Shadow of the Bomb

Chapter 15

Holidays didn’t have the same meaning for me that they once did. My parents were gone now, Dad having died in August of ’39 and Mom just over a year later. And of course Peter spent most of the red-letter calendar days with Norma and Martin Baer, although he and I usually had our own delayed celebrations together a few days after the fact.

So it should have been no surprise that Thanksgiving snuck up on me again. Last year, I had eaten alone in my apartment — canned ham, not turkey. And this year I hadn’t even given the November holiday a thought until the Sunday preceding it when I saw the restaurant ads in the Tribune for special Thanksgiving dinners.

The next morning, I looked up an Oak Park number in my address book that I hadn’t called in more than four years and used the police phone in the Hyde Park precinct station. Catherine Reed answered on the second ring.

“Hi, it’s Steve Malek. Glad I caught you at home. Thought you might be at the library today.”

“Oh... hello, Steve. No, I’m still working three days a week until January, when I go to full time.”

“Good. I was wondering if you’d like to have Thanksgiving dinner with me. We could go to some restaurant out in Oak Park or Forest Park... I’m sure a few of them will be open.”

The pause at the other end lasted at least fifteen seconds, although it seemed longer. “Well... I had just planned to eat at home and — Steve, I have an idea: Why don’t you come over here on Thursday?”

“I wasn’t angling for an invitation,” I said, probably sounding sheepish.

“I didn’t think you were,” Catherine said. “I can’t claim to be a gourmet cook, but I already have the food for the dinner, and it’s much more than enough for two. If you come, it will save me from having to eat leftovers for a week. I’ve already got a small turkey. It may be the last time I’ll buy one for several years, what with all the food shortages and rationing that we’re told are coming. And I’m also having dressing, along with sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce, and of course pumpkin pie.”

“You have just sold me. What can I bring?”

“Just yourself. And some of those wonderful newspaper stories like the ones you told here at dinner with Daddy those times.”

“I’ll search my memory for some lively tales of life on the boulevards and byways of the city.”

Noon on Thanksgiving found me aboard a Lake Street Elevated train rattling and swaying its way west from the Loop to the stately and proper village of Oak Park. I was toting a box of Fannie May chocolates and a bouquet of mums, and reading the final edition of the Chicago Sun. As the train neared its destination, it surprised me to find that I was nervous.

In spite of those four-plus years since my last visit, I had no trouble finding the solid two-story stucco house that lay a few blocks south of the Ridgeland Avenue El station. It looked exactly as it did when I had last visited Steel Trap Bascomb to plumb the blurred depths of his fading memory in my search for the murderer of a would-be Chicago mayor.

Catherine swung open the door just as my finger was poised at the buzzer. “I was keeping an eye out for you,” she said. “It’s too chilly to stand outside any longer than absolutely necessary.”

“Actually, it’s not bad for this time of year,” I said, “but inside is better.” Smiling, I stepped in and presented her with the flowers and candy.

“The mums I accept without reservation,” she said, giving me a curtsy. “I absolutely insist that you help me consume the chocolates, however.”

“Duly noted. And Catherine, I really like the aromas that are wafting in this direction,” I said, putting a hand lightly on her shoulder.

“Here’s hoping everything tastes as good as it smells,” she said with a smile, as she hung my coat and hat on a rack inside the door. “I thought we could have some hot cider in the living room before eating.”

“Lead me to it. How are you getting along, Catherine?” I asked, as we moved into the living room. I sat on the sofa and she went to the kitchen to get the cider.

“I’m doing all right,” she said evenly, while serving the steaming cider in cups and then sliding into a chair across from me. “The house seems empty, though, which is only natural. It’s funny — one of the things I miss most is the sound of that radio in the sitting room. Daddy had his favorite programs every night of the week.”

“I remember ‘Fibber McGee and Molly’ from when I was here.”

“Oh, yes! He never missed it. And when Fibber opened that closet and everything came clattering out, he would always slap his knee and laugh, no matter how many times he heard it. In fact, in his last years, he insisted that I buy Johnson’s Wax products. He was afraid that if the show lost its sponsor, it would go off the air!”

“Talk about loyalty,” I said with a grin.

“Yes. And he loved Jack Benny, too, particularly the way he joked about being thirty-nine forever. Just a few weeks ago, he surprised me by saying, ‘Honey, in less than two years, I’ll be exactly twice Benny’s age.’ Steve, this was the same man who didn’t even know who I was an hour later.”

“It had to be terribly rough for you,” I said, reaching over and covering her hand with mine.

“The most frustrating part was that on any given day, he could either be lucid or unresponsive. As I told you at the funeral home, a few weeks back he started wandering away from the house.”

I nodded in sympathy. “Did he seem to be in a lot of pain?”

“If he was, he never showed it. And his appetite was good almost to the end.”

“I remember that appetite, all right. Did you get all the clippings about him from the newspapers?”

“Just the one in the Tribune.”

“I can get you those that ran in all the other papers. Our office keeps copies of every one of the dailies for a couple of months or more.”

“That would be wonderful. I was wishing at the time that I had bought the other papers, but I was so busy with the funeral arrangements. I’d like to put all the write-ups about him into a scrapbook. Even though the family line will end with me, I want to leave a tangible record of his accomplishments. Someday, I’ll probably give the scrapbook to the local historical society. After all, he lived in Oak Park for at least forty years, which practically makes him an old settler.”

