Windy City Blues (8 page)

I found the Kutaisi Georgian Bakery in a thriving multicultural paradise of skin tones, creeds, and ethnicities. Equally diverse were the delicious smells emanating from the bakery’s brick-domed oven as it produced the breads and pastries so well known to District 24 of the Chicago Police Department. Apart from a line of booths along the back wall, rows of square oak-laminate tables filled the eating area. Four police officers occupied one of the booths, clearly enjoying a variety of flaky pastry treats. A guy in a burnt orange leather jacket with a shaved head sat by himself at the end booth. The words “skinhead” and “neo-Nazi” came to mind. Not wanting to be presumptuous, I settled for “gangster.” Not far from the cops, a couple of drunks lay passed out over a table. I perused the offerings displayed under the counter, settled on a triangular delicacy, then sat at a table next to the bakery’s enormous storefront windows that ran parallel to Devon Avenue. A sweet honey-walnut flavor filled my world as I stared into the street’s craziness and tried to make sense of the preceding days.

In my mind, the cliché stood front and center, close enough for me to smell its foul breath: evil corporate devil committed murder to cover his ass. The simplest scenario—G
elashvili gave Konigson one too many parking tickets—was also the stupidest. Or maybe Konigson’s chauffeur got too many tickets. Even stupider. The expanse of unattached dots between Gelashvili’s world and Konigson’s required more connections before I could move beyond the realm of idiotic speculation. Moments like these begged the attention of “Frownie Consciousn
ess,” an intruding voice I attributed to the old man when personal doubt hoisted its monstrous face.
Focus on the dots in your immediate vicinity,
the voice said, and instantly I saw Baxter the scofflaw—aka my closest dot.

I sat upright and breathed deeply while twisting my neck and shoulders back and forth. After several rotations, a silky black ponytail caught my attention. She stood in front of the oven, apparently inspecting the dial thermometer. When she turned, I saw enough of her face to confirm Tamar’s identity.

I walked to the end of the counter and watched her push a rolling rack stacked with trays of dough back and forth from the prep room to the oven. The back room had one large open entryway through which I could see other workers bent over tables, kneading, glazing, or icing. While I observed the labors of pastry fabrication, an immense figure appeared in the entryway, filling most of the space—if not blotting out the sun. He was bald with a bushy black unibrow over matching black eyes and a bulbous hook of a nose. The face of nightmares, I thought, a kind of beast-like man who materialized in your bedroom doorway and stared at you with an evil eye known to transform children into stone.

When our eyes met, I instinctively turned my back and leaned against the counter, but not before the man’s body language had already revealed his intention of approaching me. Moments later I heard, “May I help you with something, sir?” That this kind, gentle articulation could come forth from such an intimidating figure was almost cartoonish in its absurdity. I was about to respond when I caught a glimpse of Tamar emerging from the doorway, which prompted a lateral move out of the man’s shadow. I waved. She smiled broadly, walked over while wiping her hands on the bottom half of her apron, and said, “What’re you doing here?” Her white V-neck T-shirt revealed a sheen of perspiration running down her lovely neck to the cleavage of her adorable breasts. The warmth of her expression released a swarm of butterflies throughout my abdomen and I forgot all about the demon who had retreated back into the prep room.

“I was hungry,” I said. She giggled. “Gordon Baxter. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“No. Should it?”

“Only if Jack had mentioned him. Another officer told me Baxter was a well-known scofflaw whose car had been towed more than once. He was known for his abusive language and threats. And he lives in your neighborhood.”

“So he’s a suspect?”

“Seems like he should be, but a lot of things aren’t what they seem.”

Tamar nodded. “That’s quite a profound statement.”

“By the way, there’s a couple of guys passed out at a table near those cops.”

Tamar shrugged. “Yeah, we get a lot of those. Drink a lot somewhere, come here and load up on pastries, pass out. As long as they don’t cause trouble, the boss doesn’t care.”

I nodded as if her explanation made sense, then said, “I’ll let you get back to work.”

Again Tamar held me in her gaze for an extended moment before saying goodbye. The conclusion to my visit would’ve been perfect had I not sighted the bald demon once again filling up the entryway to the prep room, his scowl scary enough to cause DNA to mutate.

Men took care of Dad. “Associates,” I think they were called. They shopped for him, cooked his food, cleaned his apartment, and basically made sure he was comfortable. These benefits were not the result of regularly paid insurance premiums, but of credits acquired over decades of loyalty to various individuals and organizations operating as a de facto syndicate. Keeping his mouth shut for sixteen years in a medium security prison was the equivalent of buying an expensive long-term disability plan.

