Indemnity Only

14

In the Heat of the Night

I set off for the University Women United meeting at seven. I’d slept for three hours and felt on top of the world. The fritata had turned out well-an old recipe of my mother’s, accompanied by lots of toast, a salad constructed by Paul, and Paul’s warm appreciation. He’d decided his bodyguarding included spending the night, and had brought a sleeping bag. The dining room was the only place with space for him, Lotty warned him. “And I want you to stay in it,” she added. Jill was delighted. I could just imagine her sister’s reaction if she came back with Paul as a boyfriend.

It was an easy drive south, a lazy evening with a lot of people out cooling off. This was my favorite time of the day in the summer. There was something about the smell and feel of it that evoked the magic of childhood.

I didn’t have any trouble parking on campus, and got into the meeting room just before things began. About a dozen women were there, wearing work pants and oversized T-shirts, or denim skirts made out of blue jeans and with the legs cut apart and re-stitched, seams facing out. I was wearing jeans and a big loose shirt to cover the gun, but I was still dressed more elegantly that anyone else in the room.

Gail Sugarman was there. She recognized me when I came in, and said, “Hi, I’m glad you remembered the meeting.” The others stopped to look at me. “This is-” Gail stopped, embarrassed. “I’ve forgotten your name-it’s Italian, I remember you told me that. Anyway, I met her at the Swift coffee shop last week and told her about the meetings and here she is.”

“You’re not a reporter, are you?” one woman asked.

“No, I’m not,” I said neutrally. “I have a B.A. from here, pretty old degree at this point. I was down here the other day talking to Harold Weinstein and ran into Gail.”

“Weinstein,” another one snorted. “Thinks he’s a radical because he wears work shirts and curses capitalism.”

“Yeah,” another agreed. “I was in his class on ‘Big Business and Big Labor.’ He felt the major battle against oppression had been won when Ford lost the battle with the UAW in the forties. If you tried to talk about how women have been excluded not just from big business but from the unions as well, he said that didn’t indicate oppression, merely a reflection of the current social mores.”

“That argument justifies all oppression,” a plump woman with short curling hair put in. “Hell, the Stalin labor camps reflected Soviet mores of the 1930s. Not to mention Scheransky’s exile with hard labor.”

Thin, dark Mary, the older woman who’d been with Gail at the coffee shop on Friday, tried to call the group to order. “We don’t have a program tonight,” she said. “In the summer our attendance is too low to justify a speaker. But why don’t we get in a circle on the floor so that we can have a group discussion.” She was smoking, sucking in her cheeks with her intense inhaling. I had a feeling she was eyeing me suspiciously, but that may have just been my own nerves.

I obediently took a spot on the floor, drawing my legs up in front of me. My calf muscles were sensitive. The other women straggled over, getting cups of evil-looking coffee as they came. I’d taken one look at the overboiled brew on my way in and decided it wasn’t necessary to drink it to prove I was one of the group.

When all but two were seated, Mary suggested we go around the circle and introduce ourselves. “There are a couple of new people here tonight,” she said. “I’m Mary Annasdaughter.” She turned to the woman on her right, the one who’d protested women’s exclusion from big unions. When they got to me, I said, “I’m V. I. Warshawski. Most people call me Vic.”

When they’d finished, one said curiously, “Do you go by your initials or is Vic your real name?”

“It’s a nickname,” I said. “I usually use my initials. I started out my working life as a lawyer, and I found it was harder for male colleagues and opponents to patronize me if they didn’t know my first name.”

“Good point,” Mary said, taking the meeting back. “Tonight I’d like to see what we can do to support the ERA booth at the Illinois State Fair. The state NOW group usually has a booth where they distribute literature. This year they want to do something more elaborate, have a slide show, and they need more people. Someone who can go down to Springfield for one or more days the week of August fourth to tenth to staff the booth and the slide show.”

“Are they sending a car down?” the plump, curly-haired one asked.

“I expect the transportation will depend on how many people volunteer. I thought I might go. If some of the rest of you want to, we could all take the bus together-it’s not that long a ride.”

