My brows shot up in surprise, but I followed her to the front door. Murray was outside with Alex Fisher. She had on skintight jeans and a big mesh shirt, which revealed not only her Lycra tube–top but the sharp points of her breastbone. As she and Murray came in, I glanced at Alex–Sandy’s feet, but of course if she owned Ferragamos with a missing emblem she wouldn’t have them on.
Murray stopped to talk to Tessa. “Sorry you couldn’t make it to the Glow Tuesday night. You missed a great evening.”
Tessa gave him the kind of polite brush–off she’d learned from her years jetting around the world with her wealthy parents. I always envy someone who doesn’t have to go to the jugular. As I promptly did.
“Sandy—sorry I didn’t recognize you right away Tuesday night. You looked a lot different when you were urging us all to the barricades back in law school.”
She flashed an empty smile. “I’m Alex now, not Sandy—another one of the changes in my life.”
She surveyed my office with frank interest. I’d divided my share of the warehouse into smaller spaces with pasteboard partitions, not because I need a lot of rooms but because I wanted some human scale to the place. Aside from that and good quality lighting, I hadn’t invested heavily in furnishings.
Alex–Sandy seemed to be preening herself, perhaps imagining her own office by contrast, when her eyes widened at a painting on the partition facing my desk. “Isn’t that an Isabel Bishop? How did you come by it?”
“I stole it from the Art Institute. Do you want to sit down? Would you like something to drink?” An elderly woman whose grandson had been stripping her assets gave me the Bishop in lieu of a fee, but that didn’t seem to be any of Alex–Sandy’s business.
“Oh, Vic, you always had a bizarre sense of humor. It’s coming back to me now. Do you have Malvern water? It’s hideously hot out—I’d forgotten Chicago summers.”
“Malvern?” I stopped on my way to the refrigerator. “Did you introduce BB Baladine to that, or the other way around?”
“I didn’t know you knew Bob. I think it’s something we probably both learned from Teddy Trant. He spends a lot of time in England. Do you have any?” It was said smoothly, and it was even plausible.
She sat on a stool next to the table where Peppy was lying. The dog had gotten up to greet her and Murray, but something in my tone must have sounded a warning, because she crawled under my desk.
I offered Alex–Sandy a choice of tap water or Poland Springs, which is cheap and no different from the foreign imports as far as I can tell. Murray took iced tea, which Tessa makes fresh and drinks by the gallon when she’s working. We share a refrigerator out in the hall and write scrupulous notes about who’s taken what from whose shelves.
“Murray says you’ve become a private investigator,” Sandy said when I’d sat at my desk. “It seems like strange work for someone with your education. Did you get tired of the law? I can totally understand that, but my own fantasies run more to retiring to a ranch.”
“You know how it goes, Sandy—Alex—middle age comes on and you revert to your roots. You left the barricades for the boardroom; I couldn’t stay away from my cop–father’s blue–collar work.” I turned to Murray. “Sandy was always on my butt for not joining protest movements with her. She kept telling me that a blue–collar girl—whatever that is—should be in the forefront of organizing struggles.”
“You have to learn to move on from those old battles. These are the nineties, after all. Anyway, Murray suggested your name when we were mulling over how to help Lacey with a sticky situation.”
A crumb from the Global table. Maybe Murray had been as embarrassed as I by our conversation the other night and was trying a subtle amend. I could see him at dinner with Alex–Sandy. At the Filigree, or perhaps Justin’s, the hot new hole on west Randolph, Murray leaning across the table toward Alex’s modest cleavage: You know V. I., you know what a prickly bitch she’s always been. But she did the legwork on a couple of the stories that built my reputation and I hate to leave her standing in the dust. Isn’t there something Global needs that would give her a break?
“Global has a gazillion lawyers, detectives, and strong–armed types to protect their stars.” I wasn’t hungry enough yet for a crumb, I guess.
“It’s a little trickier than that,” Murray said, “at least as I understand it. Since you were at the Glow on Tuesday, maybe you saw the problem.”
