Windy City Blues (11 page)

Jones appeared calmer when he left the bakery, although I feared he could easily swing back into doom and gloom. One of the ladies behind the counter told me Tamar had the day off. I thought of calling to make sure she knew the way to my apartment but realized how stupid that sounded.

I drove east on Devon to Broadway, where I started snaking toward the lake on my way downtown. Just as I merged onto Lake Shore Drive, Kalijero called.

“Toxicology confirmed overdose,” Kalijero said.

“Who do the parking officers work for?”

“What? The police—I think. When I started, they worked for the police. Then they put them somewhere else. I don’t know. Nobody ever knows who the hell they work for. Did you hear me? Toxicology—”

“Department of Revenue. Overdose of what?”

“What difference does it make? He took too much and died.”

“What’s more useless than a short-timer cop? Couldn’t you have at least verified the drugs were for schizophre
nics?”

“He intentionally took too much of some goddamn drug and he’s dead!”

“How the hell do you know it was intentional? How do you know he didn’t unknowingly take a drug someone put in those capsules?”

Either the signal dropped or Kalijero was developing a behavioral problem with cell phones.

Light traffic allowed an easy drive to Monroe Street. From there I weaved my way to the concrete chasm of LaSalle Street, where I parked at a standard coin-op meter. After loading it up with all the silver in my pocket, I set my sights on city hall, a pretentious neoclassical structure arrogant enough to incorporate an entire city block. I explored the lobby of white marble, gaudy electrical appliances, and numerous bronze tablets honoring long-forgotten political hacks, before finding the Department of Revenue on the first floor. In the waiting area, a morbidly obese man wearing a bright orange vest sat on a folding chair. He cheerfully said “Hi!” and waved as if he were the greeter at Walmart. On his baseball cap, a large button read, “Ask Me About Paying Parking Tickets!”

I asked directions to the administrative offices, and he pointed to a television on the counter of the deserted reception desk showing a woman frozen in time by the pause button. I looked back at the man. He nodded enthusiast
ically. I thanked him, walked to the reception desk, and after pushing the play button watched the woman on the television explain how to pay bills using the Internet, pay-station machines, or with a customer-service representative located down the hall. I turned and saw only a wall with the mayor’s portrait, then noticed an opening set forward about ten feet. The “hall” appeared more like a short passageway to a crowded section of what reminded me of a gigantic Vegas casino. In addition to the multitude standing in a roped-off corridor facing a row of customer-service tellers, pay-station machines along the walls commanded lines ten people deep. Armed security guards roamed about. At that moment, I realized the so-called hallway was really an enormous metal detector.

I remained on the periphery of the patrons and observed the machines sucking in bills of varying denominations through metal slots. Those waiting in line revealed no emotion other than boredom or resignation. Some absentmindedly rolled and unrolled thick wads of cash in their hands while others re-counted what they were about to forfeit.

I repositioned myself against the wall near the end of the teller row. From there I obtained an interesting perspective on checks, credit cards, and driver’s licenses being pushed back and forth under thick plastic windows. The continual movement of paper and plastic from one hand to another entranced me. Every transaction represented money flowing from one bank account to another, five days a week, eight hours a day but available twenty-four-seven on the Internet.

Several security guards opened a route to one of the pay stations. An armed Bankroll Warranty driver followed and set up a curtain around the back of the machine. Minutes later, he was escorted out pushing a dolly cart piled with money bags.

About thirty yards behind “teller row,” a line of desks spread out evenly across the room, each commanding a queue of Chicagoans waiting to visit with a department agent. I walked closer and observed the troubled faces of shabbily dressed citizens. A man spilled the contents of a coffee can onto an agent’s desk and then stood and pulled his trouser pockets inside out. The agent leaned back and crossed her arms while the man pled his case. I caught enough words to surmise the man wanted his car back.

