“I hate to seem like a vulture-I know she’s only been dead a few hours. But I saw in this morning’s paper that someone might be trying to take over Ajax. If that’s true, the price should keep going up, shouldn’t it? Maybe this is a good time to get into the stock. I was thinking of ten thousand shares. Agnes was going to check with you and see what you know about it.”
At today’s prices, a customer buying ten thousand shares had a good half million to throw around. Bugatti treated me with commensurate respect. He took me into an office made tiny by piles of paper and told me all he knew about a potential Ajax takeover: nothing. After twenty minutes of discoursing on the insurance industry and other irrelevancies, he offered to introduce me to one of the other partners who would be glad to do business with me. I told him I needed some time to adjust to the shock of Miss Paciorek’s death, but thanked him profusely for his help.
Miss Vargas was back at her makeshift desk when I returned to the floor. She shook her head worriedly when I appeared. “I find no list of the kind you’re looking for. At least not on top of her desk. I’ll keep looking if the police let me back in her office”-she made a contemptuous face-”but maybe you should get the names elsewhere if you can.”
I agreed and called Roger from her phone. He was in a meeting. I told the secretary this was more important than any meeting he could be in and finally bullied her into bringing him to the phone. “I won’t keep you, Roger, but I’d like another copy of those names you gave Agnes. Can you call Barrett and ask him to express mail them to you? Or to me? I could get them on Saturday if he sent them out tomorrow morning.”
“Of course! I should have thought of that myself. I’ll call him right now.”
Miss Vargas was still staring at me hopefully. I thanked her for her help and told her I’d be in touch. When I walked past Agnes’s roped-off office I saw the detectives still toiling away at papers. It made me glad to be a private investigator.
That was about the only thing I was glad about all day. It was four o’clock and snowing when I left the Dearborn Tower. By the time I picked up the Omega the traffic had congealed; early commuters trying to escape expressway traffic had immobilized the Loop.
I wished I hadn’t agreed to stop in on Phyllis Lording. I’d started the day exhausted; by the time I’d left Mallory’s office at eleven I was ready for bed.
As it turned out, I wasn’t sorry I went. Phyllis needed help dealing with Mrs. Paciorek. I was one of her few friends who knew Agnes’s mother and we talked long and sensibly about the best way to treat neurotics.
Phyllis was a quiet, thin woman several years older than Agnes and me. “It’s not that I feel possessive about Agnes. I know she loved me-I don’t need to own her dead body. But I have to go to the funeral. It’s the only way to make her death real.”
I understood the truth of that and promised to get the details from the police if Mrs. Paciorek wouldn’t reveal them to me.
Phyllis’s apartment was on Chestnut and the Drive, a very posh neighborhood just north of the Loop overlooking Lake Michigan. Phyllis also felt depressed because she knew she couldn’t afford to keep the place on her salary as a professor. I sympathized with her, but I was pretty sure Agnes had left her a substantial bequest. She’d asked me to lunch one day last summer shortly after she’d redone her will. I wondered idly if the Pacioreks would try to overturn it.
It was close to seven when I finally left, turning down Phyllis’s offer of supper. I had been too overloaded with people for one day. I needed to be alone. Besides, Phyllis believed eating was just a duty you owed your body to keep it alive. She maintained hers with cottage cheese, spinach, and an occasional boiled egg. I needed comfort food tonight.
I drove slowly north. The thickly falling snow coagulated the traffic even after rush hour. All food starting with p is comfort food, I thought: pasta, potato chips, pretzels, peanut butter, pastrami, pizza, pastry… By the time I reached the Belmont exit I had quite a list and had calmed the top layer of frazzle off my mind.
I needed to call Lotty, I realized. By now she would have heard the news about Agnes and would want to discuss it. Remembering Lotty made me think of her uncle Stefan and the counterfeit securities. That reminded me in turn of my anonymous phone caller. Alone in the snowy night his cultured voice, weirdly devoid of any regional accent, seemed full of menace. As I parked the Omega and headed into my apartment building, I felt frail and very lonely.
