Burn Marks (25 page)

My voice trailed off as Rick began to laugh. “This is pure Restoration, Vinnie. Come on, lighten up! You think she’s running a crack house upstairs all the time she’s tracking you down as a pyromaniac. I want you two to shake hands and have a drink together.”

Vinnie didn’t want to and I wasn’t much in the humor for it, either, but Rick went off to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of Georges Goulet. It seemed churlish not to have a least one glass. In the end Rick and I drank that bottle and part of another one while Vinnie stomped angrily off to bed.

36

Treasure Hunt

I didn’t have a clear memory of getting back to my own apartment. Ten hours later I wished I didn’t have a clear sense of waking up, either. Someone was running an artificial surf machine inside my head. It swooshed and swirled when I tried standing. Even if I hadn’t drunk the champagne, I would have felt awful—my hike around the Ryan had stiffened up my legs. My shoulders felt as though I’d spent the night on a circular saw. With the better part of a bottle swelling my cytoplasm, I wished I could spend the next twelve hours unconscious.

Instead I staggered into the kitchen looking for orange juice. The maid or wife or whoever looked after these things hadn’t been to the store yet. I thought about going out myself, but the idea of being in direct sunlight made me feel so ill that I had to sit down. When the spasm passed I went into the bathroom, located the Tylenol, and took four, extra-strength, with a couple of glasses of cold water. After a long soak in the tub with the water as hot as I could tolerate, I shuffled back to bed.

When I woke up again it was past noon. I didn’t feel like running a mile but I thought I could manage getting dressed and going to the grocery. When you feel really lousy, puppy therapy is indicated. I stopped at Mr. Contreras’s to pick up Peppy.

“You look terrible, doll. You doing okay?” He was wearing a red shirt so brilliant it hurt my eyes.

“I feel like death. But I’m going to get better. I just want to borrow the dog for a while.”

His faded brown eyes were bright with worry. “You sure you even oughta be dressed? Why don’t you go back to bed and I’ll fix you something to eat. You shouldn’t of got out of the hospital so soon. I don’t know what Dr. Lotty would say if she could see you.”

I swayed slightly and caught hold of the doorjamb. Peppy came over to lick my hands. “She’d say I got what was coming to me. This is just cork flu—it doesn’t have anything to do with my injuries, or at least not much.”

“Cork flu?” He cocked his head to one side. “Oh. You been drinking too much. Don’t do that, doll. It’s no way to solve your problems.”

“No, of course it isn’t. Who should know that better than you? I’ll bring Peppy back later.”

I wobbled off with the dog while he was squawking righteously about how knocking back a few with the boys was not the same as me drowning my sorrows in whiskey, I should know by now it was bad for my system. Peppy was totally uninterested in these fine points of ethics, or the different morality prevailing for men who drink than for women. She was staggered that we weren’t going running. She kept looking up at me to see if I was watching her, then looking very pointedly to the east to say we should be going that way.

When she saw it wasn’t going to happen she took it like a lady, waiting sedately outside the grocery on Diversey and staying fairly close going home. She’d run a half a block ahead of me, come back to see if I was still there, tree a squirrel a few yards back, then move ahead again. Back at my apartment she placed herself on the kitchen floor between the stove and table. In my stupefied condition I kept stepping on her tail but she didn’t move—what if some food fell?—she wanted to be able to get to it before I tripped on it. That’s what a guard dog is for.

I squeezed some orange juice and fried hamburgers for the two of us, hers without rye or lettuce. The hamburger raised my blood sugar to the point that I thought I might even manage to live another few days.

I’d intended to go back to the Recorder of Deeds office to look up Farmworks; if it wasn’t a partnership, I’d have to drive to Springfield to see whether they’d been incorporated. Halfway through the second bottle last night, though, as Rick described in hilarious detail the collapse of a set he’d designed for the La Brea Tarpit Wars, I’d remembered the Lexis system. If you had a pal who subscribed to it, you could find out who the officers of a closely held company were as long as it had filed to do business in Illinois.

I wasn’t up to taking the first step, visiting the Recorder’s office in the old county building, but I went to the living room to call Freeman Carter. He’s my attorney, not exactly a pal, and he wouldn’t get me the information for nothing, but it still beat driving to Springfield.

