Windy City Blues (16 page)

“It’ll pass,” she said and then leaned forward to meet my mouth with hers. Had the old lady let out a shattering death rattle right then, I would have known only the sensation of Tamar’s lips against mine. Unfortunately, a moment later I opened my eyes slightly and caught a glimpse of the rocking chair and all the coughing sounds rushed back to my eardrums.

“What?” Tamar said, noticing my perplexed look. “She’s fine. Don’t worry.”

She slid onto her back, pulled me on top of her, and wrapped her legs around me. Despite the eroticism, the old lady and her guttural mumbling were an acoustic impotence device. I maneuvered my arms around Tamar’s waist and slid off the couch to my knees.

She laughed. “What’re you doing?”

What I was doing became obvious when I stood and she fastened her arms around my neck as I carried her to the bedroom.

Tamar’s alarm sounded at four
A.M
.—baker’s hours. She had gotten up once already to clean up the old lady and put her to bed. She accepted her responsibi
lities without complaint.

“There are worse shifts,” Tamar said. “We have people starting their shifts at five
P.M
. and then working all night.” She ran off a list of activities that needed to be accomplished before the bakery doors could open in two hours.

We held hands walking to my car. I dropped her off in front of the Kutaisi Georgian Bakery where, in the darkness of an October morning, Tamar would take over the duties from those who had spent the night mixing, rolling, cutting, frying, baking, frosting, and decorating dough.

After the rapturous spell that follows the consummation of a new relationship wore off, I thought over the previous days’ events. Who was this man who delivered cash to Konigson and arranged the nonexistent surveillance of a schizophrenic framed for murdering a parking officer? Rich Jones, too, needed my immediate attention, but considering the way he fled from the lobby, finding him might be difficult.

Then I thought about how Kalijero could have been acquainted with Frownie since childhood. Musings over that accompanied me the rest of my drive home. Any scenario to explain this relationship seemed too absurd to consider. Frownie came from West Side Jewish Orthodox immigrants. Kalijero from Greek Orthodox immigrants. Twenty-seven-year age difference. How the hell did they even know each other?

Punim was not accustomed to my staying out all night, and I could tell by the way she strutted about, whipping her tail, that the cigar-sized hairball on my pillow was no accident. Not until sated with hearts, livers, and kidneys did she return to the loving little pussycat I knew. I changed the pillowcase, passed out, awoke around nine when Kalijero called.

“Frownie was a good man. He went in his sleep, I hope.”

“Something you want to tell me?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“No idea. That dead parking officer. Did you say he was Russian?”

“Georgian. When did you first meet Frownie?”

“Long time ago. Are they, like, Russian in their religion? Eastern Orthodox?”

“Jimmy, when did you first meet Frownie?”

“I don’t fucking remember! Now answer my question. Do they have the same religion over there?”

“They’re both Orthodox—you’d think a Greek would know that. What difference does it make?”

“Not sure.” The line went dead. Somehow, Kalijero was getting a perverse thrill from hanging up on me, that was the only explanation.

Standing in the shower as hot water poured off the top of my head, it occurred to me Dad and Frownie had a secret regarding Kalijero, something more than the obvious anger over putting Dad in prison. After getting dressed, I returned a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize. A woman’s voice said, “Hello, Mr. Landau? Elaine Reilly of Reilly’s.”

“How are you?”

“I’m just swell, thanks. You had mentioned wanting to speak to a soon-to-be-retiring police detective named Calvo?”

“Thank you for remembering.”

“Believe it or not, he just asked me to squeeze him in for an appointment today. He’d like to be introduced to one of my apartments.”

“I see. And he arranged a private one-on-one showing of this apartment with an associate of yours?”

“Debbie will expect Detective Calvo around eleven o’clock this morning for a one-hour interview.”

She gave me the building’s West Town address and imitated Mae West with an invitation to see her sometime. I think she was half serious.

