Warshawski 09 - Hard Time (35 page)

The two came into the room, talking in such low tones all I could make out was the murmur of their voices. Sweat began soaking my shirtsleeves as I imagined a telltale floppy or tissue alerting them to an intruder.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream when I realized that Baladine and Alex hadn’t come up to look at his computer, but to grab time together while Eleanor was focused on the pool, although I had one bad moment when Baladine spoke loudly enough for me to hear, saying he didn’t remember switching off his office camera. After twenty minutes of frenzied thrashing on the leather couch and the murmured endearments of one barracuda for another, a hand grasped the closet doorknob.

It opened a crack, but Baladine said, “No, no, my dear, bathroom’s the other door—that’s just a supply closet.”

Alex, sloppy Alex, didn’t close the door all the way. “I need to get back downstairs, BB. I just got beeped—that means Lacey Dowell’s limo is coming up the drive, and Teddy will want me on hand for her. She’s been temperamental since Frenada died, and we don’t want her going off half–cocked to some reporter.”

“Like Ryerson?” Baladine said.

“Ryerson was a newspaperman from day one. I shouldn’t have let him persuade Teddy he could handle television—he was in way over his head. Although we still haven’t found anyone who can handle that “Behind Scenes in Chicago’ segment. Anyway, as the man said, enough of this lovemaking—on with your clothes.”

“Want to see the replay on television while you dress?”

“You have a camera back here? God, I thought Teddy Trant was infatuated with his body, but not even he videos himself in the act.”

“I’m infatuated with your body. This is so I can watch it over and over.”

“Right, BB. I’ll take that. I don’t need to see myself on the Net, and you’re just the kind of guy to make that kind of use of a tape.”

They had a few more minutes grappling, with Baladine laughing and then cursing at her for being a damned bitch. I wasn’t an Alex fan, but I hoped that meant she’d wrested the tape from him. Then a sound of hand on flesh and a furious outburst from Alex. I put my eye on the crack in the door. Baladine had Alex’s left arm twisted back and was putting pressure on her wrist. Her face was contorted in pain and she dropped the tape.

He laughed and said, “I thought you’d see it my way, my dear. But don’t worry, I won’t share you with the Internet. The world at large can’t appreciate you the way I do.”

She swore at him but finally left when Eleanor phoned up to say Lacey was here and they were trying to find Alex. The door shut behind her. Baladine washed off noisily in the bathroom, humming “Anchors Aweigh.” In another minute he was gone as well.

By then I was so shaken that I was tempted to quit with what I had—but I didn’t know when I’d ever have another chance like this one. I turned off his personal camera again and went back to the computer. Shutting it off without exiting properly had made it unhappy; I had to wait an extra five minutes while it examined all its files. While it cycled through itself, I looked around for the tape he’d just made. He’d left it on the bathroom sink. I shrugged and slipped it into my pocket.

Finally I got back to Baladine’s e–mail server and went to his in–box. In June, on the date I’d been in Georgia, I found someone calling himself
Shark
at AOL reporting on
successful drop–off.

Subject out of town. 3 packs of Colombian Gold successfully deployed in location 1, 4 others at location 2.

My stomach so tight that my incision started to ache, I copied all of Baladine’s correspondence with Shark. I logged off the Web and went into his data files to search for any material about me, or Shark. I found his detailed report from LifeStory and reports on the surveillance of my apartment. These files identified Shark as D.L. Not that I needed an acronym to tell me it was Douglas Lemour, but I was pleased that Baladine hadn’t felt a need for real secrecy.

As recently as three days ago, D.L. reported a cruise around my neighborhood to make sure I hadn’t surfaced. He was also looking at Lotty’s place off and on
as the safe house the subject usually chooses.
I scrolled quickly through the rest of the file and came to an expense report. Five thousand dollars to D.L. for security work. It didn’t seem like enough of a payoff for the amount of misery he’d caused me.

My heart was starting to beat too hard to focus on the screen. I copied the file and shut the system down. It was high time I was gone.

On a shelf in the closet where I’d waited out Alex and Baladine, he kept cassettes from the video monitor. After his byplay with Alex, I was curious to see them. I pulled one from the last month Nicola had worked here, another from six months previously. I peeled off the labels, stuck them on the blank cassettes I’d brought with me, and put the blanks in the empty slots.

