It was a more articulate way of stating my own thoughts. I nodded. “Thanks, Lotty.”
We spent the rest of the evening silently. Lotty was going through the morning’s papers, the light making little prisms on the half-glasses she wore for reading. I did nothing. I felt as though my mind were encased in lead shielding—protective covering to keep any ideas from entering. The residue of my fear. I kept nipping at the big shark but I was afraid to find a harpoon and attack him directly. I hated knowing he’d been able to intimidate me, but knowing it didn’t make a stream of ideas gush forth.
The phone startled me from my somber reverie around nine. One of the house staff at Beth Israel wasn’t sure what to do with a patient of Lotty’s. She talked to him for a while, then decided she’d better handle the delivery herself and left.
I’d bought a bottle of whiskey yesterday along with the groceries. After Lotty had been gone half an hour or so, I poured myself a drink and tried to get interested in John Wayne’s televised antics. When the phone rang again around ten I turned off the set, thinking the caller might be one of Lotty’s patients.
“Dr. Herschel’s residence.”
“I’m looking for a woman named Warshawski.” It was a man’s voice, cold, uninterested. The last time I’d heard it it had told me that the person hadn’t been born who could swim in a swamp.
“If I see her, I’ll be glad to give her a message,” I said with what coolness I could muster.
“You can ask her if she knows Louisa Djiak,” the cold voice went on flatly.
“And if she does?” My voice wobbled despite every effort I put into controlling it.
“Louisa Djiak doesn’t have much longer to live. She could die at home in her bed. Or she could disappear in the lagoons behind the Xerxes plant. Your friend Warshawski can make the choice. Louisa is down at Xerxes now. She’s well sedated. All you have to do—all you have to tell your friend Warshawski to do is go down and take a look at her. If she does, the Djiak woman will wake up in her bed tomorrow without knowing she ever left it. But if any police come along with Warshawski, they’ll have to find some frogmen who like diving in Xerxine before they can give the Djiak woman a Christian burial.” The line went dead.
I wasted a few minutes on useless self-recrimination. I’d been so focused on myself, on my closeness to Lotty, I’d never imagined Louisa’s being in danger. Despite the fact that I’d told Jurshak I knew her secret. If she and I were gone, no one would remain to speak about it and he would be safe.
I forced myself to think calmly—cursing myself not only wasted time, it would cloud my judgment. The first thing to do was get moving—I could wait for the long drive south to develop some brilliant strategy. I loaded a second clip and stuck it in my jacket pocket, then scribbled a note for Lotty. I was amazed to see my handwriting flow in the same large dark strokes as always.
I was just locking Lotty’s door when I remembered the ruse that had gotten Mr. Contreras away from our building a few nights ago. I didn’t want to walk into a trap here. I went back inside to make sure that Louisa really was missing from the bungalow on Houston. No one answered the phone. After a few frantic calls—first to Mrs. Cleghorn to get the names and numbers of some other people at SCRAP —I learned Caroline had come back to the office around four. She was closeted now with some EPA lawyers downtown in what was likely to be an all-night session.
The woman I talked to had the number of the people living in my parents’ old house, a couple named Santiago. Caroline had given their home phone number to everyone she worked with in case of some emergency. When I called Mrs. Santiago she obligingly told me that Louisa had been taken away in an ambulance around eight-thirty. I thanked her mechanically and hung up.
It had been almost half an hour since I’d gotten the call. It was time to move. I wanted company for the trip but it would be wanton to bring Mr. Contreras along—for him and Louisa both. I thought of friends, of police, of Murray, but of no one whom I could ask to go with me into such extreme danger.
I looked carefully around the hallway when I left Lotty’s. Someone had known to phone me here—they might take the easy route and just shoot me as I walked down the stairs. I kept my back pressed against the stairwell wall, crouching low. Instead of going out the front door, I went on down to the basement. Carefully picked my way across the dark floor, fumbling cautiously with Lotty’s keys for the one that undid the double lock on the basement door. Made my way down the alley to Irving Park Road.