When I walked up to the grimy stone building at Ninety-third and Commercial, it seemed to have shrunk so with the years that I checked the name over the entrance to make sure I was at the right place. The vaulted ceiling, which had awed me as a child, now seemed merely grubby. Instead of having to stand on tiptoe to peer into the teller’s cage, I towered over the acned young woman behind the counter.
She didn’t know anything about the bank’s annual report, but she directed me indifferently to an officer in the back. The glib story I’d prepared to explain why I wanted it proved unnecessary. The middle-aged man who spoke to me was only too glad to find someone interested in a decaying savings and loan. He talked to me at length about the strong ethical values of the community, where people did everything to keep their little homes in order, and how the bank itself renegotiated loans for its longtime customers when hard times hit them.
“We don’t have an annual report of the kind you’re used to examining, since we’re privately owned,” he concluded. “But you can look at our year-end statements if you want.”
“It’s really the names of your board I’d like to see,” I told him.
“Of course.” He rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a stack of papers. “You’re sure you don’t want to inspect the statements? If you were thinking of investing, I can assure you we are in extremely sound condition despite the death of the mills down here.”
If I’d had a few thousand to spare, I would have felt obligated to give it to the bank to cover my embarrassment. As it was I muttered something noncommittal and took the directors list from him. It held thirteen names, but I knew only one of them: Gustav Humboldt.
Oh, yes, my informant told me proudly, Mr. Humboldt had agreed to become a director back in the forties when he first started doing business down here. Even now that his company had become one of the largest in the world and he was a director of a dozen Fortune 500 companies, he still stayed on the Ironworkers board.
“Mr. Humboldt has missed only eight meetings in the last fifteen years,” he finished.
I murmured something that could be taken for extravagant awe at the great man’s dedication. The picture was becoming tolerably clear to me. There was some problem with the insurance on the work force at the Xerxes plant that Humboldt was determined not come to light. I couldn’t see what that had to do with the lawsuit or the deaths of Ferraro and Pankowski. But maybe Chigwell knew what the actuarial data I’d found meant—perhaps that was what his medical notebooks would reveal. That part didn’t bother me too much. It was Humboldt’s personal role that both scared and angered me. I was tired of being jerked around by him. It was time to beard him directly. I extricated myself from the Ironworkers’ hopeful officer and headed for the Loop.
I wasn’t in the mood to waste time hunting out cheap parking. I pulled into the lot next to the Humboldt Building on Madison. Stopping just long enough to comb my hair in the rearview mirror, I headed into the shark’s cove.
The Humboldt Building housed the company’s corporate offices. Like most manufacturing conglomerates, the real business went on in the plants spread across the globe, so I wasn’t surprised that their headquarters could be squeezed into twenty-five stories. It was a strictly functional building, with no trees or sculptures in the lobby. The floor was covered with the utilitarian tile you used to see in all skyscrapers before Helmut Jahn and his pals started filling them with marble-lined atria.
The old-fashioned black notice board in the hallway didn’t list Gustav Humboldt, but it told me the corporate offices were on twenty-two. I summoned one of the bronze-doored elevators and made my slow way up.
The hall that I entered from the elevator was austere, but the tone had changed subtly. The lower half of the walls was paneled in a dark wood that also showed on either side of the pale green carpet. Framed prints of medieval alchemists with retorts, toads, and bats hung above the paneling.
I headed down the green pile to an open door on my right. The green carpeting continued past the door, where it spread into a large pool. The dark wood was picked up in a polished desk. Behind it sat a woman with a phone bank and a word processor. She was impeccably polished herself, her dark hair pulled back in a smooth chignon to show the large pearls in her shell-shaped ears. She turned from the word processor to greet me with practiced courtesy.
“I’m here to see Gustav Humboldt,” I said, trying to sound authoritative.
“T see. May I have your name please?”
I handed her a card and she turned with it to the phones. When she’d finished she smiled apologetically.
“You don’t seem to be in the appointment calendar, Ms. Warshawski. Is Mr. Humboldt expecting you?”