V.I. Warshawski 04 - Bitter Medicine (29 page)

“It’s quite plausible. They may well have it under lock and key. But something occurred to me, Vic. You probably don’t know how to find the record if it’s still filed in with the others.”

“What-don’t I just look them up in alpha order?”

She shook her head. “Most hospitals file by terminal digit. You need to know the patient’s number-the number they give you when they admit you. The last two digits are what they sort by. So if you don’t know Consuelo’s number, you wouldn’t be able to find her record. Not without going through all of them, and that would take weeks.”

I rubbed my eyes. They probably do what-assign pa-tient numbers randomly by computer? So I need-to be able to query the system, find out what her number is. So all I need to do is crack their system. That sounds like it would take me longer than going through all the files by hand.“

She nodded sagely. “I know you, Vic. You’ll think of something.”

Thanks, Lotty. In my current doddering state, any votes of confidence are accepted with gratitude.“

We drove over to the hospital after paying the bill. Lotty went up on the patient floors with me so that I could see Mr. Contreras even though visiting hours were over. His scalp was wrapped in white, but he was sitting up in bed and watching the Cubs play a night game in Houston. When he saw me, his face lighted up and he switched off the set.

“What a relief to see you after watching those bums, doll. I’m telling you. Know what they need to do? They oughtta fire them all and bring in some real players. Heck, they could find nine guys from my old union team who could play better than that and do it for ten percent of the salaries these hotshots collect.

“So how are you? I really let you down, didn’t I, doll? You left me on guard and I blew it. Might as well have been that pansy doctor you been palling around with.”

I went over to the bed and kissed him. “You didn’t let me down. I’m the one who feels like a heel-letting you take a blow to the head trying to defend my stupid apartment. How are you feeling? You must have got the boys in Local Ten-oh-three to install a stainless-steel skull for you when you retired, to take two head blows in two weeks without flinching.”

He brightened. “Oh, yeah. This was nothing. You shoulda seen me in ‘fifty-eight. We were on strike then, nothing like anything you ever saw before. They tried sending some scabs in. I’rn telling you, World War Two wasn’t nothing by comparison and I was on Guam. I was concussed, broke my leg and three ribs. Clara thought for sure she was going to collect on my life insurance that time.”

His face clouded over. “How could a woman like Clara produce a kid like Ruthie? I ask you. She was the sweetest woman ever born and here’s this daughter of mine like a tub of pickles. She’s trying to make me go home with her. Says I’m not fit to live by myself and she’s going to get a court order or something, or that damned Joe Marcano she married is going to do it. Goddamn fruitcake is what he is, working in a women’s dress store. Course, he doesn’t have any balls, anyway. Letting himself be bossed around by a loudmouth like Ruthie, even if she is my daughter. Whatever you say, dear. Hah. If you’re an old man they treat you like you was a little kid.”

I smiled at him. “Maybe Dr. Herschel and I can help you with that one. If the hospital says you need to have someone looking after you for a while you can come home with me. If you don’t mind a few dirty dishes.”

“Oh, I can wash the dishes for you. I never did a lick of housework when Clara was alive, always thought it was women’s work, but tell you the truth, I kind of enjoy it. I like to cook. I’m a good cook, you know. Putting a recipe together is kind of like getting two plates to fit together just so.”

The nurses arrived to put a stop to the flow. The fact that two of them came showed how popular he was-nurses like to hang out with the more agreeable patients, and who can blame them? They joked with him about how he needed to go to sleep, not for his own sake but so that the other patients on the floor could get some rest. I kissed him goodnight, found Lotty outside the maternity ward, and bade her good-bye.

I made my way cautiously up the backstairs to my kitchen door. If my apartment had been invaded to find Monkfish’s papers, then I wasn’t in any real danger, but it would be stupid to take any chances. I had my gun in my hand all the way up. No one interrupted my climb. When I got to the top, I found the little marker I’d put in the metal grill just where I’d left it.

I went to bed and fell instantly to sleep, hoping that Lotty’s confidence would be justified by the appearance of some brilliant idea in my dreams. Whether inspiration shone in the night I had no way of telling. Before I could wake up in the slow way that helps you remember your dreams, my sleep was shattered by the telephone. I stretched out an arm and looked automatically at the dock readout: six-thirty. I was getting more sunrises this summer than I’d had in the last ten years put together.

“Ms. Warshawski. Not waking you, am I?” It was Detective Rawlings.

“You are, but I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather have do it than you, Detective.”

“I’m at the corner. Since your front door doesn’t work I figured it was easier to phone than ring the bell. I want to see you.”

“You been waiting up all night just for that?”

I’ve been up a lot of the night. You just weren’t at the top of my list.“

I stumbled into the kitchen and put on water for coffee. While the water boiled I washed up and slipped on jeans and a T-shirt. Because it was the cops I put on a bra-better not to be too informal.

Rawlings pounded on the kitchen door just as I was grinding the beans. I put them into the filter and went over to unlock the bolts. He didn’t need to tell me he’d been up most of the night; I’m a detective and I could tell. His black face was tinged slightly with the gray of fatigue and he’d clearly put on the shirt he’d worn the day before, badly wrinkled when he’d taken if off. Or maybe, like me, he threw his clothes on a chair where they tend to get a little more disheveled than they do in a closet.

