Nibbled to Death by Ducks, page 6
part #6 of Jimmy Flannery Series
"The man's mother named Carmody after Chips."
"She named a baby Chips?"
"No, she named him Francis."
"So maybe Chips suspects this woman names her kid after him because she thinks it'll pay off when he passes on without having any kids of his own. And maybe Delvin don't like the presumption. She didn't know him very well, that's for sure, or she'd've known he hates the name Francis. What's this all by way of, Jimmy?"
"Carmody appears at the funeral out of the blue and takes over. He checks Delvin into a rest home called the Larkspur."
I don't see a flicker. Maybe Boyle and Medill ain't got their facts straight. Maybe they're just passing on gossip. Maybe Dunleavy ain't got any money into this nursing home operation.
"It ain't the best-run hotel in the world. You heard of this place?"
He purses his lips.
"It's called the Larkspur," I go on, "and it's right by Micek Park," I tell him.
He frowns a little bit.
"Something bothering you, Mr. Dunleavy? You heard about this nursing home?"
"The name sounds familiar, but I can't seem to place it."
"Maybe you heard about the conditions there. They're pretty bad, I think."
"Can't place it."
"Ain't it in your files?"
"Sure, it'll be in there. I'll have it looked up."
"Maybe if you looked it up under investments," I say.
"Run that train through the station one more time, will you?" he says, his jaw tightening up some.
I know I should let it drop, but something won't let me. "You might have a financial interest in the Larkspur," I say.
He don't like my tone of voice, but he just looks at me sideways a little.
"Something bothering you, Jimmy? You got a wild hair?"
"Nothing like that, Mr. Dunleavy. I'm just asking do you know the kind of place you've got your money invested in."
"Are you upbraiding me, Jimbo? Is there something about where my financial managers put my money that you disapprove of?"
He's trying to make it look like he's got people investing his money for him without his knowledge, but I know and he knows I know that there ain't a penny passes through his hands that he ain't put an address on.
"Nowadays things are so complicated a man can't just stick his money in the bank and draw his two or three percent," he says. "We got futures. We got debentures. We got options and options on options. We got. . .well, what the hell, you know how it is. Nothing's simple and straightforward anymore when it comes to money. You got to hire somebody to take care of it."
I'm ready to say that nothing about money was ever very simple and straightforward, it was people who used to be simple and straightforward and maybe weren't anymore. I was going to say he'd rather cut his wrists than pay anybody to take care of his money. But his eyes are a little icy, and I know I better not pester the animals too much.
"Who told you I had any money invested in this nursing home?"
"It's around."
"That's all you can say?"
"There ain't any more."
He's picking up his red pencil, telling me he's got no more time for me. "Don't go looking for anything in the woodpile, Flannery," he says.
"I'll just tell Mr. Delvin you'll be by to see him and have a look around," I say, getting to my feet.
"If things is so bad over there," Dunleavy says, "what the hell you leaving him there for?"
"Well, I'm looking into ways to get him out."
"Yes, you do that. You look into it and I'll look into it, and we'll see what's what."
He goes back to the map he's working on.
"All anybody's doing is trying to put a little aside for their old age," he says, like he's talking to himself.
"What did you say, Mr. Dunleavy?"
"I say, you look into it and I'll look into it, and we'll do what we can do without making the six o'clock news. Right?"
"Yes, sir."
EIGHT
Mike's over for supper, which ain't unusual. Tonight he brings three dozen ears of first-crop sweet corn. Mary boils up the corn. We each got a stick of butter to ourselves to roll the ears in. There's also some apple pie if anybody wants it.
"There's enough cholesterol in all this butter to stun our hearts," Mary says, working her way through her dozen ears of corn.
"It only happens once a year, at the beginning of corn season," Mike says, "so I ain't going to feel too guilty. I'll run a couple extra miles. Speaking of which, when are you going to buy yourself a pair of Nikes or Reeboks and come run a few with me, Jim?"
"I got to rework my schedule, see how I can fit it in."
"No time like the present. Right after supper put on your old tennis shoes, and we'll go down to Grant Park and do some laps."
"Not on a full stomach I'm not going to do laps. You could die from it. Ain't that right, Mary?"
"It probably wouldn't do you any good, seeing the condition you're in."
Mike's pleased that she agrees with him that I'm not in such great shape.
"What's the matter with my condition? I been walking miles every day for years. I don't know that buying a track suit and some fancy sneakers and running around a hard track hurting my ankles and knees is going to get me in better shape."
"You used to walk miles every day when you was walking the sewers, but you ain't been doing that—except for that little punishment tour old Delvin gave you—in longer than I can remember," Mike says.
I'm ready to start an argument when there's a knock on the front door.
"That would be the lawyer," Mike says.
"What lawyer?"
"The lawyer what handled Mrs. Banjo's will. I forgot to tell you. He called when you two was out and told me he'd be glad to come over here to deliver the deed to that vacant lot and get you to sign a paper."
