Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (32 page)

And
anyway, they were filed by contractor, not developer. And I didn’t have a
contractor. As I tossed irritably from my right side to left I remembered the
beefy man who’d been so upset the first day I’d gone to Home Free. Gary
somebody. Camilla might know.

I
reached her as she was changing for a night on the town. She was in high
spirits—a week of hard work was over, she’d recently met a guy she liked, and
Phoebe had given Lamia the go-ahead to start ordering materials. She was
willing to forget our last strained conversation, and talk to me on the fly.

“So
you start work in ten days—great,” I said. “Conrad and I’ll have some champagne
to toast you. ... You met any of Home Free’s other contractors? I saw a guy
there once, Gary somebody, who looked like he might tear sides of beef with his
bare hands.”

“That’d
be Gary Charpentier. He does look like an angry kind of guy, at that.

I
think he was hoping to get our job and didn’t take it kindly that Jasper gave
it to us. Now, there’s a smoothie, that Jasper Heccomb. I could almost go for
him, but I figure his office manager would slice my breasts up for Easter
dinner if I made a move.”

I
laughed. “She might if she knows the thought even crossed your mind. She was
ready to murder me just for suggesting he was getting together with Phoebe
Quirk.”

“You
think he is? With Phoebe? I’ve never seen her with a guy—I always wondered if
she liked women better.”

“I
think it’s putting together deals—that she likes better than guys, I mean.”

Camilla
laughed and hung up. Phoebe had always been relentlessly single-minded in all
her pursuits. If she took on a lover, of any sex, she would wear the other
person out in a week.

I
switched on the bedside light and looked up Charpentier under general
contractors in the yellow pages. There he was, with a business address in Des
Plaines. On Monday I could go to City Hall to see what permits he’d pulled
lately.

I put
on jeans and a T-shirt and began boiling water for pasta. By the time Conrad
pressed the bell I had dinner ready. A proper little housewife, welcoming her
man home from a hard day in the crime mines.

“You
got me pinned now, babe,” Conrad said by way of greeting. “The old guy inspects
me every time I come in the front door and now you have a sprout guarding the
sidewalk. Where’d you pick him up? Kindergarten?”

I
made a sour face. “More like nursery school. His father’s my only reliable
customer these days. I’m supposed to find a 501-c(3) for the kid to do some
community service in. Maybe your African American Police Benevolent Fund could
use a volunteer.”

Conrad
wiggled his eyebrows. “I’d love a chance to put a puppy like that through his
paces. He bugging you, or you enjoying being the object of puppy love? Ah, ah,
the girl is blushing. Maybe I ought to bust the kid again—what’s he need to do
community service work for? Selling dope in his nursery?”

“Working
in West Englewood is making you trite. There’s lots of crime besides drugs and
murder—you just don’t see any of it.”

“You’ve
got that right, white sugar. This has been a day and a half. I am almighty
thankful to see its end. Did I leave any beer here?”

Conrad
stocks his own, since I don’t drink it. I pulled a Moosehead out of the
refrigerator for him and moved the conversation on to the Cubs—just as dismal
as the mayhem on Chicago’s streets, but not as life-threatening.

Knock
Before

Picking
Conrad’s beeper went off at two-thirty. He stumbled to the living room to use
the phone, trying to be quiet about it. A few minutes later he moved stealthily
back to the bedroom. I could hear him fumbling in the dark for his clothes. I
switched on the light and sat up.

“Sorry,
babe. Didn’t think both of us had to be roused by the city’s punks.

One
of my informers was just killed. Could be a simple drive-by, or it could be a
warning to other stooges. I’ve got to go listen to some statements. If we
finish before dawn maybe I’ll come back here?” He finished it as a question.

I put
on a T-shirt and went to the kitchen for my spare keys. “You wearing your
vest?”

He
ran a hand through my hair. “I’m just going to be at the station listening to
lies.”

“You
don’t know where the night will take you. You can’t afford to move around
without it these days, you know that, and the super would tell you the same.”

