Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (38 page)

“So
which is it? You don’t want to call the local station to complain about my
being here? Or you want me to get Finchley back here with a warrant?” My teeth
were starting to chatter from cold. This made it harder to focus on the
conversation, which didn’t seem to be going anywhere anyway.

With
one of her abrupt turnarounds Mrs. Polter said, “Why don’t you go upstairs and
change, honey. You got something dry up there you can put on. Then you and me
can have a bit of a talk. Without dragging the cops into it.”

I was
still holding the fire extinguisher. Before going into the dark stairwell I
handed it to her. I didn’t think she was going to attack me at this point.

Under
the forty-watt bulb in Mitch’s old room I took off my wet clothes and rubbed
myself warm with a towel out of my suitcase. From the disarray in the case it
was apparent my landlady had indeed gone rummaging.

I
pulled on the clean T-shirt and sweatpants and wondered what to do with my gun.
The jacket that had concealed my shoulder holster was too wet to put back on.
In the end I strapped the gun next to my bare skin, where it rubbed
uncomfortably.

The
floor creaked outside my door. I whirled and opened it. One of my fellow
boarders had been drooling at me through the keyhole.

“Yes,
I’ve got breasts. Now you’ve had a chance to look at them, go someplace else
and play.”

He
blinked at me nervously and scuttled backward up the hall. I shut the door, but
didn’t bother to try to block the view—what I really didn’t want people staring
at was the gun, but it was too late now to try to hide that.

I had
a change of socks, but no shoes. My loafers were too wet to put back on. I
decided to keep my clean pair of socks for the drive home. I padded back
downstairs in my bare feet, going slowly so as not to cut myself on nails or
loose edges of linoleum.

My
landlady was watching a high-speed chase scene involving Clint Eastwood and a
chimpanzee. Her oldest lodger, Sam, was sitting on the couch, drinking a Miller
and laughing at the chimp. When Mrs. Polter saw me behind her, she jerked her
head at Sam. He stood up obediently, disentangling a couch spring from his
threadbare suit.

She
waved a hand from me to the couch. It was the only other seat in the room
besides her outsize vinyl armchair. I looked at it dubiously. The places where
fabric still covered the springs were littered with cracker crumbs. I perched
on one of the arms, which wobbled dangerously beneath me.

Mrs.
Polter regretfully muted the sound just as Clint and the chimp pushed a second
car off the road. I’d certainly rather watch that than talk to me too.

“So
you went into the canal, huh?”

“Didn’t
your pals tell you? We had quite an evening together. When they tried to use my
body as part of the roadway, I decided that she who fights and runs away would
live to fight another day.”

“Who
tried to run you over?” she muttered, her eyes on the screen.

“Milton
Chamfers, Mrs. Polter. You know him: you phoned him as soon as you heard from
me, to tell him I was returning to the neighborhood.”

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes,
you do, Mrs. Polter.” I got off the couch arm and snatched the remote device
out of her hand. “Why don’t we get back to Clint later? My adventures Friday
night were every bit as exciting as his. I promise to describe them in vivid
Technicolor if you’ll just listen to me.”

I
clicked the power switch and the giant Mitsubishi went blank.

“Hey,
you got no call—” she yelled.

“Lily,
you okay?” Sam hovered nervously in the doorway. He must have just moved a few
steps into the dark hall, ready to leap to her defense.

“Oh,
go eat your dinner, Sam. I can take care of her.”

He
tried beckoning to her. When she didn’t budge, he sidled into the room and
leaned over her chair. “Ron says she’s got a gun. He seen it when she was
dressing.”

Mrs.
Polter gave a crack of laughter. “So, she’s got a gun. She’d have to have a
cannon to cut through my flesh. Don’t worry about it, Sam.”

When
he’d disappeared into the gloom again, she eyed me narrowly. “You come here to
shoot me?”

“If
I’d wanted to do that I’d have pulled my gun when you were waving that damned
fire extinguisher at me— the cops would have bought self-defense then.”

