The minute stretched on to twenty-eight, but I couldn’t complain: I was unexpected, uninvited. I got out my laptop and logged on to one of my private databases so that I could start some research for an actual paying client; I answered a few e-mails. The Monitor Project blinked to let me know it had something for me.
My furious emotions this morning had made me forget that I’d asked for reports on the people I’d met yesterday at Ruhetal. Eric Waxman, the guy with the handlebar mustache, was badly in debt. He seemed to gamble on sporting events, along with belonging to those expensive golf clubs: he had a bill with a Las Vegas firm that was close to half his annual pay.
Lisa Cunningham, the director of patient services, wasn’t paid as well as Waxman, but her husband was a pharmaceutical company exec; they apparently stayed on top of their hefty credit-card and mortgage bills.
Vernon Mulliner, the security director who’d just moved into his garish mansion, was the only one with a real investment portfolio. Besides his house, he had a tidy nest egg, several million dollars. He was a shrewd investor, or his wife was. Or her suburban school district paid its first-grade teachers a handsome bonus. I was annotating the report when an emissary from Harold Weekes arrived.
“Ms. Warshawski? Todd Blakely, Mr. Weekes’s personal assistant. He’s got a two-minute gap between conference calls coming up soon, when he can talk to you, but he wanted me to find out what you’re doing here—he didn’t recognize any of the names Amber read from your card.” Blakely was a youngish man, in a crisp white shirt and tie, as if he were with the FBI in mid-February instead of an entertainment conglomerate in mid-summer.
I got to my feet. “Crawford, Mead—they’re one of Chicago’s biggest law firms. Miles Wuchnik—he’s the PI who was killed in the cemetery ten days ago. In the news cuddle the morning after Wuchnik’s body was found, Mr. Weekes mentioned that Mr. Wuchnik worked for Crawford. All up to speed now?”
Amber, the receptionist, was listening, but Blakely didn’t care, or maybe didn’t notice, what mere clerical workers did. He led me down one of those lushly carpeted halls to the executive offices at the east end of the floor. I was left in an antechamber with another secretary, who offered me a chair in a group that faced the window. People waiting for Weekes weren’t given a TV screen, but the great show of Chicago’s river winding through the skyscrapers toward Lake Michigan was entertainment enough.
A pair of binoculars on a glass table in front of me proved irresistible. I watched the sailboats out beyond the breakwater, the gulls swooping down behind the aquarium, and, on the river, the tour boats, where people’s sunburned heads appeared startlingly close to me.
When Blakely reappeared, I put the binoculars down reluctantly. Whatever else you could say about Global, they knew what entertained the public.
Blakely had his suit jacket on this time; as he held the door to Weekes’s office open for me, I noticed he had one of Helen Kendrick’s corn-flag pins in the lapel.
On the other side of the door, Weekes was bent over a computer screen with Wade Lawlor. Both of them were too busy to look up when we entered, which was just as well: I had time to school my face to keep the fury I felt at seeing Lawlor out of my expression.
Like his PA, Weekes was wearing a business suit; the jacket was for more than show—the air-conditioning was cranked up so high that my bare arms were sprouting goose bumps. Lawlor had on his trademark checked blue shirt, but both of them wore Helen Kendrick’s jeweled corn flags.
“V. I. Warshawski is here, boss,” Blakely said.
“Right. So, Wade, we’ll focus more on books in that sector”—he tapped the screen—“but this one clearly responds most to our foundation’s work. Ms. Warshawski—we met at Wade’s anniversary party, but I don’t believe I handed you an invitation, did I?”
“No. You left that to Mr. Lawlor, who apparently is fascinated by my family’s history. I wish you’d called me first before you ran your segment. I could have given better stuff—Boom-Boom Warshawski’s mom’s involvement in block clubs would have really spoken to your anti-Durango sector.” My aunt had been a spit-spattering racist who’d joined one of the sixties block clubs that sprang up in an effort to keep South Side parishes all-white.
If I’d hoped to rattle Lawlor, I’d underestimated him. “Glad to know you catch my show, Warshawski. From what I’ve heard of you, I wouldn’t expect you to agree with my viewpoint, but it’s nice to know that a liberal can keep an open mind.”
“Gosh, Mr. Lawlor, I didn’t realize you were so interested—you know my politics, you know where my mother came from. I almost feel like we had a date where you were the only one who showed up. I’m going to have to blog about this.” I made my voice seductive. “Every middle-aged woman’s dream came true for me this week: Wade Lawlor was stalking me.”
“A stalking charge is a serious one,” Lawlor said. “I’d be careful what I posted, if I were you.”