I was halfway down the hall when I remembered Frenada. I counted dates frantically on my fingers. Even though I didn’t have a third blank to use as a replacement, I ran back to the study and took the tape for two weeks before July Fourth. As I was leaving the second time, I remembered to switch Baladine’s vanity recorder back on. I hurried down the hall again, through the girls’ playroom, past acres of Barbies and stuffed animals, and down the stairs to the kitchen. I stopped briefly in Rosario’s room to thank the Virgin of Guadalupe.

I’d been upstairs ninety minutes—nerves had made it seem even longer. I slipped outside and down the drive without anyone stopping me. Morrell was waiting for me at the bend in the road. His face was pinched with anxiety, but I felt lighter–hearted than I had in months.

45 Fugitive

Morrell arrived early the next morning with the papers and a couple of cappuccinos—Father Lou breakfasted on sweet tea and bacon sandwiches and didn’t keep coffee or fruit in the rectory. I’d already been up for a few hours when Morrell arrived. Game–day nerves, I suppose.

Father Lou had been up for hours, too. He started Labor Day as he did every day, with mass. This morning he startled me considerably by asking me to serve, since none of the children in his acolytes group had appeared. When I told him I’d never even been baptized, he grunted and said he supposed some hairsplitter would consider that a barrier, but would I at least keep him company by reading the lesson.

I stood in the Lady Chapel of the enormous church and read from the book of Job about how God desires humans to see the light. As Father Lou began the prayers for the mass, he prayed first for the souls of Lucian Frenada and Nicola Aguinaldo, for the working people of Chicago, for everyone who worked hard and had little to show for it. Along the way he surprised me by asking for light on my enterprise, to see whether it was good to let it prosper. I thought again of Miss Ruby, warning me that revenge didn’t make a good meal.

At the end of the mass I stood in front of a wood statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, stubbornly arguing my case in my head. Even if it was revenge, didn’t I have a right to live and work in this town? I said as much to Father Lou while he fried bacon in the cavernous kitchen.

He grunted again. “Not saying you don’t, my girl. Turning the other cheek isn’t the only advice Our Lord gives people. Just saying you need to remember you’re not Almighty God sitting in judgment on Robert Baladine. Not why I asked you to read the lesson, though—wasn’t trying to teach you a lesson.” He laughed heartily at his little pun. “I wanted some company. It’s a big cold church to celebrate mass in by myself.”

Morrell’s arrival cut the theology discussion short. He dropped the papers in front of me with a coffee and a bag of Michigan peaches.

“Triple Crown, Warshawski. All three Chicago dailies, not to mention the gorilla from New York.”

I snatched the stack from him. The gorilla was on top and began with its usual rotund phrases.

CONFUSION REIGNS AT CARNIFICE SECURITY

Oak Brook, Ill.— The Illinois prairie in this upscale community west of Chicago has been replaced by smooth sod and cool white marble, but inside the Carnifice office tower, life is anything but placid on this Labor Day. Robert Baladine is emphatically contradicting an e–mail message received by Carnifice clients yesterday announcing his resignation as chairman and CEO of Carnifice Security, while his staff scurries to explain how a third party could have breached the security provider’s own defenses to post messages on Mr. Baladine’s e–mail server.

These messages bear the unmistakable “fingerprint” of Mr. Baladine’s personal e–mail address. They say, in part, that impending publicity about alleged misconduct at the Coolis correctional facility that Carnifice runs is forcing Mr. Baladine to resign (
see Page C23 for the complete text of the e–mail received by Ajax Insurance in Chicago
). The misconduct is an alleged use of the Coolis correctional facility to manufacture T–shirts and jackets for the Global Entertainment company. This is in violation of Illinois law, which forbids sale of prison manufactures outside the state prison system. Congressman Blair Yerkes (R–Ill.) has called for a complete investigation of the prison to see whether there is any truth to the allegation. “I have known BB Baladine since we hunted together as boys, and I utterly repudiate the suggestion that he has lied.”

In the meantime, more disturbing to Carnifice clients is the possibility that an outsider could penetrate Carnifice’s own computer. It means that confidential—often highly volatile—data entrusted to the security firm is at risk for dissemination across the Web. As Ajax Chairman Ralph Devereux said, “From our standpoint, we’re left with two equally unpleasant possibilities: either Robert Baladine is lying about his resignation, or a hacker has been able to bypass all of Carnifice’s security measures. Either way, the instability of the company’s head honcho leaves us wondering whether Carnifice is the right company to handle our most private matters.”

