Blood Shot (18 page)

“Gustav Humboldt?” Bobby’s voice went up a register.

“You know, the chairman of Humboldt Chemical.”

“I know who you mean,” he said bitingly. “You want to share with me why you were talking to him? In reference to the Cleghorn woman?”

“I wasn’t really talking to him about the Cleghorn woman at all,” I said earnestly, turning to look at Bobby’s clenched jaw. “That’s what I meant—I didn’t talk to any of these people about Nancy. But since they were all more or less unpleasant, any of them might have wanted to dump me in the swamp.”

“For two cents I’d get someone to put you back there. It’d save a lot of time. You know something and you think you’re going to be a hotshot again, go looking without saying squat to me about it. They almost got you this time. Next time they will, but until they do I have to waste city money by having someone keep an eye on you.”

His blue eyes glittered. “Eileen’s all upset about you being in here. She wanted to send over flowers, she wanted to take you home with her and fuss over you. I told her you just ain’t worth it.”

25

Visiting Hours

After Bobby left I lay back down. I tried to sleep, but the pain in my shoulders had moved to the foreground of my mind. Angry tears prickled under my eyes, I had almost gotten killed, and all he could do was insult me, I wasn’t worth the bother of looking after, just because I wasn’t a blabbermouth who would tell him everything I knew, I’d tried mentioning Gustav Humboldt’s name, and all I’d gotten for my pains was an incredulous shout.

I twitched uncomfortably. The knot in the hospital gown was digging into my sore neck-muscles. Of course I could have given him chapter and verse on all my activities for the last week. But Bobby just wouldn’t have believed that a big-shot like Gustav Humboldt could be involved in bonking young women on the head. Although maybe if I’d tried giving it to him straight … Was he right? Was I just hotdogging, hoping to thumb my nose at him one more time?

As I lay still, letting images flow through my mind, I realized that this time, at least, wanting to give the powers-that-be a Bronx cheer wasn’t what had kept me quiet. I was well and truly scared. Every time I tried sending my mind back to the three black-slickered men I shied away from the memory like a horse frightened by fire. There were a lot of parts of the assault I hadn’t told Bobby, not because I was trying to hold back on him but because I couldn’t bear to touch the memories. The hope that some forgotten phrase or cadence would give me a lead to who they worked for wasn’t enough to force the memory of that terrifying near-suffocation.

If I spilled everything I knew to Bobby, turning the whole tangled mess over to him, it was a way of saying it out loud. Hey, guys, whoever you are, you got me. You didn’t kill me but you got me so scared that I’m abdicating responsibility for my life.

Once I’d let that little piece of self-knowledge float to the top of my mind, a terrible rage began to seize hold of me. I would not be turned into a eunuch, be driven to living my life in the margins designed by someone else’s will. I didn’t know what was going on in South Chicago, but no one, be it Steve Dresberg, Gustav Humboldt, or even Caroline Djiak, was going to keep me from finding out.

When Murray Ryerson showed up a little after eleven, I was pacing the room in my bare feet, my hospital gown flapping around my legs. I’d vaguely seen my roommate stand uncertainly in the door and move away again, and I mistook Murray’s presence for her return until he spoke.

“They told me you were fifteen minutes from death, but I knew better than to believe that.”

I jumped. “Murray! Didn’t your mother teach you to knock before barging in on people?”

“I tried, but you weren’t anywhere near planet earth.” He straddled the chair next to my bed. “You look like that Siberian tiger in that great open area at Lincoln Park Zoo, V.I. You’re making me nervous. Sit down and let me have an exclusive on your brush with death. Who tried to do you in? Dr. Chigwell’s sister? The folks down at the Xerxes plant? Or your pal Caroline Djiak?”

That stopped me. I pulled up my roommate’s chair to face Murray. I had hoped to keep Louisa’s affairs out of the papers, but once Murray started digging he’d find out pretty much anything.

“What’d little Caroline tell you—that I’d come by my ill deserts honestly?”

“Caroline’s a bit confusing to talk to. She says you were looking into Nancy Cleghorn’s death for SCRAP, although no one else down there seems to know anything about it. She claims she knows nothing about Pankowski or Ferraro, although I’m not sure I believe her.”

