The Talk Show Murders (7 page)

“Thursday afternoon.”

“From New York?”

I nodded.

“When was the last time you were in this city?”

“Three years ago, at roughly this same time. Maybe a month earlier. We take the show on the road every now and then.”

Bollinger stood up. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Blessing,” he said. “We may be contacting you again. If you think of anything that might help us, please give us a call.”

He handed me a white card with an embossed Chicago Police Department shield and his name, phone number, and email address. I put it in my coat pocket. I shook his hand, shook Detective Ruello’s hand, and watched them exit the tent.

Then I let out a breath I’d been holding.

My worry had been that they were sadistically letting me natter on about my innocent connection with Patton before hitting me over the head with his file on Billy Blanchard. That clearly hadn’t been the case.

But now I had to wonder where that file was.

Still hidden somewhere, on the cusp of being found by the police? Or worse yet, in the hands of the not-quite-deceased Polvere?

“Billy?”

Kiki was standing at the entrance to the tent, holding my cellphone. “Henry Julian,” she said.

The old man was calling from his late mother’s doughnut shop.

He’d heard the news of Patton’s murder and wanted to assure me he’d had nothing to do with it. “I won’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind, unnerstand,” he added. “But like I tole you, I don’t operate like that anymore. Seems to me the blackmailer wasn’t as smart as he thought himself.”

I said I agreed with him.

This was followed by a brief discussion of what the murder might mean to my survival rate. Henry understood, as did I, that unless the
file turned up, it probably meant that Mr. X had it. “You should be on your way home, Billy. Chicago’s still a tough town. Take more than eighty-ninety years of so-called law enforcement to change that.”

I explained that the show must go on. And since it would be here for the rest of this week and the next, so would I.

“Well, then, son, you better keep your eyes wide open and your powder dry.”

Lily Conover, my fashionista production partner on
Blessing’s in the Kitchen
, our weekly show on the Wine & Dine Network, had landed at O’Hare that morning. When she arrived at my hotel just before three, she was wearing a white blouse under what looked like tailored, formfitting orange bib overalls, cut off a few inches above knee-high white leather boots with high Cuban heels. This was topped off by large round sunglasses with thick white rims and a schoolgirl cap the same color as the overalls on her short-cropped blond hair.

“That outfit could get you shot in this town,” I said, as she hailed a cab.

“Oh, please. You’re going to talk to me about fashion, Billy? You, who walked around New York City wearing a gingerbread man suit, complete with chocolate buttons.”

Following her into the cab, I said, “It’s called Halloween on
Wake Up, America
! You might try watching the show sometimes.”

“Right,” Lily said. “And the show was over at nine, but you were still in the gingerbread suit at noon. I saw you walking down Seventh.”

“It was a zipper problem. Anyway—”

She interrupted me to tell the cabbie where we were headed.

It’s rare that Lily pays much attention when a restaurateur phones to suggest himself as a guest on our cable show. But this time her interest was piqued, and we were headed to Dann’s Sports Den on Clark Street to film a show that would feature its owner, Charlie Dann, the Puff Potato Man.

Dann had been a lineman for the Bears until his knee blew out in a game against Tampa in 1985. That was a great Super Bowl–winning year for the Bears. But a bittersweet one for Dann, who, after a few surgeries, wound up using a crutch for a while and walking with a limp thereafter.

His life in football ended, he and his wife, Gerta, now deceased, opened the eatery, where he used her family recipes to create an eclectic menu that included a unique air-filled crispy french fry that her mother had named the puff potato. It was not to be mistaken for a potato puff, which was heavier and less pastrylike. In any case, it became a staple of both the restaurant and the cocktail lounge, where, at happy hour, it was as popular as the third-martini-free option.

Dann greeted us at the door. He was a big man. Maybe not Refrigerator Perry big but high and wide enough to make me feel low and nearly narrow. In his sixties, he had the dry, wrinkled face and baggy-rimmed but clear eyes of a heavy drinker who’d been off the sauce for a while. He’d minimized the limp over the years but wasn’t able to hide it completely.

I knew from the moment we shook and he did not try to pulverize my hand that we would get along fine.

“Your guys got here a while ago,” he said to Lily. “They’re waiting in the office.”