I took Halsted all the way to Milwaukee, not far from Reilly’s, and easily found parking on a side street in front of a row of rehabbed bungalows. The building where Calvo would have his “interview” had spent the previous eighty years as an industrial warehouse before becoming a luxury loft community starting in the low one-millions. The factory gray, high-gloss concrete floor of the visitor lobby created a kind of seedy-chic appeal next to the exposed urban-brick walls. Glass partitions framed the steel security door of an inner lobby that kept stragglers like me away from the elevators. I counted three displayed security cameras, two disguised as Art Deco wall sconces.

For some reason, a smattering of red leather club chairs had been the chosen seating arrangement for the lobby. Comfortable, perhaps, but stylistically incongruent. The seats should’ve been slashed open to help the lobby’s hardscrabble statement. People of all ages came and went, many dressed in classic overcoats and fedoras as if living some kind of captains-of-industry fantasy.

A vintage industrial furniture magazine helped me kill a half hour until Calvo emerged from the elevator, looking sleepy but contented in that disheveled-fat-man way. I waited until he pushed through the outside door then ran to within ten feet of him as he waddled down the sidewalk. I didn’t want to judge a regular Joe for walking around with his jacket open and shirt untucked, but as a city employee, Calvo could at least try putting himself back together after rolling around with a hooker on the public’s dime.

I slapped Calvo’s back, startling him. “How ya doin,’ Ray?”

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked, squinting at my shiner.

“Think Reilly’s but without the black eye. Remember? You called me Jimmy Kalijero’s little bitch?”

I could hear the rusted, worn-out gears in Calvo’s brain grinding away as he tried to recall events from four days ago. Then a circuit jumped and his eyes opened a little wider. “Yeah, I remember. That murdering psycho Baxter killed himself. Case closed. Piss off.”

“Actually, my case is wide open and you’re in the middle of it.” Calvo chuckled and started walking away. “It’s all on surveillance, Calvo.”

He stopped then turned around. “What’re you talking about?”

“In that building. You just spent the last hour with a prostitute.”

“Bullshit! And it’s none of your business anyway.”

My turn to laugh. “Paying for sex on the public payroll is none of my business?”

“How do you know who I was with?”

“Hidden webcams, dude! You’re an Internet star! Your porn name is Calvin Cock, but we could use your real name if you’d rather have the notoriety.”

Calvo looked unsteady, queasy. He glanced around but there was nowhere to sit. “You got nothing. Nobody cares about this sort of thing anyway. The whole world’s sneaking out for quickies.”

“Really? You think the people of this town don’t care if their public servants visit whores on the clock?”

“What’re you, some kind of reporter now? Is that it? You got a story to sell?”

“Now that you mention it, I do. I also have contacts with the
Republic
and
The Partisan
.”

“What do I give a shit what they print?”

“Ever thought your impending retirement may be premature? That’s right, Ray. All those years of goldbricking down the drain.”

Calvo’s jaw clenched. “How much?” He was thinking more bribery could pacify his misbehavior.

“I want to know who paid you to conduct Gordon Baxter’s surveillance from Reilly’s bar instead of outside his apartment.”

From the look on his face, you’d have thought I had demanded a million bucks in cash. “What do you mean?”

“Stop it, silly boy. You were assigned to watch Baxter. He was the prime suspect in the Gelashvili murder. Instead, you sat around the bar with your pals reminiscing about your pathetic careers. Why would you so brazenly disregard your duty on a murder case if someone had not either told you it was okay, or paid you to do so?”

“A lot of guys blew off that assignment. Why don’t you hassle them?”

“Because I’m hassling you. Never should’ve called me Kalijero’s bitch. That hurt my feelings. So you start talking to me or I’ll have Internal Affairs, the auditor general, and every news outlet in the Midwest crawling up your horny ass.”

Calvo attempted a derisive laugh. “Nobody cares. You don’t know how things work, Landau. You think you got pull? You don’t got shit.”

“I’ll tell you what I know. When they’re caught with their pants down, cities love finding a scapegoat. And then they come down hard for show, to let the world know how serious they are about corruption. When they’re done frying your whore-loving ass and things calm down, everybody goes their own way, everything gets back to normal, and you’re on the street with no pension.”

