Blood Shot

by Sara Paretsky

  “Any-anything for me from my dad?” He licked his lips reflexively.

  Baldy shook his head and returned to his paper. “Lady wants to talk to you,” he said from the depths of the Sun-Times.

  Art hadn’t seen me until then-he’d been too intent on the disappointment he felt bound to suffer from the men. He looked around the room then and located me. He didn’t recognize me at first: his perfect forehead furrowed in a momentary question. It wasn’t until he’d come over to shake my hand that he remembered where he’d seen me, and then he didn’t think he could flee without achieving total humiliation.

  “Where can we go to talk?” I asked briskly, taking his hand in a firm grasp in case he decided to chance the indignity.

  He smiled unhappily. “Upstairs, I guess. I-I have an office. A small office.”

  I followed him up the linoleum-covered stairs to a suite with his father’s name on it. A middle-aged woman, her brown hair neatly coiffed above a well-cut dress, was sitting in the outer office. Her desk was a little jungle of potted plants twined around family photographs. Behind her were doors to the inner offices, one with Art, Sr.’s, name repeated on it, the other blank.

  “Your dad isn’t here, Art,” she said in a motherly way. “He’s been at a Council meeting all day. I really don’t expect him until Wednesday.”

  He flushed miserably. “Thanks, Mrs. May. I just need to use my office for a few minutes.”

  “Of course, Art. You don’t need my permission to do that.” She continued to stare at me, hoping to force me to introduce myself It seemed to me it would be a small but important victory for Art if she didn’t know whom he was seeing. I smiled at her without speaking, but I’d underestimated her tenacity.

  “I’m Ida Maiercyk, but everyone calls me Mrs. May,” she said as I passed her desk.

  “How do you do?” I continued to smile and went on by to where Art was standing miserably in front of his office. I hoped she was scowling impotently, but didn’t turn around to check.

  Art flipped on a wall switch and illuminated one of the most barren cubicles I’d seen outside a monastery. It held a plain pressed-wood desk and two metal folding chairs. Nothing else. Not even a filing cabinet to give the pretense of work. A wise alderman knows better than to live above the community that’s supporting him, especially when half that community is out of work, but this was downright insulting. Even the secretary had more lavish appointments.

  “Why do you put up with this?” I demanded.

  “With what?” he said, flushing again.

  “You know-with that loathsome woman out there treating you like a submoronic two-year-old. With those ward heelers waiting to bait you like a carp. Why don’t you go get a position in someone else’s agency?”

  He shook his head. “These things aren’t as easy as they look to you. I just graduated two years ago. If-if I can prove to my dad that I can handle some of his workload…” His voice trailed away.

  “If you’re hanging around hoping for his approval, you’ll be here the rest of your life,” I said brutally. “If he doesn’t want to give it to you, there’s nothing you can do to make him. You’re better off stopping the effort, because you’re only making yourself miserable and you’re not impressing him.”

  He gave an unhappy little smile that made me want to take him by the scruff of the neck and shake him. “You don’t know him and you don’t know me, so you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just-I’ve always been-just too big a disappointment. But it’s nothing to do with you. If you’ve come around to talk to me about Nancy Cleghorn, I can’t help you any more than I could this morning.”

  “You and she were lovers, weren’t you?” I wondered if his chiseled good looks could possibly have compensated Nancy for his youth and insecurity.

  He shook his head without speaking.

  “Nancy had a lover here that she didn’t want any of her friends to know about. It doesn’t seem too likely that it was Moe, Curly, or Larry downstairs. Or even Mrs. May-Nancy had better taste than that. And anyway, why else would you go to her funeral?”

  “Maybe I just respected the work she was doing here in the community,” he muttered.

  Mrs. May opened the door without knocking. “You two need anything? If you don’t, I’m going to take off now. You want to leave any message for your father about your meeting, Art?”

  He looked helplessly at me for a second, then just shook his head again without speaking.

  “Thanks, Mrs. May,” I said genially. “It was good to meet you.”

