“What are you talking about? Art’s my only child! I demand that you take me to him at once, or I’ll get the police along quicker than you can blink.” His mouth set in the angry stubborn line I’d seen on Caroline’s face a thousand times.
Art had been a power in Chicago since before I’d started college. Even without his clique controlling the City Council, there were plenty of police who owed Jurshak favors and would be happy to run me in if he wanted them to.
“Think back a quarter century,” I said softly, trying not to let anger turn my voice ragged. “Your sister’s daughters. Those luxurious afternoons when your niece danced for you while your brother-in-law was away at work. You can’t have forgotten how important you were in the lives of those two girls.”
His expression, as mobile as Caroline’s, changed from rage to fear. The wind had whipped color into his cheeks, but beneath the red his face looked gray.
“Take a walk, Manny,” he said to the stocky man at his side. “Go wait in the car. I’ll be over in a couple of minutes.”
“If she’s threatening you, Art, I oughta stay.”
Jurshak shook his head. “Just some old family problems. I thought this was going to be business when I asked you and the boys to come along. Go ahead-one of us oughta stay warm.”
The stocky man looked at me narrowly. He apparently decided the bulge in my pocket must be gloves or a notebook and headed back to the limo.
“Okay, Warshawski, what do you want?” Jurshak hissed.
“A whole bunch of answers. In exchange for answers I will not let the fact that you are a child molester with a daughter who is also your great-niece get into the papers.”
“You can’t prove anything.” He sounded mean, but he didn’t try moving away.
“Screw that,” I said impatiently. “Ed and Martha told me the whole story the other night. And your daughter looks so much like you, it’d be an easy make. Murray Ryerson at the Herald-Star would be on it in a minute if I asked him, or Edie Gibson at the Trib.”
I moved to one of the metal benches at the edge of the paving around the fountain. “We’ve got a lot to say. So you might as well make yourself comfortable.”
I saw him looking over at the limo. “Don’t even think it. I’ve got a gun, I know how to use it, and even if your boys finished me off, Murray Ryerson knows I’m meeting with you. Come sit down and get it over with.”
He came over, his head down, his hands jammed into his pockets. “I’m not admitting anything. I think you’re full of hot air, but once the press got their teeth into a story like that, they’d ruin me just with the innuendoes.”
I gave what was meant to be an engaging smile. “All you’d have to do is say I’m blackmailing you. Of course I’d run Caroline’s photo, and they’d interview her mother and all that stuff, but you could give it a shot. Now let’s see-we’ve got so much old family business to talk about, I don’t even know where to begin. With Louisa Djiak’s mortgage, or me in the mud at Dead Stick Pond, or Nancy Cleghorn.”
I spoke musingly, watching him out of the comer of my eye. He seemed a little jumpier at Nancy’s name than Louisa’s.
“I know! That report you sent to Mariners Rest for Xerxes. You’re running a fiddle on the insurance, aren’t you? What are they doing-paying a higher rate than they’re charged so you can pocket the difference? And what difference does it make if someone finds out? It ain’t exactly going to ruin you in the neighborhood. You’ve been charged with worse and been reelected.”
Suddenly the memory that had been eluding me since I talked to Caroline on Saturday popped to the surface. Mrs. Pankowski standing in her doorway, telling me her financial woes, saying Joey didn’t leave her any insurance. Maybe he hadn’t signed up for the group plan. But that was a Xerxes benefit, I thought, noncontributory life insurance. Only maybe it was term; since he hadn’t been with the company when he died, he wouldn’t be covered. Still, it was worth asking.
“When Joey Pankowski died, why didn’t he get any life insurance?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Joey Pankowski. He used to work at Xerxes. You’re the fiduciary on their LHP business, so you must know why an employee doesn’t collect life insurance when he dies.”
He looked suddenly as though he’d collapsed through the middle, I thought frantically, trying to follow up my advantage with piercing questions. But he was an old hand at taking the heat and he could tell I didn’t really have anything. He recovered enough poise to keep up a front of stubborn denial.
“Okay. Let it go. I can figure it out fast enough when I talk to the carrier. Or some other employees. Let’s go back to Nancy Cleghorn. She saw you and Dresberg together at your office, and you know as well as I do that no insurance commissioner will let you keep your license if you hang around with the mob.”
“Oh, knock it off, Warshawski. I don’t know who this Cleghorn girl is, other than reading in the papers that she got herself killed. I may talk to Dresberg from time to time -he does a lot of business in my ward and I’m the alderman for the whole ward. I can’t afford to be a dainty lady holding her nose when she smells garbage. The insurance commissioner isn’t going to think once about it, let alone twice.”
“So it wouldn’t bother you to let it be known that you and Dresberg met in your office late at night?”
“Prove it.”
I yawned. “How do you think I even heard about it? There was a witness, of course. One who’s still alive.”
Even that didn’t shake him enough for me to be able to pry anything from him. When the conversation ended I not only felt frustrated but too young for the job. Art just had too much more experience than I. I felt like grinding my teeth and saying “Just you wait, Black Jack, I’ll get you in the end.” Instead I told him I’d be in touch.
I walked away from him toward Lake Shore Drive. Sprinting across in front of the traffic, I watched him from the far side. He stood for a long moment looking at nothing, then shook himself and headed back toward his limo.
36
I retrieved my car and headed back to Lotty’s. All I’d really gotten from seeing Jurshak was information that he’d been working some kind of fraud with the Xerxes insurance. And something major, based on his expression. But I didn’t know what it was. And I needed to find out quickly, before all the people who were mad at me converged once and for all and sent me to my permanent rest. The urgency tightened my stomach and congealed my brain.
Rush-hour traffic was already thickening the main streets downtown. The menace in Humboldt’s voice this morning lingered in my ears. I drove cautiously through the February twilight, trying to make sure no one was tailing me. I drove all the way up to Montrose and exited at the park, doubling around twice before figuring I was in the clear and heading back to Lotty’s.
It didn’t surprise me that I got there before she did-to accommodate working mothers Lotty keeps the clinic open until six most evenings. I went out for some food-the least I could do in thanks for her hospitality was to have dinner ready. I started again on the chicken with garlic and olives I’d been trying to make the night before my attack, hoping that if I kept the front of my mind occupied, the back would begin to sprout ideas. This time I prepared the whole dish without interruption and set it to simmer over a low flame.
By then it was close to seven-thirty and Lotty still hadn’t returned. I began to get worried, wondering whether I should check the clinic or with Max. A late emergency might have detained her, either at the clinic or hospital. But she’d also be an easy target for anyone bent on getting revenge on me.