Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (35 page)

She
Who Fights and Runs Away—Gets Mugged

Elston
Avenue cuts a diagonal swath through the Northwest Side. A busy road during
rush hour—it parallels the Kennedy Expressway—at other times it’s a
no-man’s-land. Bleak stretches where warehouses and factories once stood dot
its route. Few shops or restaurants have filled the gaps, so people from the
surrounding neighborhoods don’t frequent the street.

Charpentier’s
construction site was hidden behind the tall grass and broken walls of one of
those desolate patches. I drove by it twice without seeing anything, searching
for a street number that would let me know I was in the vicinity. I finally parked
on Cullom and started hunting on foot.

It
wasn’t until I’d picked my way across chunks of asphalt—the remains of a
parking lot—that I saw where building was taking place. No signs blazoned the
Charpentier name to the world or warned of construction in progress. Supplies
and workers must come in through the alley, instead of down Elston. Unless you
knew what to look for you wouldn’t know anything was going on. If this was
indeed a Home Free project they believed in hiding their light under a bushel.

I walked
through the dead prairie grass to look more closely at the site.

Concrete
had been poured for the foundation. Furring for the first story stood about
waist high. Some eight or ten men were working, nailing cradles across the
furring for pouring concrete. They were calling out in a language I didn’t
recognize—it might have been some regional form of Italian, or a bastardized
Spanish.

Lumber
was piled along the edge of the alley. Beyond it a cement truck was churning,
its giant snout sticking out like an impatient elephant waiting for food. The
big panel truck Gary Charpentier drove away from Home Free last week was parked
on the edge of the alley.

The
men were dressed in a hobo’s assortment of jeans and ragged shirts.

Several,
despite the cool gray day, were stripped to the waist. One of them caught sight
of me as I climbed over a nest of rusted reinforcing bars. He stopped hammering
and called to his fellows. A couple of them let out catcalls and encouraging
shouts, which I could translate without a dictionary.

In
response to the outcry a huge man in a cowboy hat emerged from the far side of
the cement truck. He glanced at me before turning to swear at the crew.

The
lookout picked up his hammer and started pounding again, but slowly; the whole
crew slowed down to watch. The swearer—presumably the foreman—moved across the
weedy ground to me. He was formidable, almost a foot taller than me with an
impressive girth.

“Private
construction, miss. Hard-hat area.” A rich accent, reminiscent of my mother’s,
seemed incongruous with his cowboy boots and Stetson.

I
gestured at the crew. “Then why aren’t they wearing them? Or you, for that
matter?”

He
eyed me narrowly and spat, just missing my left toe. “Their heads already
plenty hard. You go on to your shopping or whatever lady thing you do today.

These
men working.”

“This
one of the Home Free sites?”

He
moved closer to me, so that his gut was almost level with the bottom of my
shoulder holster. “Who wants to know?”

“I
do.” It cost an effort not to take a step backward.

“Then
you leave not knowing, lady. This is private, this work, this nothing to do
with you.”

“But
they’ve invited me to invest. How can I possibly do so without seeing the kind
of work they do?”

He
frowned, weighing my story, but decided he didn’t like it. “You take their
word. You coming with one of the bosses, we let you look. Otherwise, go do your
own business.”

I
frowned in turn, assessing my choices. Not only wasn’t I big enough to take him
on, there was no point to it. Except to show I wasn’t scared. Sometimes there’s
an advantage in people thinking you’re scared—they don’t keep an eye on you. I
could come back anytime, now that I knew where they were.

I
spread my hands and smiled. “Fine. I’ll get one of the bosses. You recognize
Eleanor Guziak by sight, or would it have to be Jasper Heccomb himself?”

His
scowl deepened. “They coming with you, I let you look. Now you go.”

