Burn Marks

by Sara Paretsky

  “Oh, it’s you, doll. Gave me a start. I thought maybe someone was sneaking up on you.”

  “Thank you,” I said meekly. “I was just creeping up on myself. I didn’t want to be ambushed in the stairwell.”

  “No need to worry about that. Her highness and I are keeping a sharp eye out.”

  He let go of the leash-the dog was whimpering in her eagerness to greet me. Her tail was whipping up a great circle-not the portrait of a fierce guard dog. I kissed her and fondled her ears. She danced with me back to the stairs and clattered up with me, convinced this was the prelude to a major run. Mr. Contreras trudged up behind us as fast as his stiff knees would allow.

  “What are you doing now, doll?” he asked sharply when he’d invited himself into my apartment.

  “I’m trying to remember where I left my flashlight,” I called from the bedroom. It had rolled under the bed, I finally saw. Peppy helped me lie flat to pull it out. She ate a Kleenex she found underneath and started to work on an old running sock half buried under the bedclothes.

  “Yummy, is it?” I pulled it away from her and went back to the kitchen.

  “I mean, where are you going?” the old man demanded severely when he saw me checking the clip to my gun.

  “Just to see if I can locate my aunt. I’m worried that she might be dead and lying in one of those vacant buildings behind McCormick Place.” Come to that, she’d left the hospital in bad shape-she could be dead without anyone lifting a finger to make it happen. Or lying there unconscious.

  “I’m coming with you-me and the princess here.” His jaw set in a stubborn line.

  I opened my mouth to argue with him, then shut it again. Here was a perfect errand to restore his good humor with me-he could see the action without causing any major havoc. Not only that, Peppy could kill the rats. I accepted his escort graciously and was rewarded with a big smile and a resounding slap on my still-weak shoulders.

  “Just don’t swing that pipe wrench around,” I warned him, locking the grate across the kitchen door. “You’re under a peace bond because of that thing, remember?”

  He slung it decorously through one of his trouser loops and headed happily up the alley to the car with me. All the way to Lake Shore Drive and the McCormick Place exit he kept up a happy flow of talk.

  “You know, your Chevy’s still out front with the hood up. Didn’t no one want to touch it. I tried getting that young fellow, the one with the tow truck, to take if off, but he was too chicken. I said, ‘Let me do it. I’ll hook it up and drive it to the garage for you, you’re too yellow to do it,’ but he just took off like a bat outta hell, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know just what you mean.” Besides having steering as stiff as an old-fashioned shirt collar, the Tempo roared rather loudly. Bad Wheels didn’t pay much attention to exhaust systems-“Drive ‘em Till They Drop” was their motto. The noise spared me most of Mr. Contreras’s conversation until I parked on Prairie.

  Peppy was thrilled to be part of the expedition. She strained at her leash, sniffing every pile of rubble, investigating trash heaps with the solemnity of Heinrich Schliemann. Mr. Contreras was only a hair less enthusiastic in commenting on the general decay around us.

  “Been a lot of fires down here.”

  “Yep,” I said shortly. Elena being a creature of rather tiresome habit, she would most likely select a place close to the Indiana Arms, as she had when she’d chosen the Prairie Shores. I was going to look at only one or two of these in the fast-fading light. The rest could wait until morning.

  We went first into the warehouse two doors down from the shell of the old hotel. Mr. Contreras’s pipe wrench came in handy knocking out the boarding around the entrance-annoying, since it would make it impossible to get him to leave it at home in the future.

  Once inside we let Peppy take the lead. She had a field day chasing rats. I kept my gun out in case one of them turned on her, but there were enough escape routes to keep them from becoming bellicose. After five or ten minutes of sport I called her off and kept her close to me while I explored what was left of the premises.

  The interior walls had crumbled, making it easy to go from room to room without hunting for doors. Chunks of plaster lay everywhere. Wires dangled from the exposed ceiling studs. When I ran into one I let out a muffled shriek, it felt so much like a hand trailing through my hair. Mr. Contreras came stumbling through the rotted flooring to see what was wrong.

