Windy City Blues (10 page)

Maybe it was the lighting, but Palmer looked less burdened than I remembered. And if you stamped his net worth across that shiny billboard of a forehead, I could imagine some women even finding him quite attractive.

I said, “What brings you to this part of town?”

“After visiting with you at Mocha Mouse,” Palmer said, “I decided I needed to learn more about the city, explore the nooks and crannies of its many neighborhoods. Working and living downtown offers a restricted view. But I wanted to tell you I received a phone call from a Mr. Ellis Knight. Quite the excitable type. He mentioned you repeatedly. He didn’t seem to want information so much as to remind me of some deal he had made with you.”

I apologized for Knight’s intrusion and gave Palmer an abbreviated version of the events surrounding my first murder case two months ago. He seemed amused.

“I admire his passion,” Palmer said of Knight.

For the second time in an hour, I reiterated the facts. “Somebody from Windy City wrote fraudulent tickets to help frame Baxter,” I said. “What could this have to do with Konigson telling you to spike the Gelashvili story?”

Palmer blinked a few times and said slowly, “The Republic Media Group used to own Windy City Meters LLC. Konigson sold it to an investment bank a few years ago to lighten the
Republic
’s debt.”

“So the company wasn’t profitable? Otherwise, why would he sell it?”

“I couldn’t say,” he said, meaning he didn’t know.

I stared at Palmer. “What does this all mean?”

He returned the stare. “I don’t know.” There. He said it.

Another one of those moments when something so glaring shrieked for attention yet the significance remained just out of reach. Palmer told me the investment bank Decatur-Staley paid the city a billion dollars for the right to collect meter revenue for seventy-five years and then two months later sold their stake for twelve billion to a group of investors somewhere in the Middle East. My brain glazed over as Palmer utilized his vast tax-loophole knowledge to drag me through the weeds of corporate accounting trickery.

I interrupted to steer him back to the headless corpse of Jack Gelashvili. Then my phone rang with Kalijero’s number in the display. I answered, saying, “How come I gotta find out from a couple of malingering cops that you put in for retirement?”

“Don’t tell me I hurt little Jules’s feelings!” Kalijero said. “I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You are truly one heartless, unfeeling American.”

“They found a body in a Budlong Woods apartment building. I’ve been asked to check it out. I want you to be the first to know that it’s probably my last case. Feel better? Now, what was that suspect’s name again?”

Gordon Baxter’s sheet-covered body lay on the gurney as the paramedics pushed it toward the ambulance. In the lobby, a couple of uniformed officers chatted with residents. To add to the squalor, from an open door down the hall, a baby wailed. I spoke to another officer standing outside the door of apartment G6. He repeated my name to Kalijero, who waved me in and pointed to a spot just outside the bathroom, where I was to remain while he talked with a curly-haired man sporting a pencil mustache and holding a large metal ring loaded with keys. I assumed he was the building super. Yellow tape crisscrossed the bathroom doorway. A crime scene investigator collected fibers with a tweezers. Then he spread powder on the desk, chair, and keyboard before turning on an ultraviolet light. Powder had already been applied throughout the bathroom. On the sink sat a plastic pill dispenser with compartments labeled for each day of the week.

The super walked with an obvious limp. I pushed my back against the wall to give him more room. He was barely a foot away as he passed but said nothing despite looking directly into my eyes. Kalijero motioned me over. “When were you last in this apartment?” he said.

“So Baxter really was under surveillance?”

“You left your card here, idiot.”

Oh, yeah. “Yesterday, a couple of hours after I talked to you. First I went to Reilly’s and spoke to Calvo and Baker.”

“You realize you’re now part of my investigat
ion.”

I waited for a sign of jest. “Screw you, Jimmy! I told you yesterday I was going to try to find this guy. I can prove he was a legitimate suspect—”

“Calm the hell down, private dick. I’m just saying if there are other forces at work here, you’ve got to watch where you leave your scent. Think before you go tossing your card around.”

“Of course you’re right. Now that you mention it, I should’ve
anticipated
Baxter getting killed.”

Kalijero scratched his head. “Right now, it looks like he OD’d. We’ll have to wait for the toxicology report.”

“Of course, and I’m sure it was
accidental
.”

“Detective?” The CSI knelt at the head of the bed, holding a pillow in one hand while pointing with the other to some kind of bracelet wrapped around a note.