“Where would we stay?” someone wanted to know.

“I plan to camp out,” Mary said. “But you can probably find some NOW people to share a hotel room with. I can check back at the headquarters.”

“I kind of hate doing anything with NOW,” a rosy-cheeked woman with waist-long hair said. She was wearing a T-shirt and bib overalls; she had the face of a peaceful Victorian matron.

“Why, Annette?” Gail asked.

“They ignore the real issues-women’s social position, inequities of marriage, divorce, child care-and go screwing around supporting establishment politicians. They’ll support a candidate who does one measly little thing for child care, and overlook the fact that he doesn’t have any women on his staff, and that his wife is a plastic mannequin sitting at home supporting his career.”

“Well, you’re never going to have social justice until you get some basic political and economic inequalities solved,” a stocky woman, whose name I thought was Ruth, said. “And political problems can be grappled with. You can’t go around trying to uproot the fundamental oppression between men and women without some tool to dig with: laws represent that tool.”

This was an old argument; it went back to the start of radical feminism in the late sixties: Do you concentrate on equal pay and equal legal rights, or do you go off and try to convert the whole society to a new set of sexual values? Mary let the tide roll in for ten minutes. Then she rapped the floor with her knuckles.

“I’m not asking for a consensus on NOW, or even on the ERA,” she said. “I just want a head count of those who’d like to go to Springfield.”

Gail volunteered first, predictably, and Ruth. The two who’d been dissecting Weinstein’s politics also agreed to go.

“What about you, Vic?” Mary said.

“Thanks, but no,” I said.

“Why don’t you tell us why you’re really here,” Mary said in a steely voice. “You may be an old UC student, but no one stops by a rap group on Tuesday night just to check out politics on the old campus.”

“They don’t change that much, but you’re right: I came here because I’m trying to find Anita McGraw. I don’t know anyone here well, but I know this is a group she was close to, and I’m hoping that someone here can tell me where she is.”

“In that case, you can get out,” Mary said angrily. The group silently closed against me; I could feel their hostility like a physical force. “We’ve all had the police on us-now I guess they thought a woman pig could infiltrate this meeting and worm Anita’s address out of one of us-assuming we had it to worm. I don’t know it myself-I don’t know if anyone in here knows it-but you pigs just can’t give up, can you? ”

I didn’t move. “I’m not with the police, and I’m not a reporter. Do you think the police want to find Anita so that they can lay Peter Thayer’s death on her? ”

“Of course,” Mary snorted. “they’ve been poking around trying to find if Peter slept around and Anita was jealous or if he’d made a will leaving her money. Well, I’m sorry-you can go back and tell them that they just cannot get away with that.”

“I’d like to present an alternative scenario,” I said.

“Screw yourself,” Mary said. “We’re not interested. Now get out.”

“Not until you’ve listened to me.”

“Do you want me to throw her out, Mary?” Annette asked.

“You can try,” I said. “But it’ll just make you madder if I hurt one of you, and I’m still not going to leave until you’ve listened to what I have to say.”

“All right,” Mary said angrily. She took out her watch. “You can have five minutes. Then Annette throws you out.”

“Thank you. My tale is short: I can embellish it later if you have questions.

“Yesterday morning, John Thayer, Peter’s father, was gunned down in front of his home. The police presume, but cannot prove, that this was the work of a hired killer known to them. It is my belief, not shared by the police, that this same killer shot Peter Thayer last Monday.

“Now, why was Peter shot? The answer is that he knew something that was potentially damaging to a very powerful and very corrupt labor leader. I don’t know what he knew, but I assume it had something to do with illegal financial transactions. It is further possible that his father was a party to these transactions, as was the man Peter worked for.”

I stretched my legs out and leaned back on my hands. No one spoke. “These are all assumptions. I have no proof at the moment that could be used in court, but I have the proof that comes from watching human relationships and reactions. If I am correct in my assumptions, then I believe Anita McGraw’s life is in serious danger. The overwhelming probability is that Peter Thayer shared with her the secret that got him killed, and that when she came home last Monday evening to find his dead body, she panicked and ran. But as long as she is alive, and in lonely possession of this secret-whatever it is-then the men who have killed twice to protect it will not care about killing her as well.”

