Tunnel Vision

by Sara Paretsky

  The waiter told me that people wanted to hear the music and he’d appreciate it if I didn’t crash a place where I wasn’t welcome if I was going to laugh at it. In the middle of my apology the sequined woman finished her set and exited to massive applause. As she sashayed through a back curtain I realized it was a man. I don’t think I could ever look that good, even if I could afford a dress like hers. His?

  Under cover of the applause and renewed conversations I told Murray why we were in the bar. “Cyrus is my source. I don’t mind you meeting him, but you put him in print and he’s a dried-up source. Dig?”

  “Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” he said irritably. “Why are we going through this charade? What’s your source got?”

  “I used to watch my granny take old sweaters apart so she could use the yarn on something new. She’d start with a shapeless wad, tugging at it here and there until suddenly she’d find the thread that would turn the wad into a long string. I’m hoping Cyrus has the thread.”

  I pulled a pad of paper from my shoulder bag and started drawing blocks: one for Century, one for Gateway, one for Lamia, one for Home Free. Above the blocks I listed the people who were connected to each block.

  “All these guys come together, but I don’t see how. If I could find that out I’d probably know why Deirdre died. Even though I’m pretty sure it was Jasper Heccomb or one of his pals who killed her, I’m not a hundred percent certain. And until I can see why, I can’t see who.”

  Bad temper wasn’t one of Murray’s vices. Before I was halfway through my story about Century, Phoebe, and Lamia,about Jasper’s stash and my encounter with Anton at the Home Free site, he had pulled out his own pad and was writing furiously.

  “You think JAD Holdings is your three musketeers. I ought to be able to find that out.”

  I grinned. “Spoken like a true coconspirator.”

  “Where’s Jasper’s cash coming from?”

  “I don’t know. I also don’t know where the cash is going. Some of it’s used to pay the contractors off the books so they don’t have to file taxes, but you don’t need five million for that.”

  “And Emily Messenger?”

  I shook my head. “I’d like to get part of her story out. I think whoever killed her mother is gunning for her because he thinks she can ID him. If he knows she didn’t see anything but a pair of shoes maybe she’ll get some breathing room. But she’s been mauled around pretty badly. She doesn’t need the media groping at her too.”

  Murray drained a bottle and signaled for another. “My sources say your pals think she killed her mother. That they may apply for a warrant in the next day or two—it’s a question of which way they think Fabian will jump.”

  I tried not to let my face or voice show my shock at the news, but I couldn’t keep aside a twist of anger with Conrad and Finchley. Conrad must have known that this morning, but he couldn’t tell me. The applause heralding the sequined performer’s return gave me room to collect myself—I didn’t want to denigrate Conrad to Murray.

  Halfway through the first number Cyrus came in. He’d dressed to be noticed: in a room filled with gaudily or shockingly clothed men his white silk shirt and soft black trousers pulled the eye. The shirt alone, with the epaulettes and notched collar that proclaimed Thierry Mugler, must have set Cyrus back a grand. He kissed one man, waved at a few others, and settled himself on a bar stool like a lion willing to be courted. I edged my chair deep in the shadows to keep him from spotting me.

  “We need to get him apart from the crowd before he gets too attached to anyone,” I muttered to Murray.

  “Don’t expect me to use my charms to compete with the talent in here,” Murray muttered back.

  “Spoilsport.” I scribbled a note on my pad. “Give him this, and use your body to block his view of the room. If I’m lucky, when he reads it he’ll be ready to go out the back way with you.”

  As soon as Murray’s bulk was between me and Cyrus I put a twenty on our table and moved casually through the curtain at the back of the room. On the other side were the toilets, phones, and the cubicles the owners used for offices and storage. Couples were groping each other in the narrow hall; here and there used condoms dotted the floor. The smell of sweat and semen was intense.