I
backed up a few steps to make sure he wasn’t going to follow me, then turned to
pick my way through the rubble toward Elston. I took my time, trying to appear
nonchalant. As I left, the crew let out a few more raggedy catcalls. I turned
and waved, to show I appreciated the spirit, and saw a late-model Bronco pull
up next to the cement truck.

The
foreman saw it too. He hurried over to it as Gary Charpentier climbed out. The
contractor bellowed something at him. I was too far away to make out the words,
but it must have been an order to come and get me, since the foreman started
after me on the run.

Charpentier
followed him, moving so fast he didn’t bother to shut his car door. The time
for nonchalance was past. I leapt over chunks of concrete, heading for the
level grass nearer Elston. A few steps from the sidewalk I heard a whine and a
thunderclap.

I hit
the ground almost before I realized the bastards were shooting. I landed on a
brick that knocked the wind out of me. Gasping painfully I wrenched myself onto
my side and fumbled inside my jacket for the Smith & Wesson. I slipped off
the safety and pointed it at the foreman, then realized I had a good chance of
hitting the crew if I fired. As the cowboy fired again I rolled over until I
found a piece of concrete big enough to provide a minimal barricade.

Charpentier
caught up with the cowboy and wrenched his gun arm down. I pushed myself to a
sitting position, holding my gun out prominently. Charpentier lumbered over to
me, the cowboy following.

“Just
what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He was leaning so far over that
flecks of spit sprayed my face.

I
staggered upright and made a great display of rubbing a tissue over my cheeks
before I spoke. “My very question. Where does this great ape get off firing
guns at people?”

“You
were trespassing on a private work site.” He was so angry his cheeks looked
like slabs of raw beef.

“It
isn’t posted. And even if it was, what earthly justification does that give
this hyena to fire at me?”

“I
telling her to leave,” the cowboy said. “She wanting to know if this is a Home
Free site. I telling her to mind her own business.”

“And
I was leaving. You should have been pleased instead of trying to mow me down.”

“I
told him to go after you,” Charpentier said. “I called my wife as I was heading
to the Kennedy and she said Alec Gantner had sent a girl around with some papers
for me to sign. So I called Gantner—to apologize for missing her.

And
he said he hadn’t sent anyone. I want to know what you thought you were doing,
worming the site location out of my wife. I’m within my rights.”

A
couple of the crew had come up behind him, still holding their tools. I
wondered what would happen if the cowboy gave them the order to jump me.

“I’m
a Chicago taxpayer. I have a right to walk on Chicago streets and alleys
without justifying myself to you.”

Charpentier
raised a hand to hit me, saw the men watching him, and thought better of it.
“You don’t have any right to harass my wife. And this is private property. Even
in Chicago that must still have some meaning.”

“What
are you trying to hide here? If it’s so private, why isn’t it posted?”

“She
saying she want to invest,” the cowboy informed Charpentier. “I telling her she
bring one of the bosses, she look all she want.”

Charpentier
stared at me closely. “Haven’t I seen you? ... Oh, yes. You’re the detective
who’s been bothering Jasper Heccomb over at Home Free. My, my.”

He
turned to the cowboy. “She’s precious, Anton. Treat her like gold.”

“This
is Warshawska?” Anton gave me a full Polish pronunciation. “Why not ...

” He
made a suggestive gesture with his gun.

Charpentier’s
full lips curved in an unpleasant smile. “Because now isn’t the right time. You
be on your way, detective. But I’ll tell Jasper you stopped by.”

I
turned around and slowly made my way to the street. Under the circumstances I
didn’t see I had any other choice. When I crossed Elston I turned around to
look. Charpentier and Anton were watching me, arms akimbo. The workmen let out
some more catcalls. The tone seemed friendly; I turned to wave.

During
the short drive home I turned Charpentier’s final words over in my mind a dozen
times. The only sense I could make of them was that he and Anton were the two
men tailing me, and that they were waiting for something specific to happen
before they assaulted me. But what?

