V.I. Warshawski: Hard Time Part 14

The trouble is, I am so vulnerable, I and my small company." His voice trailed away.

I knew that feeling. "Do you feel like telling me the odd thing you mentioned last week, or why you had a Lacey Dowell shirt in your plant?"

"I-they came-I made a couple on spec." He floundered for words. "It didn't get me anywhere. Global uses offsh.o.r.e labor, it's much cheaper than anything I can produce."

"Why didn't you want to tell me last night?"

He hesitated. "For personal reasons."

"To do with Lacey?" When he didn't say anything I added, "You didn't make the shirtdress Nicola Aguinaldo was wearing when she died, by any chance?"

He became totally quiet, so much so I could hear the tree toads croaking from the back of the house. Frenada gave me a hurried good night and hung up.

So he did know something about Nicola Aguinaldo's death. That was a sad and startling thought, but it wasn't as urgent for me at the moment as my own fury with Murray. Was that what he told Alex FisherFishbein I would do-plant evidence of a cocaine ring at SpecialT Uniforms? And then, when I didn't jump at their offer, he and Alex decided to move matters on by putting a rumor in the paper?

I called Murray. He wasn't at home-or at least he wasn't answering, and he wasn't at the office. I tried his cell phone.

"Vic! How in h.e.l.l did you get this number? I know d.a.m.ned well I never gave it to you."

"I'm a detective, Ryerson. Getting a cell phone number is child's play. It's the grownup stuff that has me baffled. What was the point of that charade you and Alex Fishbein acted out in my office last week?"

"It was not a charade. It was a serious offer to give you-"

"Some crumbs from Global's richly spread table. But when I didn't s.n.a.t.c.h the bait you took an easier tack and planted a story in that prize b.i.t.c.h Regine Mauger's ear. The last time she checked a source was probably 1943, but it doesn't matter if a column devoted to innuendo gets the facts wrong."

"How do you know they're wrong? How do you know he isn't smuggling c.o.ke in through his shirt factory?"

"So you did plant the story with her!" I was so furious I was spitting into the receiver.

"No, I didn't," he shouted. "But I read my own d.a.m.ned paper to see what they're printing. And yes, I usually get the early edition as soon as it's out. If you've made yourself the guy's champion you are going to have egg all over your smug face. And I for one will not be sorry to help plaster it there. My story will run on Friday, and it will sizzle."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Did going on TV make you feel checking facts was for little people? I looked into Frenada's finances when you and Sandy b.i.t.c.hbein came around last week. He's clean as a whistle."

"Clean as a whistle? One that's been in the sewer for a week. I did a priority check on Frenada when I learned Regine was running this little tidbit. Guy's got money parked all over the globe."

"Bulls.h.i.t," I screamed. "I looked him up on LifeStory on Sunday and he doesn't have a dime except the pittance that little Tshirt factory makes for him."

"No." Murray was suddenly quiet. "You didn't. You couldn't have. I just ran a check on him, a priorityone, two thousand bucks to turn it around in ten hours, and it's not true. He's got three accounts in Mexico that are worth a million five U.S. dollars each."

"Murray. I ran the check. I did at the deepest level of numbers. That's why I turned down b.i.t.c.hbein's offer."

"Her name is Fisher. Why you have a knot in your a.s.s about her-"

"Never mind that. Don't let her wave so many Golden Globes in front of you that you're too blinded to see the facts, Murray. And by the way, if you're planning on leading your story with, "There was egg all over smug V. I. Warshawski's face,' don't, because there won't be. I'm leaving town in the morning, but as soon as I get back I'll fax you a copy of that LifeStory report. If I were you, I'd hold off running your sizzle until you've seen it."

I hung up smartly and went back to packing my gun. I'd been feeling irritable about going to rural Georgia, but taking on some punks putting nails under truck tires was beginning to sound downright wholesome compared to what I was looking at here in Chicago.

I was too tired, and too agitated by Murray to figure out what was going on with all these people. If Frenada manufactured the dress Nicola was wearing when she died, how had she gotten it? Had he given it to someone at Carnifice? Given it to Nicola herself? Or to Alex Fisher?

And then there was Global. They wanted me to expose Frenada, then miraculously came up with a rumor about him and cocaine when I wouldn't do the job. I wished I'd known that when I saw Trant and Poilevy last night. It could have made the conversation livelier, although I suppose Alex would have kept them from saying much.

My brain swirled uselessly. It was way too much for me to figure out with the minute information I had. I snapped the gun case shut and filled out the forms I needed for the airline. Put jeans and some sweatshirts in an overnight bag with the gun and a small kit of basic toiletries, then packed the surveillance camera, some blank ca.s.settes, and a charger for the unit together with my maps in a briefcase. That should get me through a few nights away. A book for the flight. I was working my way through a history of Jews in Italy, trying to understand something of my mother's past. Maybe I'd get as far as Napoleon by the time I came home.

