The men were convinced that Max and I had fingered them, even though we were cuffed just as they were. They spewed invectives at us during the ride to O’Hare. Although Max refused to translate, it wasn’t hard to figure out the burden of their cries.
We spent almost four hours at the airport, first in a small room with the Romanians, then in a minute room by ourselves—and a guard. They confiscated my gun at the outset. I was strip-searched to make sure I wasn’t concealing other weapons. The city cops toyed with arresting me on a felony weapons charge, even though I clearly had a permit for the gun. Neither they nor the immigration officials wanted to hear that Max and I were citizens—they kept trying to claim we had stolen our driver’s licenses and credit cards. They would have shipped us off to Bucharest if any planes had been leaving just then.
During the time we were together with the Romanians the man with the mustache continued his tirade. His comrades squatted on the floor, staring dejectedly at nothing. Max, gray about the mouth, gallantly tried to translate for a few minutes. He finally gave it up—he said their speech had become so colloquial he couldn’t make it out.
“I could make an educated guess, but my English vocabulary wouldn’t be wide-ranging enough in any event for what they’re trying to say,” he added.
“Mine is,” I said sourly. “And I can live without hearing it again.”
It was noon when INS finally let me call Freeman Carter. That was not due to any eloquence on my part, but because they’d fingerprinted us. A check through AFIS, the automated print system, had given them a perfect match with a private eye using my name and address. Somehow this didn’t convince them that I was who I claimed to be—or more likely they were so furious at being proved wrong they wouldn’t release us without putting us through legal hoops.
I was reeling by then, my head a giant hammer pounding the anvil of my body, but concern for Max kept me from keeling over. I was alarmed by his pallor and the beads of sweat on his forehead. I told the officer in charge that if Max had a heart attack I would use my connections with Senator Gantner’s office to make sure none of them ever worked again. Grumpy, but not sure whether I might have such contacts, they let me call my lawyer.
When I found Freeman—by portable phone on the Kemper Golf Course—he wanted me to wait while he finished a round. He thought being held at O’Hare as an illegal alien a rather exquisite joke, but agreed Max’s character didn’t need developing through punishment the way mine did. He would finish the hole he was playing and come on over to the airport. While we waited for Freeman I tried to get the cops to let me call Ana Campos as well—I thought the Romanians deserved some kind of legal counsel before being thrown onto a plane home, but I couldn’t persuade the law.
When Freeman finally showed up he was laughing a little, but at the sight of Max’s gray face his lightness evaporated. He wanted to call an ambulance, but Max said all he needed was to get out in the air. Freeman took down the names of the arresting officers, said they would hear from him, and ushered us to his waiting Maserati—he’d managed to persuade the cop on duty to let him park right in front of the terminal.
“Vic is the one you should be worrying about,” Max said as we sped away from the airport. “She was badly injured yesterday—knocked out, in fact. I was afraid she might swoon in that stuffy room.”
His words released the string with which I’d tethered myself to consciousness. I tried to speak, to pay attention to Freeman’s response, but I fell into a well of darkness. I remembered nothing—not even how I made it from the car inside—until Freeman was shaking me awake in Max’s living room. He handed me a cup of coffee and stood over me while I drank it.
When he judged I was aware enough to respond, he said, “I know you’re dead to the world, Vic, but I’d like a thumbnail sketch of what this was about before I leave. You can give me a more complete report tomorrow.”
When I told him he was not supportive. “You’re not getting much sympathy from me on that one. In the first place, finding Deirdre’s murderer is a job for your friend Conrad, and in the second, why should any business open its books to you? Just because you want to know something they don’t want to tell you does not constitute prima facie grounds of wrongdoing.”
He held up a hand to forestall my outburst. “I agree that bringing in a planeload of illegal immigrants and exploiting them is shameful behavior. Charpentier has a lot of explaining to do to the immigration authorities. And maybe Home Free’s backers ought to know about it—but that isn’t your problem. Your problem, as I see it, is to find enough clients to make a dent in the two thousand dollars you still owe me. Not to mention what today’s little junket will cost. Fortunately for you I don’t charge overtime for Sunday rescues.”
