Page 22 of Fade Out
I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. A woman answered. She was well put together, in her mid-fifties and wearing a trendy pink suit that had gigantic shoulders and flared at the hip. She had one big gold earring in her left ear and its mate in her hand. She was shoeless.
“Oh my God, if you’re here to talk to me about some bizarre religion I just don’t have time. I’m running late for a luncheon in Park Ridge.”
“I won’t keep you. I’m here to see Frank Connors.”
“Frank?” She looked at me suspiciously for a moment. “Has he done something illegal?”
“No. I’m an old friend.”
“Frank doesn’t have friends.”
“Bert Harker was my lover.”
“Oh! I see.” She finished putting her earring on. “Well, Frank doesn’t live here anymore. We’re getting divorced. I think. I don’t know. He’s gotten so bitter. Honestly, I think some of it is losing Bert, but I think most of it is…well, it’s a different world than it was, isn’t it?”
“Where does Frank live now?”
“He’s got an apartment in Jefferson Park.”
“Can I have the address?”
“Of course. He’d love nothing more than talking about the old days. For hours and hours,” she said with a heavy dose of bitterness. She didn’t give me the address though. I had to ask again.
“Oh my God, I’d lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on. Sunnyside. He’s on Sunnyside down in Jefferson Park. 5518 1A.”
“Thanks.”
It wasn’t in Jefferson Park though. She was wrong. It was actually Portage Park. I had relatives there, and when I was a kid we went back and forth all the time. My mother loved the shops around Six Corners. There was a huge Polish community and some of the stores sold Polish delicacies. I remembered my parents dropping me off to play in Chopin Park with some cousins.
On Sunnyside, I pulled up to the address I’d been given. It was a brick courtyard building like Brian’s, but also unlike Brian’s. It was small, almost a miniature version of Brian’s place. It made me wonder if, when they were building Brian’s building on Aldine, they took the leftover brick and made a miniature of it out here on the northwest side.
I went to the first entrance on the right. After I buzzed, the door made that spine-tingling electric sound and I stepped into a closet-sized lobby. It was so small you had to shut the front door before you opened the door leading to the stairs. Apartment 1A was just up four steps on the right. Frank Connor stepped out of the apartment and stared at me.
“What are you doing here? I was expecting a pizza.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, not mentioning that it was just past breakfast time. Most pizza places weren’t even open.
He went back into the apartment, leaving his door open as he did. Inside, there were four small rooms: a living room and bedroom in the front, a dining room and kitchen in the back. There was a bathroom as you came in the front door.
The whole place was eerily empty. There was one towel in the bathroom; nothing in the dining room to my left; nothing in the bedroom in front of me, also on my left. The living room, where Frank had gone, was the only room with any furniture to speak of: two dining room chairs and a mattress. The mattress had a pile of bedding clumped together in the middle. One of the chairs held a portable TV tuned to the new Spanish station. Frank turned the TV down and sat in the other chair.
There was no place for me to sit, so I didn’t. On the windowsill sat a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray. Frank was in the process of lighting a cigarette.
“You’re not doing so well, are you Frank?”
“I’m doing fine.”
“No you’re not. You should apologize to your wife and go home. Try smiling once in a while.”
He gave me a withering look that reminded me I wasn’t in the position to give that kind of advice. I’d done such a good job of fucking up my own life I’d lost the right to tell anyone what to do with theirs.
“Is that why you’re here?” he asked. “To tell me to smile?”
“No. I got arrested for killing a woman named Rita Lindquist.” I assumed there were additional charges related to chopping up the body but I didn’t bother to mention them.
Frank smiled. That didn’t feel very nice.
“Did you ever run across her? Or maybe her father? They were P.I.s.”
