Burn Marks (13 page)

Out of respect for his memories I waited before speaking again, looking around the room to give him a little privacy. On the low table nearest me was a studio portrait of a solemn young man and a shyly smiling young woman in bridal dress.

“That was Fanny and me,” he said, catching my glance. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”

I took him gently through the routine—who worked for him, what did he know about the night man at the Indiana Arms, who would inherit the business, who would profit by the fire. He answered readily enough, but he couldn’t really think ill of someone who worked for him, nor of his children, who would get the business when he died.

“Not that it’s much to leave them. You start out, you think you’ll end up like Rubloff, but all I’ve got to show for all my years is seven worn-out buildings.” He gave me his children’s names and addresses and said he’d tell Rita to let me have a list of employees—the building managers and watchmen and maintenance crews.

“I suppose someone could burn down a building if you paid him enough. It’s true I don’t pay them much, but look at me, look how I live. I’m not Donald Trump after all— pay what I can afford.”

He saw me to the front door, going over it again and again, how he paid his taxes and got nothing and had nothing, but paid his employees, and would they turn on him anyway? As I walked down the front steps I could hear the locks slowly closing behind me.

19

Gentleman Caller

There was an errand I couldn’t put off before going home. I squared my shoulders and drove south through the rush-hour traffic to Michael Reese. Zerlina was still in her four-pack, but one of the beds was empty and the other two held new inmates who looked at me with vacant faces before returning to Wheel of Fortune.

Zerlina turned her head away when she saw me. I hesitated at the foot of her bed—it would be easier to take her rejection at face value and go home than to talk to her about her daughter. “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” I encouraged myself, and went to squat near her head.

“You’ve heard about Cerise, Mrs. Ramsay.”

The black eyes stared at me unblinkingly, but at length she gave a grudging nod.

“I’m very sorry—I had to identify her early this morning. She looked terribly young.”

She scowled horribly in an effort to hold back tears. “What did you do to her, you and that aunt of yours, to drive her to take her own life?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Ramsay,” I repeated. “Maybe I should have tried to find her on Monday. But she left the clinic where I’d brought her and I didn’t have any idea where she might go. I tried talking to Elena this morning; if she knew anything, she was keeping it to herself.”

I stayed another five minutes or so, but she wouldn’t say anything else, nor did her face relent. When I got back in the car I sat for a long time rubbing my tight shoulder muscles and trying to imagine a place I could go to find some peace. Not my apartment—I didn’t want to confront either Mr. Contreras or Vinnie tonight. I was too tired, though, to drive out to the country, too tired to deal with the noise and distraction of a restaurant. What I needed was a club of the kind Peter Wimsey used to retire to—discreet, solicitous servants leaving me in total peace yet willing to spring into immediate action at my slightest whim.

I put the Chevy into gear and started north, going by side streets, dawdling at lights, finally hitting Racine from Belmont and coasting to a halt in front of my building. On my way in I stopped in the basement for my laundry. Some kind soul had taken it from the dryer and left it on the floor. My limbs heavy and slow, I picked it up one item at a time and put it back into the washer. I stayed in the dimly lit basement while the machine ran, sitting cross-legged on a newspaper on the floor, staring at nothing, thinking of nothing. When the washer clanked to a halt I stood up to dump my things once more into the dryer. Easily the equivalent of an evening at the Marlborough Club.

It was only when I got upstairs that I remembered giving the servants the day off, so there was no dinner ready. I sent out for a pizza and watched a Magnum rerun. Before going to bed I returned to the basement for my clothes. By a miracle I arrived before one of my neighbors had time to dirty them again.

Thursday morning I brought a contract down to Ajax, got a letter of authorization from them, and proceeded on my investigation. I spent Thursday and Friday tracking down Seligman’s children—both in their forties—and talking to the different night watchmen, janitors, and building managers who made up the Seligman work team. Mrs. Donnelly—Rita to Seligman—even grudgingly let me look at the books. By the end of Friday I was reasonably certain that the old man had had no role in the fire.

His children didn’t take any active part in the business. One daughter was married to an appliance dealer and didn’t work herself. The other, a marketing manager with a Schaumburg wholesaler, had been in Brazil on business when the fire took place. That didn’t mean she couldn’t have masterminded it, but it was hard to see why. The two stood to inherit the business, and it was possible that they were going to torch the properties for their insurance money to increase the value of the estate, but it was a slow way to dubious wealth. I didn’t write them off, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about them as candidates, either.