Kalijero carefully removed the piece of paper without touching the string beads. He looked the note over and then began reading aloud. “ ‘The voices told me to do it. I couldn’t help it. I tried resisting, but they pushed and pushed until I could take it no longer. They told me someone had to pay. They targeted me so now I should target them. Why not kill the one who lived in my building? That would be the easiest way. But after I killed him, I knew I had to offer my life to balance out the good with the bad.’ ”

Kalijero put the note down and looked at me. I said, “I don’t know what’s more full of shit, that note or that crying kid’s diaper down the hall. That guy had trouble putting three words together, much less holding a pencil for that long.”

“Writing is a different brain function,” Kalijero said. “What do you know about that bracelet?”

I told Kalijero that Baxter’s car had been issued tickets over a ten-mile radius yet the odometer had moved only three miles. The significance evaded him.

“What do you know about the bracelet?” he repeated.

I sat on the bed and stared at the wooden beads. My brain flashed back to my first conversation with Tamar when she told me about a bracelet of prayer beads Jack always wore.

“It’s Jack Gelashvili’s bracelet, here to leave no doubt that Baxter killed Gelashvili. What a crock.”

Kalijero’s eyes searched my face. “When you come up with something better, let me know.” He started toward the door then stopped short. “And did it ever occur to you that the odometer might be broken?”

At the bakery, I found Tamar taking a break at one of the customer tables.

“You just missed the post-lunch, sweet-tooth-madness rush,” she said.

I took a seat facing the only occupied booth. “I see the twins, Boris and Vlad, are here,” I said, referring to the two gangsters in leather jackets.

Tamar turned. “I guess so,” she said.

“You had told me Jack wore a bracelet?”

“A
chotki
. It’s like the Eastern Orthodox version of a rosary.”

“They’re made with wooden beads?”

“More often they’re made with rope knots. His had wooden beads. Why are you asking?”

“The creepy laundry room guy that I told you was not a suspect? He was just found dead in his apartment. Under his pillow was a suicide-murder confession note and a bracelet with wooden beads.”

“So he
did
kill Jack?”

I told her about Baxter’s outbursts at parking officers occurring on the same days his medication mysteriously failed. “He didn’t kill anybody.”

Tamar rested her forehead on the heels of her hands. “Okay. What’s next?”

“Did you know the parking meters were privatized?”

“Oh, sure. We paid close attention to that because we weren’t sure how it would affect Jack’s job. But after the transition, nothing seemed to change.”

“All of Baxter’s tickets were written by officers working for Windy City Meters, which had been owned by the Republic Media Group. A few years ago the Republic Media Group sold the company to an investment bank. Remember that reporter who interviewed you? Did you ever wonder why the published story in the
Republic
was really just a glorified obit? The CEO of the Republic Media Group, a guy named Konigson, called the city editor and told him to chop it down to a few sentences. He didn’t want to draw attention to your cousin’s murder.”

I watched Tamar attempt to process my words. “Are you saying this CEO had something to do with Jack’s death?” Tamar let her head fall over the chair’s backrest. We sat in silence. It was a comfortable silence. “Why do people kill?” Tamar asked the ceiling. “For money or love,” she answered and then lifted her head back up. “The only money Jack made was for the city. Many times his salary in parking citations. He gave his life for the city.”

I said, “And the ungrateful city never thanked you or offered you a flag.” I then asked Tamar to have dinner with me.

“Not tonight,” she said, and I felt like a jackass. I still didn’t know how to ask a woman out without sounding like an idiot. “I need to finish up in the back and give my neighbor a break from my aunt.”

Tamar said goodbye and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me alone with my insecurities.

Relaxing with a can of sugar-free root beer, I pondered rejection but still anticipated Tamar’s voice when the phone rang. Instead, Frownie cloaked me in his rich Chicago inflection. “Julie? Whaddya know, kid?”

That this familiar voice emerged from the cadaverous bag of bones I had seen two days earlier seemed impossible.

“Now that I know you’re back on a murder case, I gotta call you. I don’t want to be a pain in the ass, but lyin’ around this bed all day I got nothin’ to do but think.”

“Frownie, you know you can call me anytime. But I don’t have anything solid. Just a lot of disconnected facts.”

“Bullshit! There’s always somethin’. You got facts? Then you got somethin’. What about the newspaper editor? Don’t tell me he’s already dead.”

“Nope. Alive and well.”

“Tell ’im to get lost. For his own good. Stickin’ his nose in others’ financial dealin’s gets you dead.”

I told Frownie about Baxter’s frame-up and “suicide” and that Konigson’s Republic Media Group had once owned the company that now controlled the parking meters and employed their own ticketing deputies.

