Free Maxwell Street Blues by Marc Krulewitch Page A

lower spine while a skinny tentacle reached under my jacket and relieved me of my Colt.
    “If that’s your dick, you’re pretty damned tall,” I said. It was supposedly a gay neighborhood, after all.
    “Look, fucker,” the voice said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m getting a hundred bucks to walk you to that black limo next to the diner. If I have to shoot you, they’ll give me two hundred.” The stink was indescribable.
    “How about I give you two hundred bucks to walk away? But I’d like my gun back.”
    I assumed Shit Breath was thinking about it until he said, “I’m gonna put my arm around your shoulder, and we’re gonna walk like a happy couple. The whole time this gun will be under my shirt sticking into your side.” While crossing the street, I realized that my ghoulish-looking eye—complemented by my new pal—made me look like just another junkie.
    A rear passenger door swung open and waiting for me in the backseat of the refrigerated Cadillac limousine was the Honorable Jacob Mildish—not a bad ride on a rep’s salary. Great-Granddad would’ve been impressed. Shit Breath gave me a shove and closed the door. A tinted partition separated us from the front seat where the driver lowered his window and handed the meth-head a hundred-dollar bill before driving away.
    “I apologize for that,” Mildish said. “I hope he wasn’t too rude.”
    Mildish had one of those chubby baby faces that looked downright cartoonish on a man I guessed to be around sixty.
    “He threatened to kill me, that’s all. And he stole my fully licensed handgun.”
    “Good god, I’m sorry. I offered him a hundred dollars to get you to come over to the car. It’s too darn hot to stand outside. It was Tate’s idea to meet here.” Then Mildish leaned toward me and said, “How’s that eye healing? Tate told me about it so I’d be sure to recognize you.”
    Because the lore behind the Mildish myth included a hardscrabble upbringing as the son of an iron- and steelworker, I found his grandfatherly manner and aristocratic accent puzzling. “Where is Tate?”
    “He’s too upset. I told him he’ll drop dead if he doesn’t relax.”
    “I see, so what’re you gonna do, dump my body somewhere?” I was half serious.
    Mildish recoiled as if a cobra had shimmied out of my collar. “You’ve got the wrong idea, Mr. Landau. I’m a businessman.”
    “You’re a politician.”
    “Politics is just an aspect of business. I’d be surprised if you didn’t know this concept inside and out—given your family history. Either way, accept this fact and your chosen profession will be easier to master.”
    “Terrific. Who killed Snooky and why?”
    “We know it doesn’t look good—”
    “You mean it looks like Snooky was killed to cover the path leading to kickbacks you and Tate got from the developer who won the university expansion contract? What happened, Your Honor, somebody panic?”
    “We don’t know who killed Mr. Snook or why. He was completely trustworthy, an expert launderer. Why would we want him dead? That would be a terrible business decision.”
    We sat in silence. Small shivers began racing through me, and I thought I might have entered stage-one hypothermia. If only to take my mind off the cold, I said, “You can’t think of any reason someone would want Snooky dead?”
    Mildish took a deep breath and rotated his fat body to face me. “Mr. Landau, I have racked my brains over this, and I can’t think of a single reason why someone would do this. Could it have just been a random act of violence?”
    I laughed. “Two random bullets in his head, three hundred and fifty random dollars still in his wallet, his body randomly lying on a pile of construction debris and showing no random signs of struggle.”
    Silence again until Mildish said, “I feel compelled to ask what your intentions are.”
    “I’m being paid to find Snooky’s killer, nothing else. As long as you’re not lying to me, I don’t