Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (29 page)

“Mr.
Loring?” I held out a hand to him. “I’m V. I. Warshawski.”

He
ignored my hand. “Who are you working for, Warshawski?”

I sat
uninvited at my end of the oval table. “Salvatore Contreras.”

This
time all seven of them exchanged glances. Normally, of course, I keep my
clients’ identities secret, but I wanted to watch them all try to figure out
what big financial interest Mr. Contreras represented. Maybe they’d even think
he was with the Mob.

“And
why does he care about Diamond Head?” Loring asked at last.

“How
about this, Mr. Loring: you explain to me what Paragon’s connection to Diamond
Head is and I’ll tell you what my client’s is.”

There
was a little rumble through the room at that. I heard the man on Loring’s right
mutter, “I told you this was a waste of time, Ben. She’s just going to dick us
around.”

Loring
shook him off like a bad pitch. “I can’t talk to you unless I know who you
represent. There’s an enormous amount at stake here. If you work for—well,
certain people—then you already know all about it and our legal staff will be
filing papers to deal with what looks like a rather naive attempt at espionage.
And if your client— Contreras, did you say?—has his own ax to grind, then I’m
not going to make you a present of very explosive information.”

“I
see.” I studied my fingernails while I thought it over.

“I’ll
ask you a different question. Two questions. How many people in this room know
that Paragon is bankrolling Diamond Head? And how many of you know why?”

This
time the rumble became a roar. Loring let it go for a minute, then brought the
meeting back under control.

“Any
of you boys know anything about Diamond Head? Or bankrolling?” His voice was
light with sarcasm.

The
room responded to his tone. People forced out guffaws as they gave their
negatives, punching each other on the arms and stealing secret glances at me to
see how the show was going over.

I
waited for them to finish enjoying themselves. “Okay, you’ve convinced me:
you’re all too naive to manage a multinational. I do find it curious, though,
that you agreed to see me cold just because I mentioned Diamond Head’s name in
connection with debt financing. And not just you, Loring—all these guys came
along to protect your ass.”

“I
agreed to see you cold because I thought you might have a business proposition
for us, not an accusation.”

“Really!”
It was my turn for light sarcasm. “That must be why the Journal raved about you
guys a few weeks ago—because you interrupt your workdays every time some
stranger walks through the door without an introduction or advance material or
anything. Just in the hope she may have a business proposition.”

The
man on Loring’s right started to speak, but the controller waved him into
silence. “What is it you want, Warshawski?”

“We
could dance this tango all afternoon. I want information. About you and Diamond
Head.”

“I
think we made it clear that we don’t have anything to tell you.” The man on
Loring’s right ignored the controller’s silencing hand.

“Come
on, guys. I know you’re bankrolling Diamond Head. I’ve seen their cash
statements.”

“Then
you’ve seen something I’m not privy to. I can’t comment on it,” Loring said.

“Who
could I talk to who might be able to? Your CEO or COO?”

“Neither
of them would be able to tell you anything. And unlike me, they wouldn’t even
grant you an interview.”

“So
should I ask the feds about it?”

A
buzz went around the table again at that. The man to my own right, lean with a
shock of white hair, slapped his palm on the table. “Ben, we’ve got to check on
her bona fides. And find out what she really wants.”

I
nodded approvingly at him. “Good idea. You can easily find out about me by
calling Daraugh Graham at Continental Lakeside. He’s the chairman; I do a lot
of work for him.”

Loring
and the man who’d just spoken exchanged long glances, then Loring,
fractionally, shook his head. “I may do that, Warshawski. If I do, I may get
back to you. But you’d still have to sell me on why you’re asking questions.”

“I
guess I want to know how deep you are in Diamond Head’s decision-making.
Because if you are privy to their inner workings—well, then there are a lot
more questions I’d like to ask.”

Loring
shook his head. “You’re not selling me. You’re not selling me. You’re
antiselling. And as you were so quick to point out, we’re busy men. We need to
get back to acting that way.”

I got
to my feet. “Then I’ll just have to keep digging. And I never make advance
guarantees on what I do if my shovel hits a rotting compost pile.”

No
one said anything to me, but as I left the room a major uproar started. I
wanted to lean my ear against the jamb, but Sukey was looking at me from behind
her desk. I went over to her.

“Thanks
for your help… You have a beautiful voice. you know. Do you sing?”

“Only
in church choirs. With this—”she gestured at her acne scars, flushing
miserably— “No one wants to audition me for the stage.”

The
intercom on her desk buzzed loudly; Ben Loring needed her in the conference
room. I wondered if I could take the chance on her absence to try to look in
her file cabinets, but it would be impossible to explain away if she came
bouncing out and caught me at it. Besides, it was close to three now. I’d just
have time to get downtown to check up on Jason Felitti before the library
closed.

After
two decades of dickering, Chicago is actually building a new public library.
Named for the late, great Harold Washington, the memorial—under construction—
has the unfortunate look of a Victorian mausoleum. Until it opens the city
keeps what collections it possesses in a series of out-of-the-way locations.
They had moved recently from an old barracks just off Michigan Avenue to an
even more desolate dump on the west edge of the Loop.

Unfortunately
that corner is also the edge of the hottest new gallery and retail part of the
city. I had to go to the underground streets to find a vacant meter. Even
though I was confident I’d lost my tail, I still felt uneasy in the labyrinth
of truck routes and loading docks. Someone could jump me here and no one would
ever notice. These macabre fantasies made my heels tingle with nervousness. I
ran up Kinzie toward daylight with more speed than I thought my legs had left
in them.

