Burn Marks (3 page)

“Rosty coming? You said he might.”

“No. But the head of his Chicago office will be there. Cindy Mathiessen.”

“Great.” I made myself sound like a cheerleader. “I want to talk to her about Presidential Towers.”

Caution returned to Marissa’s voice at once as she demanded to know why I wanted to discuss the complex.

“The SRO’s,” I said earnestly. “You know, about eight thousand rooms were lost when they cleared that area to put up the Towers. I’ve got this aunt, see.” I explained about Elena and the fire. “So I’m not feeling too crazy about Boots, or Rosty, or any of the other local Dems since I can’t find her a room. But I’m sure if I bring it to— what did you same her name was?—Cindy? If I talk to Cindy about it, she’s bound to be able to help me out.”

It seemed to me the phone vibrated with the sound of wheels turning in Marissa’s brain. Finally she said, “What can your aunt afford?”

“She was paying seventy-five at the Indiana Arms. A month, I mean.” It was past sundown now and the room was dark beyond the pool of light my desk lamp shed. I walked over to the wall with the phone to switch on the overheads.

“If I can get her a place, will you promise not to talk about Presidential Towers on Sunday? With anyone? It’s a little touchy for people.”

For the Dems, she meant. With the spotlight already on the Speaker of the House for ethics questions, they didn’t want anything embarrassing said to one of his buddies.

I made a show of reluctance. “Can you do it by tomorrow night?”

“If that’s what it’ll take, Vic, I’ll do it by tomorrow night.” She didn’t try to keep the snarl from her voice.

I had just twenty minutes to get to Visible Treasures before paying quadruple overtime, but I took the extra minute to write out a check to Cook County Women for Open Government. As I locked the office door behind me I started whistling for the first time all day. Who says blackmailers don’t have fun?

4

Auntie Does a Bunk

It was almost nine by the time I got off the Kennedy at California and headed over to Racine. I hadn’t had dinner, hadn’t had anything since grabbing a Polish at a hole-in-the-wall on Canal at two. I wanted peace and quiet, a hot bath, a drink, and a pleasant dinner—I had a veal chop in the freezer I’d been saving for just such a tired evening. Instead I braced myself for a night with Elena.

When I parked across the street and looked up at the third floor, the windows were dark. As I trudged up the stairs I imagined my aunt passed out at the kitchen table. Or on the unmade sofa bed in the living room. Or downstairs seducing Mr. Contreras.

I hadn’t given Elena keys or instructions on the two dead bolts. I undid the bottom lock—the one that locks automatically when you shut the door—and switched on the light in the little entryway. It shed a dim glow into the living room. I could see the sofa was restored to its normal upright position.

I went through the dining room to the kitchen and turned on the light there. The kitchen was sparkling. The three days’ accumulation of dishes in the sink had been washed and put away. The newspapers were gone, the floor washed, and the tabletop clean and tidy. In the middle sat a sheet torn from one of my yellow pads covered with Elena’s sprawling, unsteady writing. She’d written “Vicki,” then crossed it out and changed it to “Victoria, Baby.”

Thanks a lot for the loan of a bed last night when I needed it. I knew I could count on you in a pinch, you always were a good girl, but I don’t mean to hang around and be a burden on you, which I can see I would be, so here’s good luck to you kid and I’ll be seeing you in the sweet by and by, like they say.

She’d drawn eight big X’s and signed her name.

Since three this morning I’d been cursing my aunt for coming to me and wishing I’d return home to find that I’d dreamed the whole episode. I’d gotten my wish, but instead of being elated I felt a little hollow under the diaphragm. Despite her easy camaraderie, Elena didn’t have friends. Of course the streets and alleys of Chicago were strewn with her former lovers, but I didn’t think any of them would remember Elena if she showed up at their doors. Come to think of it, I’m not sure Elena would remember any of them well enough to know which doors to knock on.

The other unpleasant notion hovering in my mind’s back cupboard was prompted by Elena’s final sentence. In a high school dramatization of Tom Sawyer we’d sung “In the sweet bye-and-bye.” It was supposed to be typical of late Victorian hymnology. As I recalled, the sweet bye-and-bye was a syrupy euphemism for life beyond the grave. I had never spent enough time with Elena to know if it was just some catch phrase she used or if she’d gone off to throw herself over the Wacker Drive bridge.

I went carefully through the apartment to see if she’d left any clue to her intentions. The duffel bag was gone, along with the violet nightdress. When I looked in the liquor cabinet I saw nothing was missing except five inches from the open bottle of Johnnie Walker. But from the way she’d been sleeping this morning I kind of thought she’d drunk that before going to bed.

