Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (24 page)

I was
reassembling the gun when my phone rang. I carefully slipped the magazine in
and reached across the bed for the phone.

“Vic!
Freeman here. I left a message with your answering service. Didn’t you get it?”

“Sorry,
Freeman. I haven’t checked with them.” Before he could expostulate on my untidy
business habits I explained about the accident to Lotty. “You must be a mind
reader—calling you was my next to-do. Where are you?”

“Minding
my own business in Northbrook. What the hell do you want with Diamond Head’s
directors?”

I’d
been sprawled across the bed since reaching the phone, but at the vehemence in
his voice I sat up straight. “Material to an investigation I’m undertaking. Why
do you care?”

“You
wouldn’t be trying to spin me around without telling me the rules of the game
you’re playing, would you?”

“No
games here, but it sounds pretty playful at your end. I went to your office
without knowing your pals had locked the door after you. When I saw Catherine,
she offered to do a search for me. Tell me how that spins you around.”

“It’s
time you got your own computer, Warshawski. I’m not going to do that kind of
errand for you. We may not have parted in the way I’d like best, but I’m not going
to sign onto a vendetta against my partners. Former partners.”

I
clutched my hair, trying to steady the wobble in my head. “Why is it a vendetta
for me to look something up on Lexus—to ask you to look it up, I mean.”

“I
wish I could see your face, V. I. I just can’t be sure…”

“About
what?”

“About
the purity of your heart. You’re not always as frank with your own counsel as a
lawyer could wish. Get your own computer,” he repeated. “That’s my best advice
for you today.”

He
hung up while I was still fishing around for a response. I stared at the phone,
too astounded even to feel angry. Dick must have called him to read him the
riot act, but why would that make him treat me to such a tirade? Nothing Dick
had ever said or done in the past had had that kind of effect on him. The
parting from Crawford, Mead must have been exceedingly painful.

I
wondered what would take longer—driving the four hundred miles to Springfield
and back to look at the paper copy of the corporation files, or buying my own
machine and figuring out how to dial up Lexus. I phoned Murray at the
Herald-Star.

“You
know Lotty Herschel got beat up last night?” I said without preamble.

“Christ,
Vic. I’m fine, thanks—how are you? Glad to see you’re not bearing a grudge from
the other day.”

“I
should be—you ate my sandwich, trough-hound. You care about Lotty?”

“Lots.
How is she? How did she get beaten up? Where did it happen?” He sounded as
though he was choking down a doughnut as he spoke.

“I’ll
tell you the whole story when you’re through with your current snack. Only I
need to come down and look at something on Lexus.”

“You
never call just to say hi, Warshawski. It’s always because you want something.”

The
buzzing in my brain was starting to concentrate into a throb over my right
temple. “Maybe if you hadn’t been drooling at my bedside every time I had a
close call the last few years I’d feel more like a friend and less like a piece
of meat at a barbecue when we talk.”

He
paused a second, trying to decide whether that was a justifiable complaint. “Tell
me what you want to know and I’ll dial it up for you.”

“N-o,
no. You wouldn’t give me the time of day over Pichea and Mrs. Frizell. I’ll
tell you what happened to Lotty, but the rest of my business is my business.”

“I
can get one of my gofers to find the story on Lotty.”

“True,”
I said, “but they wouldn’t have any of the inside details. Like how she
happened to be driving my car. Stufflike that.”

“Oh,
screw you, Warshawski. Lotty’s important to you, but she’s not big news in this
town. And I know neither of you will let me in with a camera. But come on down
here. Let’s get it over with.”

“Thank
you, Murray,” I said meekly. “See you in two hours, okay?”

He
grunted. “I won’t be here, which maybe is just as well. But I’ll fix you up
with Lydia Cooper. Just ask for her when you get to the second floor.”

