Blood Shot

by Sara Paretsky

  In the absence of this selfless Bunter, I called my answering service myself Mr. Contreras had phoned once. Murray Ryerson had left seven messages, each progressively more emphatic. I didn’t want to talk to him. Not ever. But since I’d have to eventually, I might as well get it over with. I found him steaming at the city desk.

  “I’ve had it with you, Warshawski. You cannot get help from the press without delivering your side of the bargain. This fight in South Chicago is old news. The electronic guys already have it. I helped you out on the understanding you’d give me an exclusive.”

  “Stick it in your ear,” I said nastily. “You did sweet nothing for me on this case. You took my leads and gave me back zero. I beat you to the finish line and now you’re pissed. The only reason I’m calling at all is to keep the communications lines open for the future, because believe me, I’m not too interested in talking to you in the present.”

  Murray started to roar back, but his newspaper instincts won out. He put on the brakes and began asking questions. I thought about describing my midnight boat ride up the misty, acrid Calumet, or the utter fatigue of soul I felt after talking to Curtis Chigwell. But I didn’t want to justify myself to Murray Ryerson. Instead I gave him everything I’d told the police, along with a vivid description of the fight around the solvent vats. He wanted me to join a photographer down at the Xerxes plant to show where I’d stood and got indignant at my refusal.

  “You’re a fucking ghoul, Ryerson,” I said. “The kind of guy who asks disaster victims how they felt when they saw their husbands or children go up in smoke. I am not going into that plant again, not even if they gave me the Nobel Peace Prize for doing it. The faster I forget the place the happier I’ll be.”

  “Well, Saint Victoria, you go feed the hungry and tend to the sick.” He slammed the receiver in my ear.

  My head still felt leaden. I went out to the kitchen and made myself a pot of coffee. Lotty had left a note in her thick black script next to the pot-she’d turned off the phone before she left, but both Murray and Mallory had called. I knew about Murray, of course, but Bobby had mercifully not hounded me after the one message. I suspected McGonnigal had intervened and was grateful.

  I poked around the refrigerator but couldn’t get interested in any of Lotty’s healthy food. Finally I settled at the kitchen table with the coffee. Using the extension on the counter, I called Frederick Manheim.

  “Mr. Manheim. It’s V. I. Warshawski. The detective who came to see you a few weeks ago about Joey Pankowski and Steve Ferraro.”

  “I remember you, Ms. Warshawski-I remember everything connected with those men. I was sorry to read about the attack on you last week. That didn’t have anything to do with Xerxes, did it?”

  I leaned back in the chair, trying to find a comfortable spot for my sore shoulder muscles. “By a strange set of coincidences, yes. How would you feel about getting a cartload of material implying that Humboldt Chemical knew the toxic effects of Xerxine as early as 1955?”

  He was silent for a long moment, then he said cautiously, “This isn’t your idea of a joke is it, Ms. Warshawski? I don’t know you well enough to figure out what you think is funny.”

  “I never felt less like laughing. I’m looking at such an incredible display of cynicism that every time I think of it I get consumed by rage. My old neighbor in South Chicago is dying right now. At the age of forty-two she looks like a war-ravaged grandmother.” I checked myself

  “What I really want to know, Mr. Manheim, is whether you’re prepared to organize and manage action on behalf of hundreds of former Xerxes employees. Maybe present ones as well. You should think about it carefully. It would be your entire life for the next decade. You couldn’t handle it alone in your storefront-you’d have to take on researchers and associates and paralegals, and you’d have to fight off the big guns who’d want to cut you out because they smelled the contingency fees.”

  “You make it sound real attractive.” He laughed quietly. “I told you about the threat I got when I was preparing to appeal. I don’t think I have much choice. I mean, I don’t see how I could live with myself if I had a chance now to win that case and passed it up just so I wouldn’t have to give up my quiet practice. When can I get your cartload?”

  “Tonight, if you can drive up to the North Side. Seven-thirty okay?” I gave him Lotty’s address.

