Fire Sale (36 page)

“I did not even know until this afternoon that he was running that sweatshop, and I swear”—Andrés put his hand on a big Bible lying open on his desk—“that I did not start that fire.”

This brought some calls of support from the women crowding in at the door—and some dark glances in my direction—but Tomás looked at him soberly: Andrés was not just a coworker but a leader in the community. Tomás, at least, needed to know he could trust the pastor.

“The fire was set using the same method you used when you put Diego’s stereo out of commission,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t start it yourself, but perhaps you showed Freddy how to do it.”

Again, I took the drawing out of my pocket. I laid it on the desk in front of him. “Did you draw this for Freddy?”

To my astonishment, instead of rapping out a denial Andrés turned the color of putty and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “Oh my God. That is why—”

“Why what?” I demanded.

“Freddy came to me, he wanted some nitric acid, he said it was to clean the rubber that had melted into the truck bed when I ruined the stereo. He said I owed him, but now—oh, now, oh, Jesus, oh, what have I done in my pride? Shown him how to burn down a plant, and to kill a man?”

“But why would Freddy do such a thing?” Celine’s uncle asked from the doorway. “Freddy, he’s just a
chavo
, he would only make such a—a
esquema
for someone else, not because he thought of it himself. Who ordered him, who paid him if not you, Pastor Andrés?”

“I think Bron Czernin was making the plug in his kitchen workshop,” I said, “and I found the drawing near where Billy the Kid’s car was wrecked. Bron was seen with Freddy, but why would Czernin want to burn down the plant?”

Not everyone in the room knew who Bron was, but one of the women, announcing she was Sancia Valdéz’s grandmother, explained to the others: April’s father, the man who was killed last week. Yes, April, the girl who played basketball with Sancia and Josie, only now she was sick, her heart, she couldn’t play anymore.

“What did you use to hold the acid when you put Diego’s stereo out of commission?” I asked Andrés.

“Just a metal funnel, a small one; I clamped it to the back of the amplifier.”

“So Josie knew how you’d damaged Diego’s stereo,” I said slowly, thinking through the network of connection in the neighborhood. “She and April were best friends; she told April. April probably thought it was a good joke and described it to Bron. Or maybe even Freddy suggested your scheme to Bron when he found out what Bron wanted to do.”

Had Freddy gone to Bron, knowing—from Julia, I suppose, Julia who would have heard it from Josie—that Bron had a shop in his house? Or had Bron gone to Freddy to help plant the dish? Either April knew about the soap dish brouhaha and had mentioned it to her father, or when Bron explained what he needed Freddy remembered the soap dish. It all sort of made sense in a horrible way.

“What I don’t understand is why they did it at all?” I continued out loud. “What would—”

I broke off, remembering Aunt Jacqui’s dazzling smile: we never, never renegotiate contracts. And her malicious smirk when she announced I’d find the sheets being sold in the neighborhood were a dead end. Would she have hired Bron to burn down the factory?

“You have to tell me what was troubling Billy the Kid about his family,” I said abruptly to the pastor. “It’s too important now for you to keep it secret.”

“It wasn’t this,” Andrés objected. “If Billy told me they were burning down Frank Zamar’s plant, believe me, I would not have kept that a secret.”

He gave a sad smile. “Billy knew I was working with Frank Zamar—he knew our attempt to sell sheets through our churches here in South Chicago—he knew that failed. But Billy himself went back to his aunt, to his father and grandfather, to try to get them to renegotiate the contract with Fly the Flag. They were—like rocks, unmoving. This caused him great grief. And then he found in the records, the faxes that came from overseas, that they had already arranged with a shop in Nicaragua to make these towels and sheets, on a production schedule where the workers will be paid nine cents for every sheet or towel they make.

“Billy went to read a report on this factory and found a disturbing situation, that people must work seventy hours a week, with no overtime, no holidays, one short break for lunch. So he said it was time for Nicaraguan workers to have rights, to have a union, and he would go to the directors and tell them this if the family did not reconsider. His grandfather loves Billy greatly. When he saw how upset his grandchild was, he said, before they turned to Nicaragua they would wait a month and see how Frank Zamar did.”

“And then Frank Zamar’s plant burned down. How convenient. And Bron Czernin is dead.” I laughed a little wildly.

I didn’t see the whole picture but enough of it. Bron thought he could put the bite on the Bysens—he had done their dirty work, now they should pay for April’s surgery. Only they had killed him instead. Or Grobian had killed him. All I needed was Billy and Freddy. And a little proof.