Mary's gone to the door and comes back with Itzy Dumkowski. He's a fat character wearing about twelve yards of blue serge suit, a shirt so white it could burn your eyes, and a red satin tie. He looks like a flag walking around. He smiles around his teeth on all four sides and sticks out his hand, first to me and then to my old man, who apologizes for any grease he could have on his hand.
"Sweet corn," Dumkowski says.
"There's a few ears left," Mary says. "Would you like to have them?"
"I wouldn't want to deprive anyone," he says, sitting down and reaching for a couple of paper napkins. He puts a bulging, well-worn briefcase on the floor by his shoe with one hand while he's tucking in the corner of a napkin with the other. When he spreads it out it only covers part of his shirt, so he takes the second and tucks it in between a couple of buttons on his shirt so the rest of him'll be safe.
"I always say, 'Go into the house of the common working man'—no offense intended—'and you'll get hospitality you'll never get in the homes of the aristocratic rich.'"
He finishes off the four ears Mary had left over just about the time Mike and me finish the rest of ours.
Mary brings over the pie and cuts it into eight pieces.
Mike pours out the coffee.
Dumkowski inhales his piece of pie and looks round eyes until Mary asks him would he like another.
He's having his third piece of pie and second cup of coffee while the rest of us are just watching him.
I never see a man enjoy his food so much. Not even my old man when Mary makes stew and Irish soda bread. He's having such a good time that we all just sit there grinning at him.
Tonight there ain't going to be no pie for Mike and me while we're watching the eleven o'clock news. Dumkowski finishes it all but refuses a fourth cup of coffee and says, "It's time to get down to business."
Reaching over sideways and sliding down in the chair a little, he manages to get his hand on the briefcase and put it on his lap. Or on his knees, really, because he ain't got much of a lap.
"I can't tell you what a pleasure this part of my profession is," he says. "Passing on the gifts of the dear departed to surviving friends and loved ones makes it all worthwhile."
I don't ask him what's so hard about the rest of what he does. He hands over the deed to the property and a paper I sign proving that he's executed his duty to the satisfaction of the trustee, who happens to be Delvin.
"You know Mr. Delvin a long time?" I ask.
"Casually. Only casually. I was Mrs. Banjo's attorney for twenty years, but I never had reason to see much of her employer. I had an introduction. Always do that. Get an introduction from one client hoping to get another. Good business practice," he says while he's handing a calling card to each one of us. "But Mr. Delvin had plenty of long-standing legal counsel of his own. I drew up Mrs. Banjo's will, though, and since Mr. Delvin was named her trustee I had reason to confer with him."
"You've seen him, then?"
"I spoke to him at the wake."
"How did he seem to you?"
"Confused. Almost prostrate with grief. It hits the old ones very hard, you know. Part of it's the survival syndrome. They're still alive when people younger than them are dying, and that makes for a burden of guilt. Time of tragedy is a dangerous time even putting that aside. When my own father died, his brother dropped dead at the funeral, my mother went down with a flu that lasted two weeks—thought it'd turn into pneumonia and we'd lose her—and my brother had a heart attack. Mild, but still, there you go, stress and grief. Takes a terrible toll. I had an attack of gall bladder myself. Everybody suffers."
"He wasn't too confused to know what you was talking about?" I say, managing to sneak the question in edgeways. I can see that Dumkowski's the sort of man, you ask him a three-second question, he gives you a five-minute answer.
"I'm not a medical man, you understand. Still and all, in my profession. . ." I hardly know I'm doing it, but I raise my hand and hold it with the palm looking at him, like I'm a traffic cop, and he stops rattling on and says, "His responses were slow but unimpaired. Has he suggested to you that I'm not handling this matter efficiently or correctly?"
"Nothing like that. Oh, no. I was just wondering, if his head was working all right, why he let hisself be put into a nursing home." I raise my hand. It works again. I get short answers whenever I do it.
"That would have been at his cousin's suggestion," he says.
"Carmody?"
"That's right. You know him, I'm sure."
"I didn't even know that Mr. Delvin had any living relatives until just the other day."
"Well, fortunately for him, he seems to have at least one. Mr. Carmody appeared to be a tower of strength at the wake. The kind of man prepared to take responsibility during a time when Mr. Delvin, fragile with grief, would need someone to see after his affairs. I should imagine that a man of his wealth would have considerable holdings and investments needing constant review."
I glance at Mike. I can see that it never occurs to him, just like it never occurs to me, that Delvin probably has got a bundle he's collected over the years in city government so big that he couldn't stuff it in a sock or under the mattress.
"But with Carmody taking over like you say, Delvin still makes the decisions as trustee for Mrs. Banjo?" I say.
"There wasn't much to be decided. Her estate is very modest. There aren't even any tax consequences to consider. The vacant lot she left to you, a few bequests of cash to friends—none greater than a thousand dollars—her photographs, china and silver, already in his house, to Mr. Delvin, and some charitable gifts here and there. The whole lot no more than eighty thousand dollars. Very modest nowadays. Especially when you consider the lot makes up more than half of it."
"Is a vacant lot in this part of town worth forty, fifty thousand dollars?" I say, really surprised.
"Give or take five thousand. Would you be thinking of selling it?"