“You know a lot about it,” Ruth said, “How do you happen to be involved if you’re not a reporter and not a cop?”

“I’m a private investigator,” I said levelly. “At the moment my client is a fourteen-year-old girl who saw her father murdered and is very frightened.”

Mary was still angry. “You’re still a cop, then. It doesn’t make any difference who is paying your salary.”

“You’re wrong,” I said. “It makes an enormous difference. I’m the only person I take orders from, not a hierarchy of officers, aldermen, and commissioners.”

“What kind of proof do you have?” Ruth asked.

“I was beaten up last Friday night by the man who employs the killer who probably killed the two Thayers. He warned me away from the case. I have a presumption, not provable, of who hired him: a man who got his name from an associate on speaking terms with many prominent criminals. This man is the person Peter Thayer was working for this summer. And I know the other guy, the one with the criminal contacts, has been seen with Peter’s boss. Ex-boss. I don’t know about the money, that’s just a guess. No one in that crowd would be hurt by sex scandals, and spying is very unlikely.”

“What about dope?” Gail asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But anyway, that is certainly an illegal source of income for which you might kill to cover up.”

“Frankly, V.I. or Vic, or whatever your real name is, you haven’t convinced me. I don’t believe Anita’s life could be in danger. But if anyone disagrees with me and knows where Anita is, go ahead and betray her.”

“I have another question,” Ruth said. “Assuming we did know where she is and told you, what good would that do her-if everything you’re saying is true?”

“If I can find out what the transaction is, I can probably get some definite proof of who the murderer is,” I said. “The more quickly that happens, the less likely it is that this hired killer can get to her.”

No one said anything else. I waited a few minutes. I kind of hoped Annette would try to throw me out: I felt like breaking someone’s arm. Radicals are so goddamn paranoid. And radical students combine that with isolation and pomposity. Maybe I’d break all their arms, just for fun. But Annette didn’t move. And no one chirped up with Anita’s address.

“Satisfied?” Mary asked triumphantly, her thin cheeks pulled back in a smirk.

“Thanks for the time, sisters,” I said. “If any of you changes her mind, I’m leaving some business cards with my phone number by the coffee.” I put them down and left.

I felt very depressed driving home. Peter Wimsey would have gone in and charmed all those uncouth radicals into slobbering all over him. He would never have revealed he was a private detective-he would have started some clever conversation that would have told him everything he wanted to know and then given two hundred pounds to the Lesbian Freedom Fund.

I turned left onto Lake Shore Drive, going much too fast and getting a reckless pleasure from feeling the car careening, almost out of control. I didn’t even care at this point if someone stopped me. I did the four miles between Fifty-seventh Street and McCormick Place in three minutes. It was at that point that I realized someone was following me.

The speed limit in that area was forty-five and I was doing eighty, yet I was holding the same pair of headlights in my rearview mirror that had been behind me in the other lane when I got on the Drive. I braked quickly, and changed to the outside lane. The other car didn’t change lanes, but slowed down also.

How long had I been carrying a tail, and why? If Earl wanted to blow me away, he had unlimited opportunities, no need to waste manpower and money on a tail. He might not know where I’d gone after leaving my apartment, but I didn’t think so. My answering service had Lotty’s phone number, and it’s a simple matter to get an address from the phone company if you have the number.

Maybe they wanted Jill and didn’t realize I’d taken her to Lotty’s. I drove slowly and normally, not trying to change lanes or make an unexpected exit. My companion stayed with me, in the center lane, letting a few cars get between us. As we moved downtown, the lights got brighter and I could see the car better-a mid-sized gray sedan, it looked like.

If they got Jill, they would have a potent weapon to force me off the case. I couldn’t believe that Earl thought I had a case. He’d given me the big scare, he’d torn my apartment apart, and he’d gotten the police to make an arrest. As far as I could tell, despite John Thayer’s death, Donald Mackenzie was still in jail. Perhaps they thought I could lead them to the document they had overlooked at Peter Thayer’s, and not found in my apartment.

