Blood Shot (30 page)

42

Humboldt’s Gift

I think the last time I felt this bad was the day after my mother’s funeral, when her death suddenly became real to me. I tried calling Caroline, both at her house and at SCRAP. Both Louisa and a secretary agreed to take messages, but wherever Caroline was she didn’t want to talk to me. A thousand times or so I thought of calling McGonnigal, asking the police to keep an eye out for her—but what could they do about one distraught citizen?

Around four I borrowed Peppy from Mr. Contreras and drove her over to the lake. I wasn’t up to running, although she certainly was, but I needed her silent love and the expanse of sky and water to soothe my spirit. It wasn’t out of the question that Humboldt, a sore loser if ever there was one, had some kind of backup to Dresberg, so I kept a hand on the Smith & Wesson in my jacket pocket.

I threw sticks left-handed for the dog. She didn’t think much of the distance they went, but fetched them anyway to show she was a good sport. When she’d worked off some of her excess energy, we sat looking at the water while I kept my right hand on the gun.

In some remote part of my mind I knew I should think of a way to take the initiative with Humboldt, so that I didn’t have to walk around with one hand in my pocket for the rest of my life. I could go to Ron Kappelman and force the issue with him, see how much he’d been feeding Jurshak about my investigation. Maybe he’d even know how to reach Humboldt.

The whole prospect of action seemed so impossible that just thinking about it made my eyelids feel leaden, my brain fogged over. Even the idea of getting up and walking to the car would take more effort than I could manage. I might have sat staring at the waves until spring if Peppy hadn’t gotten fed up and started pushing me with her nose.

“You don’t get it, do you?” I said to her. “Golden retrievers don’t feel guilty about their neighbors’ puppies. They don’t feel obligated to look after them till death.”

She agreed happily, tongue lolling. Whatever I said was fine as long as action accompanied it. We walked back to the car—or I walked and Peppy danced in a spiral around me to make sure I didn’t stray or go back into catatonia.

When we got home Mr. Contreras came bustling out with Lotty’s clean sheets and towels. I thanked him as best I could, but told him I wanted to be alone.

“I’d like to keep the dog awhile too. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure, doll, sure. Whatever you say. She misses your runs, that’s for certain, so she’d probably be glad to stay with you, make sure you haven’t forgotten her.”

Back in my own place, I tried Caroline again, but she was still either gone or refusing to talk to me. Disheartened, I sat at the piano and picked my way through “Ch’io scordi di te.” It had been Gabriella’s favorite aria and it suited my mood of melancholy self-pity to play it through, then work at singing it. I felt tears of bathetic sorrow pricking my eyelids and went back to the middle, where the soprano line is most melodic.

When the phone rang I jumped up eagerly, sure it was Caroline willing finally to talk to me.

“Miss Warshawski?” It was the quavering voice of Humboldt’s butler.

“Yes, Anton?” My voice was calm but an adrenaline surge cleared my lethargy like sunlight on fog.

“Mr. Humboldt would like to speak with you. Please hold.” The voice held frosty disapproval. Perhaps he thought Humboldt wanted to make me his mistress and he feared I was too low class for the tone of the Roanoke.

A minute or so went by. I tried to get Peppy to come to the phone and act as my secretary but she wasn’t interested. Finally Humboldt’s rich baritone vibrated the earpiece.

“Ms. Warshawski. I would be most grateful if you would pay me a visit this evening. I have someone with me whom you would be sorry not to meet.”

“Let’s see,” I said. “Dresberg and Jurshak are in the hospital. Troy is under arrest. Ron Kappelman isn’t of much interest to me anymore. Who you got left?”

He gave his hearty chuckle to show that Monday’s contretemps was just an unhappy memory. “You’re always so direct, Ms. Warshawski. I assure you there will be no gunplay if you will pay me the courtesy of a visit.”

“Knives? Hypodermics? Vats of chemicals?”

He laughed again. “Let us just say you would regret it forever if you did not meet my visitor. I’ll send my car for you at six.”

“You’re very kind,” I said formally, “but I prefer to drive myself And I will bring a friend with me.”

My heart was pounding when I hung up, and wild surmises flashed through my mind. He had Caroline hostage, or Lotty. I couldn’t check on Caroline, but I did phone Lotty at the clinic. When she came to the phone, surprised at my urgency, I explained where I was going.

