Deadlock

25 The Old Girl Network

He walked with me to the Golden Glow on Jackson and Federal. It’s a place for serious drinkers-no quiche and celery sticks to entice imbibers of white wine on their way to the commuter trains. Sal, the magnificent black woman who owns the place, has a mahogany horseshoe-shaped bar, relic of an old Cyrus McCormick mansion, and seven tiny booths crammed into a space wedged out between a bank and an insurance company.

I hadn’t been in for several weeks and she came over to our booth herself for our order. I asked for my usual, a Johnnie Walker Black up, and Ferrant had a gin martini. I asked Sal for the use of a phone and she brought one over to the table for me.

My answering service told me Adrienne Gallagher, the woman I know at the Fort Dearborn Trust, had called. She’d left her home number and a message that I could call before ten.

A little girl answered the phone and called her mommy in a shrill voice.

“Hello, Vic. I got the information you wanted.”

“I hope they’re not trying to fire you or disbar you.”

She gave a little laugh. “No-but you owe me some free detective work. Anyway, the condominium is owned by a Niels Grafalk-Vic? Are you there? Hello?”

“Thank, Adrienne,” I said mechanically. “Let me know when you need the detective work.”

I hung up and dialed the Windy City Balletworks to see if they were performing tonight. A recorded voice told me that performances were held Wednesday through Saturday at eight; Sundays at three. Today was Tuesday; Paige might be home.

Ferrant looked at me courteously. “Something wrong?”

I made a gesture of distaste. “Nothing I hadn’t suspected since this morning. But it’s upsetting anyway-Grafalk owns real estate along with everything else.”

“You know, Miss War-Do you have a first name? I just can’t keep my tongue around your last one-Vic, you’re being terribly mysterious. I take it you think Grafalk may be behind the damage to the Poe Lock, since we just spent most of the afternoon proving that he was losing money. Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Some other time. There’s someone I need to talk to tonight. I’m sorry, I know it’s rude to run out on you like this, but I must see her.”

“Where are you going?” Ferrant asked.

“To the Gold Coast.”

He announced that he was coming with me. I shrugged and headed for the door. Ferrant tried putting some money on the table, but Sal gave it back to him. “Vic’ll pay me when she’s got the money,” she said.

I flagged a taxi on Dearborn. Ferrant got in beside me, again demanding to know what was going on.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said. “It’s too long a story to start during a short cab ride.”

We pulled up in front of a massive pale pink brick building with white concrete corners and white-enameled shutters. It was dark now, but black wrought-iron street lamps illuminated the building’s facade.

Ferrant offered to accompany me inside, but I told him this was a job I had to handle alone. He watched me as I rang the bell, set in a lighted brass box outside the front door. A house phone was nestled inside the box for communicating with the inmates. When Paige’s voice came tinnily through the receiver, I pitched my voice high and told her it was Jeannine. She buzzed me in.

The stairs were carpeted in a rose-patterned blue rug. My tired feet sank gratefully into the pile. Paige was waiting for me in the doorway at the top of the stairs, wearing her white terry cloth robe, her face not made up, her hair pulled back under a towel as I’d seen her after rehearsal.

“What brings you into the city, Jeannie?” she was saying as my head came in sight. The rest of her sentence died in her throat. She stood immobile with surprise for a second too long. I reached the door as she started to slam it and pushed my way inside.

“We’re going to talk, Paige. A little heart-to-heart.”

“I have nothing to say to you. Get out of here before I call the police.” Her voice came out in a harsh whisper.

“By my guest.” I sat down in a wide armchair upholstered in rust brocade and looked around the large, light room. A Persian rug covered about two thirds of the dark parquet. Gold brocade drapes were looped back from the windows overlooking Astor Street and sheer gauze hung underneath. “The police will be very interested in your role in Boom Boom’s death. Please do call them.”

“They think it’s an accident.”

“But you, dear Paige? Do you think it is?”

She turned her face away, biting her lip.

“Jeannine told me this morning your role was to keep tabs on what my cousin was up to. I thought she meant for her and Clayton. But she wasn’t talking about them, was she? No, you were keeping track of him for Grafalk.”

She didn’t say anything but kept staring at a picture on the west wall as if seeking inspiration from it. It looked like a very good copy of a Degas. For all I knew, it was an original. Even with the losses to the steamship line, Niels Grafalk could afford to give his lover that kind of trifle.

“How long have you been Grafalk’s mistress?”

Spots of color stained her cheeks. “What an offensive remark. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Then I’ll have to do the talking. You correct me where I’m wrong. Jeannine and Clayton moved to Lake Bluff five years ago. Niels knew Clayton was fiddling around with Eudora Grain invoices. He promised not to turn him in to Argus if Clayton would start giving Grafalk a preferred position on shipping orders.”

“I don’t know anything about the Grafalk Steamship Line.”

“You and your sister are so pure-minded, Paige. You don’t want to know anything about where your money comes from, just that it’s there to spend when you need it.”

“I scarcely know Niels Grafalk, Vic. I’ve met him socially at my sister’s. If Clayton and he did have some kind of business arrangement, I would be the last person to know about it.”

“Oh, bullshit, Paige. Grafalk owns this condominium.”

“How do you know that?” she demanded, sitting down suddenly on a sofa near me. “Did Jeannine tell you?”