Freeman expressed himself pleased at hearing from me—his secretary had brought in the news clips about my near death. He’d been waiting for me to feel better before seeing if I wanted to start a civil action against anyone.

“You mean the way you have to do if the Klan murders your kid?” I asked. “What is it you do—sue for being deprived of your civil right to life?”

“Something like that.” He laughed. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m coming along, but I was too ambitious yesterday— I’m not going out today. I was wondering if you’d do something for me.”

“Maybe, if it relates to my proper professional role in your life and if it is very clearly marked ‘legal.’”

“When have I ever asked you to do something illegal?” I demanded, stung.

He responded more promptly than I really enjoyed. “There was the time you asked me to give you financial details on one of Crawford, Meade’s other clients. That’s not only illegal but highly unethical. Then when you wanted me to get a restraining order against Dick you could hardly stand it when I turned you down. Then ten or twelve months ago—”

“Okay, okay,” I interrupted hastily. “But those were all things I would have done myself if I’d been able to. Name something illegal I wouldn’t do myself.”

“I don’t have that much imagination. And anyway, you wouldn’t give away confidential client records to anyone. Probably not even to me. Still want to ask me something?”

“Just for some information out of Lexis.” Peppy, giving up on the idea of more hamburger, started exploring the room to see who had been there since her last visit.

“You still don’t have a computer? Christ, Vic, when are you going to join the eighties?”

“Soon,” I promised. “Very soon. As soon as I get four thousand dollars that isn’t marked rent or mortgage or insurance or something. Also I need a new car. The Chevy has ninety-five thousand miles on it and is starting to make horrible grinding noises at high speeds.”

“Don’t drive it so fast,” he advised unkindly. “What do you need off Lexis? Just the officers of a corporation? Spell it out for me, okay—one word, right, ‘works’ not capitalized. One of the paralegals will call you back this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Drink some chicken soup and get a good sleep.”

The sleep idea sounded inviting, but first I checked in with my answering service to see how many people I’d kept hanging since Saturday. Lotty had phoned once, as had Furey, Robin Bessinger had called a couple of times.

Maybe Michael had some word on my aunt. I tried both the station and his house and left a message on his machine.

After hanging up I went to the window to stare down at the Chevy. The real reason I’d been skipping my calls was my aunt. Her condition had been pretty marginal when she left the hospital; every time the phone rang I was afraid it was someone with bad news about her.

If she did turn up alive, she’d probably need some nursing care. Maybe I could get Peter to shell out for it, but history didn’t make me want to bet on it. You’d better not be blowing your transmission or anything really irreplaceable like that, I warned the car. ′Cause it’s you and me, babe, for the foreseeable future.

At least I could call Robin. It might be that we’d killed the personal side of our life together, but I ought to be friendly—if I could only play the corporate politics right, I could turn Ajax into a major account.

Robin was in a meeting. With her usual bouncy good cheer the receptionist promised to give him my message. I fiddled with the cord to the blinds. What I really ought to do was call Murray and talk to him about the lack of any Hispanic or black workers at the Alma work site, even though they’d won part of the Ryan contract because they were a minority contractor. But MacDonald had promised me more details about Alma and Roz and I thought I should give him another day before going public. Waiting wasn’t my style, though. Why was I being so patient now?

“You’re getting old, Vic,” I told my wavery reflection in the window. “People didn’t used to scare you so easily.” Was it his phone call last night or my being trapped in the Prairie Shores last week? It had to be the phone call— I didn’t have any reason to connect him with my near death. Except, of course, for the note he’d sent with his greenhouse.

Behind me Peppy was whimpering in frustration. I pulled on the cord to the blinds impatiently, then flicked them shut and looked to see whether she needed to go out. She came over to me, pawed my leg, then went back to the sofa, got down on her forepaws, and whimpered again, her tail waving gently.

“Whatcha got there, girl?” I asked. “Tennis ball?”

I lay down on my stomach and peered underneath but couldn’t see anything. She refused to give up. Despite all my assurances that nothing was there, she continued her impatient mewing. Once she got going on something like that she could easily keep it up for an hour. I bowed to her superior concentration and hunted for my flashlight.