My talks with Mrs. Donnelly left me scratching my head. She seemed loyal to the old man, but I couldn’t help thinking she knew something she wasn’t telling. It wasn’t so much what she said as the sly look I got when the talk drifted to her children and what their expectations of Mr. Seligman might be. If it hadn’t been for that occasional smirk, I would have given Seligman a complete pass to Ajax.

On Saturday I finally found the night man from the Indiana Arms. He was holed up with a brother on the South Side, trying to avoid any inquiry into his activities on the night of the fire. We had a long and difficult conversation. At first he assured me he hadn’t left the premises for a minute. Then he came around to the idea that he’d heard a noise outside and gone to investigate.

Finally a combination of threats and bribes brought forth the information that he’d gotten a list of the races at Sportsman Park along with fifty dollars in betting money. They’d come in Wednesday’s mail, he didn’t know who from, he certainly hadn’t kept the envelope. He didn’t think it would matter if he left for an hour or two; when he got back late—after a snort with his buddies—the hotel was burning beautifully. He took one look at the fire trucks and headed for his brother’s house on Sangamon.

It was clear that someone had cared enough about burning down the building to study the night man, find out he bet the races, and know he couldn’t resist a free night at the track. But that someone wasn’t Saul Seligman. I put it all together in a report for Ajax, wrote out a bill, and asked whether they wanted me to pursue the matter further.

If your primary goal is to find the arsonist, then I will try to discover who sent the money. Since no envelope exists and Mr. Tancredi claims never to have seen any strangers regularly lurking around the premises, finding who sent the money will be a long and expensive job. If all you want is a strong probability that your insured did not burn his own proprty, we can stop at this point: I believe Mr. Seligman and his subordinates are innocent of arson.

After putting it in the mail I walked the ten blocks to Wrigley Field and watched the Cubs die a painful death at the hands of the Expos. Although my hapless heroes were twenty games below five hundred the ballpark was packed; I was lucky to get a seat in the upper deck. Even if I could have gotten a bleacher ticket, I don’t sit there anymore—NBC made such a cult of the Bleacher Bums when the Cubs were in the ′84 playoffs that drunk yuppies who don’t know the game now find it the trendy place to sit.

It was after five when I got home. A late-model black Chevrolet bristling with antennae was parked illegally next to the hydrant in front of my building. I looked at it with the usual curiosity you give an unmarked police car when it’s next to your home. The windows were rolled up and I couldn’t see through the smoky glass, but when the door opened I saw Bobby Mallory had been driving himself.

I was surprised to see him—it was the first time he’d ever come to my apartment without a formal escort. I hurried to the curb to greet him.

“Bobby! Good to see you. Nothing’s wrong, is it?”

He ran a hand through my hair, a rare gesture of affection since I graduated from high school. “Just thought I’d come by and see you, Vicki, make sure you’re not playing with some kind of fire that’s likely to burn you.”

“I see.” I tried to keep my tone light while a wall of caution shut down part of my mind. “Is that something you can do in one sentence out here on the sidewalk or do you want to come up for some coffee?”

“Oh, let’s go inside, be comfortable. If you’ve got decaf, that is—I can’t take coffee late in the day anymore. I’m almost sixty, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” I wondered if he was trying to pump me obliquely for word on what Eileen had planned for the big day, but I didn’t think he’d treat me to such an elaborate routine for that. I politely held the door for him and let him precede me up the three flights.

Bobby, still on his good behavior, ignored the untidy heap of papers in the living room. I tried not to feel embarrassed at being caught in such chaos by an old friend of my parents and went to scrounge in my kitchen.

“I’m afraid I’m out of decaf,” I apologized a few minutes later. “I can give you some juice or a Coke or wine. No beer, though.”

He took a Coke. One of Bobby’s fetishes, in addition to not swearing in front of me, is not to drink with me—he can’t get over the idea that he’d be encouraging me in immorality. He drank a little, ate a handful of crackers, gestured at the piano, and asked if I was still working at my singing. My mother had been an accomplished musician, an aspiring operatic soprano whose career had been cut short when her family shipped her to America to escape fascism. One of Bobby’s unexpected traits was to share her love of opera; she used to sing Puccini for him. He would be a happy cop if I’d fulfilled her dream and become a concert singer instead of aping my dad and turning into a detective.