"We don't know what we intend to do," Mary says. "Not right this minute. Mrs. Banjo's gift came as quite a surprise."
"Well, if ever you want to sell, please contact me. Real-estate law is one of my specialties."
"We'll do that, Mr. Dumkowski," I say. "You talk to Delvin only that once?"
"Well, no. I talked to him two times since. Once on the telephone a few hours after he was settled into the nursing home the first day, and once late this afternoon."
"How did he sound?"
"Drowsy. In fact, we only spoke for a moment, and then Mr. Carmody got on the phone and answered the few questions I wanted to put to Mr. Delvin."
"Would you like another cup of coffee?" Mary asks.
"I've had a sufficiency, thank you," he says, patting his stomach with both hands. After that he gets up and leaves.
NINE
The next day I go down to the building department, which in Chicago is called the Department of Inspectional Services—don't ask me why—over on LaSalle.
Inspectional Services includes Building Complaints and Information, Building Permits, the Compliance Board, Bureau of Licensing Registration and Permits, the Board of Examiners for Mason Contractors, Plumbers, and Stationary Engineers and the Commissioner's Office.
I know people in practically every department of the city and got good relationships with every one of them. Except I ain't got such grand relationships with anybody in the commissioner's office or in Building Complaints and Information because I've had to go to both places and raise hell when some of my neighbors come to me with complaints about the flats they got to live in.
Also, I don't know anybody in Permits, because I never had the occasion, and they change clerks like a jockey changes silks.
I step up to the counter—which is marked and scarred by fifty years of doodles put there while contractors and common people like me waited for somebody to admit they was alive—with the deed to the vacant lot in my hand.
A kid, maybe eighteen, maybe nineteen, is sitting there reading a comic book. I clear my throat three times before he looks up and asks me what I want.
"I want to build a house."
"You got funny papers?"
"Funny papers?"
"Plans."
"I'm just trying to find out what I got to do before I start looking at plans."
"So you ain't got a contractor either?"
"I'm trying to take the first step is what I'm trying to do. Are you the man can help me?"
He likes that, me calling him a man. He puts down the comic book, hops off the stool and comes over to lean on the counter.
"I got a deed to the land," I say.
"That's all right. It ain't up to me to check if the deed's good, it ain't good."
"You mean anybody can walk in, say they want to build a house on a vacant lot, and you don't care if they can prove they own it?"
He looks at me like he pities my ignorance.
"Don't worry, somebody'll check. You got the deed recorded? Well, it's a matter of the public record, ain't it?"
I give him a little grin like I'm saying how dopey can I get, having learned a long time ago that a little stupid can go a long way with certain people who want to feel that their jobs are more important than they really are. "I never thought."
"So, there, that's one thing you don't have to worry about. What you got to do, number one, is get the lot surveyed so you're sure about the boundaries."
"Wasn't it surveyed when the subdivision went through?"
"Sure, and it was surveyed the first time it was sold and every time it was sold or transferred after that."
"How come is that? Do they think the land moved a foot one way or the other?"
He wiggles his eyebrows. "Hey, whattaya think? Surveyors got to make a living. Number two is you get some drawings made up." He whips out a piece of paper from under the counter. "This'll tell you how much coverage you're allowed on the property. How much square footage can be contained in the building envelope. What kind of setbacks you need front and back and on the sides. How much of the lot can be covered by impermeable surfaces, like driveways and permanent walkways." He stares into my eyes for a minute, then says, "You better get yourself a builder."
So after I pay two hundred and fifty bucks to get things rolling, I go home and call up my old man.
"Who do you know what can build me a house?"
"You know what kind of house you want?"
"I figure two floors in that neighborhood. Two bedrooms and a bath and half. Nice living room."
"Fireplace?"
"That would be nice."
"Step-down?"
"Step-down what?"
"Step-down into the living room. It's the thing nowadays."
"Somebody could trip and break their neck stepping up, stepping down."
"Well, that would be bad, but your homeowner's would cover it."
"Cover what?"
"Any injuries visitors might sustain coming on your property. From the gate and up the walk, on the front stoop and inside the house."
"What do I need that for? I ain't got no homeowner's insurance where I'm living."
"You ain't got a house they could take away from you. When you're ready for a builder, we'll find you a builder. Talk it over with Mary, what kind of house you want."
"I'll do that."
So that night after supper Mary and me walk over to Horan Park, which is only about five blocks away from where we live, like Delvin says. But I know about five blocks in the city.
Four square blocks, from where the corners meet, is a neighborhood. Another block in every direction is a walk to the tavern or the grocery store or the shoemaker. Any more than that's a visit to a sick relative or a girlfriend when you're a young man. Five blocks when you're older and settled is practically across town. You think you're going to visit your friends in the old neighborhood often, but you don't.
If we move, I'd be seeing my old neighbors more than most people because I'm always running around doing this and that, but even then I know that I won't be seeing them every day. That's what makes neighbors, seeing them every day. Maybe not even visiting each other's houses or having a meal together. Just seeing them to say hello or even wave to every day.
