The words were brave but the tone was querulous, not confident. He looked around involuntarily, not at his mother but as if he feared an eavesdropper.
“Of course you don’t. But whatever happened to you at the Mandel & McClelland offices has been haunting you for a long time. If you told me about it, it’s possible that I could make it go away. Assuming you aren’t hiding a crime.”
His cheeks turned red again and he stumbled to his feet. “Whatever you think you’re implying, you are way out of line. Get out. Get away from Ira’s desk and go mind your own fucking business.”
I got away from Ira’s desk. Eunice was wrapping up her appointment with Mrs. Eldridge as I passed back through the main room. She gestured at me to wait. She helped the client into her coat, escorted her to the door, assured her that they were always happy to help, she knew Mrs. Eldridge was carrying a load too heavy for one woman and that’s what she and Ira were there for, to share the load.
She wasn’t nearly as gracious when she came back to me. “I don’t approve of Joel’s language, but I do share his sentiment. Annie Guzzo died a long time ago. So did your cousin. Let them all rest in peace, let Stella Guzzo alone. She can’t do you any harm. There’s no reason for you to keep coming around here.”
“You’re probably right,” I agreed. “But do you know what Joel was so afraid of that he agreed to represent Stella?”
“Leave now, Ms. Warshawski.”
She stared at me implacably until I left.
INTO THE GAP
Who had held Joel’s feet to a fire that scared him worse than Stella? I hoped it wasn’t Spike Hurlihey—the Illinois Speaker had a phalanx of protectors around him thicker than any wall I could penetrate.
I bet that Eunice knew, or at least guessed. The way she dismissed me—Joel might be a worry and a disappointment, but he was still her tiger cub, she was still protecting him. I also bet that I could bring down Spike Hurlihey before I persuaded Eunice to confide in me.
Joel came out of the office while I was brooding over his unknown sins. He didn’t see me, but beetled straight to the Pot of Gold. My stomach turned: I had browbeaten him and he was turning to his tried-and-true consolation, the Grey Goose.
I thought of the scroll hanging in Rafe Zukos’s living room, the geese in flight. Rafe, the boy wonder, Joel had bitterly called him. Rafe had moved far away from his unhappy South Side adolescence, the geese in flight, but Joel had been pulled earthward by some unhappy mix of family history, personal issues. Maybe Stella Guzzo’s trial, as well.
Joel was sure Spike hadn’t known about his and Rafe’s sexual fumblings, but bullies have a way of sniffing out secrets, or at least their targets’ weaknesses. As Rafe had reminded me yesterday, twenty-five years ago, even a whiff that a lawyer was gay could have derailed a career. Spike could have taunted Joel with the possibility—but twenty-five years ago, Spike was still a pretty young lawyer himself. He wasn’t in charge of the office, Mandel and McClelland were, so no matter how much tormenting Spike did, he wasn’t the person who decided what cases the firm took or who the partners assigned them to. How had it happened? That was what no one could tell me.
I was like someone trying to get over a video game addiction: just one more hand and I’ll give it up for good. One more conversation and I would let the Guzzos pickle in their own brine. I’d spoken to Stella’s current priest, to her trial lawyer, to the manager at the firm that had taken over Mandel’s practice. And I’d spoken to her son. I hadn’t talked to Betty, the woman Frank left me for when we were back in high school. I hadn’t seen the restraining order yet, but I didn’t think it included Stella’s daughter-in-law.
My route to the East Side, where Frank and Betty lived with her father, took me past the west side of St. Eloy’s, the side where the school and the playing fields stood. Boys were playing baseball. I stopped to look. These were high school teams, St. Eloy in silver, the visitors from St. Jerome in scarlet.
The bleachers were full of kids and parents from the two schools. It was the parents who were engaged by the action on the field; the kids were mostly listening to their devices rather than watching the action. Father Cardenal was in the front row, clapping enthusiastically.
St. Jerome’s was batting in the top of the third. The first batter reached on a routine single, the second hit a sacrifice fly to right field, but when the third kid hit a line drive headed to left field, the St. Eloy’s shortstop leapt into the gap, lay almost horizontal in midair to make the catch, and turned to double up the kid on second.