“All roads lead to money—you know that! Investigation 101. The money that paid the killer, the money to be grabbed by the crime, the people whose money was protected by makin’ someone dead. The people who might get more money because the guy was dead. Make up a story and check it out. Investigate—”

Frownie dropped the phone. I heard lots of coughing, hacking, and sputtering. Then, like magic, he returned to his old form. “Listen, you got anyone on the inside yet?”

“I think Kalijero’s on board. You know, he’s developed a real soft spot for you. He wants to know how you’re feeling.”

“Ain’t that typical? When you’re still young enough to take a chunk outta someone’s ass, guys like that Greek bastard hate you and want you out of the way ’cause they’re the police, the real good guys. Then when you’re old and crippled, they start with the sentimental bullshit. Tell him I remember how much of an asshole he was and that he can go rot in hell.”

“I thought we all got a little more nostalgic as we got older.”

Frownie groaned as if in pain. “Ah, hell. I got no use for nostalgia or guys who wallow in it. Waste of time. Just live your damn life and don’t cry over the past.”

I wondered how long a strong spirit could keep a body alive. There was nothing left to the guy, just parched skin shrink-wrapped over sinewy muscle fibers. Yet at the top of this fossil, brain neurons fired away as if arrogantly demonstrating their disdain for that useless, shriveled body attached to it. Frownie would never die, regardless of what happened to his body.

While Punim dined on hearts, livers, and kidneys, I ran down to Tasty Harmony and bought a grilled zucchini, pesto, and portobello sandwich. I kicked back and ate while thinking that all I really needed in life was a Tasty Harmony close by and a comfortable lounge chair. Good food did wonders for my attitude. My thoughts drifted to my conversation with Frownie and then to the two short-timer detectives who had been “assigned” to the Gelashvili murder. Now that their number one suspect had conveniently confessed in a suicide note, I wondered if their retirement party had been scheduled. I wondered what kind of bonus they got for their brilliant non-surveillance.

I answered the phone, mildly annoyed by the interruption but thrilled to hear Tamar’s voice. “Why don’t I come over tomorrow night and make dinner?” she said.

In that instant, any residual feelings of stupidity stemming from my date request vanished.

I’d always heard bars like Reilly’s never really closed, and when I found it open at nine
A.M
., I thought it was probably true. Inside, a fifty-something woman dressed professionally in a blouse and skirt sat at the bar reading a newspaper under a desk lamp connected to an extension cord. What looked like a glass of tomato juice sat in front of her on a paper napkin. I recognized the geezer sitting at a table staring out the window as the bartender.

“Good morning,” the woman said and smiled warmly. “Can I help you with something?”

I introduced myself and told her I was looking for a couple of police detectives I had spoken with two days earlier. “We’re collaborating on a case.”

She laughed. “I’m Elaine and this is a good place to start, depending on how long they’ve been cops. You won’t find many officers with less than twenty years on the force hanging out here.” She had one of those personalities that instantly exuded kindness.

“I’m going to guess you’re the daughter of a cop.”

“That’s a good guess, but I’m actually the daughter of the man who first opened Reilly’s.”

This intrigued me. “Okay, give me another try. When you were a child, this place was like a second home and you grew up knowing all the cops that hung out here and they treated you like an adopted daughter.”

“That’s true! But it wasn’t just cops back then. This used to be where all the machinists in the neighborhood came after their shifts ended.” She sipped her drink and laughed. “Or before their shifts started.”

I said, “Gradually, automation and cheap labor overseas closed the shops and changed the neighborhood.”

“Yep. The cops stayed loyal to my dad, but after he died, a lot of the original crowd started retiring and moving away.”

“Why do you keep it open?”

“I own the building and don’t need to do much. I’m a Realtor by trade.” She pointed at the old guy. “Billy over there runs the place. I promised Dad I would take care of him. As you can see, the neighborhood is becoming more well-to-do, so I’ll probably shut it down soon and either sell the building or lease it out. Which cops are you looking for?”

“Detectives Calvo and Baker.”

Elaine took another sip of tomato juice. “I know them. They’re both about to retire. Kind of a dopey duo. A pair of clichés—you know what I mean?”

“I was told they got a couple of months left before calling it quits.”

Elaine gulped down the rest of her juice and then carefully pressed the napkin against her lips. “I don’t think that long,” she said. From underneath the newspaper she pulled out an appointment book and began paging through it. Most of the dates were filled with addresses all over the North Side. One date was circled in red. “Yeah, they want to use this place for a private party next week. Retirement party.”

Elaine shut the appointment book and eyed me knowingly. “I can hear the little wheels in your head spinning, private investigator.”

“I’d call you a sharp dame, but we both realize how cliché
that
would sound.”

