He reached nervously for the wine bottle and poured the last of the Barolo into his glass. When he’d gulped most of it down he started spitting out the story, a bit at a time. He knew Art was against the recycling plant. His dad was working hard to bring new industry to South Chicago, and he was afraid a recycling plant would put some companies off-that they wouldn’t want to operate in a community where they had to go to the extra trouble of putting their wastes in drums for recycling instead of just dumping them into lagoons.
He’d told Nancy that and she had insisted on seeing any files about the project. Apparently, like me, she’d figured it wasn’t worth arguing whether Art, Sr.’s, professed reasons were the real ones.
Young Art hadn’t wanted to do it, but she’d pushed hard. They went back to the insurance office late one night and she went through Art’s desk. It was horrible, the most horrible night he’d ever spent, worrying about his father or his father’s secretary coming in on them, or one of the beat cops seeing a light and surprising them.
“I understand. The first time you break and enter is always the hardest. But why did Nancy choose this insurance file over something about recycling?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. She was looking for anything with the names of any of the companies involved in the recycling plant on it. And then she saw these papers and said she didn’t know we-my dad’s agency-handled Xerxes’s insurance, and then she read through them and said this was hot stuff, she’d better copy it and take it along. So she went down the hall to use the machine. And Big Art came in.”
“Your father saw her?” I gasped.
He nodded miserably. “He had Steve Dresberg with him. Nancy ran, but she scattered the originals all over the floor. So they knew she was copying them.”
“And what did you do?”
His face disappeared into a little ball of such abject shame that I felt almost sorry for him. “They never knew I was there. I hid in my own office with the lights off.”
I didn’t know what to say. That he could have abandoned Nancy to her fate. That he knew Dresberg had been there with his old man. And at the same time the logical part of my mind began worrying about the problem: Was it the insurance papers or was it the fact that Nancy had seen Art with Dresberg? It wasn’t surprising that the alderman had ties to the Garbage King. But it was understandable that he kept them quiet.
“Don’t you understand?” I finally cried out, my voice close to a howl. “If you’d said something about your father and Dresberg last week, we might have gotten somewhere in investigating Nancy’s death. Don’t you care anything about finding her killers?”
He stared at me through tragic blue eyes. “If it was your father, would you want to know-really know-he was doing that kind of thing? Anyway, he already thinks I’m such a failure. What would he think if I turned him in to the cops? He’d say I was siding with SCRAP and the Washington faction against him.”
I shook my head to see if that would clear my brain, but it didn’t seem to help any. I tried speaking, but every sentence I started ended in a few sputtered words. Finally I asked weakly what he wanted me to do.
“I need help,” he muttered.
“You ain’t kidding, boy. But I don’t know if even a Michigan Avenue analyst could do anything for you, and I’m damned sure I can’t.”
“I know I’m not very tough. Not like you or-or Nancy. But I’m not an imbecile, either. I don’t need you making fun of me. I can’t fix this myself I need help and I thought since you’d been a friend of hers you might…” His voice trailed off.
“Rescue you?” I finished sardonically. “Okay. I’ll help you. In exchange for which I want some information about your family.”
He looked wildly at me. “My family? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just tell me. It’s got nothing to do with you. What was your mother’s maiden name?”
“My mother’s maiden name?” he repeated stupidly. “Kludka. Why do you want to know?”
“It wasn’t Djiak? You never heard of that?”
“Djiak? Of course I know the name. My father’s sister married some guy named Ed Djiak. But they moved to Canada before I was born. I’ve never met them-I wouldn’t even have heard of Dad’s sister if I hadn’t seen the name on a letter when I joined the agency-when I asked my father he told me about it-said they’d never gotten along and she’d cut the connection. Why do you want to know about them?”
I didn’t answer him. I felt so nauseated that I leaned my head over onto my knees. When Art had come in with his face all flushed, his auburn hair wildly standing around his head, his resemblance to Caroline had been so strong that they might have been twins. He’d gotten his red hair from his father. Caroline took after Louisa. Of course. How simple. How simple and how horrifying. All the same genes. All in the same family. I just hadn’t wanted to begin thinking such a thing when I saw them side by side. Instead I’d been trying to work out some way Art’s wife could be related to Caroline.
My conversation with Ed and Martha Djiak three weeks earlier came back to me in full force. And with Connie. How her uncle liked to come around and have Louisa dance for him. Mrs. Djiak knew. What had she said? “Men have difficulty controlling themselves.” But that it was Louisa’s fault -that she’d led him on.
My gorge rose so violently, I thought I would choke. Blame her. Blame their fifteen-year-old daughter when it was her own brother who got her pregnant? My one thought was to get out of here, to get down to East Side with my gun and beat the Djiaks until they admitted the truth.
I got up, but the room swam darkly in front of me. I sat back down again, steadying myself, becoming aware of young Art talking frightenedly in the chair across from me.
“I told you what you asked. Now you’ve got to help me.”
“Yeah, right. I’ll help you. Come along with me.”
He started to protest, to demand to know what I was going to do, but I cut him off sharply. “Just come with me. I don’t have any more time right now.”
My tone more than my words stopped him. He watched silently while I got my coat. I tucked my driver’s license and money into my jeans pocket so I wouldn’t be hampered by a purse. He started to stammer some more questions-was I going to shoot his old man?-when he saw me take out the Smith & Wesson and check the clip.
“Shoe’s on the other foot,” I said curtly. “Your father’s buddies have been gunning for me all week.”
He blushed again with shame and lapsed back into silence.
I took him down to Mr. Contreras. “This is Art Jurshak. His papa may have had something to do with Nancy’s death and he isn’t feeling too kindly toward his kid right now. Can you keep him here until I can make some other arrangement for him? Maybe Murray will want to take him.”
The old man preened himself importantly. “Sure thing, doll. I won’t say a word to anybody, and you can count on her highness here to do the same. No need to go asking that Ryerson guy to do anything-I’m perfectly happy to keep him as long as you want.”
I smiled faintly. “After a couple of hours with him you may change your mind-he’s not a lot of fun. Just don’t tell anyone about him. That lawyer-Ron Kappelman-may come around. Say you don’t know where I’ve gone or when I’ll be back. And not a word about your guest.”
“Where are you going, doll?”
I pressed my lips together in a reflex of annoyance, then remembered our truce. I beckoned him into the hall so I could tell him without Art’s hearing. Mr. Contreras came quickly, the dog at his ankles, and nodded gravely to show he remembered both name and address.
“I’ll be here when you come back. I won’t let anyone lure me away tonight. But if you’re not back by midnight, I’m calling Lieutenant Mallory, doll.”
The dog padded after me to the door, but gave a little sigh of resignation when Mr. Contreras called her back. She knew I had my boots on, not my running shoes-she’d just been hoping.