Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (4 page)

Contract
Woes

It
was past one now. That gave me ten minutes to stop in the Pulteney before an
afternoon session with a venture capitalist. I should have had a cookie with my
cappuccino: I wouldn’t have time even for a sandwich now.

I ran
down the three flights to the Pulteney’s basement but found no sign of the
woman or her children. No footprints, no scrap of food wrapper—they might never
have existed. Leaving my bag of blankets behind the boiler with an envelope
stuffed with what cash I could spare, I raced across the Loop to Phoebe Quirk’s
office.

Phoebe
and I had known each other for years—since our undergraduate days when we’d
worked for the abortion underground where I’d met Lotty. I liked her well
enough at the time, but we’d never been close: she came from the rich suburbs
where kids wore tattered jeans and joined undergrounds to thumb their noses at
their parents. During winter breaks, when I was making a few bucks waitressing,
she stopped thumbing her nose long enough to ski Mont Blanc with her family.

Her
idealism was genuine, though: after a checkered career including both the Peace
Corps and a stint teaching high school, she’d become a neurologist. For five
years she’d butted her head on the unyielding wall of organized medicine.

One
day she drove into the Lake Point Hospital parking lot, stared at the stream of
doctors and nurses leaving their cars, and turned around and headed home.

A few
months later she’d joined a small venture-capital firm, Capital Concerns. They
wanted Phoebe’s medical contacts and know-how for the biotech start-ups they
specialized in; her grandparents’ trust fund didn’t bother them any either.
Phoebe liked the excitement of high-risk capital. She proved to have a knack
for it, but Capital also appealed to her because of the social programs they
funded.

Thanks
to Phoebe, Capital had started coming to me for background research on some of
their prospective partners. During the last year they’d become one of my most
important accounts. Today’s meeting was more about ventures than capital, though:
Phoebe had agreed to help one of Conrad’s four sisters, Camilla, fund a women’s
trade collective.

When
I got to Phoebe’s office Camilla was already there. She and Phoebe were sitting
on the corner couches, laughing. Camilla, smart in a form-hugging black jersey,
didn’t look as though she ever lifted anything heavier than a nail file.

Phoebe,
who wore expensive suits as if they were the tattered blue jeans of her youth,
was the one you’d pick for a hard hat and scaffolding. Today’s costume was a
navy blue Donna Karan with a button missing from the skirt and coffee stains
down the shirt front.

“Come
on in, Vic. Camilla’s just telling me about her introduction to sexual
harassment back in the mills. They kept leaving rust-coated tampons in the bathroom
sink when she was the only woman on the shift. Why do you think all successful
women have a bathroom story as part of their initiation experience?”

I was
about to say that must be proof I wasn’t a success, when I thought of the
toilets at the Pulteney, forever backing up, and never properly repaired in my
ten years there. For the first time it struck me that the men’s restrooms in
the building, while not beautiful, had always been more or less functional. And
there was one on every floor, besides.

“Builds
character. Or at least muscle. My bathroom story is learning to be a plumber: I
can carry a fully loaded toolbox up three flights of stairs without flinching.
How’s tricks, Camilla?”

“Can’t
complain, Vic. How’s Conrad? I haven’t talked to the boy since they put him on
night shift.”

Camilla,
just a year younger than Conrad, was the closest to him of the family. To their
widowed mother’s chagrin she’d eschewed the pink-collar jobs she’d trained for
in high school and become an apprentice welder at the old South Works. With the
death of the steel industry she’d learned carpentry and gone to work for a
small general contractor.

“Now
I need a change, need a stretch,” she’d told me last summer. “I’ve worked for
some good guys and some assholes, with the assholes predominating.

But
none of them ever wants to go past their hiring quota when it comes to women.
Some of us want to change that—start a woman-only company. Only where are we
going to get the money?”