Elaine laughed. “Nowadays, most private investigators are retired cops. A bright, nice-looking kid like you with a North Shore accent collaborating with a couple of goldbricking buffoons like Calvo and Baker? You want something from them. Now you got me curious.”

She turned to face me and crossed her legs. Had she been the offspring of educated professionals, she would have been a successful corporate attorney or college professor. But as a bartender’s daughter, her intellect would have to first fight through the affections of big-city cops and machine-shop serfs before seeing opportunity in real estate.

“A man they had under surveillance as a prime suspect confessed to the murder in his suicide note. I have a feeling a retirement bonus was paid for not noticing anything suspicious leading up to the suicide.”

Elaine frowned. “Well, that’s a convenient way to declare a case closed.” There was a pause in the conversation before Elaine said, “I may be able to help you. Give me one of your cards.” I did as told and watched her put it in a Fendi wallet. “I have a side business,” Elaine said. “I use one of my properties to introduce people.”

We locked eyes for an instant. I nodded. “Like a dating service,” I said.

“Yes, like a dating service. A high-end dating service. One does not have to worry about being rejected. Everyone wins.”

“Thank you for the offer, but—”

“No!” Elaine laughed loudly and gave my hand a squeeze. “That’s not what I meant! I believe there is a detective you are looking for who has recently been utilizing my service. Should I notice an impending appointment, I could give you a call, and, perhaps, you might just find him in an agreeable mood to answer all of your questions.”

I thanked Elaine for her generosity and told her I understood the importance of repaying favors.

At The Chicago Diner, I indulged in thoughts irrelevant to the case as I ate a banana coconut muffin and then an apple cider muffin. A few blocks away, Wrigley Field sat empty, as it had every October since 1945. I wondered if the North Side would ever experience a World Series during my lifetime. I was also conscious of hearing the opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth. Then I remembered my new ringtone.

“Yeah, it’s Rich Jones, the parking officer. Can we talk?”

“Sure, Rich. You don’t sound so good. You want me to call a cop?” I was half serious.

“No, no, no, no, I just remembered something, that’s all. And I wanted to tell you about it.”

After suggesting we meet at the Kutaisi Georgian Bakery, I arrived there half an hour later to once again see the white van double-parked, pissing people off. This time I stopped to study the decal, but apart from the letters “IIPD” above a bald eagle holding a snake in its mouth, I learned nothing new. Once inside, I saw Jones in street clothes waving at me from a table near the far corner. His face looked more drawn than I remembered, his eyes more sunken. A large glass of water sat in front of him. Another waited for me. Tamar was nowhere to be seen.

“Want something to eat?” I said.

“Huh? No, not hungry.” He wiped his nose with a napkin.

I sat. “Allergies still bothering you?” He nodded. “Today your day off?”

“Huh? Yeah, sort of.”

His eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilated. “Rich, relax, man. You look as gray as your hair.”

“I didn’t tell you everything. About Jack, I mean.”

He reminded me of a panicked kid who’d just broken a window. “So tell me. I won’t be mad, I promise.”

Jones took a deep breath. I thought he was about to talk but instead he took another deep breath. On the third try, after exhaling, he laid his torso on the table and sobbed into his folded arms.

“What is it?” I asked. “C’mon, Rich, whatever it is I’m sure we can work it out. I’ll help you, man. I know you’re a good guy.”

It took a few minutes but he managed to sit up and dry his tears on his sleeve. “I think it might be my fault Jack’s dead.”

I waited a couple beats. “You didn’t kill anybody, Rich. Don’t give me that crap.”

“But I think it’s my fault.”

“Tell me why you think it’s your fault. Take your time. Start from the beginning.”

One last deep breath, then, “I’m the longest-serving parking officer. The supervisors kind of look to me, you know? I train new officers. I let them know when someone has a bad attitude or a problem at home. I don’t snitch, though. I would just say that I thought someone wasn’t very happy or didn’t take the job seriously, and they would ask me to get that person right or maybe suggest they get a new job or whatever.” Jones gulped down half the glass of water.

“So one day the boss called me to his office, which was weird because I’d never even talked to the guy before. And he started saying how he was trying to avoid budget cuts and the department wanted to try to hire foreigners because they’d work for less. And I asked him how he could get away with that, and he said he already had gotten away with it and pointed out that Jack was working for like half the wage of everyone else and nobody cared. And since he knew my neighborhood had a lot of Mexicans, he asked if they spoke English good enough for this job.” Jones chugged the rest of the water.

“Your boss wanted you to recruit foreigners to save money on wages?”