  I breathed through my mouth while I tried the door to an office. It was locked, but not very seriously. The people around me were absorbed by their own affairs. I took a credit card from my wallet and pried the lock open just as Murray and Cyrus came through the curtain. Cyrus was looking nervously over his shoulder as they came—he still hadn’t seen me. Before he did I grabbed his arm and hustled him into the cubicle, with Murray pushing from behind. I switched on a light, found a chair, and sat in it with my back against the door.

  “Cyrus, this is a pleasure.”

  In the fluorescent light his skin looked pasty. “Warshawski! What ...? How ...?”

  “Sal told me you come here. Don’t worry about the enforcers—it was me who sent the note. A lucky guess.”

  I’d written—anonymously—that someone demanding payment had come looking for him, armed with a tire iron, but that my friend would help him escape out the back. Given his expensive habits it seemed like a good possibility that he owed more than one person money.

  “What do you want? I could start screaming. Gee-Gee would hear me and throw you out.”

  “Nah. My friend here would just say he’d gotten carried away—like some of the guys in the hall. Gee-Gee might resent his using the office but I bet he wouldn’t throw him out. We’re going to talk. You’re going to tell us what’s happening at City Hall.”

  “What if I don’t?” He was sulky but no longer frightened—he knew me well enough to know that whatever threat I might pose it wouldn’t be physical.

  “Oh, Murray here is with the Herald-Star—show him your press pass so he knows I’m not lying—and if you don’t talk he’ll run a big story on you as a City Hall mole. That would probably get a whole lot of people peeved. Might even cost you your job.”

  Murray perched on the corner of the paper-laden desk, which filled most of the cubicle. He pulled out his wallet and showed Cyrus his pass, then asked me for the correct spelling of Cyrus’s last name.

  Cyrus looked from Murray to my chair blocking the door. “You wouldn’t dare. Libel laws—”

  “Only apply to lies. This would be the truth. Of course, if you felt like giving me a few simple facts, Murray would forget he ever met you. He’s got plenty of City Hall sources. No one would think about you in connection with anything he writes.”

  As Cyrus licked his lips, hesitating, Murray pulled the phone over. “I can call the news desk and tell them to reserve space in the late edition.”

  Of course he couldn’t, really—only on television do stories about corruption go directly into the paper without a hundred editors, fact checkers, and lawyers deciding whether the article will offend an important advertiser. But Cyrus didn’t know that. His shoulders sagged and his face crumpled.

  “Century Bank, City Hall, Home Free, Lamia.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “We’ll cover those and you’re free. I know that Home Free is fudging their Wage and Hour reports in a major way. Who are they paying not to investigate?”

  His face cleared—he was so relieved, the Wage and Hour sheets couldn’t be the main problem. He talked his way glibly through the characters in the city building and labor departments who were on the dole. I recognized some of the names but Murray knew all of them—local politics are his meat and drink.

  Cyrus rattled off names for about five minutes, including two more contractors besides Charpentier that Home Free worked with. “That’s all I know. So you can get away from the door.”

  “That’s all you know about the Wage and Hour inspection,” I corrected. “But that isn’t what got everyone downtown excited about the Lamia project. Lamia had a building permit, and suddenly, overnight, that got canceled. Why? Was it the aldermen or the mayor? The aldermen own zoning a
nd building in their wards, so I know it wasn’t the building department.”

  It took another five minutes of prodding. It wasn’t fun: I don’t like myself in the role of bully and Cyrus wasn’t attractive as a scared rabbit. Finally, when Murray actually got connected to the Herald-Star’s city desk, Cyrus started to talk—and then only after repeated pledges of absolute silence on his name.

  “It was the bank, see. Century had always been a small bank, and most of their investment was in their own community. Then they suddenly started changing their lending policies. Apparently some big management group bought the bank or was trying to buy the bank—I don’t know that part.”

  He licked his lips nervously, worried that I might doubt him on this point and blow his cover. I told him not to worry, I knew who Century’s new owners were.

  “We heard about it because people complained to the city’s Fair Housing Department. Loans were being turned down that Century always used to approve—minority businesses, women’s stuff, minority home mortgages. All that kind of thing. Of course, the U.S. government regulates banks, not City Hall, but people complain, they talk to the alderman, maybe their particular alderman has an in with someone in Congress who can help, maybe the alderman just passes a note to the Fair Housing Department.