She and Dann had already met. She’d headed to the Den directly from the airport to get the paperwork done and to suss out the possible logistics of the shoot. At that time, she’d also reminded the local two-man crew of the time and place. She’s nothing if not efficient.

The Puff Potato Man led us past a long polished bar that looked
like it belonged on the set of one of Randolph Scott’s better 1950s Westerns. Probably directed by Budd Boetticher. Behind it were a cheerful-seeming red-haired behemoth of a bartender, a huge mirror in an ornate frame, and about a hundred bottles of booze, plain and exotic, along with photos and trophies Dann had picked up during his salad days.

The remaining wall space was taken up by more photos, jerseys under glass, pressed
Chicago Trib
sports pages, and the inevitable giant TV monitors displaying videos of Bears games through the ages, the sound turned down to a whisper.

A couple of graying post–
Mad Men
types in business suits were sipping martinis and debating the relative merits of Walter Payton and Jim McMahon over Brian Urlacher and Devin Hester. One of them paused to question a pudgy young man with hooded eyes and what looked like a homemade crew cut, who was drinking something very brown from a tumbler. He was wearing denim pants, gym sneakers, a yellow T-shirt, and a black satin jacket that had a white onion in the alligator/polo player position over his heart.

He halted in the middle of an energetic response to the query and gawked at us. At me, actually. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but Dann moved us past him quickly.

My host took me through a door at the rear of the lounge into an efficient, clean kitchen, where chefs and staff were getting ready for the evening. Our destination was a small office beyond the kitchen, where the camera, sound, and lights duo Lily had hired awaited us amid more of Dann’s football-career memorabilia.

While the sound guy miked Dann and me, Lily outlined her basic plan: The cameraman would pick me up on Clark Street, heading for the Sports Den, and follow me in. Dann would greet me at the entrance to the lounge (avoiding the restaurant, which was, in Lily’s professional opinion, “CU,” or cinematically underwhelming).

The cameraman would reposition at the rear door of the lounge and tape us as we approached, staying with us while we entered the kitchen area and headed for the office. Then another repositioning to
the office door, looking in as Dann and I were seated, he at his desk, with me on the visitor’s chair.

They hadn’t done much to prepare the office. Just punched up the lighting and changed the position of my chair so that Dann and I would be facing each other.

And everything happened that way.

Then, with the camera and Lily’s hawklike eyes on us, we began our interview.

At one point, a pretty waitress arrived with a bowl of puff potatoes, two dipping sauces (one catsup-based and one avocado-based), and a sampling of Dann’s specially brewed pale lager. Both food and drink were pretty darn good.

And so was the interview, if I say so myself.

We went into the kitchen, where Dann took us through the preparation of the puff potato. Though he said he was showing us everything that went into the appetizer, my guess was that he’d probably kept mum on an ingredient or two responsible for his version’s unique taste.

We returned to the office for food talk, and I assisted him in blatantly plugging his establishment—we restaurateurs can be clubby—but the part of the interview that turned out the best involved his reminiscences of four years with the Bears.

I told him so once the camera and lights were turned off and the sound guy was removing the mikes and wires from their hiding places on our bodies.

“I love telling the stories,” he said. “I better. I been doing it for over twenty years.”

“Well, it was a pleasure,” I said, as we walked to the lounge.

“You ought to stick around, Billy. Check out our happy hour. In about twenty minutes this place is gonna be packed.”

I explained that Lily and the technicians would be staying for a bit. Just to pick up footage of the bar action, focusing on customers eating the puff potatoes. “Unfortunately, I’ve got to meet with my morning show producer.”

“Well, come back anytime.”

As we passed the bar, the young guy in the onion jacket hopped from his stool and stuck out his hand. “Hi,” he said to me. “I’m Jonny.”

I shook his hand. “Glad to meet you, Jonny. I’m Billy.”

“I know that. Billy Blessing.
Wake Up, America
! Weekday mornings at seven.
Blessing’s in the Kitchen
, Thursdays at nine-thirty p.m., Central Standard Time.”

“Billy, this is my … my sister’s boy, Jonny Baker,” Dann said, a bit sheepishly.

“I’m Jonny,” the young man repeated. His smile was friendly. His eyes were as guileless as a baby’s. “Jonny.”

“What’s the deal with the pearl onion, Jonny?” I asked.

