Death in Uptown by Michael Raleigh

Author:Michael Raleigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626816190
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2015-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

Eight

He awoke at a quarter to seven after dreaming that he’d fallen down an immense staircase. He hurt in many places: ribs, nose, jaw, the side of his head and his ear. The news from the mirror was no better: everything was discolored or swollen. He looked like a fighter in desperate need of retirement. He took two aspirin and made coffee and wheat toast. The toast hurt his mouth. It was at least eighty in his apartment, and he turned on the radio in time to hear the disk jockey predict that it was going to be “another hot one, folks.”

To pamper himself a little he drove to work. Warm air seeped out of the vents when he turned on the air conditioning.

You are a fine car, he told the Jet. He parked outside a narrow storefront at the corner of Montrose and Broadway. A homemade variety of lettering proclaimed the storefront to be THE WAY MISSION. Just below the name, a small brochure, listing services and prayer meetings, was taped to the window. There was a tiny air conditioner above the door, whirring away with the sound of overstressed belts and unlubricated metal. He opened the door and was pleasantly surprised: the little relic worked and he was in cool air for the first time that day.

Don Ewald was sitting at the desk inside the storefront, poring over a Chicago Street Guide with the same young man Whelan had seen the previous day. Taller and with lighter coloring, he cut his sandy hair the same way and facially he could have been produced from Ewald’s genetic material. Same tailor, too: specializing in plain blue shirts and dark slacks. Ewald looked up when he heard the door, smiled and got to his feet quickly. He looked at Whelan, poked the other young man, and said, “Hello, Mr. Whelan.” To his companion he said, “Mr. Whelan is a private eye.” Whelan winced.

“Mr. Whelan, this is my friend and colleague, Tom Waters.” Whelan shook hands with Tom Waters. He looked at the nameplate on the desk that read REVEREND CHARLES ROBERTS. Roberts and Waters—at least Ewald was slightly Germanic, but he had a suspicion that such gloriously Wasp names were commonplace in the Way movement. These names were now fashionable, with Messrs Meese and Watt and Deaver and Baker and Bush. You had to lop a couple of syllables off your name if you wanted to get anywhere in government, that was clear, and if your name ended with an “A” or an “O” you were dead in the water.

Tom Waters gave Whelan an uncomfortably intense stare to go with his meat-grinder handshake. Whelan noted the razorlike creases in his shirt and the perfectly combed and parted hair, and knew Waters was one of those people who chewed each mouthful twenty-one times.

“Really a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Whelan. Don was telling me about his conversation with you. You’re looking for a couple of men on the run down here.”

“Well, not exactly.

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