“It needs cleaning,” I heard myself saying. “Cleaning and oiling. It’s been underwater, you see.”
“She needs a doctor and a hot bath, but she wouldn’t tell us who to call.” The sergeant was talking about me as if I were lying dead in the next room.
I patted myself under the blanket. They’d left the holster. My belt with its seven-hundred-dollar picklocks was gone, though. I could just remember struggling free of it underwater, when I shed my jacket and kicked off my shoes, trying to lighten my load. My wallet was. still in my back pocket. The cops could have picked it and found my address easily enough, but they were mostly concerned that I not throw myself back into the steamy waters of the Sanitary Canal.
“Want to talk about it, Warshawski? Klimczak from the water patrol says you insisted on seeing me. I got out of bed to meet you—-I’m not going to be a happy cop if you clam up on me now.”
Finchley’s sharp tone brought me back to the bare Area One interrogation room. In his starched shirt and knifepoint trouser creases he didn’t appear to have just tumbled out of bed. Rawlings, whom he’d called at some point in the proceedings, looked more the part in a rumpled T-shirt and jeans. His eyes were red and he seemed angry, or jumpy, or some combination of the two. I was having too much trouble staying awake to sort out the nuances behind their speech.
“I’m afraid I’m going to get cholera. From the canal, I mean. But I didn’t have any choice. They would have run me over if I hadn’t gone in.” Under the blanket my hair felt matted with sewage.
Finchley nodded as if my words had made perfect sense.
“Who?” Rawlings exploded. “Who would have run you over? And what the hell were you doing there? Klimczak was worried you were suicidal, but I told him not a hope of that.”
“Figure it out, guys.” My words came out slowly, from a great distance. I couldn’t make myself talk faster. “You know what’s going on at Diamond Head, right? I mean, to you, nothing. Nothing’s happening there. To me, it’s where a man got killed. And the head of the plant won’t talk to me. And Jason Felitti, who owns it, throws me out of his house. So I went down to have a look for myself. And voila!”
I waved a hand like a comic-book drunk. I couldn’t seem to control such extravagant gestures.
“And voila what?” Finchley prodded.
I jerked my head upright—I’d started to drop off again. “They were loading Paragon copper onto trucks in the middle of the night.”
“You want me to arrest them, Warshawski?” Rawlings demanded.
I looked at him owlishly. “It’s a thought. A definite thought. Why do they have spools of Paragon copper to begin with? No, that’s an easy question. They bought it to make their little engine gizmos with, I guess. Why are they shipping it out? Secretly in the dark? That’s the hard question.”
“How do you know they’re doing it secretly? An active business might ship supplies at any time.” Finchley crossed his legs and adjusted the crease.
“They were loading it onto closed trucks. Spools go on flatbeds. Anyway, when they saw me watching them, why didn’t they call you guys? Why’d they chase me into the canal instead?”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Finchley’s ebony face. “If you caught someone on your premises, I doubt your first act would be to call me, Vic. I expect you’d get up a load of steam and drive them off yourself if you could.”
I couldn’t prod my brain into making cogent arguments. “I shot at them. I think I hit one guy. Has anyone reported that? Maybe come around wanting to file charges?”
Finchley’s brows went up at that. He gestured at a corner and I saw a uniformed woman get up and slip out the door. I hadn’t noticed her until then.
“Mary Louise Neely,” I said out loud.
“Yes, that’s Officer Neely,” Finchley said. “She’ll check on your wounded man. So what’s the point, Warshawski? You’re trying to build a case against Diamond Head, but it’s not holding water—-forgive the expression. A drunken old man hits his head and dies and falls or is rolled into the canal. It’s too bad, but it doesn’t mean every corporation in Chicago has to roll over and do tricks because you’re steamed about it.”
The edge to his words whipped blood to my cheeks and momentarily cleared my brain. “Right, Finchley. I tried calling you tonight because you—no, it was Rawlings here, but I expect you knew about it—called Dr. Herschel to complain I was holding out. You get my message?”