Burn Marks (14 page)

20

Heavy Warning

Bobby’s visit left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to tell Eileen I couldn’t make it to her party. But Bobby was right about one thing—you shouldn’t saw off the limb you’re sitting on just to salve your pride.

I called a couple of friends to see if anyone wanted to take in a movie but everyone was out. I left messages on various machines and stomped off to the kitchen to scramble some eggs. Normally sitting home alone on Saturday doesn’t trouble me, but Bobby’s visit made me wonder if I was doomed for an old age of crabby isolation.

I turned on the TV and moodily changed channels. You’d think Saturday night they could offer something enticing for the stay-at-homes, but the networks thought all America was out dancing. When the phone rang I turned off the set eagerly, thinking maybe someone was returning one of my messages. I was startled to hear Roz Fuentes’s husky voice.

She didn’t even say hello before she started lambasting me for butting my nose into her business. “What are you trying to do to me, Warshawski?” Her voice had recovered its usual rich, throaty timbre; the vibration through the phone made my ear tingle.

“I’m not doing anything to you, Roz. Don’t you have a campaign to run? Why are you picking on me?”

Her rich chuckle came, but it lacked mirth. “Velma called me. She said you were trying to get her to spill some dirt on me, that she put you in your place but she thought I ought to know. What kind of dirt are you looking for, anyway?”

I bared my teeth at the phone. “Hey, Roz—Velma put me in my place. Relax.”

“Vic, I gotta know.” She spoke softly, urgently-it was like listening to the Chicago Symphony string section. “This campaign means everything to me and my people. I told you that last weekend. I can’t afford to have someone lying in the bushes waiting for me with a shotgun.”

It had been too long a day for me to make any great display of subtlety. “Roz, I don’t care if you’ve been sleeping with Boots and the whole county board to get yourself on the ticket. What bugs me is you going out of your way to ask me if I was sandbagging you. What would even make you think such a thing unless you’re getting me to sign on to something I’m going to be very sorry about later? I’m thin-skinned, Roz; it gets me itzy if someone is trying to make a monkey out of me.”

“I came to you as a show of respect for our old relationship,” she said indignantly. “Now you are twisting my friendship into something evil. Velma was right. I should know better than to turn to a white girl with my concerns.”

“A white boy is okay, though?” I was thoroughly riled. “Boots can be your ally but I can’t? Go save the Chicago Hispanics, Roz, but leave me out of it.”

We hung up on that fractured note. I was mad enough to call Velma to demand chapter and verse on not trusting me just because I was white, but a conversation like that can go nowhere constructive.

Sunday morning I got a further indication that the Fuentes-Meagher pot had something cooking in it when Marissa invited me to stop by for drinks that evening. Something spontaneous and casual, was how she put it, for people she hadn’t spent enough time with at Roz’s campaign. I told her I was truly overwhelmed to be remembered by her and that the thought of such an evening was irresistible. Marissa had herself well in hand, though, and refused to be ruffled.

At five I set out for her Lincoln Park town house, one of those three-story jobs on Cleveland where every brick has been sandblasted and the woodwork refinished so it glows warmly. Marissa rented out the ground floor and lived in the upper two.

When I got to the top of the first flight she met me in the landing to escort me into what she called her drawing room. As usual Marissa looked great, her idea of casual being bulky red silk trousers, a matching pajama-style top, and lots of silver jewelry. I hadn’t worn jeans, but I couldn’t help feeling she’d dressed with the intention of making me look dowdy.

The drawing room, which had once been the two front bedrooms, ran the width of the building, its row of mullioned windows looking out on Cleveland. Whatever negative thoughts I had about Marissa didn’t include her taste—the room was simply but beautifully furnished, a high-Victorian look predominating, complete with red Turkish rugs scattered at strategic places. An exotic array of plants gave the whole scene warmth.

When I complimented her she laughed and said it was all due to her sister, who owned a plant rental business and rotated fresh shrubbery for her every few weeks. “Let me introduce you to some of the folks, Vic.”

