didn’t. I wanted strong women in public office and she was better than most. So why did she keep rubbing my face in
I hadn’t turned on any lamps. In the twilight the room seemed ghostly, a place where no living creatures moved. The image of Cerise’s dead face came into my mind and I felt an unbearable sadness for the waste that had been her life. And again, unwanted, came the nagging question about what Bobby was doing at the site within hours of her body being discovered. And what was he doing coming to see me yesterday? Off and on all day I’d worried over it like a sore tooth, but couldn’t put it to rest.
I had one client, Ajax, to look into one issue-had Saul Seligman burned down his own building. As a host of people from Bobby Mallory to Velma Riter and Ralph MacDonald kept reminding me, neither Cerise nor Roz was any of my business. Of course the cops thought the Indiana Arms wasn’t any of my business, either.
By and by I got stiffly to my feet and went down to Mr. Contreras’s apartment to borrow the dog. Sometimes he has enough sensitivity to spare me an intrusive barrage. Tonight, mercifully, was such a time. He handed Peppy over to me with a stern adjuration not to feed her cheese or anything else dangerous to her delicate GI tract and returned to the tube.
I walked Peppy around the block before returning to my own apartment. She thought that was a pretty miserable excuse for a workout, but when I fixed her a plate of spaghettini with dried tomatoes and mushrooms to go with my own, she cheered up. She wolfed it down and came to lie on my feet while I turned to the phone.
Murray Ryerson was Chicago’s leading crime reporter. He’d been with the
He didn’t show any particular enthusiasm at hearing from me. At times we’ve been friendly enough to be lovers, but both of us covering the same scene and having strong personalities make it hard to avoid conflict. After the latest clash between our jobs Murray had been furious. He still hadn’t warmed up. He believed I’d held back significant chunks of a story until it was too late to use them. Actually I’d held back significant chunks that he never even knew about, so he probably had a right to a grievance.
Tonight he told me astringently that he was very busy and if it was business it could wait until he was in the office tomorrow.
“Does she have a name?” I asked hopefully.
“Make it snappy, Warshawski. I’m not in the mood.”
It was easy to be brief since I didn’t have much to say. “Roz Fuentes. She’s on the county ticket and she thinks I think she’s hiding something. Is she?”
“God, Vic, I don’t know. If you had to bother me at home to ask me that-”
“I wouldn’t have,” I interrupted him. “Do you know who Ralph MacDonald is?”
“You’re wasting my time, Warshawski. Everyone knows MacDonald. He’s the leading contender to put together the package for the new stadium-retail-housing complex.”
I hadn’t heard that. Murray told me loftily I didn’t know everything, that it was just county scuttlebutt because of Boots being tight with MacDonald.
“And I don’t need you calling me at home catechizing me to remember what an inside track Ralph MacDonald has in county building projects. He and Boots grew up together. They got big together. Everyone knows that. So come to the point or hang up.”
I scowled at the phone but plowed ahead in my best Girl Scout style. “Ralph is hanging out with a lady I sort of know-Marissa Duncan. She’s kind of a political PR woman, fund-raiser, that type of thing. She trotted him out for me tonight at her Lincoln Park town house to tell me to lay off Roz.”
“Yeah, I know Marissa. She’s at all the right events. If she and Ralph want you to leave them alone, it’s not news-they must know what a pain in the ass you are. It still could have waited until morning.”
When I didn’t say anything he grudgingly allowed that he didn’t know of anything about Roz that the paper was holding back. They do that more often than the trusting public likes to think-they don’t run a juicy story because it will stub an important advertiser or religious figure’s toe. Or even worse, they want to wait and drop it like a stink bomb when it will hurt the most people.
“But you’ll check tomorrow for me?” I persisted.
“Only if I get an exclusive on your obituary, Warshawski.”
I made a face at the phone. “The number of french fries you eat I’m bound to outlive you, Murray… Did you see anything about a dead junkie picked up at the Rapelec construction site?”
I could feel him trying to figure it out on the phone- which was the real reason I’d called, Roz or the junkie. “I missed that one,” he said cautiously. “Friend of yours?”
“In a way.” Peppy got up and started sniffing around the corners. “I ID’d her. It just seemed strange to me that some of the city’s top cops were there-thought you might know about it. Well, sorry to have bothered you at home- I’ll talk to you at the paper tomorrow.”
“Warshawski-oh, the hell with you. Go find someone else to run your errands.” He hung up with a bang.
Peppy had found some dust balls behind the piano that she was bent on eating. I retrieved them from her mouth and hunted around for a tennis ball to play a little indoor fetch with her. She likes to sit on her haunches and catch the ball without letting it bounce. The hitch is, I have to go scampering after it if she doesn’t make it. I was lying on my back pulling it from under the piano when the phone rang. I clambered upright to answer the phone and bounced the ball to Peppy. She watched it go by her with a look of pure disgust and slumped dejectedly onto her forepaws.
It was Michael Furey. I stiffened at once, thinking Bobby must have given him a little godfatherly advice on the best way to handle stubborn women.
Furey was ill at ease. I didn’t do anything to make him relax. “Sorry to bother you so late in the day. Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about something. Can I come over?”
“Is this Bobby’s idea?” I demanded.
“Well, yes, I mean not that I come over, but-”
“You can tell him from me to butt out of my business. Or I’ll tell him myself.”
“Don’t make this harder for me than it already is, Vic. She’s not just your private business, even if you wish she was.”
I held the receiver away from my face and looked at it for a minute. “You’re not calling about-about Tuesday night?” I asked stupidly.
“No. No, nothing like that. Though I admit I owe you an apology. This-it’s about your aunt and it’s not real easy talking about it on the phone.”
My heart squeezed shut. “Is she dead?”
“No, oh no, it’s just-look, I hate being the one to do this to you, but Uncle Bobby-the lieutenant-he thought you and I were, well, since we’d been friends it would come better from me than anyone else.”
Wild thoughts of Elena’s somehow being responsible for the fire at the Indiana Arms clashed with the fear of a drunken stupor turned to disaster. I sat on the piano bench and demanded to know what Michael was talking about.
“There’s no easy way to say this. But she’s been spotted a couple of times soliciting in Uptown, mostly old guys, but a couple of times young ones who were pretty affronted.”
Relief that it was so trivial made me laugh-that and the image of Elena taking on someone like Vinnie the banker or Furey himself. I hooted so loudly that Peppy came over to see what the trouble was.
“It’s not as funny as all that, Vic-the only reason she hasn’t been arrested is because of the connection between your family and the police. I was hoping you could go talk to her, ask her to stop.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised, gasping for breath, “but she’s never paid much attention to anything anybody said to her.” I couldn’t help it, but started laughing again.
“If I came along?” he suggested tentatively. “Uncle Bobby thought it might make more of an impact if someone from the force was there to back you up.”
“Tell me the truth-he was too chicken to confront her, wasn’t he?”
Michael hedged on that one-he wasn’t about to slander his commander, even if Bobby was his godfather. Instead he asked, even more hesitantly, if I might be free to do it tonight. I looked at my watch. It was only eight- thirty; might as well get it over with.
“If she’s in, she’s probably drunk,” I warned him.
