The Maxwell Street Blues

by Michael Raleigh

  The older man said, “The man just came and went and didn’t speak. Didn’t bother nobody, just kept to himself. Got killed for a few dollars, that’s what I heard.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I hear. So you can’t tell me anything about him.”

  The man shook his head, blew out smoke, looked away.

  “I’m trying to track down any relatives he might have had and any close friends. Ever see him with a young black man, a little on the thin side? Looks like he’s angry.”

  The older man laughed. “Mister, they all be looking angry now.”

  “Lot of angry folks on the street.” The younger one spoke for the first time. “Everybody trying to survive.”

  “You haven’t seen this guy, though.”

  Both men shook their heads. Whelan thought of the woman Sam had told his friends about and the one Mrs. Haley had described.

  “Have you ever seen a tall well-dressed black woman go upstairs, an older woman, maybe in her fifties, light-skinned?”

  The young man shook his head and looked bored. The older one shook his head but grinned. “Sound like my type. Good-looking woman in her fifties be fine with me.”

  “How about a white woman, about the same age?”

  The young one looked back at Whelan. “You mean the one from Public Aid? That one? Man, she ain’t no fifty.” He nudged his friend. “He’s talking ’bout the lady from Aid. The caseworker.”

  The older one gave Whelan a sardonic look. “Naw, she ain’t no fifty. You gettin’ me all excited there, man. Talkin’ about women in they fifties. That lady about forty-five. Maybe a little older, but she ain’t seen fifty yet. Not bad-looking, though.”

  “She was this man’s caseworker?”

  “Not him, the Mexican. It’s a Mexican family up in there, the man can’t work. Can’t walk, so the lady, she come out to get his forms and check things out.”

  “The Mexican family.” Sanchez, Whelan remembered. He fought an impulse to go back upstairs and ask them their caseworker’s name. It wasn’t something you’d tell a stranger knocking at your door. “And you never saw her talking to the other man.”

  “Nope,” the older one said. He thought for a moment. “Wait, I saw the brother with a black lady. She wasn’t tall, though.”

  “What did she look like?”

  He shrugged. “Skinny woman. Old, wore a kinda baggy coat.”

  “You know her?”

  “Naw. Didn’t see her but once or twice.”

  Whelan thought for a moment. It wasn’t getting any simpler. “Okay, thanks.”

  Back at the office, he got on the phone. Tracking down a client on General Assistance was no trouble, but trying to identify a caseworker from a client’s name, particularly a common name, proved to be a little trickier, requiring him to speak with several people and ask them to go backwards through lists and records. Eventually he had a name: Sandra McAuliffe.

  Ms. McAuliffe wasn’t in at the moment, and it took several other calls to reach her. When he did, he regretted it almost immediately. A conversation with Sandra McAuliffe was, apparently, a minefield.

  “Sandra McAuliffe,” a voice said into the phone. It was a voice with sand and edges to it, a voice that had taught itself to sound tough, the voice of a female street cop or the principal of a school for preteen homicidal maniacs. It was a voice that had little time for him, a voice that brooked no nonsense, took no prisoners.

  Whelan explained who he was and what his interest was and what he wanted to know from Sandra McAuliffe, and she didn’t buy any of it. She gave him one-syllable answers and made little snorts into the phone and eventually cut him off in mid-question.

  “Let me save us both some time, Mr. Whelan. I think what you really want to know is whether I knew this man who was killed. I didn’t. I remember seeing a tall thin black man, fiftyish, maybe older. I saw him once or twice. I know the landlady there, who is basically a bag lady with an attitude. And I know the Sanchez family. There’s nothing I can tell you about your client that will justify our talking any further.”

  “All right, just let me ask—” He was going to ask if she’d ever seen a young man fitting Perry Willis’s description in the building when she hung up in his ear.

  It’s always best to make a good first impression, he told himself.

  He redialed and got the receptionist, who told him that the office was open till four-forty-five, and that Sandra McAuliffe got off then, as did all the caseworkers in the office.

