Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (32 page)

My
sandwich and coffee were waiting for me, but I looked up Tonia Coriolano in the
directory. While my coffee cooled she apologized profusely, but she had no
vacancy. Normally to oblige a friend of a lodger she might allow them to sleep
a night on the living room couch, but even that was occupied right now.

Lisa
waved an arm at me and gestured at my table. I nodded. Desperate times call for
desperate measures. I looked up Mrs. Polter and didn’t know if I was relieved
or disappointed to find her listed.

She
answered on the ninth ring. “Yes? What do you want?”

“A
room, Mrs. Polter. I’m V. I. Warshawski, the detective who’s been around
lately. I need a place to sleep for a few nights.”

She
gave a rasping laugh. “Men only in my house, honey. Except for me, of course,
but I can take care of myself.”

“I
can take care of myself, too, Mrs. Pblter. I’d bring my own towels. It’d be for
three nights at the most. And believe me, none of your lodgers will bother me.”

“Yeah,
but what about—ah, what the hell. You paid for the old guy’s room and he never
used it. I guess you can sleep there if you want. No more than two nights,
though, you hear? I got my reputation to think about.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” I said smartly. “I’ll be by around ten-thirty to leave my things and
get a key.”

“Ten-thirty?
What do you think this is, the Ritz? I close up shop—” Again she cut herself
off. “Oh, what difference does it make? I usually stay up until one in the
morning looking at the damned tube, anyway. Come on by.”

When
I got back to my table, Lisa brought me fresh coffee. It pays to be a regular.

I
walked up the dark, narrow staircase behind Mrs. Polter, my feet tripping on
the torn linoleum. In deference to the remembered smell I’d brought my own
sheets as well as towels, but memory couldn’t compete with the reality of
grease and stale sweat. A cheap motel would have been ten times cleaner and
more private.

Mrs.
Polter’s arms brushed the walls of the stairwell. She stopped frequently to
catch her breath. After bumping into her bulk on her first rest I kept a good
three steps between us.

“Okay,
honey, this is it. Like I said, no cooking in the rooms; the wiring won’t stand
it. No smoking in the rooms either. No loud radios or TVs. None of that kind of
stuff. You can help yourself to breakfast any time between seven a.m. and noon.
You’ll find the kitchen easy enough—it’s at the end of the hall downstairs. Try
not to hog the bathroom in the morning—guys gotta shave before they go to work.
Here’s a key to the front door-—you go and lose it, you pay to put in a new
lock.”

I
nodded solemnly and made an ostentatious show of tying it to one of my belt
loops. She had put up quite a fight about letting me have a key. When I told
her the choice was between that and my rousing her in the middle of the night,
she started to demand that I stay elsewhere. In mid-fight she’d broken off and
glared at me, then abruptly agreed to the key. It was the third time she’d
voluntarily overridden a major objection to my presence. I was here against
both our better judgments—that certainly gave us a common ground for
conversation.

She
turned on the naked forty-watt bulb with obvious reluctance. To save money on
electricity she moved as much as possible in the dark. She hovered in the
doorway, eyeing my suitcase, which had a number lock.

“You
want me to tell you the combination?” I asked brightly. “Or would you like to
figure it out for yourself?”

At
that she muttered darkly and heaved her bulk out of the entrance. When I heard
her slow tread back down the stairs, I undid the lock and surveyed the
contents. Except for refill cartridges for my gun there was nothing in there
she couldn’t see, nothing that revealed my address or my income. My change of
underwear was sober white cotton, not my prized silks. I’d also brought a can
of bathroom cleanser and a rag so I could scrub down the sink enough to stand
to brush my teeth in it. Let her make of that what she would.

I
scooped up the cartridges and stuffed them in my jacket pockets. They could
stay in the Impala’s glove compartment for the time being. Whipping the rank
sheets from the thin mattress, I stuffed them under the bed and put my own on
in their place. It seemed faintly amusing to me that someone of my slovenly
habits should have invested so much energy lately in cleaning other women’s
houses.