“Lucian Frenada,” Alex said briskly. “He and Lacey had a boy–girl kind of understanding twenty years ago, and he won’t accept that it’s over, that Lacey’s moved on and he has to also.”
I stared at her blankly. “And?”
“And we want you to make that clear to him, clear that he has to stop harassing her, calling her, or hunting her out in public.” Alex spoke with an irritability that definitely hadn’t changed from her old harangues.
“I don’t do bodyguard work. I’m a one–woman shop. I have people I call on for support, but if you want guaranteed protection you need to go to an outfit like Carnifice.”
“It’s not a bodyguard kind of situation.” Alex looked around for a table and put her drink on the couch next to her. “She says she’s not afraid of him, but that he’s embarrassing her.”
I made a face. “Murray, if this was your idea of a favor, take it somewhere else. If she’s not afraid of him, she can talk to him. If he’s bugging her, the studio has the muscle to make him back off.”
“You didn’t used to be stupid in law school,” Alex snapped. “If it was that simple we’d be doing it. They were childhood friends, stood up for each other when the rest of the street harassed them for being geeks. She can’t bear for his feelings to be hurt, because he rescued her at least once from some serious bangers in the stairwell. Beyond that, the guy is a kind of model enterprise–zone leader. If it looks like a big corporation is persecuting him, we’ll have a lot of hostility in the Spanish press, and of course that would be damaging for Lacey’s image.”
Murray was fidgeting with his glass. Something about the picture was making him ill at ease, whether Alex’s condescension or my snappishness or the assignment as a whole I had no way of knowing.
“He owns a business?” I asked. “What kind?”
“Gimmicky clothes,” Murray said. “Uniforms for kids’ teams, specialty T–shirts, that sort of thing. He started out doing the soccer uniforms at St. Remigio’s and moved on. He employs a lot of people right there in the neighborhood. On their old street he’s the second–biggest hero, right behind Lacey.”
“So what do you want me to do? Burn down his factory so that he has so much to worry about he leaves Lacey alone?” To my annoyance, Alex–Sandy seemed to be considering this smart–ass suggestion. “Lacey’s going back to Hollywood, he’s staying here, it’s not a problem.”
“It’s image, Vic,” Alex snapped. “Lacey’s going to be in town for eight weeks—they’re shooting Virgin Six here this summer. We can’t have him harassing her, and we can’t put him down hard. Why don’t you look into his affairs, see if he’s cut some corners someplace, see if we can’t offer him a little quid pro quo: leave Lacey alone and we won’t report you. If you turned up something, Global would be very grateful, and they have the resources to express their gratitude.”
I leaned back in my chair and studied them. Murray had stopped playing with his glass in favor of mutilating his napkin. Gray balls of wet paper were falling on his jeans. Alex was staring at me with an arrogant impatience that I found exasperating.
“I’m not manufacturing evidence of a crime or misdemeanor, even if it means so much to Global they give me the residuals for Virgin Six.“
“Of course not, Vic.” Alex bristled. “I’m not asking for that—but for you to fish. What’s your usual fee?”
“A hundred an hour plus nonoverhead expenses.”
She laughed. “I’d forgotten how honest you always were. Most people double or triple a number when a studio lawyer comes to visit.”
Meaning a hundred was so low it had to be the truth.
“We’ll double your fee if you’ll make this a priority. And throw in a high five–figure bonus if you come up with something we can use. Here are Frenada’s addresses and phone numbers.”
“Not so fast, Sandy.” Like Aisha’s father this morning, I let the proferred paper fall between us. “I need to think it over, and I’d have to talk to Ms. Dowell to see if she has the same take on the story you do.”
Alex–Sandy pursed her lips. “We’d rather Lacey wasn’t involved.”
My jaw dropped. “If she’s not involved, then what on God’s green earth is all this fuss about?”
Murray coughed, a deferential sign so out of his normal character that my irritability increased. “Vic, let me put it bluntly. You can talk to Lacey, of course, and get her read on Frenada. What we’re trying to avoid, or what Global is trying to avoid, is any hint that they’re beating up on Lacey’s old friends.