The stairwell lights were out. This was not unusual-our building super was lazy at best, drunk at worst. When his grandson didn’t come round, a light often went unchanged until one of the tenants gave up in exasperation and took care of it.
Normally, I would have made my way up the stairs in the dark but the night ghosts were too much for me. I went back to the car and pulled a flashlight from the glove compartment. My new gun was inside the apartment, where it could do me the least good. But the flashlight was heavy. It would double as a weapon if necessary.
Once in the building I followed a trail of wet footprints to the second floor, where a group of De Paul students lived. The melted snow ended there. Obviously I’d let my nerves get the better of me, a bad habit for a detective.
I started up the last flight at a good clip, playing the light across the worn shiny stairs. At the half landing to the third floor, I saw a small patch of wet dirt. I froze. If someone had come up with wet feet and wiped the stairs behind him, he might have left just such a small, streaky spot.
I flicked off the light and wrapped my muffler around my neck and face with one arm. Ran up the stairs fast, stooping low. As I neared the top I smelled wet wool. I flung myself at it, keeping my head tucked down on my chest. I met a body half again as big as mine. We fell over in a heap, with him on the bottom. Using the flashlight I smashed where I thought his jaw should be. It connected with bone. He gave a muffled shriek and tore himself away. I pulled back and started to kick when I sensed his arm coming up toward my face. I ducked and fell over in a rolling ball, felt liquid on the back of my neck underneath the muffler. Heard him tearing down the stairs, half slipping.
I was on my feet starting to follow when the back of my neck began burning as though I’d been stung by fifty wasps. I pulled out my keys and got into the apartment as quickly as I could. Double-bolting the door behind me, I ran to the bathroom shedding clothes. I kicked off my boots but didn’t bother with my stockings or trousers and leaped into the tub. Turning the shower on full force, I washed myself for five minutes before taking a breath.
Soaking wet and shivering I climbed out of the tub on shaking legs. The mohair scarf had large round holes in it. The collar of the crepe-de-chine jacket had dissolved. I twisted around to look at my back in the mirror. A thin ring of red showed where the skin had been partially eaten through. A long fat finger of red went down my spine. Acid burn.
I was shaking all over now. Shock, half my mind thought clinically. I forced myself out of wet slacks and pantyhose and wrapped up in a large towel that irritated my neck horribly. Tea is good for shock, I thought vaguely, but I hate tea; there wasn’t any in my house. Hot milk-that would do, hot milk with lots of honey. I was shaking so badly I spilled most of it on the floor trying to get it into a pan, and then had a hard time getting the burner lighted. I stumbled to the bedroom, pulled the quilt from the bed, and wrapped up in it. Back in the kitchen I managed to get most of the milk into a mug. I had to hold the cup close to my body to keep from spilling it all over me. I sat on the kitchen floor draped in blanketing and gulped down the scalding liquid. After a while the shakes eased. I was cold, my muscles were cramped and aching, but the worst was over.
I got stiffly to my feet and walked on leaden legs back to the bedroom. As best I could I rubbed Vaseline onto the burn on my back, then got dressed again. I piled on layers of heavy clothes and still felt chilly. I turned on the radiator and squatted in front of it as it banged and hissed its way to heat.
When the phone rang I jumped; my heart pounded wi
ldly. I stood over it fearfully, my hands shaking slightly. On the sixth ring I finally answered it. It was Lotty.
“Lotty!” I gasped.
She had called because of Agnes, but demanded at once to know what the trouble was. She insisted on coming over, brusquely brushing aside my feeble protests that the attacker might still be lurking outside.
“Not on a night like this. And not if you broke his jaw.”
She was at the door twenty minutes later. “So, Liebchen. You’ve been in the wars again.” I clung to her for a few minutes. She stroked my hair and murmured in German and I finally began to warm up. When she saw that I’d stopped shivering she had me take off my layers of swaddling. Her strong fingers moved very gently along my neck and upper spine, cleaning off the Vaseline and applying a proper dressing.
“So, my dear. Not very serious. The shock was the worst part. And you didn’t drink, did you? Good. Worst possible thing for shock. Hot milk and honey? Very good. Not like you to be so sensible.”
