The Girl on the Rush Street Bridge
by Gary Inbinder
Chicago, 1910. The mysterious death of detective Max Niemand’s former girlfriend launches Max on a dangerous investigation involving gangsters, corrupt politicians, crooked cops, a missing key witness, and Max’s client, the missing witness’s attractive sister. Max will need all his skill and resources to stay alive and solve the case of The Girl on the Rush Street Bridge.
Chapter 5. The Search for Bob O’Neill
After leaving the union hall, Max caught a streetcar and headed back to the Lady of the Lake. He returned to a scene of bustling activity; the freighter was taking on cargo. Realizing he would get nothing from the busy crew, Max made a beeline for the warehouse traffic manager’s office. Marty Quinn, the traffic manager, was another of Max’s contacts; like Donahue, a good source of information for goings-on around the docks.
Max entered the warehouse through a door that opened onto a narrow corridor running alongside the traffic area where laborers pushed trucks loaded with crate-bearing pallets destined for the outbound freighter. He stepped aside to make way for a couple of warehousemen leaving Quinn’s office, headed for the docks. Max rapped on the door to the traffic manager’s partitioned cubby-hole.
“Come on in,” Quinn answered.
“Busy day, huh, Marty?” Max entered with a smile and an outstretched hand.
“Hey, Max, what brings you here?” Quinn rose from behind his paper strewn desk and shook hands.
Max took a seat across from Quinn and answered, “I’m looking for a guy named Bob O’Neill. He was a deckhand on the Lady of the Lake. You know where I can find him?”
Quinn folded his burly arms and thought a moment before saying, “Lieutenant Mueller and Mike Sugrue were here this morning, asking the same question.”
“That’s not surprising, Marty. O’Neill told the cops he saw Peg Rooney go into the river from the Rush Street bridge. Now, he seems to have gone missing.”
“So, you and the cops are investigating?”
“They’re working it from their angle. I’m working it from mine.”
“Do you mean you and the cops are at odds?” Quinn eyed Max suspiciously.
“I wouldn’t say that, Marty,” Max replied with a reassuring smile. “It’s just that I have my own way of doing things.”
“I know that, Max. Methods ain’t the problem. Do you have the same interests?”
“What do you mean by interests?” The smile changed to a sober frown.
“I’ll come straight to the point. Are you looking for justice, or revenge?”
“Is that you talking, Marty? Or is it Mueller and Mike?”
A knock on the door interrupted. A young man entered with paperwork on a clipboard.
Quinn said, “Excuse me, Max,” grabbed the clipboard and reviewed the papers. Then he signed a couple of documents and handed back the clipboard. The man left.
“Sorry for the interruption, Max, but you can see I’m busy. Anyways, I know how things were with you and Peg. I just want to make sure you’re on the up and up. If you say so, I’ll believe you.” He looked Max straight in the eye and waited for an answer.
“We’ve known each other a long time, Marty. What’s more, I have a good reputation in this town. You know I’m on the level.”
“OK, Max. I’ll tell you what I told Mueller and Mike. I don’t know nothing about O’Neill, or the rest of the crew, for that matter. Luke McCoy, the skipper, might know something. He already talked to the cops, but I doubt he’ll talk to you, at least not now while they’re loading cargo. You might catch him later, at O’Toole’s on South State Street. You know the place, I’m sure.”
“Is that all, Marty?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
Max got up; they shook hands. As Max was about to go out the door, Quinn said: “I’m sorry about Peg.”
Max stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Quinn. “Me, too, Marty,” he said with a deadpan expression. Then he left without another word.
Copyright © 2018 by Gary Inbinder
