The night air was thick and damp. As I drove south along Lake Michigan, I could smell rotting alewives like a faint perfume on the heavy air. Little fires shone here and there from late-night barbecues in the park. On the water a host of green and red running lights showed people seeking relief from the sultry air. On shore traffic was heavy, the city moving restlessly, trying to breathe. It was July in Chicago.
I got off Lake Shore Drive at Randolph Street and swung down Wabash under the iron arches of the elevated tracks, At Monroe I stopped the car and got out.
Away from the lake the city was quieter. The South Loop, with no entertainment beyond a few peep-shows and the city lockup, was deserted—a drunk weaving uncertainly down the street was my only companion. I crossed Wabash and went into the Pulteney Building next to the Monroe Street Tobacco Store. At night it looked like a terrible place to have an office. The hall’s mosaic-tiled walls were chipped and dirty. I wondered if anyone ever washed the scuffed linoleum floor. The lobby must create a reassuring impression on potential clients.
I pushed the elevator button. No response. I tried again. Again no response. I shoved open the heavy stairwell door, climbing slowly to the fourth floor. It was cool in the stairwell and I lingered there a few minutes before moving on down the badly lit hallway to the east end, the end where rents are cheaper because all the offices look out on the Wabash el. In the dim light I could read the inscription on the door: “V. I. Warshawski. Private Investigator.”
I had called my answering service from a filling station on the North Side, just a routine check on my way home to a shower, air conditioning, and a late supper. I was surprised when they told me I had a caller, and unhappy when they said he’d refused to give a name. Anonymous callers are a pain. They usually have something to hide, often something criminal, and they don’t leave their names just so you can’t find out what they’re hiding ahead of time.
This guy was coming at 9:15, which didn’t even give me time to eat. I’d spent a frustrating afternoon in the ozone-laden heat trying to track down a printer who owed me fifteen hundred dollars. I’d saved his firm from being muscled out by a national chain last spring and now I was sorry I’d done it. If my checking account hadn’t been so damned anemic, I’d have ignored this phone call. As it was, I squared my shoulders and unlocked the door.
With the lights on my office looked Spartan but not unpleasant and I cheered up slightly. Unlike my apartment, which is always in mild disarray, my office is usually tidy. I’d bought the big wooden desk at a police auction. The little Olivetti portable had been my mother’s, as well as a reproduction of the Ufizzi hanging over my green filing cabinet. That was supposed to make visitors realize that mine was a high-class operation. Two straight-backed chairs for clients completed the furniture. I didn’t spend much time here and didn’t need any other amenities.
I hadn’t been in for several days and had a stack of bills and circulars to sort through. A computer firm wanted to arrange a demonstration of what computers could do to help my business. I wondered if a nice little desktop IBM could find me paying customers.
The room was stuffy. I looked through the bills to see which ones were urgent. Car insurance—I’d better pay that. The others I threw out—most were first-time bills, a few second-time. I usually only pay bills the third time they come around. If they want the money badly, they won’t forget you. I stuffed the insurance into my shoulder bag, then turned to the window and switched the air conditioner onto “high.” The room went dark. I’d blown a fuse in the Pulteney’s uncertain electrical system. Stupid. You can’t turn an air conditioner right onto “high” in a building like this. I cursed myself and the building management equally and wondered whether the storeroom with the fuse boxes was open at night. During the years I’d spent in the building, I’d learned how to repair most of what could go wrong with it, including the bathroom on the seventh floor, whose toilet backed up about once a month.