Steve Hamilton - The hunting wind

“Last time I was here in town was 1971,” he said. “I was a pitcher with the Tigers.”

“Really?” she said. Her eyes lit up.

“I didn’t last very long in the majors,” he said. “But at least I got the shot, right?”

“Are you serious? Did you really pitch for the Tigers?”

“Long time ago,” he said. “So much has changed here. They got casinos coming in, too, isn’t that right?”

“Ah,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Don’t get me started on the casinos. That’s all we need.”

“Not a gambler, I take it,” he said. “Oh, I’m sorry. This is my friend Alex.”

I woke up out of my trance. Watching the man do his routine was downright hypnotizing. “Good afternoon,” I said.

“Alex was a Detroit police officer for-what did you say, eight years?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Back in the eighties,” he said. “Even Alex doesn’t recognize the place anymore. Ain’t that right, Alex?”

“Like a whole new city,” I said.

“I’ll tell you why we’re here,” Randy said. He moved closer to her desk and lowered his voice. “Alex is a private investigator now. Let me have one of your cards, Alex.”

I took a card out and gave it to him. He put it down on her desk while he gave the room a quick onceover. “We’re trying to locate someone,” he said. “We’re trying to help her, you understand. This could be a matter of life or death.”

“Okay…”

“Her name is Maria Valeska,” he said, letting it hang in the air, as if she were an international agent.

“That’s a nice name,” she said.

“Indeed,” he said. “The problem is, the only information we have, besides her name, is an old address. And we think we she was born here in Detroit in 1952.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “What kind of records are you looking for, then? We have only four kinds here. Birth, death, marriage, and divorce.”

“The birth certificate would be extremely helpful,” he said. “If we could possibly-”

“You can’t see birth certificates,” she said. “Not unless you’re a parent or-”

“Or an officer of the court,” Randy said. “I know that. I’m certainly not asking you to break the rules. But seeing as how this is such an important matter, I was hoping that maybe you could just take a look at her birth certificate, and tell us her date of birth.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said.

“And her parents’ names.”

“Oh, no, I really don’t think-”

“Teresa, I’m not asking you to get us a copy of her birth certificate. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Teresa? How did he know her name?

“I’m just asking you,” he said, “no, I’m begging you to just take a look at the record yourself, with neither of us around. We’ll go stand out in the hallway while you look at it.”

There, on her desk. A coffee mug with her name on it. Some detective I am.

“I’m kind of new here,” she said. “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to do that.”

“Maria Valeska,” he said. “Probably born in 1952. In Detroit.” And then he just looked at her. I couldn’t see his face from where I was standing, so I’m not sure what he was doing, but somehow it made her stand up.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

“We’ll wait here,” he said.

“You wait here,” she said.

“Right here,” he said.

And then she disappeared into the back room.

He turned around and winked at me. “What can I say, Alex?”

“You’re the master,” I said.

Randy’s reign as the master lasted another ninety seconds. Then Teresa’s supervisor came charging out of that back room, a woman who looked exactly like Alex Karras, the old Detroit Lions defensive lineman. Maybe Alex Karras on a bad hair day.

By the time she got done with Randy, I was already out the door.

It was almost five o’clock when we hit Woodward Avenue again. The rush-hour traffic was heavy, and it didn’t help that half the roads were being torn up.

“Don’t say a word, Alex.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“We were close,” he said. “We almost had it.”

“Tackled at the one-yard line.”

“You going to the library?” he said. “It’s gotta still be open now, right?”

“We’ll find out,” I said.

We were driving north on Woodward. Woodward Avenue. The library was up by Kirby Street. I could feel my stomach tightening up. A few more blocks north and we’d be driving right by it. The building where it happened.

We drove by the new stadium, right across the street from the old Fox Theater. Comerica Park, they were gonna call it. Not quite the same ring as Tiger Stadium.

“There it is,” he said. “Hell, you can see right into it.”

“That’s the way they build them these days,” I said. “You’re supposed to able to see the city while you’re watching a game.”

“I don’t get it,” he said. “It’s Detroit, for God’s sake.”

I let that one go. When we got to the library, it was obviously closed.

“How can a library be closed at five o’clock?” Randy said.

“Budget cuts,” I said.

“Maybe when the casinos open up, the city will have more money,” he said.

“That’s right,” I said. “Those casinos will be a godsend to the library.”

He looked at me. “You all right?”

“It’s been a long day,” I said. “I could use a drink now, and some dinner. You still want to go to Lin-dell?”

“Let’s go,” he said. “Then maybe later you can show me around.”

“Around where?” I said.

“Around Detroit,” he said. “Your Detroit. This is your hometown, right? You gotta have a lot of memories here.”

I drove south, back to the motel. I didn’t say anything.

Memories, he says. You gotta have a lot of memories here. If he only knew.

Its full name is the Lindell Athletic Club, but I’ve never heard anybody call it that. It’s the Lindell AC. It used to be a few blocks east, over by the old Hudson’s department store; then they moved it to the ground floor of an oddly triangular-shaped building on the corner of Cass and Michigan Avenue. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it had been there forever. The building itself looks like nobody’s touched it since World War II, right down to the old metal awnings over the windows. Next door there’s a barbershop where you can still get a shave with a straight razor and a splash of Royal Bay Rum.

As soon as you step into the Lindell, you see fifty years’ worth of photographs and memorabilia all over the place. Right above the door, there’s a huge black-and-white photograph of an old-fashioned hockey brawl, back when everybody could come off the bench to join in. The caption read “Detroit vs. Toronto, 1938.” A lot of sports bars try to look like the Lindell AC, but they don’t pull it off. You can’t just open up a bar and try to stick all the sports crap you can find all over the place. It has to evolve naturally over time. A bat one week, a ball the next. The next week a jockstrap. Two thousand weeks later, you’ve got the Lindell AC.

We sat in a booth in the comer, right under the picture of Mickey Stanley going over the left-field wall. We ate our world-famous grilled hamburgers while the sun went down outside. I didn’t say much. Randy was too busy soaking in the place to notice.

“God, this place hasn’t changed at all,” he said. “There’s Johnny Butsakaris over there behind the bar. Think he remembers me?”

“You were here a couple times almost thirty years ago,” I said. “You really think he’s going to remember you?”

“You’re right,” he said, rubbing his mustache and goatee. “Not with this stuff on my face.”