She handed me a quarter and waved away my efforts to leave it on the bar top. “Hope you find him, honey. These old drunks eat up a lot of family time.”
I stood on the curb trying to figure out my next move. Mrs. Polter had disappeared from her front porch and I didn’t see her three tormentors anywhere on the street. A tired woman with two small children in tow was coming up the sidewalk. Another woman was heading into the Excelsior Tap three doors down from Tessie’s. Not much street life for a June afternoon.
Tessie was right. If Kruger was going on a bender, he wouldn’t do it here. He’d go back to his old neighborhood and drink at his usual tavern. I should have gotten his previous address from Mr. Contreras before I started searching. I could call my neighbor—there was a pay phone at the corner—but I didn’t have the stomach for any more landladies or beer this afternoon.
I climbed back into my car. It was only four-fifteen. Someone might still be in the office at Diamond Head. If I didn’t go there now it would be Monday before I could check them out.
The plant proved difficult to find. The address, on the 2000 block of Thirty-first Street, was clear enough, but I couldn’t seem to get at it. I went up Damen, which crosses the canal at Thirty-first Street, and found a promising road that snaked along the legs of the expressway. Weeds already grew waist-high there, partly concealing discarded mattresses and tires. Semis roared past me, taking the curves at fifty. I realized too late that we were being decanted onto the Stevenson.
By now rush-hour traffic had turned the two miles to Kedzie into a twenty-minute drive. When I got off, I didn’t try to make the return on the expressway. Instead I rode down Thirty-ninth Street and came back up to Damen. This time I parked the Trans Am at the bottom of the bridge and walked up the pedestrian path to the disused drawbridge tower in the middle.
It had been years since anyone had last used the tower. Its windows were boarded shut. The locks on the small iron door were so badly rusted that they couldn’t have been opened even if you had a key. Someone had announced the presence of the Insane Spanish Cobras along one wall; a giant swastika filled another.
The parapet had also rusted badly. A number of the rails had come loose. I didn’t risk leaning over it—a misstep would land me headfirst on the log pilings tied up underneath. Instead I lay flat on my stomach on the walk and peered below.
Weyerhauser’s giant yards stretched away to the east, with some scrap yards alongside them. Directly beneath me were the scruffy trees that grew at the water’s edge. They shielded most of the nearby rooftops from my view, but two down on the left I could make out an A and an ND. It didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to deduce that they might be from the word “Diamond.”
If I had a boat, I could sail right up to its doors. The trick was getting to it from land. I walked back down the bridge and followed a narrow sidewalk past a row of bungalows built along the road. The houses seemed much older than the bridge, which rose above their tiny dormer windows, blocking their light.
The walk dead-ended at a cyclone fence bordering the canal. I followed the fence, trying to avoid the worst of the refuse that was dropped along it, but tripped a few times on cans hidden in the high prairie grasses. After twenty feet or so of dirty hiking I came to a concrete apron. Right next to it was a loading dock. Trucks were backed into the docks, looking like horses tied up at a giant stable getting their oats.
I squinted up at the lettering that ran around the roof. Gammidge Wire. I followed the apron around the building and finally came to Diamond Head.
Only one truck stood in the open bays at the engine plant. I was afraid that my exploration of the South Side had made me too late to find anyone, but I went over to the truck to inquire.
A man in a coverall stood at the bottom of the loading platform, his back against the truck. He was a huge guy, his head topping my five-eight by a good nine inches. The diesel was running, vibrating the body of the truck and making such a racket that I had a hard time getting his attention. I finally touched his arm. He jumped and swore.
“Who are you and what in hell do you want?” I couldn’t hear him over the engine racket, but he mouthed the words pretty distinctly.
He had a big, square face with a scar running down his left jaw. His nose had been broken more than once, judging by the number of twists it took before settling on the right side of his face. I took a step back.
“Anyone inside I can talk to?” I bellowed.
He put his face down close to mine. “I asked who you was, girlie, and what in hell you want here.”
The backs of my knees prickled, but I eyeballed him coldly. “I’m V. I. Warshawski. I want the shop steward. That help you any?”