21.

We Serve and Protect I spent the next several nights on the back roads of Georgia, sitting in the pa.s.senger seat of a fully loaded thirtyton truck. The fleet manager, who looked authentic with a beer gut hanging over oilstained jeans, had ambled in as a replacement for a sick driver; I was his girlfriend who hopped on board once the truck left the yard, but with plenty of people to see it happen. To make a long story short, it gave us the right veneer of venality, and we were able to rope in the dispatcher without much trouble. He fingered three buddies and the plant manager. And it was all on film, which made it tidy. Continental United promised an appropriate expression of grat.i.tude-not the kind of bonus I might have snared from Alex Fisher, but enough to pay the Trans Am repairs and cover my mortgage for a couple of months.

When I got home Sat.u.r.day afternoon, I felt refreshed, the way one does from executing a job well. And the job had been so straightforward, none of the tangled web of weirdness of Baladine and Frenada and Global Entertainment.

Despite my pleasure at being away from all those strange people, the first thing I did, after greeting Mr. Contreras and the dogs, was skim the HeraldStar for the last few days to see whether Murray's story on Frenada and the drug ring had run. To my relief it hadn't. Murray apparently still had enough journalism left to wait for the facts. I would reward this good behavior-or try to guarantee its continuation-by going down to my office right now to fax him the LifeStory report on Frenada. I wanted to check my mail, anyway.

After taking the dogs to a pocketsize park in the neighborhood, I told my neighbor to fire up the grill, I'd be home for chicken and tomatoes in an hour.

I picked up my briefcase, the camera and videoca.s.settes still inside it, and drove the two miles south, humming "Voi che sapete" under my breath.

My happy mood disappeared as soon as I reached my office. I actually was halfway across the room before my brain registered the disaster. The deranged upheaval of papers on the floor wasn't because of me: someone had taken the place apart.

Had dumped papers out of drawers with a wanton hand. Unzipped covers from the couch cushions and left them on the floor. Poured a cup of coffee over the papers on the desk. I gaped dumbly for a long moment, not moving, not thinking.

Street vandals. Druggies who'd seen I was away and taken advantage. But the computer and printer remained. Anyone looking for quick cash or the equivalent would have taken those, and anyway, the average druggie wasn't sophisticated enough to bypa.s.s the number pad on the front door.

I felt ill, an uncontrollable shiver rising along my back. The violation was too extreme. Someone had been in my s.p.a.ce, had come in brazenly, made no effort to conceal it. Were they looking for something, or was this like smashing up hospitals in Zimbabwe-trying to terrify the civilian populace and destabilize the government?

My first impulse was like anyone's-call the cops, get away from the sickness as fast as possible. But if there was some signature in the mess that would tell me who had been there, I'd miss it if I let the cops look first. I sat on the arm of the couch, shaking, until I could control my legs enough to walk, then slid a bolt home on the inside of my office door. Someone-Baladine?-had proved he could get past the number pad on the front door without any trouble, but he'd have to break the inner door down to get past that bolt.

I zipped the cushions back into their covers. Even if I disturbed some vital piece of evidence, I needed to sit down. I wanted water too, but that meant going to the hall, to the refrigerator, and I didn't want to open my door until I felt safe inside my building.

What did I have that someone might want? Besides my computer, of course. My Isabel Bishop painting was the only valuable in the office. I got up and looked at the part.i.tion facing my desk. The painting had been tossed to the floor. I didn't touch it. The gla.s.s would show prints if any had been left.

Even Tessa absorbed in work would have responded to the racket made by this wantonness. Would the intruders have hurt Tessa? Again I wanted to run to the hall, run to look in her studio, but fear kept me locked inside.

I finally pulled my cell phone from my handbag and phoned Tessa's home. She lived with her parents in their Gold Coast duplex. Her mother answered, the rich contralto that worked magic in courtrooms around the country vibrating the airwaves.

"Victoria. How are you? I didn't recognize your voice."

"No, ma'am. I've had a bit of a shock. I just got in from out of town and found my office vandalized. I wanted to make sure Tessa was all right."

Mrs. Reynolds made the proper statements of alarm and concern but rea.s.sured me about Tessa. She had picked her daughter up at the studio for a cup of coffee around noon. Tessa was off for a weekend's sailing with friends, and Mrs.

Reynolds, back from a busy week in Washington, had wanted to see her alone for a few minutes.

"When the police come, have them examine her studio to make sure nothing's wrong in there. I've never liked her being that close to Humboldt Park. I don't care how big her lats are, as she keeps telling me, or how good you are in a fight, you two young women need to be in a safer part of town."

