“Seems to me Teddy Trant can decide that,” I said, not trying to keep sarcasm out of my voice.
“Teddy only controls one paper and one television station, and anyway, the business side doesn’t dictate to the editorial,” Alex–Sandy said.
“Yeah, and the pope has no affect on the parish churches around here. I’ll think about it and let you know. Of course, if I agree to work on it, Global signs the contract. Not you. And not Murray as your front man.” I barely kept “your stooge” from popping out.
“Come on, Vic, you know me. And Murray’s a witness.”
“We’re going to flap our little Phoenix neckties and shout the Chicago fight song to prove our loyalty to each other? We went to law school on the South Side of Chicago, not to Eton. Maybe the South Side has stuck to me more than the law, but one of the things Professor Carmichael pounded into our heads was the importance of written contracts for business agreements.”
Her wide mouth flattened into a hard line, but at last she said, “Think it over. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not making a decision that fast. I have some urgent projects in hand that I have to finish before I can consider yours. Which is why I’m working on a Sunday. By the way, Murray, what made you drop by here today? You can’t possibly have expected to find me in.”
Alex answered for him. “Oh, we stopped at your apartment first, but the old man said you were here. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to hear his description of you. As Murray can tell you, it’s likely to be colorful and unstinting.”
Why did I have to show hackle every time my fur was ruffled? No sooner had I asked myself that pointed question than I called to Murray, who was following Alex–Sandy through the door, “Was it Justin’s or Filigree where you cooked this up?”
He turned and cocked a sandy eyebrow at me. “You wouldn’t be showing some jealousy there, would you, Warshawski?”
15 Family Picnic
I stared at the computer for a while, but I couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for the Georgia trucking problem. Murray’s last remark rankled. Which meant there might be a grain of truth to it. Not that I was jealous of women he dated, danced, slept with. But we’d worked together for so long we had the shared jokes and shortcuts of old comrades. It did hurt to see him more in tune with someone like Alex Fisher–Fishbein than me. I had character, after all. All she had was power, money, and glamour.
Murray was an investigative reporter. He had the same sources I did—sometimes even better ones—for uncovering dope on entrepreneurs around town. Maybe he was offering Frenada to me as a chance to make some real money. Or because he felt guilty for selling himself to Global. Maybe I should be grateful, but all I felt was queasy.
Alex’s reason for coming to me instead of the studio’s usual security detail made a kind of sense, but not enough. When I’d talked to Frenada briefly at the Golden Glow, he’d seemed personable, quiet, not a masher. Still, one is forever reading about serial killers who seemed quiet and normal to their neighbors. And it’s true, I myself had watched Frenada accost Lacey in the middle of the Golden Glow. If he was really a stalker, then Alex was being pretty cavalier about danger to Lacey. If he wasn’t, then Global had some agenda that was going to get me in a pack of trouble if I took on their dirty work.
Frenada had said at the party that maybe I could help him—that something odd was happening in his office. My own upheaval around Nicola Aguinaldo had driven my conversation with him far from my mind. Now I wondered if Global was already doing something to discredit him. If he’d stumbled on their plan, and Global realized it, Alex might be trying to bring me in as fresh bait on the line.
I logged on to LifeStory and requested a check on Frenada, not so much because I’d decided to take the job as to look for some context around the guy. To understand his character, I’d do better to talk to the people who knew him, but I couldn’t afford to spend time with his employees or his priest or whoever in Humboldt Park if I wasn’t going to take the job.
As I tried to make up a list of tasks for Mary Louise and me to split on the Georgia inquiry, I couldn’t help thinking of Alex’s remark, that if I did the work she wanted, Global had the resources to express their gratitude. A bonus in the high five figures. I wondered how high. Fifty thousand would not only get me a new car but let me build a cushion, maybe hire someone full–time instead of relying on Mary Louise’s erratic hours. Or what if it were seventy or eighty thousand? Murray was driving a powder–blue Mercedes these days; I could pick up that red Jaguar XJ–12 I’d seen in the ads on Wednesday.