Murray poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher the orderly had replaced. “The people at Xerxes keep referring us to counsel if we want to hear about those two. Or about their suicidal doctor. And it does always kind of make you wonder when people only talk to you through their lawyers. We’re working on the plant secretary, the gal who works for the accountant-cum-personnel administrator. And one of my assistants is hanging out at the bar where the shift goes after work, so we’ll get something. But you could sure make it easier, Miss Marple.”

I slid from the chair back to bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. Caroline was protecting Louisa. Of course. That was what lay behind her song and dance. A threat to her mother was the only thing that would scare her, the only explanation consistent with her fierce terrier personality. She didn’t care anything for her own safety—and certainly not enough for mine to grow hysterical over my failure to drop the investigation.

It was hard to imagine how they could menace a woman in Louisa’s condition. Maybe blasting the private affairs she so ardently desired to keep secret out into the open—perhaps her most important concern in the last months of her life. Although Louisa hadn’t seem worried when I saw her on Tuesday….

“Come on, Vic. Give.” Murray’s voice had an edge that brought me back to the room.

“Murray, it wasn’t two days ago you were looking haughtily down that elephant-child snout of yours telling me you didn’t need anything from me and wouldn’t do anything for me. So give me a reason why I should suddenly help you out.”

Murray waved his hand around the hospital room. “This, baby doll. Someone wants you dead awful bad. The more people who know what you know, the less likely they’ll be to try to take you out a second time.”

I smiled sweetly—at least that was the goal. “I talked to the police.”

“And told them everything you know.”

“That would take more time than Lieutenant Mallory has. I told him who I spoke with the day before the—the assault. That included you—you weren’t very pleasant, and he wanted to know about anyone who seemed hostile.”

Murray’s eyes narrowed above his red beard. “I came here prepared to be sympathetic, maybe even to rub ointment into the sore spots. You have a way of destroying people’s tender feelings, kiddo.”

I made a sour face. “Funny—Bobby Mallory said much the same thing.”

“Any reasonable man would…. Okay. Let’s have the assault story. All I have is the sketch the hospital reported to the cops. You made all four TV news spots last night, if that makes you feel more important.”

It didn’t. It made me feel more exposed. Whoever had tried to dump me into the South Chicago swamp had plenty of access to the news that I’d managed to crawl away. There wasn’t any point to asking Murray to keep a lid on it: I gave him as much as I could bear to reveal about the experience.

“I take it back, V.I.,” he said when I finished. “That’s a harrowing story even with most of the details missing. You’re entitled to thrash your tail awhile.”

Even so, he tried wheedling more information from me, stopping only when the lunches were brought in, chicken and overcooked peas, followed nervously by the woman recovering from plastic surgery. I was chewed out rather sternly by the floor head for having visitors who frightened my roommate out of her own bed. Since Murray takes up about as much space as a full-grown grizzly, she devoted enough of her remarks to him that he fled in some embarrassment.

After lunch a petite Asian underling came to inform me that Dr. Herschel had ordered deep heat for me down in physical therapy. She found a hospital robe for me. Even though I was twice her size, she helped me solicitously into a wheelchair and pushed me down to the PT unit, deep in the bowels of the hospital. I spent a pleasant hour getting wet packs, deep heat, and a massage, finishing with ten minutes in the whirlpool.

By the time my attendant had brought me back to my room, I was drowsy and ready for sleep. It was not meant to be, however: I found Ron Kappelman sitting in the visitor’s chair. He put away a folder of papers when he saw me and offered me a pot of geraniums.

“You sure seem better today than I would’ve believed twenty-four hours ago,” he said soberly. “I’m most sorry I didn’t take your neighbor seriously—I just assumed something important had come up and you’d taken off. I still can’t figure out how he bullied me into driving him all the way down there.”

I slid back into bed and lay down. “Mr. Contreras is a little excitable, at least about my well-being, but I’m not exactly in the mood to fight it today. You find anything out about that insurance report? Or why Jurshak was appointed the fiduciary?”

“You look as though you should be convalescing, not worrying about a bunch of old files,” he said disapprovingly.

“Has their status changed? Tuesday you were pretty excited about them. What turned them into old files?” Lying down wasn’t a good idea—I kept drifting. I cranked the bed so I could sit up.