  “Listen, I tend to get my clients confused. Is Sandra McAuliffe tall, about fifty, with reddish hair and—”

  The receptionist laughed. “Ooh, don’t let her hear you say that. She’s in her forties. Blondish hair, but yeah, she’s tall.” She was still giggling when she hung up the phone.

  Ten

  Day 6, Wednesday

  He went out and picked up a paper from the Pakistani news vendor at Wilson and Broadway.

  “Why are you always happy, Hafiz?”

  The little man grinned and shook his head and shrugged. “I am not always happy,” he said happily.

  “Maybe it’s Chicago. You like Chicago?”

  The little head bobbed and nodded and Hafiz rolled his eyes. “Oh, I am liking Chicago, yes.”

  The lunch crowd was forming in the Subway Donut Shop, and Spiros, the young Greek behind the counter, was jumping. He had four burgers going on one side of his grill and a ham steak and a pork chop sizzling on the other, and he was shaking the little omelet pan around in the center. Piles of hash browns had been pushed to the edge of the grill, and half a dozen plates were lined up waiting to receive the food. The counter along the street-side window was filled with tired-looking street people and a pair of young black construction workers.

  A short sardonic-looking woman in a green dress appeared in front of him at the counter. She had gray hair going white and tinted glasses that made her look like the Last Hippie. She looked fifty but Whelan knew she was seventy-one.

  “Hello, Ruth.”

  “Hi, Mr. Whelan. What’ll it be?”

  “Coffee and a Denver omelet sandwich on whole wheat, to go.”

  “Why don’t you just say the usual?”

  “If I did, you’d act like you didn’t know what I was talking about. What’s new?”

  She gave him an impish smile. “I’m going to college.” She nodded in the general direction of Truman College, half a block away.

  “What are you taking?”

  “Business writing and Spanish.” She beamed.

  “Good for you. I keep saying I’m going to take Spanish someday.”

  She turned and poured his coffee into a brown ceramic cup. A shriveled old black man came to the counter holding out his cup, and she gave him an irritated look.

  “You gonna ask or you just gonna wave your cup in my face?”

  “Can I get some more coffee, please?” the old man said.

  She looked at Whelan and grinned. “Hear that? Somebody said ‘please.’ All right, sir, anything for a man that says ‘please.’ ” She glared at the other patrons in the smoky room. “The rest of you hear that?” she bellowed. “This man said ‘please.’ Make a note of it.” The construction workers laughed, and a tall thin man in coveralls muttered something inaudible and shook his head.

  “Burgers up,” the Greek said, and Ruth quickly took the four platters from the side of the grill.

  “Burgers!” she yelled, and four men approached from different directions.

  When she was writing up Whelan’s ticket he leaned forward.

  “I also want to ask you a couple of questions.”

  She looked up from behind the tinted glasses. “You want my phone number?”

  “I know where to find you.”

  “My old man will be a problem.” She winked. “But it’ll be worth your trouble.”

  “I have no doubt. Did you know Sam Burwell? Tall, pushing sixty, scar over this eye?” He pointed to his left eye.

  “I know who you
mean. That’s the one that got killed. No, I didn’t, not really. He came in here a few times but he didn’t say much.”

  “Anything you can tell me?”

  “Liked a lot of cream in his coffee. Liked to drink, but who doesn’t, around here? Liked ham sandwiches on rye. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “I was told he was seeing someone from here. A woman named Mary.”

  Ruth shook her head. “Don’t know anybody named Mary. Had that little bag lady used to stand outside and sing for money, but she died.”

  “Did you ever see him with a tall black woman?”

  “I saw him talking to a woman once or twice but she wasn’t tall. She’s just a little bitty woman. Light-skinned, kind of. Name’s Mattie. Haven’t seen her lately.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  She shook her head. He handed her his card. “Call me if she comes in. I need to talk to her.”

  She nodded and tucked the card into the pocket of her apron; then her boss yelled that the pork chop and the omelet were ready.

  “Pork chop up! Omelet!” she bawled out to the crowd.

