Don't Dare a Dame (15 page)

   
I wasn’t as convinced as I wanted to be by that rationale, but it led me to one conclusion: The sooner I found out who wanted to put the kibosh on my questions and why, the sooner Corrine Vanhorn would be safe.

   
It was after six now. The only place I might accomplish anything useful this late in the day was at Finn’s. First, though, I wanted to leave the photographs I’d borrowed from Isobel at my office. It was late enough in the day I spotted a parking space in the next block and walked back. As I reached the intersection, a big, black Buick swept up in front of me, cutting me off. The rear door swung open.

   
“Get in,” said a voice.

Eighteen

   
I put my hand on the roof of the car and leaned in through the open door.

   
“Gee,” I said to the woman sitting behind the driver. “Last time you put me in here, you had this door welded shut.”

   
“I’m working on being polite. Now get in.”

   
 Her name was Rachel Minsky. She had a cloud of black hair, a china doll face, and shimmering dark eyes that revealed her thoughts about as reliably as a cobra did before striking. The sable fur-piece circling her plum colored suit was fastened with a gold clasp. Somewhere in her expensive garb, where she could produce it in an instant, she carried a small gun.

   
She used it extremely well.

   
I got in.

   
Pearlie, the guy who’d come to my office offering to dispose of Oats Ripley, sat in the driver’s seat. Rachel fitted a cigarette into a gold holder as the car glided off again.

   
“Pearlie’s heard something about you that he finds alarming.”

   
“Not that awful rumor that I’m not a virgin, I hope.”

   
Pearlie snorted.

   
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be a smartass.”

   
She cranked her window down with jerky movements and snapped a lighter, starting her cigarette. When she had it going, she cupped her elbow in the opposite hand and regarded me with displeasure. Shifting her jaw to the side, she blew a stream of smoke out the window.

   
“He says you won’t let him solve the problem of Oats Whatever- his-name-is.”

   
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate Pearlie’s offer. It’s that if I took him up on it, some people might get the idea I’m not tough enough for my kind of work.”

   
She contemplated me some more. If anyone could understand my explanation, it would be Rachel. She owned a good-sized commercial construction company which she ran herself. The uncle who’d owned it before her had been crooked. I was pretty sure Rachel wasn’t. Nevertheless, she could play as rough as she had to, whether on a muddy work site or competing for deals against big-wig businessmen. Her rivals didn’t like her for several reasons: She was a woman. She was a Jew. She often beat them at their own game.

   
It was why she had Pearlie. She referred to him as her boyfriend. I took it for granted that was a joke.

   
I liked Rachel.

   
I liked Pearlie.

   
Their strange display of concern gave me an idea.

   
“If you want to improve my odds against Oats, there’s another problem Pearlie could help me with,” I said. “It would keep me from being distracted.”

   
Rachel blew more smoke out the window.

   
“What kind of problem? What would he need to do?”

   
“Make sure nobody bothered a blind woman for a couple of days.”

   
Pearlie tended to make people nervous as soon as they saw him. The way he dressed. The way he moved. The way his eyes watched.

   
Corrine wouldn’t see him. If I could spin a story for her, it just might work, and I excelled at spinning stories.

   
The big black Buick meandered slowly down Monument, just inside the embrace of the river which a quarter century ago had spewed forth the chaos at the heart of my case. Its waters ran serene tonight. Across the way the Art Institute and the nearby Masonic Temple rose on their hills. Staring over the city, they were aloof from floods, aloof from the passing concerns of mortals. I told Rachel and Pearlie about the Vanhorn sisters. I outlined what I had in mind.

   
“What do you think, Pearlie?” Rachel asked when I finished.

   
He shrugged. “I like piano music.”

   
We turned back through side streets where lines snaked into soup kitchens and families settled in to sleep in doorways. Rachel suggested a drink. I said it would have to wait; I had something to do.

   
They dropped me off in front of Finn’s, which was fortunate. The man I wanted to see was just leaving.

***

   
“Something happen to your car?” asked Connelly as the Buick pulled away and I came to join him and Seamus.

   
“Car’s fine. Some friends picked me up and we went for a drive. Glad I wasn’t five minutes later getting here. I was coming to see if you two might want to go find some supper.”

   
Seamus shook his silvery waves.

   
“Not me. Got me a sandwich and can of beans waiting.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Not something you wanted a word on, is there?”

   
I slipped my arm through his and gave it a squeeze.

   
“Everything’s fine, Seamus.”

   
“Well, then. I’d best not miss my bus.”

   
Before I could speak again he was striding off at a good clip for a man with a bad knee. I didn’t know what to make of it.

   
“Was that his way of playing matchmaker?” I asked.

   
Connelly chuckled.

