“So that’s it? You just don’t like to talk about it because you feel bad that you couldn’t win for them?”
He communed again with his glasses and his tie. “Oh, that would get me down. No one likes losing, and God, you couldn’t help wanting these guys to win. But then, you know, the company could see that plant go belly-up if we set a successful precedent. Everyone who’d ever been sick or died there coming back for these big settlements.”
He stopped. I made myself sit very quietly.
At last he said, “No. It’s just that I got a threatening phone call. After the case. When we were considering the appeal.”
“That would be grounds for overturning the verdict,” I burst out. “Didn’t you go to the state’s attorney?”
He shook his head. “I just got the one phone call. And whoever called didn’t mention the case by name-just a generic reference to the dangers of using the appellate system. I’m not very tough physically, but I’m not a coward either. The call made me angry, angrier than I’ve ever been, and I pushed and prodded every way after that to build an appeal. There just wasn’t any way to.”
“They didn’t call you later to congratulate you for following their advice?”
“I never heard from the guy again. But when you showed up out of nowhere…”
I laughed. “Glad to know I could be mistaken for muscle. I may need it before the day is over.”
He blushed. “No, no. You don’t look-I don’t mean-I mean, you’re a very attractive lady. But you never know these days… I wish I could tell you something about your friend’s father, but we never talked about anything like that. My clients and I.”
“No, I can see you wouldn’t have.” I thanked him for his frankness and got up.
“If you come across anything else you think I could help you with, let me know,” he said, shaking my hand. “Especially if it might give me some grounds for a writ of certiorari.”
I assured him I would and left. I was wiser than I’d been when I came in, but no less confused.
16
It was well past noon by the time Manheim and I finished talking. I headed for the Loop and picked up a Diet Coke and a sandwich-corned beef, which I reserve for occasions when I need special nourishment-and took them to my office.
I could see Manheim’s point. Sort of If Humboldt lost a suit like that, it could spell disaster, the kind of problem that drove Johns-Manville to seek bankruptcy protection. But Manville’s situation had been different: they had known asbestos was toxic and covered up their knowledge. So when the ugly truth came out workers sued for punitive damages.
All Humboldt would have faced was a series of comp claims. Even so, that might be sticky. Say they’d had a thousand workers at the plant over a ten-year period and they all died: at a quarter of a million a pop, even if Ajax was paying for it, that was a lot of balloons.
I licked mustard from my fingers. Maybe I was looking at it wrong-maybe it was Ajax not wanting to make the payout-Gordon Firth telling his good buddy Gustav Humboldt to cool out any attempts to reopen the case. But Firth couldn’t have known I was involved-the word wouldn’t have run around Chicago that fast. Or maybe it would. You’ve never seen gossip and rumor mills until you’ve spent a week in a large corporation.
And then, why had someone threatened Manheim about the appeal? If Humboldt was dead to rights on the legal issues, there wasn’t any percentage in going after Manheim -it would just cause a judge to vacate the decree. So it couldn’t have been the company trying to brush him back.
Or maybe it was some very junior person. Someone who thought he could make a name for himself in the company by putting a little muscle on the plaintiffs. That wasn’t a totally improbable scenario. You get a corporate atmosphere where ethics are a little loose and subordinates think that the way to management’s heart is across their opponents’ bodies.
But that still didn’t explain why Humboldt had lied about the suit. Why dump a charge of sabotage on the poor bastards when all they wanted was some workers’ comp money? I wondered if it would be worthwhile to try to speak to Humboldt again. I visualized his full, jovial face with the cold blue eyes. You have to swim carefully when your waters are shared by a great shark. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to the big man just yet.
I groaned to myself The problem was spreading out in front of me like ripples in a pond. I was the stone dropped in the middle and the lines were moving farther and farther away from me. I just couldn’t handle so many intangible waves on my own.
I tried to turn my attention to some problems that had come in the mail, including a notice of insufficient funds to cover the check of a small hardware store whose pilfering problems I’d solved a few weeks ago. I made a call that brought me no satisfaction and decided to pack it in for the day. I’d just slung my mail into the wastebasket when the phone rang.
An efficient alto told me she was Clarissa Hollingsworth, Mr. Humboldt’s personal secretary.
I sat up in my chair. Time to be alert. I wasn’t ready to go to him, but the shark wanted to swim to me. “Yes, Ms. Hollingsworth. What can I do for Mr. Humboldt?”
“I don’t believe he wants you to do anything,” she said coolly. “He just asked me to pass on some information to you. About someone named-uh-Louisa Djiak.”
She stumbled over the name-she should have practiced pronouncing it before phoning.
I repeated Louisa’s name correctly. “Yes?”
“Mr. Humboldt says he talked to Dr. Chigwell about her and that it is probable that Joey Pankowski was the child’s father.” She had trouble with Pankowski too. I expected better from Humboldt’s private secretary.
I took the receiver away from my ear and looked at it, as though I could see Ms. Hollingsworth’s face in it. Or Humboldt’s. At last I held it back to my mouth and asked, “Do you know who did the investigation for Mr. Humboldt?”
“I believe he interested himself directly in the matter,” she said primly.
I said slowly, “I think Dr. Chigwell may have misled Mr. Humboldt. It’s important that I see him to discuss the matter with him.”
“I doubt that very much, Ms. Warshawski. Mr. Humboldt and the doctor have worked together a long time. If he gave Mr. Humboldt the information, you may certainly depend on it.”
“Perhaps so.” I tried to make my tone conciliatory. “But Mr. Humboldt told me himself that his staff sometimes try to protect him from unfortunate events. I suspect something like that may have been going on in this case.”
“Really,” she said huffily. “You may work in an environment where people can’t trust each other. But Dr. Chigwell has been a most reliable associate of Mr. Humboldt’s for fifty years. Maybe someone like you can’t appreciate it, but the idea of Dr. Chigwell lying to Mr. Humboldt is totally ludicrous.”
“Just one thing before you hang up in righteous indignation. Someone misled Mr. Humboldt terribly about the true nature of the suit Pankowski and Ferraro brought against Xerxes. That’s why I’m not too confident about this last bit of news.”
There was a pause, then she said grudgingly, “I’ll mention the matter to Mr. Humboldt. But I doubt very much that he’ll want to talk to you.”
That was the best I could get from her. I frowned at the phone some more, wondering what I would say to Humboldt if I saw him. Fruitless. I locked up the office and drove up to the little hardware store on Diversey. They hadn’t wanted to talk to me on the phone, but when they saw I was prepared to be vocal in front of their customers they took me into the back and reluctantly wrote out another check. Plus the ten dollars handling for the bad one. I paid it directly into my bank and went home.