I toweled my hair dry and lay down for a short rest. I still had a third stop to make on my day of burglary, and I wouldn’t be able to manage it in my present shape. The phone woke me at nine-thirty: Mr. Contreras, wanting to know if I was angry and punishing him by hiding out upstairs.
I sat up groggily. “I fell asleep.” I cut off his apologies. “I’m glad you called—I need to get up. Be down in five minutes.”
I pulled on jeans and a white cotton shirt with long sleeves—I was still feeling chilly despite the warm summer evening. I looked at the clock again and decided to leave straight from Mr. Contreras’s. Strapping my shoulder holster on, I pushed driver’s license, money, and keys into various pockets. The picklocks dug into my thigh; I took them out and stuck them in the pocket of a denim jacket, which I put on to conceal the shoulder holster. Now I felt hot, but that couldn’t be helped.
When I got downstairs Mr. Contreras had his door open for me. “You didn’t eat, did you, doll? I’m heating your ribs in my toaster oven right now.”
He waved a bottle of Valpolicella at me, but I declined. I couldn’t afford to drink anything this late at night if I wanted to be able to move fast. He bustled off to the kitchen.
I went over to the maternity ward—I hadn’t taken time to coo over the puppies earlier. Their eyes had opened and they were making tentative sorties from Peppy’s side. She watched me closely when I picked them up to stroke them, but it didn’t upset her the way it had when they were first born.
Mr. Contreras came back with a plate of ribs, some garlic bread, and—in deference to my eating habits—a plate of iceberg lettuce. He unfolded a TV table for me and sat down with the wine. As soon as I saw the ribs I realized how hungry I was.
“Tell me about your day. You went to see Jake Sokolowski?” I asked through a mouthful of food.
“No. I just phoned him at Tonia Coriolano’s place. I didn’t figure he’d know anything about Mitch’s kid—none of us did. Mitch didn’t care enough to keep up with the boy and Rosie when they up and left thirty-five years ago.” He swallowed some wine reflectively. “Or maybe he was just too ashamed at not being able to look after them the way a man ought to do—and don’t go telling me women can look after themselves. You marry a woman and get her a baby, you’re obligated to look after them.”
After glaring at me a minute to see if I would respond to the challenge in his voice, he went on. “No, who I went to see was Eddie Mohr.”
“Eddie Mohr?” I echoed.
“The guy whose car was stolen. The one that the guys used for beating up the doc.”
“I didn’t know you knew him.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure I did, until after I checked with Jake. I mean, it’s not a common name, but there could be more than one.”
I put down my ribs, controlling an impulse to shout at him. When Mr. Contreras has hot news, he tells it in pieces and usually backward.
“I’ll bite: Who is Eddie Mohr? Besides owning the death car, of course.”
“Guy used to be president of our local. He’s a few years younger’n Jake and me, maybe only just turned seventy, so he started after us and wasn’t in our particular crowd. But of course I knew him, so I went to see him. Got a nice little house on Fortieth, east of Kedzie, lives with his wife, keeps a nice Buick. Besides the Olds that got stolen, I mean. The Buick is his wife’s car, see—the other one, the Olds, that’s his.” Mr. Contreras beamed in satisfaction at being able to report important news.
“I think I understand. What did he have to say?”
“Oh, he was real shocked. I just wanted to make sure, you know, that he really didn’t have anything to do with following your car, beating up the doc, that kind of stuff.”
I had wanted to know those things too. I would have liked to ask Eddie Mohr those questions myself. One reason for doing my own legwork is that the people’s reactions tell you more than their actual words. Of course, I could go see him myself tomorrow. I’d only be the third person to interrogate him, behind the cops and Mr. Contreras. He should have his answers totally memorized by then.
I started to ask about where Mohr parked the cars— street or garage? And did it make logistical sense that it was the Olds the hot-wirers took? And didn’t it seem like a strange coincidence that the president of the Diamond Head local was involved, however tangentially, in trying to run Lotty over when I was trying to investigate the death of an old Diamond Head employee? But Mr. Contreras wouldn’t be able to answer these questions, and it would only puncture his balloon if I asked them.
“Was he surprised to see you?” I said instead.
“Well, naturally, me turning up out of the blue after twelve years, of course he was surprised.”
“Disconcerted, do you think?”
He snorted. “I’m not sure what you’re driving at. You mean, did he act like he had a guilty conscience, yes he did—he felt guilty as all get-out when I told him who the doc was and how bad she’d been hurt. But of course he couldn’t know his car would be stolen, let alone it would be stolen to attack her with.”