When I finally remembered dropping it with my other tools on the floor of the hall closet Sunday night, Peppy was still trying to burrow her way under the couch. I hoped she hadn’t found a dead rat, or worse yet a live one. With some foreboding I got back down on my belly to peer underneath. Peppy was crowding me so closely I couldn’t see anything at first, but at least no red eyes stared back at me. Finally I saw light glinting off metal. Whatever it was lay out of the reach of my arm.

“Naturally you’ve seen something that involves moving the couch,” I grumbled to the dog.

When I pulled it away from the wall she danced hurriedly around to the back, tail wagging vigorously. She raced in front of me when the object came into view, sniffed at it, picked it up, and laid it at my feet.

“Thank you,” I praised her, rubbing her head. “I hope you think it was worth all that effort.”

It was a gold link bracelet, a heavy piece, big enough to be a man’s. I pushed the couch back against the wall and sat down to examine the trophy. Two amethysts were set among the links. I turned them over but the backs of the stones hadn’t been inscribed.

I tossed it from one hand to the other. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think of any recent male guests who might have lost it. What men had visited me lately? Robin had come over on Saturday, but he hadn’t gone near the couch. Terry Finchley and Roland Montgomery had sat there when they came to accuse me of torching the Prairie Shores Hotel on Saturday, but it was hard to imagine how they could have dropped it so it fell underneath. It would be so much more likely for something someone dropped to land in the cushions if one of them had lost it. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to ask Finchley.

The only way I could really see it getting down underneath like that was if someone had been sleeping on the sofa bed—when it was pulled out there was a gap between the end of the springs and the floor. Guests of mine had occasionally forgotten a watch or a ring that they’d absently laid on the floor after going to sleep.

Cerise and Elena had been my only recent overnight guests. I thought I’d know if Elena had been carting around such a valuable knickknack, but maybe not. She could have stolen it, after all, hoping to trade it for liquor. Maybe it had belonged to Cerise’s boyfriend and she wore it the way girls did when they went steady in my high school. Maybe I should drive down to Lawndale and show it to Zerlina since it was much likelier that Cerise had owned it than Terry Finchley. But would Zerlina know? And if Maisie was standing militantly in front of her, would she even say?

I was feeling better but not well enough to deal with Maisie. Anyway, the bracelet was scarcely the most urgent item on the agenda. I stuffed it in my jeans pocket and looked down at Peppy’s expectant face.

“You’ve been treated badly the last few days by the people who ought to be worshiping you. You’d like to go to the lake, wouldn’t you?”

She thumped her tail happily.

37

Hunting for Rabbits

I walked along the beach, Peppy dancing around me, dropping sticks for me to throw. It was almost October. The water had grown too cool for me, but she could swim happily for another month if we didn’t get any heavy storms.

I ambled along to the rocky promontory jutting east into the water. When I sat to stare at the water Peppy jumped down the rocks to explore for rabbits. It was a pretty steep drop, but she occasional found them burrowing in the boulders along the shore.

The water had a flat silvery sheen, a flinty shade that you don’t see in summer. You can tell the seasons by the color of the lake, even if nothing else in the landscape changes. When it’s calm the water seems infinitely enticing, offering to hold you, to caress you until you sleep, as though there were no cold depths, no sudden furies that could dash you helpless against the rocks.

It was helplessness I feared. A life like Elena’s, bobbing along without any channel markers to guide it. Or my own the last few days, nibbling circumspectly at the edge of the dam but not daring to dive clean in. Letting myself wait on Ralph MacDonald, for instance. I didn’t even know if it was out of fear of him, fear of his veiled threats I’d been doing so. Maybe I was just too worn by my aunt’s recent escapades to have energy left for taking charge of my own affairs. It was an ego-salvaging theory, at any rate.

I should overcome my repugnance and pay some attention to Elena’s problems, though. It wasn’t fair to her or to Furey to just hand her affairs over to him. At least I could hunt out Zerlina to ask again if she knew anyone who would shelter Elena. My shoulders drooped at the prospect.

I could stop by the Central District to see if Finchley recognized the bracelet—and to check on whether Furey had turned up anything on Elena. If he hadn’t, I’d organize my own search in the morning, maybe call in the Streeter Brothers to help out. And I could go see Roz—it was time I went on the offensive with Ralph MacDonald. Whether he was connected personally with the fire or not, he had something on his mind; I’d stood passively by far too long.