The
room sported an ancient plywood bureau lined with papers that dated to 1966.
Fascinated, I read part of an article on Martin Luther King’s speech at Soldier
Field. I remembered that speech: I’d been one of the one hundred thousand
people who came to hear him.

Tonight
wasn’t the right time for nostalgia. I pulled my eyes from the grimy page and
slid a hand around the drawers to see if Mitch might have left some revealing
document behind. All I came away with was a black smudge from the accumulated
grit. I decided to leave my clothes—really just a clean T-shirt to go with the
underwear—in the suitcase.

I
scrutinized the room for possible hiding places, pulling back pieces of loose
linoleum, peering in the hems of the frail window shades. None of them seemed
suitable for concealing anything bigger than a Kleenex. The small stack of
papers Mitch had considered important enough to take around with him must have
been the limit of his sacred possessions. And those were gone. To his son, or a
facsimile thereof.

When
I finished my survey I left the suitcase unlocked. I knew Mrs. Polter would be
up here pawing through it as soon as I was gone; I didn’t want her to spring
the lock to get at the inside. The can of Comet and the rag I left on the
floor.

There
were four guest rooms on the floor. Pale light poked feebly underneath one door
and a radio, tuned to a Spanish station, played softly. Someone was snoring
loudly behind the door of a second, but the third seemed empty. Maybe it was
just desperation for cash that prompted Mrs. Polter to let me stay—she’d
demanded another twenty on top of what I’d paid her for Mitch as soon as I came
up the front steps.

My
landlady was watching television in the living room when I came down the
stairs. The big color console was tuned to pro wrestling. The light coming from
the screen far outdid the miserable efforts of the only lamp in the room.

Mrs.
Polter sensed my approach over the screaming fans on the screen and turned to
look at me. “You taking off, honey?” She didn’t bother to lower the volume.

“Yup.”

“Where
you going?”

I
brought out the first thing that came to mind. “To a wake.”

She
eyed me narrowly. “Kind of strange hour for it, isn’t it, honey?”

“He
was kind of a strange guy. Expect me when you see me.” I turned to go.

She
tried heaving herself from the armchair. “If someone comes looking for you,
what am I supposed to tell them?”

I
felt a prickle down my scalp and turned back to the living room. “Now, just why
would anyone come around looking for me, Mrs. Polter?”

“I…
your friends, I mean. Young girl like you must have lots of friends.”

I
leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “My friends know better than to
bother me when I’m working. Who might come around?”

“Anyone.
How should I know who you know?”

“Why
did you decide to let me come here, when it’s against your rules?” I’d been
shouting to be heard over the television; now my voice rose another decibel.

Her
snuff-colored cheeks quivered—with anger? fear? It was impossible to tell. “I
have a good heart. Maybe you’re not used to seeing someone with a good heart in
your line of work, so you don’t know it when you see it.”

“But
I do hear an awful lot of lies, Mrs. Polter, and I sure know them when I hear
them.”

A
door opened somewhere beyond the television and a man yelled quaveringly, “You
okay out there, Lily?”

“Yeah,
I’m fine. But I could use a beer.” She flicked her eyes in the direction of the
voice and back to me. “Sam. He’s my oldest lodger and kind of takes an
interest. You’re going to be late for your friend’s wake if you hang around
here talking all night. And don’t go banging the front door when you come in;
I’m a light sleeper.”

She
turned determinedly back to the television, using the remote device to crank up
the volume. I looked at the heavy folds of her shoulders, trying to think of
something to say that might force her to tell the truth.

Before
anything occurred to me Sam came shuffling in with the beer. He was wearing
pajama bottoms and a faded, patched bathrobe. His face was totally incurious; he
gave me a brief glance, handed Lily her beer, and shuffled back to whatever
netherland he inhabited. Mrs. Polter swallowed the can in one long mouthful,
then crushed it in her palm. I know they’re making them out of flimsier stuff
these days, but I felt I was being given a message.

I’d
left the Impala at the end of the street. Before getting into it I turned and
walked back to the house. The curtain in the tiny front window moved suddenly.
Mrs. Polter was watching me. For whom, though?

