Guardian Angel

by Sara Paretsky

  “You look kind of hot today, honey. Want another draw?”

  I slid onto the stool. The thin brew soothed my raw throat. Her bar wasn’t air-conditioned, but it was out of the glare of the sun. A fan blowing down the counter dried my sweat, giving me the illusion of coolness.

  “I didn’t have time for lunch. Do you sell sandwiches or anything?”

  She shook her head regretfully. “The best I can do for you is a bag of chips or pretzels, honey.”

  I ate the pretzels with my second beer. We had the bar to ourselves. She was watching Donahue on a small black-and-white set tucked under the whisky bottles. The TV was too clean to have been Mitch’s.

  At a commercial break Tessie spoke without looking at me. “I hear they found that old man you were hunting last week, drowned in the San. They picked up his body yesterday, what I hear. Your uncle, did you say?”

  I grunted noncommittally.

  “Lily Polter said you were a detective. So was he an uncle or a skipper?”

  “Neither. He grew up with an old friend of mine. My friend got upset when the guy went missing.”

  She flicked a fly with her bar towel. “I don’t like being lied to. Most especially not in my own bar.”

  My cheeks reddened under my sunburn. “I figured if I came in here and announced I was a detective, someone might break a bottle of Old Overholt on my head.”

  Her eyes crinkled with unexpected laughter. “I might still do that. Especially if I find out you’re lying to me this time around. What happened to the old boy?”

  I shook my head. “You know as much as I do. He fell into the Sanitary Canal, but he was dead before he went in. I was over at Mrs. Polter’s trying to find a photo, but some guy came by this morning, said he was my man’s son, and took his union card and all his stuff that might have had a picture on it.”

  “Said he was his son?” she repeated. “You think he wasn’t?”

  “I don’t think. All I do is ask questions. I didn’t know anyone here in Chicago had an address for the son, and even if they did, he got here mighty fast. Still, maybe he had a nightmare warning him his father was dead and flew into town on the chance. You didn’t see the guy, did you? Mrs. Polter couldn’t give me a description.”

  “I’m not open that early, hon. But if I hear anything I’ll let you know. Could be my old man saw something. He’s had a stroke, but he likes to sit outside in the evenings and mornings, watch the street, same as he has for seventy years now.”

  I gave her my card and two dollars for the beers and the pretzels. As I headed for the door Tessie spoke again.

  “You just somehow don’t look like the kind of girl who would let a drunk old uncle drag around in circles. Something about the way you hold yourself, honey. I figure you’re telling the truth when you say you’re a detective.”

  That sounded like enough of a compliment to take some of the drag out of my step. I sketched a wave and went back into the heat.

  It was getting to be time to go back to the plant and try to intercept some of the machinists on their way home, but my heart didn’t leap at the idea. Two beers on any empty stomach after a day in the sun made me long for any alternative to physical action. Like a nap. Anyway, how effective could I be in my current shape? If someone looked at me cross-eyed I’d fall over. My wits weren’t nimble enough to phrase questions that would be irresistible to answer.

  I coaxed the Cressida into third and headed north on Halsted. At this hour it was faster to stay away from the expressways. Even Halsted was dense; I kept having to shift up and down at the lights. Tomorrow I’d return the Cressida and rent a car that worked right.

  What I needed was a different approach to Diamond Head. I’d been butting my own head against a rock-hard wall there. I needed someone who might open the doors for me. I do a lot of work for industrial outfits in Chicago. It was possible that a grateful former client sat on the Diamond Head board. It was even possible that the owners, whoever they were, overlapped with some other company I’d worked for. Mr. Contreras kept saying Diamond Head had new owners; all I had to do was locate them. And that was something my trusty lawyer could do for me. He had a computer and access to the Lexis system—I didn’t.

  I got off Halsted at Jackson, where the remnants of Chicago’s Greek community lie. I’d only turned there because Jackson was the direct route to my office, but the smell coming from the restaurants on the corners was too much for me. It was almost five, anyway, too late to ask Freeman Carter to start a search. I settled down with taramasalata and a plate of grilled squid and put the heat and frustrations of the day behind me.