Some fifteen or twenty people were chattering with the ease of familiarity. As she led me toward the nearest group the doorbell rang again. She excused herself, telling me to help myself to a drink and see if I knew anyone.

I’d half expected to see Roz, or even the Wunsch and Grasso contingent, but the only person I recognized was Ralph MacDonald. I tipped my hat to Marissa—she must be even better connected than I’d realized for the great man to spend a Sunday evening at such a low-profile function as this.

He was talking to a couple of banker-looking types who’d dressed down for the weekend in open-necked shirts and sport jackets. Two women in their little group were talking sotto voce to each other so as not to disturb the boys. This sample of good wifely conduct made me gladder than ever I hadn’t stood by my own man, a lawyer who now lived in palatial splendor in Oak Brook.

The bar, set in the corner behind one of the trees, had just about anything one’s heart could desire, including a bottle of indifferent champagne. The whiskey was J&B, a brand I can take or leave, so I poured myself a glass of the chardonnay. It made me feel too much like a Lincoln Park native for comfort, but it wasn’t a bad wine.

I took it over to an armchair and watched Marissa return with the newcomers, a thirty-something couple I also didn’t recognize. She brought them to a clump not too far from me where they were greeted enthusiastically as Todd and Meryl. Marissa, the perfect hostess, stayed to chat, then moved to the MacDonald group before responding again to the buzzer.

By and by two women in black slacks and white blouses came in with trays of hot hors d’oeuvres. Ralph MacDonald moved over with the two women from his huddle just as I was helping myself to a couple of spinach triangles.

“Vic? I’m Ralph MacDonald—we met at Boots’s shindig last weekend.”

“I remember you, of course—but I’m surprised you know me.” I tried to sound suave while hastily swallowing the last of my pastry.

“Don’t be modest, Vic—you’re a pretty memorable gal.”

The comment was innocuous but the tone seemed charged. Before I could question him he introduced me to the two women, who obviously were as enthusiastic at meeting me as I them. They filled small plates with a sample of treats and retired to the bankers as Marissa brought another unaccompanied man over to us. She introduced him as Clarence Hinton; he and MacDonald clearly knew each other reasonably well.

“You remember Vic from last Sunday, Ralph,” Marissa stated.

“I was just telling her not to undersell herself.” He turned to me. “Actually I probably wouldn’t have remembered you if I hadn’t run into Clarence here after you left.”

I shook my head.

“Clarence and I were both friends of Edward Purcell.”

I flushed against my will. Purcell had been chairman of Transicon and the mastermind of a major fraud I’d uncovered in my first big investigation. It wasn’t my fault he’d committed suicide the day before the federal marshals were coming to pick him up, but I had to fight back a defensive retort.

I forced myself to ask Clarence in a neutral voice if he was a developer too.

“Oh, I play around with putting projects together. I don’t have MacDonald’s energy for that kind of thing. Ralph, I want a drink and the lady here needs a refill. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Mine’s bourbon on the rocks,” MacDonald said as Hinton turned to the bar. To me he added, “I’m glad you came, Vic—I’ve been hoping to have a chance to talk to you.”

I raised my eyebrows. “About Edward Purcell? It’s been almost ten years.”

“Oh, I’ve always felt sort of disappointed with Teddy for that. There’s no lick so hard you can’t fight it in court.”

“Especially in this town,” I said dryly.

He flashed a smile to let me know he got the joke without finding it particularly funny. “I don’t hold Teddy against you. No, I wanted to talk to you about something more contemporary.”

Maybe this was going to be my big break—detective to the stars. My chance to fund an international enterprise that would make my uncle Peter swoon with envy. Before I could ask, Clarence returned with the drinks and Ralph shepherded us down the hall to a small back room. It had probably been a maid’s room in the old days of the house, but Marissa had decorated it in white on white and used it for watching TV.

