“Not much. I saw Roz Fuentes on Sunday, though, out at a big shindig Boots Meagher was throwing for her.”
“I knew about it—she wanted me there, but I’m getting ready for a show. I wouldn’t even have answered your call if I hadn’t been expecting to hear from my agent.”
I made appropriate noises of congratulation, wrote down the gallery name and opening date, and apologized for disturbing her work. “You keep up with Roz?”
“I’m doing some work for the campaign.” A thread of impatience hit Velma’s voice. “Vic, I really don’t have time for a chat right now.”
“I wouldn’t be bothering you if I knew someone else to interrupt. Roz got me kind of worried, though. I wondered if she was digging herself into some kind of pit her pals ought to know about.”
“Just what did she say to make you think that?”
“Not so much what she said but what she did.” I told her about about Roz breaking away from the crowd just to sound out how much I cared about her alliance with Boots.
“You worry too much about other people’s business, Warshawski. Some people even think you’re a pain in the butt. Go catch some real criminals and leave Roz’s business alone. She’s cool,”
Her closing words made my cheeks flame. I hung up without even trying to reply. I had an ugly vision of myself as a crank and a busybody.
“She still shouldn’t have come around asking if I was going to do anything to hurt her,” I muttered aggrievedly to myself.
Hunching my shoulders, I went back outside. I was flat and I didn’t have a cash card. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with errands to replace my missing credit— to the bank to cash a check and apply for a new card. To the grocery to get some food and a new check-writing card. At four I finally took some time to go to the Daley Center and dig around a little on a background check for an old client. Velma’s words still stung so much I didn’t even try looking Roz up.
The documents library closed at four-thirty. I walked across town to my office to see what new bills had come in since Friday, stopping at a deli to pick up a giant chocolate-chip cookie and a cup of bitter coffee.
While I finished the cookie I switched on the desk lamp and called my answering service. Both Michael Furey and Robin Bessinger had phoned. And one of the managers from Cartwright&Wheeler, the insurance brokers where I’d made my presentation last Friday.
I sat down heavily. A potential client. A paying client. And I had completely forgotten to make a follow-up phone call. After spending five hundred dollars and two days on a presentation to them.
Maybe this showed the beginning of senile dementia. They say the short-term memory is the first thing to go. Harassed though I’d been yesterday by dealing with Cerise and Roland Montgomery, I still should have remembered to make a phone call that important. I looked at my pocket diary—there it was. Call Cartwright & Wheeler. I’d even put in the number and the name of the contact person.
When I phoned it was to get bad news—they’d decided they didn’t need my help at this time. Of course once they’d put off the decision the odds were against their choosing to hire me. But Velma was right—I spent so much time worrying about other people’s business, I couldn’t even keep track of my own. The vision of myself as a grotesque busybody returned. The outcome might not have been different if I’d remembered to call yesterday, but at least I’d feel like a professional instead of a fool.
14
Caught in the Act
I returned Furey’s and Robin Bessinger’s phone calls, more for something to do to stop my self-flagellation than from any real enthusiasm to talk to either. Furey wanted to apologize for his comments to me at the department yesterday and arrange a final trip to the Sox, who like the Cubs had long since faded into the sunset.
“I didn’t mean to criticize you,” he added. “It’s hard for us born-and-bred chauvinists to reform.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him with what goodwill I could muster. “I wasn’t at my best, anyway—Lieutenant Montgomery was jumping on my ass for the wrong reasons and it didn’t leave me feeling very friendly.”
After we’d talked a little about the meeting, and he’d given me some tips on the best way to handle Monty, he inquired about Elena.
I’d forgotten asking him to do a search for her. More dementia. More repellent busybodiedness. “Oh, nuts. I’m sorry—I should have told you—she showed up Sunday night safe and sound. With a truly hideous protégée.”
“Sounds bad,” he said with ready sympathy. “What was the protégée? Someone from the Indiana Arms?”
“Daughter.” I gave him a thumbnail sketch of Cerise. “Now she’s vanished into the woodwork, pregnant, addicted and all.”