The phrase “lead them to” clicked in my brain. Of course. They weren’t interested in me, or in Jill, or even in that claim draft. They wanted Anita McGraw, just as I did, and they thought I could lead them to her. How had they known I was going to the campus tonight? They hadn’t: they’d followed me there. I’d told McGraw I had a lead on a lead to Anita and he had told-Smeissen?-Masters? I didn’t like the thought of McGraw fingering his daughter. He must have told someone he thought he could trust. Surely not Masters, though.

If my deduction was correct, I ought to keep them guessing. As long as they thought I knew something, my life was probably safe. I got off the Drive downtown, going past Buckingham Fountain as it shot up jets of colored water high into the night. A large crowd had gathered to see the nightly show. I wondered if I could lose myself in it, but didn’t think much of my chances. I went on over to Michigan Avenue, and parked across the street from the Conrad Hilton Hotel. I locked the car door and leisurely crossed the street. I stopped inside the glass doors for a glance outside, and was pleased to see the gray sedan pull up next to my car. I didn’t wait to see what the occupants would do, but moved quickly down the hotel’s long corridor to the side entrance on Eighth Street.

This part of the hotel had airline ticket offices, and as I walked past them, a doorman was calling, “Last call for the airport bus. Nonstop to O’Hare Field.” Without thinking or stopping to look behind me, I pushed in front of a small crew of laughing flight attendants and got on the bus. They followed me more slowly; the conductor checked his load and got off, and the bus started moving. As we turned the corner onto Michigan, I could see a man looking up and down the street. I thought it might be Freddie.

The bus moved ponderously across the Loop to Ontario Street, some twelve blocks north, and I kept an anxious lookout through the rear window, but it seemed as though Freddie’s slow wits had not considered the possibility of my being on the bus.

It was 9:30 when we got to O’Hare. I moved from the bus to stand in the shadow of one of the giant pillars supporting the terminal, but saw no gray sedan. I was about to step out when I thought perhaps they had a second car, so I looked to see if any vehicle repeated its circuit more than once, and scanned the occupants to see if I recognized any of Smeissen’s crew. By ten I decided I was clear and caught a cab back to Lotty’s.

I had the driver drop me at the top of her street. Then I went down the alley behind her building, keeping a hand close to my gun, I didn’t see anyone but a group of three teen-age boys, drinking beer and talking lazily.

I had to pound on the back door for several minutes before Lotty heard and came to let me in. Her thick black eyebrows went up in surprise. “Trouble?” she asked.

“A little, downtown. I’m not sure whether anyone is watching the front.”

“Jill?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. I think they’re hoping I’ll lead them to Anita McGraw. Unless I do, or unless they find her first, I think we’re all pretty safe.” I shook my head in dissatisfaction. “I don’t like it, though. They could snatch Jill and hold her to ransom if they thought I knew where Anita was. I didn’t find out tonight. I’m sure one of those goddamned radical women knows where she is, but they think they’re being noble and winning a great war against the pigs, and they won’t tell me. It’s so frustrating.”

“Yes, I see,” Lotty said seriously. “Maybe it’s not so good for the child to be here. She and Paul are watching the movie on television,” she added, jerking her head toward the living room.

“I left my car downtown,” I said. “Someone was following me back from the university and I shook them off in the Loop-took the bus out to O’Hare-long and expensive way to shake a tail, but it worked.

“Tomorrow, Jill’s taking me out to Winnetka to go through her father’s papers. Maybe she should just stay there.”

“We’ll sleep on it,” Lotty suggested. “Paul is loving his guard duty, but he couldn’t do much against men with machine guns. Besides, he is an architecture student and should not miss too many of his classes.”

We went back into the living room. Jill was curled up on the daybed, watching the movie. Paul was lying on his stomach, looking up at her every few minutes. Jill didn’t seem aware of the impression she was creating-this seemed to be her first conquest-but she glowed with contentment.

