I stopped her. "How did he go from being a bonesetter to the manager of a radio station?"
"The Palmers own WOC. 'World of Chiropractic' Like the Tribune's station WGN stands for 'World's Greatest Newspaper.' Understand? That's where I had my first experience, in radio, was on Daddy's station. I read poems on the air when I was a little girl. When I was older, I had my own program for the kids, reading stories, like fairy tales. That's where I got my experience, and why I was able to come to
Chicago and find work in radio, here."
Having a father in the business who could pull some strings (even if he couldn't crack bones) must not have hurt, either.
"Jimmy and I were always close. We had a lot of the same dreams. I wanted to be an actress, and he wanted to be a reporter. We both read a lot, as kids, and I think that's what fueled our fantasies, and our ambitions. But, anyway, that was Jimmy's dream, only Daddy wanted him to be a chiropractor, as you might guess. Jimmy had a couple of years at Augustana College, taking liberal arts, planning to take journalism, but Daddy wanted him to go on to Palmer, and when Jimmy wouldn't, Daddy cut off the money. And Jimmy left home."
"When was this?"
"A year and a half ago. About June 1931, I'd say. Right after his college got out."
"How long have you been in Chicago?"
"A year. I hoped to run into him here."
"Chicago's a big place to just run into people."
"I know that now. I didn't know that in Davenport."
"Understandable. But you had reason to believe he'd come here?"
"Yes. He wanted to work for the World's Greatest Newspaper."
"The Trib?."
"Yes. Short of that. I think any Chicago paper would do."
"And you think, what? He came to Chicago and applied for jobs at the various papers?"
"I think so, yes. I called all the papers and asked if they had a James Beame working for them and they just laughed at me."
"They thought you were pulling their leg."
"Why?"
"James Beame. Jim Beam. You know."
"No."
"It's a whiskey."
"Oh. I didn't make that connection."
"Well, they probably did. He hasn't contacted your family? Your father, your mother, since he left in the summer of 31?"
"No. Mother's dead, by the way. When she gave birth to us."
I didn't know what to say to that; it was a little late in the game to express condolences. Finally I said. "I take it this is your personal effort to locate your brother… your father isn't involved."
"That's right."
"Is there anything else pertinent you can tell me?"
She thought. "He came by hopping a freight. At least that's what he told me he planned to do."
"I see. It's not a lot to go on."
"But you will try, won't you?"
"Sure. But I can't guarantee you anything. I can check with the papers, and maybe ask around some Hoovervilles."
"Why those?"
"A naive kid. down on his luck, he might fall in with hobos or down-and-outers." If he lived through it.
"Or he might have gone on by freight to someplace else. Do you want to know what my guess is?"
"Certainly."
"He came here and tried to land a job and got nowhere. He was too embarrassed to go back home, so he hit the road. My guess is, he's traveling the rails, seeing the country. And one of these days, God willing, he'll get back in touch with the family, and he'll be a grown-up."
"What are you saying, Mr. Heller?"
"Nate. I'm saying, save your money. I'll take the case if you insist but I think things would work out just as well if you let them work out on their own."
Without hesitation, she said, "Please take the case."
I shrugged. Smiled. "Consider it taken."
"Splendid!" she said. Her smile lit up the room.
"My rates are ten bucks a day. I'll put at least three days into this, so…"
She was already digging into her purse. "Here's a hundred dollars."
"That's too much."
"Please take it. It's a… what is it?"
"Retainer. I can't."
"Please."
"I'd rather not."
"Please."
"Well. Okay."
"Splendid!"
"Listen, do you have an address? A place where I can reach you?"
"I have a studio on East Chestnut. We have a phone." She gave me the number; I wrote it down.
"That's in Tower Town, isn't it?" I said,
"Yes. And you aren't surprised, are you?" That last was delivered impishly.
"No," I admitted. Tower Town was Chicago's version of Greenwich Village, home of the city's self-styled bohemians. "Say. how did you happen to pick me to come to?"
She looked at me with more innocence than I knew still existed in the world; or anyway, Chicago. "You were first in the phone book," she said. Then she stood. "I have to run. I've two parts on a sudser this afternoon."
"Where?"
"Merchandise Mart."
That was where the NBC studios were; CBS was at the Wrigley Building.
"Let me get your coat," I said, and got up from behind the desk.
I put it on her; the smell was incense. That was about as close as Tower Town got to perfume.
She gazed at me with the brownest eyes I ever saw and said, "I think you're going to find my brother for me."
"No promises," I said, and opened the door for her.
I'd give it the old college try, Palmer or otherwise.
I went to the window and looked at her out on the street, straining to see her through the fire escape between us, seeing little more than the top of her head, that beret, as she caught a streetcar.
"I think I'm in love." I said to nobody.
Sundays. I missed Janey.
I missed her other times, too; every night, for instance. Days hadn't been a problem: my new business was keeping me occupied, so far. and I didn't really have time to mope. I worked long days, so nights I was tired, and then there was always Barney's speak waiting for me when I dragged home; not that I got drunk every night, but I drank enough to go to sleep without much effort. Rum, mostly.
But Sunday, goddamn Sunday.
That was our day, Janey's and mine. Good weather, we'd go to a park or a beach or a ball game- summers we played tennis and pee wee golf; we'd go to a matinee in winter, maybe ice-skate at some lagoon, or just spend a day in her flat, and she'd cook for me, and we'd listen to Bing Crosby records, and play Mah-Jongg, and make love two or three times. Now and then Eliot and his wife, Betty, would have us over for Sunday dinner, like family, and we'd play some bridge. Eliot and Betty usually won, but it made for a nice afternoon. A preview of the sweet, quiet life Janey and I'd have after we got married and had a house of our own, maybe even in as respectable a neighborhood as Eliot and Betty's.
But I wasn't living in a dream cottage, I was living in an office, and that had its advantages, but spending Sunday alone in it wasn't one of them. I'd sit and look at the phone and think about calling Janey. I would manage, for minutes at a time, to convince myself there was a percentage in doing that. A full five minutes might go by before I admitted to myself that what was between us was dead.
And today was Sunday.
But I had another woman on my mind, this Sunday: a client. Purely business. I was able to convince myself of that for minutes at a time, too.
I hadn't had a chance, yet. to do much about tracking down Mary Ann Beanie's brother. I had started on the case the afternoon of the day she came to my office. I followed the most obvious course of action, which was to check with all the papers in town, where he'd probably gone looking for work, just another naive teenage kid from the sticks who expected the big town to spread its legs for him, never considering that the town might be on the rag. It had only taken me that one afternoon and part of the next morning. I showed his picture to the information desks and cashiers in their first-floor cages at the Trib, News, Herald-Examiner; I checked with the City News Bureau, too. Nobody remembered him, and why should they? A lot of people were looking for work these days; nobody had been hired in janitorial for a year and a half, let alone editorial. Nobody kept job application forms, because would-be applicants didn't get that far: any reporters that did get hired were pros who would go right to the city editor and ask if he had anything for 'em. Jimmy Beame's plan to be a big-city reporter was a pipe dream: I knew that going in. But I was a detective, and any competent detective knows that most of the legwork he does will account to nothing, so I checked anyway, knowing what I'd find: nothing.