Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (18 page)

Finchley’s
shoulders sagged. “Don’t lecture me on police and the community, Warshawski. I
don’t need it.”

“Just
talking about real life, Terry. It wasn’t meant as an insult.” I got up.
“Thanks for saving Mr. Contreras and me from a rubber hose at the sheriff’s
office.”

Finchley
flashed one of his rare smiles. “We serve and protect, Vic; you know that.”

Mr.
Contreras didn’t speak during the slow drive home. I was exhausted, so tired I
could barely focus on the changing lights as we drifted north. If someone
wanted to trail us back again, they were welcome to the job.

The
day had begun with Dick’s bellowing and ended with a decomposed corpse, with a
trip to Schaumburg thrown in for light relief. I longed for some remote
mountainside, for snow and a sense of perfect peace, but tomorrow I would have
to rise and be ready to do battle again.

I
waited with Mr. Contreras until he managed to undo his front door. “I’m coming
in with you. You need hot tea with lots of milk and sugar.”

He
put up a half-hearted protest. “I’m going to have some too,” I told him. “Not a
night for grappa or whisky.”

The
hands on his kitchen clock stood at midnight. It wasn’t that late, not really.
Surely it wasn’t age that made my hands shake as I hunted in drawers and
cupboards for tea. I finally found an old box of Lipton buried under some
greasy potholders. It smelled stale, but tea never really goes bad. I used two
bags to make a black potful. Mixed with sugar and milk it was a good
restorative.

I
watched Mr. Contreras while he drank his; his face lost some of its blankness
and he wanted to talk. I listened while he went over stories from his and
Mitch’s boyhood, the time they’d put a frog in the collection bag at church,
how they’d signed their apprenticeship papers the same morning—a detour about
Ted Balbini, who sponsored them—and then how Mr. Contreras got drafted but
Mitch was 4-F.

“He
was already drinking too much, even then, but it was his flat feet that did him
in. Broke his heart. Wouldn’t come see me off when I left for Fort Hood, silly
old goat. But we hooked up again after the war. Diamond Head took me back soon
as I got home. That was when it was still owned by the family, not like
nowadays when it’s all a bunch of bosses out in the suburbs who don’t care if
you live or die.” He paused to finish his tea. “You gotta do something about
it, doll, go find who killed him.”

I sat
up, startled. “I don’t think the police are treating it like a murder case. You
heard what Finchley said. He stumbled and fell while he was drunk and someone
rolled him into the canal. I suppose some punk might have killed him after
rolling him.” I tried to imagine canvassing Pilsen for teenage drug lords and
shuddered.

“Damn
you, no!” Mr. Contreras shouted. “What would he’ve been walking around the
river there for? That ain’t sense. There’s no place for anyone to walk—it’s all
company docks and barbed wire and dumps. You going to join the cops in pinning
accident or suicide on him, you can just take your butt to hell as fast as possible.”

I
looked at him, astonished by the violence of his language, and saw the tears
coursing down his leathery face again. I knelt by his chair and put an arm
around his shoulders. “Hey, hey, don’t carry on like that. I’ll talk to
Vishnikov in the morning and see what he thinks.”

He
grabbed my hand in a fierce hold, his jaw working as he tried to control his
face. “Sorry, doll,” he said huskily. “Sorry to break down and take it out on
you. I know he was a pain in the tail, all that drink, but when it’s your
oldest friend you kinda overlook it.”.

He
took his hand from mine and collapsed his face into his palms, sobbing. “I
should never have made him leave. Why did I have to make such a goddam fuss
over the puppies? Peppy don’t notice that kind of stuff, people snoring, it’s
all one to her. Why didn’t I just let him camp out here a few days?”

