I finally figured out which function key allowed me to browse. The machine, impatient with my retardation, barely allowed me to hit it before demanding a file name. I gave it “Diamond Head.” It spat it back, “File not found.” I tried a variety of permutations on the name, but the machine didn’t like any of them.
Finally I found my way back to the directory and studied it carefully. Something called “Client.Exec” sounded promising. I fiddled around with different letters and managed—after numerous false starts—a combination the computer liked. A few blinking lights and the client files lay in front of me. Not, of course, in ledger form—just another set of menu options.
I looked at my watch. It was close to three. It had taken longer to figure out how to use the damned computer than it had to get in through the front door. After another period of trial and error I found the Diamond Head records.
As soon as I came to the list of directors and officers, I realized why Freeman had been so upset this morning. Jason Felitti was the chairman, Peter Felitti the vice chair, and Richard Yarborough the secretary. I let my jaw drop. I didn’t know who Jason was, but I’d met Peter at the benefit Michael and Or’ had given. He was Dick’s father-in-law and the chairman of Amalgamated Portage.
I laughed out loud, a little hysterically. Yeah, I knew one of the directors who could put pressure on Chamfers for me, all right. Jeez, Louise. No wonder Freeman thought I was trying to pull him into a private war with Dick! That still didn’t excuse his rudeness, but at least I could see his point of view.
I scanned the rest of the file perfunctorily. It was past four now and my eyes were having trouble focusing on the shimmery green letters. I wished I knew how to print the file, but I was too tired to figure out any more computer shenanigans, and I didn’t want an early arrival to find me on the job.
If Carver kept Diamond Head’s books, they were in a separate set of ledger files, which I also couldn’t figure out how to hunt down. The summary data presented here showed that Diamond Head was heavily leveraged. In fact, debt seemed to exceed retained earnings by about a 1:2 ratio. And the company had a relationship with Amalgamated Portage, which held a big chunk of the debt. That was cozy—just keep it all in the family.
In addition, Diamond Head had a connection to Paragon Steel. Carver’s files didn’t spell out how, but Paragon seemed responsible for a lot of Diamond Head’s cash flow. Paragon Steel. For such a huge conglomerate to be involved with a tiny outfit like Diamond Head made no sense to me. I rubbed my eyes a few times to make sure I was reading it correctly.
Paragon was one of the few companies that had seen the writing on the U.S. steel industry wall fifteen years ago. They had restructured themselves so that they could produce relatively small lots of different specialty grades of steel on very tight turnaround; they had gone into plastics in a big way; and they were also one of the few Illinois companies to make out like bandits during the Reagan defense buildup.
The Wall Street Journal had done a major story on them only a month or so ago—that’s why the details were fresh in my mind. I could see Paragon owning Diamond Head—the small engines the latter made would fit right into their defense operations. But Paragon providing a stream of cash to the smaller firm? I shook my head over it, but time was rushing past. I’d have to worry about it tomorrow.
I rummaged in Carver’s desk and found a legal pad. I tore off a piece so that my writing wouldn’t leave telltale dents underneath, and jotted down the key points. There wasn’t anything else I could do right now. Anyway, I was longing for sleep.
Fortunately the keyboard offered me the choice of exiting. I did so, and more by luck than skill found myself back at the blank screen with the blinking cursor. I looked carefully around the two rooms to make sure I hadn’t left anything of myself there.
On the way downstairs I felt a faint twinge of conscience. What had Jonas Carver ever done to me that I should invade his office? If he came into my place rummaging through my files I’d break his kneecaps; he’d have every right to do the same to me.
Gabriella certainly would have disapproved. Her face set in stern lines, telling me I had been a very bad girl, followed me into my dreams.
27
Down the Street and Through the Diner
Before going to bed I took the precaution of slipping a note under Mr. Contreras’s door. I didn’t want to be awakened at the crack of dawn by his frantic leaning on my bell. I also unplugged my phone. As a result I managed almost six hours sleep, enough to get me going, although not with any real enthusiasm.
I hadn’t been running for several days and badly needed the exercise, more for my mental than my physical well-being. The small of my back no longer ached, but I could feel the stiffness in the muscles when I did my warm-up routine. I’d have to take a chance on the guys who beat up Lotty hunting for me.
I left my gun at home. It’s too hard to run with a shoulder holster under your sweatshirt—the gun digs into your breast in an unpleasant way. I kept to side streets instead of the more pleasant route over to the lake, and made it home again without incident. After a shower and a late breakfast—fruit, yogurt, and a toasted cheese sandwich to make it do for lunch as well—I tried to figure out what to do next.
I had to talk to Chamfers about the attack on Lotty. The cops claimed they’d covered it and that he was clean as hand-laundered money, but I wanted to hear it from him in person. I also needed to go to the public library and do a computer search on Jason Felitti. Presumably he was a brother to Dick’s father-in-law, or maybe an uncle, but I’d like more information than that. I wondered if anyone at the Bank of Lake View would talk to me about Mrs. Frizell. Probably not, but it was worth a try.
I looked at my watch. All that would have to wait. The first thing I needed to do was see whether anyone at Paragon Steel would talk to me.