I sat in one of the hard-upholstered chairs and smoothed my challis skirt over my knees. MacDonald stood across from me, his foot on the rung of the couch, while Hinton leaned against the door. There was no special menace in their faces but the poses were meant to intimidate, I sipped a little wine and waited.

When it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything, MacDonald began. “Donnel Meagher has been chairman of the Cook County Board for a lot of years.”

“And you think the time has come for him to pack it in?” I asked.

MacDonald shook his head. “Far from it. He’s developed a political savvy in that time that no one else in this area can match, I expect you don’t agree with all his positions, but I’m sure you respect his judgment.”

“If I respected his judgment I’d agree with his positions,” I objected.

“His political judgments,” MacDonald smiled thinly, “After Clarence pointed out who you were I asked around about you. The consensus is, you consider yourself a wit,”

“But with good judgment,” I couldn’t help saying.

He declined the gambit. “Boots picked Rosalyn Fuentes for the county slate based strictly on her political merits. That’s the kind of decision I understand you may have a hard time with.”

In my secret heart I hadn’t really expected he wanted to hire me, but it was still a letdown to think he only wished to warn me off Roz. “I don’t have any trouble with that kind of decision. Boots is clearly a political mastermind, and if Roz can get his backing, her future looks golden.”

“So you’re not trying to sandbag her campaign?” That was Hinton’s first contribution to the discussion.

“You guys are making me awful, awful curious,” I said. “Marissa put the arm on me to go to Roz’s fundraiser in the name of a decade-old solidarity. I shelled out more money than I’ve ever given a candidate, was bored out of my head, and was getting ready to leave when Roz talked to me just to make sure I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt her. Now you two lock me in a little room to pick my brain. I don’t know anything about Roz’s secrets, and I wouldn’t care what they were if people weren’t going out of their way to make me wonder.”

“It really would be better if you minded your own business this time around,” Hinton said in a toneless voice more ominous than a shout.

MacDonald shook his head. “She’s not going to listen to threats, Clarence—her whole history makes that clear…. Look, Vic—Roz needs Boots’s support if she’s going to win her first county-wide contest. But Boots needs her too—the Hispanic wards pretty much vote the way she tells them to.”

That wasn’t news to me so I didn’t say anything.

“Roz committed a major indiscretion in her youth. She confessed it all to Boots when they were talking over the slate and his opinion was that it wouldn’t hurt her if it came out in five years, when she had a big base, but that it could be pretty damaging to her home support if they learned about it now. So someone said something to her at the barbecue that made her think you were probing and she was trying to assure herself that you weren’t.”

“And what was that youthful indiscretion?”

MacDonald shook his head. “Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you—Boots is an old political hand and he doesn’t share secrets with people who don’t need to know them.”

“Well, you know my reputation-I don’t care if she was screwing the village goat, but I don’t sign on for fraud.”

MacDonald laughed. “You see, Vic, everyone has a different notion of morality. There are plenty more people in Humboldt Park who would care about the goat than any money she’d siphoned off a public works project. So don’t set up your own standards to run the county by, okay?”

I smiled sweetly. “Just as long as no one is making me the goat. That’s probably what I most care about.”

He came over and helped me to my feet. “It would take a smarter crew than us to do that. Let’s go back to the party—I want some of those little salmon things before the ignorant mob gets them all.”

When we returned to the drawing room Marissa caught Ralph’s eye anxiously. He nodded fractionally to telegraph all’s well, that I’d been convinced. But of what?

21

Auntie’s Turning Tricks Again

When I got home the sun had just set and the air was still softly lit. I went slowly upstairs to my living room and stood at the window looking out. Vinnie the banker emerged from our building and climbed into his car, a late-model Mazda. A gaggle of teenage boys headed south, yelling raucous slogans and dumping their potato-chip bags onto the sidewalk.

I let the curtain fall and went to sit in my armchair. I didn’t want to learn something awful about Roz. I really didn’t. I wanted strong women in public office and she was better than most. So why did she keep rubbing my face in it?