“Good idea, Catherine. I’d like to get you quotes from some of the old-timers who remember your father. I recall a Daily News police reporter, long dead now, talking to me years ago about him. As near as I can remember, these were his words: ‘Steel Trap Bascomb had the sharpest mind of any newspaperman I ever met. He could remember the first and last name — and the middle initial — of the patrolman who broke up a crap game in a garage fifteen years earlier. And he could remember the address of the game, as well as the number of guys in it, the color of the paint on the garage, and the amount of money on the table. Now there was a reporter.’”

Catherine had begun to tear up at this, so to break any tension, I said that I, in contrast, would have forgotten all the facts about a similar story a half hour after I’d phoned it in to a rewrite man.

“I don’t believe that, not for a moment,” she said as we moved into the dining room. “I suspect you’ve got a memory every bit as good as Daddy’s was.”

“Don’t I wish. I’ve got a few editors up in Tribune Tower who would set you straight about that.”

We sat down to eat and Catherine bowed her head and said a short prayer that closed with words about her father being “in a better place now.”

“Steve, how is your son — Peter, isn’t it? He must be in high school by now.”

“You’ve got a good memory,” I told her as I loaded my plate up with turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. “He’s a sophomore at Lake View High, a reserve on the junior varsity football team, and gets good grades. Also, he’s on a committee that’s organizing scrap and newspaper drives for the war effort.”

“You taught him well.”

“Or Norma did.”

“Do you see him often?”

“Almost every weekend. He’s in an apartment over on the Drive. Norma remarried — fellow named Martin Baer, and Peter lives with them.”

“Is that... all right with you?”

“I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter. Norma got custody. But to be fair, Baer’s a decent enough sort. He runs a men’s store over at the Lincoln-Belmont-Ashland intersection that apparently does quite well. Among other things, Peter gets to go to Florida with them during Christmas vacation every year, which is more than I can do for him.”

“But I’m sure you make up for it in other ways.”

“I try to, as well as I can on a Tribune reporter’s less-than-princely salary. We went to the Bears-Packers game just the other day.”

“Speaking of the Tribune, how is your work going?” she asked. “Fill me in.”

I gave her a brief rundown on my temporary shift to the South Side police beat and all the facets of Bergman’s killing, including the speculation about a secret weapon being developed. I also told her about finding Bergman’s body.

“That must have been awful.”

“It was no picnic. Even though I’ve been a police reporter for more years than I care to think about and have seen a few murder victims, most of my experience with murder has been second-hand, and I would prefer to keep it that way.”

“What do you think about this secret weapon talk?”

I shrugged. “I’m out of my depth there. I have no idea what might be going on, and if I did know, I’m sure I wouldn’t understand it. Even those professors I mentioned, the ones who were colleagues of Bergman’s, don’t agree with each other on what’s going on in that Metallurgy Laboratory, except that they all seem to think it’s a cover for something that has nothing to do with metallurgy.”

She set her fork down carefully on her plate and fixed me with guileless brown eyes. “Please be careful, Steve Malek.”

“I’m always careful.”

“So you say. I see someone who has a reckless side.”

“I like to think of my style as aggressive and enterprising,” I responded with a grin.

She kept those brown eyes fastened on me, which I found a little unnerving, although now she allowed herself a slight smile. “Call it what you like, but I still say, ‘Be careful.’”

“I promise I will be. By the way, this meal has been wonderful.”

“Don’t change the subject; there’s still dessert to come. Pumpkin pie a la mode,” Catherine said. “Unless of course you are too full.”

“Too full? Not a chance. Bring on that next course.”

We ate the pumpkin pie and ice cream in silence, and then Catherine poured coffee.

“This has been a wonderful dinner,” I proclaimed, rubbing my stomach.

“I detect flattery,” Catherine said, clearing the plates from the table. “I suppose you want more coffee?”

“I suppose I do. Is there a charge here for a second cup?”

“Normally,” she said, not missing a beat, “but we waive that on Thanksgiving Day.”

“Which is why this is such a wonderful a place to dine,” I responded, holding my cup high in a salute.

“You’re welcome to come back,” Catherine said quietly.

“On one condition.”

“Yes?”

“That before I come back, our next meal together is on me, and in a restaurant, either out here somewhere or downtown. Do you get to the city often?”

She shook her head. “Not for a long time, not with Daddy being, well... ”

“Oh, of course. Do you think I might be able to lure you east across Austin Boulevard and into Chicago to dine at one of the cosmopolitan city’s culinary palaces?”

She smiled but looked down. “Well, I believe I might consider the invitation.”

I nodded. “That’s a start. Catherine, the weather is mild for late November, in fact damn near balmy. How about a stroll to work off this wonderful meal?”

“Okay... sure.” She undoubtedly remembered our last walk in this neighborhood, and so did I, which is why I suggested that we repeat it. Sometimes the way to erase a memory is to relive the experience, or so I told myself.

Catherine took my arm — a good sign — as we stepped out onto the empty sidewalk. We passed many houses where Thanksgiving feasts were surely taking place at this very moment. We had gone a couple of blocks when she gave my arm a tug and stopped on the sidewalk, facing me.

“I’m curious, Steve. What made you call me after all this time?”

“Well... ”

“I think I know. After Daddy died, a little bit of pity, perhaps?”

“That’s not true. When I saw you at the funeral parlor, I realized it would be nice to get together again.”

“But why not four years ago?”

“Catherine, I was going through a confusing period then. My marriage had—”

She squeezed my arm. “No need to go on, Steve. I have no business questioning you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. And please don’t misunderstand what I’m about to say: I’m not happy that your father is gone, but I’m glad that it was the event that brought me back to Oak Park.”

“I am too, Steve.”

“Good. Now, unlike the last time you and I were walking these very streets, I am going to escort you home.” I got no argument.