  When he’d hung up I phoned Max at the hospital. After a few minutes on my late-night adventure-which had made the morning papers in skeleton form-he agreed to get the Chigwell documents copied. When I said I’d come by at the end of the day for the originals, he protested graciously: it would be his pleasure to bring them to Lotty’s for me.

  After that I really couldn’t delay a heart-to-heart with Bobby. I tracked him down by phone at the Central District and agreed to meet him there in an hour. That gave me time for a soak in Lotty’s tub to limber up my sore shoulders and a call to Mr. Contreras assuring him I was alive, moderately well, and would return home in the morning. He started a long, anxious dump about how he’d felt when he saw the news this morning; I cut him off gently.

  “I’ve got a date with the police. I’ll be pretty well tied up today, but we’ll have a late breakfast tomorrow and catch up.”

  “Sounds good, doll. French toast or pancakes?”

  “French toast.” I couldn’t help laughing. It got me down to police headquarters in a light enough mood to deal with Bobby.

  His pride was badly wounded by my nailing the Emperor of Trash. Dresberg had been dancing rings around Chicago’s finest for years. For any private investigator to have caught him dead to rights would have hurt Mallory. But that it had to be me so upset him that he kept me downtown for four hours.

  He interrogated me himself, while Officer Neely took notes, then sent in relays of people from the Organized Crime Division, followed by the Special Functions Unit, finishing with an escorted interview with a couple of feds. By then my fatigue had come back full force. I kept dropping off between questions and it was getting hard for me to remember what I was revealing and what I’d decided belonged to me alone. The third time the feds had to poke me awake they decided they’d had enough of a good time and urged Bobby to send me home.

  “Yeah, I guess we’ve got everything we’re going to get.” He waited until his office was empty, then said edgily, “What’d you do to McGonnigal last night, Vicki? He made it real clear he wasn’t going to be present while I talked to you.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “He turn into a boar or something?”

  Bobby frowned at me. “If you’re trying to level any charges against John McGonnigal, who is one of the finest-”

  “Circe,” I cut in hastily. “That’s what she did to Odysseus’s crew. I assumed you were thinking of that. Or something like it.”

  Bobby narrowed his eyes but all he said was, “Go on home, Vicki. I don’t have the energy for your sense of humor right now.”

  I was at the door when he lighted his last squib. “How well do you know Ron Kappelman?” His voice had a studied casualness that warned me to be careful.

  I turned to look at him, my hand still on the doorknob. “I’ve talked to him three or four times. We’re not lovers, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Bobby’s gray eyes measured me steadily. “You know Jurshak did a few favors for him when he signed on as SCRAP’S counsel?”

  I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach. “Like what?”

  “Oh, cleared the way for him to do all the renovation work on his house. That kind of thing.”

  “And in exchange?”

  “Information. Nothing unethical. He wouldn’t jeopardize his clients’ standing. Just let the alderman’s office know what moves they might make. Or what moves a smart PI like you might be making.”

  “I see.” It was an effort to get words out, let alone keep my voice steady. I braced myself against the door. “How do you know all this?”

  “Jurshak ta
lked a lot this morning. Nothing like the fear of death to get someone babbling. Of course the courts will throw it all out, information obtained under duress. But watch who you talk to, Vicki. You’re a smart girl-smart young lady. I’ll even agree you’ve done some good work. But you’re one person alone. You just can’t do the job the cops are paid to do.”

  I was too tired and soul-sick to argue. I felt too bad even to think he was wrong. My shoulders slumped, I slogged my way down the long corridors to the parking lot and headed back to Lotty.

  41

  A Wise Child

  When I got to Lotty’s, Max was already there. I felt so down after my talk with Mallory that I would have preferred canceling my meeting with Manheim: What could one person do alone, anyway? As it was I only had time to explain to Lotty who Frederick Manheim was and why I’d invited him when he showed up. His round solemn face was flushed with excitement, but he shook hands politely with Max and Lotty and offered Lotty a bottle of wine. It was a ’78 Gruaud-Larose. Max raised his brows appreciately, so I assumed it was a good bottle.

