I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you.”

  Hill gave a short nod and left the office.

  And I’m sorry I met you, Whelan said to himself.

  Whelan was coming back from grabbing a quick cup of coffee and ran up the last half flight to catch the phone. It was Bauman.

  “Hey, Whelan, I’m disappointed. I was hopin’ you’d be out and I’d get to talk to that broad that answers the phone.”

  “We sent her to a convent. Got something for me?”

  “Yeah. I made a couple calls, so you owe me. And I don’t mean lunch.”

  “Fine, what did you get?”

  “Sounds like old Durkin’s got himself a case. They found a gun in the bushes down there. Clean, though.”

  “Which makes it just a gun. Besides, you know any kids that wipe and toss the piece after they use it? Kids fall in love with guns. Sounds like a dead end to me.”

  “Yeah, well, they found the guy’s truck, this Burwell.”

  “So?”

  “So these little shits that Durkin picked up took the truck. They admitted it. And anyway, their fingerprints are all over it.”

  “Where’d they find it?”

  “There’s an abandoned factory—on Sixteenth, I think it was—just south of the tracks. It was there. They drove it there, took out the battery and the radio.” Bauman laughed. “They took out an AM radio to sell on the street. Stupid little fuckers. That’s all they got out of it. An AM radio and a battery and whatever pocket change this picker had on him.”

  “Do they know how much that was?”

  “Nah. The kids are all sayin’ it wasn’t them, they just took the truck, they don’t know nothing about no stiff. But there’s the truck, and they can put these guys together on a couple other armed robberies, and one of ’em’s got a genuine sheet, so I’d say they’re in deep shit. Especially with Durkin on it. He’ll either plant evidence or force a confession. And if he don’t fuck it up, he’s got his case.”