Maxwell Street Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

one on each side of the house. They probably owed Kalijero favors.
    About three feet of lighted yard lay between the garage shadow and the enormous oak tree said to be one of the oldest in Bucktown. It forked about ten feet up where a large hollow had formed. From a distance, you wouldn’t notice the opening because Snooky had glued together chunks of tree fungus to fashion a covering that fit snugly over the hole. The wooden bench next to the tree balanced precariously on twisted roots. I had to be careful. I figured the odds were in my favor that I could jump into the tree’s shadow without being noticed. If Kalijero’s goons saw me, I’d proceed to the front of the house and hope the old lady who lived next to Snooky remembered when he introduced us, and that she appreciated my stopping by to remember her neighbor.
    I jumped across and waited. Nothing happened. No quick movements or whispers.I carefully stepped onto the bench and pushed on the fungus door. It seemed stuck, so I shoved it with the heel of my hand and it popped off, bounced against my forearm, and fell to the ground. I braced for commotion but still nothing. A flame flickered from the side of the house. One of them had lit a cigarette. I’d have to tell Kalijero to stop using short-timer cops dedicated only to padding their pensions. As expected, Snooky’s notebook was double-wrapped in plastic bags. I looked around thinking this had been too easy, that somewhere along the line I would be challenged. But there would be no tests that evening. I stepped off the bench, walked through the gate, and within minutes was on my way home.

5
    I flipped the switch that controlled two gooseneck floor lamps, one next to the couch and the other next to the recliner. The warm glow transformed my space into a cozy oasis in a dark city. I was thinking I needed to get some pictures on the walls when the specter of an old man caught the corner of my eye, and in that suspended moment before my heart flipped, I heard the words, “You’re dead!” and stumbled backward onto the couch. “You see how easy it is to get dead?” Dad said.
    “Goddamn it!” I wanted to push the son of a bitch through the wall. “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Why don’t you have that door rigged?”
    “Don’t do that again. How’d you get in?”
    “I use this to spread jelly.” Dad showed me a butter knife and then tossed it on the wood coffee table.
    “What do you want?”
    “What’ve you got?”
    “It’s been one day!”
    “I’m your client who’s paying you. What’s that? You just get back from the library?”
    I let my head fall back. I tried to calm down, tossing the notebook on the table and monitoring my heartbeat. “If you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me what I’ve got?” I said.
    Dad picked up the book and sat next to me. After tossing the plastic bags on the floor, he took out his reading glasses. He turned a few pages, and a smile crept across hismouth. He mumbled for a few minutes until he looked at me grinning. “I referred a lot of these guys to Snooky.”
    I walked into the kitchen and returned with a pen and legal pad. “Write down which names you know and which you don’t. You know anyone called Milly?”
    “Don’t know Milly,” Dad said and took the pad and drew a line down the middle of the page. He seemed pleased that I had asked for his help. On one side he started listing the alias “Guidos” he already knew about—J.J., Big A, Jackass.
    “Jackass?”
    “He worked for Borseti collecting coins from cigarette machines and jukeboxes. He had big pointy ears like a donkey.”
    “Borseti owned the North Side machines?”
    “Borseti owned bartenders. See this?” Dad pointed at a payment to Pulaski Vending. “This was a small operation. Borseti set up Pulaski as a company that collected for the bartenders. Bartender calls for dirty laundry pickup. Jackass gives bartender his cut and brings the rest to Snooky. Snooky gives Jackass a