It’s
hard to have a professional relationship that turns personal, although maybe
the other way round is worse. When Murray and I first met a decade or so ago
we’d felt a mutual attraction and had become lovers for a time. But our
competition over the financial crime we both cover soured our private life. And
now the memory of our love life gave a sour tinge to our professional dealings.
Maybe I needed to invite him out for dinner and talk it through. That would
certainly be the mature thing to do, but I was still a year from forty, I
didn’t have to be mature yet.

I
stuck the gun in my shoulder holster and went down to Mr. Contreras’s place. He
was dismayed by the news about Lotty. I went through the details with him
several times; on the third recital he suddenly realized I might be in danger.

“And
you’re just going to romp around the streets with no one looking after you.”

. “No
one can look after me,” I said. “Even a bodyguard can’t protect you if someone
is determined to get you. Look at whatsis name—the mobster who was gunned down
in Lincoln wood.”

“Alan
Dorfman,” he supplied. “But even so, doll—”

“Even
so, I don’t see the point of you coming along and getting hurt too. You’ve
taken a bad hit on the head and a bullet in the shoulder from getting too close
to my problems. The next time someone assaults you I’m going to have to hand in
my license and find a new career.”

“I
just hate sitting on the sidelines,” he muttered.

I put
a sympathetic arm around him—I sure knew that feeling. “There is something you
could do.” I told him about the guy who’d come by Mrs. Polter’s claiming to be
Mitch’s son. “Can you talk to Jake about that?”

He
brightened somewhat. It wasn’t as good as the possibility of slugging someone with
a pipe wrench, but at least it was action. I told him I’d be out all day, but
I’d check in around five.

“Mind
you do, doll. Maybe you could call me around one or something—I don’t want to
spend the whole day wondering if someone took after you with a bulldozer.”

Normally
his protectiveness makes me prickly, but the attack on Lotty had shaken me. I
could see how you could sit around worrying about someone you loved. I
promised, kissed him on the cheek, and took off.

It
was past noon by the time Luke finished his funeral oration on the damage to
the Trans Am. Since he wouldn’t hand over the keys to the Impala until he’d had
a chance to say everything he wanted on the subject of the state of modern car
manufacture in general, Pontiac more specifically, and my car as a particular
example, I had to listen with what grace I could muster.

He
was right about the Impala: it rode like a bus after the Trans Am. But its
engine felt like spun silk to handle. I maneuvered it cautiously into traffic,
getting a feel for its sidelines, and keeping an eye out for uninvited company.
I didn’t think anyone had followed me to the garage, but I didn’t want to be
foolhardy.

Remembering
my promise to Mr. Contreras, I phoned from the lobby of the Herald Star. When
he didn’t answer I figured he was out with Peppy and went on up to the news
floor to talk to the young reporter Murray had assigned me to.

Lydia
Cooper, Murray’s gofer, looked as though she was fresh from journalism school.
In fact, with her red, round cheeks and fluffy black bangs she looked as though
she were on her way to a high school class. She had a thick Midwestern twang;
when I asked, she grinned and said she came from Kansas.

“And
please don’t ask about Toto or whether everything there’s in black and white.
Believe me, I’ve heard it a million times already and I’ve only been in Chicago
eleven months.”

Murray
had apparently passed along my request without any baggage—she cheerfully
offered to fix me up with the Lexus system as soon as we finished talking.

I
gave her the details of the attack on Lotty. With Lydia dutifully taking notes
at my shoulder, I called Max to see how Lotty’s tests had gone. As Audrey
thought, Lotty had a hairline fracture of her left arm, but the CAT scan didn’t
show clots or other head-problems. Carol, shocked by the attack, was coming in
to the clinic for a few hours a day, but Lotty was fretting to get back to work
herself.

Lydia
went through a conscientious list of questions, but she had a lot to learn
about probing behind partial answers. When she finished, she led me to a
computer with a modem and called up Lexus for me.

“Murray
said I should warn you that we might not use the story,” she drawled. “But
thanks for talking to me. Just exit the system when you’re done—you don’t need
to see me before you go.”

