Killing Orders (16 page)

I was clenching and unclenching my fists, trying to keep rage under control. Protection. The middle-class dream. My father protecting Gabriella in a Milwaukee Avenue bar. My mother giving him loyalty and channeling her fierce creative passions into a South Chicago tenement in gratitude.

Roger picked up a towel and began soberly drying my back. He wrapped it around my shoulders and gave me a hug. I tried to relax, but couldn’t. “Vic. I have to go screw around in some business deals . . . You’re right—I glory in knowing I can come out on top in a real scrum. If you sailed in and dislocated someone’s thorax, or whatever you do, I’d be furious . . . I don’t think I own you. But the remoter you get, the more I need something to grab hold of.”

“I see.” I turned around. “I still think it would be easier on both of us if I found another place to stay. But I’ll—I’ll try to keep in better touch.” I stood on my toes and kissed him gently.

The phone rang. I went to the dryer where I’d left my clothes and pulled out fresh jeans and another shirt while Roger picked up the bathroom extension. “For you, Vic.”

I took it in the bedroom. Roger said he was leaving and hung up. The caller was Phil Paciorek. “You still want your man with the non-accent? There’s an archdiocesan dinner tonight at the Hanover House Hotel—Farber’s giving a party for O’Faolin. Because Mother shells out a million or so to the Church every year, we’re invited. Most of the people at the funeral will be there. Want to be my date?”

An archdiocesan dinner. Thrills. That meant a dress and nylons. Which meant a trip to the shops, as anything even remotely suitable for the Hanover House was still lying smoke-filled in my suitcase. Since Phil wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital until seven, he asked if I’d mind meeting him at the hotel—he’d be there as close to seven-thirty as possible. “And I’ve called the archdiocese—if I’m not there, just give your name to the woman at the reception desk.”

After that I tried taking a nap, but I couldn’t sleep. Lotty, Uncle Stefan, Don Pasquale were churning around in the foreground of my brain. Along with Rosa and Albert and Agnes.

At noon I gave up on rest and tried calling Lotty. Carol Alvarado, the nurse at Lotty’s North Side clinic, answered the phone. She went to find the doctor, but came back with the message that she was too busy to talk to me right now.

I walked across the street to Water Tower and found a severely tailored crimson wool crepe dress on sale at Lord & Taylor. In front, it had a scalloped neck; in back the neckline dropped to a V closing just above my bra strap. I could wear my mother’s diamond drops with it and be the belle of the ball.

Back at the Hancock I tried Lotty again. She was still too busy to talk. I got the morning paper and looked through the classifieds for furnished apartments. After an hour of calling, I found a place on Racine and Montrose that offered two-month leases. I packed the suitcase again, mushing laundered clothes together with the smoke-stained ones, then left a long note to Roger, explaining where I was moving and what I was doing for dinner and could we please stay in touch, and tried Lotty one last time. Still too busy.

The Bellerophon had seen better days, but it was well cared for. For two fifty a month, I had possession of a sitting room with a Murphy bed, a comfortable armchair, a small TV, and a respectable table. The kitchen included a minuscule refrigerator and two gas burners, no oven, while the bathroom had a real tub in it. Good enough. The room had phone jacks. If the neighborhood vandals hadn’t walked off with my phones, I ought to be able to get service switched through. I gave Mrs. Climzak a check for the first month’s rent and left.

My old apartment looked forlorn in the winter sunlight— Manderley burned out—broken glass in the windows, the Takamokus’ print curtains sagging on their rods. I climbed past the debris on the stairs through the hole in the living-room wall. The piano was still there—too big to move—but the sofa and coffee table were gone. Charred copies of
Forbes
and
The Wall Street Journal
were scattered around the room. The living-room phone had been ripped out of the wall. In the dining room, someone had swiped all the liquor. Naturally. Most of the plates were gone. Thank God I’d never had enough money for Crown Derby.

