Free Windy City Blues by Marc Krulewitch Page A

for me was equivalent to swallowing a Valium. Palmer the aristocrat, inveterate newspaper man, slapped by the realpolitik of corporate media. I needed an insight into Baxter, something to suggest a logical connection, something to close the gaps between all those damn dots. I drifted off picturing four men standing in a room. A faceless head on a body wearing a suit represented Konigson. I wanted him to tell me something, even if he didn’t have a head. Konigson raised his arm and pointed. I heard a shrill ringing. Konigson pointed again and I opened my eyes. My cell phone spoke.
    “It’s Johnny. Your boy Baxter has anger issues.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Four misdemeanor assaults on parking officers.”
    “What time frame?”
    “All within the year. Before that, nothing.”
    “What’s he driving?”
    “Two thousand and three blue Buick LeSabre.” Johnny read off seven numbers for the plate.
    “Give me an address and your job is done.”
    “Twenty-four fifteen West Farragut, Apartment G6.”
    I repeated the address and Johnny confirmed Baxter lived in the same building as Gelashvili.
    —
    From across the street of Baxter’s Farragut Avenue apartment building I failed to see any sign of the police surveillance Baker and Calvo had mentioned. Real surveillance would’ve been all over my ass by now. I called the bakery and asked Tamar if she knew anyone who lived on the ground floor.
    “I see people in the laundry room down there. But unless they were my neighbors, I couldn’t say for sure what floor they lived on. Why do you ask?”
    “I’ll tell you more later. Gotta go.” It felt good having a solid reason to call her again.
    I judged an apartment building’s character by how it treated its ground floor. Apart from a slightly musty odor, the freshly painted hallway, the well-vacuumed carpet, and the brightly lit laundry room spoke well of the building’s management.
    Outside the door to apartment G6, I heard random notes produced one at a time from an electronic keyboard as if a child were poking the keys with one finger. I knocked. The music continued. I knocked again. Still the music played. I was about to put a closed fist to the door when it slowly opened to reveal a tall, thin man in his forties wearing purple jeans and a white T-shirt. He hadn’t shaved in days. Wavy black hair reached below his ears. His studio apartment was messy, like a teenager’s bedroom. The white walls were bare. Across the room, a digital piano continued playing the music, or whatever it was.
    “Yes?”
    “Mr. Baxter?”
    “Yes, I am Gordon Baxter.”
    “My name is Jules Landau. I’m a private investigator. I’ve been hired to investigate the murder of your upstairs neighbor, Mr. Gelashvili. May I ask you a few questions?”
    Baxter’s only reaction was to lean against the door frame and stare. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Sure. C’mon in.”
    Baxter sat on the pile of clothes that covered his bed. He offered me the only chair in his studio apartment—the one at the keyboard.
    “There’s a button at the far left of the console. Push it if the music bothers you. I’m a composer.” Baxter spoke like someone bored out of his skull. I let the invisible child play.
    “You were aware that Jack Gelashvili, who lived in this building, was murdered about a block away?”
    “Of course.”
    I waited for more. “Did the police question you? About what you may have heard? Whether or not you knew the victim? That kind of thing.”
    “I saw police talking to some people from the building.”
    “What did they ask you?”
    “Nothing.”
    “They didn’t question you?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And did you think it was odd that they didn’t question you?”
    A few notes and a couple of eye blinks later, “I don’t know.”
    “Forgive me for saying this, but you are acting really spaced out. Like you have no idea what’s going on.”
    “Yes, you’re correct,” Baxter said then stood, pushed the pile of clothes