The decision on what to wear was complex. I needed to look professional for a conversation with Paragon managers. I wanted to be cool. I needed to be able to carry my gun. And I needed to be able to run if necessary. In the end I decided on jeans with a silk houndstooth jacket. It would look professional in California. That would have to be close enough.
Before I left I dug out my address book and dialed Freeman Carter’s home number. I was pleased to find him in—he could easily have spent his week off in the country.
“V. I. Warshawski, Freeman. I hope I’m not interrupting your lunch.”
“I’m on my way out the door, Vic. Can it wait?”
“No, it can’t, but I’ll be brief. Until four this morning I had no idea that Dick or his father-in-law was involved with Diamond Head Motors. I think you owe me an apology.”
“Four this morning?” Freeman picked on the least significant part of my remark. “What were you doing at four this morning?”
“Backbreaking labor to find out what you could have told me with no loss of sweat. Did you think I was trying to lasso you into a fight with Dick? It would have been gracious of you to ask first.”
“Backbreaking labor, huh? Well, I never thought it would hurt you to work for a living.”
“But did you think I was trying to rope you into a standoff with Dick?” I persisted.
“The thought did cross my mind,” Freeman said after a pause. “And it hasn’t quite left it. It’s an incredible coincidence, your being interested in Diamond Head.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Crawford, Mead must be involved with a lot of mid-sized firms around Chicago. Those are the ones I typically work with too. We simply have … overlapping spheres of interest, that’s it.” The phrase, pulled from an old course on political history, pleased me more than it did Freeman, who didn’t say anything.
After a long silence I plowed ahead. “You know, I’ve been thinking. About you and Crawford, Mead, I mean. I can’t help wondering if they started working on mergers and acquisitions during the Drexel glory days. I remembered at the concert you said the firm was doing business you didn’t like—I don’t think you would
have stayed on board if it was something downright immoral, like fronting for money launderers. But mergers—a lot of firms have found the tail starts wagging the dog when they take that on, so it did seem like that was what you might have had in mind. Since Peter Felitti is Dick’s father-in-law, maybe you thought there was a conflict of interest handling that particular transaction.”
Freeman gave a sharp bark that might have been laughter. “I should know better by now than to say anything in front of you that I don’t want used in court against me later. You come up with this theory on your own? Or you been talking to people?”
“I’ve been thinking. It’s what I do for a living, you know. A lot of my work is figuring out why people do what they do. Diamond Head is carrying a huge debt load—that sounds like junk financing. Dick’s name is on their board. That sounds like he handled the business. You were angry. That sounds like you knew about this and felt I was cutting too close to the bone.”
“Well, I’m still not going to discuss the firm’s business with you, Vic. You could be right—or you could be blowing smoke. That’s all I can tell you about this—except I’m sorry I misjudged you the other day—but I sure as hell wish you would work on something besides Diamond Head. Now I’ve got to go: I’m standing up a friend.”
“There is one other thing,” I said quickly before he could hang up. “I really need someone who will get the plant manager at Diamond Head to talk to me. He’s been stonewalling me for two weeks. That’s why I wanted the names of the directors—I thought I might know one of them.”
“You do, Vic. You know Richard Yarborough. I keep telling you that you misjudge Dick. He might respond to you if you could bring yourself to ask him in a nice way.” The phone clicked in my ear.
It had been an outside chance that Freeman would feel dismayed enough at misjudging me to help me see Chamfers. It would have required his pretending he was still with Crawford, Mead, and he was too scrupulous for that kind of shenanigan.
“Besides, hard work builds character,” I said out loud.
Before leaving for the day I called Lotty. She was still at Max’s but thought she would be well enough to go to the clinic for half a day in the morning. I asked her if she’d talked to the police.
“Yes. Sergeant Rawlings drove out here yesterday afternoon. They don’t know anything, but he seemed to think you were obstructing their investigation—I think that was his phrase. Vic …” She paused and fished for words. “If there’s something you’re keeping from the police, tell them, please. I’m not going to be able to drive without looking over my shoulder every five seconds until the men who beat me up are caught.”
My shoulders slumped. “I told the police about the guy who threatened to put a tail on me, but they think he’s clean. I don’t know what else I can do, except try to conduct my own investigation.”
“There’s telling and telling. I’ve watched you operate for years and I know you often hold back the—the key emphasis, maybe, or some little thing that will make them able to make the same connections you do.”
Her voice, which lacked its usual crisp vitality, was more depressing than her words. I tried to remember my conversations with Conrad Rawlings and Terry Finchley. I hadn’t told them about the person masquerading as Mitch Kruger’s son who’d lifted his papers from Mrs. Polter’s. Maybe I should do that. I couldn’t bear the thought of Lotty suddenly aging out of fear, especially a fear I’d helped foster.
I was silent so long she said sharply, ‘There is something, isn’t there?”
“I don’t know if there is or not. It didn’t seem relevant to me, but I’ll call Detective Finchley and tell him before I leave.”
“Do that, Vic,” she said, her voice cracking. “Pretend I matter, that I’m not just a little piece of your game plan that didn’t work the way you hoped.”