“I
didn’t know it was you,” she said indignantly. “I heard someone at my door. I
got a right to defend myself, too, same as you, and in this neighborhood you
can’t be too careful. Then you come barreling at me like a mad bull, what do
you expect? The mayor and a welcoming party?”

I
grinned at her last comment, but continued my attack. “Did Chamfers call you
Saturday? Tell you I was dead?”

“I
don’t know anyone named Chamfers,” she shouted. “Get that through, your head.”

I
slammed the television with the palm of my hand. “Don’t give me that shit, Mrs.
Polter. I know you called him; they told me Friday night at the plant.”

“I
don’t know anyone named that,” she repeated stubbornly. “And don’t you go
banging on that TV. I spent a lot of money on it. You break it you buy me a new
one, if I have to take you to court for it.”

“Well,
you called someone. Who was it?” Light suddenly dawned. “No, don’t tell me—you
phoned Mitch Kruger’s son. He gave you a phone number when he came by for
Mitch’s stuff and asked you to tell him as soon as anyone came round asking
about his dad. You must have warned him I’d been here and he made it real clear
that he wanted to know right away if I came back.”

Her
jaw dropped. “How did you know? He said no one was to know he’d been here.”

“You
told me. Remember? Last Tuesday when I came by looking for Mitch’s papers?”

“Oh.”
It was hard to read her expression in the dim light, but I thought she looked
chagrined. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything. I forgot…”

I
squatted on the dusty floor under the lamp so that we could see each other’s
faces more clearly. “The guy who came by, told you he was Mitch’s son—he about
my height? Clean-shaven, short brown hair brushed straight back from his
forehead?”

She
eyed me warily. “Could be. But that could be a whole lot of guys.”

I
agreed. It’s hard to think of something about a corporate manager’s appearance
that makes him really stand out in a crowd. “Tell you what, Mrs. Polter. I’d be
willing to bet a good sum, say a hundred bucks, that the person who said he was
Mitch’s son is really Milt Chamfers, the plant manager over at Diamond Head.
You know—the engine factory over at Thirty-first by the canal. Would you be
willing to drive over with me in the morning and take a look at him? Prove me
right or wrong?”

Her
black button eyes gleamed greedily for a minute, but as she thought it over the
glint died away. “Say you’re right. Not diat I’m believing you, but just say
you are. Why’d he do it?”

I
took a deep breath and picked my words carefully. “You didn’t know Mitch
Kruger, Mrs. Polter, but I’m sure you’ve met lots of guys like him over the
years. Always looking for an easy buck, never willing to work to get ahead.”

“Yeah,
I’ve met me a few like that,” she said grudgingly.

“He
thought he was on to something at Diamond Head. Don’t ask me what, because I
don’t know. All I can say is, he hung out over there, hinted to folks that he
was on to a scam, and died. Chamfers probably thought Mitch really had some
proof about something illegal. So as soon as his body was discovered, Chamfers
came over here pretending to be Mitch’s son so he could go through his papers.”

It didn’t
seem likely that Mitch would have come on any written proof of a theft ring
involving the copper. Although who knows—maybe he went pawing through dumpsters
looking for documents that might give him blackmail material. It sounded like
more work than I could picture him doing, but I’d only met the guy a few times.

“So
say I did phone him Friday.” Mrs. Polter interrupted my thoughts. “Not that I
did—just supposing. What of it?”

“I’ve
been trying to talk to the boy about Mitch Kruger for two weeks and he won’t
see me. I went over to the plant Friday night, hoping to find some way of
making him talk to me. He had seven people lying in wait for me.

We
fought, but they were too much for me, and as I said, when they tried to run me
over I dove into the canal.“

I
didn’t think I had to tell Mrs. Polter about the copper spools. After all, if
she started blackmailing Chamfers about the theft ring hers might be the next
body to go floating down to Stickney.

“Seven
guys against you, huh? You have your gun with you?”