  She shot me a look of venom and snapped the door to. I could see her shadow outlined against the glass upper half of the door as she hesitated over a possible retaliatory strike, then her silhouette faded as she marched off toward home.

  “If you don’t want to talk about your relations with Nancy, maybe you can just give me the same information you gave her about Big Art’s interest in SCRAP’S recycling plant.”

  He gripped the front of the pressed-wood desk and looked at me imploringly. “I didn’t tell her anything. I hardly knew her. And I don’t know what my dad is doing about their recycling plant. Now can you please go away? I’d be as happy as-as anybody if you found her killer, but you must see I don’t know anything about her.”

  I scowled in frustration. He was upset, but it sure wasn’t because of me. He had to have been Nancy’s lover. Had to. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been in church this morning. But I couldn’t think of any way to get him to trust me enough to talk about it.

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll go. One last question. How well do you know Leon Haas?”

  He looked at me blankly. “I never heard of him.”

  “Steve Dresberg?”

  His face went totally white and he fainted on me.

  19

  You Can’t Go Home Again

  By the time I got home it was past dark. I had stayed in South Chicago long enough to make sure young Art was fit to drive. It seemed unnecessarily cruel to turn him over to the ward heelers for comfort, but my display of charity didn’t make him any more willing to talk. Frustrated, I finally left him at the door of the ward office.

  The drive north brought me no solace. I walked wearily up the front walk, dropped my keys as I fumbled with the inner lobby door, then dropped them again as I was going upstairs. Bone-tired, I turned back down the stairs to retrieve them. Behind Mr. Contreras’s door, Peppy gave a welcoming bark. As I headed back up I heard his locks scraping back behind me. I stiffened, waiting for the flow.

  “That you, doll? You just getting back? Your friend’s funeral was today, huh? You haven’t been out drinking, have you? People think it’s a way to drown their sorrows, but believe me, it only causes you more grief than you started with. I should know-I tried it more than once. But then when Clara died I took one drink and remembered how it used to get her down, me coming home from a funeral with a good one tied on. I said I wouldn’t do it, not for her, not after all the times she told me how stupid I was, crying over some friend when I was too drunk to get his name out straight.”

  “No,” I said, forcing a smile, holding my hand out for the dog to lick. “I haven’t been drinking. I had to see a whole bunch of people. Not a lot of fun.”

  “Well, you go on upstairs and take a hot bath, doll. By the time you’ve done that and had a chance to rest, I’ll have some dinner ready. I have me a nice steak I’ve been saving for sometime special, and that’s what you need when you’re feeling this low. A little red meat, get your blood flowing again, and life’ll look a whole lot better to you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s very good of you, but I really don’t-”

  “Nope. You think you want to be alone, but believe me, cookie, that’s the worst thing for you when you’re feeling like this. Her royal highness and I’ll get you fed, and then if you’re ready to be on your own again, you say the word and we’ll be back down here on the double.”

  I just couldn’t bring myself to bring the cloud of hu
rt to his faded brown eyes by insisting on being alone. Cursing myself for my soft heart, I trudged up the stairs to my apartment. Despite my neighbor’s dire words, I headed straight for the Black Label bottle, kicking off my pumps and pulling off my panty hose while I unscrewed the cap. I drank from the bottle, a long swallow that sent a glow of warmth to my weary shoulders.

  Filling a glass, I took it into the bathroom with me. I dumped my funeral suit on the floor and climbed into the tub. By the time Mr. Contreras showed up with the steak, I was a little drunk and much more relaxed than I’d have thought possible a half hour before.

  He had already had dinner; he brought his grappa bottle to keep me company while I ate. After a few bites I grudgingly admitted-only to myself-that he’d been right about the food: life did start to look better. The steak was done to a turn, crisply brown on the outside, red within. He’d cooked up some pan fries with garlic and brought his conscientious nod to my diet, a plate of lettuce. He was a good plain cook, self-taught as a hobby during his widowhood-he’d never done more in the kitchen than fetch beer when his wife was still alive.