  A giant tractor tire propped against one wall was the only sign that humans had ever been around. I guess it didn’t even prove that-only that tractors had been around.

  When we got outside it was dark, too dark to make hunting in rotting buildings very smart. And it was too evocative of my near baking at the Prairie Shores for my taste-my clothes were wet with sweat, my hands grimy from touching the decayed walls. I was glad I’d had the dog’s support in the warehouse.

  Even Mr. Contreras had been subdued by the expedition. He put up a token protest that we shouldn’t leave now, just when we were getting our bearings. When I said it was too dark to look farther, he agreed readily, volunteering to return in the morning with the Streeter Brothers.

  “Sure,” I said heartily. “They’ll love the help.”

  I returned the gun to the back waistband of my jeans and bundled him into the car with Peppy. On the way home he kept shaking his head and muttering comments that drifted to me only sporadically over the roar of the engine-he hoped Elena-roar, roar-not a place for a- roar-you really should do something, doll. I gave the car more gas to drown out what it was I should do.

  I found a parking place on Wellington and left the Tempo there. I didn’t want to make it too easy for anyone watching me to connect me with the car. I turned down the old man’s invitation to dinner and headed up the stairs, shining my flashlight on the tread above me.

  Furey was waiting at the top of the third flight. I dropped the flashlight and fumbled for my gun. When he launched himself down the stairs at me, I turned to race back down. Fatigue and injuries slowed me. He got my feet and grabbed my head in a brutal armlock.

  “You’re coming with me, Vic. You’re going to kiss your aunt good-bye and then have a farewell party yourself.”

  He was sitting on my back. I tried twisting underneath him, biting into his leg. He yelped in pain, but grabbed my hands and cuffed them together. Seizing the handcuffs, he started pulling me down the stairs. I let out a great cry that brought Mr. Contreras and the dog to the door of their apartment.

  “I’m going to shoot both of them, Vic,” Furey hissed at me. “Interfering with the police in the performance of their duties. You want to watch? Or stop fighting and come along with me.”

  I gulped in air, trying to quiet my heart enough to talk. “Go in,” I quavered at Mr. Contreras. “He’ll shoot Peppy.”

  When the old man came into the hall anyway, brandishing his pipe wrench, Furey fired at him. The wrench flew to the floor as the old man crumbled. As we left I saw Peppy race over to lick Mr. Contreras’s face. I was choking on my tears, but I thought I saw him put up an arm to pet her.

  45

  A Walk on the Wild Side

  Furey’s car was parked halfway up the block. He jerked the driver’s door open and shoved me across the gear box into the passenger seat. I flung up my cuffed hands to protect my face as I fell against the door. My left leg was tangled in the gear stick. I was twisted at an awkward angle, unable to kick at Michael when he thrust my leg onto the passenger side.

  At least he hadn’t bothered to pat me down. Maybe he didn’t know I sometimes carry a gun. If I kept my wits, I might still be able to use it.

  A handful of people were out on the street, but they turned studiously the other way when they saw me struggling against him-no one wants to be involved in domestic quarrels. I kept biting off the cry to call the cops. After all, Michael was the cops. What would the patrol units do when they showed up and Michael told them I was a violent prisoner?

  “I
’m not taking any chances with you, Vic-Ernie and Ron were right about you all along. You’re not interested in the things a normal girl is-you just play the odds and wait your chance to jump on a guy’s balls.”

  I leaned back in the leather seat. “You’re so brave, Furey, shooting a man old enough to be your grandfather. They have special sessions on that at the Police Academy?”

  “Shut up, Vic.” He took a hand from the wheel and slapped my face.

  “Gosh, Michael, now I am scared. You and your friends really know how to keep your women in shape. How about fastening my seat belt so I don’t have to go headfirst through the windshield-you’d have a hard time explaining it to Bobby.”

  He ignored my request and took off with such a burst that I was flung against the leather. I squirmed awkwardly to fish the seat belt from where it was wedged against the door.