I stood up abruptly and called to the dog. Peppy gained the top in three easy jumps and danced around eagerly. When she saw we were getting in the car instead of returning to the beach, her tail sagged between her legs and she slowed to a painful crawl.

The Chevy was crawling pretty painfully too. I’d put in more transmission fluid, checked the oil, looked with a semblance of intelligence at the plugs and the alternator. Tomorrow I’d have to make the time to bring it to a garage. And make the money for paying a mechanic and hiring a rental car in the interim.

“Keep moving,” I ordered the engine.

The top speed it allowed me this afternoon was thirty-five. I had to stick to side streets, irritating the traffic behind me by keeping below twenty. It took over a half an hour to get to the Central District.

“I’m stopping here first because Finchley will be gone later,” I explained to Peppy, in case she was accusing me of cowardice. “I’m still planning on finding Roz.”

I went in through the entrance to police headquarters on State Street. If I used the station door around the corner, I’d have to explain my business to the watch commander. Of course there’s a guard at State Street, but he didn’t take as much persuading as a desk sergeant would— especially since he recognized my last name. He’d known my dad years ago and chatted with me about him for a bit.

“I was just a rookie then, but Tony took an interest in the young men on the force. I’ve always remembered that and try to do the same for the new guys coming up. And gals, of course. Oh, well. You want to go up to the lieutenant, not stand around reminiscing. You know where his office is, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’ve been there hundreds of times. You don’t need to call up.”

Bobby’s unit shared quarters on the third floor at the south end of the building. The detectives had desks jammed behind waist-high room dividers lining the fringe of the room while the uniformed officers shared desks in an open space up front. Bobby held the reins of command in a miniscule office in the southeast corner.

Terry Finchley was finishing a report, banging on a typewriter almost as ancient as my own, Mary Louise Neely, a uniformed officer who worked with the unit, was sitting on the edge of his desk talking while he typed. The typewriter was so noisy, they didn’t hear me come in.

Most of the desks were empty. The shift changes at four, so roll call and assignments had long been disposed of. Five is a slow time in the crime world. The cops take it easy then, too, getting dinner or waiting for witnesses to come home from work or whatever else you do when you have a little breather on the job.

The door to Bobby’s office was shut. I hoped that meant he’d gone home. I went over to Finchley’s cubicle, interrupting Officer Neely as she was describing the interior of an XJS she’d chased down last night. I didn’t know if it was the black leather seats or the three kilos of coke she’d found underneath them that impressed her more. Usually ramrod stiff, she was gesturing and laughing, a tinge of color in her pale face.

“Hi, guys,” I said. “Sorry to butt in.”

Finchley stopped his one-handed banging on the machine. “Hi, Vic. You looking for Mickey? He’s not in right now.”

Officer Neely retreated behind her colorless facade. Murmuring something about “putting it in writing,” she marched stiffly off to the desks in front.

“Only partly—to see if he’d turned up anything on my aunt. She’s been missing four days now, you know, I found something at my place this afternoon and stopped by to see if you might have dropped it.”

“I didn’t know your aunt was missing. The lieutenant must have given Mickey the assignment on the side.” Finchley gestured hospitably to the metal chair by his desk. “Take a pew. Want some coffee?”

I shuddered. “My stomach isn’t strong enough for the stuff you guys drink.” I sat down. “I never saw Officer Neely look so human. I kind of wish I hadn’t interrupted.”

The police woman was sitting at a typewriter clattering away with flawless precision, her back straight enough to satisfy a West Point inspection.

“She’s the first female in the unit,” Finchley explained. “You know how that goes, Ms. W. Maybe she’s afraid you see her acting natural, you’ll squeal to the lieutenant.”

“Me?” I was outraged.

Finchley grinned. “Okay, maybe she’s afraid if she acts friendly around you, the lieutenant will think you’ve corrupted her. You like that better?”

“Much,” I said emphatically. I pulled the bracelet from my pocket and showed it to Finchley.

“I found it under my couch,” I explained. “You and Montgomery are the only men who’ve been sitting there lately. I wondered if you’d dropped it.”

