“So all the money you’ve given Alec Gantner over the years has paid off. One of your best investments,” Ken muttered.
“I’m glad you’ve had a happy outcome,” I said as politely as I could manage. “I hope you finish your degree. Computer science, is it?”
“Russian literature. Computers are just my hobby.”
“I’m not telling you my private business to invite sarcasm, Warshawski. I need your help. Ken has to do two hundred hours of community service. I’d like you to set something up.”
My jaw worked a couple of times. “Don’t you sit on boards? Give money to the symphony and stuff? You must know dozens of charities who would take him for you.”
“My wife handled that kind of thing,” Darraugh said stiffly, as if acknowledging a weakness. “And they won’t accept the Art Institute as that kind of charity. I’d pay your usual fee, of course.”
Darraugh had been a widower for almost a decade. When his wife died he’d buried himself in work, and eventually that became a habit, something he couldn’t stop doing.
“I wanted to lecture schoolchildren on how to hack without getting caught, but my probation officer didn’t think that would fly.” Ken looked at me slyly, as if his comment were an important test I was bound to fail.
“What an unimaginative person. The trouble is, Darraugh, I know a number of outfits that could use someone with computer skills, but a kid this lippy causes so much aggravation, no one wants his services.”
“This is really important to me, Vic.” Darraugh put enough emphasis on the words that he didn’t need to spell out a threat. “I want you two to go downstairs for coffee, get acquainted. See what you can fix up.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Ken hoisted himself out of his chair. “Do we drink it black? Can I have two sugars?”
Darraugh stared at him bleakly, but had enough sense not to try to answer. “The probation office is getting impatient. We need to have something in place by next week.”
I wanted to echo Ken’s salute, but Darraugh wasn’t my father—he didn’t have to keep paying my bills. The three of us left the boardroom in silence. Darraugh turned right, toward his office. Ken and I walked to the elevators, where we waited like zombies for a car to take us to the basement. One of the new coffee chains had an outlet there. At least I could get a cappuccino as a small reward for the task ahead.
“So let’s get acquainted,” Ken said, sprawling in the corner. “How long have you known my old man? He’s kept you awful quiet.”
“How bad do you want to go back to school?” I asked. “I know you don’t need to get a degree to earn a living—your father won’t let you starve.”
“You answer my question and I’ll answer yours: that’s how people get acquainted.”
I drank some coffee. “The only groups I know where you could do legitimate community service help women and children. Domestic violence, abortion services, homeless shelters. I’m not going to refer you to a place like that if the first thing you assume about a professional woman is that she’s your father’s lover. Your outlook is simply too old-fashioned to make you able to fit in.”
He smirked through the first half of my remarks, but the suggestion that he might be old-fashioned made his head jerk in wounded surprise. He couldn’t possibly be—he was half my age.
“I don’t like to be paraded around like a damaged tomato the old man is trying to get some housewife to buy.”
“I can understand that. But you committed a crime. Let’s not pretend it didn’t happen. And you must know damned well that if you’d been poor or black you’d be in the pen right now. Your punishment is to be a tomato. If you behave well enough to earn early parole I’ll try to upgrade you—maybe to an avocado or eggplant.”
He smiled suddenly, with a genuine humor that made him seem younger, more vulnerable. In a second he was frowning again, looking at his hands.
“I don’t know if I want to go back to Harvard. Everyone there knows, see. And I won’t be able to graduate with my class.”
“Then don’t go back. There are a thousand other colleges in the country.”
“But only one has a library wing named for the Graham family. Darraugh could visit me in jail easier than he could watch me graduate from a state university.”
Indeed, the heartaches of the rich and famous are different from yours and mine. “I’ll make a deal with you. You act like a happy camper at whatever place I find for you, and I’ll persuade your dad not to stop you from transferring to the school of your choice.”
I held up my hand to forestall his objection. “I’ll persuade him it’s a good idea. Plenty of schools would like a chance to add a Graham wing to their libraries. Deal?”