  “They kept laughing at me, all the kowtowing I did to you-Ernie said LeAnn talked back to him that way just once and he taught her who was boss. That’s what I should have done with you from the start. Out at Boots’s barbecue they warned me you were acting sweet just so you could nose your way into our business. Carl and Luis took them seriously-but me! I just couldn’t listen!” He pounded the steering wheel, his voice rising and cracking.

  I finally managed to snap the metal tongue into its holder. “Three weeks ago, when you told me Elena had been seen soliciting in Uptown, that was a lie, wasn’t it? That’s why you were so insistent I not call Bobby to talk to him about it.”

  He turned onto Diversey and moved into the oncoming traffic lane to swoop around the traffic backed up from the light at Southport. “You’re so sharp, Vic. That’s what always attracted me to you. Why couldn’t you be smart and sweet at the same time?”

  “Just luck of the draw, I guess.” I tried to brace myself against his sudden braking as he cut back into the right lane. “You said you had my aunt. Where did you find her? Down in one of those abandoned buildings on Cermak?”

  He laughed. “She was right under my nose. Can you beat that? Right around the corner in my own neighborhood. Eileen had seen her and told my mother and Mother mentioned it to me at supper last night. She’d gone to hide out with one of her old cronies, but her thirst got to her- she just had to go get herself a bottle. I knew sooner or later, if she wasn’t dead, she wouldn’t be able to put up with that thirst anymore. I just didn’t expect it to be around the corner from me. So I hung out all afternoon and sure enough, round eight o’clock, there she came. I just helped her into the car. She tried sweet-talking me. It was loathsome.”

  He did sixty through the park to Lake Shore Drive. I suppose the beat cops knew his license plate, or at least called it in and saw it belonged to a detective. The local traffic didn’t have that inside track and honked ferociously as they had to swerve out of his way.

  “Was she loathsome because of her age or her drinking or both?” I asked.

  “Women who think they’ve got sexual powers that they don’t are disgusting.”

  “She appeals to some guys. Just because she’s not your type doesn’t mean everyone finds her repulsive.”

  He turned onto Lake Shore Drive so fast I was flung against him. When I was upright again I said conversationally, “Touching you seems loathsome to me, but I’m sure some women would disagree.”

  He didn’t say anything, just took the Corvette up to ninety, diving in and out of lanes around the other cars, making them seem to stand still in a blur of light. I was afraid I was going to throw up when he braked into the curve at the Michigan Avenue exit. He slowed down then-the traffic was too thick for him to keep up so mad a pace.

  “You’re cracking, Michael. You’re leaving a trail a mile wide. Even if Roland Montgomery’s your clout in the department, he can’t protect you from the mayhem you’re manufacturing tonight.”

  In the streetlamps along the Drive I could see sweat beaded on his forehead. He made a violent gesture with his right hand but the car swerved; he fishtailed and got us back in our lane by a miracle.

  “What is it that Roland owes Boots?” I kept my tone level. “And why did he get you to set the fire-why couldn’t he do it himself?”

  Furey bared his teeth at me. “You’re not that fucking smart Vic. I went to Montgomery. I found him for Boots. All he had to do was get me the accelerant and make sure no one investigated too closely.”

  “What a good boy,” I said marveling. “Is that when they gave you the Corvette?”

  “You don’t understand anything, do you? I was prepared-I was willing-you could have lived like LeAnn and Clara-had whatever you wanted-but you-”

  “I have what I want, Michael. My independence and my privacy. You’ve just never understood it, have you, that all those things, those diamonds and stuff, just don’t turn me on.”

  He got off at the Grand Avenue exit and whipped around the curves to the Rapelec complex. He parked the Corvette well away from the street, behind one of the wooden walls blocking the site.

  He jumped out and came around to the passenger door. I had thought I might be able to kick him as I got out of the car but he’d handled a lot of rough arrests in his time-he stood well away from the frame and waited for me to wrestle with the seat belt and get my legs out myself. He put an arm around me in a savage mockery of chivalry and hustled me into the building.

  I shivered involuntarily when we moved into the inky corridors. We were on the plank-covered ramp I’d walked three weeks earlier up to the management offices. Beyond the naked bulbs lay the gaping hole of the complex. I wondered where my aunt was, if she was still alive, what tragic end was destined for us.