I went into the guest room to make some phone calls. Larry Anderson said they’d finished my apartment. “I didn’t think you’d want that couch, so I let one of the guys take it home. And about the door-I’ve got a friend who does some carpentry. He has a beautiful oak door, out of some mansion or other. He could fix it up for you and put some dead bolts in it, if you’d like.”

“Larry, I can’t begin to thank you,” I said, much moved. “That sounds like a beautiful idea. How did you close the place up today?”

“Oh, we nailed it shut,” he said cheerfully. Larry and I had gone to school together years ago, but he’d dropped out earlier and further than I had. We chatted for a few minutes, then I hung up to call Ralph.

“It’s me. Sherlock Holmes,” I said. “How did your claim files go?”

“Oh, fine. Summer is a busy time for accidents with so many people on the road. They should stay home, but then they’d cut off their legs with lawnmowers or something and we’d be paying just the same.”

“Did you refile that draft without any trouble?” I asked.

“Actually not, I couldn’t find the file. I looked up the guy’s account, though: he must have been in a doozy of an accident-We’ve been sending him weekly checks for four years now.” He chuckled a little. “I was going to inspect Yardley’s face today to see if he looked guilty of multiple homicide, but he’s taking the rest of the week off-apparently cut up about Thayer’s death.”

“I see.” I wasn’t going to bother telling him about the link I’d found between Masters and McGraw; I was tired of arguing with him over whether I had a case or not.

“Dinner tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Make it Thursday,” I suggested. “Tomorrow’s going to be pretty open-ended.”

As soon as I put the phone down, it rang. “Dr. Herschel’s residence,” I said. It was my favorite reporter, Murray Ryerson.

“Just got a squeal that Tony Bronsky may have killed John Thayer,” he said.

“Oh, really? Are you going to publish that?”

“Oh, I think we’ll paint a murky picture of gangland involvement. It’s just a whiff, no proof, he wasn’t caught at the scene, and our legal people have decided mentioning his name would be actionable.”

“Thanks for sharing the news,” I said politely.

“I wasn’t calling out of charity,” Murray responded. “But in my lumbering Swedish way it dawned on me that Bronsky works for Smeissen. We agreed yesterday that his name has been cropping up here and there around the place. What’s his angle, Vic-why would he kill a respectable banker and his son?”

“Beats the hell out of me, Murray,” I said, and hung up.

I went back and watched the rest of the movie, The Guns of Navarone, with Lotty, Jill, and Paul. I felt restless and on edge. Lotty didn’t keep Scotch. She didn’t have any liquor at all except brandy. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a healthy slug. Lotty looked questioningly at me, but said nothing.

Around midnight, as the movie was ending, the phone rang. Lotty answered it in her bedroom and came back, her face troubled. She gave me a quiet signal to follow her to the kitchen. “A man,” she said in a low voice. “He asked if you were here; when I said yes, he hung up.”

“Oh, hell,” I muttered. “Well, nothing to be done about it now… My apartment will be ready tomorrow night-I’ll go back and remove this powder keg from your home.”

Lotty shook her head and gave her twisted smile. “Not to worry, Vic-I’m counting on you fixing the AMA for me someday.”

Lotty sent Jill unceremoniously off to bed. Paul got out his sleeping bag. I helped him move the heavy walnut dining-room table against the wall, and Lotty brought him a pillow from her bed, then went to sleep herself.

The night was muggy; Lotty’s brick, thick-walled building kept out the worst of the weather, and exhaust fans in the kitchen and dining rooms moved the air enough to make sleep possible. But the air felt close to me anyway. I lay on the daybed in a T-shirt, and sweated, dozed a bit, woke, tossed, and dozed again. At last I sat up angrily. I wanted to do something, but there was nothing for me to do. I turned on the light. It was 3:30.

I pulled on a pair of jeans and tiptoed out to the kitchen to make some coffee. While water dripped through the white porcelain filter, I looked through a bookcase in the living room for something to read. All books look equally boring in the middle of the night. I finally selected Vienna in the Seventeenth Century by Dorfman, fetched a cup of coffee, and flipped the pages, reading about the devastating plague following the Thirty Years War, and the street now called Graben-“the grave”-because so many dead had been buried there. The terrible story fit my jangled mood.

