Once again, I explained who I was and why I was there. The guard took a cell phone from her belt to call for approval. When she had it, she gave me a badge and directions to Patrick Grobian’s office: down Aisle 116S, left at 267W, all the way to the end, where I’d find all of the company offices, toilets, canteen, and so on.
It was then that I saw big red numbers that labeled the entrance to each row. These were so large that I’d missed them at first. I’d also missed a series of conveyor belts high above the aisles; they had chutes that lowered stacks of goods to various loading depots. Signs proclaiming “No Smoking Anywhere, Anytime” were plastered prominently on the walls and shelves, along with exhortations to “Make the Workplace a Safe Place.”
We were facing Aisle 122S, so I turned left at the shovels and walked down six aisles, passing a mountain of microwaves, followed by a forest of artificial Christmas trees. When I reached Aisle 116, I moved into Christmas decorations: avalanches of bells, lights, napkins, plastic angels, orange-faced Madonnas holding ice-white baby Jesuses.
Between the mountains of things stretching endlessly away, the conveyor belts ratcheting overhead, and the forklifts rolling around me, I began to feel dizzy. There were people in this warehouse, but they seemed to exist only as extensions of the machines. I clutched a shelf to steady myself. I couldn’t show up at Patrick Grobian’s office looking woozy: I wanted his support for Bertha Palmer’s basketball team. I needed to be upbeat and professional.
Three weeks ago, when I met the assistant principal who oversaw Bertha Palmer’s after-school programs, I knew I was going to have to find Mary Ann’s replacement myself if I didn’t want to stick around the high school for the rest of my life. Natalie Gault was in her early forties, short, stocky, and very aware of her authority. She was swamped in a flood of paperwork. Girls’ basketball ranked in her consciousness somewhere below upgrading the coffeemaker in the faculty lounge.
“I’m only filling in for Mary Ann until the end of the year,” I warned her when she thanked me for taking over at short notice. “I won’t have time to come down here once the playing season starts in January. I can keep the girls conditioned until then, but I’m not a trained coach, and that’s what they need.”
“All they really need is for a grown-up to show interest in them, Ms. Sharaski.” She flashed a bright meaningless smile at me. “No one expects them to win games.”
“Warshawski. And the girls expect to win games-they’re not playing to show what good sports they are. Which they’re not. Three or four of them could be top-notch players with the right coaching-they deserve more than the short time and mediocre skills I can give them. What is the school doing to find someone?”
“Praying for a miracle with Mary Ann McFarlane’s health,” she said. “I know you went to school down here, but back then the school could rent an instrument for any child who wanted to play one. We haven’t offered music in this school for eighteen years, except for the Band Club, which one of the reading teachers runs. We can’t afford an art program, so we tell kids to go to a free downtown program-two hours and two buses away. We don’t have an official basketball team-we have a basketball club. We can’t afford a coach-we need a volunteer, and we don’t have a teacher who has the time, let alone the skills, to take it on. I suppose if we could find a corporate sponsor we could hire an after-school coach.”
“Who’s down here who could put that kind of money into the basketball program?”
“Some small companies in the neighborhood, places like Fly the Flag, sometimes put up money for uniforms or instruments in the band. But the economy’s so bad right now that they aren’t doing anything for us this year.”
“Who’s big down here now that the mills are closed? I know there’s the Ford Assembly Plant.”
She shook her head. “That’s all the way down on 130th, and we’re too far away and too small for them, even though some of the parents work down there.”
Her phone rang at that point. Someone from the city health department was coming by tomorrow to look for rodent droppings-what should they do about the kitchen? A teacher stopped by to complain about the shortage of social studies texts, and another wanted eight students moved out of his room to a different section.
By the time Ms. Gault got back to me, she couldn’t remember whether I was Sharaski or Varnishky, let alone whether the school would help find a coach. I ground my teeth, but when I got back to my own office that afternoon I did a search on companies within a two-mile radius of the school. I’d found three that were big enough to afford serious community service; the first two hadn’t even let me make an appointment.