   
“I saw him get the sandwich, and I know he bought a new record yesterday. My guess is matchmaking was the farthest thing from his mind.”

   
I felt considerable relief. Seamus was the only person I knew who never tried to meddle. Not in my life, not in anyone’s life. He was there for you, like a rock, never offering advice or opinion unless you sought it. Then it was worth hearing.

   
Connelly gave me a sideways look as we drifted along. I fought its effects. Memories of my mother’s toxic discontent swirled up around me like the flood waters at the heart of this case.

   
“So. You want a favor, I’m guessing,” said Connelly.

   
“Yeah. I do. And I haven’t even talked to that concertina player like I promised I would. I had the phone directory out to see if she was listed when I got a call that one of the women I’m working for had been snatched.”

   
Connelly stopped in his tracks.

   
“Snatched! You mean kidnapped?”

   
“No — and she’s home safe now. Men came into the house and dragged her off and called her sister to say that they had her.”

   
I filled him in on that part of my day, skipping over the details of being stopped by Rachel. By the time I finished my story, we were sitting in a place a few blocks away, waiting for our blue plate specials.

   
“Corrine was just about two breaths shy of falling apart completely,” I said. “She didn’t want the police, and I didn’t think much would get done even if I insisted.”

   
Connelly rubbed his chin with the back of a finger the way he was wont to do when thinking.

   
“No, probably not,” he agreed at last. “No proof of damage done, no money demands. And if the two women got tagged as hysterics over that dog business....”

   
“Yeah.”

   
Our blue plates came.

   
“So what’s the favor, then?” Connelly asked when the waitress had gone.

   
“I want to know whether Alf Maguire’s death has been written off as a suicide or whether it’s getting a closer look.”

   
He cut a piece of pork chop and ate it without switching his fork to the other hand. A more efficient way of eating, I thought. My dad and Kate and Billy had all abandoned it in favor of the American style. I wondered if Connelly would too, eventually. I doubted it.

   
“Can’t see the harm,” he said. “It may take awhile for me to find out since I’m just about the bottom of the pile and don’t hear much of goings on at Market House.”

   
Like all the other beat cops, Connelly worked out of Central Police Station which was a good half dozen blocks away from headquarters.

   
“You’re thinking someone wanted Maguire out of the way?” he asked.

   
“Yes. But unless there was something odd when they found him, or Alf was shadier than his stepdaughters let on — and they didn’t like him — there’d be no reason for the police to be suspicious.”

   
Connelly drew a napkin across his mouth and pushed his empty plate aside.

   
“The men playing poker with the politician. You said he sent them out to do something when you gave him your card.”

   
“I think he realized he’d be smart to have the rest of his conversation with me in private.”

   
“Could he have been sending them over to scare the blind woman?”

   
It took me awhile to consider.

   
“I don’t think so. Judging by when the men who abducted Corrine arrived — she remembered the clock striking shortly before they came — they’d have been there before Cy’s pals even left.”

   
“Okay, then who else even admitted to knowing Maguire?”

   
Connelly said something else, but I lost track of his words. Something was oozing up out my memory. The Vanhorn sisters had mentioned that Alf had two sons. Why did the pictures I’d gotten from Isobel just a few hours ago show only Neal and his stepbrother George?

Nineteen

   
“Do you like cowboy stories?” Pearlie inquired.

   
“Cowboy stories?” Corrine said weakly. “I - I don’t believe I’ve ever, ah, heard any.”

   
“One brave lawman protecting a town against outlaws,” Pearlie recited as if he’d read it somewhere. “I brought some to read so I didn’t get in the way.” He brandished a pulp magazine. “Thought I could read one out loud if you liked.”

   
“Oh.... Why, that’s very thoughtful.”

   
She hadn’t seemed frightened of Pearlie when I introduced them a few moments earlier. She just didn’t know what to make of him. Neither did I.

   
“Please. Make yourself at home,” she said, gesturing toward the parlor.

   
“I really appreciate your letting him come here so he didn’t have to sit around his hotel room all day,” I said when the two of us were alone in the hall.

   
I’d called Isobel last night and passed Pearlie off as a friend who’d come into town on business only to have his meeting delayed. Corrine had been more receptive to the idea of keeping someone else company than she had been to having the shoe on the other foot.

   
“Isobel said you wanted a picture of Franklin,” she said as she moved unerringly toward the hall table holding the telephone. She removed an envelope and handed it to me.

   
“According to Isobel, he and his dad had a blowup and didn’t speak to each other?” I said.

   
“Not for fifteen years or better.”

   
“Any idea what caused the blowup?”

   
“No.” She tried to smile. “Goodness. I’d better see to your friend.”

   
We walked to the front door together so she could lock up. She’d recovered from yesterday’s ordeal better than I expected. Her shoulders still drooped, though.