“The way you looked when that old man dragged you up to the fence. They didn’t seem worth that much trouble.”

I scanned his face for signs of menace or lies or something. All he showed was manly concern. What did that prove?

“Is that why I was dumped into the marsh? Because of the report to Mariners Rest?”

He looked startled. “I guess I assumed—because we’d talked about them and then you didn’t show up for our meeting.”

“You tell anyone about my having that letter, Kappelman?”

He leaned forward in his chair, his mouth set in a thin line. “I’m beginning to dislike the turn this conversation is taking, Warshawski. Are you trying to imply that I had anything to do with what happened to you yesterday?”

This made the third well-wisher whose mind I’d changed within minutes of entering the room. “I’m trying to make sure that you didn’t. Look, Ron, all I know about you is that you had a brief fling with an old friend of mine. That doesn’t tell me anything—I mean, I was once married to a guy I wouldn’t trust with a kid’s piggy bank. All it proves is that hormones are stronger than brains.

“I talked to you and to one other person about those documents. If they’re the reason I was dumped into that swamp yesterday—and that’s a big question mark—because I just don’t know—it had to be because of one of you guys.”

He made a sour face. “Okay. I guess I can buy that—just. I don’t know how to convince you I didn’t hire those thugs —other than on my honor as a Boy Scout. I was one once, thirty years ago or so. Will you take that as evidence of probity?”

“I’ll take it into account.” I lowered the bed again—I was too tired to try to push him any further. “They’re springing me tomorrow. Want to try again on these papers?”

He frowned. “You really are a cold-blooded bitch, aren’t you? Near death one day and hot on the trail the next. Sherlock Holmes didn’t have anything on you. I guess I still want to see those damned documents—I’ll stop by around six if they’ve let you go home.”

He got up and pointed at the geraniums. “Don’t eat those —they’re just for the spirit. Try to enjoy them.”

“Very funny,” I muttered to his back. Before he’d disappeared I was deep in sleep.

When I woke again around six Max was sitting in the visitor’s chair. He was reading a magazine with peaceful absorption, but when he realized I was awake he folded it neatly and stuck it into his attaché case.

“I would have been here much sooner, but my day was spent in meetings, I fear. Lotty tells me you are fine, that you need nothing but rest to be completely healed.”

I ran a hand through my hair. It felt matted and sticky, which made me feel at a disadvantage. I eyed Max warily.

“Victoria.” He took my left hand and held it between his two. “I hope you can forgive my cold words of a few days ago. When Lotty told me what had happened to you, I felt truly remorseful.”

“Don’t,” I said awkwardly. “You weren’t responsible for anything that happened to me.”

His soft brown eyes looked at me shrewdly. “Nothing is without connection in our lives. If I hadn’t goaded you about Dr. Chigwell, you might not have acted so fiercely as to get yourself into trouble.”

I started to answer him, then stopped. If he hadn’t goaded me, I might not have felt so reluctant to take my gun with me on my run yesterday. Maybe I even exposed myself unconsciously to danger to assuage my guilt.

“But I did have something to feel guilty about,” I said aloud. “You weren’t that far off the mark, you know—I only pressured Chigwell because he made me angry. So maybe I gave the final turn to his screw.”

“So maybe we can both learn a little from this, to look before we leap.” Max stood up to reveal a magnificent array of flowers in a Chinese porcelain bowl. “I know you leave tomorrow, but take these with you for some cheer while your poor muscles heal.”

Max was an expert on oriental porcelain. The pot looked as though it had come from his personal collection. I tried to let him know how much the gesture pleased me; he accepted my thanks with his usual cheerful courtesy and left.

26

Back to Home Base

I had a new roommate in the morning, a twenty-year-old named Jean Fishbeck whose lover had shot at her and hit a shoulder before she got him in the stomach. The cosmetic surgery patient had moved three rooms down the hall.

I got the whole shooting story, with loud-pitched expletives, at midnight when Ms. Fishbeck came in from postop. At seven, when the morning shift came in to see if we’d expired in the night, she vented her rage at being awakened in the clarion nasal of the northwest side. By the time Lotty showed up at eight-thirty I was ready to go anywhere, even the psychiatric wing, just to get away from the obscenities and cigarettes.

