He rubbed his eyes. “Oh, nuts, Vic. I could sleep in here on your couch, but there’d be hell to pay at the station for why I didn’t call in a team as soon as I saw it. Let alone why I spent the night here. I’ve got to call it in. Didn’t you say you’d crash at your neighbor’s?”
“I said it, but I don’t want to do it. Look, call the boys in blue if you have to, but let me go to bed.”
He agreed after an examination of the bedroom. My clothes had been turned out of their drawers, but no furniture was broken. I looked in the closet. They’d rifled the clothes, but had missed the little wall safe at the back. Amateurs. And angry, at that.
“You know anything about this, Ms. W.? Why someone would go to all the trouble? You know, if they were just street punks they would’ve given up after they found they couldn’t trash the front door.”
“My brain isn’t working, Sergeant. Call your pals if you want, but leave me alone.” My voice was cracking now, but I was past minding.
Rawlings gave me a long look, seemed to decide he wouldn’t get anything more out of me even if he beat me, and walked back down the hall to the living room. I could hear his mike crackling as he went.
Even so, I couldn’t go to bed until I’d stood under the shower for twenty minutes, washing the grime from the canal out of my pores. The troops were arriving as I returned to my bedroom. I ostentatiously slammed my door, then fell deeply and heavily asleep, into dreams of climbing walls, trying to reach a Buddha who sat always just out of my reach while giant men chased me in trucks. At one point I slipped and fell from a high scaffolding. Just before smashing into the concrete I woke with a jolt. It was twelve-thirty.
I made a half-hearted effort to get up, but my legs and arms seemed too thick to move. I sank back against the mattress and watched sun motes dancing between the top of the curtains and the ceiling.
If someone asked me to recommend a good private eye about now, I’d have to send them to one of the big suburban firms. I was trying to be an advocate for a woman sunk deep in senility whose life when sane had been pretty dreadful. After a week of prodding Diamond Head Motors to give me information on Mitch Kruger, the only thing I had to show for my pains was sore muscles, a rusty gun, and a busted-up apartment. Oh, no. Also a two-thousand dollar repair bill for the Trans Am. And Lotty Herschel hurt, scared, and angry up in Evan-ston.
“What a tiger,” I said aloud in bitter mockery. “What a fucking useless waste of time you are. You ought to go back to serving subpoenas. At least that’s something you know how to do. Although you’d probably trip over your feet and break your neck going upstairs.”
“You always talk that loud to yourself, Warshawski? No wonder the neighbors complain about you.” Conrad Rawlings appeared in the doorway.
I had jumped out of bed when I first heard a voice, looking wildly around my bedroom for a defensive weapon. When I saw who it was, my cheeks burned. I grabbed a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts at random from the floor and pulled them on.
“You always walk unannounced into people’s bedrooms? If my gun didn’t need cleaning, you might be dead. I should haul your ass into court.”
Rawlings laughed and handed me a cup of coffee. “Officer of the law serving and protecting, Ms. W. Although after the way you failed to cooperate last night, I shouldn’t bother.”
“Failed to cooperate? I give you guys a story on a platter and all you do is harass me over a stupid broken window… You spend the night here, or just let yourself in first thing in the morning?”
He sat on the end of the bed. “We finished up here around seven. I saw you had a set of spare keys; I was going to borrow them so I could lock up behind me. Then your old boy downstairs intercepted me on my way out. He cross-examined me pretty hard, and when he made up his mind I wasn’t a punk he gave me his version of the facts. We decided I should come back in. I slept on the couch. Wasn’t too uncomfortable, really. Besides, I already got four or five hours before the Finch woke me up. You can thank me later for picking up the papers and washing your dishes.”
I curled my legs up under me on the bed. “I’ll put an extra five in your pay envelope. I take it your boys didn’t find much of anything?”
He pulled a wry face. “Whoever came in was wearing gloves and size ten Reeboks—they found a print in the dust by the window. Maybe there’s something to be said for bad housekeeping.”
I gave a tight smile. “I don’t need the commentary, Sergeant. What about the neighbors? They must have seen someone on a ladder.”