“You want to go home?” I asked Mr. Contreras. “Now, look here, Vic Warshawski: you are not going to drag me all over Chicago and then dump me at home like you think I was senile and couldn’t understand a few English sentences. I want to know why you left that Impala down by Barney’s and what all the fuss is. And if you’re up to something else tonight you’d better either plan on me coming with you or just sitting in the car till the sun comes up, ‘cause you ain’t pushing me out of here. Unless you’re planning on hooking up with Conrad—” The last word was laced with an adolescent ugliness.
“As a matter of fact, I’d be just as happy for Conrad not to catch up with me again tonight.” I wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right and pulled over to the curb, where I gave him a thumbnail sketch of the problems I’d been pondering during the cab ride north. On top of those I was wondering what Vinnie or the Picheas might do now that I’d discovered their slick pitch to the old people in the neighborhood. This was the first chance I’d had to tell Mr. Contreras about it. He was shocked and angry and we got diverted for a bit by a sermon against those who prey on the elderly.
“Vinnie’s a spiteful kind of guy,” I said when he’d wound down. “Who knows what he might think up to get even. Anyway, I don’t know why I’m still walking around if Milt Chamfers would shoot Eddie just so as to keep him from talking to me. I’m worried that you could be in danger, too, just because you’ve been hanging out with me—calling Eddie Mohr, going with me to see him, all those things.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me, doll,” he said roughly. “Not that I want to die, but if someone shoots me it’s not like I didn’t have a good life. What are you going to do tonight?”
“I need to find a place with a phone. But what I really need is to get into Dick’s office.”
“The first Mr. Warshawski,‘” the old man repeated with relish. “But what for?”
“That’s where it all comes together: the Diamond Head bonds Mrs. Frizell bought from Chrissie Pichea; Chicago Settlement; and Diamond Head itself-—Dick did the legal work. I just don’t see how else to get it without looking at his files. And I don’t know how to get in there.”
“You can’t pick the lock?”
“I lost my picklocks in the San the other night, but that’s not really the problem. A big law firm like that, the juniors are working until all hours. I don’t know how to get in without being caught. And I don’t know how else to get what I need to know.”
He thought it over for some time. “You know, doll, I’ve got an idea. I’m not saying it’s a great idea, and it’d need some work, but you know who gets into places like that without anybody paying any mind to them?”
“Cleaning crews, but—”
“And workmen,” he interrupted triumphantly. “They’re just part of the furniture to management squirts.”
Chapter 40 - New Duds—But Not from Saks
Mr. Contreras had to go home to feed Peppy and let her out. We decided that I would drop him on Diversey and pick him up on Barry, at the top of our alley. I wasn’t very happy with the plan, but had to agree that anyone staking out the place was more likely to be gunning for me than for him.
I spent the next half hour in misery. I couldn’t take the car up Racine in case they had someone smart enough to be looking for me regardless of what I was driving. I went the long way around to Barry and sat hunched down in the driver’s seat, my gun out, straining my ears for any sounds of violence so that I might race to Mr. Contreras’s rescue. When he appeared at the mouth of the alley my stomach heaved uncontrollably; I retched up a mouthful of bile, just getting my head out of the car in time.
Mr. Contreras, torn between excitement and worry, offered me his giant handkerchief to clean my mouth. I used it a little ruefully. Marlowe never let his nerves get the better of him.
My neighbor had brought a couple of faded boilersuits with him, along with an outsize toolbox. We dumped the load in the back. I wrenched at the steering wheel and moved out of the neighborhood. Before we did anything else I needed a glass of water and something to eat—other bodily needs that never seemed to afflict the great detectives.
We found an all-night diner on Clark and stopped for sandwiches. As the Near North Side grew ever more yuppified this was one of the few remaining places for cops, delivery drivers, and others on the graveyard shift.
Mr. Contreras excused himself after he’d eaten half his ham sandwich. “I just thought of something, doll. You stay here and act natural.”
He was gone before I could protest, leaving me in mixed astonishment and anger. I am definitely not the waiting type. This was my second chance this evening to reflect on how evil I’d been all those times I’d left my neighbor pacing the floor unhappily at night while I jumped from gantries. I’m not sure either my character or my disposition was improved by the reflections.
After he’d been gone five minutes I took the bill to the cashier. I was on my way out to look for him when he came in, a look of such self-satisfied mischief on his face that my ill humor died down.
“Oh, there you are, doll. I thought you was going to wait for me.”
“I paid the bill. Someone’s just about to pick up the rest of your sandwich. You want to rescue it?”