“I don’t care what shape I’m in,” I told Lotty irritably. “Just sign my discharge and let me out of here. I’ll leave in my nightgown if I have to.”

Lotty cocked an eye at the crumpled chewing-gum wrappers and cigarette pack on the floor. She raised both eyebrows as a stream of profanity poured from behind the closed curtain while an intern tried to conduct an exam.

“The floor head told me you’d been rough on your roommate yesterday and that they were giving you someone more suited to your personality. Did you vent your anger by handing her a few punches?” She started probing my shoulder muscles.

“Ow, damn you, that hurts. And the word you want is throw, not hand Or land, maybe.”

Lotty used her ophthalmoscope on my eyes. “We gave you X rays and a CT scan after we stabilized you on Wednesday. By some miracle you don’t have any cracks or breaks. Some more physical therapy over the next few days should help your sore muscles, but don’t expect them to recover overnight—tissue tears can take as long as a year to heal if you don’t rest the muscles properly. And yes, you can go home—you can do the therapy as an outpatient. If you give me your keys, I’ll have Carol bring you some clothes at lunchtime.”

I’d tied the keys through the laces of my running shoes before setting out on Wednesday. Lotty had rescued them before giving orders to trash what clothes I’d still been wearing on arrival at Beth Israel.

She stood up and looked at me gravely. When she spoke again her Viennese accent was pronounced. “I would ask that you not be reckless, Victoria. I would ask it except that you seem to be in love with danger and death. You make life very hard for those who love you.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes very dark in her angular face, then gave her head a little shake and left.

My twenty-four-hour character summary wasn’t too appealing: a coldhearted bitch in love with death and danger who drove timid cosmetic surgery patients to the nursing staff for refuge. When an orderly came by an hour or so later to take me down for physical therapy, I went along morosely. The normal hospital routine, which depersonalizes patients at its expense, usually drives me into a frenzy of uncooperative sarcasm. Today I took it like a good little lump.

After my physical therapy I myself took refuge from my vituperous roommate, waiting in the lounge for my clothes with a stack of old Glamours and Sports Illustrated Carol Alvarez, the nurse and chief backup at Lotty’s clinic, arrived a little before two. She greeted me warmly, with a hug, a kiss, and little exclamations of horror over my ordeal.

“Even Mama has been praying to the Blessed Mother for your safety, Vic.” That was something, indeed—Mrs. Alvarez usually looked on me with silent contempt.

Carol had brought jeans, a sweatshirt, and a pair of boots. The clothes and underwear seemed unnaturally clean. I’d forgotten leaving them in the laundry on Wednesday. Apparently one of my downstairs neighbors had dumped them in a wet heap outside my apartment door with an angry note —Carol had generously taken the time to run them back through the machine.

She helped me quickly with the discharge routine. Since she knew a lot of the nurses on the floor, their hostility toward me cooled a little when they saw me with her. With me carrying Max’s oriental bowl and Carol the geraniums, we made our way through the long corridors to the staff parking lot behind the hospital.

My head seemed stuffed with cotton, remote not just from my body but from the day around me. It had been only two days since my ill-fated run, but I felt as though I’d been away from the world for months. My boots felt new and strange and I couldn’t get used to the sensation of the jeans zipped close to my body. At that they weren’t as close as they used to be—the last few days seemed to have taken a good five pounds off me.

Mr. Contreras was waiting for me when we got to my apartment on Racine. He had tied a big red ribbon around Peppy’s neck and groomed her auburn hair until it shone in the dull gray day. Carol turned me over to them with another kiss and left us at the door.

I would have much preferred to be alone to order my thoughts, but he had earned the right to fuss. I submitted to his ushering me into the armchair, pulling off my boots, and tucking a blanket tenderly around my legs and feet.

He’d fixed an elaborate tray of fruit and cheese, which he set next to me along with a pot of tea. “Now, cookie, I’m leaving her highness here to keep you company. You want anything, you just call me. I printed my number next to the phone so you don’t have to look it up. And before you go off sticking your head into trouble, you let me know. I ain’t gotta hover over you—I know you hate that—but someone’s gotta know where to come looking for you. You promise me that or I’m going to have to hire me a detective just to follow you around.”

I held out a hand. “It’s a deal, Uncle.”

The honorary title moved him so much that he spoke sternly to the dog, outlining her duties to me, before slapping me on my sore shoulder and moving off down the stairs.

