“I’m a private investigator. Your insurance company has hired me to investigate the fire.”
“The insurance? My insurance is all paid, I’m sure of that, but you’d have to check with Rita.” As he shook his head, bewildered, I caught a glimpse of a hearing aid in his left ear.
I raised my voice and tried to speak clearly. “I know your insurance is paid. The company hired me. Ajax wants me to find out who burned down your hotel.”
“Oh. Who burned it down.” He nodded five or six times. “I have no idea. It was a great shock, a very great shock. I’ve been expecting the police or the fire department to come talk to me, but we pay our taxes for nothing these days. Let it burn to the ground and don’t do nothing to stop it, then don’t do nothing to catch the people who did it.”
“I agree,” I put in. “That’s why Ajax hired me to investigate it for them. I wonder if we could go inside and talk it over.”
He studied me carefully, decided I didn’t look like a major menace, and invited me in. As soon as he’d shut the door behind me and fastened one of the five locks, I began to wish I’d finished the conversation on the stoop. The smell, combined of must, unwashed dishes, and stale grease, seemed to seep from the walls and furniture. I didn’t know life could exist in such air.
The living room where he took me was dark and chilly. I tried not to curse when I ran into a low table, but as I backed away from it I caught my left leg on some heavy metal object and couldn’t help swearing.
“Careful, there, young lady, these were all Fanny’s things and I don’t want them damaged.”
“No, sir,” I said meekly, waiting for him to finish fumbling with a light before trying to move any farther. When the heavily fringed lamp sprang into life, I saw that I’d tripped on a set of fire irons mysteriously placed in the middle of the room. As there was no fireplace perhaps that was the ideal spot for them. I threaded my way past the rest of the obstacles and sat gingerly on the edge of an overstuffed armchair. My rear sank deep within its soft, dusty upholstery.
Mr. Seligman sat on a matching couch that was close by, if you discounted an empty brass birdcage hanging between us. “Now what is it you want, young lady?”
He was hard of hearing and depressed but clearly not mentally impaired. When he took in the gist of my remarks his sagging cheeks mottled with color.
“My insurance company thinks I burned down my own building? What do I pay rates for? I pay my taxes and the police don’t help me, I pay my insurance and my company insults me-”
“Mr. Seligman,” I cut in, “you’ve lived in Chicago a long time, right? Your whole life? Well, me too. You know as well as I do that people here torch their own property every day just to collect on the insurance. I’m happy to think you’re not one of them, but you can’t blame the company for wanting to make sure.”
The angry flush died from his cheeks but he continued muttering under his breath about robbers who took your money without giving you anything in return. He calmed down enough to answer routine questions on where he’d been last Wednesday night-home in bed, what did I think he was, a Don Juan at his age to be gallivanting around town all night
“Can you think of any reason anyone would want to burn down the Indiana Arms?”
He held up his hands in exasperation. “It was an old building, no good to anybody, even me. You pay the taxes, you pay the insurance, you pay the utilities, and when the rent comes in you don’t have enough to pay for the paint. I know the wiring was old but I couldn’t afford to put in new, you’ve got to believe me on that, young lady.”
“Why didn’t you just tear it down if it was costing you so much?”
“You’re like everyone today, just considering a dollar and not people’s hearts. People come to me, it seems like every day, thinking I’m a stupid old man who will just sell them my heart and let them tear it down. Now here you are, another one.”
He shook his head slowly, depressed over the perfidy of the younger generation. “It was the first building I owned. I put together the money slowly, slowly in the Depression. You wouldn’t understand. I worked on a delivery truck for years and saved every penny, every dime, and when Fanny and I got married everything went into the Indiana Arms.”
He was talking more to himself now than to me, his husky voice so soft I had to lean forward to hear him. “You should have seen it in those days, it used to be a beautiful hotel. We made deliveries there in the morning and even the kitchens seemed wonderful to me-I grew up in two rooms, eight of us in two rooms, with no kitchen, all the water hauled in by hand. When the owners went bankrupt-everybody went under in those days- scraped together the money and bought it.”
His faded eyes clouded. “Then the war came and the colored came pouring in and Fanny and I, we moved up here, we had a family then anyway, you couldn’t raise children in a residential hotel, even if the neighborhood was decent. But I never could bring myself to sell it. Now it’s gone, maybe it’s just as well.”
Out of respect for his memories I waited before speaking again, looking around the room to give him a little privacy. On the low table nearest me was a studio portrait of a solemn young man and a shyly smiling young woman in bridal dress.
“That was Fanny and me,” he said, catching my glance. “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”
I took him gently through the routine-who worked for him, what did he know about the night man at the Indiana Arms, who would inherit the business, who would profit by the fire. He answered readily enough, but he couldn’t really think ill of someone who worked for him, nor of his children, who would get the business when he died.
“Not that it’s much to leave them. You start out, you think you’ll end up like Rubloff, but all I’ve got to show for all my years is seven worn-out buildings.” He gave me his children’s names and addresses and said he’d tell Rita to let me have a list of employees-the building managers and watchmen and maintenance crews.
“I suppose someone could burn down a building if you paid him enough. It’s true I don’t pay them much, but look at me, look how I live. I’m not Donald Trump after all- pay what I can afford.”
He saw me to the front door, going over it again and again, how he paid his taxes and got nothing and had nothing, but paid his employees, and would they turn on him anyway? As I walked down the front steps I could hear the locks slowly closing behind me.
19
Gentleman Caller
There was an errand I couldn’t put off before going home. I squared my shoulders and drove south through the rush-hour traffic to Michael Reese. Zerlina was still in her four-pack, but one of the beds was empty and the other two held new inmates who looked at me with vacant faces before returning to
Zerlina turned her head away when she saw me. I hesitated at the foot of her bed-it would be easier to take her rejection at face value and go home than to talk to her about her daughter. “Quitters never win and winners never quit,” I encouraged myself, and went to squat near her head.
“You’ve heard about Cerise, Mrs. Ramsay.”
The black eyes stared at me unblinkingly, but at length she gave a grudging nod.
“I’m very sorry-I had to identify her early this morning. She looked terribly young.”
She scowled horribly in an effort to hold back tears. “What did you do to her, you and that aunt of yours, to drive her to take her own life?”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Ramsay,” I repeated. “Maybe I should have tried to find her on Monday. But she left the clinic where I’d brought her and I didn’t have any idea where she might go. I tried talking to Elena this morning; if she knew anything, she was keeping it to herself.”
I stayed another five minutes or so, but she wouldn’t say anything else, nor did her face relent. When I got back in the car I sat for a long time rubbing my tight shoulder muscles and trying to imagine a place I could go to find some peace. Not my apartment-I didn’t want to confront either Mr. Contreras or Vinnie tonight. I was too tired, though, to drive out to the country, too tired to deal with the noise and distraction of a restaurant. What I needed was a club of the kind Peter Wimsey used to retire to-discreet, solicitous servants leaving me in total peace yet