  20

  Legal Enterprise

  I had a hard time getting through to Freeman’s office the next morning. The first three times I dialed I counted twenty rings before hanging up. What on earth had happened to their phone system? The call should have gone to a message center. The fourth time I rang someone picked up the phone without knowing where Freeman was. His reluctance to take a message made me decide to go down in person.

  I hadn’t been inside Crawford, Mead’s offices since they’d moved to their new crib near Wacker, but the walnut paneling, the russet Ferraghan hanging to the right of the entrance, and the two outsize Tang urns were all the same as they’d been on South LaSalle. Why move at all if you were just going to replicate your old surroundings at treble the cost?

  Leah Caudwell had been the firm’s receptionist since before Dick joined the firm. She had always liked me, and had seen me as an aggrieved party when Dick and I split up. Without exactly encouraging her to believe it, I’d never directly contradicted the idea; the wear and tear on Dick was my substitute for alimony.

  I walked over to the reception counter with a cheery greeting on my lips, but found myself looking at a strange young woman easily thirty years Leah’s junior. She was pencil thin, wearing a green knit sheath and a lavish amount of lipstick.

  “Leah sick today?” I asked.

  The young woman shook her head. “She quit when we moved last November. Can I help you?”

  I felt unreasonably hurt that Leah had left without notifying me. With a little brusqueness I gave the young woman my name and told her I’d come to see Freeman.

  “Oh, my. Did you have an appointment with him?”

  “Nope. I spent the morning trying to get through on the phone and thought it would be easier to come in person. I’ll talk to his secretary, though; what I need doesn’t require his personal attention.”

  “Oh, my,” she repeated helplessly, shaking her feathered curls. “Well, maybe you’d better talk to Catherine. If you’ll have a seat I’ll page her for you. What did you say your name was?”

  Catherine Gentry was Freeman’s secretary. Since she hadn’t been answering his phone I didn’t know that she would answer a page. The receptionist’s manner made it clear that something was wrong with Freeman, but it seemed hopeless to get her to tell me anything. I handed her one of my cards and went over to the russet armchairs underneath the Ferraghan. When Dick started at the firm fourteen years ago he’d told me, awed, that the rug was insured for fifty thousand dollars. I suppose it was now worth three or four times that, but Dick’s awe had probably diminished commensurately.

  After I’d waited ten minutes, thumbing through the Wall Street Journal and back copies of Newsweek, a thickset young woman came out, whispered something to the receptionist, and came over to me.

  “Are you Ms. Warshawski?” She made a credible stab at my last name. “I’m Vivian Copley. I’m one of the paralegals—I’ve done a lot of work for Mr. Carter recently. What did you need to see him about?”

  “It’s certainly something you could help me with, but is something wrong with Freeman? I haven’t talked to him for a while.”

  She put a hand over her mouth and giggled nervously. “Oh, dear. I hate … I don’t know if we’re supposed … but it’ll probably be in the papers anyway.”

  “What?” I demanded sharply. I was getting tired of the he
lpless fluttering of the office staff.

  “He announced his resignation from the firm on Friday. They asked him to pack up on the spot. Catherine’s here today taking care of his files, but she’ll be gone tomorrow. We’re redirecting his clients to other partners, so if you tell me what you needed to see him about we can figure out who the best person to help you would be.”

  I studied my nails for a moment, wondering whether to ask for Dick or Todd Pichea. The effect would be electric, but what would I gain from it?

  I got up. “Freeman’s been handling my affairs for so many years I wouldn’t feel comfortable working with anyone else. Why don’t you just take me back to Catherine?”

  She twisted a strand of hair around a finger. “We’re really not supposed to—”

  I smiled firmly. “Why don’t you just take me to Catherine?”

  “I think I need to talk to my boss about it first.” She whisked back inside the doors that led to the firm’s offices.

