Burn Marks

47

In Lotty’s Nest

Lotty took the day off on Thursday to look after me. She wouldn’t let anyone near me, not Murray nor the networks, not even the federal district attorney. Good Republican appointee that he was, he was slobbering at the possibility of bringing down the Democratic county chairman. With her characteristic flair for detail, Lotty called my answering service and told them to switch calls for me through to her-but she wouldn’t let me take any.

When I woke up finally around five I remembered Mr. Contreras. Lotty bundled me into some blankets on the daybed in her living room and insisted I eat some soup before she told me her end of the adventure.

The shot and our scuffle had brought Vinnie and Rick York to the hall. They’d been busy in the back bedroom or they might have arrived soon enough to help out-or maybe to get shot themselves. Anyway, Mr. Contreras had taken the bullet in his shoulder and was able to give Rick Lotty’s number.

“He’s all right,” Lotty assured me. “It would take more than a broken shoulder to stop him-as soon as we got someone to patch him together he had to be sedated to keep from racing off to hunt for you.”

“How did you find me?” I asked from my nest on the daybed.

“I called Lieutenant Mallory. Your tiresome neighbor knew who had shot him-I gather he monitors all your male visitors?” She flashed a wicked grin. “A full-time job for him, my dean Anyway, the lieutenant was not at all disposed to intervene, but he could scarcely ignore the evidence of a man who’d been shot. He finally agreed to call me when they’d located you. I was afraid he wasn’t going to push hard enough-you had me very frightened, my dear.”

She compressed her lips and turned her head away to regain her composure.

“I was damned scared myself,” I said frankly. “I just didn’t understand how desperate those boys were getting.”

“At any rate, I had done a difficult delivery for the chief assistant federal prosecutor, or whatever her title was, so I rang her up and told her what I knew. I think she organized some resources to look for you, but by then you’d surfaced at police headquarters. What a loathsome place. I tried hard to get in to fetch you, my dear, but they were quite-quite physical in keeping me out.”

I got out of my nest to hug her. Lotty has an antigen against police stations-they played too terrifying a role in her early childhood-so it made her effort doubly precious to me.

I asked her about Elena. My aunt had been treated for exhaustion and had her broken finger set, but the hospital released her around noon. After telling me about Elena, Lotty tried to get me to think of other things, like the possibility of a vacation. She pulled out a giant folder of travel brochures-trips to Caribbean islands, to the Costa Brava-various warm and friendly climates that would make me forget the Chicago winter closing in on us.

On Friday, Lotty finally let the rest of the world loose on me. She laid down the law with all her imperial force: Anyone who wanted to see me had to do so on Sheffield Avenue. Unfortunately there were any number of people eager enough to talk to me to meet that condition.

First in line was Alison Winstein, the deputy prosecutor whose life Lotty had saved last year. She took me through what I knew and what I surmised. Like all prosecutors, she didn’t feel like giving much back but she did let me know that they had obtained warrants for Alma and Farmworks. They had wanted to subpoena the county contract files but Boots was a pretty wily fighter-neither he nor Ralph would turn over records without a pretty good battle.

After Ms. Winstein left I went through the account of my escapade in the papers. Murray had put together a pretty strong story without talking to me-he’d gotten an exclusive with Mr. Contreras and managed to track Elena down before the hospital released her. I grinned to myself over the interview with my neighbor. Of all the men I know, Murray is the one Mr. Contreras likes least-thinks of him as a snothead and a hot dog. Murray earned his byline on that one.

When I’d finished with the papers I called Robin Bessinger at Ajax. He’d seen the stories and was in a chastened frame of mind. “I’m sorry we questioned your judgment, Vic. You were the pro on this one. I-could we have dinner again?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “I’ll have to think about that. But you could do one thing for me-cut a check for Saul Seligman. I’ll take it over to him in the morning.”

“We’d kind of like to subrogate against MacDonald and Meagher,” Robin said.

“Be my guest. But don’t keep the old guy hanging. He’s had a rough three weeks, with his favorite old building going and his chief lieutenant getting murdered. I know you can grease those bureaucratic wheels. Drop it off for me on your way home and I’ll take it to him tomorrow.”

Robin agreed, somewhat unwillingly. It was perhaps the hope of dinner-et cetera-with me that made him agree at all. I was going to have to build up my strength and get over a lot of wounds before I was in the humor for much et cetera.

