Killing Orders

VI

SNOW WAS FALLING the next morning as I made my five-mile run to Belmont Harbor and back. The ice-filled water was perfectly still. Across the breakwater I could see the lake motionless, too. Not peaceful, but sullenly quiet, its angry gods held tightly by bands of cold.

A Salvation Army volunteer was stamping his feet and calling cheery greetings to commuters at the corner of Belmont and Sheridan. He gave me a smiling “God bless you” as I jogged past. Must be nice to have everything so simple and peaceful. What would he do with an Aunt Rosa? Was there any smile broad enough to make her smile back?

I stopped at a little bakery on Broadway for a cup of cappuccino and a croissant. As I ate at one of the spindly-legged tables, I pondered my next actions. I’d met with Hatfield yesterday more out of bravado than anything else-it brought me some sort of perverse pleasure to irritate his well-pressed Brooks Brothers facade. But he wasn’t going to do anything for me. I didn’t have the resources to pry into the Dominicans. Anyway, even if Murray Ryerson turned something up, what would I do about it if Rosa didn’t want me investigating? Wasn’t my obligation finished with her abrupt command to stop?

I realized that I was carrying on this internal monologue as an argument with Gabriella, who didn’t seem pleased with me for bugging out so early. “Goddamn it, Gabriella,” I swore silently. “Why did you make me give you that crazy promise? She hated you. Why do I have to do anything for her?”

If my mother were alive she would shrivel me on the spot for swearing at her. And then turn fierce intelligent eyes on me: So Rosa fired you? Did you go to work only because she hired you?

I slowly finished my cappuccino and went back out into a minor blizzard. Strictly speaking, Rosa had not fired me. Albert had called to say she didn’t want me on the job any longer. But was that Albert or Rosa speaking? I should at least get that much clear before deciding what else to do. Which meant another trip to Melrose Park. Not today-the roads would be impossible with the snow: traffic creeping, people falling into ditches. But tomorrow would be Saturday. Even if the weather continued bad there wouldn’t be much traffic.

At home I peeled off layers of shirts and leggings and soaked in a hot tub for a while. Being self-employed, I can hold my review of operations and management anywhere. This means time spent thinking in the bath is time spent working. Unfortunately, my accountant doesn’t agree that this makes my water bill and bath salts tax deductible.

My theory of detection resembles Julia Child’s approach to cooking: Grab a lot of ingredients from the shelves, put them in a pot and stir, and see what happens. I’d stirred at the priory, and at the FBI. Maybe it was time to let things simmer a bit and see if the smell of cooking gave me any new ideas.

I put on a wool crepe-de-chine pantsuit with a high-necked red-striped blouse and low-heeled black boots. That should be warm enough to walk in if I got stuck in the snow someplace. Wrapping my big mohair scarf around my head and neck, I went back into the storm, adding the Omega to the queue of slowly moving, sliding cars trying to get onto Lake Shore Drive at Belmont.

I crept downtown, barely able to see the cars immediately next to me, and slithered off at Jackson. Leaving the Omega next to a snowdrift behind the Art Institute, I trudged the six blocks to the Pulteney Building, which looked worse than usual in the winter weather. Tenants had tracked snow and mud into the lobby. Tom Czarnik, the angry old man who calls himself the building superintendent, refuses to mop the floor on stormy mornings. His theory is that it will just get nasty again at lunch, so why bother? I should applaud a man whose housekeeping views coincide so closely with mine, but I cursed him under my breath as my boots slid in the lobby slush. The elevator wasn’t working today either, so I stomped up four flights of stairs to my office.

After turning on the lights and picking up the mail from the floor, I phoned Agnes Paciorek at her broker’s office. On hold while she sold a million shares of AT &T, I looked through bills and pleas for charity. Nothing that wouldn’t wait until next month. At last her brisk deep voice came on the line.

“Agnes. It’s V. I. Warshawski.”

We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, then I explained who Roger Ferrant was and said I’d given him her number.

“I know. He called yesterday afternoon. We’re meeting for lunch at the Mercantile Club. Are you downtown? Want to join us?”

“Sure. Great. You find anything unusual?”

“Depends on your definition. Brokers don’t think buying and selling stock is unusual but you might. I’ve got to run. See you at one.”

The Mercantile Club sits on top of the old Bletchley Iron Building down in the financial district. It’s a businessmen’s club, which reluctantly opened its doors to women when Mrs. Gray became president of the University of Chicago, since most of the trustees’ meetings were held there. Having admitted one woman they found others sneaking through in her wake. The food is excellent and the service impeccable, although some of the old waiters refuse to work tables with women guests.