“Yeah, I guess.” He finished his coffee. “We’re still not acquainted. But I know you don’t put sugar in your coffee. You one of those perpetual dieters?”
“Nope. I don’t like the taste.” I stood up. “Better give me a phone number so I don’t have to reach you through your father.”
“You’re supposed to ask me why I use sugar,” he said. “That’s how we get to know each other. I’m living with Darraugh these days.”
I smiled. “But I don’t have his home number. So now you know: your papa and I aren’t intimate. Feel better?”
He scribbled the number on a napkin and handed it to me. “You could just be smart.”
I laughed. “But in your heart of hearts you know I’m not. I’ll be in touch.”
I stomped up the escalator, feeling the metal vibrate through the thin soles of my pumps. In the lobby Ken caught up with me. In a parody of chivalry he grabbed my left hand and planted a kiss in the palm. He dashed through the revolving doors before I could react.
4
Contract Woes
It was past one now. That gave me ten minutes to stop in the Pulteney before an afternoon session with a venture capitalist. I should have had a cookie with my cappuccino: I wouldn’t have time even for a sandwich now.
I ran down the three flights to the Pulteney’s basement but found no sign of the woman or her children. No footprints, no scrap of food wrapper—they might never have existed. Leaving my bag of blankets behind the boiler with an envelope stuffed with what cash I could spare, I raced across the Loop to Phoebe Quirk’s office.
Phoebe and I had known each other for years—since our undergraduate days when we’d worked for the abortion underground where I’d met Lotty. I liked her well enough at the time, but we’d never been close: she came from the rich suburbs where kids wore tattered jeans and joined undergrounds to thumb their noses at their parents. During winter breaks, when I was making a few bucks waitressing, she stopped thumbing her nose long enough to ski Mont Blanc with her family.
Her idealism was genuine, though: after a checkered career including both the Peace Corps and a stint teaching high school, she’d become a neurologist. For five years she’d butted her head on the unyielding wall of organized medicine. One day she drove into the Lake Point Hospital parking lot, stared at the stream of doctors and nurses leaving their cars, and turned around and headed home.
A few months later she’d joined a small venture-capital firm, Capital Concerns. They wanted Phoebe’s medical contacts and know-how for the biotech start-ups they specialized in; her grandparents’ trust fund didn’t bother them any either. Phoebe liked the excitement of high-risk capital. She proved to have a knack for it, but Capital also appealed to her because of the social programs they funded.
Thanks to Phoebe, Capital had started coming to me for background research on some of their prospective partners. During the last year they’d become one of my most important accounts. Today’s meeting was more about ventures than capital, though: Phoebe had agreed to help one of Conrad’s four sisters, Camilla, fund a women’s trade collective.
When I got to Phoebe’s office Camilla was already there. She and Phoebe were sitting on the corner couches, laughing. Camilla, smart in a form-hugging black jersey, didn’t look as thou
gh she ever lifted anything heavier than a nail file. Phoebe, who wore expensive suits as if they were the tattered blue jeans of her youth, was the one you’d pick for a hard hat and scaffolding. Today’s costume was a navy blue Donna Karan with a button missing from the skirt and coffee stains down the shirt front.
“Come on in, Vic. Camilla’s just telling me about her introduction to sexual harassment back in the mills. They kept leaving rust-coated tampons in the bathroom sink when she was the only woman on the shift. Why do you think all successful women have a bathroom story as part of their initiation experience?”
I was about to say that must be proof I wasn’t a success, when I thought of the toilets at the Pulteney, forever backing up, and never properly repaired in my ten years there. For the first time it struck me that the men’s restrooms in the building, while not beautiful, had always been more or less functional. And there was one on every floor, besides.
“Builds character. Or at least muscle. My bathroom story is learning to be a plumber: I can carry a fully loaded toolbox up three flights of stairs without flinching. How’s tricks, Camilla?”