I’m not much of a tea drinker, but it was pleasant to stay where I’d been planted. I poured myself a cup, mixed it with a lot of heavy cream, and alternately fed grapes to myself and the dog. She sat on her haunches watching me with unwavering eyes, panting slightly, taking her guard duties seriously, assuring herself that I wasn’t going to disappear again without her.

I forced my weary mind back to the time before my assault. Only three days earlier, but the neurons moved as though they’d been rusted over for years. When every muscle aches it’s hard to remember feeling whole.

I’d been warned out of South Chicago Monday night. On Wednesday I’d been dispatched most efficiently. That meant something I’d done Tuesday had brought an immediate re action. I frowned, trying to remember what all happened that day.

I’d found Jurshak’s insurance report and talked to Ron Kappelman about it. I’d also left a message for young Art implying I had the material. These were tangible documents and it was tempting to think they showed something so damaging that people would kill to keep them secure. It might be difficult to pry the truth from Kappelman if he was concealing something, but Jurshak was such a fragile young man, I ought to be able to pound the facts from him. If only I could find him. If he was still alive.

Still, I shouldn’t concentrate on those two at the expense of the other people involved. Curtis Chigwell, for example. Early Tuesday I’d sicced Murray Ryerson on him and twelve hours later he’d tried to kill himself And then there was the big shark, Gustav Humboldt himself Whatever Chigwell knew, whatever they were concealing about Joey Pankowski and Steve Ferraro, Gustav Humboldt had full knowledge of Otherwise he would never have sought me out to try to get me to swallow lies about two insignificant workers in his worldwide empire. And the insurance report Nancy had found dealt with his company. That must mean something—I just didn’t yet know what.

Finally, of course, there was little Caroline. Now that I’d worked out that she was protecting Louisa, I figured I could get her to talk. She might even know what Nancy had seen in the insurance report. She was my best starting point.

I took the blanket from my legs and got up. The dog immediately sprang to her feet, waving her tail—if I stood up, it was clearly time to go running. When she saw me just move to the phone, she flopped down in depression.

Caroline was in a meeting, the SCRAP receptionist told me. She was not to be disturbed.

“Just write the following on a note and take in into her—‘Louisa’s life story on the front page of the Herald-Star?’ And add my name. I guarantee she’ll be on the phone within nanoseconds.”

I had to cajole a little more, but the woman finally agreed. I carried the phone back over to the easy chair. Peppy eyed me in disgust, but I wanted to be sitting down for the coming blast.

Caroline came on the line without preamble. I let her rant at me unchecked for some minutes, shredding my character, expressing remorse that I’d risen unchastened from the swamp, even lamenting that I didn’t now lie buried in the mud.

At that I decided to interrupt. “Caroline, that was vile and offensive. If you had any imagination or sensitivity, you would never have thought such a thing, let alone said it.”

She was silent for a minute, then said gruffly. “I’m sorry, Vic. But you shouldn’t have sent me messages threatening Ma.”

“Right, kiddo. I understand. I understand that the only reason you’ve been behaving more like a horse’s rear end than usual is because someone was gunning for Louisa. I need to know who and why.”

“How do you know?” she blurted.

“It’s your character, sweetie. It just took me awhile to remember it. You’re manipulative, you’ll bend the rules any old way to get what you want, but you’re no chicken. You’d run scared for only one reason.”

She was silent for another long moment. “I’m not going to say if you’re right or wrong,” she finally said. “I just can’t talk about it. If you’re right, you can understand why. If you’re wrong—I guess it’s because I’m a horse’s rear end.”

I tried to will my personality into the phone. “Caroline, this is important. If someone told you they’d hurt Louisa unless you got me to stop hunting for your father, I need to know it. Because it means there’s a tie-in between Nancy’s death and my looking at Joey Pankowski and Steve Ferraro.”

“You’d have to sell me and I don’t think you can.” She was serious, more mature than I was used to hearing her.

“At least let me give it a shot, babe. Come up here some time tomorrow? As you can imagine, I’m not too fit right now or I’d zip down to see you tonight.”

She finally, reluctantly, agreed to come by in the afternoon. We hung up in greater amity than I’d have thought possible ten minutes earlier.