“I couldn’t really tell if anything had been taken-I didn’t know what was supposed to be there.”
“By the way, what took you down there in the first place?” he asked casually.
“Nostalgia, Murray-I used to go to school down there and I got an itch to see what the old place looked like.”
Murray laughed. “Okay, Vic, you win-can’t fault me for trying though, can you?”
I laughed too. I didn’t mind. I finished my pasta-no child had ever died in India because of my inhumane failure to clean my plate.
“ If I find out anything you might be interested in, I’ll let you know,” I said.
Murray asked me when I thought the Cubs would break this year. They were looking scrappy right now-two and a half games out.
“You know, Murray, I am a person with very few illusions about life. I like to have the Cubs as one of them.” I stirred my coffee. “But I’d guess the second week in August. What about you?”
“Well, this is the third week in July. I give them ten more games. Martin and Buckner can’t carry that team.”
I agreed sadly. We finished lunch on baseball and split the check when it came.
“There is one thing, Murray.”
He looked at me intently. I almost laughed, the change in his whole posture had been so complete-he really looked like a bloodhound on the trail, now.
“I have what I think is a clue. I don’t know what it means, or why it is a clue. But I’ve left a copy of it with my attorney. If I should be bumped off, or put out of action for any length of time, he has instructions to give it to you.”
“What is it?” Murray asked.
“You ought to be a detective, Murray-you ask as many questions and you’re just as hot when you’re on the trail. One thing I will say-Earl Smeissen’s hovering around this case. He gave me this beautiful black eye which you’ve been too gentlemanly to mention. It wouldn’t be totally out of the question for my body to come floating down the Chicago River-you might look out your office window every hour or so to see.”
Murray didn’t look surprised. “You already knew that?” I asked.
He grinned. “You know who arrested Donald Mackenzie?”
“Yes, Frank Carlson.”
“And whose boy is Carlson?” he asked.
“Henry Vespucci.”
“And do you know who’s been covering Vespucci’s back all these years?”
I thought about it. “Tim Sullivan?” I guessed.
“The lady wins a Kewpie doll,” Murray said. “Since you know that much, I’ll tell you who Sullivan spent Christmas in Florida with last year.
“Oh, Christ! Not Earl.”
Murray laughed. “Yes. Earl Smeissen himself. If you’re playing around with that crowd, you’d better be very, very careful.”
I got up and stuck the folder in my shoulder bag. “Thanks, Murray, you’re not the first one to tell me so. Thanks for the pictures. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”
As I climbed over the barrier separating the restaurant from the sidewalk, I could hear Murray yelling a question behind me. He came pounding up to me just as I reached the top of the stairs leading from the river level to Michigan Avenue. “I want to know what it was you gave your lawyer,” he panted.
I grinned. “So long, Murray,” I said, and boarded a Michigan Avenue bus.
I had a plan that was really a stab in the dark more than anything else. I was assuming that McGraw and Masters worked together. And I was hoping they met at some point. They could handle everything over the phone or by mail. But McGraw might be wary of federal wiretaps and mail interception. He might prefer to do business in person. So say they met from time to time. Why not in a bar? And if in a bar, why not one near to one or the other of their offices? Of course, it was possible that they met as far from anyplace connected to either of them as they could. But my whole plan was based on a series of shots in the dark. I didn’t have the resources to comb the whole city, so I’d just have to add one more assumption to my agenda, and hope that if they met, and if they met in a bar, they did so near where they worked. My plan might not net me anything, but it was all I could think of. I was pinning more hope on what I might learn about Anita from the radical women’s group tomorrow night; in the meantime I needed to keep busy.
Ajax’s glass-and-steel high-rise was on Michigan Avenue at Adams. In the Loop, Michigan is the easternmost street. The Art Institute is across the street, and then Grant Park goes down to the lake in a series of pleasant fountains and gardens. I decided to take the Fort Dearborn Trust on La Salle Street as my western border, and to work from Van Buren, two blocks south of Ajax, up to Washington, three blocks north. A purely arbitrary decision, but the bars in that area would keep me busy for some time; I could expand it in desperation if that was necessary.
I rode my bus south past the Art Institute to Van Buren and got off. I felt very small walking between the high-rises when I thought of the vast terrritory I had to cover. I wondered how much I might have to drink to get responses from the myriad bartenders. There probably is a better way to do this, I thought, but this was the only way that occurred to me. I had to work with what I could come up with-no Peter Wimsey at home thinking of the perfect logical answer for me.
I squared my shoulders and walked half a block along Van Buren and went into the Spot, the first bar I came to. I’d debated about an elaborate cover story, and finally decided that something approximating the truth was best.
The Spot was a dark, narrow bar built like a railway caboose. Booths lined the west wall and a long bar ran the length of the east, leaving just enough room for the stout, bleached waitress who had to tend to orders in the booths.
I sat up at the ban The bartender was cleaning glasses. Most of the luncheon trade had left; only a few diehard drinkers were sitting farther down from me. A couple of women were finishing hamburgers and daiquiris in one of the booths. The bartender continued his work methodically until the last glass was rinsed before coming down to take my order. I stared ahead with the air of a woman in no particular hurry.
Beer is not my usual drink, but it was probably the best thing to order on an all-day pub crawl. It wouldn’t make me drunk. Or at least not as quickly as wine or liquor.
“I’d like a draft, “I said.
He went to his spigots and filled a glass with pale yellow and foam. When he brought it back to me, I pulled out my folder. “You ever seen these two guys come in here?” I asked.
He gave me a sour look. “What are you, a cop or something?”
“Yes,” I said. “Have you ever seen these two guys in here together?”
“I’d better get the boss on this one,” he said. Raising his voice, he called “Herman!” and a heavy man in a polyester suit got up from the booth at the far end of the room. I hadn’t noticed him when I came in, but now I saw that another waitress was sitting in the booth. The two were sharing a late lunch after the hectic noon-hour rush.
The heavy man joined the bartender behind the bar.
“What’s up, Luke?”
Luke jerked his head toward me. “Lady’s got a question.” He went back to his glasses, stacking them in careful pyramids on either side of the cash register. Herman came down toward me. His heavyset face looked tough but not mean. “What do you want, ma’am?”
I pulled my photos out again. “I’m trying to find out if these two men have ever been in here together,” I said in a neutral voice.
“You got a legal reason for asking?”
I pulled my P.I. license from my handbag. “I’m a private investigator. There’s a grand jury investigation and there’s some question of collusion between a witness and a juror.” I showed him the ID.
He looked at the ID briefly, grunted, and tossed it back to me. “Yeah, I see you’re a private investigator, all right. But I don’t know about this grand jury story. I know this guy.” He tapped Masters’s picture. “He works up at Ajax. Doesn’t come in here often, maybe three times a year, but he’s been doing it as long as I’ve owned the place.”