I raised my eyebrows. “You don’t look too swell, Detective. Coffee?”

“Yeah, if you can promise me the cup’s been washed with soap.” He slumped down in a chair and said abruptly, “Where were you between eleven last night and one this morning?”

“My favorite kind of question. Justify yourself for no particular reason.” I turned to the refrigerator and started hunting for food. It was a dismal prospect.

“Warshawski, I know all about how you and Lieutenant Mallory interact. You clown and he gets red and starts blustering. I don’t have the patience for that. And I sure as hell don’t have the time for it.”

I found a pint of blueberries that could have saved the world if we’d run out of penicillin, and took them over to the garbage.

“If that’s what you think, you don’t know all about how we interact. You guys in the police get into habits. You get so used to having people shiver and answer whatever you choose to ask that you forget you don’t have a right to ask, or at least you don’t have a right to demand answers with no explanation. So when someone with a little more legal sophistication happens along, you get pissed because we stand more on our rights.

“If you have some creditable reason for wanting to know where I was last night, I’ll be glad to tell you. But for all I know, my ex-husband is trying to slander me and you’re helping out. Or you have the hots for me and are jealous of anyone else I might be dating.”

He shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead before taking another swallow of coffee. “Fabiano Hernandez was shot dead last night. The ME thinks it happened in that time window. I’m asking everyone who I know had a grudge against the little prick where they were. So where were you?”

“Gang shooting?”

He shrugged. “Could be, but I don’t think so. Doesn’t have the right signature. He was shot at close range, once, as he was leaving the bar he hung out at-El Gallo. Someone he knew. MightVe been Sergio. We’re pulling him in. MightVe been the dead Alvarado girl’s brothers. We’re talking to them. You and he weren’t too tight. I want to know if it was you.”

“I confess. Enraged with him for suing my good pal Dr. Herschel I shot him dead in the hopes his family would not realize the suit was part of his estate and that they could continue the action on his behalf.”

“Yeah, laugh, Warshawski. Someone should have a good time when there’s a dead punk and the police are up all night. It might as well be you. If I seriously believed you mightVe shot him, I’d be talking to you at the station, not drinking your coffee with no witnesses. Good coffee, by the way.”

Thanks, Viennese roast. I was here. Asleep. A rotten alibi, since I was asleep alone. No one called me.“

“You are early-to-bed, early-to-shine? Doesn’t fit your character.”

“Normally I am not,” I said formally. “But owing to the stresses of the last several days I’ve been short on sleep. I turned in at nine-thirty and slept until the phone rang.”

“You carry a gun, don’t you? What make?”

“Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter semi-automatic.‘’

He looked at me quietly. “I need to see it.”

“I won’t make you tell me why. I can guess. Fabiano was shot with a Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter semi-automatic.‘”

His gaze held mine a fractional second longer, then he nodded reluctantly.

I went to my bedroom and brought it out to him. “It hasn’t been fired in days, not since I took it down to the range to practice last week. But you’ll want to see that for yourself. May I have a receipt?”

He wrote it out gravely and handed it to me. “I don’t have to tell you not to leave town, do I?”

“No, Detective. Least, not as long as you mean the Chicagoland area, not just the city limits.”

He turned a smile into a grimace. “Lieutenant Mailory doesn’t know the half of it. Thanks for the coffee, Warshawski.”

I was pretty sick of the garbage in my kitchen. No breakfast there unless you were a rat or a cockroach and not too picky in your habits. I locked the back door and went over to the Belmont Diner. So what if I’d had fried potatoes for supper last night? I ate blueberry pancakes, a double order of bacon, lots of butter and syrup, and coffee. After all, once you’re dead, you’ve got all eternity in front of you to diet in.

Fabiano Hernandez shot. Like Stewart Alsop said, he should have died here before. It was too late now to do anyone any good. I read about it in the Herald-Star, but they didn’t give it much play-a little paragraph in “Chicago Beat,” not even the front page of the section. At least one teenager gets killed every day in Chicago and Fabiano hadn’t been a basketball star or a prize scholar for whom tear-jerking copy could be written.

Between the last of the pancakes and my third cup of coffee I figured out an approach for Friendship. It wasn’t exactly a work of genius, but I hoped it might do. I paid my bill and returned home. If the police were following me to breakfast and back, they were welcome. I didn’t care if they knew I wasn’t starving from guilt or grief.

I changed into a pale-olive summer suit with the gold silk shirt I’d had on the night before. Brown leather slingbacks, a leather portfolio, and I looked like the model for a middle-management training guide.

I was not happy to be without my Smith & Wesson. If Fabiano had been killed by a single shot at close range, it could not be palmed off as random violence. Not like Malcolm’s death. Fabiano might have been involved in all kinds of scummy activity I knew nothing about. But he’d been connected with the Lions, he’d been suing Friendship, and both of those outfits knew me and didn’t seem susceptible to the love mixed with awe I usually inspire. I would have to be doubly cautious now. Perhaps check into a hotel for a few days. And certainly make sure Mr. Contreras stayed in the hospital. The last thing I needed was for him to run between me and a bullet.