Макс Коллинз - True Crime

In this blistering weather, however, the beaches of Lake Michigan, the eastern border of Uptown, would be doing more business than the businesses — with the possible exception of the orange juice huts and ice-cream parlors. And the bars and cafés, offering something cool to drink, wouldn’t be faring poorly, either.

The Howard girl’s café was a block from the station — a sign protruded over the sidewalk proclaiming it the s & s sandwich shop — in a three-story building with apartments above. Since its address had a “½” in it, I’d expected a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon; but as I walked by, glancing in the window, I saw a long counter and floor space to the tune of eight or ten tables, and a trio of waitresses, one of which was the apple-cheeked pretty Polly.

That’s all I saw, because I was glancing, and I walked across the street to a four-story residential hotel called the Wilson Arms. The bottom floor was a bar, and the check-in desk was at the top of the second floor. The place was no competition for the Edgewater Beach, but it was no flophouse either. I paid for three nights — which set me back as many dollars — and rented an electric fan for one day. At twenty-five cents, the fan was highway robbery; after all, I knew store clerks who were making only a nickel an hour, these days, and glad for it. But it was hot, and I had a fifty-buck retainer to play with, and Chicago was unfair even when there wasn’t a depression.

So I sat in a small room on the second floor by the open window, the fan on a table not far from me, blades clicking on the wire mesh as they whirled around, attempting to cool me. I had pulled up an easy chair and was as comfortable as possible, my tie loosened, my shirt unbuttoned.

Down on the street, as morning headed toward noon, the sidewalks were filled with men in shirt sleeves and girls in light summery dresses. The dresses clung sweatily to the girls, which in many cases made for pleasant viewing; the equally sticky shirts of the men, with their underarm sweat circles, didn’t. There weren’t many school-age kids around — they were at the beaches, mostly — but matronly gals in shade hats and tent dresses prowled the sidewalks, carrying shopping bags, looking cross and wishing they were younger and weighed less. I wished I could grant them their wish.

In this heat nobody but working stiffs stayed indoors. Even in cool weather, though, there’d have been plenty of activity on this street. Broadway and Wilson was the heart of Uptown’s considerable commercial district; parked autos lined either side of the street, and cabs prowled constantly by, often finding takers.

Polly’s café was doing a brisk business, as people headed in for Cokes and lemonades. Cooling off was the priority of the day. College boys (or anyway college-age boys) sat on little stoops in doorways, or leaned against lampposts, often nibbling at ice-cream cones that threatened to melt down their arms, or drinking orange juice out of paper cups that gave them citrus mustaches. The boys were watching the girls in the summery, sweat-clinging dresses, the little rats. Shame on ’em.

Hard times seemed not to have hit Uptown as hard as some parts of the city; but there were, now and then, reminders: several men wearing homemade sandwich signs wandered by, asking in bold hand letters: WANTED — A DECENT JOB. Then something personally descriptive, like FAMILY MAN, 43. In smaller letters beneath were printed job résumés, including phone numbers and addresses.

From down the street I heard Louis Armstrong, faintly; I craned my head out the window. There was a shoeshine parlor down there, on Polly’s side of the street; the colored boys in their undershirts and wide pants were singing along with the Victrola, mimicking Satchmo, as they whapped the cloths across their customers’ hot feet. They even danced a little. But just a little. In this heat I was surprised they could sing. Jazz does wonders.

Buttoning my shirt, snugging my tie, I went down to the bar and bought a bottle of cold beer and back up to the room and spent an hour drinking it; the last swig was warm as spit. By now there’d been any number of men going in the sandwich shop alone who might have been Polly’s boyfriend; but no one had stayed longer than it would take to have a Coke or anyway a sandwich. Polly was working the tables, and I caught a glimpse of her occasionally in the café window, taking an order at, or clearing, one of the front tables. Nothing seemed to be going on in Polly’s life today except waitressing.

She still seemed familiar to me. And I still hadn’t placed her.

By 2:00 P.M. my stomach was making noise, so I went down on the street and gave one of the college-age boys half a buck to go across the street and buy me a ham-and-cheese sandwich at Polly’s café. He didn’t ask why I didn’t want to cross the street myself; he just went for the sandwich, brought it to me in a paper bag five minutes later, and earned the quarter’s change. Maybe now he’d go rent himself an electric fan.

The sandwich was okay, the bread was fresh at least, but another beer from the bar downstairs to wash it down was better. Afternoon came, and the heat let up a bit; down to the mid-nineties. Customers, many of them male, and unaccompanied, went into the café; but none stayed long enough to rate even a suspicious glimmer.

By 7:00 P.M., I’d had five beers and as many trips to the hall john. The beers had taken no inebriating toll on me, spread out over the eleven or so hours I’d been here. But they — and the clicking bladed fan — had kept me awake, and alive. Evening was on its way — though it was still sunny out; who the hell’s idea was this daylight savings time crap, anyway? — and a reprieve from the communal hot seat would soon be in Chicago’s grasp.

Shortly after seven, Polly Howard (or Hamilton, as she was calling herself here) stepped out of the café, wearing a pink-and-white print dress with a bow in front. She must’ve changed out of her waitress uniform in the back. Despite having worked a twelve-hour shift in unbearable heat, she looked rather fresh, her reddish-brown hair bouncing above her shoulders as she looked side to side, a small purse in her hands held like a fig leaf in front of her.

Since she seemed to be waiting for someone, someone who might be about to pick her up, I hurried out of the room and down the stairs and then slowed to a saunter to find an inconspicuous spot on the street, to continue watch. I wandered up to the corner and picked up a Daily News from the stand; making like I was reading as I walked, I could see Polly standing there, patiently, waiting for her ride. Men and boys walking by gave her the eye, but got nothing back for their trouble.

Maybe Polly was faithful to her traveling-salesman hubby.

A cab pulled up and a man got out.

He was a handsome, dapper-looking dark-haired man with a pencil mustache and gold-rim glasses and a tailored gray suit, suitcoat slung over his arm. He was hatless. Not tall. Not short.

The cab stayed in place, motor purring as the man held the door open for Polly and she flashed him a smile that said her husband was in a lot of trouble.

He got in after her, and the cab pulled away, east on Wilson.

A second later I flagged the next eastbound cab and climbed in back and leaned forward and pointed.

“Follow that car,” I said.

The red taillights of the Yellow cab up ahead of my Checker were soon headed south, down Broadway; when we cut over on Diversey, toward the lake, it was obvious we were headed for the Loop. The guy in the gold-rim glasses and mustache must’ve wanted to impress pretty Polly, because they could’ve almost fallen onto the El, as close to the Wilson Avenue Station as her café was. And here he was cabbing it downtown. Throwing his — and my — money around.