ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 15, 1996 TAG: 9612160077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: The New York Times
AT LEAST ACCORDING TO SOME who say mystery writer Eugene Izzi, 43, had no reason to commit suicide.
High above the streets of the city and the sounds of children laughing and the Salvation Army bells ringing, a man's body dangled from a 14th-story window of a Loop office building a week ago. A noose was wrapped around his neck.
It was 11:50 a.m., and as Christmas shoppers went about their business below, the police hauled the body in out of the wind and the cold and went to work, trying to solve the mystery of a very public death.
The dead man was wearing a bulletproof vest. In his pockets were a pair of brass knuckles and $481 in cash.
The rope was tied to a steel desk inside the man's locked office, Room 1418. A pistol lay nearby.
To any of the officers with library cards, the dead man might have looked familiar. For years, his face had been on book jackets all over the world. He was Eugene "Guy" Izzi, 43, an award-winning crime novelist who wrote ``The Take,'' ``Invasions,'' ``King of Hustlers'' and other books about the dark side of this city he loved so much, from its killer gangsters to its killer winds.
``He was good,'' said Bill Brashler, a Chicago writer. ``All of his dialogue, the actions of his characters were just natural. It wasn't something he got out of a library. He knew his turf. He probably knew it too well.''
The police say Izzi's death appears to be a suicide. Off the record, they say, it could have been a publicity stunt gone wrong. Izzi had a book coming out in a few months, which friends thought would be his comeback novel after some lean years and a nasty dispute with a publisher. And who knows, maybe hanging out a 14th-story window on a rope would have helped sales.
``Unless they have some evidence to back that up, they shouldn't say it,'' said one of Izzi's closest friends, Andrew Vachss, a New York City lawyer and a successful crime novelist. ``That's pretty hurtful stuff. It's not enough to say he committed suicide. Now they want to say he committed suicide by accident for publicity. There are eight million ways to get publicity without risking killing yourself.''
There is also speculation about murder, with the novelist possibly having been killed by people he was researching for his next book.
Hugh Holton, a Chicago police lieutenant, crime novelist and president of the Midwest chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, is not part of the investigation, but he knew Izzi and said he did not think the writer was the type of person who would take his own life.
He also said he did not think that Izzi died in a publicity stunt. Still, after 27 years on the force, Holton said he had learned long ago that ``anything is possible.''
There is no official cause of death yet, but some of Izzi's friends and acquaintances said they could not believe that he would kill himself, especially with a book coming out.
They also said they could not believe he would leave his two teen-age sons without their father. He bragged about those boys all the time. They were going to be better than their father, who dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and taught himself to write.
``I don't see any reason for Guy to commit suicide,'' Vachss said, ``and I can think of a thousand reasons why he wanted to live.''
Vachss flew to Chicago a few days ago after he learned of Izzi's death. He has been consoling his friend's widow, Theresa, and and he was with family members when they said goodbye to Izzi.
Neither Vachss nor the police would say much about the investigation, although Vachss hinted that he thought foul play was involved. ``All this speculation could cause real harm to the investigation,'' he said.
Since Izzi was pulled in from the cold, the rumors and theories about his last days have been flying around like bullets in one of his books. There have been newspaper reports that Izzi recently had been so afraid for his life that he moved his family into a downtown hotel and slept in his office with a pistol.
According to the reports, Izzi had infiltrated an Indiana paramilitary group while doing research for a book, and the members had become suspicious and threatening. But it is hard for many people who ever met Izzi, who was over 6 feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds, to believe that someone walked into his office, wrapped a rope around his neck and threw him out of a window.
``This was a tough guy,'' Brashler said. ``He was solid. He was in shape. He knew how to fight.''
Izzi's body and face were bruised, but the police and a doctor in the Cook County Medical Examiner's office said the bruises were the likely result of the body hitting the building as it swung from the rope.
``I believe he committed suicide,'' Brashler said. ``But he was not the type of guy you'd think would do that. A lot of things don't add up. He was afraid of heights.''
Izzi, a former steel worker, who joined the Army when he was 17, wrote tough books about tough people living and dying in a tough city. But he did not like to be called a tough guy, even though he used to drink too much and fight too much. He gave that life up long ago, and when he died there were no signs of drugs or alcohol in his system.
Still, even his friends said he was an angry man. He was especially angry about racism and homelessness and millions of children living in poverty and danger.
In 1994, Izzi told The Chicago Reader, a free weekly newspaper, that he lived an intense life, one that could explode at any time. ``I'm a walking heart attack,'' he said. ``It's the way I choose to live. I flat out refuse to be 80 years old and need somebody to feed me and change my diapers. I'd rather go out early.''
LENGTH: Long : 105 linesby CNB