Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 9

  Then I stepped into the apartment and was amazed at the amount of light that greeted me. The narrow entry opened to a bank of windows overlooking a lush garden, one that had been walled off. The furniture was comfortable and not at all shabby. Flowers rested on an end table, and the apartment was clean.

  In the middle of it stood a woman, her hands clutching Marvella’s. Marvella leaned into her, talking softly.

  I took my time, trying not to be noticed. I wanted to absorb the environment first, to see if the child had a reason to run away.

  I didn’t see any obvious one. There were photographs on the walls—two boys playing basketball; two boys posing side by side; school pictures, ending with one that had a tassel hanging from it, a tassel that had a gold ’67 hanging from it, and another that said “With Honors.”

  Marvella had joined me. “That’s Daniel. He’s at Yale now.”

  “Yale?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

  “My boys are smart.” The woman in the center of the room spoke with pride. “Daniel got a full scholarship based on his grades and his SAT scores, not his color.”

  I looked at her for the first time. She was about my age, slender to the point of gauntness. Her skin was very dark, but in the full light it had turned gray with exhaustion and worry.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She shrugged. “You look at this place and you expect something else.”

  I was ashamed to admit that I had.

  “But there’s just me and my sons, and I do what I can.” She twined her fingers and rubbed her thumbs together, a nervous gesture I wasn’t even sure she knew she was making.

  “You see why I asked you?” Marvella said.

  I didn’t look at her. Instead, I kept my gaze on her friend. “I work as a security guard at the Conrad Hilton Hotel.”

  “I don’t care how you make your money. You’re a friend of Franklin Grimshaw’s and Marvella said you can help. That’s good enough for me.” Her voice trembled just a little, despite the bravado of her words. She was keeping herself together by will alone.

  “How long has he been gone?”

  “Two days.” She swallowed hard. “He usually doesn’t leave without telling me. I came home from work Friday and he wasn’t here. He hasn’t come back and hasn’t called. I don’t know what happened.”

  I touched Marvella’s shoulder. “Would you mind waiting for me outside?” I asked.

  She frowned slightly as if she were assessing me. I hadn’t told her that I wanted to be alone here. It was important for two reasons: I wanted to have all of her friend’s attention, and I didn’t want Marvella to know how competent—and used to this—I was.

  Marvella seemed to be thinking things through. Finally she said, “I’ll just go home. You don’t need to worry about me. Just help Grace.”

  Then she left us.

  I put out my hand. “I’m Bill.”

  “Grace Kirkland.” She put her hand in mine. Her fingers were small and fragile, but the skin was covered with calluses. This was a woman who worked hard for this little patch of privacy. “Please, sit down.”

  She led me to the living room. The couch had been her domain—the dent in the cushions, the bits of Kleenex wadded up near the armrest. I took the arm chair off to the side. From there I had a view of the garden, lush despite the heat.

  Grace sat down across from me, in the very spot I had avoided.

  “Marvella says you went to the police.”

  Grace looked toward the garden. Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them back. “They told me boys his age usually joined gangs. They’d arrest him soon enough.”

  Son of a bitch. “I thought Chicago had black officers on the force.”

  “That’s why I went to Marvella next. She sent me to her cousin. He said he’d do what he can.” She paused, swallowed hard, and took a deep breath.

  “But you didn’t feel confident that he’d help?”

  “He said…” Her voice shook. Her back straightened. “He said that there was going to be trouble this week, and that there’d be a lot of strangers in town, and that he couldn’t guarantee anything.”

  “The police never can.”

  “If it had been a month ago, he wouldn’t have been as worried. But, he said, that right now was one of the most dangerous times for a young man to be on his own.”

  “That was comforting,” I said.

  “He wanted to scare me.” She apparently didn’t hear the sarcasm or she ignored it. “He told me I should get my friends to help and to call all my relatives. He said we’d have better luck than he would this week. And he warned me to be careful. He said there’d be a lot of strangers in town, and most of them not nice ones.”

  I wondered what provoked that kind of comment. Did he think the boy was dead? Or having gang troubles? Or was there something else that I was missing?

  “Tell me about your boy.”

  “Elijah,” she said.

  “Tell me about Elijah.”

  “He’s my baby.” Her voice broke again. She had been alone with this too long. She looked at me and made a helpless movement with her hand.

  “Take your time,” I said.

  She took a deep shuddery breath and grabbed some Kleenex from the table. Holding the thin tissue seemed to calm her. “He’s a straight-A student, top of his class, just like his brother. He’s going to be a lawyer, he says. He did a report on Thurgood Marshall last year. It won an award.”

  “Has anything changed this summer?”

  She shook her head. “Truman asked that too.”

  I assumed Truman was Marvella’s cousin.

  “It could be something small?”

  She shook her head even harder. “He was volunteering at the library, doing the reading program for the really little kids. And he was trying to find some work to help me, but he’s too young to do anything legally and he didn’t want to work under the table. I wouldn’t let him, even though he looks old enough.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Fourteen,” she said, confirming what Marvella told me. “But he got his growth this year. He’s nearly six feet, and his voice changed. He’s been tripping all over everything…”

  Her eyes filled again and her voice dropped off.