“Can’t complain, Vic. How’s Conrad? I haven’t talked to the boy since they put him on night shift.”
Camilla, just a year younger than Conrad, was the closest to him of the family. To their widowed mother’s chagrin she’d eschewed the pink-collar jobs she’d trained for in high school and become an apprentice welder at the old South Works. With the death of the steel industry she’d learned carpentry and gone to work for a small general contractor.
“Now I need a change, need a stretch,” she’d told me last summer. “I’ve worked for some good guys and some assholes, with the assholes predominating. But none of them ever wants to go past their hiring quota when it comes to women. Some of us want to change that—start a woman-only company. Only where are we going to get the money?”
My first thought had been Sal, who did a lot of real estate and sometimes rehabbed it, but the recession was squeezing her too tight to allow her to take on new projects. I’d then put her in touch with Phoebe, who helped Camilla and five other women form a company. They’d named themselves Lamia, for an ancient Libyan goddess.
At Phoebe’s prodding they’d come up with a project they all wanted to work on: low-cost housing for single mothers. They’d found an architect to design plans so they could apply for funding, building permits, zoning permits, and everything else you have to have before you can do good works, or even bad ones, in construction.
“We thought our zoning permit was cast-iron, but that’s suddenly fallen through,” Camilla explained, bringing me up-to-date. “Not only that, Century Bank, which we thought was going to underwrite a big chunk of the cost, has backed out.”
“That’s where you come in, Vic.” Phoebe flashed me a gap-toothed smile, her patented signal of charm.
“No,” I said flatly.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Camilla demanded.
“I mean I’m not digging into the rat’s nest at City Hall to find out who is squeaking into whose cheese hoard to kill your permit.”
“But, Vic,” Camilla began, when Phoebe cut her off.
“Vic, this is an important project in the women’s community. We need to find out what’s fueling the opposition—is it because Lamia is woman-owned? Or because it’s low-income housing? Because, not to be crude, we can change the project.”
When Camilla started to object that the project was too important to change, Phoebe overrode her. “I know everyone at Lamia is committed to low-cost housing for women. But we need to get you capital first, and a track record. When you have that, you can be pickier about your work.”
“Phoebe, you know the people at Century Bank. They’ll talk to you for nothing. Why pay my rates?”
Phoebe leaned forward. “If it’s some kind of collusion between them and the power brokers at City Hall, or even the trade unions, they’re not going to want to talk to me. That’s the kind of stuff you can figure out. Anyway, I thought your time on the Lamia project was donated, like mine. We pay your expenses, of course.”
“Think that one again. An investigation like this could take several weeks. I can’t afford to donate that much time.”
“I’ll do your legwork,” Camilla offered. “I can donate a couple of hours a day to my own cause.”
I pulled Phoebe’s desk chair over and sat down in front of them. “Look, you two. I’ve got six weeks to find a new office. If I was far enough ahead of the game to donate a hundred hours of work I wouldn’t be in my current jam. But every project I take on for the next six months has to earn for me—or I’ll be first in line for a unit when Camilla’s project opens its doors.”
“You have to have a baby first,” Camilla objected. “It’s single mothers, Vic, not out-of-work dicks.”
“Capital pays you a pretty good retainer.” Phoebe frowned, annoyed for the moment with both of us.
“You want to audit me, see where the money goes?”
She flushed, revealing a crust of freckles across her cheekbones. “I want you to be more responsive to an important client.”
I could feel my chin jut out. “Phoebe, I know you’re donating your energy on this one as a sign of your goodwill and your impeccable politics. But I bet if I audited you I’d find your goodwill was going to be recompensed down the road when the Lamia group gets going. I don’t have a personal fortune to sink into this. You know the old saying: White-collar girls play with matches for fun, blue-collar girls get burned.”
“I never heard that one,” she snapped. “And if you think I haven’t put my own butt on the line—”
“Listen here, ladies,” Camilla said. “I don’t want you two hot and bothered and destroying a good friendship over this. Vic, why don’t you do—oh, say, ten hours of work on this and see how big a deal it really looks like. If it seems huge, then Phoebe can pay for more of your time.”
