“Did his not being there make any difference?”
“Without him we had a four-four tie; Petrock, as president, got to vote the tiebreaker.”
“So Danny not being there meant the strike vote went through. And making Petrock a martyr assured the vote would pass with the membership, too.” Ballard leaned forward and smiled sweetly. “So tell me, Amalia, what would make you murder someone in the local?”
Chapter Six
“I wouldn’t, not for love nor money,” she said. “Georgie took the presidency away from me, he was ruthless and ambitious, but I never looked at him as anything worse than a massive pain in the butt. And I’m all alibied up for last night anyway. I was... with somebody.”
“That’s not what I meant. As a union official—”
“What would make me kill? You mean like for personal jealousy or in some power struggle? You’d have to be talking money. Big money.”
“That’s it,” said Ballard quickly. “What could you do illegally, under the table, in the union, to get rich? Strip the pension fund the way the Teamsters did years ago? Or maybe—”
“Pension, health, welfare?” She shook her head. “Today you have to be squeaky-clean in the administration of that money. I’m a trustee on our fund, but we’ve got to have two lawyers and two outside consultants who cost us a bundle, just because the feds always have us under a microscope.”
“How about investing the funds in some sort of phony mutual fund or construction job that—”
“Same problem. If a fund investment is flaky...”
“Okay, then who profits from the local going out on strike against the St. Mark?”
“In money? Nobody.” She was quick and definitive. “In power, one man — Georgie Petrock.”
“And he’s dead. Hey! You guys are AFL–CIO, aren’t you? So how about trouble between him and the International?”
“We had a lot of tension there, yes, but kill a man over that sort of thing? No way.”
“The cops might think differently. You’re the international organizer—”
“Sure, but I agree with Georgie about the need to strike the St. Mark. Hell, union officials are extremely political.” She mused, “To keep your job you’ve got to get reelected. I suppose that theoretically a hotel or restaurant chain could dump money into a candidate for president of the union so he’d be beholden to them for a sweetheart contract or something, but—”
“Did it happen in the last election?”
“Not to me. My war chest was about twelve dollars.”
“How about Petrock?”
“Not that I heard. And he sure never acted like he owed anybody anything — or had any more money than I did.”
Dead end. So far. But she was smart. And beautiful. Maybe she’d like to come along to meet with Bart Heslip tonight. No. Bart had said alone. In a very strange tone of voice.
“Is there any way a local political or a state senator or somebody like that could be mixed up in union affairs?”
“Again, very damned difficult.”
“But not impossible?” He was pushing hard now, hearing hesitation in her voice. “What if a guy came out of this union and became a politician?”
“That’s happened a couple of times. John Burton was a bartender and I think is still a union member. Assemblyman Rick Kiely is still a member.”
“Could he throw his weight around in the union?”
She said doubtfully, “Well... you have to have money to run a political campaign, of course, but...”
“Put it this way. Does the union support certain political candidates?”
“Sure. We can do all the nitty-gritty political work for a candidate we want — get involved in his field operations, get out the vote, help run his campaign... but that’s all volunteer action. No money involved. You can’t take money from union dues or the general fund for political contributions. There’s just a whole lot of law around that stuff.”
“What if somebody is diverting funds illegally to some politician and then is covering it up with clever bookkeeping?”
“Not in a union like ours, with a lot of members and an outside accounting firm, and what the hell does any of this have to do with Danny Marenne being missing?”
He gave her another one of those dynamite grins. “Probably nothing — I’m just poking around, trying to stir up trouble.”
“You’re doing a good job.” She looked at her watch, made a face. “Shit, I’ve got to go count votes.”
Ballard paid and they started back up the hill toward the hiring hall. The clouds were breaking up, scudding away, spring sunshine slanted across their faces, warmed their cheeks. They paused on the corner below the hiring hall. Members were streaming out after the voting. Ballard gave her a DKA card.
“I’m going to keep snooping around, Amalia. If you run across someone in the union who was a special friend of Danny’s...”
She took the card. “I’ll call if I do.”
“And if I want to get in touch with you...”
“Just call the local.”
“And after hours?”
She laughed, put a hand on his arm. Enough for now. Be hard to get. “Look for me on the St. Mark picket line.”
As she strode up the street toward the hiring hall, she looked at the card. Daniel Kearny Associates. And he’s said that with Petrock murdered he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t ask around the union about Danny being missing. Maybe she’d better find out just what and who Kearny Associates were, and what they did. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have given her the card if he was worried about what she might uncover.
Not really worth the trouble. She’d probably never see him again. But he sure was cute.
Out at the Rochemont estate to announce DKA would be taking the security job, Giselle already was wondering why she had been so determined to get it. She had explained the terms of the contract to Bernardine, she had signed immediately, then Ken had said he wanted to check perimeter security.
But as he’d gotten into an old olive-green jeep that looked left over from World War II, Bernardine had gotten in beside him.
“Hngio!” he said in a sort of fierce panic. “Ngalogne!”
“Don’t be silly,” said Bernardine in a voice Giselle labeled vinegar — as opposed to honey when she spoke to or about her son. “Of course I’m going with you.”
Ken cast a despairing look over his shoulder at Giselle as they started off together, Bernardine figuratively like a teacher dragging a reluctant child off to the principal by one ear.
And now this.
“Isn’t it boss?” demanded Paul. “Isn’t it really boss?”
“It” was a miniature golf course spread over a cleared acre of land in the woods behind the house and the garden and the fairways, greens and sand traps, even a miniature water hazard. Paul handed her a putter.
She looked around the course with a sort of despair. She hated golf, and this wasn’t even real golf. Besides, she was dressed for work, not play, in a business suit and panty hose and semi-high heels and in her purse a .32-caliber snub-nose nickel-plated Colt with a shrouded hammer.
Kearny had dug it out from under a stack of old contingent files in his bottom drawer and with a straight face had insisted she carry it since she was guarding bodies. He’d done it only to bug her, of course; she’d never fired a gun in her life.
“You just... hit the ball, don’t you?” she asked weakly.
Bogart was back. “You said it, sweetheart.”
Her ball dribbled down the hill and came to rest against one of the wooden boundary fences. The fence immediately gave off an electronic spronging! sound like a pinball machine and an amplified voice yelled. “Tilt.”