Dad rarely left his apartment in a six-flat on Pine Grove and Waveland, which is why I didn’t bother calling. Through the door’s oval glass, I watched him hobble toward me. He employed his cane carefully, keeping his gaze to the floor. Not until he opened the door did Dad lift his head and offer me a fleeting smile. His blue eyes still gave off a spark of youthful vitality that betrayed a body slowly succumbing to prostate cancer. I bent down and kissed him on the cheek. Dad turned then motioned for me to follow.

“Why don’t you have one of those guys live here?” I said. “Let them answer the door.”

Dad lowered himself to the couch and sat upright with both hands resting on the cane handle. “Because I can still wipe my own ass, that’s why. When I can’t, then it’s time to go. So what’s new?”

I sat in a chair opposite the couch and got right to the point. “I’ve taken another murder case.”

Dad had no immediate reaction other than to purse and un-purse his lips, something he always did when contemplating. “Well, what are you going to do?” he finally said.

“If I thought you’d never ask me again, maybe I’d keep it to myself. But I’m not going to lie to you.”

Dad appeared okay with my answer. “Hey, what I don’t know won’t hurt me. Just go about your business. No point in worrying.”

I waited for more. “That’s it? You’re going to let me off that easy?”

“You got any friends besides your father and another old man at death’s door?”

So much for letting me off easy. “What’s the difference?”

“What about that girl? Susie, wasn’t it? You sounded kind of happy about her.”

“I was happy about her but…we wanted different things. It’s complicate
d—and she had to go back to Connecticut, to help take care of her parents.”

“Hey, what about Peggy?”

I thought I was hearing things. “What about her? That was high school, for chrissake!”

He looked confused, as if he wasn’t sure where he was. Then his face softened. “That’s right,” he said. “What’s the matter with me?” Dad looked at his watch. “Well, I want to watch my show now.” He positioned himself at the end of the couch cushion then slowly rose to his feet, gripping the cane handle to steady himself. I watched his painstaking journey down the hall. After he disappeared into his bedroom, I let myself out.

I sat in my recliner with a cat on my lap. We stared at each other as I dialed the phone. She blinked. “I love you, too,” I said, and as if on cue, she dug her rear claws into my thigh and leaped off. Love is complicated.

A young female voice answered: “Johnny Bail Bonds. How may I direct your call?”

“Jules for Johnny.”

Stringed instruments, then, “Mr. Landau! The bloodthirsty Tyrannosaurus investigat
orius!”

Johnny “Bail Bonds” Duggan liked playing with words. He found me after liberating a pile of business cards from a fish bowl on a restaurant cashier’s counter, thus depriving someone of a free lunch. Johnny credited me with saving his marriage by verifying Sheila really met her friends every week for “girl chat” and that “Shawn” was also a woman’s name. Having Johnny insanely grateful had two serious advantages: Sheila worked in the police crime lab and her brother was a cop.

“I need a background check and this time I’m paying for the service.”

“You ain’t paying for nothing. Not at Johnny Bail Bonds.”

“C’mon, John, I can afford to pay, I don’t need—”

Stringed instruments with harpsichord. Vivaldi, I thought. He came back on. “Every time you say you’re gonna pay, you go on hold a little longer. So what’ll it be?”

Johnny was pure blue-collar Chicago Irish. Favors were sacred and never forgotten. Arguing was pointless. “Gordon Baxter, North Side.”

“Give me an hour.” Johnny hung up.

I leaned the recliner all the way back, which for me was equivalent to swallowing a Valium. Palmer the aristocrat, inveterate newspaper man, slapped by the realpolitik of corporate media. I needed an insight into Baxter, something to suggest a logical connection, something to close the gaps between all those damn dots. I drifted off picturing four men standing in a room. A faceless head on a body wearing a suit represented Konigson. I wanted him to tell me something, even if he didn’t have a head. Konigson raised his arm and pointed. I heard a shrill ringing. Konigson pointed again and I opened my eyes. My cell phone spoke.

“It’s Johnny. Your boy Baxter has anger issues.”

“Tell me.”

“Four misdemeanor assaults on parking officers.”

“What time frame?”

“All within the year. Before that, nothing.”

“What’s he driving?”

“Two thousand and three blue Buick LeSabre.” Johnny read off seven numbers for the plate.

“Give me an address and your job is done.”

“Twenty-four fifteen West Farragut, Apartment G6.”

I repeated the address and Johnny confirmed Baxter lived in the same building as Gelashvili.

From across the street of Baxter’s Farragut Avenue apartment building I failed to see any sign of the police surveillance Baker and Calvo had mentioned. Real surveillance would’ve been all over my ass by now. I called the bakery and asked Tamar if she knew anyone who lived on the ground floor.

