Part 14 (1/2)

The trouble is, I am so vulnerable, I and my small company.” His voice trailed away.

I knew that feeling. ”Do you feel like telling me the odd thing you mentioned last week, or why you had a Lacey Dowell s.h.i.+rt in your plant?”

”I-they came-I made a couple on spec.” He floundered for words. ”It didn't get me anywhere. Global uses offsh.o.r.e labor, it's much cheaper than anything I can produce.”

”Why didn't you want to tell me last night?”

He hesitated. ”For personal reasons.”

”To do with Lacey?” When he didn't say anything I added, ”You didn't make the s.h.i.+rtdress Nicola Aguinaldo was wearing when she died, by any chance?”

He became totally quiet, so much so I could hear the tree toads croaking from the back of the house. Frenada gave me a hurried good night and hung up.

So he did know something about Nicola Aguinaldo's death. That was a sad and startling thought, but it wasn't as urgent for me at the moment as my own fury with Murray. Was that what he told Alex FisherFishbein I would do-plant evidence of a cocaine ring at SpecialT Uniforms? And then, when I didn't jump at their offer, he and Alex decided to move matters on by putting a rumor in the paper?

I called Murray. He wasn't at home-or at least he wasn't answering, and he wasn't at the office. I tried his cell phone.

”Vic! How in h.e.l.l did you get this number? I know d.a.m.ned well I never gave it to you.”

”I'm a detective, Ryerson. Getting a cell phone number is child's play. It's the grownup stuff that has me baffled. What was the point of that charade you and Alex Fishbein acted out in my office last week?”

”It was not a charade. It was a serious offer to give you-”

”Some crumbs from Global's richly spread table. But when I didn't s.n.a.t.c.h the bait you took an easier tack and planted a story in that prize b.i.t.c.h Regine Mauger's ear. The last time she checked a source was probably 1943, but it doesn't matter if a column devoted to innuendo gets the facts wrong.”

”How do you know they're wrong? How do you know he isn't smuggling c.o.ke in through his s.h.i.+rt factory?”

”So you did plant the story with her!” I was so furious I was spitting into the receiver.

”No, I didn't,” he shouted. ”But I read my own d.a.m.ned paper to see what they're printing. And yes, I usually get the early edition as soon as it's out. If you've made yourself the guy's champion you are going to have egg all over your smug face. And I for one will not be sorry to help plaster it there. My story will run on Friday, and it will sizzle.”

”What are you talking about?” I demanded. ”Did going on TV make you feel checking facts was for little people? I looked into Frenada's finances when you and Sandy b.i.t.c.hbein came around last week. He's clean as a whistle.”

”Clean as a whistle? One that's been in the sewer for a week. I did a priority check on Frenada when I learned Regine was running this little tidbit. Guy's got money parked all over the globe.”

”Bulls.h.i.+t,” I screamed. ”I looked him up on LifeStory on Sunday and he doesn't have a dime except the pittance that little Ts.h.i.+rt factory makes for him.”

”No.” Murray was suddenly quiet. ”You didn't. You couldn't have. I just ran a check on him, a priorityone, two thousand bucks to turn it around in ten hours, and it's not true. He's got three accounts in Mexico that are worth a million five U.S. dollars each.”

”Murray. I ran the check. I did at the deepest level of numbers. That's why I turned down b.i.t.c.hbein's offer.”

”Her name is Fisher. Why you have a knot in your a.s.s about her-”

”Never mind that. Don't let her wave so many Golden Globes in front of you that you're too blinded to see the facts, Murray. And by the way, if you're planning on leading your story with, ”There was egg all over smug V. I. Warshawski's face,' don't, because there won't be. I'm leaving town in the morning, but as soon as I get back I'll fax you a copy of that LifeStory report. If I were you, I'd hold off running your sizzle until you've seen it.”

I hung up smartly and went back to packing my gun. I'd been feeling irritable about going to rural Georgia, but taking on some punks putting nails under truck tires was beginning to sound downright wholesome compared to what I was looking at here in Chicago.

I was too tired, and too agitated by Murray to figure out what was going on with all these people. If Frenada manufactured the dress Nicola was wearing when she died, how had she gotten it? Had he given it to someone at Carnifice? Given it to Nicola herself? Or to Alex Fisher?

And then there was Global. They wanted me to expose Frenada, then miraculously came up with a rumor about him and cocaine when I wouldn't do the job. I wished I'd known that when I saw Trant and Poilevy last night. It could have made the conversation livelier, although I suppose Alex would have kept them from saying much.

My brain swirled uselessly. It was way too much for me to figure out with the minute information I had. I snapped the gun case shut and filled out the forms I needed for the airline. Put jeans and some sweats.h.i.+rts in an overnight bag with the gun and a small kit of basic toiletries, then packed the surveillance camera, some blank ca.s.settes, and a charger for the unit together with my maps in a briefcase. That should get me through a few nights away. A book for the flight. I was working my way through a history of Jews in Italy, trying to understand something of my mother's past. Maybe I'd get as far as Napoleon by the time I came home.

21.