I hadn’t turned on any lamps. In the twilight the room seemed ghostly, a place where no living creatures moved. The image of Cerise’s dead face came into my mind and I felt an unbearable sadness for the waste that had been her life. And again, unwanted, came the nagging question about what Bobby was doing at the site within hours of her body being discovered. And what was he doing coming to see me yesterday? Off and on all day I’d worried over it like a sore tooth, but couldn’t put it to rest.

I had one client, Ajax, to look into one issue—had Saul Seligman burned down his own building. As a host of people from Bobby Mallory to Velma Riter and Ralph MacDonald kept reminding me, neither Cerise nor Roz was any of my business. Of course the cops thought the Indiana Arms wasn’t any of my business, either.

By and by I got stiffly to my feet and went down to Mr. Contreras’s apartment to borrow the dog. Sometimes he has enough sensitivity to spare me an intrusive barrage. Tonight, mercifully, was such a time. He handed Peppy over to me with a stern adjuration not to feed her cheese or anything else dangerous to her delicate GI tract and returned to the tube.

I walked Peppy around the block before returning to my own apartment. She thought that was a pretty miserable excuse for a workout, but when I fixed her a plate of spaghettini with dried tomatoes and mushrooms to go with my own, she cheered up. She wolfed it down and came to lie on my feet while I turned to the phone.

Murray Ryerson was Chicago’s leading crime reporter. He’d been with the Herald-Star for almost eleven years, moving from covering the city wire stories to nickel-and-dime stabbings to now where he was a leading authority on the frequent intersection of crime and politics in town.

He didn’t show any particular enthusiasm at hearing from me. At times we’ve been friendly enough to be lovers, but both of us covering the same scene and having strong personalities make it hard to avoid conflict. After the latest clash between our jobs Murray had been furious. He still hadn’t warmed up. He believed I’d held back significant chunks of a story until it was too late to use them. Actually I’d held back significant chunks that he never even knew about, so he probably had a right to a grievance.

Tonight he told me astringently that he was very busy and if it was business it could wait until he was in the office tomorrow.

“Does she have a name?” I asked hopefully.

“Make it snappy, Warshawski. I’m not in the mood.”

It was easy to be brief since I didn’t have much to say. “Roz Fuentes. She’s on the county ticket and she thinks I think she’s hiding something. Is she?”

“God, Vic, I don’t know. If you had to bother me at home to ask me that—”

“I wouldn’t have,” I interrupted him. “Do you know who Ralph MacDonald is?”

“You’re wasting my time, Warshawski. Everyone knows MacDonald. He’s the leading contender to put together the package for the new stadium-retail-housing complex.”

I hadn’t heard that. Murray told me loftily I didn’t know everything, that it was just county scuttlebutt because of Boots being tight with MacDonald.

“And I don’t need you calling me at home catechizing me to remember what an inside track Ralph MacDonald has in county building projects. He and Boots grew up together. They got big together. Everyone knows that. So come to the point or hang up.”

I scowled at the phone but plowed ahead in my best Girl Scout style. “Ralph is hanging out with a lady I sort of know—Marissa Duncan. She’s kind of a political PR woman, fund-raiser, that type of thing. She trotted him out for me tonight at her Lincoln Park town house to tell me to lay off Roz.”

“Yeah, I know Marissa. She’s at all the right events. If she and Ralph want you to leave them alone, it’s not news—they must know what a pain in the ass you are. It still could have waited until morning.”

When I didn’t say anything he grudgingly allowed that he didn’t know of anything about Roz that the paper was holding back. They do that more often than the trusting public likes to think—they don’t run a juicy story because it will stub an important advertiser or religious figure’s toe. Or even worse, they want to wait and drop it like a stink bomb when it will hurt the most people.

“But you’ll check tomorrow for me?” I persisted.

“Only if I get an exclusive on your obituary, Warshawski.”

I made a face at the phone. “The number of french fries you eat I’m bound to outlive you, Murray…. Did you see anything about a dead junkie picked up at the Rapelec construction site?”

