hall, each wearing a mile-wide smile.
Gordie pistol-pointed two fingers at me. “Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.”
“George Carlin.”
Ryan and Gordie smacked raised palms.
“Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?” Gordie.
“Carlin again,” Ryan said. “Damn, I was bummed when he died.” Pause. “If God didn’t intend for us to eat animals, why did he make them out of meat?”
“Woody Allen?” Gordie guessed.
“John Cleese.”
“Andy, my man. You know your comedy.”
“You two spent the day playing Guess the Comic?” I was the only one not cracking up.
“Billy Goat!”
“Billy Goat!”
Tipsy high five.
“Lower, not upper!”
Palm smack.
When public road development began in Chicago in 1910, city planners came up with the idea of double- and triple-deck streets. Sound nuts? Not really. The arrangement was dictated by geography and traffic flow. This was the deal.
Many Loop streets crossed the river as bascule bridges, movable spans operated by complex counterweight systems. Bascule bridges accommodate boats nicely but require height clearance at their approaches to and over the river.
Railroad tracks were another complicating factor. Some ran along, others dead- ended at the water. Tracks also need clearance.
Thus, at points of closely spaced river crossings, a clearance zone was created. Many multilevel streets came into being as a result of falling within that zone. The idea was that local traffic would use the upper deck, while commercial vehicles and through traffic would travel below.
The longest and most famous multidecker is Wacker Drive, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River. Michigan Avenue is another.
The Billy Goat Tavern is located on Michigan’s lower level. Apparently, Bud and Lou had experienced some confusion in navigating to their chosen watering hole. But they’d definitely found it.
“Did you know the Billy Goat inspired Belushi’s ‘Cheez-borger-Pepsi’ sketch on
“Yes.” Fake smile. “May I speak to you alone?”
“Sure.”
“Please excuse us,” I said to Gordie.
Without waiting for an answer, I turned and walked into the living room. Footsteps assured me that Ryan was following.
“What are you
“Gordie and I played racquetball. Then we had a few beers. The guy’s a hoot, by the way.”
“Why aren’t you in Montreal?”
“Because I’m in Chicago.”
“You know what I mean. I’m trying to spend quality time with Pete’s family.”
“They’re great. Vecamamma’s a-”
“I know. A hoot. You were supposed to go home today.”
“The only flight I could get was at eight p.m. Vecamamma said I was welcome to stay for as long as I needed. Gordie offered racquetball, then a tour of the Loop. Ever been to Navy Pier?”
“Yes.” My molars weren’t clamped, but they were close.
Ryan shrugged. “Sounded good so I decided to hang for a while.”
“A while?”
“I’ll check with headquarters again tonight. See if anything’s come up since I called in this morning. Otherwise, what the hell? I’m off duty until Monday.”
“Your behavior is totally inappropriate.”
“You’re not the first woman to tell me that.”
“Yo. Andy.” Gordie was standing in the doorway. “Glass of wine?”
“A woman drove me to drink.” Ryan opened the quote.
“I never had the courtesy to thank her.” Gordie closed it.
“W. C. Fields,” I said to an empty room.
Dinner went as you’d imagine.
When I retired at eleven, Gordie and Ryan were smoking cigars and doing stand-up. Vecamamma was flashing numbered signs to score their performances.
I descended at eight the next morning. Ryan was already in the kitchen, eating French toast as fast as my mother-in-law could slap it on his plate. Both he and she greeted me with
As we ate, I told Ryan about 287JUL05. In French. I wasn’t yet ready to share what I suspected concerning Lassie Tot, and doubted Vecamamma’s newly acquired linguistic skills would allow her to
“You’re convinced it’s him?”
“Everything fits. Age, sex, race, height, time of disappearance. How many twentysomething white males standing six foot one vanish in any given year?”
I heard tsking from the vicinity of the range.
“Who did the original anthropology?”
“Corcoran didn’t know.”
“How’d the kid die?”
“I don’t know. There are multiple fractures, but they may all be explained by the fall.”
“How deep is the quarry?”
“I don’t know.”
“How’d he end up in it?”
“I don’t know.”
Tsk. From the stove.
I switched to English.
“This is delicious, Vecamamma.”
“Pot roast tonight.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” I poured syrup on the refill she’d spatulaed onto my plate. “I’m really sorry about the photo albums.” Too late for cookies. She’d made a zillion on her own.
“We’ll do it another day. You help Cukura Kundze.”
Reverting to French, Ryan delivered my first bad news of the day.
“Remember the old lady bludgeoned in her home a year and a half back?”
“In Pointe-Calumet?”
Ryan nodded. “Anne-Isabelle Villejoin. She was eighty-six. Lived with her eighty- three-year-old sister, Christelle. Christelle was never found.”
Though I hadn’t been involved, I remembered the case. All of Montreal was