“No one wants you to manufacture anything. And no one who knows you would imagine that you ever would. As I made clear to Alex when we were talking about this last night. But if you do find something that the studio can use as a bargaining chip with Frenada, then we’d—they’d—prefer Lacey didn’t know it was because of Global that things got resolved. And we don’t want it in the papers.”
“Seems to me Teddy Trant can decide that,” I said, not trying to keep sarcasm out of my voice.
“Teddy only controls one paper and one television station, and anyway, the business side doesn’t dictate to the editorial,” Alex–Sandy said.
“Yeah, and the pope has no affect on the parish churches around here. I’ll think about it and let you know. Of course, if I agree to work on it, Global signs the contract. Not you. And not Murray as your front man.” I barely kept “your stooge” from popping out.
“Come on, Vic, you know me. And Murray’s a witness.”
“We’re going to flap our little Phoenix neckties and shout the Chicago fight song to prove our loyalty to each other? We went to law school on the South Side of Chicago, not to Eton. Maybe the South Side has stuck to me more than the law, but one of the things Professor Carmichael pounded into our heads was the importance of written contracts for business agreements.”
Her wide mouth flattened into a hard line, but at last she said, “Think it over. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not making a decision that fast. I have some urgent projects in hand that I have to finish before I can consider yours. Which is why I’m working on a Sunday. By the way, Murray, what made you drop by here today? You can’t possibly have expected to find me in.”
Alex answered for him. “Oh, we stopped at your apartment first, but the old man said you were here. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to hear his description of you. As Murray can tell you, it’s likely to be colorful and unstinting.”
Why did I have to show hackle every time my fur was ruffled? No sooner had I asked myself that pointed question than I called to Murray, who was following Alex–Sandy through the door, “Was it Justin’s or Filigree where you cooked this up?”
He turned and cocked a sandy eyebrow at me. “You wouldn’t be showing some jealousy there, would you, Warshawski?”
15 Family Picnic
I stared at the computer for a while, but I couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for the Georgia trucking problem. Murray’s last remark rankled. Which meant there might be a grain of truth to it. Not that I was jealous of women he dated, danced, slept with. But we’d worked together for so long we had the shared jokes and shortcuts of old comrades. It did hurt to see him more in tune with someone like Alex Fisher–Fishbein than me. I had character, after all. All she had was power, money, and glamour.
Murray was an investigative reporter. He had the same sources I did—sometimes even better ones—for uncovering dope on entrepreneurs around town. Maybe he was offering Frenada to me as a chance to make some real money. Or because he felt guilty for selling himself to Global. Maybe I should be grateful, but all I felt was queasy.
Alex’s reason for coming to me instead of the studio’s usual security detail made a kind of sense, but not enough. When I’d talked to Frenada briefly at the Golden Glow, he’d seemed personable, quiet, not a masher. Still, one is forever reading about serial killers who seemed quiet and normal to their neighbors. And it’s true, I myself had watched Frenada accost Lacey in the middle of the Golden Glow. If he was really a stalker, then Alex was being pretty cavalier about danger to Lacey. If he wasn’t, then Global had some agenda that was going to get me in a pack of trouble if I took on their dirty work.
Frenada had said at the party that maybe I could help him—that something odd was happening in his office. My own upheaval around Nicola Aguinaldo had driven my conversation with him far from my mind. Now I wondered if Global was already doing something to discredit him. If he’d stumbled on their plan, and Global realized it, Alex might be trying to bring me in as fresh bait on the line.
I logged on to LifeStory and requested a check on Frenada, not so much because I’d decided to take the job as to look for some context around the guy. To understand his character, I’d do better to talk to the people who knew him, but I couldn’t afford to spend time with his employees or his priest or whoever in Humboldt Park if I wasn’t going to take the job.