My
first thought had been Sal, who did a lot of real estate and sometimes rehabbed
it, but the recession was squeezing her too tight to allow her to take on new
projects. I’d then put her in touch with Phoebe, who helped Camilla and five
other women form a company. They’d named themselves Lamia, for an ancient
Libyan goddess.

At
Phoebe’s prodding they’d come up with a project they all wanted to work on:
low-cost housing for single mothers. They’d found an architect to design plans
so they could apply for funding, building permits, zoning permits, and everything
else you have to have before you can do good works, or even bad ones, in
construction.

“We
thought our zoning permit was cast-iron, but that’s suddenly fallen through,”
Camilla explained, bringing me up-to-date. “Not only that, Century Bank, which
we thought was going to underwrite a big chunk of the cost, has backed out.”

“That’s
where you come in, Vic.” Phoebe flashed me a gap-toothed smile, her patented
signal of charm.

“No,”
I said flatly.

“What
do you mean, ‘no’?” Camilla demanded.

“I
mean I’m not digging into the rat’s nest at City Hall to find out who is
squeaking into whose cheese hoard to kill your permit.”

“But,
Vic,” Camilla began, when Phoebe cut her off.

“Vic,
this is an important project in the women’s community. We need to find out what’s
fueling the opposition—is it because Lamia is woman-owned? Or because it’s
low-income housing? Because, not to be crude, we can change the project.”

When
Camilla started to object that the project was too important to change, Phoebe
overrode her. “I know everyone at Lamia is committed to low-cost housing for
women. But we need to get you capital first, and a track record. When you have
that, you can be pickier about your work.”

“Phoebe,
you know the people at Century Bank. They’ll talk to you for nothing. Why pay
my rates?”

Phoebe
leaned forward. “If it’s some kind of collusion between them and the power
brokers at City Hall, or even the trade unions, they’re not going to want to
talk to me. That’s the kind of stuff you can figure out. Anyway, I thought your
time on the Lamia project was donated, like mine. We pay your expenses, of
course.”

“Think
that one again. An investigation like this could take several weeks. I can’t
afford to donate that much time.”

“I’ll
do your legwork,” Camilla offered. “I can donate a couple of hours a day to my
own cause.”

I
pulled Phoebe’s desk chair over and sat down in front of them. “Look, you two.
I’ve got six weeks to find a new office. If I was far enough ahead of the game
to donate a hundred hours of work I wouldn’t be in my current jam. But every
project I take on for the next six months has to earn for me—or I’ll be first
in line for a unit when Camilla’s project opens its doors.”

“You
have to have a baby first,” Camilla objected. “It’s single mothers, Vic, not
out-of-work dicks.”

“Capital
pays you a pretty good retainer.” Phoebe frowned, annoyed for the moment with
both of us.

“You
want to audit me, see where the money goes?”

She
flushed, revealing a crust of freckles across her cheekbones. “I want you to be
more responsive to an important client.”

I
could feel my chin jut out. “Phoebe, I know you’re donating your energy on this
one as a sign of your goodwill and your impeccable politics. But I bet if I
audited you I’d find your goodwill was going to be recompensed down the road
when the Lamia group gets going. I don’t have a personal fortune to sink into
this. You know the old saying: White-collar girls play with matches for fun,
blue-collar girls get burned.”

“I
never heard that one,” she snapped. “And if you think I haven’t put my own butt
on the line—”

“Listen
here, ladies,” Camilla said. “I don’t want you two hot and bothered and
destroying a good friendship over this. Vic, why don’t you do—oh, say, ten
hours of work on this and see how big a deal it really looks like. If it seems
huge, then Phoebe can pay for more of your time.”

“And
what’s your donation going to be to your own cause?” Phoebe demanded.

“If
someone tries to shoot Vic I’ll get Conrad there ahead of the 911 crew.”

“For
which we both thank you.” Conrad’s probable reaction if I stepped in front of a
gun again would be to pick it up and finish my assailant’s work. He and I had
had a word or two about “unnecessary” risk-taking by private individuals.

