“You don’t like to talk about yourself, do you?”
He thought about it a second then shrugged. “Nobody ever asks me nothin’ about myself.”
“What I mentioned earlier—the equation. Hear me out and then tell me if you think it’s crap. For the first time, Tanya breaks away from the working-poor world she’s always known. She gets a job in a bar with upper-middle-class young people. She sees they’re really not too different from her other than their education, some money in the bank, and probably parents to fall back on if things go south. It feels good to go home with a pile of cash every night. The boss starts hitting on her. He’s way too old for her and she doesn’t take him seriously. Still, she notices the nice cars, his clothes, he probably has a great place in Lincoln Park. See where I’m going?”
He looked pained. “I don’t see her goin’ with some guy just ’cause he had money.”
“Okay. But it’s the only thing I got to go on until we find more people who knew her. Tell me again, who told you she worked at a wine bar in Chicago?”
Eddie pushed his chair back a couple of inches and then looked around again. “Her friends from home.”
“Is she still in touch with these friends?”
“Nah. They don’t know nothin’.”
“You mind if I ask them—”
Angry Eddie appeared. “They don’t know nothin’! And don’t go pokin’ around there neither.”
I paused to let the words hover in the space between us. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m going to walk in one direction and you’ll walk in the other. Then you’re going to think about whether you really want me to find out what happened to Tanya. If you decide my services are in fact desired, you will call me and tell me so. Your admission will serve as an agreement that you will never again bark orders at me. If you break that agreement, our association will immediately end—and, yes, I will keep all the cash you gave me.”
I walked out without looking back.
—
Home for the evening, leaning back in the recliner, I wondered if I needed more vices. Guys like Eddie had plenty of vices, including self-destructive qualities that required guys like me to pretend to be tough. Maybe stupidity was my vice. Acting tough when it didn’t come naturally or even feel good. Sadly, SOBs like Eddie respected strength. The top motivations for stupidity: money, sex, obsession with younger women. What else did I have to go on? Would Tanya Maggio have been seen sitting in an older man’s beat-up Oldsmobile?
Eddie’s call came sooner than expected. “Hey, Mr. Landau, I’m really sorry—”
“What’s up, Eddie?”
“I didn’t mean to sound like a dope. I mean, you got a job to do and that’s why I’m payin’ you. And I need your help. You don’t gotta worry about me no more. And I promise I’ll keep payin’ you. You don’t have to worry about that neither.”
“Why did you freak out at the thought of me talking to Tanya’s New Jersey friends?”
“Well, it’s just that you’re a stranger and they’re kinda tight over there….”
Eddie spent the next ten minutes stammering about why I wouldn’t be welcome in his native sandbox, suggesting that for my own good, I should stay away. A juncture had been reached, one that shouted for me to drop the case. Every cell in my body waved a red flag while the shadowy, impetuous, stupid side of me delighted at the prospect of a plunge into the unknown.
“I appreciate your input on my well-being, but I’m going to do what I want to do whether you approve or not. You still want me on the case?”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, that’s fine. I’m not tellin’ you what to do or nothin’. I’m done with that. Okay?”
“Hold on to that cellphone. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk to someone from back East.” I hung up before he could respond.
Doug had wanted to convert his yuppie pub into a snobby wine bar. Across the street, a café with a frog played violin on a chunk of Camembert. I fell asleep thinking about French cheese.
Chapter 5
By the time I got to Pâtisserie Grenouille the next morning, most of the tables were already occupied by someone reading the paper or eating a crepe. Classical music played softly as the patrons enjoyed their organic French-roast fair-trade coffee.
The woman behind the counter appeared intensely preoccupied while she wiped down the machinery and put various components of the coffee-making trade away. Several times she held up a shiny metal object to study it before deciding where it should go. When she noticed me, she quickly wiped her hands on her apron and apologized. Her nametag said Brenda.
“We just had a rush,” she said with a self-conscious giggle.
Brenda’s crow’s-feet betrayed an otherwise youthful face. She looked at me wide-eyed, waiting for me to say something. “How’s the cheese business?” I asked.