  “All right.” I made sure I sounded as gentle as I could. “You said he’s interested in the law. Is he interested in politics?”

  “He wouldn’t do that.” She glared at me.

  Finally, we were getting somewhere. “Do what?”

  “Join those people. He knows better.”

  “What people, Grace?”

  “Those hippies.”

  “Did you talk about it?”

  “He knows how I feel.”

  “How does he feel?”

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the couch. “He said all the boys who’re dying in Vietnam are black. He says the white boys can get away from it. He says Daniel’s lucky because he got a deferment, but if there wasn’t the pass for students, Daniel would be dead now.”

  “He’s not worried about his own possible involvement?”

  “I told him the war would be over by then.”

  “What does he say?”

  Her entire face hardened. She wasn’t a woman I would want to cross. Her eyes remained closed. Obviously, she didn’t like to discuss this subject.

  “He says that it doesn’t matter what’ll happen in four years. Boys are dying now and it’s not right and the war has to stop.”

  “Maybe he’s at Lincoln Park, then,” I said.

  Her eyes flew open. “He would have called me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “He knows how I worry. He would have called.”

  “Then what would you have done?”

  “I’d’ve gone to get him.” She stopped, as if the realization hit her. He was a fourteen-year-old boy. The last thing he would want was his mother taking him away from something he felt was important.

&n
bsp; “He knows that, doesn’t he?” I said. “That you’ll come for him.”

  She put a hand over her mouth and then stood. She went to the window and looked at her garden.

  I let her stand there for a moment, waited until she straightened her shoulders and looked as if she had gained some strength. Then I stood too, and joined her.

  The garden was as lush up close as it had seemed from across the room. Tomato vines climbed the fence and fat green tomatoes hung off them. Broccoli grew close to the ground next to some nearly ripe cauliflower. Ripening beans grew on the far end of the garden, and marigolds lined the edges of the entire plot.

  The garden looked like it was usually well tended. But a handful of ripe tomatoes, the ripe beans, and the broccoli told me it had been neglected since Elijah disappeared.

  “I’ll find him,” I said. “I’ll make sure he comes home.”

  “You don’t think he’s really there, do you?” She had wrapped her arms around herself.

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “He’s only fourteen. There’s drugs up there and criminals and people with no respect for human beings. They’re going to get in trouble, and that’s what the Mayor is waiting for. Then he’ll attack us, our people. Someone already died up there, and no one cares because he was an Indian boy. What’ll happen when things get really bad? They’ll go after us, our people, and my Elijah will be in the middle of it. He doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t understand.”

  “I know.”

  “He would have called me,” she said. “He wouldn’t have gone there. He would have called me.”

  That litany had probably gone through her head from the moment he disappeared. I wasn’t so sure. Fourteen was an age of change, and this was a politically charged summer. He might have gone.

  “I’ll need a photo of him,” I said, “as well as a physical description.”

  “You’re going to look for him?”

  I nodded. “I have time today, but starting tomorrow, I’m also working overtime.”

  “I’d appreciate whatever you can do,” she said.

  “I have some errands to run, and then I’ll go up to Lincoln Park. While I’m gone, I want you to make a list of all his friends—with phone numbers and addresses if you have them.”

  “I’ve called everybody.”

  I bet she had. “Well, let me give it a shot. And give me the names of any relatives that he might go to.”

  “It’s just us.”

  “Where’s his brother?”

  “Summer school,” she said. “We couldn’t afford to send him back and forth.”

  “There are buses that run between Chicago and the East Coast. Call your son and see if his brother went out there.”

  “He wouldn’t—”

  “We have to check everything,” I said, “no matter how far-fetched.”

  She seemed to accept that, and nodded.

  I could feel the time ticking away. I wanted to look at Elijah’s room, but I needed to start making my way toward the meeting with Laura.

  “I’ll be back later tonight. Please have it all ready for me then, plus anything else you can think of.”

  “All right.” Then she turned to me. “I’d like to pay you for your time.”

  I shook my head. “I’m just helping out a friend.”

  “You’ve done this before,” she said softly.

  “I have a lot of friends.”

  * * *

  The meeting had taken an hour. As I left the apartment, I felt an irritation at myself. I didn’t have the time to look for a boy who wanted to protest the war, but I was doing it anyway because Marvella asked, because Grace was trying so hard to be strong, because I didn’t like the way that the entire city was beginning to feel like a war zone.

  That thought reminded me I needed to be cautious. I scanned for my shadow, seeing no one. I had originally planned to spend the afternoon on the “L” crisscrossing the city several times before I went to the Loop. Driving was too conspicuous, and I’d already risked enough by going to Laura’s apartment twice.

  I wouldn’t be able to follow my original plan, but I still had time to take the train.

