“And what did you do?”
His face disappeared into a little ball of such abject shame that I felt almost sorry for him. “They never knew I was there. I hid in my own office with the lights off.”
I didn’t know what to say. That he could have abandoned Nancy to her fate. That he knew Dresberg had been there with his old man. And at the same time the logical part of my mind began worrying about the problem: Was it the insurance papers or was it the fact that Nancy had seen Art with Dresberg? It wasn’t surprising that the alderman had ties to the Garbage King. But it was understandable that he kept them quiet.
“Don’t you understand?” I finally cried out, my voice close to a howl. “If you’d said something about your father and Dresberg last week, we might have gotten somewhere in investigating Nancy’s death. Don’t you care anything about finding her killers?”
He stared at me through tragic blue eyes. “If it was your father, would you want to know—really know—he was doing that kind of thing? Anyway, he already thinks I’m such a failure. What would he think if I turned him in to the cops? He’d say I was siding with SCRAP and the Washington faction against him.”
I shook my head to see if that would clear my brain, but it didn’t seem to help any. I tried speaking, but every sentence I started ended in a few sputtered words. Finally I asked weakly what he wanted me to do.
“I need help,” he muttered.
“You ain’t kidding, boy. But I don’t know if even a Michigan Avenue analyst could do anything for you, and I’m damned sure I can’t.”
“I know I’m not very tough. Not like you or—or Nancy. But I’m not an imbecile, either. I don’t need you making fun of me. I can’t fix this myself I need help and I thought since you’d been a friend of hers you might …” His voice trailed off.
“Rescue you?” I finished sardonically. “Okay. I’ll help you. In exchange for which I want some information about your family.”
He looked wildly at me. “My family? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just tell me. It’s got nothing to do with you. What was your mother’s maiden name?”
“My mother’s maiden name?” he repeated stupidly. “Kludka. Why do you want to know?”
“It wasn’t Djiak? You never heard of that?”
“Djiak? Of course I know the name. My father’s sister married some guy named Ed Djiak. But they moved to Canada before I was born. I’ve never met them—I wouldn’t even have heard of Dad’s sister if I hadn’t seen the name on a letter when I joined the agency—when I asked my father he told me about it—said they’d never gotten along and she’d cut the connection. Why do you want to know about them?”
I didn’t answer him. I felt so nauseated that I leaned my head over onto my knees. When Art had come in with his face all flushed, his auburn hair wildly standing around his head, his resemblance to Caroline had been so strong that they might have been twins. He’d gotten his red hair from his father. Caroline took after Louisa. Of course. How simple. How simple and how horrifying. All the same genes. All in the same family. I just hadn’t wanted to begin thinking such a thing when I saw them side by side. Instead I’d been trying to work out some way Art’s wife could be related to Caroline.
My conversation with Ed and Martha Djiak three weeks earlier came back to me in full force. And with Connie. How her uncle liked to come around and have Louisa dance for him. Mrs. Djiak knew. What had she said? “Men have difficulty controlling themselves.” But that it was Louisa’s fault —that she’d led him on.
My gorge rose so violently, I thought I would choke. Blame her. Blame their fifteen-year-old daughter when it was her own brother who got her pregnant? My one thought was to get out of here, to get down to East Side with my gun and beat the Djiaks until they admitted the truth.
I got up, but the room swam darkly in front of me. I sat back down again, steadying myself, becoming aware of young Art talking frightenedly in the chair across from me.
“I told you what you asked. Now you’ve got to help me.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll help you. Come along with me.”
He started to protest, to demand to know what I was going to do, but I cut him off sharply. “Just come with me. I don’t have any more time right now.”
My tone more than my words stopped him. He watched silently while I got my coat. I tucked my driver’s license and money into my jeans pocket so I wouldn’t be hampered by a purse. He started to stammer some more questions—was I going to shoot his old man?—when he saw me take out the Smith & Wesson and check the clip.
“Shoe’s on the other foot,” I said curtly. “Your father’s buddies have been gunning for me all week.”