Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (40 page)

“Fuck
you and the horse you rode in on, Ryerson.” I slammed the phone down as hard as
I could.

I was
panting with rage, my fragile calm from my trip to Atlanta completely shattered.
What was with these guys, trying to run me around? I dug a basketball from the
back of my hall closet and started bouncing it up and down, with an evil
disregard for the family trying to sleep below, hoping to pound away some of my
fury.

I’d
been dribbling for about five minutes when the phone rang again. It was either
Murray, hoping to bludgeon me into giving him a story, or my downstairs
neighbor, Mrs. Lee. I hastily stuffed the ball back in the closet before
picking up the receiver.

“Vic?”
It was Dick’s light baritone. “I know it’s late, but I’ve been trying to get
through for two hours.”

I sat
down hard on the piano bench, surprise knocking the rage out of me. “And that
gives you the right to call at eleven-fifteen?” Just because I’d stopped feeling
angry didn’t mean Dick got a free ride.

“You
and I need to talk. I left two messages with your answering service today.”

I
realized I hadn’t checked with my service since returning from Atlanta. “This
is really sudden, Dick, so I don’t have a response ready. Does Teri know?”

“Please
don’t clown around right now, Vic. I’m not in the humor for it.”

“Well,
that’s kind of why we split up to begin with, wasn’t it,” I said reasonably.
“Because I didn’t care enough about the stuff you were in the humor for.”

“Look.
You’ve been sticking your nose into my business for the last two weeks. I think
I’ve been pretty tolerant about it on the whole, but you’re really asking for
trouble now. And strange as it may seem to you, I don’t want to see you in
major trouble.”

I made
a face at the mouthpiece. “Funny you should say that, Richard. I just had that
identical thought about you recently. Til trade you—you tell me what major
trouble you think I’m headed for and then I’ll tell you about yours.”

He
sighed ostentatiously. “I might have known better than to try to do you a good
turn.”

“You
should have known better than to think calling up to lay down the law would
sound like a good turn to me,” I corrected.

“I’d
like you to come to my office tomorrow. I’m free around ten.”

“Which
means I’d kick my heels in your waiting room until eleven or twelve. No,
thanks. I’ve got a very tight day scheduled. Why don’t you stop here on your
way into the Loop? It’s just a hop, skip, and jump off the Eisenhower to
Belmont.”

He
didn’t like it, mostly because he wasn’t controlling the program. He tried to
make me come downtown to the Enterprise Club, the favorite embalming center for
Chicago’s top lawyers and bankers. I wanted to start my day in the
neighborhood, at the Bank of Lake View. He finally consented to meet me at the
Belmont Diner, but it had to be seven o’clock: his important meetings started
at eight-thirty. Since Dick knows early mornings and I aren’t on speaking
terms, it enabled him to salvage a small triumph from the conversation.

Before
going to bed I checked in with my answering service. Sure enough, there were
two messages from Dick, both stressing the urgency of my calling him
immediately. Detective Finchley had phoned, as had Luke Edwards and Sergeant
Rawlings. I was glad I’d missed Luke. I wasn’t in the humor for a long,
lugubrious account of the Trans Am’s woes. I unplugged the phone and went to
bed.

My
dreams were tormented by images of my mother. She appeared at the gym where I
was playing basketball. I dropped the ball and ran from the court to her side,
but just as I held out a hand to her, she turned her back on me and walked
away. I felt myself crying in my sleep as I followed her down Halsted, begging
her to turn and look at me. Behind me the Buddha was saying in Gabriella’s
heavily accented English, “You’re on your own now, Victoria.”

When
the alarm woke me at six, it was a welcome release from the trap of dreams. My
eyes were gummy with the tears I’d shed in the night. I felt so sorry for
myself that I hiccuped back another crying bout as I brushed my teeth.

“What’s
wrong with you?” I said derisively to the face in the mirror. “Feel deprived
over losing Dick Yar-borough’s love?”