"You're probably right, ma'am," I agreed, as the easiest way to end the conversation.

I leaned back on the couch and shut my eyes. Imagined lying in Lake Michigan with the sun overhead until my breath was calm enough for me to think about my situation. If this were Baladine's work it could be an attempt to terrorize me, but if he were also looking for something what would it be? I thought through my conversations during the last week, with Frenada, with Alex. With Murray. The last name came most reluctantly to mind.

I'd told Murray about my LifeStory report on Frenada, that I had proof he was clean. But this was not Murray Ryerson's work. It could not be. Murray was a journalist. The story and the chase, wherever the road led you, that was what mattered to him. Global couldn't have destroyed that in him in a few weeks, he was better than that. Really, he was.

I was saying the same thing over and over in my mind, as if standing in front of the bench pleading his case. I needed to find the hard copy, if it was still there, although with the leisure to search my absence had guaranteed them, the intruders could have turned over every piece of paper in the room.

I shut my eyes and tried to remember what I'd done with the LifeStory printout.

I'd stuffed everything into a desk drawer, because I knew Mary Louise was going to be in using the desk, and unorganized stacks of files drove her mad. I opened the drawer. Many of the papers had been pulled out, exposing a box of tampons I kept there. They were rolling around in the drawer, and I automatically stuffed them back into the box. They wouldn't go in, so I picked up the carton, forgetting for the moment about evidence.

Inside was a plastic freezer bag filled with white powder. I stared at it, my numbed mind moving like a dog in quicksand. Cocaine. Maybe heroin-I wouldn't know one from the other. Someone wrecked my office and planted drugs in it. I didn't want to send it to a lab for testing, and I didn't want to explain it to the cops. I didn't want to explain it to anyone.

I leapt to my feet in a sudden frenzy and searched every drawer in the room, every light fixture, every crevice. I found two more bags-one taped inside the printer and the other tucked into a rip in the fabric underneath the couch.

I unbolted the door and ran down the hall to the bathroom, flushing and flushing until the powder was gone, until the bags-cut to pieces with Tessa's cuticle scissors-were gone, standing under the shower in my clothes, running hot water over me until I thought any treacherous trace of powder was gone. I got out and changed into a clean set of Tessa's work clothes. Hung my wet ones from a hook behind her studio entrance. A bubble of incipient hysteria made me want to leave a note on the refrigerator in our column. I took one pair of cuticle scissors and a pair of khakis and a Tshirt. Will replace ASAP.

Back in my office, I picked up the cell phone and called the cops. While I was waiting for them I put on a pair of latex gloves and looked gingerly through my papers. I had put the Frenada report in an old file, but I couldn't remember which. I could only remember thinking Mary Louise would have typed a fresh label at once. The squad car still hadn't shown when I came on the folder labeled Alumni Fund. The Frenada printout was still in there, along with the paramedics' report Max had faxed me from Beth Israel.

The police come slowly to this end of Wicker Park. On an impulse born of fear, I stuffed all the papers into a manila envelope, addressed them to Mr. Contreras, and went down the street to the mailbox at the corner of Western and North.

Elton was standing there with his usual ingratiating smile: I will not hurt you, I am your friend, help me out. He started his usual patter: "Streetwise, miss. Get your update on hot bands in Chicago this weekend. Find a nice place for your boyfriend-oh, evening, Vic. You been away?"

I gave him a five and took a paper. "Been away. Someone broke into the office while I was gone. You notice anyone strange hanging out the last few nights?"

Elton scrunched up his face in earnest thought but shook his head regretfully.

"But I'll be on the lookout now, Vic, you can count on that. G.o.d bless you, Vic.

. . .Streetwise, sir. Now, how about a list of all the hot new bands in this area, place to take your best girl . . ."

Blue strobes were dancing toward me along North Avenue. I hurried back up Leavitt and got to my office as a blueandwhite pulled up. A young pair stepped out, black woman, white man. The perfect TV copshow pair. I showed them mutely what I'd come on.

"You didn't touch anything, did you, ma'am?" the woman asked, following me into the office.

"I-uh, I put the covers back on the couch." Somehow that seemed the worst thing.

"I tried not to touch any papers, but I'm not sure. Anyway, my prints are on everything. Mine and my a.s.sistant's."

The male half of the team was on his radio summoning additional troops. It's something cops love to do. The work has so much tedium that when one of them finds something, the others all get invited to look. In ten minutes they had a whole battalion in place.

I was answering questions from the pair who took the call-was anything missing, had the lock been forced, how long had I been out of town-when a plainclothes team arrived. A thin, triumphant voice demanded to know if the crew had searched the premises.

"I don't think the perp is on the premises, Sergeant," the woman said.

"Not for the perp, for drugs. We've got information that Warshki is dealing."

