The doors were locked. I was tempted to pull out my picklocks and leave my messages on my targets’ desks personally, but I heard muffled voices on the far side of the doors. No doubt juniors hard at work, adding to the firm’s blood supply, its billable hours. The door didn’t have a mail slot. I moistened the tips of the envelopes and stuck them to the door, with Dick’s and Todd’s and Leigh Wilton’s names typed in black and underlined in red. I felt a bit like Martin Luther taking on the pope at Wittenberg.
The Chicago Lawyer’s offices were closed. After dropping the original through their mail slot, I felt I’d earned real food for a change. I stopped at a supermarket and loaded up on fruit and vegetables, new yogurt, staples, and a selection of meat and chicken for the freezer. They had some fresh-looking salmon in their fish case. I bought enough for two and grilled some for Mr. Contreras on my miniature back porch.
Before bringing him up-to-date on my search for Mitch Kruger, I had to tell him about Mrs. Frizell’s dogs. He was angry and miserable at the same time.
“I know you don’t think I can handle Peppy, but why couldn’t you bring the dogs over here? They could’ve hung out in the back and not gotten in anyone’s way.”
By the time he finished I was feeling wretched myself. I should have made better arrangements for them; I just didn’t expect Todd Pichea to move so fast, or so cruelly.
“I’m sorry,” I said inadequately. “You’d think after all these years I’ve worked with human slime I’d have been prepared for him and Chrissie. Somehow you never expect it to happen in your own neighborhood, though.”
He patted my hand. “Yeah, doll, I know. I shouldn’t take it out on you. It’s just the thought of those poor helpless animals—and then you think, heck, it could be Peppy and her puppies.… But I don’t mean to pound on you harder than you are on yourself. What are you going to do? About them Picheas, I mean.”
I told him what I’d done this afternoon. He was disappointed—he’d hoped for something more direct and violent. In the end he agreed that we had to move cautiously—and with the law. After a few glasses of grappa he left, somber, but not as outraged as I’d feared.
I had planned to make the probate court my first stop Monday morning, but before my alarm rang Dick was on the phone to me. It was only seven-thirty. His light, barking baritone pounded my eardrums before I was awake enough to sort out the harangue.
“Hold on, Dick. You woke me up. Can I call you back in ten minutes?”
“No, you goddamned well cannot. How dare you go pasting envelopes on our office door? Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the mail?”
I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. “Oh, it’s not the content you object to, but the paste on the firm’s sacred doors? I’ll come over with an S.O.S. pad and scrub them down.”
“Yes, I damned well do object to the contents. How dare you make a totally private matter public in this way? Fortunately I got here before Leigh did and took his copy—”
“Good thing I brought them in person,” I interrupted. “You could be facing arrest for tampering with the mail instead of just charges of vulgarity for lifting someone else’s correspondence.”
He swept past my interruption. “I have a call in to August Dickerson at the Lawyer. He’s a personal friend; I think I can count on him to quash any mention of Todd’s private affairs.”
“Why can’t you just say ‘suppress’?” I asked irritably. “Aren’t you past the age where you need to show how many wonderful legal terms you know? You make me think of the Northwestern medical residents who always wear their doctor gowns to the grocery store across the street.… Can you really keep the Chicago Lawyer from printing my letter? What about the Herald-Star? Is Marshall Townley also a personal friend? Or is he just a client of Crawford, Mead?” Townley published the paper.
“You know I can’t reveal our client list,” he snorted.
I kept my voice humble. “The thing is, I also sent a copy of the letter to a reporter I know. He might not do anything with it as it stands, but you going out of your way to keep it out of the legal rag—well, that is news, Dick. You should tell your secretary to stand by for a call from Murray Ryerson. And I’ll mail another copy to Leigh Wilton. Maybe you can bribe the receptionist to bring it to you when it arrives.”
His final words to me were not a pledge of everlasting friendship.
