He slapped my knee again for emphasis. I patted his hand and thanked him for the pep talk. The odd thing was, I really did feel better. I scribbled a few changes onto the ad copy, but left the gist of the message unchanged. I agreed with my neighbor that we would ask young Mitch to contact him, not me, in case he was involved in his father’s death—if he was, he might have heard my name from someone at Diamond Head.
“You want to do something else?” I asked, getting up to go. “Talk to some of the people on the block—Mrs. Hellstrom or Mrs. Tertz, maybe. See if you can find out whether Chrissie Pichea works for a living.”
Mr. Contreras assented eagerly, thrilled that I was finally considering him a full-fledged partner. He saw me to the door, talking enthusiastically until I was out of earshot.
My conversation with Lotty had made me uneasy about who might be dogging my steps. Or her steps. I wondered if we were all barking up the wrong tree—maybe she’d been attacked by relatives of a patient whom they thought she’d mistreated. I’d have to talk to Rawlings, see if he was pursuing that possibility. I certainly couldn’t mention it to Lotty, not unless I wanted the other side of the Trans Am stove in.
By the time I got to the end of the block I changed my mind. A couple of guys had been sitting in a late-model Subaru across from my building when I left. One of them climbed out of the car and started trailing me up the street. I looked around. The Subaru pulled away from the curb and dawdled behind us. I continued up Racine to Belmont; my friend stayed with me. The Subaru tagged along about half a block back. I considered taking a bus over to the el and doubling back again through the Loop, but that seemed unnecessarily time-consuming. I walked into the Belmont Diner.
It was well past the lunch hour. The place was nearly empty. The waitresses, who were relaxing with cigarettes and newspapers, greeted me with the easy camaraderie they gave their regulars. “BLT with fries, Vic? Tammy just pulled a hot batch from the grease.” That was Barbara, who usually waited on me and knew my weaknesses.
“I’ll have to take a pass today. I got a couple of guys a little too interested in me. Can I leave through your back entrance?” I looked around and saw my trailer opening the door. “In fact, here comes one of them now.”
“No problem, Vic.”
Barbara bustled me toward the back. My pal started to follow when Helen dropped a pitcher of iced tea right in front of him. I just heard her say, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry… No, don’t move, I’ll clean that right off those nice trousers of yours…” before Barbara opened the back door and pushed me into the alley.
“Thanks a bunch,” I said gratefully. “I’ll remember you guys in my will.”
“Get a move on, Warshawski,” Barbara said, pushing me smartly between the shoulder blades. “And save the soap: we all know you’ve got nothing to leave.”
Paragon of Virtue?
I ran flat out through the alley to Seminary, then made a mile-long loop around Racine so that I came to the Impala from the west. By the time I flopped into the driver’s seat I was gasping for air and had a painful stitch under my right ribs. My legs wobbling slightly on the pedals, I drove west along Barry until the street dead-ended at the river. After that I meandered around the side streets toward the Kennedy.
Barbara and her friends had clearly derailed my attackers. I was dawdling just to catch my breath while I figured out my next steps. I needed to do a library search on Jason Felitti, whose name had popped up as the owner of Diamond Head in my late-night research. I also wanted to visit the people flowing cash to Diamond Head—Paragon Steel. I flipped a mental coin: I could always use the library on Saturday. I turned north onto the expressway.
Paragon used to have their own skyscraper downtown, but they’d sold it during their cost-cutting days fifteen years ago. Their headquarters now occupied five floors of one of a nest of modest towers in Lincolnwood. The outdoor lot at the complex was packed so densely that I had to park over a block from the entrance to the first building.
From my space at the edge of the lot I could see the purple Hyatt where Alan Dorfman had breathed his last.
As I locked the Impala’s door the thought of the gunmen who’d blasted the gangster—on a nod from his driver— reminded me of my own frailty. I patted my own gun for reassurance and strolled into the lobby.
No guards or receptionists waited to direct the ignorant. I wandered around, looking for a signboard. Apparently I’d come in a back way—I had to go through a couple of corridors before I found a directory. It pointed me to the building next in line, where Paragon held floors four through eight.