  “When you called up and started asking questions about Lamia I thought that was the story. I’d ask a few questions, see if the alderman could be approached, and you could take it from there. So I talked to a few people. In housing and in finance. And I heard rumors, nothing specific, but all kinds of reasons why no one was supposed to ask questions about Century Bank. One guy said the president—of the United States, I mean—had told the mayor it was off-limits. A woman in the treasurer’s office said no, it was someone in Congress. Someone else said it was the U.S. Housing Department—that they would cut off all Chicago’s public housing money if we questioned anything Century did.”

  He licked his lips again and pulled a packet of cigarettes from pants so tight I wouldn’t have thought the pockets could hold anything. I hate the smell of smoke, but his need was greater than mine. I didn’t say anything while he lit up and sucked in a mouthful of smoke.

  “If the rumors were that high-level I knew someone important was involved. So I didn’t want to push on it. I’m just a clerk in the zoning department. I was going to call and tell you it was more than I could take on. And then I got the phone call.”

  He toyed nervously with the cigarette, until he suddenly jumped as it burned his fingers. He looked around for an ashtray. Murray silently handed him a coffee cup. Cyrus dropped the butt into it and rubbed his fingers together.

  “They told me—I can’t tell you what they told me. Then they said no one was supposed to ask questions about Century Bank or Lamia, and why was I. Vic—you got to believe they threatened me in a—a dreadful way.” For a moment I thought he might cry, but he fought it back. “I—they were so specific. I told them it was you. That you were a friend of mine and you’d wondered because the Lamia women were friends of yours. So they told me you were poison, and anyone who talked to you was poison, and they’d know, they had ways of knowing, if I talked to you. I didn’t mean to betray you, Vic, but I couldn’t help myself.”

  The three of us were silent for a moment. I rubbed the side of my head where I’d been hit on Saturday. They were a mean bunch of guys. I looked at Murray and he nodded fractionally: that was all Cyrus knew.

  “We’ll go out the back way,” I told Cyrus. “I doubt anyone is paying attention to you—it’s been two weeks. They must know you haven’t been in touch with me, but let’s not run any risks.

  “I’m flat,” I added to Murray. “Cyrus ought to be able to buy a bottle of the Widow to celebrate getting me off his back. I saw it on the menu for eighty bucks.”

  Murray made a face at me but pulled four twenties from his wallet. We gave Cyrus a couple of minutes to get back into the room, then picked our way past the athletes in the hall and went out through the alley.

  50

  Night Watch

  Murray and I wandered down Broadway without speaking. It was close to ten, but on Belmont we found a storefront pasta place willing to feed us. The waiter was sitting at a table with the only other customers, a group of five arguing about the rival merits of Eagle River and Spring Green, Wisconsin, for vacation homes. As soon as he’d taken our order he rejoined the argument. The waiter preferred Eagle River.

  “So Century’s new owners are violating the Community Lending Act. Does that mean they have to break Cyrus’s legs for asking?” I said when I was sure no one was paying attention to us.

  “Maybe the sale isn’t complete and they’re afraid a whiff will get back to the feds, who’ll block it. Or maybe Cyrus is right and you’re poison—they’re afraid that you looking into it will put the kind of spotlight on the situation they can’t afford. As long as people are only grumbling to their aldermen, JAD Holdings isn’t in much trouble. Especially if the rumors Cyrus heard are right and someone high up in Washington is pressuring the city not to act. I personally liked theory number two, that pressure was coming from Congress, ’cause maybe that’s our pal Alec Gantner.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I paused while the waiter dumped spinach tortellini in front of me. “I mean it doesn’t matter if it’s Gantner, the president, or the housing secretary—they’re all Republicans singing from the same score. What I have trouble with is why the White House, or even a senator, would go out of their way to cover up violations of the banking act.”

