In addition to the inevitable dents on the fenders, the gears were hard to find and the bearings seemed to be going on the clutch. I hoped I didn’t have to get away from any place in a hurry. At least the car fit into Pilsen well.
Diamond Head was at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. I didn’t want to drive up to the front door, where I’d not only be spotted easily but could also be trapped. I parked on Thirty-second Street and walked the few blocks north to the plant.
Semis were rocking the side streets, bringing materials in and out of the nearby factories, deepening the holes in the pockmarked asphalt. I stayed off the roadway and hiked along the weedy verge, tripping occasionally on the hillocks hidden in the high grasses. By the time I got to Diamond Head’s entrance I was sweating freely and cursing myself for wearing loafers instead of my beat-up Nikes.
A few cars were parked on an asphalt square near the entrance. One was a late-model green Nissan, the others more pedestrian—Fords, Chevys, and a maroon Honda. I went over to look at it, but couldn’t tell if it was the one that had been on my tail yesterday or not.
Inside the old brick building the air was cool and quiet. I stood in the small foyer for a few minutes to recover from the heat, A hall opened in front of me, leading straight ahead to some old iron stairs and to metal double doors.
The doors and interior walls must have been built quite thick—I had to strain to hear any sounds of activity from the other side. Diamond Head made small motors for highly specialized use, primarily for controlling aircraft flaps. Maybe that didn’t involve the kind of screaming tools I associate with industrial plants.
I tried to place the entrance in relation to where Chamfers had brought me last week. I was at the south end of the building and the loading bays were on the east. When I’d come in I’d been at the north end. Chamfers’s office must he somewhere on the other side of the iron staircase directly in front of me. I’d have to make a circuit of the place.
The heavy metal doors were locked shut. I tried both sets for several minutes, straining my shoulder muscles with the effort, but I had to give it up. I could go back out and retrace my ignominious entry through the loading bay, or I could see if the iron staircase led anywhere promising.
I started up the stairs when I noticed a normal-size door behind them. It was unpainted and in the dim hall light I hadn’t seen it earlier. I came back down and tried it. It opened fairly easily and took me to the hall where Chamfers’s office lay.
Six or seven office doors topped with chicken-wire glass were cut into the hall wall on the left side. On the right, just beyond the entrance I’d used, was another set of metal double doors. I tried these out of curiosity and found myself looking at a long, open assembly room. A dozen or so women were standing at high tables putting screws or something into the machines in front of them. A lone man was going over a piece of equipment with one of them. The room could easily have handled five times that number. It looked as though Diamond Head might have fallen on hard times.
I shut the doors and went on down the hall to try to find Chamfers. Or actually his secretary. I was hoping not to see the plant manager at all. I raked my fingers through my hair, hoping to make myself look a bit more professional, and poked my nose into the first door I came to.
Like most offices carved out of industrial space the room was a tiny cube, just big enough to hold some filing cabinets and a battered desk. A middle-aged man was hunched over a stack of papers, grasping the phone in his left hand as if it might float away otherwise. A few brown strands were combed over the receding hairline in front, but he’d given up the struggle to fit into his seersucker trousers. I didn’t think he’d been part of the team I’d seen with Chamfers on Friday.
He didn’t look up when I opened the door, but continued frowning over his papers. Finally he said, “Of course you haven’t been paid. That’s because you’re not paying attention to our new payables policy. Everything has to be routed through Garfield in Bolingbroke.” He listened some more, then said, “No, it wouldn’t make sense for them to handle the orders as well. How can they possibly know out there what our requirements are? I can talk to the federal prosecutor if you won’t deliver the copper by Friday.”
They went back and forth some more on whether the feds needed to be involved. I eavesdropped unashamedly. My man apparently won, because he dusted his hands triumphantly when he hung up the phone. It was only then that he noticed me.
“I’m looking for your benefits manager,” I said.
“What for?” His victory over the copper supplier made him truculent.
“Because I have a question about some benefits. For my father, who was laid off seven weeks ago. He’s had to go into the hospital.” That seemed like a safe bet, given the empty benches in the assembly room.