Ferrant was already sitting by the fire in the reading room where the maître d’ sent me to wait for Agnes. He looked elegant in navy-blue tailoring and stood up with a warm smile when he saw me come into the room.

“Agnes invited me to gate-crash; I hope you don’t object.”

“By no means. You look very smart today. How are your forgeries coming?”

I told him about my useless interview with Hatfield. “And the Dominicans don’t know anything, either. At least not about forgery. I need to start at the other end-who could have created them to begin with?”

Agnes came up behind me. “Created what?” She turned to Ferrant and introduced herself, a short, compact dynamo in a brown-plaid suit whose perfect stitching probably required an eight-hundred-dollar investment. Half a day’s work for Agnes.

She shepherded us into the dining room where the maître d’ greeted her by name and seated us by a window. We looked down at the South Branch of the Chicago River and ordered drinks. I seldom drink whiskey in the middle of the day and asked for oloroso sherry. Ferrant ordered a beer, while Agnes had Perrier with lime-the exchanges didn’t close for almost two hours and she believes sober brokers trade better.

Once we were settled she repeated her initial question. I told her about the forgery. “As far as I know, the Fort Dearborn Trust discovered it because the serial numbers hadn’t been issued yet. The FBI is being stuffy and close-mouthed, but I know the forgery was pretty high quality-good enough to pass a superficial test by the auditors, anyway. I’d like to talk to someone who knows something about forging-try to find out who’d have the skill to create that good a product.”

Agnes cocked a thick eyebrow. “Are you asking me? I just sell ‘em; I don’t print ‘em. Roger’s problem is the type of thing I’m equipped to handle. Maybe.” She turned to Ferrant. “Why don’t you tell me what you know at this point?”

He shrugged thin shoulders. “I told you on the phone about the call from our specialist in New York, Andy Barrett. Maybe you can start by telling me what a specialist is. He doesn’t work for Ajax, I take it.”

“No. Specialists are members of the New York Stock Exchange-but they’re not brokers for the public. Usually they’re members of a firm who get a franchise from the Exchange to be specialists-people who manage buy-and-sell orders so business keeps flowing. Barrett makes markets in your stock. Someone wants to sell a thousand shares of Ajax. They call me. I don’t go down to the floor of the Chicago Exchange waving ‘em around until a buyer happens along-I phone our broker in New York and he goes to Barrett’s post on the floor. Barrett buys the shares and makes a match with someone who’s looking for a thousand shares. If too many people are unloading Ajax at once and no one wants to buy it, he buys on his own account-he’s got an ethical obligation to make markets. Once in a great while, if the market gets completely haywire, he’ll ask the Exchange to halt trading in the stock until things shake out.”

She paused to give us time to order, Dover sole for me, rare steaks for her and Roger. She lit a cigarette and began punctuating her comments with stabs of smoke.

“From what I gather, something of the opposite kind has been going on with Ajax the last few weeks. There’s been a tremendous amount of buying. About seven times the normal volume, enough that the price is starting to go up. Not a lot- insurance companies aren’t glamor investments, so you can have heavy action without too much notice being taken. Did Barrett give you the names of the brokers placing the orders?”

“Yes. They didn’t mean anything to me. He’s sending a list in the mail… I wondered, if it wouldn’t be too great an imposition, Miss Paciorek, whether you’d look at the names when I get them. See if they tell you anything. Also, what should I do?”

To my annoyance, Agnes lit a second cigarette. “No, no imposition. And please call me Agnes. Miss Paciorek sounds too much like the North Shore… I guess what we’re assuming, to put the evil thought into blunt words, is that someone may be trying a covert takeover bid. If that’s true, they can’t have got too far-anyone with five percent or more of the stock has to file with the SEC and explain what’s he doing with it. Or she.” She grinned at me.

“How much stock would someone need to take over Ajax?” I asked. The food arrived, and Agnes mercifully stubbed out her cigarette.

“Depends. Who besides your firm owns sizable chunks?”

Ferrant shook his head. “I don’t really know. Gordon Firth, the chairman. Some of the directors. We own three percent and Edelweiss, the Swiss reinsurers, holds four percent. I think they’re the largest owners. Firth maybe owns two. Some of the other directors may have one or two percent.”

“So your present management owns around fifteen percent. Someone could carry a lot of weight with sixteen percent. Not guaranteed, but that would be a good place to start, especially if your management wasn’t aware it was happening.”