I
smiled to myself. She really did want the Technicolor version. I gave her a
graphic description, including the sneeze that led to my uncovering. And
including the comments about “the boss” having warned them that I was coming
around. I glossed over the part about the trucks and the copper, just let her
believe they started the crane when I jumped out on it.

She
sighed noisily. “You really climb down that crane scaffolding? Wish there’d
been someone there with a camera. ”Course, I was young once. But I don’t think
I ever could have jumped off a ledge onto a crane. It’s my head—I’m scared of
heights.“

She
brooded in silence for a few minutes. “He sure had me fooled, that guy,
claiming to be Mitch Kruger’s son. I should’ve known when he offered me so much
money…” She eyed me uncertainly, but relaxed when I didn’t shriek at her.

“It’s
my one weakness,” she said with dignity. “We were too poor growing up. Used to
carry lard sandwiches to school. The good days were when we had two slices of
bread to put around it. But I’m good at sizing up men and I should’ve known he
was too slick, that he had my number.”

She
pondered some more, then abruptly began heaving herself from the chair. “You
stay here. I’ll be right back.”

I got
to my feet. My knees ached from kneeling on the linoleum so long. While she
held a whispered colloquy in the hall with Sam, I sat on her footstool and did
quad raises. I’d managed fifty with each leg before she came back.

“I
took these out of Mitch’s room when his son or whoever he is came by. You might
as well know the worst about me. I could see he was itching to get his fingers
on his old man’s papers, and I thought maybe they were worth something. But
I’ve been through them a million times and I don’t for the life of me see what
was so important about them that he wanted to lug them all over the South Side
with him. You can have ‘em.” She thrust a packet wrapped in newspaper into my
hands.

It
was close to eight-thirty when I turned off the Kennedy at Belmont. Mrs. Polter
had wanted to share a beer or two before I left, to show there were no hard
feelings over my dip in the canal. Although I’m not much of a beer-drinker I
thought it politic to keep up the better feeling she had for me.

Sam
had brought a six-pack and two glasses and hovered anxiously in the doorway to
make sure I wasn’t going to attack her. By the time I extricated myself from
her highly colored flood of reminiscence she was slapping me on the thigh and
telling me I wasn’t nearly as stuck-up as I’d seemed at first.

I
stopped at a pay phone near Ashland to call Mr. Contreras, partly to let him
know I was still alive even though late. I also wanted some assurance that the
building wasn’t under siege. He was voluble with relief at hearing from me; I
cut him short with a promise to tell him all about it over dinner.

I
figured there wasn’t any point trying to hide the Impala. By now anyone who
wanted to know where I was must have a pretty clear fix on every move I was
making. I certainly wasn’t convinced that Mrs. Polter wouldn’t call Milt
Chamfers the minute I left her house. I sat across from my apartment for
several minutes, scanning the street for anyone who looked out of place.

Finally
I slid across the seat and out the passenger door, my gun in my hand. As I got
to the front door a squad car cruised slowly by, its spot ostentatiously
playing on the entrance. I put down my suitcase and waved with my left hand,
hoping the shadows concealed the Smith & Wesson. Sergeant Rawlings on the
case. I didn’t know if I liked the little flicker of warmth the idea gave me:
it’s a mistake to get too dependent on someone else for your own well-being.

Mr.
Contreras surged out to meet me in the lobby. He insisted on taking the
suitcase from me and carrying it upstairs. I offered him a choice between wine
and whisky, but he’d brought a bottle of his own grappa. He settled down at the
kitchen table with a glass while I changed into dry shoes and a clean pair of
jeans.

I
hadn’t looked at Mrs. Polter’s newsprint package—-just stuck it into the band
of my sweatpants when she handed it to me. I didn’t want to seem too eager in
front of her. Besides, I was afraid to unwrap it—afraid that the collection of
papers would mean as little to me as to her. I’d put the bundle on my dresser while
I changed, but I kept eying it. When I went back to the kitchen I took a deep
breath and carried it with me.