Lotty had gone to Beth Israel to see her more pressing patients, but she came back at lunch to heat some homemade chicken soup for me. “You’re too thin, Liebchen. I want to see those purple circles disappear from your eyes,”

I obediently ate two large helpings and a few slices of toast. While I was finishing the toast Murray showed up. I didn’t much feel like talking to him, but the sooner I did it the faster it would be behind me. And when I’d done I was glad because he knew what had happened to Furey- suspended without pay, out on $100,000 bond for felonious assault on me, Elena, and Mr. Contreras.

“They’re never going to prove a case against him with that young girl-what was her name? Cerise? Sergeant McGonnigal did tell me off the record that they’re missing some heroin they’d copped in a drug raid a month or so ago. He also figures the department’s going to sit on that one.”

“What about Boots?” I asked. “How do things look for the election next month?”

Murray made a face. “This is Chicago, sweetheart, not Minneapolis-he got a standing ovation at last night’s meeting of the County Board. And the campaign funds are still coming in-too many of those contractors owe the old guy too much. They’re not going to jump ship unless he falls below the waterline.”

“Has he backed away from Roz?”

“Same story-she’s just too popular in the Hispanic wards. Boots lets her go he can kiss the Humboldt Park-Logan Square vote good-bye. And don’t forget there’s a sizable Mexican population out in the Mount Prospect area-her support isn’t all in the city.”

“So why did she bother?” I burst out. “Why did she care what I did or who I talked to? That’s what burns me. The way people were carrying on I thought she was sitting on bigamy or illegitimate children tucked in an orphanage. Turns out it was just business as usual in this town. I’m sick to death of it, but it’s so goddamn usual, why did she think it would matter?”

Murray shrugged his massive shoulders. “Maybe she felt vulnerable. First woman Boots has backed in a big way. First Hispanic. Maybe she was afraid the rules would be different for her. You of all people ought to be able to figure that one out.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Suddenly I was very tired, so tired that I started drifting off to sleep while Murray asked me something about Elena. I tried to answer coherently but he saw I was struggling.

“You go back to bed, kid. Once more Wonder Woman saves the city. Go to sleep.” He patted me on the shoulder and took off, magnanimous because I’d let him garner so much glory.

It was late in the afternoon, after I’d slept a while, that Velma Riter dropped in. When Lotty told me who had come I wanted to dive back under the covers. Instead I staggered to the living room on woolly legs and braced myself for her onslaught.

She stood in the middle of the room twisting a copy of the Star around and around in her hands.

“Quite a story you were digging up,” she finally said in a voice like dry soil.

I looked at her warily. “It doesn’t seem to be hurting Roz much. Of course there’s still a month till the election.”

“I don’t know who I’m madder with-Roz for doing all this or you for turning on a sister and making it all public.”

I rubbed my face with the heels of my hands. “I don’t have a pat answer for that, Velma. Does being a feminist mean you have to support everything your sisters do? Even if you think they’re abusing you?”

“But talk to her in private, couldn’t you do that?”

“She wouldn’t let me. I tried. She just wants those golden apples too bad, Velma. I’m sure she’ll do a good job. She’ll be better than most, I expect. But she isn’t enough of a risk-taker to try for the apples without getting some worms to help her.”

Velma flung up her arms. “It’s too much. Too much for me, anyway. I should have stayed with photography-it’s safer.”

I looked at her directly. “Velma-your pictures are honest-and they involve a lot of risk-emotional risk, I’d think you’d want that in a woman you came out in public for. Well, I do. And I won’t take it, to be spun around-by anyone. And especially not by someone like Roz, trading on old loyalties and asking us to countenance-well, worms.”

“She didn’t do it for the money, you know,” Velma said.

I made an impatient gesture. “I know-she did it for her cousin, family loyalty, wanting Hispanics to have a bigger piece of county action. Just because her motives were so damned wonderful doesn’t make me like it any better.”

Velma stared at me unblinkingly for a minute. “Well, anyone looking at your body knows you take risks, Warshawski. I’ll give you that. I did resign from her staff today. She-she-” The wide, generous mouth crumpled. “She talked to me so sweet, you’d think that voice was every mother in the world singing a lullaby. That hurt. I had to quit.”

I looked at her and nodded without speaking. She winked back her tears and left abruptly.