I called Delray’s cell phone. ‘I’m in a bar across from the C. Club,’ I said to his voice messaging, right after the beep.
He called right back. ‘Where?’
‘State and Delaware.’
‘What is it?’
‘Apparently, a club inside a private residence. How soon can you get a warrant?’
‘Any sign of activity?’
‘You mean Lamm, puttering about, freshening the lawn for spring? I’ve seen no one.’
He told me he’d be there soon. I told him I’d wait. By now it was getting dark, and the slim and the hip were beginning to descend on the intersection in slim, hip droves.
There was a restaurant across the intersection trying to pass as a fifties diner. The counter waitress was a cutie done up all in pink, right down to the bubble gum she was chewing with an open mouth. I sat on one of the red vinyl stools, slapped a roll of Tums on the counter and ordered a chili cheeseburger, chili fries and chocolate malt. She gave me an admiring glance, recognizing me as a serious contender who knew to bring antacids to a grease pit.
The chili burger and fries had cojones, the malt was too thick to go through the straw and the music was quintessential rockabilly, made long ago by men who’d married prepubescent cousins. I took my time, savoring the malted milk and inbred rock and roll, until seven-thirty when Delray showed up at the corner across the street.
He was dressed in a black silk shirt, black trousers, black silk sport coat and black shoes. Subtract the gelled stuff he slathered on his hair, add two hundred pounds, a beard, and fifty years, and he could have been Orson Welles. Except not dead.
He studied me as I crossed the street like he was checking out a Salvation Army mannequin. ‘Is there a story behind you never wearing anything but a blue button-down shirt and khakis?’ he asked.
‘Not much of one,’ I said. ‘Where’s your team?’
‘I’m not assigned to this case anymore, remember? Second, there’s no Chicago PD warrant out for Lamm. And third, it’s Saturday night.’
‘So you’re not going inside?’ I asked.
He grinned. ‘You said it’s a residence?’
I knew that sort of grin, and knew that I’d be protected, being in the company of a cop.
‘Let’s go clubbing,’ I said. By now the sidewalks were teeming with people younger than me and older than Delray.
I took him to the bar I’d been in earlier. The guy sitting outside, on a stool, didn’t give me a second glance but asked Delray for identification. Delray flashed his open wallet, and we went in to stand in the crush by the window. We shouted an order for long necks to a young girl with really blonde hair.
‘Where is it?’ Delray leaned to ask, after the girl had brought us the beer.
‘Sip slowly,’ I said. ‘Anticipation is everything.’
‘Then tell me about why you wear only blue shirts and khakis.’
‘I got in some trouble, had to sell stuff to pay legal bills. It was strangely liberating, and I found I enjoyed it. What I couldn’t sell I gave away, including most of my clothes.’
‘I read up on you. You were all over the front page of the Chicago Tribune for a couple of days before you got cleared.’
‘Yes, but I was not cleared on page one. My honor was restored right below notice of a sewer bond recall, well inside the paper where my former clients didn’t notice.’
‘C’est le monde,’ he said. Then added, ‘That’s French for “that’s the world.”’
‘My monde is taking a long time getting straight.’ I nodded towards the three-story graystone across the street. A single lamp with a multi-colored Tiffany-type shade had been switched on behind the sheer curtains on the first floor. The second and third floors were dark.
Puzzlement furrowed his forehead.
‘The Confessors’ Club,’ I said.
He looked past the throng on the sidewalk. A slow smile had formed on his face.
‘It’s been there since 1896,’ I said professorially. ‘It started as a leisure club for the elite gentlemen of the city: dinner, whiskey, underage prostitutes, the kind of place influential men could enjoy basic Victorian debauchery. I doubt the underage prostitutes visit anymore, but I’m guessing that on the second Tuesday of every second month, there’s good food and good booze to be had inside, as well as sanctuary for the richest men in town to relax among their kindred.’
‘“Confessors?”’
‘Supposedly, the club was formed so that its all-important members could relax and say anything – confess anything – and know it would be kept in the strictest confidence.’
Delray waved to the blonde girl for more beer. ‘How did you track this down?’
‘Sheer, dogged digging through accounts of old Chicago,’ I said. I couldn’t tell him about the private investigator who’d beat me to the Newberry without implicating Wendell Phelps.
Our second beers came, and as we drank, Delray leaned back, studying me.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Have you reported anything to Debbie Goring?’
I told him the thought had crossed my mind, but I hadn’t done anything about it.
He asked me for Debbie Goring’s number and thumbed it into his cell phone. ‘Ms Goring? Officer Delmar, with the Chicago police. I’m calling to tell you that Dek Elstrom is being very useful in our examination of the circumstances surrounding your father’s death.’ He paused, listening. ‘Yes, ma’am, though I can’t discuss progress yet. No guarantees, but if anything comes of this, you can thank Dek Elstrom. He’s a very diligent man.’ Another pause, and then, ‘Of course we’ll stay in touch.’ He clicked off, and looked at me with raised eyebrows.
‘You’re a stand-up guy, Delray. Thanks.’
‘With that five per cent from her, you could buy new clothes,’ he said.
‘And you can be a star in Homicide.’
‘Screw Homicide. I’m headed higher than that.’
It was eight-thirty. By now, people choked the sidewalk, bobbing laughing heads. ‘The neighborhood is as loud as it’s going to get,’ I said.
He nodded, agreeing. ‘The neighbors must shut their ears to everything.’
‘We’ll keep our bottles.’
‘Why?’
‘People look away from wandering drunks.’
We carried our beers outside. April was just beginning, and the young men and women chattering on the sidewalk wore leather appropriate for the evening’s soft chill. We crossed to the other side only when I was sure we were out of camera range of anything that might be mounted at the front of Sixty-six West Delaware. We continued down, turned up the side street and walked into the alley that ran behind the Confessors’ Club.
‘Here’s where these bottles come in especially handy,’ I said. ‘We can’t nose around during the day – too many business types and smart young mothers pushing imported prams can see us. But at night, the streets belong to people like you, Delray, hip as hell.’
‘And the alleys?’
‘After dark, exclusively the territory of the young hip male. No one wants to watch a well-dressed young man, carrying a beer, duck into an alley, for fear they’ll hear the splash of his relief.’
We stopped when we got to the chain-link fence at the back of number sixty-six. All the rear windows were dark, but a low-watt bulb shone above the back door. There was no way of telling if there were any rearward mounted cameras.
‘Second thoughts?’ he asked.
I set my almost full bottle next to the fence and raised the metal latch on the gate. ‘I’m with a cop. If anybody comes along, just flash your badge.’
‘No chance. I don’t have a warrant.’
I pushed open the gate anyway, and we crossed to the shadows at the back of the house. There were basement windows on either side of the door. I started to kneel at the one to the right.
The bulb went dark above my head. Delray had unscrewed it.