When
I got the Diamond Head file I felt a stab of frustration, and a sweep of
irrational anger. The only name given was their registered agent, Jonas Carver,
at an address on South Dearborn. Perfectly aboveboard, since they weren’t a
publicly held company, but I’d been expecting great things from the computer.
I’d imagined finding some close associate of Daraugh Graham, who would quickly
put pressure on Chamfers to talk to me.

Technology
had failed me. I was going to have to do my detecting the old-fashioned way, by
breaking and entering.

I
phoned Mr. Contreras again from Murray’s desk before leaving the paper. He
still didn’t answer. I tried not to worry about it—what could be wrong with
him, after all? But he’d made such a point of my calling him at one, and
anyway, he wouldn’t leave Peppy alone for so long. Maybe he forgot he had a
doctor’s appointment when he was talking to me. Maybe Peppy had had some kind
of veterinary emergency. He wouldn’t have slipped and fallen, be lying helpless
on the bathroom floor like Mrs. Frizell. Certainly not. I took the stairs from
Michigan to the service road beneath it two at a time.

I’d
parked the car illegally on underground Wacker, hoping the location was too
remote for the traffic detail. Pulling one of the city’s new orange missives
from the Impala’s wipers, I realized I should have known better: when the dice
are rolling against you, the traffic cops will always find you. I’d have to pay
it too—Luke’s histrionics if the Impala got booted didn’t bear imagining.

I
pushed my failing luck on the Drive going home, but managed to make it to
Belmont without a blue-and-white pulling me over—the Impala didn’t attract the
same kind of attention the Trans Am got. Once on Belmont I had to take it easy
because of the traffic. I drummed impatiently on the wheel at lights and took
stupid risks around double-parked delivery trucks.

It
wasn’t until I got to Racine that I remembered to look for tails. At this point
I couldn’t be sure I didn’t have one, although I didn’t think anyone had
followed me to Luke’s to begin with. I certainly didn’t want to make their job
easy by parking near the building where they could see what car I was driving.
I found a space on Barry and sprinted the two blocks home.

When
I rang Mr. Contreras’s bell, Peppy barked sharply from behind the door, but the
old man didn’t appear. I bit my lip in momentary indecision. He had the same
right to his privacy that I demanded for myself. Unfortunately the attack on
Lotty had made me too jumpy about the welfare of my friends to leave room for
Ninth Amendment debates. I ran upstairs to my own place, dug my
state-of-the-art picklocks from the jumble in the basket by my front door, and
made my first illegal entry of the day.

Peppy
kept up a steady, extremely fierce barking while I worked on the locks. I hoped
she would frighten off a genuine housebreaker—even though Mr. Contreras had two
locks, they were woefully easy to undo. As soon as she realized it was me, she
wagged her tail perfunctorily and returned to her squealing offspring.

The
old man wasn’t in the building. I checked the back in case I’d made a fool of
myself while he was nurturing his tomatoes, but he wasn’t outside, either.
Peppy came to the back door with me while I looked.

“Where’d
he go, huh? I know he told you.”

She
gave an impatient bark and I let her out briefly. He hadn’t been attacked and
dragged from the building by force—there were no signs of battle. I gave it up.
Something had come up and I’d hear all about it in due course. I checked
Peppy’s water bowl, then left a note on top of his phone telling him I’d been
by and would see him tonight.

After
relocking his door I stopped in my own place for a glass of water and a
sandwich. I also left the Smith &

Wesson—I
didn’t think anyone was going to take potshots at me on Racine.

Marjorie
Hellstrom was in her backyard doing something to a rose bush. Except for Mrs.
Frizell and me, the block was infested with fanatical gardeners. I couldn’t
grow parsley in a window box, while Mrs. Frizell’s yard was returning to native
prairie—native prairie replete with hubcaps and beer cans, just the way it was
when the Indians lived here.