Phoebe
screwed her face up in a tight ball, not wanting to bend but knowing compromise
was inevitable. “Give me fifteen, Vic, and we’ll see.”

“In
writing, Phoebe, and it’s a deal.”

“Camilla’s
a witness here.”

I
shook my head. “Nonprofits eat you alive, and pro bono work is the biggest
devourer of all. In writing or not at all. I won’t do like your legal
staff—charge you a full hour for ten minutes’ work. It’ll be fifteen real-time
hours.”

“Oh,
damn you, anyway, Vic, for the stubborn bitch you’ve always been.”

Phoebe
flicked her intercom and asked her secretary to type up the necessary
agreement.

As I
waited for Gemma to bring it in I took names of some of Phoebe’s contacts at
the bank, and of Camilla’s in the ward office.

Neither
Phoebe nor I was very happy when I got up to leave, but Camilla laughed and
said, “This makes me think of a madam who used to live up the street from us.
She’d gone out of that business and opened an employment agency, but she always
counseled us girls in the neighborhood to make sure the customer paid. ”That
way,’ she’d say, “you don’t feel cheated and he doesn’t feel obligated.’”

“V.I.
as a madam? I like it,” Phoebe said, getting up. “I’ve got another meeting. You
two’ll have to excuse me.”

Camilla
rode down in the elevator with me. “Give my brother a big kiss when you see him
again.”

I
grinned. “More than likely.”

“I
meant from me. See you, Vic.”

On my
way back to the Pulteney I picked up a bagel with Swiss cheese. I had meant to
enlist Phoebe’s help in finding a placement for Ken Graham, but annoyance with
her demands had put his problem out of my head. I scowled at myself in the
mirror over the deli counter. I was out of my head, pure and simple. Ten years
ago, five even, I would have told Darraugh and Phoebe both to take a hike.
Incipient middle age was making me risk-averse. I didn’t like that in myself at
all.

Back
at the Pulteney I set up a file on the Lamia project, dutifully logging it in
to the work-management section of my computer. I’d done a hundred jobs like
this in the last ten years. I could almost do it in my sleep, but that didn’t
mean it would go any faster. Actually, my weariness with the routine slowed me
down these days.

I
frowned at the screen for some minutes, as if that would make a complete report
spring into being on its glassy surface. With an aggrieved sigh I dialed up
Lexis, the know-all legal data base, and got a list of Century Bank’s directors
and officers. While these printed I called on the Dow Jones News Service for
information about Century. In the electronic age secretarial school would be a
better training ground for a detective than my years in law school and the PD’s
office.

Century
is a tiny bank in Uptown and doesn’t make the news much. They were celebrating
their centennial this year: they’d been founded in 1892 as part of the Century
of Progress and now were primed for a second century. TheSun-Times had a photo
of the anniversary festivities—if I felt like paying a small fee I could have
it re-created on my printer. I took their word for it.

According
to theHerald-Star , Century tried to be conscientious about the needs of its
Uptown neighbors. A partial list of clients was attached to the end of the
story, among them Home Free, the homeless advocates Deirdre helped. Dow Jones
reported interest in buying the bank by the JAD Holdings Group. Nothing very
earth-shattering, but I sent the stories to the printer just to have them.

Maybe
there was some kind of conspiracy between City Hall and the bank, but it was
probably over something too petty, too routine even to make the papers.

Perhaps
some alderman had an interest in the plot of land Lamia wanted to build on. He
muscled his colleague into canceling Lamia’s zoning and building permits.

End
of story.

Over
the noise of the printer I hadn’t heard the door open. When a hand shook my
shoulder I jumped, hard enough to ram my knee into the desk leg. The wraith
from the basement stood behind me.

“Jessie
needs a doctor,” she said. Her eyes were fierce and her chin jutted forward
belligerently, but her hands, pressed into the sweaters swathing her bosom,
trembled.