Various papers and television stations also received e–mail from the Carnifice server, describing the manufacturing relationship between Carnifice and Global at the Coolis prison site. Because the source of the report could not be verified, it is not clear whether the information is accurate or whether it comes from a disgruntled Carnifice employee. Efforts to view the prison shop have been rebuffed by Coolis authorities, but state lawmakers are demanding an inquiry.

Mr. Baladine would not return phone calls to this paper, but Global Entertainment spokeswoman Alexandra Fisher says Global is considering the possibility that a local private investigator with a grudge against Baladine may have perpetrated the vandalism. The investigator, V. I. Warshawski, spent a month at Coolis after Mr. Baladine had her arrested on kidnapping charges. Although Ms. Warshawski escaped with what physician Dr. Charlotte Herschel calls brain–threatening injuries, Ms. Fisher says no one actually knows the detective’s whereabouts. Finding the solo investigator is Carnifice Security’s first priority. (
See Page B45 for coverage of some of Ms. Warshawski’s investigations into industrial espionage.
)

Father Lou was reading the report in the
Sun–Times,
which gave the story the most attention of any of the Chicago papers. The
Herald–Star,
as a Global paper, ran a one–paragraph story in the business section that sounded as though there’d been a brief snafu in the Carnifice e–mail server. The
Star
didn’t mention the Global T–shirt connection at Coolis. The
Tribune
ran a half column in the middle of Marshall Field’s big Labor Day advertising spread.

“So now what?” Morrell asked when I’d finished reading. “Wait for the Carnifice clients to drop like flies and come running to Warshawski Investigative Services for help?”

I made a face. “They’re busy doing damage control at Carnifice. And the CEO of Warshawski et cetera had better surface if she wants any clients. I think the next thing is a media show. For which we need secure space. That, I think, will get BB so furious that he’s likely to come for me in person. I want to put together a little tape of all my bits and pieces of pictures. Make some bullet–point slides—everyone feels they’ve gotten real information if you give it to them in bullet points. And I want a VCR so I can watch Baladine’s home videos. He was taping himself having sex with Alex Fisher yesterday. It struck me as funny that the guy keeps his old home–security tapes, so I took three.”

Father Lou stared at me in disgust. “Man photographs himself having intercourse? Did the girl know?”

“She tried to get the tape from him, but he wouldn’t let her.” I didn’t feel like explaining that I had it now. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it.

“Got a VCR in the school you can use,” the priest said. “I’m still not sure whether you’re doing the right thing, not sure I should encourage you since you stole the tapes you want to look at, but the man Baladine seems to do people a variety of harm. Set it up for you, then I have to meet with members of the parish council. Got a bunch of kids coming, cleaning out the crypt before school starts tomorrow. Parish picnic this afternoon. Lots to get done.”

I ran down to my room and picked up the tapes I’d taken from Baladine’s closet yesterday. The three of us walked through the church to a door that connected to the school. The dark vaulted space was full of life as a group of boys shouted to each other behind the altar: “Bet you it’s full of bones.” “Yeah, Carlos here is going to faint when he sees one of those arms coming after him, ain’t you, man?”

Father Lou interrupted them with a good–natured shout that they needed to be more afraid of him than of any bones and he’d be back in a minute to make sure they were clearing out the old hymnals. He undid the dead bolt and led us into another long unlit hallway. He walked quickly in the semidarkness. Morrell and I kept tripping on things like loose tiles as we tried to keep pace. Father Lou took us up a back staircase to the school library. There he reluctantly decided he needed light to see what he was doing and turned on one dim desk lamp.

When he saw that Morrell and I knew how to set up the VCR, he went back downstairs to see how his hooligans were doing in the crypt. I started with the tape for the week that Frenada died.

We got a series of disconnected frames from the voice–activated system of Rosario waking Utah and Madison, of Eleanor starting work with them in the pool and then turning off the camera. And then Frenada was poolside with Trant and Baladine. The little red date in the corner identified it as June 26, the night Frenada died. Trant said he understood Frenada was telling people that he, Trant, had stolen a T–shirt and he was tired of hearing about it. Baladine must have turned the camera off at that point because the next scene was the following day with Rosario in the nursery.

I sat back in my chair. “No proof, but very suggestive,” I said to Morrell. “Let’s get some copies of this before I send it back to the Baladines.”