As I tried to make up a list of tasks for Mary Louise and me to split on the Georgia inquiry, I couldn’t help thinking of Alex’s remark, that if I did the work she wanted, Global had the resources to express their gratitude. A bonus in the high five figures. I wondered how high. Fifty thousand would not only get me a new car but let me build a cushion, maybe hire someone full–time instead of relying on Mary Louise’s erratic hours. Or what if it were seventy or eighty thousand? Murray was driving a powder–blue Mercedes these days; I could pick up that red Jaguar XJ–12 I’d seen in the ads on Wednesday.
“And that’s how they catch their fish,” I admonished myself out loud. “If you can be bought for the price of a used car, V. I., then you’re not worth owning.”
I worked hard for another couple of hours, stopping only once, to go out for a sandwich and to let Peppy relieve herself. After that I didn’t look up until Tessa came in around three–thirty.
“Mary Louise hasn’t been in for a while,” she commented, perching on the couch arm.
“You keeping an eye on the premises?”
She grinned. “No, doofus. You aren’t the only detective around here: when Mary Louise comes in she always tidies up the papers. I’m taking off. Want to go for a coffee?”
I looked at the clock. I told her I’d have to take a rain check so I could get back to pick up Mr. Contreras. I started my system backup program and began hunting through the heap on my desk for the report Max had faxed over from Beth Israel: I wanted to discuss it with Mary Louise. I’d forgotten stuffing the papers into the folder labeled Alumni Fund but came on it by the sophisticated method of going through all the folders I’d stacked up lately.
I pulled out the report the paramedics had filed with the hospital. It described where they’d found Aguinaldo, what steps they’d taken to stabilize her, and the time they’d delivered her to Beth Israel (3:14 A.M.), but not the names of the officers who’d talked to Mary Louise and me in Edgewater. I wondered if I needed to know badly enough to pay for Mary Louise to talk to the ambulance crew and see if they remembered the guys. But I didn’t know how else to start finding out whether Baladine or Poilevy had been pulling the strings that made the cops come after me.
“I’m going to take a shower. And neatly put away all my tools,” Tessa added pointedly as I dropped the folder back on the heap of papers: if Mary Louise were working on it she’d have typed up a label on the spot and stuck it in the drawer with other pending cases.
“Yeah, you always were teacher’s pet. It ain’t going anywhere, but I am.” I shut down my system for the day and stuffed a second copy of the backup
program in my briefcase. It was the second thing my old hacker friend had taught me—always keep a copy of your programs off the premises. You never think your office is the one that will be burgled or burned to the ground.
Tessa, her hair heavy from her shower, was locking her studio when I came into the hall. She had changed into a gold sundress of some kind of soft expensive cotton. I wondered if a ten–thousand–dollar wardrobe could make me look as good as her or Abigail Trant. The two came from similar worlds—fancy private schools, fathers successful entrepreneurs. Probably the only difference was their mothers—Tessa’s had broken through the white male barricades into a major law career.
“Not to be a feline, but I always thought Murray liked softer women than that bionic specimen he brought in today,” Tessa remarked as she set the alarm code. “He was kind of preening when he introduced us, so I take it they weren’t making a business call?”
“Not the Bionic Woman—a Space Beret.” When she looked puzzled, I said, “I can tell there aren’t any small boys in your life. That’s Global Studio’s movie–cartoon–comic–book and megabillion–dollar action figure. The woman is one of their lawyers. When we were in school together she was Sandy Fishbein and led sit–ins. Now that she’s Alexandra Fisher and sits on boards, I get confused about how to think about her or what to call her. She’s seduced Murray, and now they’re trying for a ménage à trois with me.”
“I never trust a woman who gets all her muscles at the health club and only uses them as an accessory to her wardrobe,” Tessa announced, flexing her own arms, sinewy from years of hammering on stone and metal.
I laughed and waved at her as she climbed into her pickup—one of those fancy modern ones with leather seats, air–conditioning, and perfect suspension. Seen next to it, the Skylark looked more decrepit than ever. I felt another unwelcome twist of jealousy. I wouldn’t have traded either of my parents for the wealthiest tycoons in the West, but every now and then I wished my legacy had included more than the five–room bungalow whose sale after my father’s death barely covered his medical bills.
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