My bedroom extension was still there, buried under a pile of loose plaster. I unplugged it from the wall and left. Stopped at the Lincoln Park Post Office to arrange forwarding for my mail and pick up what they’d held for me since the fire. Then, gritting my teeth, I drove north on Sheffield to Lotty’s storefront clinic.

The waiting room was full of women and small children. A din combined of Spanish, Korean, and Lebanese shrieks made the small space seem even tinier. Babies crawled on the floor with sturdy wooden blocks in their fists.

Lotty’s receptionist was a sixty-year-old woman who’d raised seven children of her own. Her chief skills were keeping order in the waiting room and making sure that people were seen in order either of appearance or emergency. She never lost her temper, but she knew her clientele like a good bartender and kept order the same way.

“Miss Warshawski. Nice to see you. We have a pretty full house today—lots of winters cold and flu. Is Dr. Herschel expecting you?”

Mrs. Coltrain would not call anyone by her first name. After years of coaxing, Lotty and I had given up. “No, Mrs. Coltrain. I stopped by to see how her uncle was doing, to find out if I can visit him.”

Mrs. Coltrain disappeared into the back of the clinic. She came back with Carol Alvarado a few minutes later. Carol told me Lotty was with a patient but would see me for a few minutes if I’d go into her office.

Lotty’s office, like the waiting room, was furnished to set worried mothers and frightened children at ease. She didn’t need a desk, she said—after all, Mrs. Coltrain kept all the files in file cabinets. Instead, a few comfortable chairs, pictures, a thick carpet, and the ever present building blocks made the room a cheerful place. Today I didn’t find it relaxing.

Lotty made me wait half an hour. I thumbed through the
Journal of Surgical Obstetrics.
I drummed my fingers on the table next to my chair, did leg lifts and a few other stretches.

At four, Lotty came in quietly. Above her white lab coat her face was set in uncompromising lines. “I am almost too angry to speak to you, Vic. Fortunately, my uncle has survived. And I know he owes his life to you. But he almost owes his death to you, too.”

I was too tired for another fight today. I ran my hands through my hair, trying to stimulate my brain. “Lotty, you don’t have to work to make me feel guilty: I do. I should never have involved him in such a crazy, dangerous business. All I can say is, I’ve taken my share of the knocks. If I’d known what was coming, I would have done my utmost to keep him from being attacked.” I laughed mirthlessly. “A few hours ago I had a blazing fight with Roger Ferrant—he wants to protect me from arsonists and suchlike. Now you’re fighting me because I didn’t protect your uncle.”

Lotty didn’t smile, “He wants to talk to you. I tried to forbid this—he doesn’t need any more excitement or strain. But it seems to be more stress to keep him from you than otherwise. The police want to question him and he’s refusing until he’s seen you.”

“Lotty, he’s an old man, but he’s a sane man. He makes his own choices. Don’t you think some of your anger comes from that? And from helping me involve him? I do my best with my clients, but I know I can’t help all of them, not a hundred percent.”

“Dr. Metzinger is in charge of his case. I’ll call and let him know you’ll be out—when?”

I gave up the argument and looked at my watch. I could just make it and dress for dinner if I went now. “In half an hour.”

She nodded and left.

Chapter 19 - Dinner Date

BEN GURION HOSPITAL lay close to the Edens. Visible from the expressway, it was easy to get to. It was barely five o’clock when I got out of the car in the hospital parking lot, even after stopping to buy a pea jacket at an Amvets Store. It’s always struck me as the ultimate insult to pay to park at hospitals; they incarcerate your friends and relations in rooms that cost six or seven hundred dollars a day, then put a little sting in by charging a few extra bucks to visit them. I pocketed the lot ticket with ill humor and stomped into the lobby. A woman at the information desk called the evening nurse in Intensive Care, then told me I was expected, to go on up.

Five o’clock is a quiet time in a hospital. Surgery and therapies are over for the day; the evening visitors haven’t started arriving yet. I followed red arrows painted on deserted hallways up two flights of stairs to the intensive-care unit.