“If you don’t hear from me by seven, call the police.” I gave her Bobby’s home and office numbers.

“You’re not going alone, are you?” Lotty asked anxiously.

“No, no, I’m taking a friend.”

“Vic! Not that meddlesome old man! He’ll cause more trouble than he’ll save you.”

I laughed a little. “No, I agree with you totally. I’m taking someone who’s silent and reliable.”

Only after I promised to call her as soon as I got away from the Roanoke would she agree to my going without a police escort. When she’d hung up I turned to Peppy. “Come on, babe. You’re going to the haunts of the rich and powerful.”

The dog expressed herself interested as always in any expedition. She watched, her head cocked, while I checked the Smith & Wesson one last time to make sure a bullet was chambered, then bounded down the stairs ahead of me. We managed to make it outside without a checkup by Mr. Contreras—he must have been in the kitchen making supper.

I looked around cautiously to make sure I wasn’t walking into an ambush, but no one was lying in wait. Peppy jumped into the backseat of the Chevy and we headed south.

The doorman at the Roanoke greeted me with the same avuncular courtesy I’d had on my first visit. Apparently Anton hadn’t told him I was a menace to society. Or the memory of my five-dollar tip outweighed any nasty messages from the twelfth floor.

“The dog is accompanying you, ma’am?”

I smiled. “Mr. Humboldt is expecting her.”

“Very good, ma’am.” He turned us over to Fred at the elevator.

I moved with practiced grace to the little bench at the rear. Peppy sat alertly at my feet, her tongue hanging out, panting a little. She wasn’t used to elevators, but she took the uncertain flooring with the cool poise of a champion. When we’d been decanted she sniffed around the marble floor of Humboldt’s lobby, but came to attention at my side when Anton opened the ornate wooden door.

He looked coldly at Peppy. “We prefer not having dogs up here, as their habits are difficult to predict or control. I’ll ask Marcus to keep her in the lobby until you’re ready to leave.”

I grinned a little savagely. “Uncontrollable habits sound as though they should mesh perfectly with your boss’s style. I’m not coming in without her, so make up your mind how bad Humboldt wants to see me.”

“Very good, madam.” The frost in his voice had moved into the low Kelvin range. “If you will follow me?”

Humboldt was seated in front of his library fire. He was drinking out of a heavily cut glass—whiskey and soda as nearly as I could tell. My stomach twisted as I watched him, my anger returning and jolting my system.

Humboldt looked severely at Anton when Peppy came in at my left heel, but the majordomo said aloofly that I refused to see him without her. Humboldt immediately switched personae, genially asking the dog’s name and trying to make much of her beauty. She’d picked up his antagonism, though, and didn’t respond. I ostentatiously walked around the room with her, inviting her to sniff in corners. I flicked back the heavy brocade curtains, but the view was of the lake—there was no place for a sniper to hide.

I dropped the curtain. “I was kind of expecting a burst of machine-gun fire. Don’t tell me my life is going to settle into monotony.”

Humboldt gave his rich little chuckle. “Nothing affects you, does it, Ms. Warshawski? You really are a most remarkable young woman.”

I sat in the armchair facing Humboldt; Peppy stood in front of me, looking from him to me with concern, her tail down. I patted her head and she went down on her haunches without relaxing.

“Your mystery guest hasn’t arrived yet?”

“My guest will keep.” He chuckled gently to himself. “I thought you and I could have a little chat first. It might not be necessary to produce my visitor. Whiskey?”

I shook my head. “Your rarefied cellars are giving me ideas above my income, I can’t afford to get used to them.”

“But you could, Ms. Warshawski. You could, you know, if you would stop going around with that outsize chip on your shoulder.”

I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs. “Now that is really unworthy of you. I expected a much grander, or at least more subtle, approach.”

“Now, now, Ms. Warshawski. You’re too hasty to react much of the time. You could do worse than listen to me.”

“Yeah, I guess I could follow the Cubs on a road trip. But you might as well spit it out now so I’ll know if I have to dodge your minions’ bullets for the rest of my life.”

He refused to let himself get ruffled. “You’ve paid a great deal of attention to my affairs recently, Ms. Warshawski. So I’ve returned the compliment and paid much attention to yours.”