I did some mental arithmetic. Fifty million shares outstanding. Sixteen percent would be eight million. “You’d need about five hundred million for a takeover, then.”

She thought for a minute. “That’s about right. But keep in mind that you don’t need to come up with that much capital. Once you’ve bought a large block you can leverage the rest- put your existing shares up as collateral for a loan to buy more shares. Then you leverage those and keep going. Before you know it, you’ve bought yourself a company. That’s oversimplified, of course, but that’s the basic idea.”

We ate in silence for a minute; then Ferrant said, “What can I do to find out for sure?”

Agnes pursed her square face as she thought about it. “You could call the SEC and ask for a formal investigation. Then you’d be sure of getting the names of the people who are really doing the buying. That’s an extreme step, though. Once they’re called in they’re going to scrutinize every transaction and every broker. You’d want to talk to your board before you did that-some of your directors might not relish having all their stock transactions revealed to the piercing light of day.”

“Well, short of that?”

“Every brokerage firm has what we call a compliance officer.

Once you get the list of firms from Barrett, you can try calling them and find out on whose behalf they’re trading. There’s no reason for them to tell you, though-and nothing illegal about trying to buy a company.”

The waiters hovered around our table. Dessert? Coffee? Ferrant absentmindedly selected a piece of apple pie. “Do you think they’d talk to you, Miss-Agnes? The compliance officers, I mean. As I told Vic, I’m way out of depth with this stock-market stuff. Even if you coached me in what to ask, I wouldn’t know if the answers I was getting were right.”

Agnes put three lumps of sugar in her coffee and stirred vigorously. “It would be unusual. Let me see the list of brokers before I let you know one way or another. What you could do is call Barrett and ask him to send you a list of the names the shares were registered in when he sold them. If I know anyone really well-either the brokers or the customers-I could probably call them.”

She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to the office.” She signaled for a waiter and signed the bill. “You two stay though.”

Ferrant shook his head. “I’d better call London. It’s after eight there-my managing director should be home.”

I left with them. The snow had stopped. The sky was clear and the temperature falling. One of the bank thermometers showed 11 degrees. I walked with Roger as far as Ajax. As we said good-bye he invited me to go to a movie with him Saturday night. I accepted, then went on down Wabash to my office to finish the report on pilfered supplies.

During the slow drive home that night I pondered how to find someone who knew about forging securities. Forgers were engravers gone wrong. And I did know one engraver. At least I knew someone who knew an engraver.

Dr Charlotte Herschel, Lotty to me, had been born in Vienna, grew up in London where she ultimately received her doctor of medicine degree from London University -and lived about a mile from me on Sheffield Avenue. Her father’s brother Stefan, an engraver, had immigrated to Chicago in the twenties. When Lotty decided to come to the States in 1959, she picked Chicago partly because her uncle Stefan lived here.

I had never met him-she saw little of him, just saying it made her feel more rooted to have a relative in the area.

My friendship with Lotty goes back a long way, to my student days at the University of Chicago when she was one of the physicians working with an abortion underground I was involved in. She knew Agnes Paciorek from that time, too.

I stopped at a Treasure Island on Broadway for groceries and wine. It was six-thirty when I got home and phoned Lotty. She had just come in herself from a long day at the clinic she runs on Sheffield near her apartment. She greeted my offer of dinner enthusiastically and said she would be over after a hot bath.

I cleaned up the worst ravages in my living room and kitchen. Lotty never criticizes my housekeeping, but she is scrupulously tidy herself and it didn’t seem fair to drag her out for a brain-picking session on such a cold night, then have her spend it in squalor.

Chicken, garlic, mushrooms, and onions sautéed in olive oil, then flamed with brandy made an easy attractive stew. A cup of Ruffino finished the dish. By the time I had water hot for fettucine, the doorbell rang.

Lotty came up the stairs briskly and greeted me with a hug. “A lifesaver that you called, my dear. It was a long, very depressing day: a child dead of meningitis because the mother would not bring her in. She hung an amulet around her neck and thought it would bring down a fever of forty-one degrees. There are three sisters; we put them in St Vincent ’s for observation, but my God!”

I held her for a minute before we went into the apartment, asking if she wanted a drink. Lotty reminded me that alcohol is poison. For extreme situations she believes brandy is permissible, but she did not consider today’s woes extreme. I poured myself a glass of Ruffino and put on water for her coffee.