By-Smart had both the discount megastore at Ninety-fifth and Commercial, and their Midwest distribution center at 103rd and Crandon. The store told me they didn’t make any community service decisions, that I needed to see Patrick Grobian, the Chicagoland south district manager, whose office was in the warehouse. A kid in Grobian’s office who answered the phone said they’d never done anything like this before, but I could come in and explain what I wanted. Which is why I was hiking through mountains of things on my way to Grobian’s office.
For some reason, when I was growing up in South Chicago I’d never heard of the By-Smart company. Of course, thirty years ago they had only begun the most phenomenal part of their staggering growth. According to my research, their sales last year had been $183 billion, a number I could hardly comprehend: that many zeroes made my head swim.
I guess when I was a kid, their warehouse had already been here at 103rd and Crandon, but nobody I knew worked here-my dad was a cop, and my uncles worked at the grain elevators or steel mills. Looking around me now, it was hard to believe I hadn’t known about this place.
Of course, you’d have to be a Trappist monk not to know about the company today-their TV commercials are ubiquitous, showing their happy, nurturing sales staff in their red “Be Smart, By-Smart” smocks. All over America, they’ve become the only retail outlet for a lot of small towns.
Old Mr. Bysen had grown up on the South Side, over in Pullman; I knew that from Mary Ann’s telling me he’d gone to Bertha Palmer High. His standard bio didn’t talk about that, instead dwelling on his heroics as a World War II gunner. When he got back from the war, he’d taken over his father’s little convenience store at Ninety-fifth and Exchange. From that tiny seed had sprouted a worldwide empire of discount superstores-to use the overheated imagery of one business writer. Of the sixteen girls I was coaching at Bertha Palmer, four had mothers who worked at the super-store, and now I knew April Czernin’s father drove for them, too.
The South Side had been Bysen’s base and then became his hub, I’d learned from Forbes; he’d bought this warehouse from Ferenzi Tool and Die when they went bankrupt in 1973 and kept it as his Midwest distribution center even after he moved his headquarters out to Rolling Meadows.
William Bysen, known inevitably as Buffalo Bill, was eighty-three now, but he still came into work every day, still controlled everything from the wattage of the lightbulbs in the employee toilets to By-Smart’s contracts with major suppliers. His four sons were all active in management, his wife, May Irene, was a pillar of the community, active in charity and in her church. In fact, May Irene and Buffalo Bill were both evangelical Christians; every day at corporate headquarters began with a prayer session, twice a week a minister came in to preach, and the company supported a number of overseas missions.
Several of the girls on my team were also evangelical Christians. I was hoping the company might see this as a faith-based opportunity to serve South Chicago.
By the time I got to Aisle 267W, I was just praying that I’d never have to shop again in my life. The aisle emptied into a drafty corridor that ran the length of the building. At the far end I could see the silhouettes of smokers huddled in a wide doorway, desperate enough to brave the chill and rain.
A series of open doors dotted the corridor. I poked my head into the nearest, which turned out to be a canteen,
its walls banked with vending machines. A dozen or so people were slumped at the scarred deal tables. Some were eating machine stew or cookies, but a number were asleep, their red smocks trailing on the grimy floor.
I backed out and started looking into the rooms lining the corridor. The first was a print room, with two large Lex-marks dumping out stacks of inventory. A fax machine in the corner was doing its part in the paperless society. As I stood mesmerized by the flow of paper, a parade of forklifts pulled up to collect output. When they trundled off, I blinked and followed them back into the corridor.
The next two doors opened onto tiny offices, where people were doing such energetic things with computers and binders of paper that they didn’t even look at me when I asked for Grobian, just shook their heads and kept typing. I noticed little video cameras mounted in the ceilings: maybe their paychecks were docked if the cameras caught them looking up from their work when they weren’t on break.