“You really don’t know where Billy is?” I asked Andrés.

His dark eyes were worried. “I have no idea, Missus Detective.”

He shut his eyes and started to pray, softly, under his breath. The women at the door eyed him with sympathy and a certain awe and began humming softly, a hymn to provide him support and company. After three or four minutes, Andrés sat up. His old authority sat on his shoulders again. He announced to the group that their most important task was to find Billy the Kid and Josie Dorrado.

“Maybe they are hiding in a building, a garage, renting an apartment under a false name. You need to ask everyone, talk to everyone, find these children. And when you do, you tell me at once. And if you cannot find me, then you tell this coach-detective.”

41

Punk, Cornered Like a Rat

I
walked slowly back to my car. One thing I had to do without delay was to call Conrad Rawlings at the Fourth District and report Freddy’s role in the fire at Fly the Flag. I’d been keeping my cell phone off today. I’d checked in with Amy a couple of times, but I’d used the phone in the faculty lounge at Bertha Palmer when I’d had to call my clients. But now it didn’t matter if someone was tracking me, and saw I was in South Chicago. In fact, if they were paying enough attention to me to listen in on my cell phone calls, me reporting what I knew to the police would keep them from bothering me further.

To my surprise, it was only seven-thirty. The emotions and exertions I’d just gone through made me think a whole evening had passed. I called down to the Fourth District, determined to hand Freddy over to the cops—Conrad would see what a good, cooperative PI I was. When I found I’d just missed him, I felt deflated.

The operator at the Fourth District didn’t seem excited by my report of news about the arson at Fly the Flag. I finally got her to transfer me to a detective, a junior officer who went through the motions of taking my name and Freddy’s name, but his assurance that they’d look into it sounded like one of those three common lies in the English language—he didn’t even ask how to spell my name, which he couldn’t pronounce, and he only took my phone number because I insisted on giving it to him.

When we’d finished, I hesitated a moment, then hit Conrad’s home number—through all my changes and upgrades in mobile phones, I’d kept it on my speed dial, position four, following my office, my answering service, and Lotty. He wasn’t in, but I left a detailed message on his machine. He might be annoyed with me for jumping ahead of him on the investigation, but I was sure he’d act on the information.

I flexed my shoulders, sore from the tensions of the afternoon. I was still tired, too, from Monday night’s jaunt. So many of my brother and sister PIs seem to get beaten up, thrown in the slammer, or hungover, without needing to rest afterward. I looked at my face in the rearview mirror; true, the light was bad, but I looked pale.

I called Mary Ann, to tell her I would be there in about an hour if that wasn’t too late for her. Someone answered the phone but didn’t speak, which alarmed me, but eventually her deep, gruff voice came over the ether to me.

“It’s all right, Victoria, I’m fine, just a little tired. Maybe you don’t need to stop here tonight.”

“Mary Ann, are you alone? Did someone answer the phone for you?”

“My neighbor’s here, Victoria; she picked up the phone while I was in the bathroom, but I guess she didn’t say anything. I’m going back to bed now.”

There was something in her voice that was making me uneasy. “I need to stop to see April Czernin; I’ll be heading north in about forty-five minutes. I’d like to drop in just for a minute, leave you some groceries and maybe see you if you’re still up—I won’t wake you if you’re asleep. You did give me keys, you know.”

“Oh, Victoria, you always were an obstinate, persistent pest. If you must come, I guess I can stand it, but if you’re going to be later than forty-five minutes call so that I don’t stay up for you.”

“You guess you can stand it?” I repeated, hurt both by the words and her exasperated tone. “I thought—”

I broke off midsentence, remembering that she was ill, that pain made people react in uncharacteristic ways. My own mother, who had waited up nights for my father, occupying both herself and me with music, cooking, books—we read Giovanni Verga’s plays aloud together in Italian—and she never complained about the wait, the worry. Then one night, in the hospital, she suddenly started screaming that he didn’t love her, had never loved her, terrifying herself almost as much as she did me and my dad.

“Josie’s still missing,” I said to my coach. “How well do you know her? Can you think of anyone she’d imagine she’d feel safe staying with? She has an aunt in Waco who claims Josie isn’t there, but maybe the aunt would lie for her.”

“I don’t know the Dorrado girls personally, Victoria, but I’ll call some of the other teachers in the morning. Maybe one of them can suggest something. I’m in the kitchen and I need to lie down.” She hung up abruptly.