  As we talked in the kitchen my drooping self-confidence began to revive. After all, I had been worried about Kappelman’s role all along. It wasn’t a failure on my part. Bobby just was trying to skewer me because I’d stopped Steve Dresberg when he and his thousands of backups hadn’t been able to touch him.

  I whipped up omelets while Max opened the wine, reverentially letting it breathe. While we ate at Lotty’s kitchen table we talked about general topics-the wine was too splendid to pollute with Xerxine.

  Afterward, though, we moved into Lotty’s sitting room. I spelled out the story for Max and Manheim. Lounging on the daybed, I explained what I’d learned from Chigwell-that they’d done the tests because they could see their high rates of illness as early as 1955.

  “You should see if you can talk to Ajax. They were handling Xerxes’s life and health insurance at the time. I know they went to Mariners Rest in 1963 with evidence of how good and pure they were, but if you find out why Ajax dropped them back in the fifties you may get some inside dope on why they decided to look at blood instead of-I don’t know, some other choice.”

  Manheim, propped on his elbows on the floor, was naturally most interested in what lay in Chigwell’s notebooks. Lotty sketched the data for him, but warned him he would have to get an array of specialists.

  “I am only a perinatologist, you know. So what I’m telling you is only what I’ve learned from Dr. Christophersen. You will need many people-blood specialists, a good renal pathologist. And above all, you will need a team in occupational health.”

  Manheim nodded soberly at all their advice. His rosy cherub’s cheeks glowed deeper red as he filled legal pads with notes. Every now and then he asked me a question about the plant and the employees.

  Lotty finally put a halt to the discussion-she had to get up early, I was her patient and wasn’t fit for another all-night session, and so on. Manheim stood up reluctantly.

  “I’m not going to do anything in a hurry,” he warned me. “I want to double-check the data, find the lab that did the blood work for them, all that kind of stuff. And I’m going to have to consult with a specialist in environmental law.”

  I held up my hands. “It’s your baby now. You do what you want with it. You just need to keep in mind that Gustav Humboldt isn’t going to lie down with his legs up in the air while you’re gathering facts-for all I know he’s already figured out a way to put the clamps on the lab. You want one last chance to back out?”

  He thought for a short minute, then grinned reluctantly. “I’ve spent enough time on my tush in Beverly-I can’t turn down this one. As long as you agree to provide moral support every now and then.”

  “Yeah, sure, why not,” I agreed as positively as I could-I didn’t want tentacles from South Chicago to keep reaching out to strangle me.

  When Manheim had gone I headed off to bed, leaving Max in the sitting room with a bottle of Lotty’s cognac. Lotty came in for a minute after I’d brushed my teeth to tell me Caroline had phoned while I was with the police.

  “She wants you to call her. But as she was angry and became rather rude, I thought it wouldn’t hurt her to wait.”

  I grinned. “That’s my Caroline. She say anything about Louisa?”

  “I gather since she slept through her ordeal she’s none the worse for it. Sleep well, my dear.”

  She was gone when I got up in the morning. I puttered aimlessly around the kitchen, drinking coffee. I started to make toast, then remembered my promise to eat breakfast with Mr. Contreras. I slowly packed my overnight bag. The longer I stayed at Lotty’s the less interested I seemed to be in looking after myself It was time to go before I slipped into unconquerable lassitude.

  In deference to Lotty’s tidy spirit, I took the sheets from the guest bed and bundled them up with the towels I’d used. I wrote a note telling her I’d taken them home with me to launder. I straightened up the other signs of my presence as best I could and headed over to Racine.

  Mr. Contreras’s delight at seeing me was equaled only by the dog’s. Peppy jumped up to lick my face, her golden tail thumping the door hard enough to swing it shut. My neighbor took the laundry from me.

  “These Dr. Lotty’s things? I’ll wash ’em for you, doll. After breakfast you’ll want to unwind, look at your mail, do whatever. So the case is over? Everything locked up with those two villains in the hospital? I mighta known you’d take care of those guys, doll. I shouldn’t of worried so much about you. No wonder you got teed off.”