Maybe if I hadn’t been so tired I would have thought of an equally sharp rebuttal, but the idea of his bill made me remember my taxes, due on Wednesday. Not to mention all my other obligations. I crawled wearily from the living room to the spare room without bothering to tell him good-bye.
Lotty had been tending Max, but she came in to give me a brusque, not to say unsympathetic, exam. As she once again pulled the sheet up to my chin, she told me that for two cents she’d sew it into a shroud and bury me with it.
“I love you, too, Lotty. Good night.”
“And what am I supposed to tell Conrad and Mr. Contreras?” she demanded.
“That I love them, too, and I’ll call them in the morning.”
“No. You sleep for a while, and then you use the telephone. They are seriously worried about you, although why anyone would go to that much bother I don’t know. After what you went through yesterday, to do this—and then to put Max at risk also—is absolutely unconscionable.”
Max’s name pulled me briefly back from the edge of sleep. “Is Max okay? I was afraid he might be having a heart attack, but I couldn’t get those idiots to pay any attention.”
Lotty’s twisted smile came. “Not his heart. Maybe his soul. Max fled Europe for his life when he was thirteen. The thought of a forcible return was a terrible nightmare. It would be for me, I know. I’ve given him a mild sedative; he should be fine in the morning.”
“I didn’t mean it to happen,” I pleaded. “We took every precaution. How was I to know they were warehousing illegal immigrants in an old bread truck on the site?”
Lotty sat down next to me. “You should have known. And you know why? Because no matter what you set out to do the most disastrous possible outcome takes place. If you go to the corner to buy milk, that is a guarantee that the store will be held up at precisely that second.”
“When I was born Mars and Venus were both ascending, or whatever planets do. They can’t make up their minds which one is going to dominate me. Is that my fault?”
I struggled to sit up. “Why do you think INS descended at that precise moment? Not because I was there today. But because I’d been there yesterday. One of the musketeers must have called and reported the van so that the crew would be scooped up and out of the country before I came back. If they knocked me out yesterday afternoon they’d think they had today clear.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re proving, though, that it was your presence that caused disaster to strike. Now go to sleep.” Lotty pushed me back against the pillow, but her touch was gentler than her words.
It was nine o’clock when she roused me again, to tell me Conrad was on the phone. I pulled my jeans on and stumbled along the hall to the phone, disoriented in the strange house, and by having slept at such a strange time of day.
“How come you get arrested and I learn about it first from my mama?” Conrad greeted me.
“Is this twenty questions? How did your mother hear about it?”
“On the news, same as everyone else in Chicago. Everyone but me, I mean. On top of that, how come you get shot at yesterday and I hear about it from that self-satisfied creep Ryerson?”
I sat on the spindle-legged chair by the phone and rubbed my e
yes. “I haven’t talked to Murray at all since Thursday. So I don’t know how he knew.”
“Well, I got most of the story from him—when he had the fucking nerve to call me to ask for corroborating details.”
“He picked it up on the wires, then, and acted as though we’d spoken, as a reporting ploy. Or to cause trouble between you and me—which certainly worked. Please, Conrad—don’t call up rapping out accusations.”
Conrad was too angry, or hurt, to pay attention. “Why the hell didn’t you tell the cops out at O’Hare to call me? I could have gotten you out of that jam a lot faster and a lot cheaper than your high-priced lawyer.”
I rubbed the sore spot on the side of my head. “I was shoved into an overcrowded van and carted off to O’Hare,where they strip-searched me. Have you ever had that special pleasure? It’s disorienting.”
“You’d rather have flown to Bucharest and figured out how to hitchhike home than ask for my help. That’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it?” His voice was like the bitter edge of an aloe leaf.