Craning my neck, I saw Detective Lemour. He was wearing the same brown polyester suit he'd had on the first time I saw him, unless he'd bought a closetful on sale at WalMart.

I stood up. "Sergeant Lummox. What a coincidence. I didn't know you worked burglary."

"It's Lemour, and I don't work burglary, I work violent crimes. I told you I'd be on you like your underwear, but you went on across that line, Warshki, the one we knew you danced on, and we've got you dead to rights."

"What are you talking about, Lemming? Since when is it a crime in this town to be the victim of a major breakin?"

The woman on the team coughed to cover a laugh, while her male partner stood as solemnly as if he'd been embalmed.

"It's not a crime, if it really happened." He showed his row of little pike's teeth in a vindictive smile.

"If it really happened? Sergeant, I trust you have a tech unit on the way here to take prints, because if you don't I am going to be raising a serious complaint with the police review board. And if you accuse me in front of witnesses of dealing in drugs, then I will also sue you as a private citizen for slander."

"You do that, Warshki, but I have a redhot tip that you've got a half kilo of powder right here on the premises. And you schmucks can stop grinning behind your hands and search this office. Now."

For the next twenty minutes, seven uniformed people turned my office over. The papers that the original invaders hadn't tossed joined the landfill in the middle of the room. I sat with my arms crossed, my lips tight with anger-and my heart thumping erratically. What if I had missed a niche? I hadn't climbed a ladder to deal with the ceiling fixtures-I'd only checked the lower ones, the spotlights and lamps that I'd installed when I moved in.

I was fuming with an impotent rage, wishing I could get him on film, when I remembered the surveillance camera in my briefcase. I picked it up from the floor next to the couch and pulled the gla.s.ses out. Lemour watched me closely, but when he saw I was only putting on gla.s.ses he turned his head away. In that brief moment I reached into my case and fumbled with the battery pack. After two nights in the dark roads of Luella County I could load it blindfolded. I put in a new tape and started recording, following the team's destructive swath through the room, but focusing mostly on Lemour.

Lemour himself went to my printer and pulled out the cartridge. When he didn't find the bag of powder he dropped the cartridge, leaving a sooty trail on the floor, and banged the printer on its side. Twelve hundred dollars of Hewlett Packard's best work. I hoped it would survive mauling.

Scowling with fury, he marched to the couch and yanked me to my feet. He ran a hand underneath, found the slit in the bottom, fumbled inside it. When he came up empty he bared his pike's teeth in an ugly grimace. He ordered two of the uniforms to turn the couch over. He ripped the fabric completely off the bottom and started prodding the interior.

At that point I pushed past him and went to the desk to beep my lawyer.

"Freeman," I said to his machine. "It's V. I. Warshawski. The cop who was hara.s.sing me last week is in my office. I had a breakin; he came around accusing me of dealing drugs. And now he's ripped my couch and is wreaking havoc with my papers. If you get this message I'd appreciate your earliest possible response."

Lemour's thin lips were a line of rage. He shoved the uniforms out of the way and yanked the phone from my hand, then slapped my face hard with his open palm.

I kept my arms at my side through an effort of will so intense that my shoulders ached.

"You think you're smart, don't you, Warshki?" he hissed.

"Phi beta kappa my junior year at Chicago. That's usually for smart people, Lemming." I was taking singer's breaths, pushing air to the front of my mouth, keeping my voice light so that no cracks of fury showed in it.

He slapped the other side of my face. "Well, you're not as smart as you think you are. If I have to take this room apart brick by brick, I will find where you put that stash. I know it's here, you smarta.s.sed broad. Cuff her while you finish searching," he added to the woman who'd answered my original call.

She couldn't look at me. Her dark face turned purplyblack with shame as she locked my wrists together; she muttered, "I'm sorry," through lips that barely moved.

The gla.s.ses had slipped off my face at a c.o.c.keyed angle. She settled them back on my nose. My neck ached. Tension. Or maybe whiplash from the force of Lemour's blows.

The crew went through the room, then the hall and the bathroom. Brick by brick.

Lemour watched, patches of red on his white cheeks, spittle forming around his mouth. I kept my video gla.s.ses on him as best I could with my arms hooked to a radiator coil.

When the team didn't find the drugs, I thought Lemour was going to go over the brink and choke me. He may have thought so too, but his cell phone rang before he could do it.

"Lemour," he snarled. "Oh . . . no, sir, it wasn't . . . we did, sir, all three places . . . b.i.t.c.h must've . . . I did, sir, but I couldn't be here twentyfour hours a day . . . I could still bring her in . . . I see. You can?" His pike's teeth showed in an unpleasant grin. "I'll look forward to that, sir."

He put the phone back in his pocket and turned to me. "Your lucky day, Warshki.