Loud breathing through his nose. Then he mumbled something and forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. “All right. A guy came to me. Never seen him before. This guy told me I’m gonna be assigned to watch a suspect for a murder case. But he said to just sit around, do nothing. I was supposed to hang out nearby in the guy’s neighborhood. He gave me an envelope with cash and said there would be another one coming when the case was closed.”

“It wasn’t just you,” I said. “I didn’t see anybody even pretending to be casing Baxter’s apartment building.”

“Yeah. The other guys didn’t even bother going over there, so I followed their lead. We was all short-timers.”

“All those dopes in the bar about to retire?”

“Yeah.”

“You get that second envelope?”

“Yeah. Fatter than the first.”

I asked what the guy who delivered the message looked like and he described the package courier at Konigson’s office, ill-fitting clothes and all. At this point, I had no reason not to believe Calvo. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by jerking me around. I got the feeling his heart was about to explode, and I preferred not to be around when it did.

“Congratul
ations on your retirement,” I said. “A grateful city thanks you.”

Dad wasn’t sure he would go to the funeral. This surprised me.

“
Ach!
Frownie don’t care about that crap,” Dad said. “We go to funerals to make ourselves feel better. The dead don’t give a damn.” He had a point.

Despite the funeral taking place only two days after Frownie’s death, the simple graveside affair was well attended by Frownie’s “younger” colleagues: sun-tanned, craggy-faced men in their early eighties, who flew in from Florida to pay their respects. One of them eyed me then approached with a determined look. “He was a
mensch,
” the man said and cupped my ear. “You should be lucky to know one man like him your whole life.” Then the man turned and walked a few feet away and as if on cue, stopped and turned back to face me. “He was a
mensch
!” he repeated loudly and then dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.

Most of the men had wandered away when I noticed Dad standing in the back just inside the cemetery tent. An associate held his arm while he leaned on his cane with the other. Under his open trench coat I saw the same ancient argyle cardigan sweater he wore when he had knocked on my door after having just been released from prison. He shook his arm loose from the associate then walked to me. A torn black ribbon hung from his lapel. We both stared at the nearby grave.

“You decided to come,” I said.

“You see the respect Frownie got?” Dad said.

“The number of people?”

“Damn right. All those guys making the trip, a lot of them coming from Boca Raton. And at their age! Former cops, hoods, bookies, gamblers, pimps, Fed hacks, you name it.”

“I bet you and Granddad got that kind of respect, too.”

Dad laughed. “Me? Not even close. Your great-granddad—you bet he did. Even more. You see, Frownie knew how to juggle them all, keep ’em all happy. That was his gift.”

“I think over time those types wore on his conscience, though.”

Dad gave me that familiar scowl, a fixture of my childhood. “You still trying to find a murderer to chase? Just so you can also get killed?”

“I’m on a murder case now. I told you all about it a few days ago.”

“Bullshit! When?”

“When I came over. You don’t remember me coming over?”

Dad didn’t respond. Then he said, “I guess you want me to respect murder investigat
ing?”

“Trying to bring justice to the family of an innocent man? Doesn’t that deserve respect?”

Dad thought about it. “You want honor. That’s what you want. Respect was different in me and Frownie’s day. It had to do with being tough! Your great-granddad showed our family could be tough. He saw how they looked at us and he took it right to them. Capone and the rest didn’t scare him. And we went to war just like the rest. My cousin Leo navigated a bomber lying on his back after getting hit by flak and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. My cousin Freddy flew fifty missions in a P38. He had twenty missions under his belt when two replacements showed up all cocky. He hears one of them say, ‘Ever notice how the closer we get to combat, the fewer
kikes
you see?’ Freddy kicked the shit out of both of them while the others watched. He showed everybody who was tough. And he got respect.”

This same conversation had taken place many times in one form or another throughout my life. Unfortunately, a definition of respect would never bridge this generation gap.

“So you’re mad at me again for working a murder investigat
ion?” Dad waved at the associate, looked me over, but said nothing. I said, “You let me off easy a few days ago. You said you weren’t going to worry. You said there’s no point in worrying.”

Dad looked at me as if I had just called him a piece of shit. Then he seemed to remember something. He turned to the associate and said, “Let’s go. My shows are gonna start soon.”