Dark Blonde (22 page)

Molly was as fresh as a bouquet of roses after a spring shower. She was arranging a bunch of them with some pink carnations when we entered the office. She had on a tight skirt and sky blue blouse with a navy blue sweater vest. Her dark brunette hair styled and perfect. Molly was a happy shining sunbeam buzzing around setting the office straight.

“Why, hello, fellas. Nice you could check in now and then. I’m running out of excuses for having to take messages. How’d the inquisition go? Did you have to post bail?”

A bushel of yellow notes were taped to the receiver of my phone, a little trick Molly used to force me to read them.

Molly and I had a rule about displaying affection in the office. We agreed to limit touching to a pat or two and no kissing, at least until after five, when we often walked down to Sam’s and started the evening in a private booth. Rick still teased us, often offering to wait out in the hall when he could see our eyes heating up. He offered a cutesy chuckle that a proud papa might make who wanted to marry off his old maid daughter. It wasn’t Molly he saw as the old maid.

I patted Molly’s shoulder and winked at her. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Wilson’s quite a guy, the kind of top cop this town needs.”

Molly blinked and smiled with her eyes. If Rick hadn’t been there I would have started my office day by breaking several of Molly’s rules. I called them that even though they were my ideas, sort of a self-protection from heading to Molly’s apartment for lunch. She patted me lightly down around my fly. Yeah, my zipper was open.

“I hope that didn’t shape the questions the Superintendent asked?” Molly laughed and Rick looked over the top of his sports page to see me fix myself.

“It’s this zipper,” I said. “had to pin the damn thing up; must’ve fallen out in the elevator.”

“Funny,” Rick said. “Those leggy civil servant gals didn’t gawk.”

I sat at my desk and shuffled through the messages. One from an Army buddy from Korea who was in town and wanted to have a drink. Wastebasket. One from Henry Gateswood who’d taken Julia home from the hospital and would like me to call or stop by later in the day. And one from Ira Burbank with no message. I dialed the number.

Ira’s voice reminded me of Walter Brennan’s, sandpaper and rye. He gabbed between coughing jags.

“Excuse my lungs,” he said. “doc ordered retirement, take the cure, fly off to Florida. Shit-damn, I don’t know a soul down there. I’d soon as die in Omaha. Talked to Anthony — now what do you want?”

“You called me, Ira.”

“Oh. Dammit, yes now, yes. I did at that. Some investigator — memory like a rusty hinge, eh?” He laughed and it morphed into a 30 second coughing jag that sounded like gravel in a blender. Someday I’d quit tobacco. But not today. I fed myself a Lucky and lit up, waiting for Ira’s lungs to clear and mine to fill up.

“That’s quite alright, take your time. Florida’s nice this time of year. You should at least visit, keep the doc happy.”

“Traveling bites my ass, young fella. Hustle, bustle, crappety shit. No thanks. But here, here it is. I’d misfiled this. A statutory rape case when the Gorovoy girls were underage, sixteen and fifteen. One of the local machine boys was up for it. I saved a few of the articles from the paper. Bird by the name of “Fingers” Duque.”

“Duque? Elmore Duque?”

“I suppose that’s why he used ‘Fingers.’ Pickledy-fuck would be a better handle than Elmore. I’ll touch some cop pals of mine. See what else they can dig up on the boy.”

“Did he do time?”

 
“Nah, you know those machines. This was a branch of the Kansas City bunch that old Harry Ass Truman pimped for, that Pendergast bunch. Omaha’s not big enough to have our own machine. So we borrowed KC’s. Why I voted for Dewey, just another goddamned crook only from a bigger state. Anyhow, they pried the joker off, girls refused to testify at the last minute. After the case closed they left for your Windy City.”

“Thanks, Ira, but studies show New York is way windier than Chicago. I’d appreciate it if you could mail me copies of those articles. And anything else you have on the case.”

“Smart alecky fella, ain’t you now? Oh, one last thing —
 
Duque’s bail was posted by a bird you ought to know.”