A policeman sat outside the door to the unit. He was there to protect Uncle Stefan, the night nurse explained. Would I mind showing identification and letting him pat me down. I thoroughly approved the caution. At the back of my mind was the fear that whoever had stabbed the old man might return to finish the job.

The policeman satisfied, medical hygiene had to be accommodated. I put on a sterile mask and disposable gown. In the changing-room mirror I looked like a stranger: gray eyes heavy with fatigue, hair wind-tangled, the mask disguising my personality. I hoped it wouldn’t terrify a weak old man.

When I came out, Dr. Metzinger was waiting for me. He was a balding man in his late forties. He wore Gucci loafers and had a heavy gold bracelet on his left wrist. Got to spend the money somehow, I guess.

“Mr. Herschel has insisted so hard on talking to you we thought it best for you to see him,” he said in a low voice, as though Uncle Stefan might hear and be disturbed. “I want you to be very careful, though. He’s lost a lot of blood, been through a very severe trauma. I don’t want you to say anything that might cause a relapse.”

I couldn’t afford to antagonize anyone else today. I just nodded and told him I understood. He opened the door to the intensive-care unit and ushered me through. I felt as though I were being conducted into the presence of royalty. Uncle Stefan had been isolated from the rest of the unit in a private room. When I realized Metzinger was following me into it I stopped. “I have a feeling what Mr. Herschel has to say is confidential, Doctor. If you want to keep an eye on him, can you do it through the door?”

He didn’t like that at all and insisted on coming in with me. Short of breaking his arm, which was a tempting idea, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.

The sight of Uncle Stefan lying small in a bed, attached to machines, to a couple of drips, to oxygen, made my stomach turn over. He was asleep; he looked closer to death than he had in the apartment last night.

Dr. Metzinger shook him lightly by the shoulder. He opened his guileless brown eyes, recognized me after a few bewildered seconds, and beamed feebly. “Miss Warshawski. My dear young lady. How I have been longing to see you. Lotty has told me how you saved my life. Come here, eh, and let me kiss you—never mind these terrible machines.”

I knelt down next to the bed and hugged him. Metzinger told me sharply not to touch him—the whole point of the gown and gauze was to keep germs out. I got to my feet.

Uncle Stefan looked at the doctor. “So, Doctor. You are my good protector, eh? You keep the germs away and get me healthy quickly. Now, though, I have a few private words for Miss Warshawski only. So could I trouble you to leave?”

I studiously avoided Metzinger’s face as he withdrew with a certain amount of ill grace. “You can have fifteen minutes. Remember, Miss Warshawski—you’re not to touch the patient.”

“No, Dr. Metzinger. I won’t.” When the doctor had closed the door with an offended snap I pulled a chair to the side of the bed.

“Uncle Stefan—I mean, Mr. Herschel—I’m so sorry I let you get involved in this. . Lotty is furious, and I don’t blame her—it was thoughtless. I could beat myself.”

The wicked grin that made him look like Lotty came. “Please—call me Uncle Stefan. I like it. And do not beat your beautiful body, my dear new niece—Victoria, is it not? I told you to begin with that I am not afraid of death. And so I am not. You gave me a beautiful adventure, which I do not at all regret. Do not be sad or angry. But be careful. That is why I had to see you. The man who attacked me is very, very dangerous.”

“What happened? I didn’t see your ad until yesterday afternoon—I’ve had sort of a wild week myself. But you made a stock certificate?”

He chuckled wearily. “Yes, a very fine one, if I say so. For IBM. A good, solid company. One hundred shares common stock. So. Last Wednesday I finished him, no them. Sorry, with this injury my English goes a bit.” He stopped and breathed heavily for a minute. I wished I could hold his hand. Surely a little contact would do him more good than isolation and sterility.

His papery eyelids fluttered open again. “Then I call a man I know. Who it is, maybe best you do not hear, my dear niece. And he calls a man, and so on. And on Wednesday afternoon one week later, I get a call. Someone is interested. A buyer, and he will be there Thursday afternoon, I rush to get an ad in the paper.