Five guys were waiting in the hall outside a closed door a little farther down the hall. Some were drinking out of cardboard canteen cups. Despite the pervasive cameras and the big sign ordering “No Smoking Anywhere, Anytime,” two were smoking surreptitiously, cupping the cigarettes in their curled fingers, tapping the ash into empty cups. They had the worn jeans and work boots of tired men who worked hard for not very much money. Most had on old bomber or warm-up jackets, whose decals advertised everything from Harley-Davidson to New Mary’s Wake-Up Lounge.
Grobian’s nameplate was on the door in front of them. I stopped and raised an eyebrow. “The great man at home?”
The Harley jacket laughed. “Great man? That’s about right, sis. Too great to sign our slips and get us on our way.”
“Because he thinks he’s on his way to Rolling Meadows.” One of the smokers coughed and spat into his cup.
New Mary’s Wake-Up Lounge grinned unpleasantly. “Maybe he is. Isn’t the bedsheet queen-what the fuck was that for, man?” Another smoker had kicked him in the shin and jerked his head in my direction.
“It’s okay, I’m not the gabby type, and I don’t work for the company, anyway,” I said. “I have an appointment with the big guy, and ordinarily I would just butt in on him, but since I’m here to ask a favor I’ll wait in line like a good kindergartner.”
That made them laugh again. They shifted to make room for me against the hall wall. I listened as they talked about their upcoming routes. The guy in the Harley jacket was getting ready to leave for El Paso, but the others were on local runs. They talked about the Bears, who had no offense, reminded them of the team twenty-five years back, right before Ditka and McMahon gave us our one whiff of glory, but was Lovey Smith the man to bring back the McMahon-Payton era. They didn’t say anything further about the bedsheet queen or Grobian’s ambitions for the home office. Not that I needed to know, but I suppose the main reason I’m a detective is a voyeur’s interest in other people’s lives.
After a longish wait, Grobian’s door opened and a youth emerged. His reddish-brown hair, cut short in a futile effort to control his thick curls, was slicked down hard. His square face was dotted with freckles, and his cheeks still showed the soft down of adolescence, but he surveyed us with an adult seriousness. When he caught sight of the man in the Harley jacket, he smiled with such genuine pleasure that I couldn’t help smiling, too.
“Billy the Kid,” the Harley said, smacking him on the shoulder. “How’s it hanging, kid?”
“Hi, Nolan, I’m good. You heading for Texas tonight?”
“That’s right. If the great man ever gets off his duff and signs me out.”
“Great man? You mean Pat? Really, he’s just been going over the logs and he’ll be right out. I’m real sorry you had to wait so long, but, honest, he’ll be with you in a second.” The youth stepped over to me. “Are you Ms. War-sha-sky?”
He pronounced my name carefully, although not quite successfully. “I’m Billy-I said you could come in today, only Pat, Mr. Grobian, he’s not quite a hundred percent, well-he’s running late, and, uh, he may take some persuading, but he’ll see you, anyway, as soon as he gets these guys on their way.”
“Billy?” a man shouted from inside the office. “Send Nolan in-we’re ready to roll. And go collect the faxes for me.”
My heart sank: a nineteen-year-old gofer with enthusiasm but no authority had organized my meeting with the guy who had authority but no enthusiasm. “Whenever I feel dismayed, I hold my head erect,” I sang to myself.
While Billy went up the hall to the print room, the smokers pinched off the ends of their cigarettes and carefully put them in their pockets. Nolan went into Grobian’s office and shut the door. When he came out a few minutes later, the other men trooped in in a group. Since they left the door open, I followed them.
5 Imperial Relations
Offices in industrial spaces aren’t designed for the comfort or prestige of the inhabitant. Grobian got a bigger space than the tiny rooms I’d poked into earlier-it even included a closet in the far corner-but it was painted the same dirty yellow, held the same metal desk and chairs as the others, and, like them, even had a video cam in the ceiling. Buffalo Bill didn’t trust anyone, apparently.
Grobian himself was an energetic young man, thirty-something, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal muscular arms, with a big marine anchor tattooed on the left bicep. He looked like the kind of guy truckers would respect, with a square quarterback jaw jutting beneath a buzz haircut.