I could feel him trying to figure it out on the phone— which was the real reason I’d called, Roz or the junkie. “I missed that one,” he said cautiously. “Friend of yours?”

“In a way.” Peppy got up and started sniffing around the corners. “I ID’d her. It just seemed strange to me that some of the city’s top cops were there—thought you might know about it. Well, sorry to have bothered you at home—I’ll talk to you at the paper tomorrow.”

“Warshawski—oh, the hell with you. Go find someone else to run your errands.” He hung up with a bang.

Peppy had found some dust balls behind the piano that she was bent on eating. I retrieved them from her mouth and hunted around for a tennis ball to play a little indoor fetch with her. She likes to sit on her haunches and catch the ball without letting it bounce. The hitch is, I have to go scampering after it if she doesn’t make it. I was lying on my back pulling it from under the piano when the phone rang. I clambered upright to answer the phone and bounced the ball to Peppy. She watched it go by her with a look of pure disgust and slumped dejectedly onto her forepaws.

It was Michael Furey. I stiffened at once, thinking Bobby must have given him a little godfatherly advice on the best way to handle stubborn women.

Furey was ill at ease. I didn’t do anything to make him relax. “Sorry to bother you so late in the day. Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about something. Can I come over?”

“Is this Bobby’s idea?” I demanded.

“Well, yes, I mean not that I come over, but—”

“You can tell him from me to butt out of my business. Or I’ll tell him myself.”

“Don’t make this harder for me than it already is, Vic. She’s not just your private business, even if you wish she was.”

I held the receiver away from my face and looked at it for a minute. “You’re not calling about—about Tuesday night?” I asked stupidly.

“No. No, nothing like that. Though I admit I owe you an apology. This—it’s about your aunt and it’s not real easy talking about it on the phone.”

My heart squeezed shut. “Is she dead?”

“No, oh no, it’s just—look, I hate being the one to do this to you, but Uncle Bobby—the lieutenant—he thought you and I were, well, since we’d been friends it would come better from me than anyone else.”

Wild thoughts of Elena’s somehow being responsible for the fire at the Indiana Arms clashed with the fear of a drunken stupor turned to disaster. I sat on the piano bench and demanded to know what Michael was talking about.

“There’s no easy way to say this. But she’s been spotted a couple of times soliciting in Uptown, mostly old guys, but a couple of times young ones who were pretty affronted.”

Relief that it was so trivial made me laugh—that and the image of Elena taking on someone like Vinnie the banker or Furey himself. I hooted so loudly that Peppy came over to see what the trouble was.

“It’s not as funny as all that, Vic—the only reason she hasn’t been arrested is because of the connection between your family and the police. I was hoping you could go talk to her, ask her to stop.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised, gasping for breath, “but she’s never paid much attention to anything anybody said to her.” I couldn’t help it, but started laughing again.

“If I came along?” he suggested tentatively. “Uncle Bobby thought it might make more of an impact if someone from the force was there to back you up.”

“Tell me the truth—he was too chicken to confront her, wasn’t he?”

Michael hedged on that one—he wasn’t about to slander his commander, even if Bobby was his godfather. Instead he asked, even more hesitantly, if I might be free to do it tonight. I looked at my watch. It was only eight-thirty; might as well get it over with.

“If she’s in, she’s probably drunk,” I warned him.

“She won’t be the first one I’ve seen. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

I still had on the red rayon challis skirt I’d worn to Marissa’s party. I changed it for jeans—I didn’t want Furey to think I was dressing up for him. When he rang the buzzer, right on time, I took Peppy back down to Mr. Contreras. She was totally miffed—no run, no games, and now she had to stay inside when I was setting out on an adventure that would doubtless include chasing a lot of squirrels and ducks.

Michael had recovered a certain amount of his breeziness. He greeted me jauntily, asked if I’d gotten over the shock of identifying Cerise, and solicitously held the door of the Corvette open for me. I gathered my legs together and swung them over the side, the only possible way to get into that kind of car—I’ve always wondered how Magnum leapt in and out of that Ferrari.

