Deadlock

young men in his charge, not stand on their heads. When he was nineteen Martin ended up in our Toledo office. He obviously had far too many brains to waste just doing muscle work that any stupid Polack could handle.”

“I see,” I murmured. “Maybe you could find an opening for me on one of your boats if detective work palls.”

He stared at me for a minute. “Oh, Warshawski. I see. Don’t show your hackles-it’s not worth it. The waterfront is filled with Poles strong as oxen but not much brainpower.”

I thought of Boom Boom’s cousins and declined arguing the point.

“Anyway, to make a long story very short, Martin was operating in an environment he could understand intellectually but not socially. He’d never had much formal education and he never learned any sense of ethics or morality. He was handling too much money and he siphoned some of it off. I lost a tough argument with my father about prosecuting Martin. I had found him, I had pushed him-I was only thirty myself at the time. I wanted to give him a second chance. Dad refused and Martin spent two years in a Cantonville prison. My father died the month before he was released and I hired him back immediately. He never did anything else criminal that I’m aware of-but if there’s some trouble between Pole Star and Eudora Grain or at Eudora Grain itself that involves money, you should know about Martin’s background. I’m relying on your discretion to keep it to yourself-I wouldn’t want Argus, or even Clayton, for that matter, to know about it if it turns out nothing’s wrong.”

I finished my sherry. “So that was what you meant that day at lunch. Bledsoe educated himself in prison and you were hinting you could tell people about it if you wanted to.”

“I didn’t think you’d caught that.”

“Even a boneheaded Polack couldn’t miss that one… Last week you were threatening him, today you’re protecting him-sort of. Which is it?”

Anger flashed across Grafalk’s face and was quickly erased. “Martin and I have-a tacit understanding. He doesn’t attack my fleet, I don’t tell people about his disreputable past. He was making fun of the Grafalk Line. I was backing him off.”

“What do you think is going on at Eudora Grain?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve leaped to a couple of conclusions, based on my investigations down at the Port. You think there might be some kind of a financial problem down there. You’re concerned enough to reveal a well-concealed truth about Bledsoe. Not even his ship’s officers know it-or if they do, they’re too loyal to betray it. You must think something pretty serious is wrong.”

Grafalk shook his head and gave a slightly condescending smile. “Now you’re leaping to conclusions, Miss Warshawski. Everyone knows you’ve been looking into your cousin’s death. And they know you and Phillips have had a few words together-you just can’t keep secrets in a closed community like that. If there is something wrong at Eudora Grain, it would have to involve money. Nothing else important could be wrong there.” He swirled the olive in his glass. “It’s none of my business-but I do periodically wonder where Clayton Phillips gets his money.”

I looked at him steadily. “Argus pays him well. He inherited it. His wife did. Any reason why one of those possibilities wouldn’t be good enough?”

He shrugged. “I’m a very wealthy man, Miss Warshawski. I grew up with a lot of money and I’m used to living with it. There are plenty of people without money who are at ease with and around it-Martin’s one and Admiral Jergensen another. But Clayton and Jeannine aren’t. If they inherited it, it was an unexpected windfall late in life.”

“Still possible. They don’t have to measure it in your class to afford that house and their other amenities. Maybe a crabby old grandmother hoarded it so that it would give everyone the least possible pleasure-that happens at least as often as embezzlement.”

“Embezzlement?”

“You’re suggesting that, aren’t you?”

“I’m not suggesting anything-just asking.”

“Well, you sponsored them at the Maritime Club. That’s impossible for the nouveaux riches to crack, from everything I read. Not enough to have a quarter million a year for that place-you have to trace yourself back to the Palmers and the McCormicks. But you got them in. You must have known something about them.”

“That was my wife. She undertakes odd charities-Jeannine was one that she’s since come to regret.”

A phone rang somewhere in the house, followed shortly by a buzz on an instrument I hadn’t noticed earlier, set in an alcove by the bar. Grafalk answered it. “Yes? Yes, I’ll take the call… Will you excuse me, Miss Warshawski?”

I got up politely and moved into the hallway, going the opposite direction from which we’d come in. I wandered into a dining room where a thickset middle-aged woman in a white blouse and blue skirt was laying the table for ten. She was putting four forks and three spoons at each place. I was impressed-imagine having seventy matching forks and spoons. There were a couple of knives apiece, too.

“I bet they’ve got more besides that.”

“Are you talking to me, miss?”

“No. I was thinking aloud. You remember what time Mr. Grafalk got home Thursday night?”

She looked up at that. “If you’re not feeling quite well, miss, there’s a powder room down the hall to your left.”

I wondered if it was the sherry. Maybe Grafalk had put something into it, or maybe it was just too smooth for my scotch-raddled palate. “I feel fine, thanks. I just wanted to know if Mr. Grafalk got home late Thursday night.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say.” She went back to the silver. I was wondering if I could beat her into talking with my good arm but it didn’t seem worth the effort. Grafalk came up behind me.

“Oh, there you are. Everything under control, Karen?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Grafalk left word she’ll be back by seven.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, Miss Warshawski. We’re expecting company and I’ve got to do a couple of things before they arrive.”

He showed me to the front door and stood watching until I went through the brick pillars and got into the Chevette. It was six o’clock. The sherry left a nice light glow in my head. Not anything like drunk, not even mildly sloshed. Just glowing enough to take my mind off my aching shoulder, not enough to impair my consummate handling of the stiff steering.

14 Potluck

As I headed back toward the Edens and poverty, I felt as though someone were spinning me around in a swivel chair. Grafalk’s sherry and Grafalk’s story had clearly been provided for a reason. But what? By the time I got back to Lotty’s the sherry had worn off and my shoulder ached.

Lotty’s street is even more decrepit than the stretch of Halsted I inhabit. Bottles mingled with crumpled paper cups in the gutter. A ’72 Impala drooped on the near front side where someone had removed the wheel. An overweight woman bustled along with five small children, each staggering under a heavy bag of groceries. She yelled at them in shrill Spanish. I don’t speak it, but it’s close enough to Italian for me to know it was good-natured chivvying, not angry bullying.

Someone had left a beer can on Lotty’s front steps. I picked it up and carried it in with me. Lotty creates a small island of sanity and sanitation on the street and I wanted to help maintain that.

I smelled pot-au-feu as I opened the door; I suddenly felt good about being here to eat a hearty meal rather than at a seven-course affair in Lake Bluff. Lotty was sitting in the spotless kitchen reading when I came in. She put a marker in her book, took off her black-rimmed glasses, and placed both on a corner of the butcher block.

“It smells great. Anything for me to do?… Lotty, did you ever own seventy matching forks and spoons?”