“That’s a scarce commodity, Mr. Howard,” I said. “And this
I asked him for a twenty-five-dollar retainer and he stood and drew five tens from a fairly well-stuffed wallet.
“Since I’ll be on the road, and you won’t be able to reach me,” he said, spreading the five bills on my desktop like a poker hand, “I’d prefer to pay you for a full week’s work, now.”
I managed not to stutter. “Fine. If I need to go beyond a week…?”
“Do it. I’ll be in touch soon.”
With a final tight mirthless smile, he extended his hand and I stood behind the desk and shook it.
“I appreciate your help, Mr. Heller.”
“I hope I
“I pray so,” he said. “I pray so.”
Then he was gone, and I put his money in my pocket, and wondered where I’d seen the pretty, apple-cheeked girl in the snapshot before.
U
PTOWN
U
PTOWN
3
I started the job the following Monday, which was the day the heat wave really started taking itself seriously. At 7:00 A.M. I caught the El—Uptown was six miles north of the Loop—and already it was sweltering; every man on the train was in his shirt sleeves, with suit-coat over arm or left the hell home. The only men I saw that day with their coats on were the old gents sitting on benches in front of the El station, where I got off at Wilson and Broadway; they seemed to be unchanging fixtures of the landscape, a part of the ornate, carved-stone station, like the marble arch with the clock in its grillwork belly that hovered above the front entryway.
The terra-cotta El station—patterned, so they said, after New York’s Grand Central—was typical of the Uptown district’s naïvely grandiose opinion of itself. Though few of the buildings were taller than three stories—the exceptions being a couple of hotels and a few high-rise apartment houses and the occasional office building—Uptown fancied itself a miniature Loop, and with some justification. The gingerbread on the buildings bore the influence of that other Chicago world’s fair, the Columbian Exposition of ’93, where the hodgepodge beaux arts style of pseduo-European/classical architecture reigned; and in Uptown to this day a fairlike atmosphere prevailed. There were movie palaces like the Riviera, dance halls like the Aragon, specialty shops, department stores, banks, drugstores, delis, tearooms; restaurants from Russian to Polish to Greek, as well as chop suey joints and a Swedish cafeteria.
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.
