In his introduction to the new anthology Chicago Noir, editor Neal Pollack mourns a city he remembers from back in the day, when he labored in the trenches as a staff writer for this paper. Pollack’s ideal Chicago is a city pocked with old-man bars and dubious ethnic restaurants, “weird little museums” and empty storefronts–a city that’s disappearing as planters replace potholes and tourists replace workers. His goal in putting together the collection, one of a dozen regional tomes in the series Akashic Books launched last year with Brooklyn Noir, is to pay homage to that city. “Chicago noir,” he writes, “has a special quality of nostalgia, an extra dimension that makes nearly every story seem like an epitaph for a city now gone.”
–Twenty-two-thirteen.
–Ten-four. I’m sending that job again.
–[Unintelligible] Milwaukee and Keeler, stalled car blocking traffic.
–Your RD is Henry-King-four-zero-four-six-four-three, Henry-King-four-zero-four-six-four-three on event number zero-eight-six-two-five. Zero-eight-six-two-five.
The Holy Grail of the police scanner hobbyist.
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In the middle of the Formica-topped table, on the other side of Kimball’s oatmeal but still at arm’s length, was an approximation of a laptop Kimball had Frankensteined from computers so obsolete that cash-strapped schools wouldn’t even accept them as donations. Scanning enthusiasts from across the country were instant messaging with Chicago hobbyists demanding the latest news on the lack of news, and the conversation scrolled up the screen with the speed of a stock ticker. Curiously, cops and dispatchers weren’t even acknowledging the feat over their radios. Maybe they were afraid of jinxing it. Maybe the different shifts and the different districts had no way of comparing notes in real time. Maybe they wouldn’t have any idea what had happened until the CPD command staff had their briefing in the morning. It was funny to think the scanning community shared real-time intelligence better than the Chicago PD. That notion made Kimball chuckle. He spat wet cinnamon and oatmeal onto a small auburn oval of mustache and goatee, then rubbed his face with a moistened washcloth he kept on hand for mealtime grooming.