“So, in the afternoon a man shows up. I know at once he is not a boss. The manner is that of an underling. Maybe you call him a legman.”

“Legman. Yes. What did he look like?”

“A thug.” Uncle Stefan produced the slang word proudly. “He is maybe forty. Heavy—not fat, you know. He looks Croatian, that thick jowl, thick eyebrows. He is as tall as you, but not as beautiful. Maybe a hundred pounds heavier.”

He stopped again to breathe, and closed his eyes briefly. I glanced surreptitiously at my watch. Only five more minutes. I didn’t try to hurry him; that would only make him lose his train of thought.

“Well, you were not there, and I, I had to play the clever detective. So I tell him I know about the priory forgeries, and I want a piece of that particular business. But I have to know who pays. Who the boss is. So we get into a—a fight. He takes my IBM stock. He takes your Acorn stock. He says, ‘You know too much for your own good, old man!’ and pulls out the knife, which I see. I have acid at my side, acid for my etching, you understand. This I throw at him, so when he stabs me, his hand is not quite true.”

I laughed. “Wonderful. When you’ve recovered maybe you’d like to join my detective agency. I’ve never wanted a partner before, but you’d bring class to the operation.”

The mischievous smile appeared briefly, weakly; he shut his eyes again. “It’s a deal, dear Victoria,” he said. I had to strain to catch the words.

Dr. Metzinger bustled in. “You’ll have to leave now, Miss Warshawski .“

I got up. “When the police talk to you, give them a description of the man. Not anything else. Random burglar after your silver, perhaps. And put in a good word for me with Lotty—she’s ready to flay me.”

The lids fluttered open and his brown eyes twinkled weakly. “Lotty was always a headstrong, unmanageable child. When she was six—”

Dr. Metzinger interrupted him. “You’re going to rest now. You can tell Miss Warshawski later.”

“Oh, very well. Just ask her about her pony and the castle at Kleinsee,” he called as Metzinger hustled me out of the room.

The policeman stopped me in the hallway. “I need a full report on your conversation.”

“For what? Your memoirs?”

The policeman grabbed my arm. “My orders are, if anyone talks to him, I have to find out what he said.”

I jerked my arm down and away. “Very well. He told me he was sitting home on Thursday afternoon when a man came up the stairs. He let him in. Mr. Herschel’s an old man, lonely, wants visitors more than he wants to suspect people. He’s got a lot of valuable stuff in that apartment and it probably isn’t too much of a secret. Anyway, they got into a tussle of sorts— as much as a thug can be said to tussle with an eighty-year-old man. He had some jewelry cleaner in his desk, acid of some kind, threw it at him and got a knife in his side. I think he can give you a description of sorts.”

“Why did he want to see you?” Metzinger demanded.

I wanted to get home more than I wanted to fight. “I’m a friend of his niece, Dr. Herschel. He knows me through her, knows I’m a private detective. An old man like that would rather talk to someone he knows about his troubles than get caught in the impersonal police machinery.”

The policeman insisted on my writing down what I had just told him and signing it before he let me go. “And your phone number. We need a number where we can reach you.” That reminded me—I hadn’t gotten to the phone company. I gave him my office number and left.

Traffic on the Edens was thick by the time I reached it. It would be a parking lot where it joined the Kennedy. I exited on Peterson and headed south on side streets to Montrose. It was six-fifteen when I got to the Bellerophon. Setting my alarm for seven, I pulled the Murphy bed out of the wall and fell across it into a dreamless sleep.

When the alarm rang, it took me a long time to wake up. At first I thought it was morning in my old place on Halsted. I switched off the ringing and started to go back to sleep. It dawned on me, however, that the bedside table was missing. I’d had to reach over the side of the bed to the floor to turn off the clock. This woke me enough to remember where I was and why I had to get up.

I staggered into the bathroom, took a cold shower, and dressed in the new crimson outfit with more haste than grace. I dumped makeup from my suitcase into my purse, pulled on nylons and boots, stuck my Magli pumps under my arm, and headed for the car. I had a choice of the navy pea jacket or something filled with smoke, and chose the pea jacket—I’d just be checking it, after all.

