Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 07 (55 page)

I
felt my lips tighten with anger. “It’s great that they’re close. Peter
especially is going to need a lot of support over the next several months—maybe
even the next twenty years. And knowing his daughter’s in his court, believes
in him a hundred percent, will only help.”

Tears
glistened on the ends of Teri’s lustrous lashes. Waterproof mascara kept black
smears from developing under her eyes. “Dick said you had a strange sense of
humor, but I can’t believe you think this is funny.”

“I
don’t find anything that’s happened in the last three weeks very funny. Two old
men were killed because your daddy and your uncle didn’t want them squealing
about a pension reversion your husband set up. At least one old lady nearly
became homeless because of a slick marketing scheme your uncle organized to
chisel her out of her life’s savings. And I don’t feel very happy myself,
having been shot at and almost run over.”

I
fingered the ridges on my stomach through my cotton T-shirt. The bandages
covered the cuts, but I kept thinking they were oozing every time I twisted my
torso.

“But
Daddy explained all this to me. None of this was his doing. The people at the
Diamond Head plant misunderstood him and Uncle Jason. They should never have
done what they did. Everyone agrees it was wrong. Daddy will prove it in court;
Dick can see to that. But it would make our lives so much easier if he didn’t
have to, if you would agree that it was all a big mistake. I’d hate for Dick to
have to attack you in public. And you know, in a case like this, they’d hire
investigators to dig up your secrets—talk about your love life, your disregard
for the law, all those things.”

Fury
had me so in its grip, I could barely see. I jammed my hands into my pockets so
Dick couldn’t see their trembling. “Discovery cuts both ways, sugar. By the
time I get done with my case your husband will be lucky to have his legal
license, let alone be walking around outside a federal prison.”

Dick,
who’d never really come into the room, had wandered over to the window during
the last interchange. When he spoke it was to the glass; we had trouble hearing
him.

“My
only role in this case will be as a witness.”

Teri
and I were both stunned into silence, but she recovered first. “Dick! I can’t
believe you would be such a—such a traitor. After everything Daddy’s done for
you! You promised me—”

“I
promised you nothing.” Dick kept his back to us. “I finally agreed to come
today because you were so hot on the idea. I told you if you could get Vic to
listen to you I’d undertake drawing up a proper agreement with her. But I’ve
been trying to get you to understand all night that I cannot represent your
father and uncle.”

“But
Daddy’s counting on you.”

He
finally turned around. “We’ve been through this a hundred times, but you won’t
hear it. Leigh Wilton advised me very strongly not to represent them—that the
appearance of impropriety would be too great, given my position on the Diamond
Head board. I would do them more harm than good. And, Teri, I just don’t
believe in them. I’ve talked to enough of their employees the last few days to
believe they wanted to kill Vic. Your father set me up: he got me to deliver
warnings to Vic under the guise of protecting me—keeping her from getting too
close to the pension reversion. He must have known I’d never countenance an
attack on her life.”

Ten
sprang to her feet, spots of color blooming under her blusher. “You’re still in
love with her! I don’t believe it.”

Dick
gave a tired smile. “I’m not in love with her, Teri. I guess I should have said
I wouldn’t countenance their trying to kill anyone, regardless of race, creed,
sex, or in-quisitiveness.”

Teri’s
eyes were bright with tears. She ran to the door. “Find your own way home, Mr.
Hotshot. I’m not riding with you.”

I
expected him to race off after her, but he stood frozen in the room, his
shoulders slumped, long after the echo of the slamming door had died down.

“I’m
sorry, Dick. Sorry for the bad time that lies ahead for you.”

“I
was sure you’d brandish your gun in triumph and tell me I have only myself to
thank.”

I
shook my head, not trusting my voice.

“You’d
be right. I do have only myself to thank. You’ve always known how weak I am.
Teri… if she saw through my—my facade of strength… didn’t let on. She built me
up. Turned me into one of those see-through buildings.” He gave a harsh bark of
laughter. “It’s not that I think of you often, but I did hope over the years
when you saw how important I’d gotten you’d be sorry. Not sorry you left me,
but sorry you despised me.”‘

I
felt my cheeks flame in embarrassment. “I’m a street fighter, Dick. I had to be
as a kid just to survive, but I’m afraid I never outgrew it. Someone like Teri
suits you better than I do. You’ll see; you two will get through this time
somehow.”

“Maybe.
Maybe. Look—it was that damned pension agreement that started all the trouble.
Not all of it—that prize asshole, Jason, letting his crew bilk Paragon didn’t
help any. But trying to keep the reversion secret—two men died over that. And
when it comes out—the legal stuff’s clean, but it could keep us in court for a
decade. I talked to Ben Loring at Paragon this morning. He’s willing to help
restructure the agreement, buy out the annuity and refund the plan, if the
local wants to vote on it. We’d take it out of U.S. Met and give it back to
Ajax Insurance to manage.”

I
felt my shoulders sag in relief. Mr. Contreras’s pension—all the guys in the
local—had been worrying me all week. “Can you afford it? I thought most of the
money was in Diamond Head junk.”

Dick
nodded. “Loring’ll work something out. And Peter will have to agree to put up
some Amalgamated Portage shares as collateral. He doesn’t want to, but he’ll
come around in the end. It’ll be his only hope for a plea bargain.”

“And
you?”

“I
don’t know. I offered Leigh my resignation. He wouldn’t take it. He did agree
that we didn’t need young Pichea in the firm anymore after this year: that
should please you. But—I need a leave of absence from the law, and Leigh
supported that—more because he doesn’t want me embarrassing the firm than for
any other reason, but I’ll still be gone six months. If I join an ashram, I’ll
let you know.”