“Lotty! That’s not fair—” I began, but she hung up before I could hear her crying.
Was I really that lacking in feeling? I loved Lotty. More than any living person I could think of. Was I treating her like a pawn? I didn’t have a game plan; that was half my trouble. I was floundering from action to action, not knowing in what direction I was going. Nonetheless, the distaste I’d felt for myself after breaking into Carver’s office last night came back to me. A knot of self-disgust twisted my stomach.
I suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to go back to bed. My lids were so leaden I could scarcely open my eyes. I leaned back in the couch and let the wave of depression wash over me. After a time, not feeling better but knowing I had to get moving, I called over to Area One to talk to Finchley. He wasn’t in; I left my name and number and asked him to phone me this evening. At least no one hung up on me mid-sentence. That was a distinct improvement over my first two calls.
I moved drearily down the stairs. Before heading for the street I knocked on Mr. Contreras’s door. It was a sign of my desperate state that I even accepted a cup of his overboiled coffee before setting out. This afternoon the old man had enough zip for two, maybe even four. He’d spent the morning drafting our ad and calling around Arizona to get the names and rates of their biggest dailies; he was eager to show me his handiwork. I tried to drum up an appropriate level of enthusiasm, but he suddenly noticed my spirits didn’t match his.
“What’s eating you, doll? Rough night?”
I gave a self-conscious laugh. “Oh, I just feel like I let Lotty in for a bad time and haven’t done anything to help her.”
Mr. Contreras patted my knee with one horny palm. “Your way of helping people ain’t the same as most people’s, Vic. Just because you’re not rushing around with flowers and a tub of soup don’t mean you’re not helping her.”
“Yeah, but she feels I should cooperate more with the police, and she’s right,” I muttered.
“Yeah, cooperate with them,” the old man jeered. “Ninety percent of the time they don’t listen to you. I was there when you talked to that black detective, what’s his name, Finchley, and I saw how he listened to you. Far as the cops are concerned, Mitch hit his head and fell in the canal. Mitch, who knew every inch of that waterfront! They sure don’t care that you was tailed for a week before those goons attacked your car and beat up the doc. I don’t see you’ve got any cause to go around blaming yourself, not for one minute, doll. You just pull yourself together and go do the work God made you fit for.”
He slapped my knee again for emphasis. I patted his hand and thanked him for the pep talk. The odd thing was, I really did feel better. I scribbled a few changes onto the ad copy, but left the gist of the message unchanged. I agreed with my neighbor that we would ask young Mitch to contact him, not me, in case he was involved in his father’s death—if he was, he might have heard my name from someone at Diamond Head.
“You want to do something else?” I asked, getting up to go. “Talk to some of the people on the block—Mrs. Hellstrom or Mrs. Tertz, maybe. See if you can find out whether Chrissie Pichea works for a living.”
Mr. Contreras assented eagerly, thrilled that I was finally considering him a full-fledged partner. He saw me to the door, talking enthusiastically until I was out of earshot.
My conversation with Lotty had made me uneasy about who might be dogging my steps. Or her steps. I wondered if we were all barking up the wrong tree—maybe she’d been attacked by relatives of a patient whom they thought she’d mistreated. I’d have to talk to Rawlings, see if he was pursuing that possibility. I certainly couldn’t mention it to Lotty, not unless I wanted the other side of the Trans Am stove in.
By the time I got to the end of the block I changed my mind. A couple of guys had been sitting in a late-model Subaru across from my building when I left. One of them climbed out of the car and started trailing me up the street. I looked around. The Subaru pulled away from the curb and dawdled behind us. I continued up Racine to Belmont; my friend stayed with me. The Subaru tagged along about half a block back. I considered taking a bus over to the el and doubling back again through the Loop, bu
t that seemed unnecessarily time-consuming. I walked into the Belmont Diner.
It was well past the lunch hour. The place was nearly empty. The waitresses, who were relaxing with cigarettes and newspapers, greeted me with the easy camaraderie they gave their regulars. “BLT with fries, Vic? Tammy just pulled a hot batch from the grease.” That was Barbara, who usually waited on me and knew my weaknesses.
“I’ll have to take a pass today. I got a couple of guys a little too interested in me. Can I leave through your back entrance?” I looked around and saw my trailer opening the door. “In fact, here comes one of them now.”
“No problem, Vic.”
Barbara bustled me toward the back. My pal started to follow when Helen dropped a pitcher of iced tea right in front of him. I just heard her say, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.… No, don’t move, I’ll clean that right off those nice trousers of yours …” before Barbara opened the back door and pushed me into the alley.
“Thanks a bunch,” I said gratefully. “I’ll remember you guys in my will.”
“Get a move on, Warshawski,” Barbara said, pushing me smartly between the shoulder blades. “And save the soap: we all know you’ve got nothing to leave.”
28
Paragon of Virtue?
I ran flat out through the alley to Seminary, then made a mile-long loop around Racine so that I came to the Impala from the west. By the time I flopped into the driver’s seat I was gasping for air and had a painful stitch under my right ribs. My legs wobbling slightly on the pedals I drove west along Barry until the street dead-ended at the river. After that I meandered around the side streets toward the Kennedy.
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