  Murray snorted. “It’s when you act naive that you’re unbearable, Warshawski. Look at Iraqgate. Look at BCCI—children of the high and mighty in both parties making out like bandits, knowing their daddies will keep the FBI or IRS from ever digging too deep.”

  “Maybe JAD is doing something else with Century besides cutting back on minority lending.” The pasta was soggy from having sat in hot water all night; I ate enough to take the edge off my hunger, then pushed the plate aside.

  “You think they’re laundering money.” Murray finished his lasagna in one large forkful and spoke thickly through a mouthful of cheese.

  “It stands out a country mile. They’re giving Home Free a fifty-million-dollar line of credit. No storefront not-for-profit needs money on that grand a scale. But the real question is—where’s it going? If we knew what JAD Holdings was up to— How soon can you start getting a line on them?”

  Murray leaned across the table to start on my tortellini. “Depends on what’s available through Lexis. Or if one of my Washington sources is willing to squeal. If I have to do a manual search—I don’t know when I can get into the government offices downtown. They’re all closed indefinitely, you know.”

  “I could have guessed.” I smacked the table in frustration. “If I don’t get some hard information soon, either Emily or I—or maybe both of us—are going to be fish food.”

  The restaurant had a pay phone by the entrance. While Murray tried getting the waiter to disgorge a bill I called my answering service. They told me to check in with the Streeter brothers as soon as possible.

  I got Tim Streeter out of bed. “V.I. No, no—I’m glad you woke me up. We got bounced from the hospital.”

  “What happened?” I demanded sharply. “I thought Ellen Higgins had agreed Emily needed some protection.”

  “A combination of Fabian and the night shift. During the day I was cool because Nurse Higgins let me park a chair in the hall. When Emily woke up in the late afternoon I went in and introduced myself, brought her brothers in to see her, and got a rap going. Your note helped, by the way: she was wary, but figured if I was with you I was cool.

  “Anyway, when the night staff came on duty they made me retreat to the waiting area. Higgins explained the story to them but they didn’t totally buy. And after Fabian showed up everything unraveled anyway.

  “See, he shows up at six-thirty with this older dude—white hair, black eyebrows, suit. They confer with the charge
nurse, who calls a doctor. And pretty soon all four of them go into Emily’s room. One of the other nurses says the guy with the eyebrows is a private headshrinker Fabian’s dug up—Mort Zeitner.” He spelled it for me. “So I go in to make sure the kid knows she’s got the right to refuse medication or whatever else they want to do to her.”

  Murray and the waiter showed up next to me making signs that the restaurant was closing and I should get off the phone. I turned my back on them and hunched into the receiver.

  “And then what?” I asked. “Fabian blew sky-high?”

  “Yeah,” Tim said. “Maybe I should have waited in the hall, but it looked like four against one. Fabian is in there saying she has to talk to Zeitner about her mother’s death and I tell her she has the right to remain silent, and Fabian wants to know who the fuck I am, and Emily starts howling and demands to see you, and then Fabian really goes totally around the bend. And the next thing I know three hospital security guards are showing me the gate.”

  “Shit!” My stomach churned with worry. “She’s been alone since six-thirty?”

  “Not quite that bad. It was after seven by the time they booted me. I got Tom, who managed to hang out in the waiting room until eight-thirty, at which point the chargenurse got suspicious. We thought about covering the entrances, but for one thing there are too many, and for another, we didn’t know who we were looking for. Fabian and Zeitner left around eight. If you have any ideas, Tom and I will go back down there. We feel terrible letting you down like this.”

  My shoulders sagged. “I’m fresh out of ideas. I’m north now, heading south. I’ll stop at the hospital and have a word with the night ward head. Lila Dantry, is it?”

  “Yeah, but don’t expect a parade and flowers when you introduce yourself.”

  I hung up and plunged outside, completely oblivious of Murray, who caught up with me at the corner of Broadway.

  “Where are you off to so fast?” he demanded, panting. “You trying to stiff me? You owe me eight bucks for dinner.”