Page 43 of Fade Out
“Where did your ex-husband know Mazur from?”
“I think high school. But who knows. He said once Mike did him favors, but he wouldn’t say exactly what kind of favors.”
“You said he was in your wedding. Do you have a picture?”
“I threw the pictures out. Except the one I showed you last time you were here. And I don’t think that one’s long for the world.”
“All right, thanks. I appreciate—”
“You know what’s funny? Going into a marriage things look one way and then coming out of it those same things look completely different.”
Chapter Eleven
Now I had a name:Mike Mazur. I recognized the surname. There were Mazurs in Bridgeport. He was Polish, like me. I had a decision to make: I could drop everything and go looking for Mike Mazur or I could go on with my day. The thing was, I already knew where Mazur could be located. He was with Rita. I could track down his family members and ask if they knew where to find him, but I doubted they did.
And… I probably knew where he was anyway. It was entirely possible, no, make that probable, that he and Rita were at Marina City. I hadn’t been able to get into the building, so I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. They could be holed up somewhere else in the city, but my gut said they were there.
It took a little while but I finally remembered that I’d left the Lincoln over by the Belmont El stop. It took an extra twenty minutes to walk there, I was actually closer to the Addison stop. But that didn’t matter, it was 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning and there wasn’t much I could do. When I found the car, I drove out to Milwaukee Avenue and headed toward Niles.
I stopped at a gas station and got directions to the nearest high school, which turned out to be Niles West. After finding my way to Oakton, I drove to Austin and turned south. The high school was enormous and looked a bit like a factory. There were sprawling parking lots on two sides. Since it was early Saturday morning there were few cars.
I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do. The offices wouldn’t be open, so I didn’t know who I might speak to about a student who attended the school… when? When would Rita have been there? I did a little math and figured out she would have been at Niles West sometime in the late sixties to early seventies. This felt like it might be futile.
Next to the school were the athletic fields. There were quite a lot of them. I slowed down and watched for a moment. Their football team was practicing in one of the fields. I parked and got out. Sometimes coaches were also teachers. I wondered if it might be worth talking to any of the adults standing on the sidelines.
But then I noticed that a marching band was rehearsing on the actual football field in front of a set of bleachers. Since bands were coed, I thought I might have better luck down there. I doubted Rita was a band type any more than she was a cheerleader type, but my guess was she was a weird kid and that made band a more likely place to ask about her. She probably didn’t play an instrument, but someone might have heard of her.
School hadn’t started for the year so, not surprisingly, the band was having a lot of trouble marching and playing their instruments at the same time. When I got down to the field, I noted there were two groups of adults standing on the sidelines and others in the bleachers.
When I got close, I stood for a while listening to the band. After a few moments, I realized they were rehearsing “This Land Is Your Land.” Part way through, one of the adults—an older guy with a clipboard—blew a whistle and the band stopped. Several of the other adults ran onto the field. The teenagers split themselves into groups. While everyone was shifting around, I walked over to the clipboard guy.
“Excuse me. Um, my cousin was a student here, in the late sixties, I think, and my family’s lost touch. I’d like to find out—”
“You should come back on Monday. Talk to someone in the office. They have all the alumni records.”
“I know. But I’m only in town for the weekend. I know it’s a long shot.”
“What’s the name?”
“Rita. Rita Lindquist.”
“Late sixties?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“You’re not sure how old your cousin is?”
“Thirty-three,” I guessed.
“That would be class of seventy. Your family lost touch a long time ago?”
“We did.”
“I didn’t start here until seventy-four.” Then he looked over at the adults on the field. “Um, no, our section leaders all started after I did.”
“Okay. Well, thanks.”
“Like I said, come back on Monday. Talk to Art Livsey. He’s the vice principal. Been here since the school opened in fifty-nine.”
