Filling a glass, I took it into the bathroom with me. I dumped my funeral suit on the floor and climbed into the tub. By the time Mr. Contreras showed up with the steak, I was a little drunk and much more relaxed than I’d have thought possible a half hour before.
He had already had dinner; he brought his grappa bottle to keep me company while I ate. After a few bites I grudgingly admitted-only to myself-that he’d been right about the food: life did start to look better. The steak was done to a turn, crisply brown on the outside, red within. He’d cooked up some pan fries with garlic and brought his conscientious nod to my diet, a plate of lettuce. He was a good plain cook, self-taught as a hobby during his widowhood-he’d never done more in the kitchen than fetch beer when his wife was still alive.
I was finishing off the fries with the rest of the meat juice when the phone rang. I handed Peppy the bone she’d been eyeing-not begging for, just keeping an eye on in case someone broke in and tried to steal it-and went over to the piano, where I’d left the living-room extension.
“Warshawski?” It was a man’s voice, cold and harsh. Not one I knew.
“Yes.”
“Maybe it’s time you butted out of South Chicago, Warshawski. You don’t live there anymore, you don’t have any business there.”
I wished I hadn’t had the third whiskey and desperately tried assembling my scrambled brain. “And you do?” I asked insolently.
He ignored me. “I hear you can swim pretty good, Warshawski. But the swimmer hasn’t been born that can float through a swamp.”
“You calling on Art Jurshak’s behalf? Or Steve Dresberg’s?”
“It doesn’t matter to you, Warshawski. Because if you’re smart, you’re butting out, and if you’re not, you won’t be around to worry about it.”
He hung up. My knees felt slightly weak. I sat on the piano bench to steady myself
“Bad news, cookie?”
Mr. Contreras’s weather-beaten face showed kindly concern. On second thought, it wasn’t such a bad idea to have him with me tonight.
“Just an old-style thug. Reminding me that Chicago’s the world float-fish capital.” I tried keeping my tone airy, but the words came out heavier than I wanted.
“He threaten you?”
“Sort of.” I tried to grin, but to my annoyance my lips were trembling. The image of the rank marsh grasses, the mud, the shapeless fishing couple and their wild red-eyed dog made me shiver uncontrollably.
Mr. Contreras hovered over me solicitously; Shouldn’t I get out my Smith & Wesson? Call the police? Barricade the doors? Check into a hotel under an assumed name? When I turned down those offers he suggested I call Murray Ryerson at the Herald-Star-an act of true nobility because he had a fierce jealousy of Murray. Peppy, sensing his tension, dropped her bone and came over with a little bark.
“It’s okay, guys,” I assured them. “It’s just talk. No one’s going to shoot me. At least not tonight.”
Mr. Contreras, unable to do anything else, offered me his grappa bottle. I waved it aside. The threat had cleared out my brain; I didn’t see any point in fogging it up again with my neighbor’s repellent booze.
On the other hand, I wasn’t quite ready to be on my own again. Amid the stack of old notebooks and school papers in the back closet I dug out a worn checker set my dad and Bobby Mallory used to linger over.
We played four or five games, the dog contentedly returning to her bone in the comer behind the piano. Mr. Contreras was just getting reluctantly to his feet when the doorbell rang. The dog let out a deep bark. The old man became extremely excited, urging me to get out my gun, to let him go downstairs, telling me to go down the back way and summon help.
“Oh, nonsense,” I said. “No one’s going to shoot me in my own home two hours after a phone call-they’ll at least wait until morning to see if I’ve listened to them.”
I went to the intercom by the front door.
“Vic! Let me in! I need to see you.” It was Caroline Djiak.
I pressed the button releasing the lobby door and went out to wait in the upper hallway for her. Peppy stood next to me, her golden tail lowered and moving gently to show she was on the alert. Caroline ran up the stairs, her feet clattering on the uncarpeted risers like an ancient el rounding the curve at Thirty-fifth Street.
“Vic!” she shrieked when she saw me. “What are you doing? I thought I told you to stop looking for my father. Why can’t you just once do what I ask you to!”
Peppy, taking exception to her ferocity, began to bark. One of the second-floor tenants came to his door and yelled up at us to shut up. “Some people have to work, you know!”
Before Mr. Contreras could leap to my defense, I took Caroline firmly by the arm and dragged her into my apartment. Mr. Contreras looked at her critically. Deciding she wasn’t dangerous-at least not an immediate physical threat -he stuck a calloused hand at her and introduced himself
Caroline was in no mood for ordinary civility. “Vic, I’m begging you. I came all this way since you wouldn’t listen to me on the phone. You’ve got to leave my affairs alone.”
“Caroline Djiak,” I informed Mr. Contreras. “She’s pretty upset. Maybe you should leave me to talk to her.”
He started getting the dinner dishes together. I pulled Caroline to the couch.
“What is going on with you, Caroline? What is frightening you so much?”
“I’m not frightened,” she yelled. “I’m angry. Angry with you for not leaving me alone when I asked you to.”
“Look, kiddo, I’m not a television you turn on and off. I could overlook my conversation with your grandparents-they’re so sick nothing I could do would make any difference to them anyway. But everyone at Humboldt Chemical is lying to me about the men your mother used to work with, the ones who had the best chance of being your father. I just can’t let that go. And it’s not trivial, what they’re saying-they’re completely reinventing the last years of these guys’ lives.”
“Vic, you don’t understand.” She grabbed my right hand in her intensity, squeezing it hard. “You can’t keep crossing these people. They’re totally ruthless. You don’t know what they might do.”
“Such as what?”
She looked wildly around the room, seeking inspiration. “They might kill you, Vic. They might see you end up in the swamp the way Nancy did, or in the river!”
Mr. Contreras had stopped all pretense of getting ready to leave. I removed my hand from Caroline’s grasp and stared at her coldly.
“Okay. I want the truth now. Not your embellished version. What do you know about the people who killed Nancy?”
“Nothing, Vic. Nothing. Honestly. You have to believe me. It’s just… just…”
“Just what?” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Who threatened Nancy? You’ve been saying for the last week that it was Art Jurshak because he didn’t want her starting the recycling plant. Now you want it to be the people down at Xerxes because I’m hunting for your old man there? Goddamnit, Caroline, can’t you see how important this is? Can’t you see that this is life and death?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Vic!” She shouted so loudly that the dog started barking again. “That’s why I’m telling you to mind your own business!”
“Caroline!” I felt my voice go into an upper register and tried to get a grip on myself before I broke her neck. I moved to the easy chair next to the sofa.
“Caroline. Who called you? Dr. Chigwell? Art Jurshak? Steve Dresberg? Gustav Humboldt himself?”