15
Step Aside, Sisyphus
The morning went downhill from there. On my way back from my run I stopped to talk to Mrs. Hellstrom. I realized I’d been too upset Friday night to tell her what had happened to the dogs. Distress made her voluble. She grew even more dismayed when I broke in to tell her about Mrs. Frizell’s condition.
“I’ll have to go over there this morning to visit. Mr. Hellstrom doesn’t like me having anything to do with her, she’s an unpleasant neighbor in some ways, but we’ve been through a lot together. I can’t leave her rotting there.”
“The nurses don’t want her told about her dogs until she’s stronger,” I warned.
“As if I would do such a cruel thing. But that Mr. Pichea—an you be sure he won’t?”
A new worry. When I stopped at home to shower and have breakfast I called Nelle McDowell, the charge nurse at the women’s orthopedic ward. When I explained the situation, and asked her please not to let either of the Picheas see Mrs. Frizell alone, she gave a sardonic crack of laughter.
“It’s not that I disagree. I agree a hundred percent. But we’re shorthanded here as it is. And he’s the lady’s legal guardian. I can’t stop him if he wants to come visit her.”
“I’m going down to the probate court this morning to see what I can do to challenge that guardianship agreement.”
“Be my guest, Ms. Warshawski. But I gotta warn you, Mrs. Frizell does not act mentally competent. Even if you arrange a full-blown hearing instead of the shotgun affair we had last week, no one is going to think she can look after herself.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I hung up disgruntled. The only person with legal standing to complain was Byron Frizell, and he’d approved Pichea’s appointment. I drove downtown to the Daley Center, where the civil courts are located, but I wasn’t optimistic.
The probate court was less than sympathetic to my inquiries. An assistant state’s attorney, who’d been in Little League when I went to law school, greeted me with the hostility typical of bureaucrats whose deeds are challenged. With a lofty tilt to his chin, he informed me that Mrs. Frizell’s guardianship hearing had followed “appropriate procedures.” The only grounds for challenging Pichea’s guardianship—especially in light of Byron Frizell’s support—would be incontrovertible proof that he was denuding the estate.
“By which time she’ll be dead and it won’t matter what he does with her estate,” I said savagely.
The attorney raised supercilious eyebrows. “If you find any grounds for questioning Mr. Pichea’s probity, you can come back to see me. But I’m going to have to report your inquiries to him; as the guardian, he needs to know who shows an interest in his ward’s affairs.”
I felt my eyeballs bulging with frustration, but forced an affable smile to my lips. “I’d be glad for Pichea to know I’m interested. In fact, you can tell him I’ll be sticking to him like his underwear. There’s always the faint chance that will keep him honest.”
To make my morning as useless as possible I stopped across the street at the city’s Department of Human Services to find out why they’d labeled Mrs. Frizell’s dogs a menace to her health. The bureaucrats there weren’t as hostile as the ones at the probate court; they were merely lethargic. When I identified myself as a lawyer with an interest in Mrs. Frizell’s affairs, they dug up the report that had been filed with Emergency Services when the paramedics picked her up last Monday. Apparently Mr. Contreras hadn’t scrubbed down the front hall well enough: one of the paramedics had trod in “fecal matter,” as the report identified it, on her way out the door.
“That was just because Mrs. Frizell
had been lying unconscious for twenty-four hours. She couldn’t let the dogs out. The rest of the house was clean.”
“The rest of the house was filthy, according to our report,” the woman behind the counter said.
I flushed. “So she hadn’t vacuumed lately. The dogs hadn’t relieved themselves except by the door. She was very conscientious about letting them out.”
“Our report says otherwise.”
We batted it back and forth for a while, but I couldn’t budge her. Helplessness was making me feel savage, but screaming obscenities would only hurt my cause. I finally got the woman to give me the name of the public servant who’d made up the report, but by now there wasn’t any point in seeking him out.
As I hiked across the Loop to my office I wondered whether I could file a multimillion-dollar suit against Pichea and the city on Mrs. Frizell’s behalf. The problem was, I didn’t have standing. My best bet would be to find out something really disgusting about Todd and Chrissie. Other than their personalities, that is—something that would disgust a judge and jury.