I
turned the cold water on in the shower and held my head under it. The shock
cleaned my eyelids and cleared my head. I did a complete workout in the living
room, including a full set of weight exercises. At the end my arms and legs
were trembling, but I felt purged of my nightmare.

I
dressed with a care that made me feel a little annoyed with myself, in a soft
gold top with a charcoal pantsuit. I didn’t think I wanted to show off for
Dick, at least not in a sexual way. I just wanted to seem cool and prosperous.
Big earrings and a chunky necklace added a touch of modernity. The jacket was
cut full enough to hide my shoulder holster.

It
had been almost four days since I’d gone into the drink. I was beginning to
feel nervous about the peace my pals were leaving me in. No threatening calls,
no firebombs through the window. That wasn’t all due to the watchful eye of
Conrad’s minions. I couldn’t help thinking they were saving up for some huge,
ugly surprise.

I
studied the street carefully from my living room window before leaving. It was
hard to tell from this angle whether anyone was staking me out from the cars
out front, but the Subaru that had dogged me last week wasn’t there. No one
shot at me when I came out. Always a welcome beginning to the day.

I
took a long way around to the Belmont Diner, in keeping with the first rule for
terrorist targets: vary your route. Although it was a few minutes after seven
when I got to the diner, Dick hadn’t arrived yet. In my eagerness to remember
the rules for terrorism I’d forgotten those for power breakfasting: make the
other person wait.

Barbara
and Helen greeted me enthusiastically. Business was heavy, but they managed to
give me the details of what had happened to my tail after I left Friday.

“Honey,
you should have been here,” Barbara called over her shoulder, depositing a
short stack and fried eggs at the table behind me. “Helen here practically
undressed the poor slob, sobbing all over his trouser legs how sorry she was
about the tea. And then—well, I’ll tell you in a minute… You want your usual,
don’t you, Jack? And how ‘bout you, Chuck—two over easy, hon? And hash browns?”
She whisked back to the kitchen.

Helen,
who’d been unloading an armful of food in the corner, called over, “The high
point was Marge. She came out from the kitchen to see what the commotion was
and dropped a can of hot grease along the hallway. The poor slob’s backup had
come tearing in. When the first guy yelled you’d gone out the rear, the second
one went ass-over-teacup through the grease.” She roared with laughter.

Barbara
reappeared with a fresh pot of coffee and poured out a cup for me. “It was
great, Vic. God, I wish I’d brought my camera. It took ‘em about an hour to get
out of here and all the time we’re boo-hoo-hooing like we’re the Three Stooges
and can’t help ourselves… What are you having today, hon?”

“I’m
waiting for someone before I order. You guys are great. I wish I’d stayed for
the show. If I had a fortune, I’d split it among the lot of you.”

Most
of the crowd this time of day were regulars, people from the neighborhood who’d
been coming in for years on their way to work. They obviously had heard the
story already—they kept cutting in with embellishments. At my comment a couple
of them gave catcalls. “Easy to promise when you know you’ll die broke, Vic.”

“You
oughtta give it up and turn your business over to these girls here—they’re the
pros.”

The
uproar suddenly trailed off. I looked over my shoulder and saw Dick come in.
His pearl-gray summer worsted had the glow of wealth to it. The faint hauteur
with which he viewed the chipped formica tables stirred a ripple of resentment.
The men in work clothes and shabby jackets busied themselves with their food.
When Dick saw me and sketched a wave, a low murmur went through the crowd.

“Who’s
the talent?” Barbara whispered, refilling my coffee cup. “You land him and you’ve
got that fortune all right. And don’t think I’ll forget your sweet talk.”

When
Dick sat down she flicked her rag in front of him. “Okay if he joins you, Vic?”

I
felt a bit embarrassed—I hadn’t asked Dick here in the hopes he’d be actively
insulted. “He’s my guest, Barbara. Dick Yarborough, Barbara Flannery. Dick used
to be married to me, but that was in another country.”

Barbara
pursed her mouth in a wise “O,” which indicated understanding that we had
confidential business. “Need a menu, Dick?”