He frowned when he saw me behind the men. “You new on the job? You don’t belong in here-check in with Edgar Díaz in-”
“I’m V. I. Warshawski. We had an appointment at five-fifteen.” I tried to sound upbeat, professional, not annoyed that it was almost six now.
“Oh, yeah. Billy set that up. You’ll have to wait. These men are already late getting on the road.”
“Of course.” Women are supposed to wait on men; it’s our appointed role. But I kept the thought to myself: beggars have to have a sunny disposition. I hate being a beggar.
When I looked around for a place to sit, I saw a woman behind me. She was definitely not a typical By-Smart employee, not with a face whose makeup had been as carefully applied as if her skin were a Vermeer canvas. Her clothes, too-a body-hugging jersey top over a lavender kilt artfully arranged to show black lace inserts-hadn’t been bought on a By-Smart paycheck, let alone off a By-Smart rack, and none of the exhausted workers I’d seen in the canteen could have the energy to create that toned, supple body.
The woman smiled when she saw me staring: she liked attention, or perhaps envy. She was in the only chair, so I went to lean against a metal filing cabinet next to her. She held a binder in her lap, open to an array of numbers that meant nothing to me, but when she realized I was staring down at them she shut the book and crossed her legs. She was wearing knee-high lavender boots with three-inch heels. I wondered if she had a pair of flip-flops to put on before going to her car.
Two more men joined the four lined up at Grobian’s desk. When he’d finished with them, another three came in. They were all truckers, getting their loads approved, either for what they’d delivered or what they were getting ready to drive off with.
I was growing bored and even a bit angry, but I’d be even more upset if I blew a chance to get out from under the girls’ basketball team. I sucked in a deep breath: keep it perky, Warshawski, and turned to ask the woman if she was part of the warehouse’s management team.
She shook her head and smiled a little condescendingly. I would have to play twenty questions to get anything out of her. I didn’t care that much, but I needed to do something to pass the time. I remembered the trucker’s remark about the bedsheet queen. She either bought them or lay in them-maybe both.
“You the linen expert?” I asked.
She preened slightly: she had a reputation, people talked about her. She ordered all the towels and sheets for By-Smart nationwide, she said.
Before I could continue the game, Billy came back into t
he room with a thick sheaf of papers. “Oh, Aunt Jacqui, there are faxes for you in this bunch. I don’t know why they’ve sent them here instead of up to Rolling Meadows.”
Aunt Jacqui stood up, but dropped her binder in the process. Some of the papers fell out and fluttered to the floor, three landing under Grobian’s desk. Billy picked up the binder and put it on her chair.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, her voice languid, almost liquid. “I don’t think I can crawl under the desk in these clothes, Billy.”
Billy set the faxes on top of her binder and got down on his hands and knees to fetch the scattered pages. Aunt Jacqui picked up the faxes, riffled through them, and extracted a dozen or so pages.
Billy scrambled back to his feet and handed her the sheets from her binder. “Pat, you ought to make sure that floor gets washed more often. It’s filthy under there.”
Grobian rolled his eyes. “Billy, this ain’t your mother’s kitchen, it’s a working warehouse. As long as the floor doesn’t catch on fire I can’t be bothered about how dirty it is or isn’t.”
One of the truckers laughed and cuffed Billy on the shoulder on his way out the door. “Time you went on the road, son. Let you see real dirt and you’ll come back and eat off Grobian’s linoleum.”
“Or let him wash it,” the remaining driver suggested. “That always makes dirt look good.”
Billy blushed but laughed along with the men. Pat chatted briefly with the last driver about a load he was taking to the Ninety-fifth Street store. When the man left, Pat started to give Billy an order to go down to the loading bays, but Billy shook his head. “We need to talk to Ms. War-sha-sky, Pat.” He turned to me, apologizing for my long wait, adding that he’d tried to explain what I wanted, but didn’t think he’d done a good job of it.
“Oh, yeah. Community service, we already do plenty of that.” Grobian’s frown returned. Busy man, no time for social workers, nuns, and other do-gooders.
Fire Sale Page 4