Tom Czarnik was waiting for me in the lobby of the Pulteney Building. He hadn’t shaved today. With his bristly chin and angry red eyes he looked like an extra from Mutiny on the Bounty.
“Was you in here on Sunday?” he demanded.
I smiled. “I pay my rent. I can come and go when I please without your permission.”
“Someone left the stairwell door unlocked. I knew it had to be you.”
“You track my footsteps through the layers of dust? Maybe I’ll take you on; I could use a sharp-eyed assistant.” I turned toward the elevator. “Machine working today? Or do I use the stairs again?”
“I’m warning you, Warshawski. You interfere with the safety of the building and I’ll report you to the owners.”
I pushed the elevator call button. “You get rid of a paying tenant and they’re more likely to lynch you.” Half the offices in the Pulteney were empty these days—people who could afford the rents were moving north to newer buildings.
The elevator creaked to the ground floor and I climbed in. The squeak of the shutting doors drowned Czarnik’s farewell curse. When we clanked to a halt on the fourth floor I discovered his rather childish revenge: he’d used his master key to open my door, and propped it wide with an iron weight.
When I checked with my answering service I found Murray had returned my call. Max Loewenthal had also phoned, asking if I’d stop at his house for drinks tonight. His son and Or’ Nivitsky were leaving for Europe in the morning. And I had a message from a company in Schaumburg wanting to know who was slipping their production secrets to a competitor.
I called Max to accept with pleasure. The serenity of his Evanston home would make a welcome relief from the places and people I’d been seeing lately. I phoned the Schaumburg outfit and arranged to see their operations vice president at two. And I caught Murray at his desk. He agreed to meet me for a sandwich at a place near the paper, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about my story.
Lucy Moynihan, who owns and runs Carl’s, plucked us from the line at the door and ushered us to one of the tables she saves for her regulars. She grew up in Detroit and is an unregenerate Tiger fan, so I had to wait for her and Murray to finish dissecting yesterday’s game before I could tell him about Mrs. Frizell and her dogs.
“It’s sad, Vic, but it’s not a story,” Murray said through a mouthful of hamburger. “I can’t bring this to my editor. The first thing he’ll want to know is how much you’re motivated by your hatred of Yarborough.”
“Dick hasn’t got anything to do with this. Except that he and Pichea are at the same law firm. Don’t you think it’s interesting that he’s getting the Chicago Lawyer to suppress my letter?”
“Frankly, no. I think he’s protecting Crawford, Mead’s fair name. Anyone would under the circumstances. Bring me some real dirt and I’ll go to bat for you. This just doesn’t cut it. You’re on a crusade for the old lady and it’s distorting your perspective.”
“This is a story. It’s happening all over the Lincoln Park perimeter as the yuppies muscle in to old neighborhoods. People forced out of bungalows they’ve spent a lifetime in to make way for the sacred gentrifiers. Only in this case Pichea’s added a personal vendetta against an old woman because he hates her dogs.”
Murray shook his head. “You’re not selling me, V.I.”
I pulled a five from my billfold and slapped it on the table, too angry to eat. “Don’t come around asking me for favors in the future, Ryerson, because there won’t be any.”
As I stormed to the door I saw him pick up my turkey sandwich and start eating it. Great. Perfect conclusion to a bad morning.
On my way to Schaumburg I stopped at a fast foodery for a milkshake. I couldn’t go indefinitely on anger and I wanted to present a professional front to my prospective clients. Fortunately I’d dressed for success today in a taupe trouser suit with a black cotton top. And since I drank the shake through a straw I didn’t even spill any on myself.
The meeting took all afternoon. At five-thirty I left them with a proposal and joined the parking lot on Interstate 290 crawling back to Chicago. There wasn’t any good way to get from the northwest suburbs to Evanston. There wasn’t any good way to move in the northwest suburbs at this time of day, period. I got off at Golf Road to drive directly east. It wouldn’t be any slower than staying on the expressway.