“No, Paige. Your sister kept your secret. But property titles are a matter of public record in Chicago. I was curious about this place, since I suspect Windy City can’t afford to pay you very much. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Grafalk got Clayton to give him preferred customer treatment. In exchange, Grafalk helped pave the way for them socially when they moved back to Lake Bluff. Got them into the Maritime Club and all that good stuff.

“Well, of course, you don’t like Jeannine enjoying the good things in life alone-and vice versa. So you started hanging out with her around the Maritime Club. Now Mrs. Grafalk’s an interesting lady, but she’s going at about a hundred knots all day long with her charities and Ravinia and the Symphony Board, and Niels saw you and thought you were just about the most beautiful little thing he’d ever laid eyes on. You saw your chance to get set up in a big way, and three years ago, when Feldspar converted this building, Niels moved you in. Right so far?”

Paige spoke in a low voice. “You are totally insufferable, Vic. You have absolutely no understanding of this sort of thing, or the kind of life I lead.”

I interrupted her. “Jeannine already gave me the heartbreaking details of the Carrington family’s slide into poverty and the attendant humiliation. Take it as fact that I’m too vulgar to understand how shattering that must have been to the two of you. What I really want to know is where my cousin fitted into this. You told me a few weeks ago that you two were falling in love with each other. Did you think my cousin was a better prospect in the long run because he wasn’t married? Not as much money, but more of it might come to you?”

“Stop it, Vic, stop it. Do you think I have no feelings at all? Do you know what I went through when I learned Boom Boom was dead? I had no choice. I had no choice!” The last sentence was uttered in a rising cadence.

“What do you mean?” I was controlling my temper with increasing difficulty. “Of course you had choices. If you really were in love with Boom Boom, you could do without a lot of things. And he didn’t exactly live in poverty, even by Lake Bluff standards.”

Her honey-colored eyes were filled with tears. She held out a hand in a beseeching gesture. “Vic, Niels pays for everything. This place, all the furniture. My bills at Saks and I. Magnin run me a thousand dollars a month alone. He pays those without question. If I want to go to Majorca for a month in October, he pays the American Express bills. I owe him so much. It seemed like such a little thing to go out with your cousin a few times and see if he had learned anything about the invoices.”

I gripped the side of the chair to keep from rising up and strangling her. “Such a little thing. You never thought of Boom Boom as a person, with feelings, or the right to live, did you?”

“I liked Boom Boom, Vic. Please, you must believe me.”

“I believe nothing you say. Nothing. You dare call me insufferable!” I stopped and checked myself. “Tell me what happened that day you went sailing. That Saturday before my cousin was murdered.”

She winced. “You mustn’t say that, Vic. It was an accident. Niels assured me it was an accident and the police believe so, too.”

“Yes, well, tell me about the sailing trip. Mattingly was there, right? And Phillips. Grafalk, of course. What was the purpose? Why did you drag Boom Boom up for that?”

“Mattingly wasn’t there, Vic. I keep telling you I don’t know him. You accuse me of being unfeeling, but I’m not. When I told Niels that Boom Boom had-gotten close to the truth on the invoices, he wanted Clayton to get rid of him on the spot. But I told him not to.” She lifted her chin and looked at me proudly. “We went up there to see if Niels could persuade Boom Boom to see things their way. On Saturday it looked as though he might. But the next Monday he had a terrible argument with Clayton over the matter, and Niels said it was no use trying to talk to him, in fact that we’d better do something before Boom Boom called Argus. But then-then he slipped and fell and that ended the matter. I was so relieved. I was terrified Niels might do something dreadful.”

It was my turn to be speechless. I couldn’t find words that matched my horror and my anger. Finally I choked, “You tried to bribe Boom Boom and he didn’t live that way. You vermin just couldn’t understand that. You gave him a chance to be corrupted and he refused to take it… What about the water in the holds of the Lucella? What did that have to do with Clayton and Niels?”

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

“The Lucella couldn’t take on a load of grain because someone had poured water into her holds. Boom Boom was going to talk to the captain about it before he called Argus… Never mind. What about Clayton? Were you with Niels Sunday morning when he put a big hole in the side of Clayton’s head?”

She looked at me with gentle reproof. “I don’t think you should talk to me like that, Vic. You may not approve of my relations with Niels, but he is my lover.”

I gave a crack of manic laughter. “Me not approve! Christ, Paige, you’re a whole separate universe. Why should I give a damn about you and Grafalk? It’s what the two of you did to my cousin that I care about. That’s what makes your relationship stink.”

Paige looked at her watch. “Yes, well, I don’t agree with you. I think I pointed out to you what an obligation I’m under to Niels. He’s coming over in a few minutes, too, so unless you want to meet him I’d suggest you leave.”

I got up. “One last question, Paige darling. Was it the photocopy of Grafalk’s invoice you were looking for in Boom Boom’s apartment the day after the funeral? If it was, I’ve found it. And as for the letter Boom Boom wrote you-‘Beautiful Paige’-I don’t think he sent that to the Royal York in Toronto at all. He wrote you the Sunday before he died, didn’t he? To tell you he didn’t want to see you again. You put it in an old envelope to prove to me that you were writing each other love letters. You knew I’d look at the heading and not read the letter.” I choked on a sob and swallowed it. If I stayed any longer the last threads of my self-control would snap.

Paige watched me with dark, angry eyes as I walked across the Persian rug to the front door. For once her exquisite poise deserted her, lines appeared around her mouth and eyes and she looked older.