“My father isn’t present, but he’s accounted for,” I said. “Ditto my children. Miss Ella Gadsden is the reason I’m looking for him.”
The sander fell silent. The only noise in the room came from a woman on the radio asking how consumers could ever be sure they were buying clothes made in a factory that respected the workers.
The chess players didn’t seem to know Miss Ella’s name, but the man behind the counter finally turned around. He placed the shoe he was working on, an old brown Florsheim, in the middle of the counter and leaned over to look at me.
“That’s a name I haven’t heard for a while,” he said, “but I don’t think I’ve heard yours at all.”
“V. I. Warshawski. I’m a private investigator. Miss Ella hired me to look for Lamont Gadsden. She said Curtis Rivers was one of his friends.”
Another long pause, before the man behind the counter said, “We knew each other, a long time back. Miss Ella, what, is she grief struck after all these years? She rented out his bedroom five months after he left. Didn’t seem as though she was expecting to see him again.”
“Did you know her sister, too? Miss Claudia? I haven’t met her. She’s very ill, they tell me. But I understand it’s Miss Claudia who actually wants to find him.”
“You got some kind of identification, Ms. Investigator?” Curtis Rivers asked.
I showed him the laminated copy of my license.
“Warshawski. Warshawski. Now, why do I know that name?”
“Hockey?” I suggested. “A lot of people remember my cousin Boom-Boom.”
All three men laughed at that, as if the idea of hockey itself was a joke.
“A simple no would do,” I said, nettled. Boom-Boom had been more than my cousin; we’d been best friends growing up, proud of our reputation as the wildest kids in South Chicago. Besides, even though he’s been dead a dozen years now, they still talk about Boom-Boom in the same breath as Bobby Hull, in that mausoleum on Washington Street.
“Miss Ella couldn’t remember many people who might have known her son. You, Mr. Rivers. Two other friends, one dead, the other, Steve Sawyer, I can’t find.” I paused, but Rivers didn’t fill in the blank. “A science teacher. Pastor Hebert, from her church.”
“I heard he passed,” one of the chess players said.
“No, he’s living in Pullman with his daughter,” I said. “But people at the church are saying he’s not too fit mentally, so I don’t know what he can tell me.”
“And what can I tell you?” Curtis Rivers asked.
“Anything you can remember about Lamont Gadsden. Anyone else he hung out with, anyplace he talked about going, when you last saw him, what his mood was, all those things. If you know where Steve Sawyer is, you could get me out of here so I could ask him those questions.”
“And what will you do if I tell you those things?”
“Talk to more people. Try to find someone who could give me a lead on where he went when he disappeared. Do you remember the last time you saw him?”
Rivers picked up the shoe again. “It’s been a lot of years, Ms. Warshawski.”
“Miss Ella says Lamont left her house the day before the big snow of ’sixty-seven. She says that she and Miss Claudia never saw him again, but did you?”
“The day, the hour, and the minute—trust Miss Ella for that. My memories aren’t lined up in formation like that, but if anything comes to me I’ll call you.” He turned around and flipped the belt sander back on.
I laid one of my cards on the counter, put two more next to the chessboard. “If it’s any help, I’m not going to faint or run to the State’s Attorney’s Office if I hear about some old gang connections. I used to represent some Anacondas and Lions when I was with the Public Defender’s Office.”
I raised my voice to carry over the belt sander, but none of the men responded. I pushed through the display ropes to the front door, wincing when the steam whistle blew and the recording announced, “Central Station, Chicago. Leaving now for New Orleans and all stops in between, the City of New Orleans.”
7
BAD BOY LAMONT??