Dick
lifted frosty eyebrows. The Enterprise Club waiters murmured “Mr. Yarborough”
at him deferentially.

“Do
you have fresh fruit?”

Barbara
rolled her eyes, but held back her favorite retort. “Honeydew, cantaloupe, and
strawberries.”

“Strawberries.
With yogurt. And granola. Skim milk with the granola.”

“Fruit,
nuts and flakes, lean,” Barbara muttered. “Yours, Vic?”

Dick’s
ostentatious good health made me feel as perverse as everything else about him
did. “Corned beef hash and a poached egg. And fries.”

Barbara
winked at me and took off.

“You
ever hear of cholesterol, Vic?” Dick inspected his plastic water glass as if it
were an unknown life form.

“That
what you wanted to talk to me about so urgently? You know you’ve seen plastic
before—it’s what we used to drink out of when we lived together down on Ellis.”

He
had the grace to look a little ashamed. He drank some water, fiddled with his
cufflinks, and looked around.

“It’s
probably good for me to come to a place like this now and then.”

“Yeah.
Kind of like going to the zoo. You can feel superior to the creatures in cages
even while you’re sorry for them.”

Barbara
swept out with his food before he could snap anything really clever back at me.
He poked cautiously through the strawberries, picked out four or five that apparently
didn’t meet his standards, and spooned some yogurt onto the rest. It was
because of guys like him moving into the neighborhood that the diner had
started carrying things like yogurt and granola. When I first arrived four
years ago, you couldn’t get such arty food.

“So
what’d you want to talk about, Dick? I know your time’s valuable.”

He
swallowed a mouthful of berries. “You went out to see Jason Felitti on Friday.”

“Thank
you for sharing that information with me.”

He
frowned, but plowed ahead. “I’d like to know why you felt you had to bother
him.”

Barbara
brought my food. I cut into the egg and stirred the yolk up with the hash. The
fries were golden-brown and crisp; I ate a few and then turned to the hash. I
thought Dick was eyeing the fries a little enviously.

“I
know you’re on the Diamond Head board, Dick. I have a feeling that you handled
the legal work involved when Jason bought the company. After all, he’s your
father-in-law’s brother, and even in Oak Brook I expect families stick
together.” I was studying his face as I spoke, but he’d been through too many
high-stakes poker games to show any surprise at my knowledge.

I
sketched out the story of Mitch Kruger and of Milt Chamfers’s refusal to talk
to me. “So I just hoped I could persuade Jason to get Chamfers to meet with me.
Your daddy-in-law been complaining to you?”

Dick
gave a tight little smile. “Vic, believe it or not, despite all the ragging you
do every time you see me, I don’t wish you ill. I even wish you well, as long
as you don’t start disrupting my family or my professional life.”

He
swallowed some coffee and made a face. “But Peter Felitti is connected to some
very powerful people in this city. He’s annoyed that you’ve been harassing
Jason. I gather you even tried breaking into the plant the other night. Peter
could put pressure on the cops to hound you every time you try to conduct an
investigation. He could even see that you lost your license. I’m just talking
to you as a friend. Believe it or not, I’d hate to see you go through that kind
of misery.”

“Of
course, if you really cared about my happiness you could ”persuade Peter not to
do all those mean things—he is your father-in-law, after all.“ I finished the
hash, savoring the richness of the egg yolk. ”But I’ve got a few worries about
you, Dick. Something ugly’s going on over at Diamond Head. Something involving
Paragon Steel and some of the retired machinists and who knows what-all else.“

I
waved a hand to show the scope of ugliness I had in mind. “I don’t want to see
you up before the SEC or the bar’s disciplinary committee or something for
signing onto unethical activities. Maybe coercing people into giving money to
your favorite charities in exchange for special legal favors.”

Off
and on since leaving my office last night I’d been wondering about Eddie Mohr
and Chicago Settlement. It had occurred to me that the Felittis might have
Dick’s firm muscle people for contributions in exchange for high-priced legal
work. That seemed like a relatively flimsy idea, but I watched Dick’s face expectantly
to see if I was closing in on anything.