When
I went for my run the next morning, I slipped out the back gate. Instead of my
normal route to the harbor and back I ran west along side streets as far as the
river. I kept my pace slow, not so much to check on my tail as to protect
myself from shin splints on the rough roadway— it’s hard to follow someone
who’s on foot when you’re driving. I didn’t think I was in physical danger from
any tracking Chamfers might choose to do; I just hate for anyone to nose into
my whereabouts.

I
stopped to see Mr. Contreras before going up to shower. He’d recovered some of
his normal vitality—his color was better and he was moving at a more natural
gait than he had last night. I told him I was going down to Diamond Head and
asked if he knew anyone who still worked there.

“It’s
all new people since my time, cookie. It might be there’s one or two guys on
the line who I’d recognize if I saw ‘em, but the bosses are all new; the
foreman and the shop steward, I don’t even know their names. You want me to
come along with you?”

I
grinned at the eagerness in his voice. “Not this trip. Maybe later if I don’t
make any headway.” I was planning a surreptitious approach to the plant; I
figured I’d have better luck doing it solo.

I’d
have even better success if whoever had tailed me yesterday didn’t follow me
there. And that meant shedding my wheels. My Trans Am, like Magnum’s Ferrari,
is about as easy to track as the creosote Sherlock Holmes laid down for Toby.

Lotty
is the only person I know well enough to trade cars with. Since hers always
show dents within the first month she owns them, I didn’t want to turn my baby
over to her. But the client must come first, I admonished myself sternly. After
all, what was I paying two-fifty a month in insurance for?

While
I finished dressing, I phoned Lotty at the clinic and explained my problem. She
was happy to let me have the Cressida.

“I
haven’t driven a sports car since I had the use of a Morgan in 1948.”

“That’s
what I’m afraid of,” I said.

Lotty
elected to be hurt. “I’ve been driving since before you were born, Victoria.”

I bit
back the obvious retorts—after all, she was doing me a favor. I told her where
she’d find my car—Carol would drop her off at my place on her way home. I
kissed the Trans Am good-bye as I passed it on my way to Belmont. “It’s only
for one day. Be brave and don’t let her strip your gears.”

When
I got to the clinic, after a couple of bus changes, I was pretty sure I hadn’t
been followed. Even so, I made a few loops around the North Side in Lotty’s
Cressida. When I decided I was clean I went over to the Kennedy and turned
south.

In
addition to the inevitable dents on the fenders, the gears were hard to find
and the bearings seemed to be going on the clutch. I hoped I didn’t have to get
away from any place in a hurry. At least the car fit into Pilsen well.

Diamond
Head was at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. I didn’t want to drive up to the front
door, where I’d not only be spotted easily but could also be trapped. I parked
on Thirty-second Street and walked the few blocks north to the plant.

Semis
were rocking the side streets, bringing materials in and out of the nearby
factories, deepening the holes in the pockmarked asphalt. I stayed off the
roadway and hiked along the weedy verge, tripping occasionally on the hillocks
hidden in the high grasses. By the time I got to Diamond Head’s entrance I was
sweating freely and cursing myself for wearing loafers instead of my beat-up
Nikes.

A few
cars were parked on an asphalt square near the entrance. One was a late-model
green Nissan, the others more pedestrian—Fords, Chevys, and a maroon Honda. I
went over to look at it, but couldn’t tell if it was the one that had been on
my tail yesterday or not.

Inside
the old brick building the air was cool and quiet. I stood in the small foyer
for a few minutes to recover from the heat, A hall opened in front of me,
leading straight ahead to some old iron stairs and to metal double doors.

The
doors and interior walls must have been built quite thick—I had to strain to
hear any sounds of activity from the other side. Diamond Head made small motors
for highly specialized use, primarily for controlling aircraft flaps. Maybe
that didn’t involve the kind of screaming tools I associate with industrial
plants.

I
tried to place the entrance in relation to where Chamfers had brought me last
week. I was at the south end of the building and the loading bays were on the
east. When I’d come in I’d been at the north end. Chamfers’s office must he
somewhere on the other side of the iron staircase directly in front of me. I’d
have to make a circuit of the place.