Finchley looked at it briefly. “Ain’t mine. That’s pimp jewelry—I hate that kind of stuff. And give Monty his due, it’s not exactly his style, either.” He scanned my face. “I’ll ask him for you if you like.”

I hesitated. I hated to admit I couldn’t stomach facing the arson lieutenant. On the other hand, how many difficult confrontations did I need to prove I wasn’t a chicken? I accepted ruefully.

Finchley was sliding the chain through his fingers. “You know, this really looks more like—” He bit himself off. “I’ll ask around.”

“Can you just do it with a description? The other person it might have belonged to is the dead girl—the young woman whose family you helped me locate last week. I want to take it down to show her mother in the morning.”

“Conscientious little thing, aren’t you? You ever think of hiring someone to do some of your legwork for you?”

“Every day.” I gestured toward Officer Neely’s stiff back. “Maybe I should talk to her. The pay isn’t that great but it’d make a change from typing reports on cokeheads.”

“Hey, if you don’t have to type reports, start with me,” Finchley protested. He made a careful note of the number of amethysts in the chain and handed it back to me. “I’ll ask Monty and—and give you a call tomorrow if I can.”

His phone started ringing. “Take it easy, Vic.”

“Thanks, Terry. Can I use a phone before I leave?”

He picked up his own receiver and gestured to the desk behind him. I went around the divider and called my answering service.

Lucy Mott had phoned from my lawyer’s office with in formation on Farmworks, Inc.; she hadn’t left details with the answering service. Lotty had called. So had Robin.

I tried my lawyer first. Lucy Mott was gone for the day but Freeman Carter was still there, in conference with a client. The man answering the phone offered to take a message, but when I explained I was at police headquarters and couldn’t ask for a callback, he went to get Carter.

Freeman thought I’d been arrested, of course, and wasn’t too thrilled to learn I was just borrowing a phone. “It’s that kind of tactic that burns your name around town, V.I.,” he grumbled. “But since you’ve taken me out of my meeting I’ll show you how much better my manners are than yours and dig the stuff out now instead of making you wait.”

“I know you’ve got better manners than me, Freeman— that’s why I always stand quiet and serious at your side when I have to go before a judge.”

He left me dangling for five minutes or so. A few more detectives wandered in, people I didn’t know who stopped to talk to Finchley and eye me curiously. Just as Freeman got back on the line Sergeant McGonnigal walked in. When he saw me his eyebrows shot up in surprise. He didn’t wave or detour to see me but kept on his way to Mallory’s door, where he knocked and stuck his head inside. I turned my attention to Freeman.

Farmworks, Inc. was an amazing company—it existed without officers. The only name associated with it on the Lexis system was the registered agent, August Cray, at a Loop address. Freeman hung up on my thanks. I sat with the receiver in my hand until the police operator came on asking if I needed assistance. I hung up abstractedly.

I knew that name. I’d heard it fairly recently. I just couldn’t place it. It was too late to go traipsing over to the LaSalle Street address Freeman had given me. Anyway, I was too tired tonight to undertake many more errands and I kind of wanted to go see Roz. I’d get over to the north Loop in the morning. When I saw Cray I’d probably remember why I knew his name.

“Can I help you find something, Vic? That’s my desk you’re burrowing in.”

McGonnigal’s voice at my elbow made me jump. He was trying for a light note but his voice held a brittle undercurrent.

I held up a hand. “Pax, Sergeant. I wasn’t delving into your deepest secrets. I came by on a errand and Detective Finchley told me I could use this phone…. Can’t we go back to being friends, or at least nonenemies, whatever it was we used to be?”

He ignored the bulk of my comment and asked what kind of errand I had. I rolled my eyes in disgust but pulled the bracelet out of my pocket and went through my saga.

McGonnigal picked it up, then flung it to the desk, “We can go back to being friends or at least nonenemies when you stop playing little games, Warshawski. Now get lost, I’ve got work to do,”

I stood up slowly and looked at him stonily. “I’m not playing games, McGonnigal, but you sure are. You little boys give me a call if you ever decide to let me in on the rules.”

Officer Neely had stopped typing to watch us. “You get tired of the Boy Scouts, come see me,” I said as I passed her. “Maybe we can work something out.”

She flushed to the roots of her fine sandy hair and resumed typing at a furious rate.