In a way I wished she’d taken the bottle—it would have made me more certain she hadn’t any immediate intention of suicide. On the other hand, did someone really spend her whole life drinking and mooching off people and then suddenly have such a strong sense of remorse that at age sixty-six she couldn’t take it anymore? On the surface it didn’t sound too likely. Lack of sleep and my day among the burned-out buildings of the Near South Side were making me unnaturally morbid.

I debated phoning Lotty Herschel to discuss the matter with her. She’s a doctor who sees a fair number of drunks in her storefront clinic on Damen. On the other hand, her day starts at seven with hospital rounds. This was a bit late for a call whose main function was to allay my uneasy conscience.

I put the Black Label back into the cupboard without pouring any. The drink part of my program had lost its appeal when I thought about Elena swallowing five inches and falling into a red-faced stupor, I went into the kitchen, pulled the veal chop from the freezer, and stuck it in my little toaster oven to thaw while I took a bath. Unless I wanted to rouse the police, there was nothing I could do about my aunt tonight.

Somehow soaking in the tub didn’t relax me the way it usually did. The image of Elena, her gallant smile a bit lopsided, sitting on a park bench with the family I’d encountered at the Emergency Housing Bureau kept coming between me and rest, I lumbered out of the tub, turned off the little oven, and got dressed again.

Mr. Contreras’s living-room light had been on when I came in, I went down the front stairs and knocked on his door. The dog whimpered impatiently as he scrabbled with the locks. When he finally opened the door she leapt up to lick my face. I asked the old man if he’d seen Elena leave.

Of course he had—when he wasn’t gardening or checking the races, he was keeping a close eye on the building. We didn’t really need a watchdog with him on the premises. Elena had left around two-thirty. No, he couldn’t tell me what she was wearing, or if she had any makeup on, what kind of person did I think he was, staring at people and snooping into their private lives. What he could tell me was she’d caught a bus on Diversey on account of he’d gone down to the corner for some milk and seen her climb on. Eastbound, that was right.

“You wasn’t expecting her to leave?”

I hunched my shoulders impatiently. “She doesn’t have any place to go. Not that I know of.”

He clicked his tongue sympathetically and started on a detailed interrogation. My thin stack of patience was about gone when the banker once more opened his door. He was wearing form-fitting Ralph Lauren jeans and a polo shirt.

“Jesus Christ! If I’d known you stood around yelling in the stairwell at all hours, I’d never have bought into this place.” His round face puckered up in a scowl.

“And if I’d known what a tight-assed crybaby you were, I’d have blocked your purchase,” I responded nastily.

The dog growled deep in her throat.

“You go on up, cookie,” Mr. Contreras urged me hastily. “I’ll call you if I remember anything else.” He pulled the dog into the apartment with him and shut the door. I could hear Peppy whining and snuffling behind it, eager to join in the fight.

“Just what is it you do do?” the banker demanded.

I smiled. “Nothing I need a zoning permit for, sugar, so don’t wear out your brain worrying about it.”

“Well, if you don’t stop doing it in the stairwells, I really will call the cops.” He slammed his door shut on me.

I stomped back up the stairs. Now he’d have something substantial to tell his girlfriend or his mother or whoever he phoned at night. I live to serve others.

Back in my apartment I turned the little oven on again and started cooking mushrooms and onions in some red wine. Getting the picture of Elena heading east on the Diversey bus made me feel a bit easier. That sounded as though she had a specific destination in mind. In the morning, as a sop to my conscience, I’d talk to one of my police department pals. Maybe they wouldn’t mind tracking down the bus driver, find out if he remembered her and where she’d headed when she’d left the bus. Maybe I’d be the first woman on the moon—stranger things have happened.

It was well after ten when I finally sat down with my dinner. The chop was cooked to a turn, just pink inside, and the glazed mushrooms complemented it perfectly. I’d eaten about half of it when the phone rang. I debated letting it go, then thought of Elena. If she’d been trying to sell her ass on Clark Street it could be the cops wanting me to bail her out.

It was a police officer, but he didn’t know Elena and he was calling for purely personal reasons. At least partly personal reasons. I’d met Michael Furey when I went to the Mallorys’ last New Year’s Day for dinner. His father and Bobby had grown up together in Norwood Park. When Michael joined the police fresh out of junior college, Bobby kept an avuncular eye on him. In Chicago people look after their own, but Bobby is a scrupulously honorable cop—he wouldn’t use personal influence to promote a friend’s son’s career. The boy proved himself on his own, though; after fifteen years Bobby was glad to welcome him into the Violent Crimes Unit at the Central District.