“Where does she live?” he asked, starting the car with a great roar.

I told him the address of the Windsor Arms but left him to find his own way. You never have to give a Chicago policeman street directions. Maybe we should require a year of patrol duty for all would-be cabdrivers.

Michael used police privilege to block the hydrant in front of the hotel, A couple of drunks came over to inspect the Corvette but slid into the night when Furey casually let them see his gun. When he got inside no one was at the desk. I had headed toward the stairs, Michael behind me, when a voice shouted from the lounge, “Hey! No one up those stairs but residents.”

We turned to see a man in green work clothes push himself out of a chair and head toward us. Behind him some mindless sitcom was blaring from the high-perched TV. In his youth the man had been muscular, maybe played high school football, but now he was just big and sloppy, his belly straining the buttons on his green work shirt.

Michael flashed his white teeth. “Police, buddy. We need to talk to one of the inmates.”

“You got some ID? Anyone can come in here saying they’re police.”

He might be three-quarters drunk and run to seed, but he had some spunk, Michael seemed to debate playing a police heavy, but when he caught me watching him he pulled his badge from his pants pocket and showed it briefly.

“Who you after?” the night man demanded.

“Elena Warshawski,” I said, before Michael could put out the police none-of-your-business line. “Do you know if she’s in?”

“She ain’t here.”

“How about if we go upstairs and see for ourselves,” Michael said.

The man shook his head. “Wouldn’t do you any good. She took off three days ago. Packed up all her stuff and took off into the night.”

“Thursday?” I asked.

He thought for a minute, counting backward. “Yeah, that’d be right. She in some kind of trouble?”

“She’s my aunt,” I said. “She gets lonesome and tries to find people to keep her company. I want to make sure she’s okay. You know where she went?”

He shook his head. “I was setting in there, watching the two A.M. movie, and seen her sneaking down the stairs. ‘Hey, sis, ain’t no law against you coming downstairs in the middle of the night. You can walk upright,’ I calls to her. She gives a gasp and asks me to go outside to see if the coast is clear. None of my business what business people get up to, so I goes out and watches her head over to Broadway. No one was bothering her so I come back inside. And that’s the last I seen her.”

That was an unsettling scenario. Something had rattled her badly enough to make her scoot from a secure bed, badly enough to keep her from landing at my door.

“Can I go up and look at her room?” I asked abruptly. “Maybe she left something behind, some sign of why she bolted.”

The night man scrutinized me through drink-softened eyes. After asking for a look at my driver’s license, he decided I passed whatever internal test he was running. We went back to the stairs and followed him as he trudged heavily to the third floor. Michael asked me in an urgent whisper if I had any idea where she might have gone.

“Hm-umh.” I shook my head impatiently. “Probably the only friend she had from the Indiana Arms is in the hospital still and doesn’t have a place to stay anyway.”

The night man laboriously fiddled with the keys at his belt until he found one to unlock Elena’s room. He flipped a switch that turned on the naked bulb overhead. The room was bare. Elena had left the nylon bedding jumbled. It hung over the end, trailing on the floor, exposing the thin pad of a mattress as a tawdry indictment of the whole room.

I shook out the bedding. The only thing concealed in it was a bra turned gray and shapeless with age. Elena had emptied the plastic chest. Nothing remained in the box under the bed. Since the night man had a master key it was always possible he’d been there already to clean it out, but as far as I knew Elena didn’t have any valuables to leave. The bra seemed like such a forlorn relic that I folded it and stuffed it in my shoulder bag.

I shook my head uselessly. “Maybe I could talk to some of the other residents. See if any of them know why she might have left.”

The night man rubbed his big hands along the sides of his pants. “You can, of course, but when they see your boyfriend here is a cop, they probably won’t want to talk to you. Besides, I don’t think your aunt knew anyone here that good,”