  Whelan strolled back up Broadway toward the office. He waved at the two Iranians inside the House of Zeus, who beckoned madly until he held up his lunch. They shrugged and grinned.

  He was just sliding into his chair in the office when the phone rang.

  “You got busy, hon.”

  “Hello, Shel. Anybody calling to offer me money?”

  “Didn’t sound like money to me, baby, and I’d recognize it. You had a call from some old guy, sounded like he was dying.”

  “Dying?”

  “Oh, he wasn’t really dying, he was just real hoarse—like Mel Torme with tonsilitis.” She laughed.

  “Mel Torme with tonsilitis, huh? What did he say?”

  “He said he needed to talk to you about some things you were asking him. He didn’t say who he was, and he didn’t say what it was about. Helpful, huh?”

  “Maybe. Did he say he’d call back?”

  “No. I couldn’t hear him very well. He talked real low, and there was all kinds of traffic going by.”

  “Pay phone?”

  “Sounded like it. Know who he is?”

  “I think so. I just didn’t expect him to call me.”

  “See? Life is full of surprises. Also, you had a call from O.C. Brown. Said he had something interesting to tell you, so you should call him at his tavern.”

  “Thanks, Shel.”

  “Later, baby.”

  He ate half his sandwich and called Brown at the Blue Note. The old saloonkeeper picked up the phone on the second ring.

  “Yeah?”

  Whelan smiled into the phone. “Does somebody teach all tavern owners in the city to answer the phone the same way?”

  O.C. chuckled. “Hey, Whelan. You got my call?”

  “That I did. I understand you have something for me.”

  “Yeah. And that girl who answers your phone, ain’t she somethin’.”

  “That she is.” He could sense O.C. wrestling with the purpose of his call and decided to help him out. “How did the funeral go, nice turnout?”

  It was pretty fair, Whelan. Sam was well-liked. Lot of folk there, lot of folk I hadn’t seen in a long time. Couple of boys we used to run with in the old days. Buddy Lenz was there too. He’s down on his luck now, but he was there.”

  “Buddy Lenz?”

  “Yeah, he was the boy I told you about, white boy from the old days. Used to play drums in the clubs: good, too. Played with a couple of black bands and played with white groups, too. Sat in with Joe Witt, Floyd Garnet, Frank Rickert, all of ’em. Old friend of Sam’s. Now he’s a picker on Maxwell Street. I think he live on the street.” O.C. paused.

  “What does he look like?”

  “About my height, kinda bushy black hair, need a shave. Need a bath, too. Showed up in a sweatshirt. I think it’s all he’s got.”

  “I think maybe I’ve seen him.” Whelan waited a moment, then added, “Anybody you didn’t know?”

  There was a slight pause on the phone. “There was some folks from down there on Maxwell Street, people that knew him from there. Couple old men, they work down there, I guess.” O.C.’s voice dropped slightly. Whelan could picture him turning his back on his customers and hunching down over the phone.

  “Now I didn’t see nothing else, Whelan. But my man Winston say he saw a couple women there, keeping to themselves at the cemetery.”

  “You didn’t see them?”

  “Naw, I was up front by the casket. I was a pallbearer.”

  “Did he give you a description?”

  “He didn’t get a good look. But he said they were white.”

  Whelan thought for a moment. For the first time all week, he thought of the pair of women he’d talked to on Maxwell Street.

  “Thanks, O.C. Listen, does the name Mattie mean anything to you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay. And O.C.? Did the lawyer you saw at the wake show up at church?”

  “No, not the church. He come to the graveside, Whelan. When we come out of the little chapel there at the cemetery, I saw him. Standing back where nobody could talk to ’im. Like he didn’t want nothing to do with nobody there.”

  “That part’s probably true.”

  “Don’t know why he bothered to come.”

  “And there was nobody with him?”

  “Nope. Nobody.”

  Whelan shook his head. There was no reason to be surprised. It had been, after all, a long shot; there was no reason to believe Hill’s client was actually here in Chicago. Whelan thought for a moment, then said, “O.C., you said Sam roomed with somebody for a while, before he could get his own place. Henry something.”

