Mr. Contreras switched his frown to me but didn’t try to stop me when I walked out the back door to go up to my own kitchen. As I made some fresh coffee I thought briefly about Kruger. I couldn’t get myself excited about his broad hints of malfeasance at Diamond Head. He’d been mooching around hoping for some kind of handout and would be too ashamed to admit that. If they gave him a brush-off he would exaggerate his grievance with a drunk’s paranoia, talking about a revenge that would never materialize.
Maybe someone at Diamond Head was siphoning off inventory, or tools—it wouldn’t be the only plant in Chicago where that happened. But if he thought he could blackmail them into cutting him in on some penny-ante deal, it was just typical drunken mush. And it was more likely that he’d imagined the whole thing.
Chapter 5 - Just a Neighborhood Lynch Mob
By the time I finished my exercises and started to jog up Belmont it was past eleven. The heels of my running shoes were so worn down that I had to move slowly on concrete to save my knees. The sides had frayed, too, and weren’t giving my ankles good support. Someone who runs as much as I do should buy a new pair every four months. These had gone seven and I was trying to stretch them to nine. My share of Peppy’s vet bills had eaten away my spring discretionary money; I just didn’t have ninety bucks to spare for a new pair of Nikes.
Most of the people I’d gone to law school with would have been at work for three hours or more by now. And most of them, as Freeman Carter had implied last night, didn’t have to defer a new pair of Nikes because their stupid neighbor let the dog off the leash while she was in heat.
I stopped in front of Mrs. Frizell’s house to frown at the cause of my financial woes. The black Lab and the earmuff had been in back, whining and scratching at the door, but when they heard me they raced to the front to bark at me. Inside the house I could see two other noses push underneath the ratty shade to join in the barking.
“Why don’t you do something useful?” I scolded the Lab. “Get a job, do something to support the family you started. Or go steal me a pair of running shoes from Todd Pichea over there.”
Pichea was the lawyer who wanted the neighborhood improvement association to take Mrs. Frizell to court. His frame house had been restored to a state of immaculate Victoriana, painted an eggshell tan with scalloped trim in bright reds and greens. And the yard, with its early-flowering shrubs and tightly manicured turf, enhanced the raffish-ness of Mrs. Frizell’s weed bin. It was only perversity that made me prefer the old woman’s place.
The Lab wagged his tail in genial agreement, barked at me a few times, and returned to the back. The earmuff followed. I wondered idly where Mrs. Frizell was; I’d half expected her to appear behind the noses in the front window, shaking an angry fist at me.
I did my five miles to the harbor and back and forgot about the woman and her dogs. In the afternoon I forced myself to do some routine assignments for regular clients. Daraugh Graham, my steadiest and best-paying customer, called at four-thirty. He wasn’t happy with the credentials of a man he wanted to promote. He wanted information on Clint Moss by the next afternoon, which made me grind my teeth—but quietly. Besides Peppy’s bills and new running shoes I had payments on the Trans Am and my apartment to keep up.
I wrote what information he had about Moss onto a form and labeled a manila folder with a dark-red magic marker so it would jump out of the desk at me in the morning. That was the best I could do for the day. As I typed up bills for the two jobs I’d finished the phone rang again. I was tempted to let it go, but heightened consciousness of my fiscal state made me answer it. Carol Alvarado was on the line. I wished I’d let it go.
“Vic, can I come over tonight? I need to talk to you.” I ground my teeth again, this time more audibly. I didn’t want to take sides in her struggle with Lotty: it was the easiest way to lose both their friendships forever. But
Carol pleaded, and I couldn’t help remembering all the times she’d supported me when Lotty was threatening to take a stripe out of me for bringing in either myself or a client for repairs after a dust-up. I had to accede, and as gracefully as possible.
Carol arrived at eight, bringing a bottle of Barolo. Out of her nurse’s uniform and in jeans she looked small and young, almost waiflike. I opened the bottle and poured out a couple of glasses.
“Here’s to old friendships,” I saluted her.
“And to good friends,” she responded.
We chatted idly for a few minutes before she brought up her personal business. “Has Lotty told you what I mean to do?”
“Stay home to nurse your mother’s cousin?”
“That’s part of the story. Guillermo’s been very ill, pneumonia, complications, and he’s been at County, where they don’t exactly have the resources for round-the-clock care. So Mama wants to bring him home, and of course I’ll help her look after him. With good care, skilled care, we can probably get him back on his feet, maybe for a while anyway. Lotty thinks I’m abandoning her and throwing myself away…”
Her voice trailed off and she rubbed the rim of her glass. It was thick, chunky Woolworth’s stock and didn’t make the high-pitched hum that crystal would produce.