The Cubs were playing in Philadelphia. I turned on the radio to see if the game had started, but got the inane blather Harry Carey called his pregame show. I switched to WBBM and the news. Nothing was going on in the world that I cared much about, from the baking of the Southwest to the news that the savings and loan bailout was now estimated at five hundred billion.
“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered, trying NBC. Traffic was backed up on all the expressways as people like me returned to the city after frolicking in the suburbs. On Golf Road, too, although the man in the helicopter didn’t mention it. I braked hard as a maroon Honda pulled into traffic from one of the five thousand strip malls lining the street. Stupid jerk. He pulled in behind me, close enough to ram me if I had to stop suddenly.
No one had identified the body of an elderly man pulled from the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Stickney earlier today. We got an agitated live report from Ellen Coleman, who had found the body when she and her husband, Fred, were walking along the side of the canal, scavenging for coins.
“And I said to Fred, ‘I don’t think I can face meatloaf tonight after seeing all that ground-up flesh,’ ” I mimicked savagely, turning back to Harry Carey.
It was six before I reached the outskirts of Evanston. My linen jacket was limp from sweat. When I checked my face in the rearview mirror I saw a black smudge across my cheek. My dark curls were lying wet on my forehead. I found a Kleenex in my purse and scrubbed my face clean with spit. I couldn’t do anything about the rest of my appearance.
Max’s house was part of a small block that shared a private park and beach at the south end of Evanston. When I pulled into the driveway Max leaned over the side of the second-story porch.
“The front door is open, Vic; you can come on up.”
A shallow step led to the porticoed front entrance. The air inside was still and cool. I couldn’t imagine heat or sweat among the Chinese porcelains that filled niches and stands along the hall and stairwell. I felt sloppy and out of place in the midst of Max’s immaculate tidiness. My black pumps had a film of dust on them that didn’t belong on the red Persian runner lining the stairs.
The red carpeting continued in the upper hall, leading to the porch door. The porch had been enclosed with sliding screens, which were open now so that Max and Michael and Or’ could watch the lake stained orange and pink in the reflection of the setting sun. Michael and Or’ were sitting in one corner drinking iced tea. Max came forward to greet me, leading me by the hand to a nearby chair, and pressing a drink on me. I took a gin and tonic and felt some of the stress leave my sh
oulders.
Like the rest of the house, the porch was immaculate and beautifully furnished. The deck chairs were made of dark, polished wood covered in thick, flowered cushions. The occasional tables, unlike the glass or cast iron of most porch furniture, were constructed of the same wood with bright tile inlays. Blooming plants in Chinese pots stood on ledges around the perimeter.
A break of dawn redwoods screened the porch from the house to the south; the front of the other house lay further back. Although shrieks from neighborhood children drifted up, we couldn’t see anyone.
Lotty arrived a few minutes later and the conversation turned to music, and Or’s and Michael’s summer schedules. Or’ was conducting at Tanglewood, he touring in the Far East. They would join up again in the fall for a tour in Eastern Europe, although both were worried by the anti-Semitic violence in that part of the world. Lotty seemed to have put her anger over Carol to one side, greeting me with a kiss and taking enthusiastic part in the conversation.
At seven-thirty I got up to go. They were moving on to a restaurant for dinner, but I’d had too long a day. I just wanted to get to bed.
Michael stood up with me. “We’re flying back to London tomorrow. I’ll go downstairs with you to say good-bye, Vic.”
I thanked Max for his hospitality. “Good-bye, Or’. Good to meet you—and to hear your music.”
The composer swung her arm in a farewell, as if signaling an orchestra. She didn’t move from her chair. As Michael shut the screen door to the hall behind him I heard her commenting on the Cellini Quintet, which Max and Lotty knew well.
Michael held the door to the Trans Am for me. I shook his hand through the open window.
“Have a safe journey to London. I hope you didn’t mind playing for those musical cretins last week?”
Guardian Angel Page 11