“Yeah. But he was, like,
ordering
me to do it. Then he said it was more than just the budget, that he needed cheap labor to prevent my job from being ‘outsourced.’ Then he started asking how my kids were doing, you know? So I started getting scared. Because at my age, I don’t want to be looking for a job and lose my health insurance. I told him I would do my best, and he patted me on the back and said he trusted me not to go telling everyone because he didn’t want the papers and TV to get a story and have all them community organizers screaming about discrimination or this and that.”

“Your boss told you to get cheap officers or you and your family might end up on the street.”

Jones looked at me, wavered a bit. Then he said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But I started getting mad. My wife kept telling me to play but I got madder and madder. I got a lot of Mexican friends in my neighborhood. They just want a better life. But goddamn it, why do they work cheap? You know?”

“Bring this back to Jack’s murder.”

“My brain starts taking off with crazy ideas. And I remember seeing on TV stories of terrorist bombs in Russia blowing up all over the place and that they were planted by mafia guys where Jack came from and how powerful and crazy those mafia guys were over there.”

I thought of asking about the Russian woman Jones had set up with Jack, but then remembered Frownie’s best advice—don’t trust anyone. “That was the
Chechen
mafia from
Chechnya,
not Georgia, but go on.”

“Oh, okay. But then some guys were talking about Jack being connected to the Russian mob. I asked them about it and they laughed. They said they heard it somewhere else but thought it was a joke. But I get this idea to start playing up the rumors that Jack is part of that mafia group and he’s here to get connections so that he can send money and guns back over there. So I thought as nutty as it might’ve sounded, maybe I could get Jack canned and maybe change the attitude about hiring foreigners. That’s what I thought, but I think maybe I just wanted to hurt someone because I was so pissed off. I didn’t like that he undercut our wages by working cheap.”

“So who killed Jack Gelashvili?”

“One day Jack came to me and wanted to talk. And that’s really weird, because he didn’t talk to anyone. I mean he didn’t just chat about life and all. But he told me the boss took him out to lunch. Jack’s English was not that good. But what I got was that the boss wanted to know about where Jack was from. And I think he tried to explain how things worked in Chicago—in the slimeball politician kind of way. So even though he wasn’t sure what the guy was saying, I guess he just went along. And then the boss met with him again, and showed him pictures of dollar signs with arrows going here and there. Jack kept repeating ‘money this money that.’ I think he was offering Jack some kind of deal.”

Jones took out a wad of tissue and began a cavalcade of nose blowing dissonance. I turned away from the noise and was instantly charmed to see several young teens of differing skin shades, clearly enjoying themselves around a table full of baked goodies.

After Jones finished, I turned back to him and said, “You think this rumor made its way to a city big shot who wanted your boss to get Jack as a contact with the Russian mafia?”

“Yeah. Something like that. But then a few weeks before his death, Jack came to me all freaked out and showed me an envelope stuffed with cash. ‘What to do! What to do!’ he kept saying, and he jammed the envelope into my pocket and backed away shouting, ‘You take! You take!’ I just stood there watching him. I figured the money got passed down from up top. But what do I do with it? If I take it to the boss, he’s gonna know Jack was talking to me. And then what?”

“Where’s the money now?”

“I—I hid it.”

“You think Jack was killed because of the rumor you started?”

“They found out he wasn’t connected. They had shown him stuff about the city he should not have seen.”

His scenario seemed plausible although the simplicity of the events troubled me. But under the right circumstances, rumors often took on lives of their own, and this kind of conspiracy fit the tangled world of politics, money, and media empire pricks like Konigson.

“When you told me about Baxter, did you really think he could’ve been the killer?”

“Yeah, until those two detectives told us to shut up about him. That made me wonder. And something else I should’ve mentioned. It was the tow truck guys that put Baxter’s car back in the same spot. They would just drive around until Baxter was hauled off and then re-park his car.”

“You know Baxter is dead, right? Overdosed?” I didn’t mention the suicide note. If he knew about it, there was more he wasn’t telling me.

Jones looked confused. “Wow. What does that mean?”

“It means nothing. Starting rumors about people isn’t cool, but you are not responsible for Jack’s death. If anything, you’re helping me find his killer. In the meantime, just go about your business. If your boss, uh—what the hell’s his name?”

“Robertson.”

“What is he, a sergeant?”

“Civilian.”

“A civilian working for the CPD?”

“Department of Revenue.”

“You guys don’t work for the cops?”

“We work
with
the cops but
for
the Department of Revenue.”

Strange. I thought about my first conversation with Kalijero regarding Gelashvili. I had said Jack “worked for the police department” and Kalijero had not corrected me. Maybe he didn’t know.