“Who’s that?”

“Christopher French. I read about him in that babbling burglar caper up in your windless town. Capone must have been laughing from hell on that one.”

I thanked Ira and filled Rick in on the Duque-French connection then gave Molly a pat on the tush and took my backup weapon out of my bottom desk drawer, a .38 air-weight. I filled the chambers and put a box of shells in my pocket. Molly looked over, trying to be cool, but her mouth pressed and her brow knit cutely. I told Rick what Ira had said.

“You think Henry Gateswood knew who Duque was when he was in his lit class?” Rick asked.

“If he did, he was pretty brave messing with Gail in front of him. I’d imagine he didn’t know, but she sure did. It’s something I might ask him when I drop by. First, I’d like us to check out that South Side apartment, Duque’s last known.”

“He has no rap sheet, at least not in Chicago or Detroit. I called my old precinct in New York, as well. Zero. Not much information on him outside of the DePaul class. He wasn’t a regular full time student. That was the only class he took there. Same with Gail.”

“Could be they weren’t there for an education.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m not sure. Duque might have caught wind of Gail and Henry, and took the class to keep an eye on things. I have a feeling Henry might know.”

“You boys going to eat lunch before you go pounding South Side apartment doors with loaded cannons?”

I stopped at Molly’s desk. Worry swam in her eyes, even though she tried to hide it. Guns were the one part of my work that made her nervous. I leaned, stuck my face in hers and said: “Lunch, what’s that?”

“Me. I could be your lunch.” She handed me a shiny apple that had been on the front of her desk. “But eat this on your way. I won’t spoil from a little wait.”

“You’re the best, Mol.”

“I know. And Rick? Make this hotshot be careful. With two guns he can shoot each foot at the same time.”

Traffic was heavy as we headed down Damen Avenue, headed for 74th. A garbage wagon kept stopping and cars couldn’t pass. Once we swung around it there was a three-jalopy pileup at Garfield Boulevard; we had to take a slow detour.

The Manor Apartments were smack in the middle of a colored neighborhood. Ira hadn’t said Duque was a Negro, and we had no picture of him. But if he’d lived at the Manor three years ago, the area might not have been all black then. Who keeps up with the shifting neighborhoods? It was one of those aspects that made me feel like a fish out of water in Chicago, not knowing the history of an area. Back in Newark, where I grew up in the old Fourth Ward, I could point to every house and tell you which had Italians, Poles, Germans or Coloreds. I knew what used to be on the corner lot before it was torn down, and who did time at Trenton and which houses had been murder scenes. Rick knew even less than I did about Chicago neighborhood history. If it weren’t for possible gunplay, I would have taken Molly along. She grew up in Oak Park and her father had been on the city council back when.

74th Street was littered with garbage of all sorts. Can lids, trash, stripped cars up on blocks at the curb and newspapers littered the way. Three little black girls about six or seven skipped rope in front of the Manor. They wore faded pinafores, braided hair down past their shoulders that danced like happy snakes to the beat of their chants. “One potato, two potato, three potato foh, yo big fat momma’s pokin’ dat pimp next doh…”

We parked and walked up past the girls, their gleaming white teeth matching the whites of their eyes. Little black children have that clean glow that no other kids have. The steps felt squishy and half the nameplates on the buzzer phone were missing. None had the name of our target man. The place hadn’t been painted since the Crimean war.

Rick pushed the buzzer to the manager’s apartment and we waited. A long turquoise Chrysler Imperial with tinted windows and enough chrome to be a Christmas ornament eased by, dual exhaust gurgling. It stopped at the end of the block, turned and eased back up the street and around the corner. We watched it disappear. I leaned on the buzzer. No answer. I hit three other buzzers on the main floor. A white beer belly in a soiled T-shirt opened the door. He had a tattoo, “Elva” with hearts on his flaccid bicep and reeked of the Thunderbird wine he clutched in one hand.

“Phone don’ work,” he said, belching and screwing up his face that could have passed for a worn out scrubwoman’s brush.

