I shrugged. If it had happened that way it wasn’t savory, but it was just too common to be the kind of dynamite that would cost Roz an election. If Chicago has one law that everyone obeys, it’s “Look out for your own.” Still, thinking back over Boots’s party, it seemed to me it was Luis who had warned Roz about me-it was only after he’d been talking to her, pointing at me, that she’d come back and sought me out.
I went upstairs to look at partnership and corporation filings. Roz owned a minority interest in Alma Mejicana, her cousin’s contracting business, but no one could conceivably imagine that as even a venial sin. If Ralph MacDonald had been telling the truth and Roz was hiding a youthful indiscretion, then maybe something had happened in her Mexican childhood. If so, I didn’t give a damn and I didn’t see why she would expect me to.
“None of your business, Vic,” I said aloud. “Remember-some people think you’re a pain in the butt.”
A man using the microfiche reader next to me looked up, affronted. I stared intently at the screen in front of me, pursed my lips, scribbled a note, and pretended I hadn’t heard—or said—anything.
It really was time to get to my clients. Still, I made a genuine note, writing down Schmidt’s name, Alma Mejicana, and the address on south Ashland. Maybe there was a way to get a look at his sales figures. Or I could go over to the county side and see if any contracts had been going to Schmidt recently.
That turned out to be a fruitless idea. They did keep a list of contracts, of course, but I had to know the project name to find out who’d gotten the bid. They were not going to let me go through the myriad files looking for one contractor. I sucked on my teeth. Now it was really time to get to work.
As I turned to leave, the door at the end of the corridor opened and Boots came in, a handful of men listening as he made a forceful point. He caught sight of me and gave the legendary smile and a wave on his way into his office. He hadn’t remembered me personally, but knew he knew me. It was a strange sensation—against my volition I felt myself warmed by his recognition and smiling eagerly in return.
Perhaps to dispel the hold his magic had on me I butted one step further into Roz’s business. I called Alma Mejicana, said I was with OSHA, and wanted to know where they were pouring today. The man who answered the phone, speaking minimal English in a heavy accent, couldn’t understand my question. After a few fruitless exchanges he put the phone down and went to fetch someone else.
I’d met Luis Schmidt only once, but it seemed to me that the suspicion-laden voice belonged to him. Just in case he had an acute aural memory, I sharpened my tone to the nasality of the South Side and repeated my pitch.
He cut me off before I could get my whole spiel out. “We have no problems; we don’t need anybody coming to watch us, especially not OSHA spies.”
“I’m not suggesting you do have problems.” It was hard to be glib and nasal at the same time. “We’ve been told that minority contractors in Chicago are allowed sloppier safety practices than white-owned enterprises. We’re doing a random spot check to make sure that isn’t the case.”
“That is racism,” he said hotly. “I do not allow racists to look at my work. Period. Now disappear before I sue you for slander.”
“I’m trying to help you out—” I started with nasal righteousness, but he hung up before I could finish the sentence.
Okay. Alma Mejicana didn’t want OSHA hanging around their construction sites. Nothing bizarre about that. A lot of businesses don’t want OSHA crews. So leave it alone, Vic. Get back to projects for people who are paying you.
It was that sage advice that took me over to the University of Illinois library to look up Alma Mejicana in the computer index to the Herald-Star. And to my joy they had gotten part of the Dan Ryan reconstruction. In a February 2 story the paper listed all the minority-and women-owned businesses participating in the project. The suits Luis had filed must have made an impression on the feds when they handed out the Ryan contracts. I remembered the protest from black groups over the small number of minority contractors involved; given Chicago’s racio-ethnic isolationism, I didn’t suppose they were appeased to see Alma Mejicana eating part of the pie.
With a certain amount of self-deception I could make myself believe that I would pass the Ryan construction anyway on my way back to the Loop. It wouldn’t really count as an additional detour from my legitimate business to check out Luis.
I went on down Halsted to Cermak, then snaked around underneath the expressway’s legs looking for a way to get at the construction zone. Cars and trucks were parked near the Lake Shore Drive access ramp. I pulled the Chevy off the road into the rutted ground below the main lanes of traffic and left it next to a late-model Buick.