I stopped behind the newsstand to stare at him. “I don’t think any of them is related to Radbuka. That’s why I’m so annoyed that Ms. Wiell has Max’s name now. I know, I know,” I added, as he started to interrupt, “you didn’t really give it to her. But she’s so focused on her prize exhibit’s well-being that she’s not thinking outside that landscape now to anyone else’s needs.”
“But why should she?” he asked. “I mean, I understand that you want her to be as empathic to Max or Dr. Herschel as she is to Paul Radbuka, but how could she be that concerned about a group of strangers? Besides, she’s got such an exciting event going on with what she’s done with this guy that it’s not surprising, really. But why are your friends so very defensive if it isn’t their own family they’re worrying about?”
“Good grief, Don—you’re almost as experienced as Morrell in writing about war-scarred refugees. I’m sure you can imagine how it must have felt, to be in London with a group of children who all shared the same traumas—first of leaving their families behind to go to a strange country with a strange language, then the even bigger trauma of the horrific way in which their families died. I think you’d feel a sense of bonding that went beyond friendship—everyone’s experiences would seem as though they had happened to you personally.”
“I suppose you’re right. Of course you are. I only want to get in with Rhea on the story of the decade.” He grinned again, disarming me, and pulled the half-smoked cigarette out of his pocket again. “Until I decide to let Rhea cure me, I need to get this inside me. Can you come over to the Ritz with me? Share a glass of champagne and let me feel just a minute moment of euphoria about my project?”
I still wasn’t in a very celebratory mood. “Let me check with my answering service while you go over to the hotel. Then a quick one, I guess.”
I went back to the corner to use the pay phones, since my cell phone was dead. Why couldn’t I let Don have his moment of triumph, as he had put it? Was he right, that I was only resentful because Rhea Wiell wouldn’t give me Radbuka’s phone number? But that sense of an ecstatic vision when she was talking about her triumph with Paul Radbuka had made me uncomfortable. It was the ecstasy of a votary, though, not the triumphant smirk of a charlatan, so why should I let it raise my hackles?
I fed change into the phone and dialed my answering service.
“Vic! Where have you been?” Christie Weddington, a day operator who’d been with the service for longer than me, jolted me back to my own affairs.
“What’s up?”
“Beth Blacksin has phoned three times, wanting a comment; Murray Ryerson has called twice, besides messages from a whole bunch of other reporters.” She read off a string of names and numbers. “Mary Louise, she called and said she was switching the office line over to us because she felt like she was under siege.”
“But about what?”
“I don’t know, Vic, I just take the messages. Murray said something about Alderman Durham, though, and—here it is.” She read the message in a flat, uninflected voice. “‘Call me and tell me what’s going on with Bull Durham. Since when have you started robbing the widow and orphan of their mite?’”
I was completely bewildered. “I guess just forward all those to my office computer. Are there any business messages, things that don’t come from reporters?”
I could hear her clicking through her screen. “I don’t think—oh, here is something from a Mr. Devereux at Ajax.” She read me Ralph’s number.
I tried Murray first. He’s an investigative reporter with the Herald-Star who does occasional special reports for Channel 13. This was the first time he’d called me in some months—we’d had quite a falling out over a case that had involved the Star’s owners. In the end, we’d made a kind of fragile peace, but we’ve been avoiding involvement with each other’s cases.
“Warshawski, what in hell did you do to yank Bull Durham’s chain so hard?”
“Hi, Murray. Yes, I’m depressed about the Cubs and worried because Morrell is leaving for Kabul in a few days. But otherwise things go on same as always. How about you?”
He paused briefly, then snarled at me not to be a smart-mouthed pain in the ass.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” I suggested. “I’ve been in meetings all morning and have no idea what our aldercreatures have been saying or doing.”
“Bull Durham is leading a charge of pickets outside the Ajax company headquarters.”
“Oh—on the slave-reparations issue?”
“Right. Ajax is his first target. His handouts name you as an agent of the company involved in the continuing suppression of black policyholders by depriving them of their settlements.”
“I see.” A recorded message interrupted us, telling me to deposit twenty-five cents if I wanted to continue the call. “Gotta go, Murray, I’m out of change.”