Dick frowned, drumming his long fingers on the table. It was those hands that must have attracted me twenty-five years ago—surely I’d never been drawn to that petulant mouth.
“What’s the name?” he said.
“Jana Shatka. Her dead partner was Xavier Jurgens.”
“Spell,” he demanded.
I printed the names on one of the pads of paper laid out helpfully for clients. Dick used the phone in the middle of the table to call into the bowels of the firm. He identified himself, gave a number that I presumed was his secret password, and then asked about Shatka and Jurgens.
When he hung up he frowned some more. “We don’t have any record of a call from Shatka. She might not have identified herself, of course. She wasn’t a client.”
He paused.
“But Jurgens was?” I asked.
“No.” He paused again. “Can I count on your discretion?”
“Not if it’s a lead in a murder case, you know that, Dick.”
He bit his lower lip. “Oh, damn you, anyway, Vic. Ten days ago, we got a packet of money. Sixteen thousand two hundred dollars in cash, to be exact. A typed note asked us to deliver the money to Jurgens, less twelve hundred as our fee for ninety minutes of work.”
41.
A STEP AHEAD
THAT WAS ALL DICK COULD, OR MAYBE WOULD, TELL ME. HE didn’t know if the money had been delivered by messenger, FedEx, or dropped by Carmilla’s beak from the clouds, and he refused to call his mail-processing center to see if they had a record of the sender’s address.
“Dick, we’re talking about a guy who’s been murdered, not someone who provided evidence in a money-laundering scheme.”
“You can’t prove that the money has anything to do with his murder. It sounds as though it’s the cash he used to buy the Camaro, am I right?”
I had to agree with that. “But which lawyer got the commission? Eloise?”
“I’m not going to reveal our in-house secrets to you, let alone breach confidentiality laws. And now, if you don’t mind very much, I’m already late for dinner with the Chinese trade consul.”
Waiting with him for the elevator, I asked if the note had revealed the client who was providing the cash.
“Even if I knew, it can’t possibly be any of your business.”
“It is my business, Dick. It’s connected to how Leydon Ashford ended up in a terrible heap on the Rockefeller Chapel floor.” Dick and Vic. Leydon used to tease us about our rhyming relationship. “Was the client Sewall Ashford? Or Helen Kendrick?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Vic. You might outjump your shadow.”
The elevator arrived just then. Late though it was in the workday, two of Dick’s colleagues were on board. They eyed me curiously but didn’t ask for introductions. Instead, the three discussed their upcoming vacation plans. Dick and his wife were off to Martha’s Vineyard with their three children. One of the colleagues was heading to Thailand, the other to Ethiopia with his church to help build affordable housing.
“I’ll be spending my summer in South Chicago, waiting for someone to build affordable housing there,” I said chirpily.
Dick rolled his eyes while the colleagues backed away from me. Conversation froze for the rest of the journey.
At street level we all separated, Dick into a waiting limo, the colleagues moving toward the suburban rail station, me heading east to pick up the Blue Line. If Dick and I were still married, I could get door-to-door limo service instead of making my tired legs carry me down the grimy stairs to the L platform. Of course, I’d have to wear high heels and makeup instead of my cushioned sandals.
The dim lights in the stairwell made my shadow waver and bounce in front of me. I’d have a hard time outjumping that. But Dick had given me a clue, I realized, as I stuck my CTA card into the magnetic reader. I was assuming the wrong client, or the wrong partner, or both. If Eloise hadn’t been the go-between for Xavier’s cash, then it was likely her gray, self-effacing colleague, Louis whoever. If the client wasn’t Ashford or Kendrick, then—was it Chaim Salanter?
It was like one of those Rubik’s Cubes, where you had to keep turning the sides to fit all those colors together. I’d never been able to line the blocks up right, and this story was the same: I kept finding leftover pieces every time I tried to put them together.
When I got to my office and typed in the code at the street door, fire was pulsing in the windows on the north side. Not a cause for alarm, just a sign that Tessa Reynolds was working late with her blowtorch. She had a commission from a Chinese municipal council to provide them with some enormous metal abstract for their main plaza, and she was working overtime to finish it. Perhaps she was the beneficiary of Dick’s work with the Chinese trade consul.
I resolutely put aside thoughts of vampires and Camaros and put in a couple of hours for my real clients. I was nearing the end of a complex search when my cell phone rang.
“Uh, Ms. Warshawski? This is Ted Austin, I’m the, uh, graduate student you gave those Russian letters to this morning.”