Despite my admonitions to myself, Mary Ann’s brusque manner hurt me. I sat in the dark, my sore joints aching. I had a new bruise on my thigh from where I’d landed on Freddy; I could feel the knot under my jeans.

I dozed off in the warm car, but after a few minutes a knock on my window made me jump out of my skin. When my heart stopped racing, I saw it was Celine’s uncle. I rolled down the window.

“You okay, missus? You took a bad fall out there.”

I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a little sore. Your niece—she’s a very talented athlete. Do you think you could help her break away from the Pentas? They’re going to slow her down, keep her from making the most of her gifts.”

We chatted a bit about it, about the difficulty of raising children in South Chicago, and, sad to say, his brother had abandoned the family, and Celine’s ma, she drank, not to mince words, but he’d try to make an effort with Celine: he appreciated what I was doing for her.

We finished our dance of thanks for each other’s concern about Celine. He took off, and I phoned the Czernins. I might have hung up if Sandra had answered, but it was April, her voice sluggish.

“It’s the drugs, Coach,” she said when I said I hoped I hadn’t woken her. “They make me feel like I’m in this big tub of cotton balls, I can’t see anything or feel anything. Do you think I can stop taking them?”

“Whoa, there, girl, you stay on those meds until your doctor tells you different. Better you feel a little dopey for a few weeks now than have to live your life on an oxygen tank, okay? I’m a few blocks from your house with a charger for your phone. Can I bring it in? There’s something I want to ask you to look at, too.”

She brightened at once: she clearly needed more company than her mother. I would have to talk to her teachers, find someone who could stop by with homework, and get some classmates to bring her gossip. When I got to the front door, April was there to open it, but her mother was standing behind her.

“What do you think we are, Tori, a public charity you have to stop by and look after? I can take care of my girl without your help. I didn’t even know you’d given her a goddamn phone until this afternoon, and, if I’d known she was asking for one, I would have bought it for her myself.”

“Take it easy, Sandra,” I snapped. “It’s Billy’s phone; she’s just using it until he comes back for it.”

“And didn’t Bron get killed on account of he had that phone on him?”

I stared at her. “Did he? Who told you that?”

“One of the women at work, she said they really wanted Billy, but they killed Bron because he was driving Billy’s car and using Billy’s phone, they thought he was Billy.”

“It’s the first I ever heard of this, Sandra.” I wondered if there was any truth to the notion or if it was just one of those stories that circulate after a disaster. If I was the cops, or had Carnifice’s resources, I guess I could go to the By-Smart store where Sandra worked to track it down. Maybe Amy Blount would be willing to go down there tomorrow.

“April, can you let me in for a minute? I want to show you and your mom a picture, see if it means anything to you.”

“Oh, Coach, sure, sorry.” April backed out of the doorway to let me pass.

It hurt to see her move in such a slow and clumsy way, when just a short time earlier she’d been loping around like a colt with the other girls on the team. To cover my emotion, I spoke almost with Mary Ann’s brusqueness, pulling out the drawing of the frog and handing it to them.

“Where’d you find that?” Sandra demanded.

“Over at 100th and Ewing. Bron showed it to you?”

She sniffed loudly. “He had it lying on the counter in that workshop of his. I asked him what it was, and he said it was a gimmick. He was making something for one of the guys he knew, and this was the drawing the guy gave him. He was always doing stuff like that.”

“Good-hearted, helping out his pals?” I suggested.

“No!” Her face contorted. “Always imagining he had an idea that was going to make him rich. Frogs on insulating rubber, I ask you, who was ever going to buy that, and he laughed and said, oh, someone at By-Smart would fall for it.”

“Stop it!” April cried out. “Stop making fun of him. He made good stuff, you know he did, he made that desk for you, only you were so stupid you sold it so you could go to Vegas with your girlfriends last Easter. If I’d known you were going to sell it, I would have bought it from you myself.”

“With what money would that be, miss?” Sandra demanded. “Your trust—”

A loud crash, glass shattering in the rear of the house, interrupted her. I had my gun out and was running through the dining room to the kitchen before either of them could react. The kitchen was empty but I heard someone moving in the lean-to. I pulled the door open, crouching low, and hurled myself at the legs.

The space was too small for the intruder to fall over, but he crashed against the worktable, and I backed away just out of his reach to hold my gun on him.

“Freddy Pacheco!” I was panting heavily, and my words came out in short bursts. “We can’t keep meeting like this. What the hell are you doing in here? If you’ve come for the picture you drew, you are way, way too late.”