We Serve and Protect I spent the next several nights on the back roads of Georgia, sitting in the pa.s.senger seat of a fully loaded thirtyton truck. The fleet manager, who looked authentic with a beer gut hanging over oilstained jeans, had ambled in as a replacement for a sick driver; I was his girlfriend who hopped on board once the truck left the yard, but with plenty of people to see it happen. To make a long story short, it gave us the right veneer of venality, and we were able to rope in the dispatcher without much trouble. He fingered three buddies and the plant manager. And it was all on film, which made it tidy. Continental United promised an appropriate expression of grat.i.tude-not the kind of bonus I might have snared from Alex Fisher, but enough to pay the Trans Am repairs and cover my mortgage for a couple of months.

When I got home Sat.u.r.day afternoon, I felt refreshed, the way one does from executing a job well. And the job had been so straightforward, none of the tangled web of weirdness of Baladine and Frenada and Global Entertainment.

Despite my pleasure at being away from all those strange people, the first thing I did, after greeting Mr. Contreras and the dogs, was skim the HeraldStar for the last few days to see whether Murray's story on Frenada and the drug ring had run. To my relief it hadn't. Murray apparently still had enough journalism left to wait for the facts. I would reward this good behavior-or try to guarantee its continuation-by going down to my office right now to fax him the LifeStory report on Frenada. I wanted to check my mail, anyway.

After taking the dogs to a pocketsize park in the neighborhood, I told my neighbor to fire up the grill, I'd be home for chicken and tomatoes in an hour.

I picked up my briefcase, the camera and videoca.s.settes still inside it, and drove the two miles south, humming ”Voi che sapete” under my breath.

My happy mood disappeared as soon as I reached my office. I actually was halfway across the room before my brain registered the disaster. The deranged upheaval of papers on the floor wasn't because of me: someone had taken the place apart.

Had dumped papers out of drawers with a wanton hand. Unzipped covers from the couch cus.h.i.+ons and left them on the floor. Poured a cup of coffee over the papers on the desk. I gaped dumbly for a long moment, not moving, not thinking.

Street vandals. Druggies who'd seen I was away and taken advantage. But the computer and printer remained. Anyone looking for quick cash or the equivalent would have taken those, and anyway, the average druggie wasn't sophisticated enough to bypa.s.s the number pad on the front door.

I felt ill, an uncontrollable s.h.i.+ver rising along my back. The violation was too extreme. Someone had been in my s.p.a.ce, had come in brazenly, made no effort to conceal it. Were they looking for something, or was this like smas.h.i.+ng up hospitals in Zimbabwe-trying to terrify the civilian populace and destabilize the government?

My first impulse was like anyone's-call the cops, get away from the sickness as fast as possible. But if there was some signature in the mess that would tell me who had been there, I'd miss it if I let the cops look first. I sat on the arm of the couch, shaking, until I could control my legs enough to walk, then slid a bolt home on the inside of my office door. Someone-Baladine?-had proved he could get past the number pad on the front door without any trouble, but he'd have to break the inner door down to get past that bolt.

I zipped the cus.h.i.+ons back into their covers. Even if I disturbed some vital piece of evidence, I needed to sit down. I wanted water too, but that meant going to the hall, to the refrigerator, and I didn't want to open my door until I felt safe inside my building.

What did I have that someone might want? Besides my computer, of course. My Isabel Bishop painting was the only valuable in the office. I got up and looked at the part.i.tion facing my desk. The painting had been tossed to the floor. I didn't touch it. The gla.s.s would show prints if any had been left.

Even Tessa absorbed in work would have responded to the racket made by this wantonness. Would the intruders have hurt Tessa? Again I wanted to run to the hall, run to look in her studio, but fear kept me locked inside.

I finally pulled my cell phone from my handbag and phoned Tessa's home. She lived with her parents in their Gold Coast duplex. Her mother answered, the rich contralto that worked magic in courtrooms around the country vibrating the airwaves.

”Victoria. How are you? I didn't recognize your voice.”

”No, ma'am. I've had a bit of a shock. I just got in from out of town and found my office vandalized. I wanted to make sure Tessa was all right.”

Mrs. Reynolds made the proper statements of alarm and concern but rea.s.sured me about Tessa. She had picked her daughter up at the studio for a cup of coffee around noon. Tessa was off for a weekend's sailing with friends, and Mrs.

Reynolds, back from a busy week in Was.h.i.+ngton, had wanted to see her alone for a few minutes.

”When the police come, have them examine her studio to make sure nothing's wrong in there. I've never liked her being that close to Humboldt Park. I don't care how big her lats are, as she keeps telling me, or how good you are in a fight, you two young women need to be in a safer part of town.”

”You're probably right, ma'am,” I agreed, as the easiest way to end the conversation.

I leaned back on the couch and shut my eyes. Imagined lying in Lake Michigan with the sun overhead until my breath was calm enough for me to think about my situation. If this were Baladine's work it could be an attempt to terrorize me, but if he were also looking for something what would it be? I thought through my conversations during the last week, with Frenada, with Alex. With Murray. The last name came most reluctantly to mind.