The nurse came back out with a file. “Michael Furey, detective,” she read without looking up. She went back to the chart she’d been working on when I interrupted. The interview as clearly over.
Back in my car my arms trembled—carrying Ralph MacDonald’s flowers in had overstrained them. So Elena’d done another bunk. Should I care? The police knew about it. Presumably they’d keep an eye out for her. I had better things to do.
Instead of driving over to the Alma Mejicana offices on south Ashland, I took the Chevy back to the Prairie Shores Hotel. It started groaning again as I turned onto Indiana.
“You think you feel bad,” I grumbled. “I don’t want to be here, either. And my hands hurt.”
The palms were sore under my mitts. They throbbed against the hard steering wheel. Next car I got would have power steering.
The Prairie Shores made a fitting neighbor now for the Indiana Arms. The two blackened shells leered at each other across the street. Not even Elena could be hiding out in one of them. But there were other abandoned buildings on the block—an old warehouse, a boarded-up school, the remains of a nursing home. She could be in any of them. I didn’t have the energy to hunt through them all. Let the police do it.
I headed down Cermak at fifty, weaving in and out of traffic, sliding through red lights. I was just plain pissed. What kind of cute little game was she playing, anyway? And how much time did I have to spend playing it with her? She’d gotten someone rattled enough to try to kill her. And instead of talking to me about it she was skulking around town thinking she was a smart enough drunk to keep out of his way. Or her way, I amended conscientiously.
I turned left on Halsted in front of a madly honking, braking semi. That cooled me down pretty fast. The worst thing in the world to do with a car is use it when you’re angry. Tony had told me that, as close to angry himself as he ever got, when he took my keys away from me for a month. I’d been seventeen and it was the worst punishment I’d ever endured. It should have cured me of this kind of outburst.
I kept up a sober, alert pace the three miles to the Amphitheater. Alma Mejicana’s offices were behind it on Ashland. Tony used to take me to horse and dog shows there, but it had been a good twenty-five years since I’d been in that part of town. I’d forgotten the maze of dead-end streets between Ashland and Halsted. Even having to double back to Thirty-ninth and make my way on the main streets brought me to the contracting company in twenty minutes.
I drove slowly past their drab brick building. The door was padlocked shut. The high-set dirty windows reflected the gray morning air—no lights were on behind them. I made a careful circuit down the alley behind the building. The rear metal doors had a heavy chain slung through their handles clamped together with a businesslike American Master padlock.
I drove on through the alley and went up Ashland again to Forty-fourth. I left the Chevy at the corner, across from a handkerchief park where an old man was walking a lethargic terrier. Neither of them paid any attention to me. I walked down the alley with my head up, purposeful, I belonged there. When a Dumpster lid clattered shut behind a nearby gate, I didn’t jump, at least not very high.
With an American Master you need either an acetylene torch, a high-quality saw, or the key. I didn’t have any of those. I studied the chain regretfully. It was bigger than me too. After a complete circuit of the building I didn’t think I could get to the windows without a ladder. That left the roof, which also meant coming back and doing it at night.
Down the alley a telephone pole stood close enough to a building that I could shinny up and make my way across to Alma Mejicana. I stretched my arms up against it. The first spikes were about four feet out of reach. Still, some kind of footstool should make the climb possible.
Three flat-topped cubes of varying height lay between the pole and my target. I paced the distance. I’d only have to manage five feet at the widest jump. Even in my feeble state I ought to be able to do that in the dark.
I looked for a landmark that would let me know I’d reached Alma. The buildings facing the alley were lined with undifferentiated high wood fencing, but a garage had been built into the wall catty-corner to the contractor. I should be able to spot that with my flashlight.