Above the hum of fans I could head the phone ring faintly in Lotty’s room. We’d turned it off next to the spare bed where Jill was sleeping. I told myself it had to be for Lotty-some mother in labor, or some teen-ager-but I sat tensely anyway and was somehow not surprised when Lotty came out of her room, wrapped in a thin, striped cotton robe.

“For you. A Ruth Yonkers.”

I shrugged my shoulders; the name meant nothing to me. “Sorry to get you up,” I said, and went down the short hallway to Lotty’s room. I felt as if all the night’s tension had had its focus in waiting for this unexpected phone call from an unknown woman. The instrument was on a small Indonesian table next to Lotty’s bed. I sat on the bed and spoke into it.

“This is Ruth Yonkers,” a husky voice responded. “I talked to you at the UWU meeting tonight.”

“Oh. yes,” I said calmly. “I remember you.” She’d been the stocky, square young woman who’d asked me all the questions at the end.

“I talked to Anita after the meeting. I didn’t know how seriously to take you, but I thought she ought to know about it.” I held my breath and said nothing. “She called me last week, told me about finding Peter’s-finding Peter. She made me promise not to tell anyone where she was without checking with her first. Not even her father, or the police. It was all rather-bizarre.”

“I see,” I said.

“Do you?” she asked doubtfully.

“You thought she’d killed Peter, didn’t you,” I said in a comfortable tone. “And you felt caught by her choosing you to confide in. You didn’t want to betray her, but you didn’t want to be involved in a murder. So you were relieved to have a promise to fall back on.”

Ruth gave a little sigh, half laugh, that came ghostily over the line. “Yes, that was it exactly. You’re smarter than I thought you were. I hadn’t realized Anita might be in danger herself-that was why she sounded so scared. Anyway, I called her. We’ve been talking for several hours. She’s never heard of you and We’ve been debating whether we can trust you.” She paused and I was quiet. “I think we have to. That’s what it boils down to. If it’s true, if there really are some mob people after her-it all sounds surreal, but she says you’re right.”

“Where is she?” I asked gently.

“Up in Wisconsin. I’ll take you to her.”

“No. Tell me where she is, and I’ll find her. I’m being followed, and it’ll just double the danger to try to meet up with you.”

“Then I won’t tell you where she is,” Ruth said. “ My agreement with her was that I would bring you to her.”

“you’ve been a good friend, Ruth, and you’ve carried a heavy load. But if the people who are after Anita find out you know where she is, and suspect you’re in her confidence, your own life is in danger. Let me run the risk-it’s my job, after all.”

We argued for several more minutes, but Ruth let herself be persuaded. She’d been under a tremendous strain for the five days since Anita had first called her, and she was glad to let someone else take it over. Anita was in Hartford, a little town northwest of Milwaukee. She was working as a waitress in a café. She’d cut her red hair short and dyed it black, and she was calling herself Jody Hill. If I left now, I could catch her just as the café opened for breakfast in the morning.

It was after four when I hung up. I felt refreshed and alert, as if I’d slept soundly for eight hours instead of tossing miserably for three.

Lotty was sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading. “Lotty, I do apologize. You get little enough sleep as it is. But I think this is the beginning of the end.”

“Ah, good,” she said, putting a marker in her book and shutting it. “The missing girl?”

“Yes. That was a friend who gave me the address. All I have to do now is get away from here without being seen.”

“Where is she?” I hesitated. “My dear, I’ve been questioned by tougher experts than these Smeissen hoodlums. And perhaps someone else should know.”

I grinned. “You’re right.” I told her, then added, “The question is, what about Jill? We were going to go up to Winnetka tomorrow-today, that is-to see if her father had any papers that might explain his connection with Masters and McGraw. Now maybe Anita can make that tie-in for me. But I’d still be happier to get Jill back up there. This whole arrangement-Paul under the dining-room table, Jill and the babies-makes me uncomfortable. If she wants to come back for the rest of the summer, sure-she can stay with me once this mess is cleared up. But for now-let’s get her back home.”