We ate by candlelight in the dining room while Lotty unburdened herself. By the time we had finished the salad, she felt more relaxed and asked me what I was working on.

I told her about Rosa and the Dominicans and Albert’s phoning me to tell me the whole thing was off.

The candlelight was reflected in her black eyes as she narrowed them at me. “And what are you trying to prove by continuing?”

“It was Albert who phoned. Rosa may not agree,” I said defensively.

“Yes. Your aunt dislikes you. She’s decided-for whatever reason-to discontinue the effort to protect herself. So what are you doing? Proving that you are tougher, or smarter, or just plain better than she is?”

I thought it over. Lotty is sometimes about as pleasant as a can opener, but she braces me. I know myself better when I talk to Lotty.

“You know, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Rosa. It’s not as though she’s an obsession; she doesn’t control my head that much. But I feel very protective of my mother. Rosa hurt her and that makes me angry. If I can show Rosa she was wrong to stop the investigation, that I can solve this problem despite failure by the FBI and the SEC, I’ll have proof that she was wrong about everything. And she’ll have to believe it.” I laughed and finished my glass of wine. “She won’t, of course. My rational self knows that. But my feeling self thinks otherwise.”

Lotty nodded. “Perfectly logical. Does your rational self have any way of solving this problem?”

“There are lots of things the FBI can do that I can’t because they have so much manpower. But one thing I could look into is who actually did the forgeries. Let Derek concentrate on who planted them and which ex-Dominicans are living in luxury.

“I don’t know any forgers. But it occurred to me that a forger is really a species of engraver. And I wondered about your uncle Stefan.”

Lotty had been watching me with an expression of shrewd amusement. Now her face changed suddenly. Her mouth set and her black eyes narrowed. “Is this an inspired guess? Or have you spent your spare time investigating me?”

I looked at her in bewilderment.

“You wondered why you never met my uncle Stefan? Although he is my only relative living in Chicago?”

“No,” I said doggedly. “I never thought about it for a minute. You’ve never met my aunt Rosa. Even if she weren’t a virago, you’d probably never have met her-friends seldom have much in common with relatives.”

She continued to stare searchingly at me. I felt very hurt but could think of nothing to say that would bridge the gulf of Lotty ’s suspicious silence. The last time I had felt this way was the night I realized the man I had married and thought I loved was as foreign to me as Yasir Arafat. Could a friendship evaporate in the same mist as a marriage?

My throat felt tight, but I forced myself to talk. “Lotty. You’ve known me for close to twenty years and I’ve never done anything behind your back. If you think I’ve started now .“ That sentence wasn’t going in the right direction. “There’s something you don’t want me to know about your uncle. You don’t have to tell me. Carry it to the grave with you. But don’t act as though everything you know about me suddenly has no foundation.” A light bulb went on over my head. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me your uncle really is a forger?”

The set look held in Lotty’s face for a few seconds, then cracked into a wry smile. “You are right, Vic. About my uncle. And about you and me. I’m truly sorry, my dear. I won’t try to make excuses-there are none. But Stefan.

When the war ended, I found there was left of my family only my brother and the distant cousins who had taken us in during the war. Hugo-my brother-and I spent what time and money we had searching for relatives. And we found Papa’s brother Stefan. When Hugo decided to move to Montreal, I came to Chicago -I had an opportunity for a surgical residency at Northwestern, too good a chance to turn down.” She made a throwaway gesture with her left hand. “So I set out to find Uncle Stefan. And discovered him in a federal prison at Fort Leavenworth. Currency was his specialty, although he had a social conscience: He was also forging passports for sale to the many Europeans trying to come to America at the time.”

She grinned at me, the old Lotty grin. I leaned across the table and squeezed her hand. She returned the pressure, but went on talking. Detectives and doctors both know the value of talking. “I went to see him. He’s likable. Like my father, but without the moral foundation. And I let him stay with me for six months when he was released-1959 that was; I was his only family, too.

“He got a job, doing custom work for a jeweler-after all, he wasn’t a robber, so they weren’t afraid he’d lift the sterling. As far as I know, he’s never stepped over the edge again. But naturally I haven’t asked.”

“Naturally not. Well, I will try to find a different engraver.”

Lotty smiled again. “Oh, no. Why not call him? He’s eighty-two, but he still has all his wits and some besides. He might be the one person who could help you.”

She would talk to him the next day and arrange a time when I could have tea with him. We had coffee and pears in the living room and played Scrabble. As usual, Lotty won.