For a while following the transfer Eileen invited the two of us up to dinner on a regular basis. She longed not so much for my second marriage as for my children—she kept trotting the brightest and best of the Chicago police by me in the hopes that one of them would look like good father material to me.

Eileen belonged to the generation that believes a guy with a good set of wheels is more appealing than one who can afford only a Honda. Furey had a little money— his father’s life insurance, he said, which he’d been able to invest—and he drove a silver Corvette. He was attractive and cheerful, and I did like driving the Corvette, but we didn’t have much except the Mallorys and a love of sports in common. Our relationship settled into an occasional trip to the Stadium or a ball game together. Eileen masked her disappointment but stopped the dinner invitations.

“Vic! Glad I caught you in,” Michael boomed cheerfully into my ear.

I finished chewing. “Hiya, Michael. What’s up?”

“Just got off shift. Thought I’d check in and see how you’re doing.”

“Why, Michael,” I said with mock sincerity, “how thoughtful of you. How long has it been—a month or so?-and you check in with me at ten P.M.?”

He laughed a little consciously. “Aw, heck, Vic. You know how it is. I got something to ask and I don’t want you taking it the wrong way.”

“Try me.”

“It’s—uh, well, just I didn’t know you were interested in county politics.”

“I’m not especially.” I was surprised.

“Ernie told me you’re listed as a sponsor for the Fuentes fund-raiser out at Boot’s farm on Sunday.”

“News sure do travel fast,” I said lightly, but I felt myself tensing in reflexive annoyance—I hate having my activities monitored. “How does Ernie know and why does he care?”

Ernie Wunsch and Ron Grasso had grown up with Michael on the northwest side. The odd political jobs they’d done as teenagers and young adults hadn’t hurt them any when they decided to join Ernie’s dad’s general contracting firm after college. Their company wasn’t one of the giants, but more and more often you saw cement trucks with Wunsch & Grasso’s red and green stripes at construction sites. Their biggest coup had been getting the bid on the Rapelec complex, an office-condo center under construction near the Gold Coast.

“I was afraid you’d take this the wrong way,” Michael said plaintively. “Ernie doesn’t care. He knows because he and his old man have done a certain amount of work for the county over the years. So of course he gets asked to all the fund-raisers. You know how it is in Chicago, Vic—if you do business with the city or the county, you gotta engage in a little reciprocity.”

I knew how it was.

“So of course they got an advance look at the program. And Ernie knows you and I are—well, friends. So he mentioned it. Not something you really need to get hot about.”

“No,” I agreed meekly. “It just takes me by surprise when two unconnected parts of my life suddenly hook up.”

“Know the feeling,” he agreed. “I just was wondering if I could go with you. I might attend anyway, since the boys are roping in as many victims as they can. If you’re going to be there …”

“Let me think about it,” I said, after a pause too long to be really polite. “Although—look, I wonder if you could do something for me.” I told him about Elena. “I don’t know much about her—what her hangouts are. And even though I don’t want her living with me, I’m a little worried. I’d kind of like to know she’s okay, wherever she is.”

“Christ, Vic, you don’t want much, do you? You know damned well there’s no way I can go to the CTA without a good reason. If I start checking routes and talking to drivers, their union’ll be at Uncle Bobby’s door within the hour screaming for my butt.”

“Maybe I should call Bobby in the morning, talk it over with him.” Besides being Michael’s godfather, Bobby Mallory had been my own father’s protégé and his best friend on the force. He might check up on Elena for Tony’s sake—I wouldn’t expect him to do it for mine.

“No, don’t do that,” Michael said hastily. “Tell you what—I’ll pass it on to the uniforms on Madison and the Near South Side, ask them to keep an eye out for her and call me if they see her.”

“I don’t want her being hassled,” I warned him.

“Cool your jets, Vic. Discretion is my middle name.”

“Yeah, right, and I’m the Queen of Sheba.”

He laughed. “So if I look into it, you’ll go to Boots’s with me on Sunday?”

“Something like that,” I admitted, blushing in spite of myself.

“I ought to run you in for trying to bribe a cop.” It was a grumble, but the tone was good-natured; he promised to call me tomorrow if he turned anything up. He arranged to meet me at three on Sunday; since he knew the way he offered to drive. I said I’d follow him in my own car—I didn’t want to hang around Boots Meagher’s farm until midnight while Michael caught up with his old precinct pals.

By the time we hung up my chop had gotten cold and the glazed wine sauce was congealed. I was too tired to heat it up again tonight. Sticking the plate in the refrigerator, I fell into bed and spent the night in uneasy dreams in which I chased Elena across Chicago, always just missing her as she boarded the eastbound Diversey bus.