Talking all the while she went out to the kitchen with me, cleaned the milk from the floor and stove, and set about making soup. She put on lentils with carrots and onions and the rich smell filled the kitchen and began reviving me.
When the phone rang again, I was ready for it. I let it ring three times, then picked it up, my recorder switched on. It was my smooth-voiced friend. “How are your eyes, Miss Warshawski? Or Vic, I should say-I feel I know you well.”
“How is your friend?”
“Oh, Walter will survive. But we’re worried about you, Vic. You might not survive the next time, you know. Now be a good girl and stay away from Rosa and St. Albert ’s. You’ll feel so much better in the long run.” He hung up.
I played the tape back for Lotty. She looked at me soberly. “You don’t recognize the voice?”
I shook my head. “Someone knows I was at the priory yesterday, though. And that can only mean one thing: One of the Dominicans has to be involved.”
“Why, though?”
“I’m being warned off the priory,” I said impatiently. “Only they know I was there.” A terrible thought struck me and I began shivering again. “Only they, and Roger Ferrant.”
XII
Funeral Rites
L0TTY INSISTED ON spending the night. She left early in the morning for her clinic, begging me to be careful. But not to drop the investigation. “You’re a Jill-the-Giant-Killer,” she said, her black eyes worried. “You are always taking on things that are too big for you, and maybe one day you will take on one big thing too many. But that is your way. If you weren’t living so, you would have a long unhappy life. Your choice is for the satisfied life, and we will hope it, too, is a long one.”
Somehow these words did not cheer me up.
After Lotty left, I went down to the basement where each tenant has a padlocked area. With aching shoulders I pulled out boxes of old papers and knelt on the damp floor sorting through them. At last I found what I wanted-a ten-year-old address book.
Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Paciorek lived on Arbor Drive in Lake Forest. Fortunately their unlisted phone number hadn’t changed since 1974. I told the person who answered that I would speak to either Dr. or Mrs. Paciorek, but was relieved to get Agnes’s father. Although he’d always struck me as a cold, self-absorbed man, he’d never shared his wife’s personal animosity toward me. He believed his daughter’s problems stemmed from her own innate willfulness.
“This is V. I. Warshawski, Dr. Paciorek. I’m very sorry about Agnes. I’d like to come to her funeral. Can you tell me when it will be?”
“We’re not making a public occasion of it, Victoria. The publicity around her death has been bad enough without turning her funeral into a media event.” He paused. “My wife thinks you might know something about who killed her. Do you?”
“If I did, you can be sure I would tell the police, Dr. Paciorek. I’m afraid I don’t. I can understand why you don’t want a lot of people or newspapers around, but Agnes and I were good friends. It matters a lot to me to pay my last respects to her.”
He hemmed and hawed, but finally told me the funeral would be Saturday at Our Lady of the Rosary in Lake Forest. I thanked him with more politeness than I felt and called Phyllis Lording to let her know. We arranged to go together in case the Knights of Columbus were posted at the church door to keep out undesirables.
I didn’t like the way I was feeling. Noises in my apartment were making me jump, and at eleven, when the phone rang, I had to force myself to pick it up. It was Ferrant, in a subdued mood. He asked if I knew where Agnes’s funeral was being held, and if I thought her parents would mind his coming.
“Probably,” I said. “They don’t want me there and I was one of her oldest friends. But come anyway.” I told him the time and place and how to find it. When he asked if he could accompany me, I told him about Phyllis. “She probably isn’t up to meeting strangers at Agnes’s funeral.”
He invited me to dinner, but I turned that down, too. I didn’t really believe Roger would hire someone to throw acid at me. But still… I had eaten dinner with him the same day I’d made my first trip to the priory. It was the next day that Rosa decided to back out of the case. I wanted to ask him, but it sounded too much like Thomas Paciorek asking me on my honor as a Girl Scout if I’d helped kill his daughter.
I was scared, and I didn’t like it. It was making me distrust my friends. I didn’t know where to start looking for an acid thrower. I didn’t want to be alone, but didn’t know Roger well enough to be with him.
