Lotty had gone to Beth Israel to see her more pressing patients, but she came back at lunch to heat some homemade chicken soup for me. “You’re too thin, Liebchen. I want to see those purple circles disappear from your eyes,”
I obediently ate two large helpings and a few slices of toast. While I was finishing the toast Murray showed up. I didn’t much feel like talking to him, but the sooner I did it the faster it would be behind me. And when I’d done I was glad because he knew what had happened to Furey— suspended without pay, out on $100,000 bond for felonious assault on me, Elena, and Mr. Contreras.
“They’re never going to prove a case against him with that young girl—what was her name? Cerise? Sergeant McGonnigal did tell me off the record that they’re missing some heroin they’d copped in a drug raid a month or so ago. He also figures the department’s going to sit on that one.”
“What about Boots?” I asked. “How do things look for the election next month?”
Murray made a face. “This is Chicago, sweetheart, not Minneapolis—he got a standing ovation at last night’s meeting of the County Board. And the campaign funds are still coming in—too many of those contractors owe the old guy too much. They’re not going to jump ship unless he falls below the waterline.”
“Has he backed away from Roz?”
“Same story—she’s just too popular in the Hispanic wards. Boots lets her go he can kiss the Humboldt Park-Logan Square vote good-bye. And don’t forget there’s a sizable Mexican population out in the Mount Prospect area—her support isn’t all in the city.”
“So why did she bother?” I burst out. “Why did she care what I did or who I talked to? That’s what burns me. The way people were carrying on I thought she was sitting on bigamy or illegitimate children tucked in an orphanage. Turns out it was just business as usual in this town. I’m sick to death of it, but it’s so goddamn usual, why did she think it would matter?”
Murray shrugged his massive shoulders. “Maybe she felt vulnerable. First woman Boots has backed in a big way. First Hispanic. Maybe she was afraid the rules would be different for her. You of all people ought to be able to figure that one out.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Suddenly I was very tired, so tired that I started drifting off to sleep while Murray asked me something about Elena. I tried to answer coherently but he saw I was struggling.
“You go back to bed, kid. Once more Wonder Woman saves the city. Go to sleep.” He patted me on the shoulder and took off, magnanimous because I’d let him garner so much glory.
It was late in the afternoon, after I’d slept a while, that Velma Riter dropped in. When Lotty told me who had come I wanted to dive back under the covers. Instead I staggered to the living room on woolly legs and braced myself for her onslaught.
She stood in the middle of the room twisting a copy of the Star around and around in her hands.
“Quite a story you were digging up,” she finally said in a voice like dry soil.
I looked at her warily. “It doesn’t seem to be hurting Roz much. Of course there’s still a month till the election.”
“I don’t know who I’m madder with—Roz for doing all this or you for turning on a sister and making it all public.”
I rubbed my face with the heels of my hands. “I don’t have a pat answer for that, Velma. Does being a feminist mean you have to support everything your sisters do? Even if you think they’re abusing you?”
“But talk to her in private, couldn’t you do that?”
“She wouldn’t let me. I tried. She just wants those golden apples too bad, Velma. I’m sure she’ll do a good job. She’ll be better than most, I expect. But she isn’t enough of a risk-taker to try for the apples without getting some worms to help her.”
Velma flung up her arms. “It’s too much. Too much for me, anyway. I should have stayed with photography—it’s safer.”
I looked at her directly. “Velma—your pictures are honest—and they involve a lot of risk—emotional risk, I’d think you’d want that in a woman you came out in public for. Well, I do. And I won’t take it, to be spun around—by anyone. And especially not by someone like Roz, trading on old loyalties and asking us to countenance—well, worms.”
“She didn’t do it for the money, you know,” Velma said.
I made an impatient gesture. “I know—she did it for her cousin, family loyalty, wanting Hispanics to have a bigger piece of county action. Just because her motives were so damned wonderful doesn’t make me like it any better.”
Velma stared at me unblinkingly for a minute. “Well, anyone looking at your body knows you take risks, Warshawski. I’ll give you that. I did resign from her staff today. She—she—” The wide, generous mouth crumpled. “She talked to me so sweet, you’d think that voice was every mother in the world singing a lullaby. That hurt. I had to quit.”
I looked at her and nodded without speaking. She winked back her tears and left abruptly.
48