He frowned and looked where I was pointing. When he saw the embroidered object, his face brightened. He turned around and showed me the back of the oversized jacket. It read: “
The Thief Who Stole Trump Tower
, an Onion City Entertainment.”

“You work with the company?” I asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I, ah … helped make the sets for the movies. I love movies. And television. Almost as much as the Bears.”

Dann gave me a tentative smile. “Jonny helped out with the sets. Nothing to piss off the union.”

“I’m a good carpenter. Right, Charlie?”

“Very good.”

“I saw you on
Midday with Gemma
, weekdays, noon, Central Standard Time,” Jonny said. “We watched because of Carrie.”

“Did you like the show?”

“Carrie is beautiful,” Jonny said. “And she’s nice. Not mean like Madeleine.”

“That’s enough, Jonny,” Charlie Dann said.

“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Jonny said.

The young man looked stricken. He took a backward step toward his bar stool.

“It’s okay, Jonny,” Dann said. “I didn’t …” He turned to the bartender. “J.R., Jonny can have another cola. In a full glass.”

“I heard you talking about the Bears, Jonny,” I said. “You sounded like a real fan.”

“Yes, I am,” Jonny said, smiling again. “Charlie takes me to the games at Soldier’s Field.”

“Soldier,” Dann corrected. “Jonny knows more about the stats than I do.”

The boy rewarded him with a proud smile. Then his attention was distracted by the bartender exchanging his small empty tumbler with a full glass of cola.

“So long, Jonny,” I said.

“Oh! Yeah. So long.”

“C’mon, I’ll walk you to the door,” Dann said.

Out of the boy’s earshot, he said, “Jonny doesn’t need a whole lot of supervision. Since my sister passed away, about five years ago, he usually spends time at home with the help or at his dad’s office, where he watches TV and his brother Dickie looks in on him from time to time. Today, something came up and Dickie wasn’t available.”

“What about Jonny’s dad?”

“Big Jon? The tycoon?” He grinned as if that was a joke. “He’s a little busy to be taking care of the kid. He’s in construction and real estate. Maybe you’ve seen the BDI sign on the building they’re putting up across the street. BDI is Baker’s Dozen Industries. Jon’s doing a lot more hustling these tight money days. But he finds the time for Jonny. He should be here any minute to pick him up.”

“Jonny seems to like it here,” I said.

“And I like having him around. He’s a good kid. Only … he’s not a kid. He’s twenty-six.”

“Seems pretty good-natured,” I said.

“Yeah. Dickie could use some of that.” He frowned. “Sorry. Dickie’s just a little too … intense. But Jonny, he likes people.”

“Except for Madeleine. Whoever she is.”

“Madeleine Parnelle. Her husband writes the
Thief Who
books. What I’ve seen of her, I can’t fault Jonny on that one. Mother Teresa woulda been hard-pressed.”

We were at the door. A few happy-hour customers were straggling
in. They were all in their twenties. They seemed to know Dann, who gave them a wink or a pat on the back.

“The Parnelles eat here often?” I asked.

“Never been in, thank God. Oh, the husband seems okay, if a little distracted, you know what I mean. Like he’s got his mind on some other game. The wife makes up for it. She’s a real presence. A capital B-I-T-C-H. Treats him like shit, and just about everybody else worse than that. I’d as soon my staff not have to take her kind of crap. Work is hard enough.”

“You know the Parnelles from …?”

“I first caught their act at a party at Derek Webber’s. You know, the Instapicks guy.”

I did know. Webber was one of the current Internet gazillionaires. He chaired an assortment of multinational electronic commerce companies. The biggest was a website called Instapicks that had started out a decade ago as a movie rental-sales operation but now sold everything pertaining to the entertainment world, from MP3s to home theaters (“Why settle for Netflix when you can Instapicks?”).

“I wasn’t aware Webber lived here in Chicago,” I said.

“Oh, yeah.” He paused to welcome two striking young female customers.

“Webber’s operation is out in Shamberg,” he said, when I had his attention again. “But he lives in this mansion on North State Parkway, a block down from the Hefner place. He’s the guy behind Onion City Entertainment, producing the
Thief Who
movie. That’s what the party was for, to hustle local businessmen to invest in the flicker.”