Maybe
Mitch’s son really had come back to town. I pictured someone growing to
resentful adulthood, not forgiving the insult of abandonment, obsessed with a
desire for revenge. Trying to talk to Mitch, becoming furious with his drunken
self-absorption. Hitting Mitch on the head and flinging him into the canal.

I
turned onto Damen. If that was true, why was Chamfers so unwilling to talk to
me? Who had beaten up Lotty, and why? And who was on my ass this morning? An
obsessed son didn’t seem to fit that profile.

The
streets were almost empty this time of night, although traffic continued to
roar on the Stevenson Expressway overhead. Once I turned off Damen I had the
roads to myself. Thirty-first Place had enough room to park even a big old
Impala without power steering.

After
maneuvering it to the curb I pulled an equipment belt from the trunk. I
double-checked the flashlight, made sure the picklocks were secure on the belt,
then stuffed a Cubs cap low on my forehead to keep light from reflecting off my
face.

My
heart pounding, I slipped from the glare of the streetlamps beating down on
Damen to the weed-infested ground lining the canal. The rank grass and black
water made my hackles rise with a greater nervousness than the errand itself
called for—although the moment of entering, when you’re moving from
contemplation of the deed to the deed itself, always makes my stomach turn
over.

Using
the flash as little as possible, I picked my way along the broken fence
separating me from the canal. Really, Diamond Head was so close to Mrs. Poker’s
I could have walked. That might have been in Mitch’s mind as well when he’d
landed on her doorstep.

The
Stevenson stood behind me. The concrete stilts seemed to amplify the noise of
the trucks, making the air thick with their roaring, masking the sound of my
heart crashing in my chest and my feet, clumsy from nerves, kicking cans or
bottles. I kept the Smith & Wesson in my hand. I hadn’t forgotten Detective
Finchley’s words, that this area was thick with drug users.

I
didn’t stumble on any dopers. The only signs of life beyond the expressway
traffic were the frogs I disturbed in the rank grass and the occasional glow
from a passing barge. I slipped behind Gammidge Wire, Diamond Head Motor’s
nearest neighbor, to where a narrow lip of cement abutted the canal.

Gammidge
had a single night-light shining on their back entrance. I shrank back against
their heavily padlocked door to keep from casting a shadow. The noise from the
expressway and the canal would drown any sound I made on the ledge, but I found
myself tiptoeing, clinging to the corrugated metal of the Gammidge walls. On my
right a barge suddenly hooted. I jumped and stumbled. I could see the guys in
the pilothouse laughing and waving. If anyone was waiting around the corner, I
hoped they assumed the signal was directed at them.

My
cheeks burning, I continued my stealthy approach along the lip of the canal.
When I got to the clearing between Gammidge and Diamond Head I dropped low into
a thick clump of prairie grass to look around the corner.

Trucks
were backed up to three of Diamond Head’s loading bays. Their engines were
running, but the bays behind them were shut. No lights were on. Cautiously
lying on the damp ground, I squinted through the grass. From this distance, in
bad light, I couldn’t make out any legs or other human appendages.

I
hadn’t seen trucks at the place since my first visit there last week. Since I
didn’t know anything about Diamond Head’s business flow, I couldn’t speculate
on whether that meant orders were slow. And I couldn’t guess why the diesels
were running—whether preparatory to picking up a morning load, or waiting for
someone to empty them.

I was
tempted to hoist myself onto the loading platform in hopes of finding a way in
through the bays. The thought of Mrs. Polter made me cautious. It seemed pretty
clear that she was watching me for someone. If it was Chamfers maybe he’d
promised her a fire engine all her own if she called him when I showed up
again. He could have the Hulk who’d chased me last Friday waiting in the back of
one of the trucks to jump me. The Hulk didn’t strike me as patient enough to
put on an indefinite stakeout, though. I imagined one of the managers sitting
in the truck with the Hulk, holding him on a leash: “Down, sir! Down, I say!”
The picture didn’t make me laugh quite as loudly as I’d expected.