“Call
Fabian and get him to put in a word to the chief of detectives for me,” he
gibed, but he went back to the bedroom and took his vest from the chair.

I
locked the door behind him and went to the living room window to watch him
leave. When he’d unlocked his car he looked up and waved at me. After he’d
driven off I continued to watch the street, focusing on nothing in particular,
depressed by the amount of pointless violence in the city. I stood there for
some minutes, until I realized that Ken Graham’s Spider was parked down the
street.

I
didn’t know whether I felt more angry or amused. Did he think he was protecting
me? Or was he just filling in time? I wished fervently I’d been able to find a
placement for him so that he’d have a legitimate piece of work to look after,
instead of trailing around after me. Although it would be a boon if he could
rebuild my files, his hovering presence was a worse nuisance than Mr.

Contreras’s.

Somewhere
between dreaming and waking I’d decided to become aggressive in my search for
Home Free’s secrets. It would be difficult to break into the Gant-Ag complex in
search of information about JAD, but if the musketeers were all for one and one
for all, Jasper might have some data. And at the very least I might find out
why their construction projects were so secret.

I
trotted to the bedroom to put on jeans and a jacket. I thought for a minute
about what I needed. My picklocks. My Smith & Wesson. A couple of pairs of
surgical gloves, donated by Lotty in a friendly mood. I had a flashlight in the
car. A stepladder? I didn’t think I could get one from the basement without
rousing Mr. Contreras. If I needed something more than the portable stool I
kept in my trunk I’d have to improvise. A note for Conrad taped to the front
door telling him I’d gone out on an errand.

If
Ken saw me leaving and decided to follow he would be a nuisance on this
particular trip. I started to undo the bolts to the back door when I remembered
the electronic alarm system—I hadn’t had time to take a class on bypassing
phone lines. What I needed—of course, what I needed was a hacker.

I ran
lightly down the front stairs. Mercifully the dogs slept through my exit—it
would have been hard to exclude Mr. Contreras from my expedition and impossible
to take him along.

I
jogged down Racine to the Spider. The sodium lamps allowed an excellent view
inside the car. Young Ken was asleep behind the wheel. I pounded sharply on the
window with my picklocks and was perversely pleased to watch him jerk upright
in alarm. The car was small; he banged his knee against the steering wheel.

When
he opened the door his face was still soft with sleep. “You felt my pull like
Jupiter on an asteroid. I knew if I waited here long enough you’d ditch the cop
and come to me.”

“And
how right you were. I want to ask you to do something Sergeant Rawlings will
kill me for if he finds out. So if you tell him I’ll kill you.”

“You
can’t commit adultery if you’re not married.”

He
grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me onto his lap and looked aggrieved when I
twisted his arm away. “Get your mind above your belt for a minute, sonny.

I
want your help with something that’s dangerous and illegal, and I want you to
think about it seriously before you agree.”

He
rubbed his forearm where I’d twisted it and scowled at the ground. “Are you
always this bossy? How does your cop friend stand it?”

“He
loves it. He’s got a thing for women in black leather with whips. Anyway, I
thought you liked bossy women—that they reminded you of your old governess.

...
Can you bypass a phone alarm system?”

The
prospect of adventure appealed more to him than romance. He stopped rubbing his
arm and looked up. “You mean one that goes to the police via a security firm?
Sure. If I had the right equipment. And also—is it a continuous feedback
system?”

I
shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what that is.”

“One
where you have to program in a code word to respond to the security phone every
few minutes. If it is I can’t bypass it until I’ve been inside and studied the
specs.”

“Can
we assume it isn’t—and be ready to run like hell if the cops pull up?”

He
flashed a smile. “That’s what I like about you—life on the edge. I knew you
were too radical for Darraugh or a cop. We’ll need to go out to Niles and find
one of those big hardware stores that’s open all night. I can’t do this without
equipment.”

“You
need to think for a minute, Ken. If we get caught you could go to jail.

