The Dead Caller from Chicago

Forty-two

I drove back to the turret because I had nowhere else to drive.

Robinson was across the frozen lawn, standing with another man in the city hall parking lot. I walked over, because going inside the turret at that moment would make me feel caged, like an animal.

Robinson was trying to ease a jimmy bar down the passenger’s door of a silver Escalade. His hands were shaking too badly to work the bar. He handed it to the other man.

“You wouldn’t believe how many people used to drop their cars off at the garage and leave the keys locked inside,” Robinson said.

“Maybe your hands are too cold,” I said.

The other man jiggled the bar, drew it up along the glass, and popped the lock.

Robinson motioned for me to walk with him down to the Willahock. “You’ve got to help me,” he said.

“You’re sure you’re being followed?” I had no room for his problem, but I asked anyway.

“He switches between a light-colored sedan and a small SUV, blue I think.”

“Is it the same man?”

“He’s always too far away to tell. He’s not always there, but it’s when I’m headed to work, or driving to lunch or driving home.”

“A light-colored sedan or a small blue SUV? How about a black car, an Impala, maybe?”

“No. Just the light-colored car or the blue SUV.”

“Do you have any idea why someone would be following you?”

He stopped and spun to face me. “No, but like I said before, I think you brought him to me. You came around saying Leo Brumsky wanted to know about Snark Evans. I told you Snarky was small time, a punk who lifted trinkets, and that he was dead. Next thing, Tebbins is dead, shot in his house, and you’re back, asking about the floater that got stuck downriver. Now I just heard Rudy Cassone was beaten to death. I looked Leo up in the phone book, and still nobody’s answering. Maybe he’s dead, too. Three deaths, maybe four, all of them linked to that damned fool Snarky-and I’m linked to him, too, because I was there with the rest of them. You still think all this has to do with something Snarky stole off Cassone?”

“I don’t know,” I said, meaning I didn’t know how much I should tell him.

“Listen, you got to find some way to stop this.” He shook his head, hard. “No way; no way I knew about Snarky stealing off Cassone.”

“You haven’t heard who the floater is, Mr. Robinson?”

“You mean is it Snarky, if he didn’t really die that summer? Hell, maybe it’s Leo, since everybody that’s dying around here goes back to that garage, that summer.”

“It’s not Leo.”

A faint sweat had built on Robinson’s forehead, despite the cold. “Look, Tebbins and Snarky I can understand getting killed, if they stole something expensive from Cassone, but that makes Cassone the killer, doesn’t it? Yet now he’s dead, too. There’s nobody else, Elstrom, not now.”

He was right. There was no reason to tail him. An exchange was already in progress: Amanda for the painting and a couple of million bucks.

Unless there was someone else after the painting, someone who didn’t know a ransom demand had been made. Someone, nonetheless, who might be connected to the person who’d made the ransom demand.

Someone who might be the actual kidnapper.

“When’s the last time you were tailed?” I asked.

“This morning, driving to work.”

“What time do you quit?”

“Four thirty, but I’ve got to do a damned forms inspection before that. I’ll be leaving around three.”

I took the river walk back to the turret. Inside, I rummaged through an old address book and found Wendell Phelps’s phone number. I called his office.

His secretary said he was out.

“Out, like in temporarily out?”

“I’ll have him call you,” she said and hung up. She hadn’t asked for a message, or my number.

I called Jarobi. “I’m having nasty thoughts.”

“Such as?”

“I think there are two parties after that painting, and they might know each other.”

“You mean like that man and woman divorcing, out in California?”

I told him about Robinson.

“How can Robinson being tailed relate to Ms. Phelps?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Look, Elstrom, the divorcing Bennetts are a possibility, I’ll give you that. Both might know Ms. Phelps has been kidnapped, even if only one’s got her. We’ll make sure Mr. Phelps deals with the one that’s got Amanda.”

“How will he know? What if somehow he’s negotiating with the wrong one?”

“Call Mr. Phelps.”

“I tried. He’s out, and his secretary is not taking messages.”

“I’m out, too, Elstrom. I’m not in the loop much.”

I sat then, and drank coffee, and made sense of nothing. At two forty-five, I drove to Thompson Avenue and parked where I could see across the spit of land.

Right at three, Robinson’s burgundy Escalade left city hall and drove up to Thompson Avenue. I tucked a few cars behind it and followed it to Leo’s neighborhood.

Robinson had gotten out in front of the new excavation by the time I drove by. I parked a few cars up.

Robinson handed a man wearing a hard hat a white business-sized envelope. The man shook his head, angry. Robinson shrugged and began walking around the hole, taking his time to look down at the forms that had been set up for the foundation walls.

I called Wendell again. The same secretary answered. I said we probably got cut off a half hour before. She said we hadn’t. I asked if she’d asked Wendell to call me. She hung up on me again.

I called back. “Tell him to make sure the person has the goods.”

She hung up.

Robinson got back in his Escalade and drove away. It was rush hour by now, and Thompson Avenue was thick with traffic. I followed him east into Chicago. He went food shopping and headed home to a bungalow three blocks from Leo’s. I watched his house until ten thirty, when the lights went out. No one had tailed him.

I called Jarobi. “Anything?”

“Wendell’s beside himself. Nothing.”

“You told him about Robinson seeing a shadow?”

“Yes, though that can’t have anything to do with Mrs. Phelps. I also told him about the people in California. He got your message, by the way. He knows to be careful.”

I drove to Leo’s house. Only one lamp was on, and that was in the front room. I hoped that meant Ma and Endora were staying away.

Down the block, the excavation looked as it had, and maybe as it always would. The envelope Robinson had handed the contractor might delay things for forever. I thought about calling Jenny, but whatever she knew about that house didn’t matter much to Amanda’s kidnapping.

I pulled my peacoat tighter and pushed away the thought that Amanda was lying somewhere, cold like Wozanga.