An hour
with the library’s computer specialist reinforced my need to buy my own
machine. Not that the specialist wasn’t helpful—she was, very. But the amount
of information available at the end of a phone line was so great, and my need
for it so strong, that it didn’t make sense to be dependent on the hours the
library was open.

I
carried the sheaf of printouts to a crowded table in the periodicals room, one
of the few places in the building where one could actually sit and read. My
immediate seatmates included a small gray man with a thin mustache who was
poring over Scientific American and keeping up an anxious commentary under his
breath. It wasn’t clear whether he was reacting to the article or life in
general. On my other side a bigger man was reading the Herald-Star one word at
a time, running a finger under the sentences as he moved his lips. I hoped the
new library would include showers in the rest rooms. It would be a big help, if
not for my seatmate at least for anyone who had to sit near him in the future.

Blotting
out the smell as best I could, I began reading about Jason Felitti, owner of
Diamond Head Motors. He was Peter’s brother, younger by three years (born in
1931), educated at Northwestern (business), dabbling in politics and
entrepreneurship. Peter, one clip mentioned, had also attended Northwestern,
taking an engineering degree. Jason, who’d never married, lived in the family
home in Naperville, while Peter had moved to Oak Brook with his wife and two
daughters in ‘68. A portentous year in lives around the world—why not for
Dick’s father-in-law as well?

Amalgamated
Portage, the family business, had been founded by Tiepolo Felitti in 1888. It
had started as a simple operation—a single pushcart for hauling away scrap. By
Tiepolo’s death in the 1919 flu epidemic Amalgamated had become one of the
region’s largest cartage firms.

The
First World War had helped their rail line enormously. In the thirties they saw
the future and it looked like long distance trucking. They were one of the
earliest carriers to build a fleet. Since the Second World War they had
diversified into mining and smelting, at first with great success and then with
what sounded like equally great disaster.

Peter
had sold the mining operations at a loss when his father died in 1975. The
business now tried to stay closer to its original mission: cartage. In 1985
Peter had bought one of the fledgling overnight delivery services; that seemed
to be doing modestly well. Amalgamated remained a closely held family company,
so information on it was sketchy.

Jason
had inherited shares in Amalgamated when his father died, but it was Peter who
took over the firm. In fact, Peter had been on the management committee for
years while Jason just seemed to sit on the board. I wondered if Jason had been
tagged early as incompetent, or if the family was so rigidly structured that
only the oldest son was allowed to manage. In which case, what would happen to
it when Peter died, since Jason had no children and Peter only had daughters?
Was Dick the shining knight or did the other son-in-law have to fight him for
the spoils?

For
years Jason’s main energy had gone into Du Page County politics. He had been a
water commissioner, had worked on the Deep Tunnel project, and finally had
spent twelve years on the county board itself. At the last election he’d
decided not to seek a fourth term.

According
to a speech that got a few lines in the Herald-Star’s metro edition, Jason
announced he wanted to devote himself full-time to business. Ray Gibson at the
Trib thought Jason had been worried about some stories his political challenger
was digging up, conflict of interest between his role as a county commissioner
and his position as a director of U.S. Metropolitan Bank and Trust. But Gib was
always expecting the worst of Illinois elected officials—not that they often
disappointed him.

Last
year Jason had acquired Diamond Head. The story hadn’t merited more than a
paragraph in the business pages. The meager coverage didn’t reveal anything
about the financing, although the Sun-Times hinted Peter might have provided
some backing through Amalgamated. No one seemed to know how much ready cash
Amalgamated had, or whether they, too, had acquired a heavy debtload during
their mining fiasco. It didn’t sound as though Dick had married into the
colossal financial empire I’d always imagined.

“U.S.
Met,” I said aloud, forgetting I was in a library.

I
startled the little gray man into dropping his magazine. He stared at me
briefly, muttering to himself, then scuttled to a distant table, leaving the
Scientific American on the floor. I picked it up and laid it on the table,
patting it in what was intended as a reassuring manner. He had picked up a
paper and was staring at me over its edge. When he realized I was looking at
him, he raised the paper to cover his face. It was upside down.

I
folded my clips into a tidy square, stuck them in my shoulder bag, and left. I
couldn’t resist glancing back to see if he’d returned to his magazine, but he
was still hiding behind the Sun-Times. I wished I had that much effect on Dick,
or even on the goons staking out my apartment.

It
was past five by the time I jogged back down Kinzie to the Impala. Too late to
tackle Chamfers again. I sat in the car massaging the small of my back; it had
kinked up during my research. Jason Felitti sat on the board of U.S. Met
and—probably —had steered Du Page County funds there. Now, three years later,
Mrs. Frizell had closed her account at the Bank of Lake View and opened one at
U.S. Met.

“You
only want there to be a connection,” I said sharply to the dashboard. “But it’s
a pretty thin thread from Jason Felitti to Todd Pichea.” Although it did run
through Richard Yarborough. Maybe Freeman was right—that I did harbor a grudge
against Dick—for being a supersuccess while I still struggled to make ends
meet. Or for preferring a younger, prettier woman to me?

I
didn’t think I minded Teri: she was so much more suited to Dick’s combination
of ambition and weakness than I was. But perhaps it did rankle that I had been
the promising graduate, third in our class, with a dozen job offers, and now I
couldn’t afford a new pair of running shoes. I’d made my own choices, but one’s
resentments are seldom rationally grounded. At any rate, I didn’t want to risk
proving Freeman right by starting a vendetta against Dick over the kind of
business he did.

On
that moral high note I started the car and joined the congealing traffic
leaving the Loop. It wasn’t until I found myself driving past west side exits
on the Stevenson that I figured out where I was going: Naperville, to the
Felitti family home.