“I bet my researches were a lot more exciting than yours.” I kept my hand on Peppy’s head.

“Perhaps we have different ideas of what might prove exciting. For instance, I was most intrigued to learn that you owe a balance of fifty thousand dollars on your apartment and that your mortgage payments are not easy for you to meet.”

“Oh, God, Gustav. You aren’t going to pull the old I’ll-get-the-bank-to-cut-off-your-mortgage routine, are you? That’s getting pretty boring.”

He continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “Your parents are both dead, I understand. But you have a good friend who stands toward you as sort of a mother, I believe—this Dr. Charlotte Herschel. Yes?”

I tightened my fingers so strongly in Peppy’s hair that she gave a little yelp. “If anything happens to Dr. Herschel—anything—from a flat tire to a bloody nose—you will be dead within twenty-four hours. That’s a cast-iron prophecy.”

He gave his hearty chuckle. “You’re so active, Ms. Warshawski, that you imagine everyone must be as energetic as yourself No, I was more concerned about Dr. Herschel’s medical practice. Whether she would be able to keep her license.”

He waited for me to react again, but I’d managed to regain enough self-control to keep quiet. I picked up The New York Times from the little table that lay between us and flipped to the sports section. The Islanders were on a roll—how disappointing.

“You’re not curious, Ms. Warshawski?” he finally asked.

“Not especially.” I turned to a discussion of the Mets’ prospects going into training camp. “I mean, there’re so many creepy things you might do it’d be a waste of energy wondering which particular one you’ve lighted on this time.”

He put his whiskey glass down with a snap and leaned forward. Peppy growled a little in the back of her throat. I put what looked like a restraining hand on her—it’s hard to imagine a golden retriever attacking someone, but if you don’t like dogs, you might not know that.

He kept an eye on Peppy. “So you are prepared to sacrifice your home and Dr. Herschel’s career to your stubborn pride?”

“What do you want me to do?” I said irritably. “Lie on the floor and kick and scream? I’m prepared to believe you have much more in the way of power, money, whatever, than I do. You want to rub my nose in it, be my guest. Just don’t expect me to act real excited about it.”

“Don’t jump so quickly to conclusions, Ms. Warshawski,” he said plaintively. “You’re not without options. You just don’t want to hear what they are.”

“Okay.” I smiled brightly. “Tell me.”

“Get your dog to lie down first.”

I gave Peppy a hand signal and she obediently dropped to the floor, but she kept her back haunches tensed, ready to jump.

“I’m only offering possibilities. You mustn’t be so quick to react to the first one. It’s just one scenario, you see, your mortgage, Dr. Herschel’s license. There are others. You might be able to pay off that debt with enough money left to get yourself a car more suited to your personality than that old Chevy—you see, I have been doing my research. What would you drive if you had the opportunity?”

“Gosh, I don’t know, Mr. Humboldt. I haven’t thought a lot about it. Maybe I’d move up to a Buick.”

He sighed like a disappointed father. “You should listen to me seriously, young lady, or you will soon find yourself out of options.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’d like to drive a Ferrari, but Magnum’s already doing that. Maybe an Alfa … So you’ll give me my co-op and a sports car and Dr. Herschel’s license. What would you like from me as a show of gratitude for such generosity?”

He smiled: everyone can be pressured or bought. “Dr. Chigwell. A willing, hardworking man, but not, alas, of great ability. Unfortunately, to have a doctor at an industrial location does not give one access to physicians of Dr. Herschel’s caliber.”

I put the paper down and stopped petting the dog to prove I was all attention.

“He kept some notes over the years on our employees at Xerxes. Without my knowledge, of course—I can’t keep on top of all the details of an operation the size of Humboldt.”

“You and Ronald Reagan,” I murmured sympathetically.

He looked at me suspiciously, but I kept an expression of intent interest on my face.

“I only recently learned about these notes. The information in them is useless because it’s totally inaccurate. But in the wrong hands it might look most damaging to Xerxes. It could be difficult for me to prove that all the data he collected were wrong.”

“Especially over a twenty-year period,” I said. “But if you could get those notebooks, you would give me my mortgage? And withdraw any threat to Dr. Herschel?”

“There would also be a bonus for you because of the amount of trouble you’ve been subjected to by some of my overly zealous friends.”