“Of course I’d rather call you. I’d rather call you when I’m afraid to walk up my front stairwell. Can’t you see why I don’t? It’s so fundamental, Conrad.”
As I spoke I wondered whether my pride was so fierce that I would have let them bundle me onto a plane than involve my lover. It was something I preferred not to know.
“When were you going to let me know about this particular mangle?” he demanded.
“Tonight. When I woke up. I would have called before if I’d known we rated the four o’clock news. Come to think of it, I’d better get in touch with Mr. Contreras before he goes into outer space.”
“He already has. Believe it or not the old guy called me—a sign of true desperation. But going back to what’s fundamental, Vic, it seems to me you guard everything you do like you were protecting baby Moses from the Pharaoh, and when I learn of it by accident you grudgingly hand me a bulrush or two.”
“Conrad, if you knew I had planned this morning’s outing you would have protested mightily. Was it so wrong of me to want to protect myself against that kind of reaction?”
“I object to you breaking the law, not to you exercising a healthy curiosity about your investigations. Can’t you tell the difference? And can’t you respect my feelings as your lover when it has to be a reporter who tells me you’ve been shot at?”
“Maybe if you hadn’t been so fierce about the Fourth Amendment last night I would have. But you were chewing me out, after I’d sustained a head injury, and it made me forget the earlier fracas.”
“I think the truth is you like to fly solo, girl. If someone’s in your wing, even if it’s a friendly plane, you’ll shoot it down.” He hung up before I could think of anything to say.
I started shivering in the dimly lit hall. Lotty appeared, ghostlike, with a cup of fresh coffee. I sipped it gratefully, then rested it on my leg so I wouldn’t leave a stain on the piecrust table Max used for the hall phone.
“Max still asleep?” I asked.
“He’ll sleep until morning. Is Conrad coming for you?”
“He’s so angry with me I don’t know if he’ll ever speak to me again. And don’t tell me I deserve it: I don’t need that kind of comfort tonight.”
She leaned a hand across me to push the switch on the small lamp next to the phone; her eyes were shiny in the golden light. “Does it ever occur to you, Vic, that I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I’ve made? Using anger or fear to put up walls between you and other people is an uncomfortable way to live.”
I clasped her hand briefly. When I talked to Conrad was I acting out of fear or anger? Some of both, I concluded uneasily. I released her fingers to dial Mr. Contreras’s number.
As I spoke to my neighbor I wonder why I could treat his frantic questions more gently than I did Conrad’s. I patiently explained how Max had come to be involved, how that didn’t mean I preferred Max to him, how sorry I was that he’d had to deal alone with the television crews who’d arrived around three—knowing he secretly must have relished the encounter.
“How long you planning on camping out? The dogs need a good run. And what are you doing to Conrad? I called him to find out what you was up to, and learned the hard way he didn’t know. You can’t treat men the way you do and expect them to hang around forever. And it’s not like I’m a fan of you dating Conrad Rawlings, because I’m not. But he ain’t a bad guy for a colored fellow; he’s always been real polite to you. To me too. But what are you, pushing forty? And living by yourself without even any proper furniture? What’s your life going to be like when you’re my age?”
“I give up. I can’t think that far ahead. I don’t even know what it’s going to be like tonight. So don’t push on me, okay? I can’t take any more of it right now.”
“Okay, cookie, okay,” he said gruffly. “But try to think about other people’s feelings every now and then—that’s all I’m asking. You go back to bed now, though. And don’t forget to call me in the morning.”
When he’d hung up I studied the table lamp Lotty had switched on. Like everything in Max’s house it was a carefully chosen piece, two clear bells with flowers etched in them attached to a small brass post. Sometimes his exquisite taste makes me come to his house as to an oasis of goodwill, but tonight I wanted to smash the lamp against the Chinese vases lining the stairwell.
