“Murray, if there was another soul on earth I could turn to right now, I would. But you are absolutely in if faced with the promise of a good story.”
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll do what I can for you.”
“Good. I’m in Hartford, Wisconsin, with Anita McGraw. I want to get her back to Chicago and keep her under close wraps until this case blows over. That means no one must have a whiff of where she is, because if they do, you’ll be covering her obituary. I can’t bring her down myself because I’m a hot property now. What I want to do is take her to Milwaukee and put her on a train and have you meet her at Union Station. When you do, get her into a hotel. Some place far enough from the Loop that some smart bellhop on Smeissen’s payroll won’t put two and two together when she comes in. Can do?”
“Jesus, Vic, you don’t do anything in a small way, do you? Sure. What’s the story? Why is she in danger? Smeissen knock off her boyfriend?”
“Murray, I’m telling you, you put any of this in print before the whole story is finished, and they’re going to be fishing your body out of the Chicago River: I guarantee I’ll put it there.”
“You have my word of honor as a gent who is waiting to scoop the City of Chicago. What time is the train coming in?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you again from Milwaukee.”
When I hung up, Anita had come back out and was waiting by the car. “They weren’t real happy about me quitting,” she said.
I laughed. “Well, worry about that on the way down. It’ll keep your mind off your troubles.”
16
Price of a Claim
We had to wait in Milwaukee until 1:30 for a Chicago train. I left Anita at the station and went out to buy her some jeans and a shirt. When she had washed up in the station rest room and changed, she looked younger and healthier. As soon as she got that terrible black dye out of her hair, she’d be in good shape. She thought her life was ruined, and it certainly didn’t look great at the moment. But she was only twenty; she’d recover.
Murray agreed to meet the train and get her to a hotel. He’d decided on the Ritz. “If she’s going to be holed up for a few days, it might as well be someplace where she’ll be comfortable,” he explained. “The Star will share the bill with you.”
“Thanks, Murray,” I said dryly. He was to call my answering service and leave a message: “yes” or “no”—no name. “No” meant something had gone wrong with pickup or delivery and I would get back to him. I wasn’t going to go near the hotel. He’d stop by a couple of times a day with food and chat—we didn’t want Anita calling room service.
As soon as the train pulled out, I headed back to the tollway and Chicago. I had almost all the threads in my hands now. The problem was, I couldn’t prove that Masters had killed Peter Thayer. Caused him to be killed. Of course, Anita’s story confirmed it: Masters had had an appointment with Peter. But there was no proof, nothing that would make Bobby swear out a warrant and bring handcuffs to a senior vice-president of an influential Chicago corporation. Somehow I had to stir around in the nest enough to make the king hornet come out and get me.
As I left the toll road for the Edens Expressway, I made a detour to Winnetka to see if Jill had gone home, and if she had turned up anything among her father’s papers. I stopped at a service station on Willow Road and called the Thayer house.
Jack answered the phone. Yes, Jill had come home, but she wasn’t talking to reporters. “I’m not a reporter,” I said. “This is V. I. Warshawski.”
“She certainly isn’t talking to you. You’ve caused Mother Thayer enough pain already.”
“Thorndale, you are the stupidest SOB I have ever met. If you don’t put Jill on the phone, I will be at the house in five minutes. I will make a lot of noise, and I will go and bother all the neighbors until I find one who will put a phone call through to Jill for me.”
He banged the receiver down hard, on a tabletop I guessed, since the connection still held. A few minutes later Jill’s clear, high voice came onto the line. “What did you say to Jack?” she giggled. “I’ve never seen him so angry.”
“Oh, I just threatened to get all your neighbors involved in what’s going on,” I answered. “Not that they aren’t anyway—the police have probably been visiting all of them, asking questions…. You get out to Winnetka all right?”
“Oh, yes. It was very exciting. Paul got a police escort for us to the clinic. Lotty didn’t want to do it, but he insisted. Then he went and got your car and we got a blast-off with sirens from the clinic. Sergeant McGonnigal was really, really super.”
“Sounds good. How are things on the home front?”