At another desk, a young woman signed documents with the help of the agent’s pointing finger. There must have been a dozen or more pages, each requiring several signatures. Unlike the others, her expression and body language did not betray a sense of doom. At one point she looked up and laughed, provoking a similar response from the agent.

When she stood and reached across the desk to shake hands, I hurried back toward the exit and waited for her to approach. “Can you tell me what happens with those people sitting at the desks?” I said.

She gave me a curious look. “That’s where you go when they’ve held your car for two months because you haven’t paid what you owe the city.”

“I happened to notice you were signing a lot of documents.”

“Yeah, that’s my payment plan.”

“Can anyone choose that?”

“I think it depends. We just bought a new car. We didn’t know all our unpaid tickets would transfer to it. As soon as we got our plates, they towed it. We got a huge loan to buy our dream car, and then the city said we owed them eight thousand in tickets and fines.”

“So it’s like having two car payments.”

She giggled. “Except the city offered us a great deal. For a slightly lower interest rate, they bought out our loan and added in the eight grand.”

I thought she was kidding. “You mean the city is financing your car? Can a city do that?”

Loud laughing. “Well, someone’s financing the car. Can a city do that? I don’t even care anymore. I just want my 650i convertible back!” More laughing.

“Why is this funny?”

She shrugged. “It’s just the way things are. You can fight it or accept it. Start fighting, and it just costs you more money. Luckily we can afford this life. I don’t know how the others do it.” I thought most of the “others” probably did not “do it.”

I walked back to the row of desks and joined one of the lines. I pondered the woman’s comment about being able to “afford this life.” There was a cheerful capitulation in her voice, as if the merging of private banking and government was simply part of a natural evolutionary process. When my turn finally arrived, I sat across from a pleasant-looking African American woman with kind eyes who introduced herself as Evelyn. Evelyn asked how I was and what she could help me with.

I tried to talk but started laughing. I apologized. “Does the city really help people reclaim their vehicles by financing them?”

“We offer payment plans to qualifying individuals. Was your car impounded?”

“But how can this be? I mean, what gives the city the right to loan taxpayers’ money to make a profit?”

“Oh, there’s no profit for the city. It’s just a way to help individuals get their cars back.” Evelyn rested her elbows on the desk and interlaced her fingers.

“Then what’s the interest rate for?”

As if reading from a script she said, “The interest rate helps the city recoup administrative costs associated with processing the vehicles. This also helps eliminate the need to raise taxes to cover those costs. In fact, the city was able to decrease the total sales tax from 10.25 percent to 9.75 percent thanks in part to the payment plan program. Now, sir, do you have an impounded vehicle I can help you with?”

Her kind eyes had acquired a sharpness, as had her voice. “How can I find out how much money the city earned from interest?”

“Requests should be made with the Department of Revenue. Sir, there are people waiting—”

“Who’s the boss of the Department of Revenue?”

“That would be Mr. Elon—”

“How can I speak to Mr. Elon?”

She must have activated an alarm with her foot because I never saw her hands leave the desk. How else could I explain a security guard’s sudden appearance and polite offer to escort me out of the room?

Because of my family’s connection to “Boss” politics and Prohibition corruption, it seemed ironic that city hall’s ubiquitous power had a chilling effect on me. I exited the marble lobby onto LaSalle Street and thought of all that money flowing as green as the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day. Such a lame metaphor would have provoked an angry lecture from Frownie, who would remind me how nothing had really changed in a hundred or more years and I should know better.

The orange envelope under my wiper blade did not register in my brain until I saw a small, stocky man lumbering ahead about thirty yards from where my meter flashed “expired.” He cautiously planted each step as if walking on ice. The back of his jacket read “WCM PEA.” I caught up to him and said, “I put at least three dollars in that meter.” The elderly Hispanic man finished printing his current ticket and looked at me. I pointed to my car and repeated my grievance.