  I waited about thirty seconds and followed her. Since I’d never been here before I didn’t know where Freeman’s office might lie. I picked the right-hand corridor at random and walked through the ankle-deep carpet, poking my head into offices and conference rooms. I passed lots of myrmidons laden down with files and computer printouts, but none who knew anything about Freeman Carter.

  Crawford, Mead was renting four floors of the building. I came at one point to a private stairwell connecting the floors on the inside. Like the rest of the place it was heavily coated in wood and plush. It seemed weird to me—you buy space in the most modern of glass towers, and then cover it with wood and velvet to make it seem like an ancient courthouse.

  When I got to the second floor I finally found an assistant somebody who could direct me to Freeman’s office. The general interdict on giving information to clients apparently had only been issued to the frontline troops. Freeman was—had been—at the far end of the floor we were on. I followed the woman’s directions with only a few missteps and finally found Catherine Gentry stuffing files into packing boxes.

  “Vic!” She dropped what she was holding and wiped her hands on her jeans. I’d never seen her out of the severely tailored clothes she thought necessary for her job, or with her hair falling in wisps around her face. I wouldn’t have recognized her on the street.

  “Catherine! What’s going on here? They act like Freeman ran off with the company pension fund.”

  “They’re acting like the scumbags I always knew they were. I can’t tell you how happy I am that we’re out of this cockroach pit. I don’t even mind having to do all this packing on my own. Well, hardly mind, anyway. Were you on Freeman’s calendar? I thought I caught everyone.” Catherine had grown up in Jackson, Mississippi, and she’d never made any effort to accommodate her accent to the Yankees around her.

  “No. I was trying to call this morning and couldn’t get through, so I came down in person. You need some help?”

  She grinned. “I need it, honey, but these are all confidential files. I’ve got to look after them myself. What can we do for you? Freeman’s spending the day at home, but if you’ve been arrested or something he’ll be glad to leap into action.”

  “Nothing that interesting. I just wanted to look something up on Lexis; it can wait until you’re in your new quarters.” Or I could drive to Springfield and look up the records manually. Not my favorite activity, but maybe better than sitting on the problem another few weeks.

  Catherine grunted. “Why don’t you write down what you need for me? I’ve still got a couple of friends in this rathole. If they’re not too jealous of me getting to jump ship, one of ’em might do the work for me.”

  I wrote down Diamond Head’s address and line of business. “I just want the owners and the board of directors. I don’t need any financial reports, at least not right now. Where will you be setting up shop?”

  “Oh, Freeman found us a sweet little place down on South Clark. Nine hundred square feet. All we have to do is move in the desks and plug in the machines—not like here, where they were painting and papering and God knows what under our feet the first six months we were here. We’re taking a week off first, and I can’t wait.”

  “What’s Leah Caudwell doing now?” I asked, handing her the piece of paper.

  She made an unhappy face. “ ’Bout eighteen months, two years ago, we just started handling so much business—I won’t say she couldn’t stay on top of it—but it wasn’t like the old days, where she knew all the clients personally and they remembered her at Christmas and stuff. Some of the new people coming through here were just purely rude and she didn’t like the atmosphere. So when we moved, they suggested that she not come along. I felt real sorry for her, but what could I do?… You gotta excuse me, Vic—I’ve got movers coming in three hours and I need to get all this stuff boxed up. Here’s our new address—you be sure ‘n’ come see us.”

  She handed me a business card with Freeman’s name neatly embossed on it. He’d waited to leave until his new quarters were ready—the card listed both a phone and a fax. I was going to have to break down and get a fax myself—it was too hard to do business, at least my kind of business, without one. Even my favorite Loop deli wouldn’t accept phone orders for lunch anymore—you had to fax ahead during the noon rush.

  I was so deep in contemplation of the gap between me and modern technology that I didn’t notice the people around me until someone grabbed my arm.

  “That’s her!” a voice shrieked.