He grunted agreement, although he pointed out there wasn’t enough there to get Baladine arrested, let alone convicted. I agreed and put in the first of the Nicola tapes to see if it might give us something more concrete.

The tape was dated about six months before Nicola’s arrest for theft. We watched Nicola waking Utah and Madison, a sleepy Utah clinging to her nanny while Madison chatted vivaciously about the many things she was doing better in at school than anyone else. We saw Eleanor and BB kissing briefly as he left for the office on a “don’t know how late I’ll be tonight, sweetheart” line and Eleanor in the nursery adjuring Nicola not to baby Utah. “She’s almost three. It’s time you stopped carrying her everywhere.” When Nicola said brokenly that she didn’t understand, Eleanor told her not to play stupid and plunked Utah from Nicola’s arms onto the floor. Utah began to howl. As soon as Eleanor left the room, Nicola picked her up and began soothing her in a language I didn’t know, presumably Tagalog.

It was unnerving to watch Nicola Aguinaldo alive, even in the grainy production of the home video. She was petite, so small that next to Eleanor Baladine she looked like a child herself. In Eleanor’s presence she became as waxen as one of the children’s dolls, but alone with the little girls she grew more relaxed. Robbie came in and began playing with Utah. He spoke Spanish to Nicola, who teased him about his accent and got him to laugh back at her. I had never seen Robbie happy. Talking in Spanish to him, Nicola became vivacious, almost beautiful. Eleanor called up to say the school bus was there.

The tape covered a two–week period. Scenes broke off abruptly as people either moved out of camera range or turned off the camera. A conversation Eleanor was having with a gardener ended suddenly as Baladine called Nicola to his study. We watched her enter and stand with a face drained of expression. When she quietly took off and folded her clothes, she seemed to treat it as the same kind of chore that putting away Madison and Utah’s clothes was. Baladine himself did not undress. It was unbearable, and I couldn’t watch. When Morrell heard me crying he switched off the machine.

“I can’t show that to a roomful of reporters,” I muttered. “It’s too indecent.”

“Do you want me to watch the other reel and summarize it for you?” he asked.

“Yes. No. I think I’d better see for myself.”

The second reel was similar to the first, except for the scene in Baladine’s study. This time Nicola was begging for money for her child’s hospital bills and Baladine was telling her impatiently that he paid her a good wage and that she had a hell of a nerve to try begging for money on a made–up story. Nicola offered herself to him and he laughed at her. It was a scene of such agonizing humiliation that I finally left the library to pace the school corridor. When I came back, Morrell had finished the tape and rewound it. Father Lou had slipped into the room while I was walking around.

“There wasn’t anything on it about the necklace or her arrest. We’ll have to imagine that part,” Morrell said.

“That poor child,” Father Lou said. “What a crucifixion she endured. That man, her boss, he’s the one you’re after?”

I was as sweaty and depleted as if I’d run a marathon and could only nod.

“I still don’t know if you’re doing the right thing or not, but I’ll help you out. Let you use the library here for your press conference.”

I blinked. “But, Father, you know—Baladine not only has a lot of artillery at his disposal, he’s not afraid to use it. Women and children don’t mean anything special to him. I couldn’t possibly guarantee your safety, or the safety of the school. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Morrell said sharply when I didn’t finish the sentence.

“Unless I get Baladine to come to me first. Before we lay the case out to the media. Especially since we can prove Frenada was at his pool the night he died. If I bring him to me, I won’t have to lie here tensely waiting for him to make some kind of move.”

“No,” Morrell said. “Putting your head on the block for him to chop off is nuts. You know Freeman Carter would give you the same advice.”

I scrunched up my mouth in a monkey face. “More than likely. But I’m tired of walking around in terror. Ever since he sicced Lemour on me in June, I’ve had to watch every step I take, and my time in Coolis has only made me more nervous. If I let him know I’ve got these tapes and the tape he made of him and Alex, I think he’ll come get them. And if I leave the church, he won’t do it here where the kids will be in danger.”

“Your press presentation is your best route,” Morrell said patiently. “Bringing that much publicity not just to his Coolis operation but to his use of a Chicago police officer to plant drugs in your office will force Baladine to stop harassing you. Probably force his board to make him quit, too.”

“Abigail Trant told me that he can’t stand the notion of being bested. I saw it—or heard it—yesterday: he was furious when Alex got the tape from him. He hurt her to get it back: it wasn’t a game to him. There’s no telling what he might do.”