Peter had been there once, when he brought his three children to Chicago for a tour several years ago. I had watched him swell visibly as he calculated the gap between our net present values.
Getting hold of him this afternoon took all my powers of persuasion, mixed in with a little bullying. My first worry, that he might be out of the country, or equally inaccessible on some golf course, proved groundless. But he had a phalanx of assistants convinced it was better to handle my business themselves than to disturb the great man. The most difficult skirmish came when I finally reached his personal secretary.
“I’m sorry, Miss Warshawski, but Mr. Warshawski has given me a list of family members who he’ll let interrupt him and your name isn’t on it.” The Kansas twang was polite but unyielding.
I watched the pigeons check themselves for lice. “Could you get a message to him? While I hold? That his sister Elena will be arriving in Kansas City on the six o’clock flight and has cab fare to his house?”
“Does he know she’s coming?”
“Nope. That’s why I’m trying to get hold of him. To let him know.”
Five minutes later—while I paid prime daytime rates to hold—Peter’s deep voice was booming in my ear. What the hell did I mean, sending Elena to him unannounced like this. He wasn’t having his children exposed to a lush like that, they didn’t have guest space, he thought he’d made it clear four years ago that he was never—
“Yes, yes.” I finally stanched the flow. “I know. A woman like Elena would just not fit into Mission Hills. The drunks there get manicures every week. I understand.”
It wasn’t the best opening to a plea for financial aid. After he’d finished shouting his outrage I explained the problem. The news that Elena was still in Chicago did not, as I’d hoped, bring him enough relief to agree to bail her out.
“Absolutely not. I made this totally clear to her the last time I helped her. That was when she foolishly squandered Mother’s house in that cockamamie investment scheme. You may remember that I retained a lawyer for her who saw that she was able to salvage something from the sale. That was it—my last involvement in her affairs. It’s time you learned the same lesson, Vic. An alkie like Elena will just milk you dry. The sooner you realize it, the easier your life will be.”
Hearing some of my own negative thoughts echoed on his pompous lips made me squirm in my chair. “She paid for that lawyer though, Peter, if I remember rightly. She hasn’t ever asked you for cash, has she? Anyway, I live in four rooms. I can’t have her staying with me. All I want is enough money to make the rent on a decent apartment for a month while I help her find a place she can afford.”
He gave a nasty laugh. “That’s what your mother said that time Elena showed up at your place in South Chicago. Remember? Not even Tony could stomach having her around. Tony! He could tolerate anything.”
“Unlike you,” I commented dryly.
“I know you mean that as an insult but I take it as a compliment. What did Tony leave you when he died? That squalid house on Houston and the remains of his pension.”
“And a name I’m proud to use,” I snapped, thoroughly roused. “And come to that, you wouldn’t have gotten your little meatball machine off the ground without his help. So do something for Elena in exchange. I’m sure wherever Tony is now he’d consider it a just quid pro quo.”
“I paid Tony back to the nickel,” Peter huffed. “And I don’t owe him or you shit. And you know damned well it’s sausages, not meatballs.”
“Yeah, you paid back the nickel. But a share of the profits, even a little interest, wouldn’t have killed you, would it?”
“Don’t try that sentimental crap on me, Vic. I’ve been around the block too many times to fall for it.”
“Just like a used car,” I said bitterly.
The line went dead in my ear. The pleasure of having the exit line didn’t compensate for losing the fight. Why in hell were the survivors in my father’s family Peter and Elena? Why couldn’t Peter have died and Tony been the one to hang around? Although not in the shape he was the last few years of his life. I swallowed bile and tried to shut out the image of my father the last year of his life, his face puffy, his body wrenched by uncontrollable coughing.
Pressing my lips together bitterly, I looked at the stack of unanswered mail and unfiled papers on my desk. Maybe it was time I got into the twentieth century while I still had a decade left to do it in. Make a big enough success of my work that I could at least afford a secretary to do some of the paperwork for me. An assistant who could take on some of the legwork.