He slowly maneuvered himself around and started trudging back toward my car. I felt guilty for making the guy retrace his steps and thought it better to stay at his side than race ahead and wait. The challenge of maintaining such a slow, deliberate gait had never occurred to me. It was like trying to keep pace with a three-toed sloth.

When we reached my car, the man pointed to the flashing red display.
“Terminado,”
he said.

“I put
mucho dinero
.”

“Treinta minutos solo.”

“Thirty minutes?
Dondé
thirty minutes?”

The man looked closely at my meter, walked to the next meter, then pointed at a white sticker under the display screen that indicated a thirty-minute maximum. Stunned at the unabashed dishonesty of an absent sticker and the meter’s acceptance of an unlimited amount of coins, I could do nothing more than smile and nod at the man, who then reciprocated with a friendly nod of his own before lumbering away.

My Civic crawled southbound on Clark Street. The damage that lunchtime traffic inflicted upon my clutch irritated me. I winced every time I stepped on the pedal.

Twenty minutes later, I pushed open the front door to my Old Town office building. As I rounded the third flight, I was sorry to see Ellis Knight sitting cross-legged on the landing a few feet in front of my office door. I stepped over him and searched my pocket for the key. Once inside, I sat down and extended the footrest of my executive chair. Knight stood in front of my desk, holding a notepad. How I hated his idiotic grin.

“Are you tailing me, Ellis?”

“Real talk, feel me, bro. Rich Jones told me about your conversation—”

“How the hell do you know Jones?”

“I got sources. Ya dig?”

“I guess you don’t care about protecting your sources.”

“Not when I’m paying them.”

“You
paid
Jones to tell you about our conversation?”

“Ain’t no big dilly! But that Jones dude is bent. He’d do anything for a few bills. I’d be careful around his ass if I were you.”

“What do you want?”

“The mental dude that topped himself. I want his story.”

“When I solve the case, you get the story. That’s the deal.”

“This could be a good teaser. Ya know? Mental dude punked into murdering neighbor.”

“That’s fiction, idiot. But that’s what you are, a fiction writer.”

“Ease up! I mean, we’re as good as fam, you know? I gave you the reporter dude Peter Ross, and that’s what lit the fire!”

Knight was toying with me. The North Shore brat with a genius IQ and Daddy’s money really did have connections. I couldn’t afford not to keep him around, and this fact formed a knot in my stomach.

“Here are the facts,” I said, giving Knight a simple sketch of the subject’s life and death, but omitting names, contradictory details, and suspiciously convenient evidence. “Go write a story.”

Knight looked up from his notepad. He had that cocky look, as if I had unwittingly given everything away. Of course, he knew more than he let on. Or that’s what he wanted me to think.

“Thanks, bro. I’ll go check some vital records and no doubt I’ll have loads of info for a totally sick article.”

He dashed out like a little boy given a dollar for candy. I looked at the yellow legal pad with yesterday’s flow chart and turned over a new page. At the top I drew a box around Gelashvili’s name and at the bottom a box around Konigson’s name. In the middle they would meet in a box of their own—somehow. Gelashvili had lines connected to the dead schizophrenic, Baxter; the two detectives, Calvo and Baker; parking officer Jones; and now the deputy director of the Department of Revenue, Elon. The world wasn’t big enough for Elon and Konigson not to share a box or two.

Thoughts of empty boxes competed with when I last spoke to Frownie. How many more opportunities remained? Dinner plans with Tamar. A real date? She always seemed happy to see me. She easily could’ve blown me off by insisting on a professional relationship. Jones probably was more unstable than I thought. Full of demons. Did he really feel responsible for the murder? I mean, the guy’s not an idiot. Desperate for money, though. It always came back to money. What people did for money. Sad, really.

The phone rang. “You like spicy?” Tamar said.

“Holy shit, I forgot to tell you I’m one of those weird vegan types—or mostly vegan types.”

“A spicy vegan?”

“Exactly.”

“See you about six.”

A short, to-the-point conversation that demonstrated forethought. I felt better. But I needed to see Frownie.