I had to admit my voice was a little rusty. “Seen any rare birds lately?”

Another unexpected hobby of Bobby’s was photographing birds. As he discoursed on taking his two oldest grandchildren to the forest preserve last weekend, I wondered how long we were going to pretend that this was just a social call.

“Mickey’s coming out with us tomorrow,” he said. “He’s a good boy. Young man, I should say, but I’ve known him since he was born.”

“Yes, he’s told me you’re his godfather.” I sipped some Coke and watched him over the rim of the glass.

“Eileen and I were both hoping you two would hit it off, but she keeps telling me you can’t force these things.”

“He’s a Sox fan. It would never work out.”

“Even though you like sports and race around playing police, you want a guy who’s more artistic.”

I didn’t know whether to jump down his throat for calling my work “playing police” or be amazed that he put so much thought into my character. “Maybe I just don’t want to be married. Michael hangs out with a crowd where the wife is the little woman who stays home and has kiddies. That may be your dream for me but it’s not my style, never has been and never will be.”

“‘Never’ is a long time, Vicki.” He held up a hand as the blood rushed to my face. “Hold your fire. I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just don’t get yourself out on a limb where you’ll saw yourself off rather than admit you changed your mind. But that’s not what I came to say to you.”

It made me downright mad to think of him and Eileen sitting at dinner, planning my marriage to his godson— “Maybe truelove will get her mind off wanting to be a boy and play boys’ games with guns and baseballs”—as though my life and my choices were of no account. I bit back a diatribe. Yelling at Bobby could only put me at a severe disadvantage.

“I haven’t asked Mickey anything about you,” he went on. “I figure it’s his business. But he’s been like a cat on a hot stove since he saw you clinched with that kid the other night.”

“I can’t call up and apologize for being found necking at my own front door.”

“Just go easy on him, will you, Vicki? I’m fond of the boy. I don’t want an explosion on my staff because you’re turning them on and off like faucets. I know there’s been something between you and John, even though neither of you admits it; I don’t want a blowup between him and Mickey. Or Mickey and you. You may not believe it, but I’m fond of you too.”

My cheeks flamed again, this time with embarrassment. “There’s never been anything between McGonnigal and me. He gave me a lift home last winter in the middle of the night. I was beat, he thought I looked cute when vulnerable, we had one kiss and both knew we couldn’t cross that line again. Since then it’s been like I was Cleopatra’s asp. And I’m damned if I’m going to apologize to him for that.”

“Don’t swear, Vicki, it’s not nearly as attractive as you modern young women think.” He put his glass down on the magazines covering the coffee table and got up. “I was talking to Monty yesterday afternoon—Roland Montgomery, Bomb and Arson Squad—he knows I know you. He says you’re poking around in that Indiana Arms fire we asked you not to touch.”

I gave a tight little smile. “Just playing police, Bobby— I wouldn’t worry about it since it’s only a game, not the real stuff.”

He put a large hand on my shoulder. “I know you think you’re a big girl—what are you now, thirty-five? Thirty-six? But your parents are both dead and they were my close friends. No one’s so big they don’t need someone else looking out for them. If Monty said to keep away from that fire, you keep away. Arson’s about the nastiest thing on this planet. I don’t want to see you messed up in it.”

I closed my lips in a tight ball to keep my ugly words in. He’d touched about ten raw nerves in five minutes and I was too angry to give any kind of coherent response. I saw him to the door without telling him good-bye.

When I heard his car start I sat at the piano and vented my feelings in a series of crashing, dissonant chords. Yeah, I ought to practice, ought to keep my voice limber before I got too old and my vocal cords lost their flexibility. I ought to be everyone’s good little girl. But for my own self-respect I needed to solve the arson.

I got up from the piano and jotted a second note to Robin:

I sent you a report this morning, but as I’ve thought over the case during the day I believe it is critical to locate the person who sent Jim Tancredi the money for the track.

It was only when I’d mailed it that I calmed down enough to wonder why Bobby had come to see me—to talk to me about Michael Furey? Or to warn me off the Indiana Arms investigation?