Lotty pursed her lips and stared into her coffee cup for several minutes. Finally she said, “Yes. I believe you’re right. She’s much better-two good nights of sleep, with calm people who like her-she can probably go back to her family. I agree. The whole thing with Paul is too volatile. Very sweet, but too volatile in such a cramped space.”

“My car is across from the Conrad Hilton downtown. I can’t take it-it’s being watched. Maybe Paul can pick it up tomorrow, take Jill home. I’ll be back here tomorrow night, say good-bye, and give you a little privacy.”

“Do you want to take my car?” Lotty suggested.

I thought it over. “Where are you parked?”

“Out front. Across the street.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got to get away from here without being seen. I don’t know that your place is being watched-but these guys want Anita McGraw very badly. And they did call earlier to make sure I was here.”

Lotty got up and turned out the kitchen light. She looked out the window, concealed partly by a hanging geranium and thin gauze curtains. “I don’t see anyone… Why not wake up Paul? He can take my car, drive it around the block a few times. Then, if no one follows him, he can pick you up in the alley. You drop him down the street.”

“I don’t like it. You’ll be without a car, and when he comes back on foot, if there is someone out there, they’ll be suspicious.”

“Vic, my dear, it’s not like you to be so full of quibbles. We won’t be without a car-we’ll have yours. As for the second-” She thought a minute. “Ah! Drop Paul at the clinic. He can finish his sleep there. We have a bed, for nights when Carol or I have to stay over.”

I laughed. “can’t think of any more quibbles, Lotty. Let’s wake up Paul and give it a try.”

Paul woke up quickly and cheerfully. When the plan was explained to him, he accepted it enthusiastically. “Want me to beat up anyone hanging around outside?”

“Unnecessary, my dear,” said Lotty, amused. “Let’s try not to attract too much attention to ourselves. There’s an all-night restaurant on Sheffield off Addison-give us a call from there.”

We left Paul to dress in privacy. He came out to the kitchen a few minutes later, pushing his black hair back from his square face with his left hand and buttoning a blue workshirt with the right. Lotty gave him her car keys. We watched the street from Lotty’s dark bedroom. No one attacked Paul as he got into the car and started it; we couldn’t see anyone follow him down the street.

I went back to the living room and dressed properly. Lotty watched me without speaking while I loaded the Smith & Wesson and stuck it into the shoulder holster. I was wearing well-cut jeans and a blouson jacket over a ribbed knit shirt.

About ten minutes later Lotty’s phone rang. “All clear,” Paul said. “There is someone out front, though. I think I’d better not drive down the alley-it might bring him around to the rear. I’ll be at the mouth of the alley at the north end of the street.”

I relayed this to Lotty. She nodded. “Why don’t you leave from the basement? You can go down there from inside, and outside the door is hidden by stairs and garbage cans.” She led me downstairs. I felt very alert, very keyed up. Through a window on the stairwell we could see the night clearing into a predawn gray. It was 4:40 and the apartment was very quiet. A siren sounded in the distance, but no traffic was going down Lotty’s street.

Lotty had brought a flashlight with her, rather than turn on a light that might show through the street-side window. She pointed it down the steps so I could see the way, then turned it off. I padded down after her. At the bottom she seized my wrist, let me around bicycles and a washing machine, and very slowly and quietly drew back the dead bolts in the outside door. There was a little click as they snapped open. She waited several minutes before pulling the door open. It moved into the basement, quietly, on oiled hinges. I slipped out up the stairs in crepe-soled shoes.

From behind the screen of garbage cans I peered into the alley. Freddie sat propped against the back of the wall at the south end of the alley two buildings down. As far as I could tell, he was asleep.

I moved quietly back down the stairs. “Give me ten minutes,” I mouthed into Lotty’s ear. “I may need a quick escape route.” Lotty nodded without speaking.

At the top of the stairs I checked Freddie again. Did he have the subtlety to fake sleep? I moved from behind the garbage cans into the shadow of the next building, my right hand on the revolver’s handle. Freddie didn’t stir. Keeping close to the walls, I moved quickly down the alley. As soon as I was halfway down, I broke into a quiet sprint.