  I figured the “L” would be the safest and easiest way to travel. Since it was Saturday, there wouldn’t be as many passengers on the trains heading into the Loop. I modified my route, and boarded the Jackson Line, staring at the subway map as I rode all the way north to Addison.

  As I rode, I watched the faces. Most of them I saw reflected in the grimy windows or only in passing. The rest of the time, I held on to the steel bar in the middle of the car, kept my head down and looked out of the corner of my eye.

  My route was long on purpose. I went from the Black Belt beyond the Loop to Wrigleyville, figuring that black faces wouldn’t be that unusual on the way to a baseball game. I had no idea if the Cubs were playing or not and had forgotten to check, but it didn’t matter. My presence wouldn’t be unusual on that train.

  And it wasn’t. There were others, many of them college age, wearing stylishly ripped clothes and with afros. They had peace symbols sewn onto their clothing and were talking about the upcoming convention. Most everyone on the train seemed to be in Chicago to protest. I found that some of them chose the moment to be tourists as well seemed at odds with their political commitment.

  I compared their faces to the pictures I’d seen of Elijah. He didn’t seem to be here. And, Grace had assured me, his hair was cropped short.

  The Addison Street station was one of the aboveground stations that made Chicago’s public transportation system so unusual. I had to take the stairs down, cross the street, and climb the other side to catch the train heading south.

  I liked that. I crossed the street, stopped in front of some dilapidated buildings housing stores that specialized in Cubs merchandise, cheap food, and tickets, then doubled back as if I were confused about where I was going.

  All the of black faces I’d seen were trundling toward the stadium, which rose incongruously in the middle of an ancient neighborhood. It was cooler here —the wind was off Lake Michigan—and I stopped for just a moment to enjoy the breeze.

  Then I turned around again and climbed to the platform. The train that arrived was nearly empty. I shared it with an elderly white woman who sat as far from me as she could. She clutched her purse to her chest and looked at me nervously. When she got off at Fullerton, she nearly ran from the train.

  I got off at Fullerton as well, and transferred to the Ravenswood Line, heading south. I watched for others getting off, tried to see if I were being followed. It didn’t appear that I was.

  A few hippies whose long stringy hair and ripe body odor made it clear they hadn’t bathed in weeks, and some white college students wearing Clean For Gene buttons sat in opposite parts of the car, as if they made each other as nervous as I had made the elderly woman. None of them seemed to notice me.

  This train took me south of the Loop. At State and Dearborn I made my final transfer, to the Milwaukee Line, and took it north and west. As I did, I watched the other cars. There were windows in the doors that linked the cars. A good tail would get onto the next car over and watch through the door, disembarking at the same station as his prey.

  The population of this train was mostly black. No one even looked at me and I felt as if I could blend in. I sat down and stared at the ads above my head, trying to be casual as I examined the other passengers. I saw no afros, no people with that look of wrongness that Marvella had mentioned.

  Between Western and California, I got up and walked through the door that linked the cars. That car was nearly empty. I walked through it to the car beyond. I stayed out of sight in the last car, counted two stops, and got off at the very last minute.

  No one else got off the train.

  I breathed a small sigh of relief. I went down the stairs, crossed underneath the platform and climbed up the other side. Trains didn’t run as often on Saturday, and I had to wait nearly fifteen minutes befo
re another arrived.

  By that time, three white men in uniforms I’d never seen before joined me. They were clearly on their way to a late shift somewhere in the city. They didn’t look directly at me. They stood on the far side of the stop, conversing softly, occasionally looking at me over their shoulders.

  I continued to scan the platform. No one else joined us. We were at the edge of an old neighborhood, although the brick houses were far away. A nearby billboard caught my eye:

  MAYOR DALEY, A FAMILY MAN, WELCOMES YOU TO A FAMILY TOWN.

  Finally a train stopped. It was jammed with passengers. This was another moment when I had to be careful. If my shadow realized where I had lost him, he would be on this train, coming to this stop, hoping I hadn’t caught anything else.

  There was no crowd on the platform for me to hide in. Anyone inside the passing cars would see me. I had one more trick, and then I would feel safe.

  The pneumatic doors opened, and no one got out. The taxi-cab strike was making everyone equal, and cramming them all onto the “L.” I climbed onto one car, the three uniformed men onto another.

  The next stop came quickly. I got off at the last minute, just as I had the stop before. A dozen people milled on the platform, most of them having just left the same train. I made a show of heading for the stairs, so that it looked like I was crossing to the other side, to catch the “L” back north.

  If my shadow was on that train, he would believe he had lost me for good.

  I waited until the train left the platform before climbing the stairs again. This time, the train arrived more quickly. It was just as full as the other one. As I boarded, I noted a greater number of black faces and for a moment, felt some relief. Then I realized most of the men had afros. I scanned them quickly. They were too young to be my shadow. Besides, they all had duffel bags or backpacks and they all appeared to be traveling in a group.

  One young man had a recorder and he was playing music that sounded vaguely Indian—snake-charming music. I wondered if he meant it that way, or if he was simply amusing himself.