“Well, what tasks can you turn over to someone else—the police, or perhaps Pierre Bouchard? He wants to help.”
“Yeah, the police. According to the Kelvin family, they’re doing sweet nothing about locating his murderers. I can see Sergeant McGonnigal’s point, of course: they haven’t got a clue qua clue. Trouble is, they refuse to connect Kelvin with Boom Boom. If they did that, they might be able to muscle in and get some real information out of the Port. But they think Boom Boom died accidentally. Same thing with my crash. They want that to be vandals.” I fiddled with my spoon. It was stainless steel and matched my knife and fork. Lotty had style.
“I have a kind of crazy idea. I want to go meet the Lucella at the next port she calls in and have it out with Bledsoe—find out what he’s been up to and whether Grafalk’s telling the truth and whether the chief engineer or the captain could’ve monkeyed with my car. I know there’s stuff I can do down here. But it’ll wait three or four days. I want to talk to those guys now.”
Lotty pursed her lips, dark eyes alert. “Why not, after all? They won’t be back here for—what did you say? Seven weeks? You can’t wait that long, anyway—their memories will have gone stale.”
“The way to do it is to track them down through Grain News. It lists contracts and when and where they’re to be picked up. That way, Bledsoe’s office won’t be able to warn him that I’m coming: I like to catch people au naturel.”
I got up and stacked the plates in the sink, running hot water from the tap.
“What is this?” Lotty demanded. “Your head wound must have been worse than I thought.”
I looked at her suspiciously.
“When did you ever clean up dishes within two days of using them?”
I swatted her with a dish towel and pursued my idea. It sounded good. I could get my corporate spy, Janet, to find out how much Phillips earned. Maybe she could even snatch a look at his bankbook, although Lois probably guarded that with her fiery dragon breath. If Bouchard was in town he could find out who this guy was who was interested in buying a share of the Black Hawks. That was the person who’d introduced Paige to Boom Boom last Christmas.
Lotty rubbed Myoflex into my shoulder before I went to bed and fixed me up with a sling to keep me from twisting the joint in my sleep. Nonetheless I woke the next morning barely able to use my left arm. I wasn’t going to be able to drive that damned car anyplace, and I’d planned on taking it down to my cousin’s apartment to look at his copies of Grain News. The police were through there; as soon as I collected the keys I could go back to it.
Lotty offered me her car, but I couldn’t see one-handedly driving a stick shift. I stomped around the apartment, enjoying a first-rate tantrum.
As she left for the clinic, Lotty said dryly, “I hesitate to interfere, but what problems will your rage solve? Can’t you do some of your business by phone?”
I stiffened momentarily, then relaxed. “Right, Lotty. Pit-dog Warshawski will be called off.”
She blew me a kiss and left, and I phoned Janet at Eudora Grain to see if she could find out how much Phillips earned.
“I don’t think I could do that, Miss Warshawski. Payroll information is confidential.”
“Janet, wouldn’t you like Boom Boom’s murderer caught?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking that over. I don’t see how he could have been murdered. Who would want to do it, anyway?”
I counted to ten in Italian. “Someone on your case about the information you’ve been getting me?”
Not exactly, she explained, but Lois had started asking her what she was doing in the office while everyone else was at lunch. Yesterday she’d come in just seconds after Janet closed the drawer where Mr. Phillips’s home address was filed. “If I stay late today, she’s sure to hang around to spy on me.”
I tapped my teeth with a pencil, trying to figure out some way she could get Phillips’s salary without getting into trouble. Nothing occurred to me.
“How often do you get paid?”
“Every other week. Our next paycheck is due Friday.”
“Is there any chance you could look in his wastebasket at the end of the day? A lot of people just toss their pay stubs; maybe he does, too.”
“I’ll try,” she said dubiously.
“That’s the spirit,” I said heartily. “One other thing. Could you call over to the Pole Star Line and find out where the Lucella Wieser will be in the next couple of days?”