  It was the young receptionist. The person holding my arm was a member of the building’s security force. When I tried to twist free his hold tightened.

  “Sorry, ma’am. They tell me you went busting into their offices without permission, and they’ve asked me to see you off the premises.”

  “I’m a client,” I protested. “At least, I was until you grabbed my arm.”

  We were blocking the stairs. A crowd was gathering below us when a man behind me demanded to know what the trouble was. I turned and smiled thankfully: it was Leigh Wilton, one of the senior partners. While we’d never been friends, he didn’t share the active disdain toward me of many of his peers.

  “Leigh—it’s me—Vic Warshawski. I went back to try to talk to Freeman—didn’t know you and he had parted company—and your receptionist here thought I was a mugger.”

  “Vic! How are you? Looking great.” He patted the guard’s shoulder. “You can let her go. And Cindy, check with me before you turn the dogs loose on our clients, okay?”

  The receptionist flushed. “Mr. Pichea came through. When I explained it to him, he called the guard. I just came along to identify her. I didn’t mean—”

  “I know you didn’t, honey. But Mr. Pichea doesn’t make the decisions around here. So why don’t you go back to your desk. And you”—to the guard—“do you need me to clear anything up with your superiors?”

  The guard shook his head and followed Cindy on a fast track to the door. Leigh thought it was such a good joke, my almost being arrested, that he insisted I come to his office for a cup of coffee. He called Pichea and made him join us. My neighbor’s chagrin made up for a little of the humiliation I’d experienced the last few days.

  “I’m going to have to put together a photo album of our clients so you young eager beavers don’t send them all to jail,” Leigh added.

  “Todd and I know each other,” I said. “We met over dogs. Fact is, he’s got such an active social conscience, he’s just about looking after our whole block right now.”

  Todd flushed a dull mahogany. “Mr. Yarborough knows about it, sir. He can explain it to you. If you’ll excuse me, I was with a client when you called.”

  “Ah, these young guys, just can’t take a joke. What’s this about dogs, Vic?”

  I gave him a short summary, in between a series of phone calls. His attention was wandering long before I finished. “I’ll look into it for you, Vic, let you know if I learn anything. Good to see you. Just give me advance notice t
he next time you come, so I can have the cops ready.”

  I forced a smile and left for my own office. I spent the afternoon on odd jobs—typing invoices, preparing a presentation for the Schaumburg company I’d seen on Monday, catching up on correspondence.

  By the end of the day no word had come from Catherine on my Lexis search. I didn’t have any way to get back in touch with her until she and Freeman started work next week. I left a message on their new office’s answering machine just in case, but it looked as though I would have to drive to Springfield tomorrow.

  At six I called Lotty to see if we could swap cars back tonight; with the Trans Am I could probably make the round trip in under five hours. She agreed, but without enthusiasm.

  “What’s wrong? You busy?”

  She laughed self-consciously. “No. Just feeling sorry for myself. Today was Carol’s last day. I feel—personally bereft. And Max keeps trying to make me be reasonable, which only makes me want to be as unreasonable as I possibly can.”

  “Well, I still love you, Lotty. Want me to take you out for dinner? You can scream and shout to your heart’s content.”

  At that she gave a more natural laugh. “That’s what the doctor ordered. Yes. Great idea. I’m running behind here. How about seven-thirty at I Popoli?”

  I agreed readily and started going through the motions of tidying my office for the night. I was just heading out the door when the phone rang again. Thinking it might be Freeman, I went back to my desk. A smooth-voiced woman asked if I was indeed Ms. Warshawski, then commanded me to hold for Mr. Yarborough.

  “Vic, what in hell were you doing poking through our offices this morning?” he demanded without preamble.

  “Dick, that question is just loaded with negative pregnants. How on earth do you handle the affairs of your impressive clients when you express yourself so loosely?” I picked up a pen and sketched a row of jagged teeth on an envelope in front of me. Then I added a ball of fire erupting from them.

  “You can’t deny you were there. I heard about it from two people.”