He straightened up and tried to come at me but backed off when he saw the gun. “You bitch, what you doing here? You following me? What you want from me?”

“So much I hardly know where to begin.” I leaned over and smacked his mouth, too fast for him to react. “Respect, for beginners. You call me ‘bitch’ one more time and I’ll put a bullet in your left foot. Second time, in your right foot.”

“You wouldn’t fire that, ’hos are too—”

I shot at the wall behind his head. The noise vibrated horribly in the closed space, but Freddy turned a greenish tint and collapsed against Bron’s worktable. An unpleasant stench rose from him, and I felt ashamed once more for using my gun to terrify someone—but the shame didn’t make me send him out into the alley with my blessing.

I heard Sandra tiptoe into the kitchen behind me. “You have a creep in your house, Sandra. Call 911. Right now.”

She started to argue with me, her reflex, but when she looked past me and saw Freddy she scuttled away. The phone was by the stove; I heard her shrieking into the phone, and yelling at April to stay the hell out of the kitchen.

“So, Freddy, tell me about the frog. You drew this picture for Bron and he was going to make it for you, is that right?”

“It was his idea, man, he said his kid told him the pastor put out Diego’s stereo. So Bron wanted to know how, man, and I told him, so he had me draw him a picture.”

“So you drew the picture. And then you went and put the frog in the drying room at the factory.”

“No, man, no way. I never killed nobody.”

“Then what were you doing the morning I found you there, huh? Looking for work?”

He brightened. “Yeah, that’s it, man, I wanted a job.”

“And Bron found one for you: burning down the factory, killing Frank Zamar.”

“It was an accident, man, the only thing supposed to happen was the electricity go out—” He shut up, suddenly realizing he was saying too much.

“You mean you killed a man because you didn’t know you’d be starting a fire? You were surrounded by fabric and solvent and you didn’t know they’d burn up?” I was so furious, it was hard not to shoot him on the spot.

“I didn’t do nothing, man, I ain’t saying one word more without my lawyer.”

He eyed my gun uneasily, but I couldn’t bring myself to brandish it again, even to get him to choke out a few more words. I was beside myself, though, at the mayhem he’d caused, all out of his colossal stupidity.

“So what are you doing in here?” I demanded. “What did you break in for? To get the drawing?”

He shook his head but wouldn’t speak.

I looked around the worktable. “The leftover tubing? Leftover acid?”

“Acid? What are you talking about?” Sandra said sharply behind me.

“A little trick Freddy learned from Pastor Andrés,” I said without turning around. “How to use nitric acid to short out a wire. Bron made a device for Freddy and Freddy burned down Fly the Flag. Although he says he didn’t mean to. Are the cops on the way?”

Sandra grasped only one part of my statement. “How—dare—you! How dare you come in here to my house of mourning and say Bron was setting fires? Get out of my house! Get out now!”

“Sandra, you want to be alone with Freddy, you and April?”

“If he’s going to tell lies to the police about Bron, I don’t want them arresting him.” She started kicking at my calves.

“Sandra, stop! Stop! This guy broke in, he’s dangerous, we need to give him to the police. Please! Do you want him to hurt April?”

She didn’t hear me, just kept kicking me, pulling at my hair, her face red and swollen. All of her furies and griefs of the last week—the last thirty years—were spilling out of her onto me.

I moved into the corner of the workshop, trying to get away from her. She came after me, unaware of Freddy, of the broken glass, of everything but me, her old enemy. “You knew Boom-Boom slept with me,” she spat. “You couldn’t stand it. You thought he belonged to you, you—you man-woman!”

The insult pricked me in a remote way, a place that would be sore later, but not now, now when I had to focus my energy on Freddy. She was jumping around too much, and the space was too small for me to stay between her and Freddy. She whirled past me and he grabbed her, pinning her flailing arms. She suddenly went limp, sagging against him. A knife appeared in his right hand; he held it at Sandra’s throat.

“You get out of here, now, bitch, or I’m killing this woman,” he said to me.

If I shot at him, I had a good chance of hitting her. I backed out of the room. April was in the kitchen. Her swollen face was ashen, and she was having trouble breathing.

“Baby, you and I are going to go outside. You are going to take nice deep breaths. Come on.” I put on my stern coach’s voice. “Breathe in. Hold it for four. Now let it go, slowly, slowly, I’m going to count and you let it out a little bit on each count.”