“And what’s your donation going to be to your own cause?” Phoebe demanded.
“If someone tries to shoot Vic I’ll get Conrad there ahead of the 911 crew.”
“For which we both thank you.” Conrad’s probable reaction if I stepped in front of a gun again would be to pick it up and finish my assailant’s work. He and I had had a word or two about “unnecessary” risk-taking by private individuals.
Phoebe screwed her face up in a tight ball, not wanting to bend but knowing compromise was inevitable. “Give me fifteen, Vic, and we’ll see.”
“In writing, Phoebe, and it’s a deal.”
“Camilla’s a witness here.”
I shook my head. “Nonprofits eat you alive, and pro bono work is the biggest devourer of all. In writing or not at all. I won’t do like your legal staff—charge you a full hour for ten minutes’ work. It’ll be fifteen real-time hours.”
“Oh, damn you, anyway, Vic, for the stubborn bitch you’ve always been.” Phoebe flicked her intercom and asked her secretary to type up the necessary agreement.
As I waited for Gemma to bring it in I took names of some of Phoebe’s contacts at the bank, and of Camilla’s in the ward office.
Neither Phoebe nor I was very happy when I got up to leave, but Camilla laughed and said, “This makes me think of a madam who used to live up the street from us. She’d gone out of that business and opened an employment agency, but she always counseled us girls in the neighborhood to make sure the customer paid. ”That way,’ she’d say, “you don’t feel cheated and he doesn’t feel obligated.’”
“V.I. as a madam? I like it,” Phoebe said, getting up. “I’ve got another meeting. You two’ll have to excuse me.”
Camilla rode down in the elevator with me. “Give my brother a big kiss when you see him again.”
I grinned. “More than likely.”
“I meant from me. See you, Vic.”
On my way back to the Pulteney I picked up a bagel with Swiss cheese. I had meant to enlist Phoebe’s help in finding a placement for Ken Graham, but annoy
ance with her demands had put his problem out of my head. I scowled at myself in the mirror over the deli counter. I was out of my head, pure and simple. Ten years ago, five even, I would have told Darraugh and Phoebe both to take a hike. Incipient middle age was making me risk-averse. I didn’t like that in myself at all.
Back at the Pulteney I set up a file on the Lamia project, dutifully logging it in to the work-management section of my computer. I’d done a hundred jobs like this in the last ten years. I could almost do it in my sleep, but that didn’t mean it would go any faster. Actually, my weariness with the routine slowed me down these days.
I frowned at the screen for some minutes, as if that would make a complete report spring into being on its glassy surface. With an aggrieved sigh I dialed up Lexis, the know-all legal data base, and got a list of Century Bank’s directors and officers. While these printed I called on the Dow Jones News Service for information about Century. In the electronic age secretarial school would be a better training ground for a detective than my years in law school and the PD’s office.
Century is a tiny bank in Uptown and doesn’t make the news much. They were celebrating their centennial this year: they’d been founded in 1892 as part of the Century of Progress and now were primed for a second century. The Sun-Times had a photo of the anniversary festivities—if I felt like paying a small fee I could have it re-created on my printer. I took their word for it.
According to the Herald-Star, Century tried to be conscientious about the needs of its Uptown neighbors. A partial list of clients was attached to the end of the story, among them Home Free, the homeless advocates Deirdre helped. Dow Jones reported interest in buying the bank by the JAD Holdings Group. Nothing very earth-shattering, but I sent the stories to the printer just to have them.
Maybe there was some kind of conspiracy between City Hall and the bank, but it was probably over something too petty, too routine even to make the papers. Perhaps some alderman had an interest in the plot of land Lamia wanted to build on. He muscled his colleague into canceling Lamia’s zoning and building permits. End of story.
Tunnel Vision Page 3