She hesitated. “Oh, we have lots of cheese. I make cheese crepes every morning—”
“I was just kidding.”
“Wait here,” she said and dashed into the back, returning with a crepe on a plate. “First-time customers get a free sample.”
The joyful anticipation of Brenda’s expression left me no choice. “I never eat cheese crepes alone,” I said. “But you’re probably too busy—”
“No, actually, I just have one rush in the morning. Mostly the same people. The next busy time won’t be until the light-lunch rush.”
She showed me to a table and said she’d be right back. I watched her chat with the other patrons while collecting dirty plates on a tray. An old man with a bushy white beard and a black beret watched her from a table against the far wall. He pushed his chair back then slowly stood and carried his plate to her. She thanked him warmly. He doffed his cap to reveal his bald head and walked out. When she returned, her eyes moved back and forth between the crepe and my face. I pushed the plate to the middle of the table. “We have to share. If I eat, everybody eats.”
She took a fork and cut off a piece. I cut off the end, managing to avoid any cheese. “I think I’ll use more lemon in tomorrow’s batch,” she said.
“Is it worth being open every morning just for a handful of regulars?”
“Oh, yeah, well—I don’t know. They’re so loyal. I mean I don’t want to let people down. I love so much to cook for others—
duh
! And you meet so many people in this business. Are you new to the neighborhood?”
I told her my name and put a card on the table. When she read it her eyes widened again. “You’re a private investigator? Really? I’m Brenda Gallagher, by the way. I own this place, if you hadn’t figured that out.”
“Did you know the guy who owned the pub across the street before it became the fancy wine bar?”
Her face returned to the distracted demeanor I’d noticed when I first walked in. She studied the tablecloth a moment and then gazed out the window toward the Auvergnat Vin Bar. “Yeah, I knew Doug Daley,” she said, cutting off another piece of crepe. Saying his name seemed to elicit pain.
“What about the staff? Did you know any of them?”
She nodded. “A few of them. We used to have after-hours parties on Friday and Saturday nights.”
“Did Doug attend the parties?”
“Yeah, at first. He kidded around with the girls. He liked gory magic tricks, like in the movies. I remember one time Doug pretended to push a knife into his stomach.
Ugh.
Then we would chat, just the two of us at a different table. He was very interested in learning about French wine. He thought if he could attract the pricey wine crowd it would be mutually beneficial to our businesses.”
I took out the picture of Tanya. “Did you ever see her?”
“Oh, yeah, she was a sweetie. Is she in trouble?”
“What do you remember about her?”
“I remember her well because she didn’t drink, so I would make her a cup of cocoa. Once in a while she would join me outside for a cigarette, but she was trying to quit so I discouraged her.”
“You and Doug became friends—or more?”
Brenda sighed. “It’s none of your business, but I thought he was interested. We spent a lot of time together—”
“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure out Tanya’s whereabouts. An old boyfriend of hers seems to think she’s gone missing.”
“Doug hung around only during working hours or after he closed the bar—
duh
! I’m not good at reading people. You’re probably really good at reading people, aren’t you? Since that’s your job.”
“What changed your mind about Doug?”
“His wife.”
“He’s married?”
Brenda gave me a conciliatory smile and nod. “Right? See what I mean? I should’ve seen it. Not all married men wear rings.”
The more I heard about Doug Daley, the sharper he came into focus. Brenda’s vulnerability to a man who shared a common interest in French wine would have been hard to resist. He wanted to learn, she had the knowledge. Doug had no problem using people, even if he hadn’t mentioned he was married. But she would’ve still needed to shave ten years off her age to have had a chance.
“How did you find out he was married?”
“Margot started coming into the pâtisserie for an occasional glass of wine. We got to be friends. She often referred to ‘her husband’ and I had no idea it was Doug until she showed up at one of the after-hours parties.”
“How did Doug’s employees react to her presence?”
“Hard to say. I was so shocked and upset, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“If you don’t mind, Brenda, was Doug a real hunk or what?”