“Elmore Duque live here?”

The guy scratched at his great belly and gave us a blank stare that he must have practiced in front of the mirror on weekends. His milky eyes floated in spoiled crabmeat.

“Elmore? No Elmore here.”

“Fingers. Fingers Duque. He lived here three years ago. Apartment 3A.”

The bird swilled the T-bird some and let it run down his chin. I wondered how a guy like him could drink before noon and stay so fat. “3A? Fingers? Oh, you must mean Whitey. Yeah, yeah. Moved last month. Owes me a sawbuck. You pay me instead and I’ll give you where he moved. Ain’t far. Don’t care to be stiffed by no spic.”

“Duque’s Hispanic?”

The guy swayed like he was fighting a high wind. He belched again. “Nah, he’s Mex.”

“Give me the address and the dough’s yours.”

The guy wobbled on gimpy knees and motioned us in. He shuffled back through a long dark hallway and into a tiny two room apartment that reeked like a band of Chinese vagrants had vomited egg foo young there several days before.

He rifled through a shoebox and fished out a yellow wad of paper. He held it out by one corner to Rick, who tried to stay up wind of the guy.

“This is just around the corner,” Rick said.

“Except he ain’t never there, not least when I go to collect. Joint’s a dump. Pushers live messy lives.”

I looked around at the guy’s toilet of a pad and the words “kettle” and “pot” and “black” bumped into each other inside my head trying to get out. Instead, I peeled off a ten that the guy snatched like a piranha going for bloody wiggling toes. He slumped into a teetering kitchen chair, seemingly exhausted from the energy it took to grab the greenback. He studied it like he was an old pal of Hamilton’s. “You see Duque, tell him for me, willya?”

“Sure.”

“Tell him don’t peddle no dope on this here block. We got families here, kids. I run a respeckbul place.”

I followed Rick outside and started down the steps. The rope skippers were gone; the street was empty. Halfway down the steps the Imperial squealed around the corner and roared toward us.

My scar screamed bloody murder.

Dad’s voice, as clear as ever:

Hit the ground and return fire — don’t wait!

My hand was on the cold grip of my .45 when the first slugs sprayed the walk and splintered into the stairs around us.

Rick dove to the right side of the yard and I dove to the left, rolled and came up firing.

Two automatic weapons sprayed the front of the apartments, shattering glass, bouncing off the sidewalk, drilling the Buick.

I got off four or five rounds at the fleeing car, but didn’t think I hit them. The car ripped around the far corner and was gone. It all happened in a few seconds.

I didn’t have time to aim or to get the plates on the Imperial, but I’d know that car if I ever saw it again. Rick’s police .38 special hadn’t barked. But then, he didn’t have Dad’s early warning system.

I stood and brushed the dust off my clothes. I’d scraped my knee when I hit the hard dirt of the yard, and tore the pants open. “You okay?” I hollered over at Rick.

He didn’t move. When I got to him he groaned and rolled over.

“My bad shoulder,” he said. “Help me up. Can’t feel my arm.”

Rick had taken a round and was bleeding through his jacket. The slug had ripped through his left shoulder, and might have cut some nerves. I folded my handkerchief and pressed it against the wound. “Push this as hard as you can against the wound. I’ve got a first aid kit in the trunk.”

I helped Rick to his feet. He hadn’t had time to pull his weapon.

“At least — not my shooting hand,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Or the one you beat off with. Let’s get you patched up. Holy Cross is near. St. George’s is around the corner but that place is a zoo. It’s best we get completely out of the area in case our boys are still cruising and spot the Buick.”

“Dammit! I just stood there, a clay duck. Not too quick these days. You were firing instantly! How do you do that? God, it burns. You get the plates on that rig?”

I helped Rick into the car and laid a dressing on both sides of his shoulder, then ran adhesive tape to hold until we could hit emergency. He joked the whole way but his face was a blank white saucer with two helpings of pain. The medical boys would have to notify the cops after patching up a gunshot, and we knew that. So I dropped him at the door and left the red tape to him.