The
heavy metal doors were locked shut. I tried both sets for several minutes,
straining my shoulder muscles with the effort, but I had to give it up. I could
go back out and retrace my ignominious entry through the loading bay, or I
could see if the iron staircase led anywhere promising.

I
started up the stairs when I noticed a normal-size door behind them. It was
unpainted and in the dim hall light I hadn’t seen it earlier. I came back down
and tried it. It opened fairly easily and took me to the hall where Chamfers’s
office lay.

Six
or seven office doors topped with chicken-wire glass were cut into the hall
wall on the left side. On the right, just beyond the entrance I’d used, was
another set of metal double doors. I tried these out of curiosity and found
myself looking at a long, open assembly room. A dozen or so women were standing
at high tables putting screws or something into the machines in front of them.
A lone man was going over a piece of equipment with one of them. The room could
easily have handled five times that number. It looked as though Diamond Head
might have fallen on hard times.

I
shut the doors and went on down the hall to try to find Chamfers. Or actually
his secretary. I was hoping not to see the plant manager at all. I raked my
fingers through my hair, hoping to make myself look a bit more professional,
and poked my nose into the first door I came to.

Like
most offices carved out of industrial space the room was a tiny cube, just big
enough to hold some filing cabinets and a battered desk. A middle-aged man was
hunched over a stack of papers, grasping the phone in his left hand as if it
might float away otherwise. A few brown strands were combed over the receding
hairline in front, but he’d given up the struggle to fit into his seersucker
trousers. I didn’t think he’d been part of the team I’d seen with Chamfers on
Friday.

He
didn’t look up when I opened the door, but continued frowning over his papers.
Finally he said, “Of course you haven’t been paid. That’s because you’re not
paying attention to our new payables policy. Everything has to be routed
through Garfield in Bolingbroke.” He listened some more, then said, “No, it
wouldn’t make sense for them to handle the orders as well. How can they
possibly know out there what our requirements are? I can talk to the federal
prosecutor if you won’t deliver the copper by Friday.”

They
went back and forth some more on whether the feds needed to be involved. I
eavesdropped unashamedly. My man apparently won, because he dusted his hands
triumphantly when he hung up the phone. It was only then that he noticed me.

“I’m
looking for your benefits manager,” I said.

“What
for?” His victory over the copper supplier made him truculent.

“Because
I have a question about some benefits. For my father, who was laid off seven
weeks ago. He’s had to go into the hospital.” That seemed like a safe bet,
given the empty benches in the assembly room.

He
frowned, not wanting to give away anything to anyone, but finally directed me
to the third door up the hall from him.

My
luck didn’t hold when I found the proper door. The man in the tiny office had
been in the cluster that saw my undignified entrance into the plant four days
ago. At first he didn’t recognize me, but as soon as I mentioned Mitch Kruger’s
name, Friday’s episode came back to him. He frowned ferociously and picked up
the phone.

“Milt?
Dexter here. Did you know that female dick was back? The one who came around
last week? You didn’t? Well, she’s with me right now.”

He
slammed the receiver down and folded his arms. “You just don’t learn, do you,
girlie?”

“Learn
what, pork chop?” I saw a folding chair next to his filing cabinet and pulled
it out flat to sit on.

“To
mind your own business.”

“I’m
here doing just that. Answer a few simple questions about Mitch Kruger and you
won’t see me again.”

He
didn’t say anything. Apparently we were waiting for Milt Chamfers. The plant
manager arrived a few seconds later, his tie knotted up to his throat and his
jacket on. This was going to be a formal meeting, and I was wearing socks
instead of pantyhose.

“What
are you doing here?” Chamfers demanded. “I thought I told you to get lost.”

“Same
thing that I was here for last week—to see who saw Mitch Kruger and when and
where and all those other w questions they teach you in journalism and
detecting schools.”