Loud laughter. “Oh, yeah. Well, he was nice looking, in good shape. Not very tall but still
GQ
handsome with a full head of grayish hair with streaks of white. He always looked me in the eye when he spoke, like he was really interested in what I had to say.”
“I heard he was doing fine with the microbrews and that his desire to turn the Webster Avenue Saloon into a snobby wine joint tanked his business.”
Brenda considered my statement. “Yeah, I don’t know. You should probably be one or the other. Did the wine thing ruin his business? I can’t say. He just kind of sold out and hit the road.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“I never saw him again after he shut the saloon down. And since the accident, Margot hardly ever comes in—but she’s still around.”
“What accident?”
Brenda looked surprised. “You didn’t know? I’m sorry. Doug was killed in a car wreck early last month, in New Mexico. Margot showed me the article.”
I sat back in my chair and tried to absorb the significance of Brenda’s words to my case.
“What do you mean ‘but she’s still around’?”
“Margot lives down the street. She’s been kind of reclusive since the accident. Her windows are always lit up at night.”
“Can you show me the building?”
Brenda stood and motioned for me to follow her out the door to the sidewalk. “See that rounded room with the dome roof sticking out? That’s her place.”
Chapter 6
It was one of those buildings that made you wonder what the hell people had been thinking. A classic Victorian transformed into a red-brick rectangle, sprouting bay-window lesions. Margot Daley’s apartment included the lesion that faced Webster Avenue. Despite the intercom system, I was instantly buzzed through. At the top of the first flight, her door was halfway open.
“Mrs. Daley?” I called out.
“Call me Margot,” I heard before she came into view.
Once upon a time she had been breathtakingly beautiful, a redhead who hushed a crowded room upon entering. Older now, she was still pretty, with a smattering of gray streaks and a few vertical lines around the lips that did nothing to take away from her elegance. Sunlight streaming through the bay window revealed a spacious mustard yellow apartment and walls decorated with French impressionist prints. An expensive-looking lamp sat on what looked like a fancy grand piano. Oriental rugs covered the floor. I found myself drawn to the multicolored paper butterflies adorning the chain to the attic door.
“The butterflies help me forget there’s a dank loft up there.”
I said, “Persian on the floor, Tiffany on the baby grand?”
Margot laughed and nodded approvingly. “A cultured man, no less!”
Her voice had the slightest echo of a smoker’s rumble, although I saw no ashtrays and detected no tobacco odor. She had quit just in time.
“I’m Jules Landau, a private investigator. Were you expecting someone?”
“No. I enjoy having visitors, so whoever rings comes in. I’m having a glass of pinot noir. Would you care to join me?”
“No thanks.”
The furniture was luxurious in the traditional style, fully upholstered with wood trim. “Please sit,” Margot said and lay on a chaise longue in front of the bay window. A small end table next to her held a half-full glass of red wine. In blue jeans, her figure could be that of a teenager. I took the love seat, along with its view of Margot’s profile.
“I hope you weren’t serious about letting anyone in who leans on the buzzer,” I said.
“You don’t know me but already you’re worried about me?”
“I’d have to be in a coma not to be disturbed by images of what could come walking up those stairs.”
Margot smiled. “You’re sweet but perhaps too imaginative. I don’t fear the city or what it has to offer. This couch is my favorite place to relax and feel the warmth. No matter how cold it is out in the streets, this chaise is a comfy haven. You can always create a little space of comfort for yourself, regardless of where you live. And I keep a .38 revolver in the desk drawer.”
I wondered how comfortable she would feel when some crackhead stumbled into her bedroom.
“You seem remarkably indifferent that a private investigator has dropped by.”
Margot shrugged. “If you show up here investigating, I assume you want to talk about my husband.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Duly noted.”
“I’ve been hired to find a woman who used to work with your husband.” I stepped over to her with the picture of Tanya Maggio. Margot didn’t move, just glanced at the photo and then returned her attention out the window.
After I sat back down she said, “You’re wasting your time. Doug killed her.”
The matter-of-fact way she mentioned murder blindsided me. “You want to tell me how you know this?”