  “Yeah, Henry Bridgeman.”

  “I’d like to talk to him. Got a number for him?”

  “He don’t have no phone. I can tell you where he live though. Down the street from the church there, Saint Anna’s.”

  “What’s the address?”

  O.C. chuckled. “Don’t need no address to find Henry’s place, Whelan. Only green house on the block. Damnedest color for a house I ever seen. He lives around back on the first floor.”

  “Well, I’ll drop by and see him tomorrow.”

  O.C. laughed again, this time a delighted cackle. “Good luck, Whelan.”

  “What for?”

  “Old Henry deaf as a stone, babe. He can’t hear my jukebox when he sitting next to it.”

  “Great.” O.C. was still chuckling when he hung up.

  The second call would have to be returned in person; the caller lived in a blue bus on Maxwell Street without a phone. That one could wait. The gentleman on the bus wasn’t going anywhere. Whelan went through the week’s mail and decided it was probably time to pay a few bills. It was nearly four when he finished.

  He drove south on Halsted through early rush hour traffic. At the intersection of Milwaukee, Grand, and Halsted, there was a gaper block as traffic from six directions slowed to watch two motorists rain punches on each other. Their vehicles sat a few feet away on Milwaukee—a rusted-out Mustang with its front end jammed into the side of a Chevy. The Mustang looked like a piglet attempting to nurse.

  When he got to Halsted and Roosevelt, he made a right and turned on Morgan. He pulled into the dusty vacant lot behind the police station and parked. A pair of old black men were going through a dumpster. One of them looked up at him briefly and then went back to sorting through the refuse.

  Whelan walked east to Halsted. The sky was already a dull purple, and behind him the sun had passed from view behind the buildings to the west.

  At Halsted and Liberty a generic fast-food place was still alive with late-afternoon business. According to an orange and white hand-lettered sign out front, the place sold burgers and Polish as well as fried chicken, ribs, rib tips, and hot links. The dumpsters behind the building lay on their sides and the dark, damp contents had spilled out into the o
pen, drawing the year’s last dark cloud of flies. The culprits in all this merriment stood a few yards away from the restaurant, a trio of small black boys, giggling and hooting and convulsing one another with what passes for wit when you’re ten. They looked eagerly at passersby, hoping for recognition, some acknowledgment from the adult world that they’d caused irritation for somebody.

  The chain-link gate to the tire yard was slightly ajar, as though to reassure him. The man and boy he’d spoken to the weekend before were long gone: they’d sell no tires tonight. Whelan walked in and looked around. Not the place he’d want to have for a front yard, but few people got to choose where they lived. In a city, your choice of neighborhood was largely an illusion. In Chicago, that choice was a joke: you picked your neighborhood on the basis of your race and your money. Even the rich were restricted by the demands of place, position, and image to a handful of communities.

  If you were a Maxwell Street picker in your seventies, having long since outlived family and friends, the long back seat in a blue bus was still a lot better than the alternatives. At least Nate didn’t live in a doorway or an appliance carton. The ones Whelan had just seen scouring the garbage for their next meal did not live anywhere. And according to an obscure but nonetheless binding law, they weren’t even full citizens: they had no vote. No home, no vote. Whelan shook his head. Guys living in roadside ditches in Mexico had the vote, but America was a more complicated piece of work.

  He walked quietly across the yard, past the black pyramids of used tires and the long sheets of polished hubcaps, to the bus and knocked at the opened door. There was no answer.

  “Nate? You in there, Nate? It’s Paul Whelan.”

  He heard a low grumble and realized that Nate had answered. Whelan grabbed onto the steel bars and climbed the high stairs into the bus. It was dark, and through the smells of grilled onions and cigarette smoke and sweat that he’d noticed before was a heavier, earthier smell: wood smoke. The smell of a man who has to warm himself over a wood fire in a steel drum. Cold was coming, the Hawk was blowing in, and men all over the city would soon have this smell to their clothing, their skin. Parking lot attendants and men who lived in doorways and the ones who stood in groups on street corners and construction workers on late-season projects: they would all smell this way.