  Furey hadn’t said a word since we’d gotten to the site. I began to feel boxed in by the silence as much as by my cuffs.

  To regain my composure I said conversationally, “Was it because McGonnigal told you I had the bracelet? Is that why you came to get me tonight?”

  He bared his teeth again in a violent parody of a smile. “You left your scarf at the Alma offices, Vic. I saw you unwrap it when Eileen gave it to you the day we met. You don’t remember it but I do because I thought you were the hottest little number I’d ever laid eyes on. I do want my bracelet back, but I’m not in any hurry.”

  “That’s good,” I said calmly, even though my cheeks burned at the idea of being a hot number. “I left it in my apartment. You’re going to need a wrecking crew to get in there. You don’t get it, do you? Not even being a cop can cover your tracks for you when you’ve created this much carnage. Not even Bobby will do it. It’ll break his heart, but he’ll let you go.”

  Michael hit me across my mouth with the back of his hand. “You need to learn a few lessons, Vic, and one of them is to shut up when I tell you to.”

  It stung a little but didn’t hurt. “I don’t have a long enough lifeline right now to learn new tricks, Mickey, and even if I did, yours just purely make me throw up.”

  Michael stopped in the middle of the gangway and shoved me against the wall. “I told you to shut up, Vic. Do you want me to break your jaw to make you do it?”

  I looked at him steadily, marveling that I’d ever found those dark angry eyes engaging. “Of course I don’t, Michael. But I have to wonder if beating me while I’m defenseless would make you feel powerful or ashamed?”

  He held my shoulder with his left hand and tried to slam his right into my face. As he came forward I kicked him as hard as I could in the kneecap, hard enough to break it. He gave a sharp cry and dropped my shoulder.

  I ran down the ramp, terribly hampered by my bound hands. Above me I heard Furey crying out, and then Ernie Wunsch calling down asking what the fuck was going on. I darted into the shadowy interior, tumbling over boards in the dark. I was making too big a racket-no one would have any trouble finding me.

  I stopped running and moved cautiously forward until I came to a big pillar, steel with concrete poured around it. I sidled around behind it and stood there trying not to breathe out loud, scrabbling behind me trying
to reach my gun. My arms were crossed in their cuffs, though, and I couldn’t reach far enough around.

  A powerful flashlight stuck fingers out on the floor around me. I didn’t move.

  “Let’s not play hide-and-seek here all night,” Ernie said. “Go get the aunt. She’ll flush her out.”

  I still didn’t move. A couple of minutes later I could hear Elena’s breathless voice, squeaky with fear.

  “What are you doing? You’re hurting me. There’s no need to hold me so hard. I don’t know how you were brought up, but in my day a true gentleman did not squeeze a lady’s arm hard enough to bruise it.”

  Good old Elena. Maybe I’d find a happy death, laughing at her incongruous scolding.

  “We have your aunt here, Warshawski.” It was Ron Grasso speaking now. “Call out to your niece, Auntie.”

  He did something to make her scream. I flinched at the noise.

  “Louder, Auntie.”

  She screamed again, a cry of genuine pain. “Vicki! They’re hurting me!”

  “We just broke a finger, Warshawski. We’ll break her bones one by one until you decide you’ve had enough.”

  I swallowed bile and stepped out from behind my pillar. “Okay, he-men. I’ve had enough.”

  “That’s a good girl, Vic,” Ernie said, moving toward me. “I always told Mickey there was a way to manage you if he just looked for it… Keep the light on her, Ronnie. Little bitch maybe broke Mickey’s knee. I don’t want her clawing at me.”

  He came up to me and took my arm. “Now don’t you try anything, Vic, because Ron there will just start breaking your auntie’s fingers again if you do.”

  “Vicki?” Elena quavered. “You’re not mad at poor old Elena, are you?”

  I held out my cuffed hands to her. “Of course I’m not mad at you, sweetie. You did the best you could. You were very smart and brave to hide so long.”

  What good would it have done to chew her out for not sharing the whole story with me from the beginning-or at least from her bed at Michael Reese.