  I put an arm around him. “Yeah, it all looks swell now that the battle’s nearly over. But shooting someone in that kind of situation is just luck-you can’t aim. I could be in intensive care instead of Dresberg if the luck had gone the other way.”

  “Nearly over?” His faded brown eyes showed concern. “You mean those guys still have someone gunning for you?”

  “Other way around. There’s a big old white shark thrashing around in the water. Dresberg and Jurshak were his allies. Who knows what else he’s got stashed in his cove.” I tried to keep my tone light. “Anyway, I came back here for French toast. Got any?”

  “Sure, doll, sure. Everything’s ready-just waiting for you before I turn on the griddle.” He rubbed his hands together and bustled me inside.

  Somewhere from the recesses of his life he’d dug up a white linen tablecloth. He’d cleared the dining-room table of the magazines and bric-a-brac that usually cluttered it and covered it with the cloth. A vase in the middle held red carnations. I was touched.

  He swelled with pride at my compliments. “These were Clara’s things. They never meant so much to me but I couldn’t bring myself to give them to Ruthie when she died; Clara kind of treasured them and I just couldn’t quite see Ruthie prizing them like she should.”

  He hurried off to the kitchen and came back with a glass of fresh orange juice. “Now, you sit here, doll, and I’ll have breakfast out to you in two shakes.”

  He fried up tall mounds of bacon and gargantuan stacks of French toast. I ate what I could and repaid him by telling the tale of my midnight trip up the Calumet. He was caught between awe at the exploit and jealousy that I hadn’t picked him to go with me, pipe wrench and all.

  I gallantly suppressed a shudder at the idea. “I didn’t think it would be fair to Peppy,” I explained. “If we both got killed or laid up, who would look after her?”

  He accepted that grudgingly-and a bit suspiciously-and asked me to tell him again how I’d shot Dresberg. Finally, around noon, I felt I’d stayed long enough and made my escape upstairs. The old man had stacked my mail neatly inside my apartment door, letters in one pile, newspapers in another. I flipped through the letters quickly-nothing personal. Not one thing. Just bills and solicitations. In irritation I tossed the lot, including my home phone bill. The papers would keep-I’d go through them later and see how they’d covered Xerxes.

  My rooms had that strange appearance of a place you ha
ven’t visited for a while-they seemed somehow unfamiliar, as though I’d heard them described but hadn’t ever actually seen them. I moved around restlessly, trying to reestablish myself in my own existence. And trying not to wonder what Humboldt might next attempt. I wasn’t entirely successful. At two when the doorbell rang I jumped a little. This has got to stop, Victoria, I admonished myself I walked purposefully to the intercom and pressed it.

  Caroline’s voice came tinnily through. If anything were needed to restore my self-confidence, it would be a little roughhousing with her. I prepared myself for battle and buzzed her in.

  I could hear her moving up the stairs with a slow, heavy tread most unlike her usual canter. When she made the last turning and came into view, I could see that she looked somber. My heart contracted. Louisa. Tuesday night’s escapade had been too much for her weak system and she’d died.

  “Hello, Caroline. Come on in.”

  She stood in the doorway. “Do you hate me, Vic?”

  My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Why on earth do you ask that? I thought you’d shown up to chew me out for exposing Louisa to so much abuse two nights ago.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. If I’d told you what was going on… You almost got killed because of me. Twice. But all I could do was scream at you like the spoiled little brat you kept telling me I was.”

  I put an arm around her and dragged her into the apartment-the last thing I wanted was for Mr. Contreras to hear us and come bounding up. Caroline leaned against me and let me take her over to the couch.

  “How’s Louisa?”

  “She’s back home.” Caroline hunched her shoulders. “She actually seems a little better today. She doesn’t remember anything that happened, and whatever they shot her full of gave her a better sleep than she usually gets.”

  She picked up a copy of Fortune and started twisting it around. “The police came by right after I’d gotten home and found her missing. I’d been at a marathon meeting downtown, you know, going over the recycling stuff with some of the local EPA attorneys. I thought Ma’d had a bad turn, that the neighbors or Aunt Connie had taken her to the hospital. Then when the cops came for me I went a little crazy.”