You
already have one criminal offense on your record.”

“And
what about you?” He gave a cocky smile. “We could use one of those his and hers
jails—don’t they have some in Texas?”

“I’d
probably sweet-talk my way out of an arrest,” I said brutally. “Of course I’d
feel racked by remorse at your sentence, but it would pass with time.”

He
shrugged. “Okay. We’ll just have to avoid getting caught. Hop in. I’ll drive
you to Niles.”

“I’ll
follow you. I want to make sure someone isn’t behind us. If I pass you, hang
back and look to see what else is behind us. And make sure you stay within the
speed limit. It’s a fundamental rule for a life of crime. More punks give
themselves away because they’re stopped for moving violations than for leaving
prints at the scene. And speaking as a sports car driver, you’re a favorite
target in this thing.”

He
flashed a grin. “I know. I spent my whole first-quarter allowance on traffic
tickets. Darraugh was not happy. But what else do you expect from a man who
drives a Lincoln?”

He
waited for me to cross the street to the Trans Am. Just to prove he couldn’t be
bossed he took the turn onto Belmont at forty. He quickly gained a couple of
blocks on me. I pulled over to the side, forcing him to turn around and come
back for me. After that he went across town to the expressway at a sedate pace.
A couple of times I pulled in front of him. Occasionally I moved to the
shoulder for a brief halt. We seemed to be clear.

Once
we got to the suburbs I stayed closer to Ken’s taillights. A slow rain had
begun to fall, making it harder to keep track of traffic. The drizzle turned
the streets to a black gloss that broke and spilled the lights a thousand
different ways.

Ken
led me to one of those shopping zones that dot the suburbs—mile on mile of
malls, with discount stores the size of football fields, each identical to the
next. The strip looked like a mammoth theme park—all the rides you want through
America’s wasteland.

I
admired the nonchalance with which Ken, suburban born and bred, found his way
through the anonymous megaplex. He turned left on Route 43, idled impatiently
through two slow lights, and shot left again in front of a semi to pull up
under the shadow of a giant billboard proclaiming the mall was open twenty-four
hours a day. I waited in the Trans Am while Ken went into the hardware store,
not wanting to give him more occasion for flirting, and also to make sure no
one was watching.

He
was gone about half an hour. When he returned, his arms laden with parcels, he
was walking fast, with the excited, self-satisfied air I remembered from the
young punks in my PD days.

My
arms prickled with embarrassment. Inviting Ken to help do illegal work was
morally indefensible. I could tell him I’d changed my mind. He didn’t know
where we were going—he couldn’t possibly carry out the operation alone.

I got
out to ask him if he had everything, and gave him Home Free’s address, adjuring
him to park around the corner from the office, near the mouth of the alley
running behind the building.

When
we arrived I sent Ken to the front door to make sure no one was in the office.
Primed with a story about needing emergency shelter, he rang the bell and
pounded on the glass. I played lookout at the corner. When no one answered, we
went to the alley to scout the alarm.

While
I shone the new flash over the wires Ken located the phone lines into Home
Free. It was four in the morning. The sky was still black behind its thicket of
drizzle, but I was beginning to be nervous about time: people on early-morning
errands would be leaving home in an hour.

“Okay,
Vic, here’s what we’ll do.” Ken spoke low, near my ear. “We’re going to splice
the line and attach it to a jumper box so it thinks the connection is being
maintained. I want you to hold these by the tips and hand them to me as soon as
I ask for them.”

“These”
were a pair of needle-nosed clips—alligator clips, Ken explained—which would
attach the phone line to the jumper box to complete the circuit. He turned over
a garbage can and hoisted himself on top of it. It brought him within working
distance of the line. I held the end from the phone pole while he cut it,
stripped the sheath away, and attached the clip. I handed him the other end of
the line and he repeated the operation. Once he had the line clipped to the
jumper box he laid the box against the side of the building so that its weight
wouldn’t drag down the line. The whole procedure took less than three minutes.