He sat upright in bed connected to an IV drip looking virtually the same as the skeletal image seared into my memory three days ago. With his head slumped forward, I thought death might already have stopped by, but his nurse Helen assured me Frownie had not left the building.

I stood at the huge picture window directly across from his bed, observing how the low-hanging clouds turned the lake steely gray. Winter lingered nearby. Doom and Gloom strolled into the room. I told them to fuck off.

“Hey! Who’s there? Julie?”

I walked over and sat beside him. “It’s rude to sleep when you have guests.”

“That newspaper editor—”

“Safe and sound. I’m keeping him in the background. How are you feeling?”

Frownie stared. “Cut the bullshit. You came here to discuss how I piss in a bag?”

“Hey, you called me the grandson you always never wanted. So I’m visiting the grandfather I always never wanted.”

He gave me a sideways glance. “When I’m dead, you can waste your time gettin’ all emotional—if you want.”

His house, his rules.

“A mental case framed with phony parking tickets confesses in his suicide note.”

“You talk to the guys who was writin’ them tickets?”

“Not yet.”

“So whaddya waitin’ for?”

“A private company wrote the tickets—it’s complicated.”

He appeared lost in thought staring out the window. Frownie had enough money to die at home with a spectacular view of the shoreline. The American Dream. Did he appreciate such luxury?

I said, “Did you know city parking officers work for the Department of Revenue?”

The beginning of a smile crept upon Frownie’s face, then disappeared. “Revenuers,” he said. “Used to be only Feds bustin’ bootleggers got called ‘revenuers.’ Then anyone bringin’ in money for the government.” Frownie turned to me. “Remember when I told you not to get caught up in Hollywood bullshit? Like there was somethin’ special about
the old days
? It was nothin’ special. Killin’ is killin’, stealin’ is stealin’. Nothin’s changed except the people doin’ the stealin’ and killin’.”

“I visited the Department of Revenue before I came here. It had a real oppressive atmosphere. Like a lord extracting payment from his peasants. You don’t pay, we take your oxen, and you can starve quickly instead of slowly.”

I don’t think Frownie heard a word. “Don’t use me as an example. I saw guys gettin’ caught up in the glamour. What glamour? There ain’t no goddamn glamour. Why the hell I took you in, I don’t know.”

“I would’ve gone into the business anyway. You knew that, so you wanted me to learn the right way.”

“But it ain’t normal. Not nowadays. Get some money in the bank and find a new job, Julie. Get married, have a kid. Look at me. I got nothin’.”

“But you know my family. We’re not normal. Dad was a low-level hood, as was Granddad. And Great-Granddad. He made his fortune as King of Maxwell Street! At least I’m on the right side of the law.”

“King of Maxwell Street, my ass. He lost it all fightin’ a murder rap and ended up with nothin’.”

“You’re going on and on about having nothing. What about—”

“You packin’?”

“Huh? I gotta carry a gun to see you?”

“You’re on a murder case! You take it everywhere—”

“Okay, okay, relax.”

“I could tell you to make this your last murder case, but you’re gonna do what you want. Maybe I should just shut the hell up already.” Frownie looked directly into my eyes and then turned back. “I love you, you little bastard,” he said. “And your dad loves you, too.” A tear streaked down the old man’s cheek.

“C’mon, Frownie,” I said but stopped when his eyes closed and his head fell back against the pillow. I thought for a moment—but then saw his chest begin rising and falling regularly.

Frownie had waited until the end of his existence to decide I needed saving from his misspent life. Despite the colorful stories of grifters, hoods, bosses, baby-kissers, and grandstanders, Frownie said he had nothing. I assumed he meant children and grandchildren, but as far as I could tell he had made a conscious decision to avoid that route. And I never once heard him lament the life of a confirmed bachelor. He had outlived most of his friends and many of his relatives, but to say he had nothing didn’t make sense. At the very least, he had one hell of a good view of the shoreline.