“I see people in the laundry room down there. But unless they were my neighbors, I couldn’t say for sure what floor they lived on. Why do you ask?”

“I’ll tell you more later. Gotta go.” It felt good having a solid reason to call her again.

I judged an apartment building’s character by how it treated its ground floor. Apart from a slightly musty odor, the freshly painted hallway, the well-vacuumed carpet, and the brightly lit laundry room spoke well of the building’s management.

Outside the door to apartment G6, I heard random notes produced one at a time from an electronic keyboard as if a child were poking the keys with one finger. I knocked. The music continued. I knocked again. Still the music played. I was about to put a closed fist to the door when it slowly opened to reveal a tall, thin man in his forties wearing purple jeans and a white T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved in days. Wavy black hair reached below his ears. His studio apartment was messy, like a teenager’s bedroom. The white walls were bare. Across the room, a digital piano continued playing the music, or whatever it was.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Baxter?”

“Yes, I am Gordon Baxter.”

“My name is Jules Landau. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to investigate the murder of your upstairs neighbor, Mr. Gelashvili. May I ask you a few questions?”

Baxter’s only reaction was to lean against the door frame and stare. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Sure. C’mon in.”

Baxter sat on the pile of clothes that covered his bed. He offered me the only chair in his studio apartment—the one at the keyboard.

“There’s a button at the far left of the console. Push it if the music bothers you. I’m a composer.” Baxter spoke like someone bored out of his skull. I let the invisible child play.

“You were aware that Jack Gelashvili, who lived in this building, was murdered about a block away?”

“Of course.”

I waited for more. “Did the police question you? About what you may have heard? Whether or not you knew the victim? That kind of thing.”

“I saw police talking to some people from the building.”

“What did they ask you?”

“Nothing.”

“They didn’t question you?”

“That’s right.”

“And did you think it was odd that they didn’t question you?”

A few notes and a couple of eye blinks later, “I don’t know.”

“Forgive me for saying this, but you are acting really spaced out. Like you have no idea what’s going on.”

“Yes, you’re correct,” Baxter said then stood, pushed the pile of clothes to a corner of the bed, then sat back down. “When I am medicated, this is how I act.”

I would have apologized but I didn’t think he’d care one way or the other. “May I ask how you behave when you’re not medicated?”

Baxter got off the bed and walked to the keyboard, where he stood next to me and pushed a few buttons that introduced an African beat accompaniment to the invisible child’s random note playing. Baxter returned to his cleared-off spot on the bed and said, “Uh, yes, I am told my behavior is paranoid and that I am quick to anger.”

“Are you schizophre
nic?”

“That’s what doctors say.”

“Have you ever been arrested because of your anger?”

“I believe so.”

“Maybe three or four times?”

“That sounds right.”

“Why did you go off your medication?”

“I didn’t go off my medication.”

“But you said you had been arrested three or four times for anger.”

“Yes. But I always take my medication. The police monitor my treatment. If I didn’t take my medication, I would be in violation.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Okay. Do you have a car parked in this neighborhood?”

“Yes.”

“And you acquired enough parking tickets to get on the city’s tow list?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you pay them?”

Baxter’s eyes narrowed and he started shaking his head. “I—I never got those tickets. They said I did but I didn’t.”

“Four times the city came to tow your car? Each time your medication failed to prevent your anger? Each time you threatened an officer and were arrested?”

“So I’ve been told. And I have been shown records of this behavior taking place.”

“But you don’t actually remember these incidents?”

“Not details. Only a commotion taking place then waking up in bed.”

“Did you kill the parking officer Jack Gelashvili, who lived on the third floor of this building?”

“No.”

“You are on record for threatening parking officers, yet the police didn’t question you. Doesn’t that seem strange?”

Baxter’s eyeballs bounced around the room. “I didn’t kill anybody. Why would they ask me any questions?”

On the one hand, it was heartening to see Baxter functioning independently with the help of medication. On the other hand, his vulnerability to exploitation had no limits. I put a business card on the keyboard and thanked him for his time. He said nothing and watched me leave.

Back home on the couch, I sipped diet ginger ale and thought about calling Tamar. Overall, it had been a good day, but I felt talked out and was content to spend the evening pondering the blatant framing of Gordon Baxter as a potential murderer. It stuck out like the media emperor calling the city editor to kill a story. In Baxter’s entire life, I suspected his medication had failed him only four times. The question remained: who would go to such great lengths to set up Baxter as the fall guy for Gelashvili’s murder, and why?