I
offered him a lift downtown to the train, but he said he needed to walk, to
clear his head. I went downstairs with him.

He
took my hand and held it between both of his. “We had some good times together,
didn’t we, Vic? It wasn’t all fighting and contempt, was it?”

I
suddenly remembered Dick going with me every weekend to stay with my dad when
Tony was dying. I’d forgotten that in the curtain of bitterness I’d draped
across the past, but Dick, orphaned at five, adored Tony, and wept openly at
his grave.

“We
had some important times together.” I squeezed his hand, then pulled mine away.
“Now you’d better go.”

He
left without looking back.

The
next four weeks were a long, slow period of legal discovery, of hiring people
to fix up Mrs. Frizell’s house, of finding someone to help her once she got
home, and arranging with the state to pick up the tab. Carol Alvarado did a lot
of the legwork for that.

I
called Mrs. Frizell’s son, Byron, in San Francisco to let him know how his
mother was doing. He was almost as excited by the call as she had been to learn
we’d been talking to him.

About
the time Mrs. Frizell was ready to come home we found homes for the last of the
puppies. Mr. Contreras outtalked me and kept his favorite, an all-gold male
with two black ears. He insisted on naming it Mitch.

The
same day the old lady returned, Todd and Chrissie put their house on the
market. Even with the recession in real estate we didn’t expect it would take
long to sell: they had done a beautiful job of rehabbing it, and Lake View has
become prime yuppie real estate.

Lotty
and I started talking again, but Lotty seemed brittle, almost fragile. We
couldn’t seem to recover our old, profound intimacy. She was working
ferociously, so much so that the flesh was beginning to leach from her bones.
Despite her frantic pace, her usual vital spark was missing.

When
I tried telling her what had happened to Simon and the other thugs who most
likely had attacked her, she refused to listen to me. Her injuries, or her
fear, had given her a repugnance to my work. I worried she was feeling a
repugnance, a withdrawal, from my whole life. I talked to Carol as well as to
Max about her. They were both worried, but could give no counsel besides
patience.

“She’s
forgiven me,” Carol said. “She’ll come round with you too. Give her time, Vic.”

I
didn’t say anything, but it looked like a more serious problem to me than that.

Probably
the most amazing event of that period was the afternoon that Mitch Kruger’s son
showed up. Mitch, Jr., turned out to be a petroleum engineer, sunburned from
months in the Persian Gulf—he’d been in Kuwait helping restart production
there. His mother had seen our ad in one of the Arizona papers and sent it off
to him in Kuwait City. Mitch, Jr., stopped in Chicago on his way home to find
out what we had to say to him.

He
thanked us for our efforts in tracking down his father’s killers, but added
depressingly, “I can’t get too excited about it—I hardly remember the guy. I’m
glad he had some friends to help him out when he died, though.”

When
I told Conrad about it later, he laughed. “Don’t look so disconsolate, Ms. W.
At least the guy thanked you. Hell, ninety percent of the time all I get is hate
mail for my efforts.”

I was
working hard during this time—not just helping build the case against the
Felittis and fixing up Mrs. Frizell’s home, but also taking jobs for real
clients with real money. My first retainer had gone to new running shoes. Still,
I spent as much time as our frantic schedules allowed with Conrad.

Mr.
Contreras, trying valiantly not to meddle, couldn’t hide his discomfort from
the sergeant. I was upset by it and tried discussing it with Rawlings.

“At
least he’s talking to you. My sister heard about you from some busybody on the
grapevine and won’t let me sully her living room now.”

I
gasped out loud and Rawlings laughed a little. “Yeah, white girl: cuts both
ways. So don’t let the old guy worry you.”

I
tried not to, nor to wonder how long we could stay close before our careers
collided, but it was hard just to relax into the relationship.

Despite
my barricade of work I found myself waking time and again from nightmares of my
mother’s death, dreams in which Lotty and Gabriella were inextricably
entangled.

Conrad
was with me one night when the unbearable phantoms broke open my sleep. Trying
not to wake him, I slid from my bed to the living room and went to the window.
I could just make out the corner of the Picheas’ house. I wanted to go out in
the night and run, run so fast and so far I could break away from my
nightmares.

I was
trying to imagine a place where you could safely be outside at three in the
morning, when Conrad came up behind me. “What’s the problem, Ms. W.?”

I put
my hands over his arms, but continued to look out the window. “I didn’t mean to
wake you up.”

“I’m
a light sleeper. I’ve been hearing you get out of bed every night we’ve spent
together this month. If you don’t want me to stay the night, just tell me so,
Vic.”

“It’s
not that.” I was whispering, as if the dark imposed silence.

He
stroked my hair lightly. We stood silent a long minute.

I
hadn’t planned on telling him about Lotty or my nightmares, but in the dark,
with the warmth of his body against mine, I suddenly blurted, “It’s Lotty. I’m
so scared—scared she’s going to leave me the way my mother did. It didn’t
matter that I loved my mother, that I did what I could to look after her. She
left me anyway. I don’t think I can bear it if Lotty abandons me too.”

“So you
have to keep everyone around you on pins and needles all the time? Is that it?
So guys like me, or even the old man downstairs, don’t get enough of a hold on
you to leave you in the lurch?”

I
held him more tightly, but couldn’t say anything else. Maybe he was right,
though. Maybe that’s why I reacted so roughly every time Mr. Contreras, or
Lotty, or anyone else worried about my safety. It could even be why I pushed
myself to the brink time and again. When my muscles slowed down, would I find
other strengths to get me across those chasms? I shivered in the summer air.

The End