I was only twenty minutes late to the Hanover House, and happened to arrive at the same time as Phil. He was too well behaved to look askance at my outfit. Kissing me lightly on the cheek, he tucked my arm into his and escorted me into the hotel. He took boots and coat from me to check. The perfect gentleman.

I’d put my makeup on at traffic lights and run a comb through my hair before leaving the car. Remembering the great Beau Brummell, who said that only the insecure primp once they’ve reached the party, I resisted the temptation to study myself in the floor-length mirrors covering the lobby walls.

Dinner was served in the Trident Salon on the fourth floor. Smaller than the Grand Ballroom, it seated two hundred people who had paid a hundred dollars each for the privilege of dining with the archbishop. A gaunt woman in black collected tickets at the entrance to the salon. She greeted Phil by name, her thin, sour face coming close to pleasure at seeing him.

“I guess it’s Dr. Paciorek, now isn’t it? I know how proud your parents must be of you. And is this the lucky young lady?”

Phil blushed, suddenly looking very young indeed. “No, no, Sonia . . . Which table for us?”

We were seated at table five, in the front of the room. Dr. and Mrs. Paciorek were at the head table, along with O’Faolin, Farber, and other well-to-do Catholics. Cecelia and her husband, Morris, were at our table. She was wearing a black evening gown that emphasized her twenty extra pounds and the soft flab in her triceps.

“Hello, Cecelia. Hi, Morris, good to see you,” I said cheerfully. Cecelia looked at me coldly, but Morris stood up to shake hands with me. An innocuous metals broker, he didn’t share the family feud against Agnes and her friends.

For a hundred dollars, we got a tomato-based seafood chowder. The others at our table had already started eating; waiters brought Phil and me servings while I studied the program next to my plate. Funds raised by the dinner would support the Vatican, whose assets had been depleted by the recent recessionary spiral and the fall of the lira. Archbishop O’Faolin, head of the Vatican Finance Committee, was here to thank us in person for our generosity. After dinner and speeches by Farber and O’Faolin, and by Mrs. Catherine Paciorek, who had graciously organized the dinner, there would be an informal reception with cash bar in the George IV Salon next to our dining room.

The overweight man on my left took a second roll from the basket in front of him but forbore to offer me any: hoard the supplies. I asked him what kind of business he was in and he responded briefly, “Insurance,” before popping half the roll into his mouth.

“Splendid,” I said heartily. “Brokerage? Company?”

His wife, a thin, twittery woman with a wreath of diamonds around her neck, leaned across him. “Harold is head of Burhop and Calends’ Chicago office.”

“How fascinating!” I exclaimed. Burhop and Calends was a large national brokerage house, second in size behind Marsh and McLennan. “It so happens I’m working for Ajax Insurance right now. What do you think the impact would be on the industry if an outside interest acquired them?”

“Wouldn’t affect the industry at all,” he muttered, pouring a pint of Thousand Island dressing over the salad he’d just received.

Phil nudged my arm. “Vic, you don’t have to do a suburban Girl Scout impersonation just because I asked you to dinner. Tell me what you’ve been doing, instead.”

I told him about my fire. He grimaced. “I’ve been on call almost all week. Haven’t seen a paper. I sometimes think the world could blow up and the only way I’d know would be by the casualties coming into ER.”

“But you like what you do?”

His face lit up. “I love it. Especially the research end. I’ve been working with epileptics during surgery to try to map neuron activity.” He was still young enough to give an uneducated audience the full force of his technical knowledge. I followed as best I could, more entertained by his enthusiasm than by what he was actually saying. How you get a verbal response from people whose brains are being operated on carried us through some decent halibut steak, which Phil ignored as he drew a diagram in pen on his cloth napkin.

Cecelia tried to catch his eye several times; she felt tales of blood and surgery were not suited to the dinner table, although most of the guests were discussing their own operations, along with their children or what kind of snow-removal equipment they owned.