  I was finishing off the fries with the rest of the meat juice when the phone rang. I handed Peppy the bone she’d been eyeing-not begging for, just keeping an eye on in case someone broke in and tried to steal it-and went over to the piano, where I’d left the living-room extension.

  “Warshawski?” It was a man’s voice, cold and harsh. Not one I knew.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe it’s time you butted out of South Chicago, Warshawski. You don’t live there anymore, you don’t have any business there.”

  I wished I hadn’t had the third whiskey and desperately tried assembling my scrambled brain. “And you do?” I asked insolently.

  He ignored me. “I hear you can swim pretty good, Warshawski. But the swimmer hasn’t been born that can float through a swamp.”

  “You calling on Art Jurshak’s behalf? Or Steve Dresberg’s?”

  “It doesn’t matter to you, Warshawski. Because if you’re smart, you’re butting out, and if you’re not, you won’t be around to worry about it.”

  He hung up. My knees felt slightly weak. I sat on the piano bench to steady myself

  “Bad news, cookie?”

  Mr. Contreras’s weather-beaten face showed kindly concern. On second thought, it wasn’t such a bad idea to have him with me tonight.

  “Just an old-style thug. Reminding me that Chicago’s the world float-fish capital.” I tried keeping my tone airy, but the words came out heavier than I wanted.

  “He threaten you?”

  “Sort of.” I tried to grin, but to my annoyance my lips were trembling. The image of the rank marsh grasses, the mud, the shapeless fishing couple and their wild red-eyed dog made me shiver uncontrollably.

  Mr. Contreras hovered over me solicitously; Shouldn’t I get out my Smith & Wesson? Call the police? Barricade the doors? Check into a hotel under an assumed name? When I turned down those offers he suggested I call Murray Ryerson at the Herald-Star-an act of true nobility because he had a fierce jealousy of Murray. Peppy, sensing his tension, dropped her bone and came over with a little bark.

  “It’s okay, guys,” I assured them. “It’s just talk. No one’s going to shoot me. At least not tonight.”

  Mr. Contreras, unable to do anything else, offered me his grappa bottle. I waved it aside. The threat had cleared out my brain; I didn’t see any point in fogging it up again with my neighbor’s repellent booze.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t quite ready to be on my own again. Amid the stack of old notebooks and school papers in the back closet I dug out a worn checker set my dad and Bobby Mallory used to linger over.

  We played four or five games, the dog contentedly returning to her bone in the comer behind the piano. Mr. Contreras was just getting reluctantly to his feet when the doorbell rang. The dog let out a deep bark. The old man became extremely excited, urging me to get out my gun, to let him go downstairs, telling me to go down the back way and summon help.

  “Oh, nonsense,” I said. “No one’s going to shoot me in my own home two hours after a phone call-they’ll at least wait until morning to see if I’ve listened to them.”

  I went to the intercom by the front door.

  “Vic! Let me in! I need to see you.” It was Caroline Djiak.

  I pressed the button releasing the lobby door and went out to wait in the upper hallway for her. Peppy stood next to me, her golden tail lowered and moving gently to show she was on the alert. Caroline ran up the stairs, her feet clattering on the uncarpeted risers like an ancient el rounding the curve at Thirty-fifth Street.

  “Vic!” she shrieked when she saw me. “What are you doing? I thought I told you to stop looking for my father. Why can’t you just once do what I ask you to!”

  Peppy, taking exception to her ferocity, began to bark. One of the second-floor tenants came to his door and yelled up at us to shut up. “Some people have to work, you know!”

  Before Mr. Contreras could leap to my defense, I took Caroline firmly by the arm and dragged her into my apartment. Mr. Contreras looked at her critically. Deciding she wasn’t dangerous-at least not an immediate physical threat -he stuck a calloused hand at her and introduced himself

  Caroline was in no mood for ordinary civility. “Vic, I’m begging you. I came all this way since you wouldn’t listen to me on the phone. You’ve got to leave my affairs alone.”