41
The Quid Pro Quo
Lotty was curled up in the breakfast nook with a novel, something in German by Inge Bachman. She’d slept for several hours after putting Max to bed and was wide awake now. I made a broccoli frittata to share with her, then sat at the cooking island with a yellow pad she’d dug up in Max’s study, trying to marshal the facts I had about Home Free, Deirdre, and Century Bank.
The five million or so in Jasper’s cash drawer was the most significant item I had. Presumably he paid off contractors like Charpentier in cash. If all the work force was exploited like the crew I’d spent the morning with, payroll outlay would be pretty small. Supplies add up, but how many suppliers would take payment in cash? Some outlays must run to tens of thousands of dollars. And even if all his suppliers were crooked, Jasper couldn’t possibly use up the amount of money in his drawer paying them off.
Suppose Deirdre had found the stash and confronted Jasper with it. Could he have murdered her after all, instead of Fabian? I was passionately committed to Fabian as the murderer. It wasn’t just my dislike of him that made me think he killed his wife, but the ferocity with which she’d been beaten—it argued a personal rage.
Still, Deirdre had a difficult personality. She might have inspired a personal rage in someone else, as well. She could well have found out about the exploitation of immigrant workers—since she was in the office a lot she could have found out anything. Maybe she’d confronted Jasper about it and had her brains beaten in for her trouble.
Tamar Hawkings might have seen who came to the Pulteney the night Deirdre was killed. If I could find her before the cops did, maybe she’d talk to me. I added her name to the to-do list I was compiling under Deirdre’s square.
Then there was Tish, the Home Free office manager. How much was she a participant—witting or unwitting—in Jasper’s crimes? What would horrify her enough about Jasper to make her talk to me? I didn’t have any ideas, so I drew another neat square next to her name and filled it with question marks.
I drew a line underneath that section and wrote down Lamia in block letters. Century Bank had withdrawn their loan approval. As soon as I started investigating that action, Home Free had given Lamia a rehab project and the tradeswomen, spurred on by Phoebe, had accepted the job, accepted the loss of funding, and booted me off the case. Century Bank was running a fifty-million-dollar line of credit for Home Free—an unbelievable amount for a small not-for-profit. Why?
There was some tight connection among Phoebe, Gantner, and Jasper: I’d found them all meeting together right after the deal was struck. JAD Holdings—that w
as the name that connected all these people. JAD was buying Century. Fabian’s advice on the Boland Amendment had been filed under that name,and the words had acted powerfully on Alec Gantner on Friday. I wrote JAD in block capitals at the top of the page.
Why wasn’t I dead? The question slipped unprompted onto the paper. They could have killed me so easily instead of leaving me unconscious long enough to trash the apartment. I didn’t think it was compassion, or a fear of the death penalty, that had stayed my assailants. If the same people had killed Deirdre, those kinds of concerns didn’t trouble them. They must have thought I knew something, or had something, that they wanted, and they wanted me alive until they got it from me.
I couldn’t imagine any possibilities. Finally I slapped the pencil down in frustration.
Lotty looked up. “Bed for you, Liebchen. It’s midnight. Drink some more juice and I’ll tuck you in.”
I awoke at ten to an empty house. When I finished a careful stretching of my stiff muscles and wandered down to the kitchen I found a note on the table in Lotty’s tidy hand.
8:00 a.m.
Max is fine and has gone in to work, as I am about to do myself. Please, Victoria, try to spend a quiet day. I know it goes against all your DNA to sit still, but you need the rest. Maybe you could take a long walk by the lake. A set of keys is in the drawer with the silverware.
Love,
Lotty
Her affectionate words filled me with a peaceful glow that lasted while I cut up an apple and some cheese for my breakfast. Putting on water to boil for coffee, I flipped idly through the papers on the breakfast table, not really reading, just passing time.
The name caught the corner of my eye as I flicked the pages of the business section: Cellular Enhancement Technology. I dropped the rest of the paper on the floor and spread the business pages open on the table. The article was on the bottom of page three, just ahead of last week’s futures trading. If it had been placed higher I probably wouldn’t even have seen it.
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