I was
startled to find how angry I was with both Charpentier and his cowboy-foreman.
They had insulted me in a mean, ugly way. I don’t like being called a girl or
told I’ll be assaulted to teach me a lesson. As I checked the entrance to the
alley behind my building I wondered who’d thought up that idiotic saying about
“sticks and stones.” It was Charpentier’s ugly talk that rankled me more than
my bruises.

At
least I’d found a Home Free construction site. It would be interesting to go
see if Charpentier had pulled a permit for the job. And more interesting would
be to look at Charpentier’s books, to see if Home Free was paying him on
schedule. He’d been unhappy with Jasper last week, but it couldn’t have been
over money. A guy like Charpentier wouldn’t keep coming back if he wasn’t
getting paid.

Presumably
Heccomb hadn’t talked to Charpentier today. If he had told them I was snuffling
close to the truffles they might well have killed me. I tried not to dwell on
the picture of my dead body buried in cement.

MacKenzie
Graham had told me my tail was in a sedan,maybe brown. That certainly would
include Charpentier’s wife’s Nissan. But in case it was someone else—or in case
Jasper had reserves—I parked again on Morgan and walked the two blocks home.

I
kept my hand on the Smith & Wesson as I unlocked the inside door. No one was
lurking in the entryway. My keys in my left hand, I trotted up the stairs, my
mind more on a bath than on Anton.

I
heard them an instant before I saw them, an instant that got the Smith &

Wesson
into my hand, safety off. Three hooded shadows rose at the top landing. I fired
and ran down the stairs, bent double.

“Fucking
bitch! Stop her!”

I
careened around the corner of the landing. One of the shadows launched itself
down the stairs. I fired at it, missed and heard an answering shot.

Spinning
on my toe I started down the next flight when the shadow flung itself on top of
me. We rolled down the stairs together. My gun went off, searing my hand.

At
the half landing I couldn’t wrench myself free. Drawing my knees inside his
dark embrace I pushed into his gut. He grunted and grabbed my hair. I bucked
hard. My legs came free and I swiveled under his grip. Just as I pulled my gun
up some other hand sliced the back of my head. I felt an instant of pain so
exquisite I seemed to be dancing on the edge of the world, and then a merciful
darkness enshrouded me.

Bird
of Prey

The
sun was a bright light in the far distance. A falcon sat on a hooded man’s arm,
eyeing me coldly, wanting to carry me into the center of the sun.

“No!”
I screamed. I struggled to sit up but the falconer stuck out an arm and pinned
me to the earth. The bird bit my hand.

When
I woke up the sun had diminished into a fluorescent light in a stained ceiling.
The bird beak was an IV running into my left wrist. Shabby curtains surrounded
me on two sides. A cart holding medical instruments stood on my left.

A
woman in a T-shirt and jeans, but wearing a stethoscope, materialized next to
me.

“Oh,
good. You’re awake. Do you know your name?”

“Where
am I?” I croaked.

“This
is the emergency room at Beth Israel Hospital.”

“How
did I get here?”

“The
police brought you. They want to talk to you, to see what you remember, but
before I let them in here I need to make sure you’re up to it. So why don’t you
tell me your name?”

“I’ve
hurt my head, haven’t I?” I frowned, trying to remember what had happened.
“That’s what they always ask when you’ve hurt your head, but I don’t know how
it happened. I keep thinking it had something to do with falcons, but that was
because of the eyes.”

I
became aware of an ice pack wedged against the side of my head. I put up a
tentative finger to feel what lay beneath the coolness: a tender lump, perhaps
the size of a cantaloupe. My arm ached where I’d landed on it.

The
nurse patiently agreed that I’d hurt my head, and once more asked for my name.
I told her that, and the date, and who the president was. If he got hit on the
head they’d have to keep him for observation because he wouldn’t know who I
was. When I suggested this to the nurse she smiled and said she was going to
find the resident, and to tell the police they could ask me a few questions.