At noon, as I walked skittishly down Halsted to get a sandwich, an idea occurred to me that might solve both my immediate problems. I phoned Murray from the sandwich shop.
“I need to talk to you,” I said abruptly when he came to the phone. “I need your help.”
He must have sensed my mood, because he didn’t offer any of his usual wisecracks, agreeing to meet me at the Golden Glow at five.
At four-thirty I changed into a navy wool pantsuit, and stuck a toothbrush, the gun, and a change of underwear in my handbag. I checked all the locks, and left by the back stairs. A look around the building told me my fears were unwarranted; no one was lying in wait for me. I also checked the Omega carefully before getting in and starting it. Today at least I was not going to be blown to bits.
I got stuck in traffic on the Drive and was late to the Golden Glow. Murray was waiting for me with the early edition of the Herald-Star and a beer.
“Hello, V. I. What’s up?”
“Murray, who do you know who throws acid on people he doesn’t like?”
“No one. My friends don’t do that kind of thing.”
“Not a joke, Murray. Does it ring a bell?”
“Who do you know had acid thrown at them?”
“Me.” I turned around and showed him the back of my neck where Lotty had dressed the burn. “He was trying for my eyes but I was expecting it and turned away in time. The thrower’s name is probably Walter, but the man who got him to throw it-that’s who I want.”
I told him about the threats, and the fight, and described the voice of the man who had called. “ Murray, I’m scared. I don’t scare easily, but-Jesus Christ! The thought of some maniac out there trying to blind me! I’d rather take a bullet in the head.”
He nodded soberly. “You’re stepping on the feet of someone with bunions, V. I., but I don’t know whose. Acid.” He shook his head. “I’d be sort of tempted to say Rodolpho Fratelli, but the voice doesn’t sound right-he’s got that heavy, grating voice. You can’t miss it.”
Fratelli was a high-ranking member of the Pasquale family. “Maybe someone who works for him?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ll get someone to look into it. Can I do a story on your attack?”
I thought about it. “You know, I haven’t been to the police. I guess I’m too angry with Bobby Mallory.” I sketched my interview with him for Murray. “But maybe it will make my anonymous caller a little more cautious if he sees there’s a b
ig universe out there keeping an eye open for him… The other thing is-I’m kind of embarrassed to ask this, but the truth is, I’m not up to a night alone. Can I crash with you?”
Murray looked at me for a few seconds, then laughed. “You know, Vic, it’s worth the earful I’ll get canceling my date just to hear you plead for help. You’re too fucking tough all the time.”
“Thanks, Murray. Glad to make your day.” I wasn’t liking myself too well when he went off to the telephone. I wondered what column this went under: taking prudent precautions, or being chicken?
We went to dinner at the Officers’ Mess, a romantic Indian restaurant on Halsted, and then dancing at Bluebeard’s. As we were climbing into bed at one, Murray told me he’d sicced a couple of reporters on digging up information about acid throwers.
I got up early Saturday and left Murray still asleep-I needed to change for Agnes’s funeral. All was still quiet at my apartment, and I began to think I was letting fear get far too much the better of me.
Changing into the navy walking suit, this time with a pale gray blouse and navy pumps, I took off to collect Lotty and Phyllis. It was only 10 degrees out, and the sky was overcast again. I was shivering with cold by the time I got back into the car-I needed to replace my mohair shawl.
Lotty was waiting in her doorway dressed in black wool, for once dignified enough to be a doctor. She didn’t say much on the drive down to Chestnut Street. When we got to the condo, she got out to fetch Phyllis, who didn’t look as if she’d slept or eaten in the two days since I’d seen her last. The skin on her pale, fine-boned face was drawn so tightly I thought it might crack, and she had bluish shadows under her eyes. She was wearing a white wool suit with a pale yellow sweater. I had a vague idea that those were mourning colors in the Orient. Phyllis is a very literary person and she would pay tribute to a dead lover with some kind of mourning that only another scholar would understand.
Killing Orders Page 10