  “Caroline Djiak,” I informed Mr. Contreras. “She’s pretty upset. Maybe you should leave me to talk to her.”

  He started getting the dinner dishes together. I pulled Caroline to the couch.

  “What is going on with you, Caroline? What is frightening you so much?”

  “I’m not frightened,” she yelled. “I’m angry. Angry with you for not leaving me alone when I asked you to.”

  “Look, kiddo, I’m not a television you turn on and off. I could overlook my conversation with your grandparents-they’re so sick nothing I could do would make any difference to them anyway. But everyone at Humboldt Chemical is lying to me about the men your mother used to work with, the ones who had the best chance of being your father. I just can’t let that go. And it’s not trivial, what they’re saying-they’re completely reinventing the last years of these guys’ lives.”

  “Vic, you don’t understand.” She grabbed my right hand in her intensity, squeezing it hard. “You can’t keep crossing these people. They’re totally ruthless. You don’t know what they might do.”

  “Such as what?”

  She looked wildly around the room, seeking inspiration. “They might kill you, Vic. They might see you end up in the swamp the way Nancy did, or in the river!”

  Mr. Contreras had stopped all pretense of getting ready to leave. I removed my hand from Caroline’s grasp and stared at her coldly.

  “Okay. I want the truth now. Not your embellished version. What do you know about the people who killed Nancy?”

  “Nothing, Vic. Nothing. Honestly. You have to believe me. It’s just… just…”

  “Just what?” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Who threatened Nancy? You’ve been saying for the last week that it was Art Jurshak because he didn’t want her starting the recycling plant. Now you want it to be the people down at Xerxes because I’m hunting for your old man there? Goddamnit, Caroline, can’t you see how important this is? Can’t you see that this is life and death?”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Vic!” She shouted so loudly that the dog started barking again. “That’s why I’m telling you to mind your own business!”

  “Caroline!” I felt my voice go into an upper register and tried to get a grip on myself before I broke her neck. I moved to the easy chair next to the sofa.

  “Caroline. Who called you? Dr. Chigwell? Art Jurshak? Steve Dresberg? Gustav Humboldt himself?”

  “No one, Vic.” The gentian eyes were awash with tears. “No one. You just don’t understand anything about life in South
Chicago anymore, you’ve been away so long. Can’t you just take my word for it, take my word that you should quit already?”

  I ignored her. “Ron Kappelman? Did he call you this afternoon?”

  “People talk to me,” she said. “You know how it is down there. At least you would if-”

  “If I hadn’t been a chicken shit and run away,” I finished for her. “You’ve been hearing little rumblings around the office that someone-you don’t know who-has it in for me, and you’re here to save my butt. Thanks a bundle. You’re scared out of your little mind, Caroline. I want to know who’s been frightening you, and don’t tell me it’s some street snitch with tales of drowning me, because I just won’t buy it. You wouldn’t be beside yourself if it was just that. Lay it out for me. Now.”

  Caroline jerked herself to her feet. “What do I have to do to get you to listen to me?” she screamed. “Someone called me today from the Xerxes plant and said they were sorry I’d gone to all the expense of hiring you. They said that they had proof that Joey Pankowski was my father. They told me to get you to believe me and get off the case.”

  “And did they offer to show you this remarkable evidence?”

  “I didn’t need to see it! I’m not as untrusting as you are.”

  I put a restraining hand on Peppy, who was starting to growl. “And did they threaten you with mayhem if you didn’t force me to withdraw?”

  “I wouldn’t care what anyone threatened me with. Can’t you believe that?”

  I looked at her as calmly as I could. She was wild, manipulative, unscrupulous in getting her own way. But I would never in my remotest imagination think of her as a coward.

  “I can believe it,” I said slowly. “But I want to hear the truth. Did they really tell you they’d hurt me if I didn’t stop looking?”

  The gentian eyes turned away. “Yes,” she muttered.

  “Not good enough, Caroline.”

  “Believe what you want to. If they kill you, don’t expect me to show up at your funeral, because I won’t care.” She burst into tears and stormed out of the apartment.