I ordered another and a hamburger and french fries. Some instinct told me that calories under these circumstances would do me nothing but good. I pressed the plastic mug against my tired forehead. So Mattingly had left already. On his way back to Chicago by car, unless he’d had a private plane waiting for him at Sault Ste. Marie’s little airport.
I ate the hamburger, a greasy, hardened black slab, greedily in a few bites. The best thing for me to do was call Bobby and tell him to look out for Mattingly when he got back to Chicago. After all, I couldn’t chase him.
As soon as I finished the french fries, I went in search of a pay phone. There was one outside the observation booth, but eight people were lined up waiting to use it. I finally found another three blocks down, in front of a burnt-out motel. I called the Sault Ste. Marie airport. The one daily flight for Chicago left in two hours. I booked a seat and found a Sault Ste. Marie taxi company which sent a cab over to take me to the airport.
Sault Ste. Marie is even smaller than Thunder Bay. The airport was a hangar and a hut, both very weather-beaten. A few private planes, Cessnas and the like, stood at the edge of the field. I didn’t see anything that looked like a commercial plane. I didn’t even see any people. Finally, after ten minutes of walking around, peering in corners, I found a man lying on his back under a tiny plane.
He slid out reluctantly in response to my shouts.
“I’m looking for the plane to Chicago.”
He wiped a greasy hand across an already grimy face. “No planes to Chicago here. Just a few private planes use this place.”
“I just called. I just made a reservation.”
He shook his head. “Commercial airport’s twenty miles down the interstate. You’d better get down there.”
My shoulders sagged. I didn’t know where to find the energy to go another twenty miles. I sighed. “You have a phone I could use to call a cab?”
He gestured toward the far end of the dusty building and turned to crawl back under the plane.
A thought occurred to me. “Martin Bledsoe keep his plane here or down at the other place?”
The man glanced back up at me. “It was here. Cappy flew it out about twenty minutes ago.”
“Cappy?”
“His pilot. Some guy came along, said Bledsoe wanted Cappy to fly him to Chicago.”
I was too tired to feel anything-surprise, shock, anger-my emotions were pushed somewhere far away. “Guy have bright red hair? Scar on the left side of his face?”
The mechanic shrugged. “Don’t know about the scar. He had red hair all right.” Cappy was expecting the guy-Bledsoe had phoned and told him the night before. All the mechanic knew was he’d given Cappy a course to Chicago. Weather still looked clear across Lake Michigan. They should make it in by six or so. He crawled back under the plane.
I staggered across the floor and found a phone, an old black clunker in the style GTE is ashamed to sell nowadays. The cab company agreed to send someone out to meet me.
I crouched on the sidewalk in front of the hanger while I waited, too weary to stand, fighting sleep. I wondered dreamily what I’d do if the taxi couldn’t get me to the other airport on time.
I had a long wait. The cab’s honking horn aroused me from a doze and I got stiffly to my feet. I fell asleep again on the drive south. We made it to the Chippewa County International Airport with ten minutes to spare. Another tiny terminal, where a friendly fat man sold me a ticket and helped me and two other passengers board the propeller plane.
I thought I would sleep out the flight, but I kept churning thoughts around uselessly during the interminable journey. The plane stopped at three little Michigan towns. I endured the flight with the passivity born of too much emotion. Why would Bledsoe have blown up his own ship? What else was Mattingly doing for him? Bledsoe had blandly offered to let me look at his financial papers. And that meant the real documents were hidden someplace else with fake books available for bankers and detectives. But he had really been in shock when the Lucella blew up. That gray face wasn’t faked. Well, maybe he just wanted to incapacitate her slightly, to collect enough insurance to meet his financial obligations. He didn’t want his pride and joy blown to bits, but Mattingly had gotten hold of the wrong kind of explosive. Or too powerful an explosive. Anyway, he’d way exceeded his instructions.
Why had Bledsoe offered me a ride in his plane if he was turning it over to Mattingly, anyway? Maybe he knew he wouldn’t have to make good on the offer. Or, if he expected the Lucella to be damaged only slightly, he could have taken off. But then how would he have explained Mattingly tome?
Round and round I went on these useless speculations, giving myself nothing but a headache. At the root of it all, I felt very bitter. It looked as though Bledsoe, who talked to me charmingly last night about Veter Grimes, had fooled me. Maybe he thought I’d be an impartial witness to his surprise at the wreck. I didn’t like the wound to my ego. At least I hadn’t gone to bed with him.
At O’Hare I looked Mattingly up in the phone book. He lived near Logan Square. Late as it was, exhausted, my head pounding and my clothes in ruins, I took a cab straight down there from the airport. It was nine-thirty when I rang the bell of a tidy bungalow in the 3600 North block of Pulaski.
It was opened almost immediately by Howard’s young, helpless wife, Elsie. She was struggling with the latter stages of pregnancy and she gasped when she saw me. I realized I must present a shocking sight.
“Hello, Elsie,” I said, walking past her into a tiny vestibule. “I’m V. I. Warshawski-Boom Boom’s cousin. We met a couple of times at hockey parties-remember? I need to talk to Howard.”
“I-Yes, I remember you. Howard-Howard’s not here.”
“No? You’re sure he’s not upstairs in bed asleep or something?”
Tears started rolling down her round, girlish cheeks. “He’s not here. He isn’t. Pierre-Pierre has called three times, and the last time he left a threat. But really, I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him for four days. I thought-I thought he was at-at the Coeur d’Argent with Pierre. But he wasn’t and I don’t know where he is and the baby may come any day and I’m so scared.” She was really sobbing now.
I coaxed her into the living room and sat her down on a bright blue sofa covered with plastic. A stack of knitting lay folded neatly on the veneer coffee table-she had obviously filled her lonely, frightened days making baby clothes. I rubbed her hands and talked soothingly to her. When she seemed a little calmer I made my way to the kitchen and fixed her a mug of steaming milk. Hunting around, I found some gin under the sink. I poured myself a healthy slug of that with a little orange juice and carried the two drinks back to the living room. My left arm protested even this insubstantial load.
“Here: drink this. It’ll make you feel a little better… Now. When was the last time you saw Howard?”
He had left Monday with a small overnight bag, saying he would be back on Wednesday. Here it was Friday and where was he? No, he hadn’t said where he was going. Did Thunder Bay sound familiar? She shrugged helplessly, tears swimming in her round blue eyes. Sault Ste. Marie? She just shook her head, crying gently, not saying anything.
“Has Howard said anything about the people he’s been running around with?”
“No,” she hiccoughed. “And when I told him you’d asked, he-he got really mad at me. He-he hit me and told me to keep our business to our-ourselves. And then he packed up and left and said he’d better not tell me where-where he was going, because I-I would just-just blab it around to people.”
I grimaced, silently thanking Boom Boom for the times he and Pierre had beaten up Howard.