He took a pipe from the desk top next to him and began the pipe smoker’s interminable ritual with it. With luck I’d be gone before he actually lit it. All smoke makes me ill, and pipe smoke on top of an empty stomach-I’d been too tense for lunch-would be disastrous.
“How long have you been a detective, Victoria?”
“About ten years.” I swallowed my annoyance at being called Victoria. Not that it isn’t my name. Just that I liked using it I wouldn’t go by my initials.
“And you’re good at it?”
“Yes. Depending on your problem, I’m about the best you can get… I have a list of references if you want to call someone.”
“Yeah, I’d like a name or two before you go.” He had finished drilling out the pipe bowl. He knocked it methodically against the side of an ashtray and began packing it with tobacco. “Mother’s gotten herself involved with some counterfeit securities.”
Wild dreams of Rosa as the brains behind Chicago ’s Mob ran through my head. I could see six-point screamer headlines in the Herald-Star.
“Involved how?”
“They found some in the St. Albert Priory safe.”
I sighed to myself. Albert was deliberately going to drag this out. “She plant them there? What’s she got to do with this priory?”
The moment of truth had come: Albert struck a match and began sucking on the pipestem. Sweet blue smoke curled up around his head and wafted toward me. I felt my stomach turn over.
“Mother’s been their treasurer for the last twenty years. I thought you knew.” He paused a minute to let me feel guilty about not keeping up with the family. “Of course they had to ask her to leave when they found the securities.”
“Does she know anything about them?”
He shrugged. He was sure she didn’t. He didn’t know how many there were, what companies they were drawn on, how long since they’d last been examined, or who had access to them. The only thing he knew was the new prior wanted to sell them in order to make repairs on the building. Yes, they’d been in a safe.
“Her heart’s broken because of the suspicion.” He saw my derisive look and said defensively, “Just because you only see her when she’s upset or angry you can’t imagine she has real feelings. She’s seventy-five, you know, and that job meant a lot to her. She wants her name cleared so she can go back.”
“Surely the FBI is investigating, and the SEC.”
“Yes, but they’d be just as happy to hang it on her if it made things easier for them. After all, who wants to take a priest to court? And they know she’s old, she’d get off with a suspended sentence.”
I blinked a few times. “Albert. No. You’re out of touch. If she were some poor West Side black, they might railroad her. But not Rosa. She’d scare ‘em too much for one thing. And the FBI-they’ll want to get to the bottom of this. They’re never going to believe an old woman masterminded a counterfeiting scheme.” Unless, of course, she had. I wished I could believe it, but Rosa was malicious, not dishonest.
“But that church is the only thing she really loves,” he blurted, turning crimson. “They might believe she got carried away. People do.”
We talked about it some more, but it ended as I suppose I’d known it had to, with me pulling out two copies of my standard contract for Albert to sign. I gave him a family rate on the fee-sixteen dollars an hour instead of twenty.
He told me the new prior would be expecting my call. Boniface Carroll his name was. Albert wrote that on a piece of paper along with a rough map of how to find the priory. I frowned as I stuck it in my bag. They were taking an awful lot for granted. Then I laughed sourly at myself. Once I’d agreed to make the trek to Melrose Park they could take a lot for granted.
Back at my car I stood rubbing my head for a few minutes, hoping the cold clean air would blow the pipe fumes from my throbbing brain. I glanced back at the house. A curtain fell quickly at an upstairs window. I climbed into the car somewhat cheered. To see Rosa spy furtively on me-like a small child or a thief-made me feel somehow that more of the power lay in my hands.
II
I WOKE UP sweating. The bedroom was dark and for a moment I couldn’t remember where I was. Gabriella had been staring at me, her eyes huge in her wasted face, the skin translucent as it had been those last painful months of her life, pleading with me to help her. The dream had been in Italian. It took time to reorient myself to English, to adulthood, to my apartment.
The digital clock glowed faintly orange. Five-thirty. My sweat turned to a chill. I pulled the comforter up around my neck and clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering.
My mother died of cancer when I was fifteen. As the disease ate the vitality from her beautiful face, she made me promise to help Rosa if her aunt ever needed me. I had tried to argue with Gabriella: Rosa hated her, hated me-we had no obligation. But my mother insisted and I could not refuse.
My father had told me more than once how he met my mother. He was a policeman. Rosa had thrown Gabriella out on the street, an immigrant with minimal English. My mother, who always had more courage than common sense, was trying to earn a living doing the only thing she knew: singing. Unfortunately, none of the Milwaukee Avenue bars where she auditioned liked Puccini or Verdi and my father rescued her one day from a group of men who were trying to force her to strip. Neither he nor I could understand why she ever saw Rosa again. But I made her the promise she wanted.
My pulse had calmed down but I knew more sleep was out of the question. Shivering in the cold room, I padded naked to the window and pulled back the heavy curtain. The winter morning was black. Snow falling like a fine mist glowed in the streetlamp at the corner of the alley. I kept shivering, but the still morning held me entranced, the thick black air pressing at me comfortingly.
At last I let the curtain drop. I had a ten o’clock meeting in Melrose Park with the new prior of St Albert ’s. I might as well get going.
Even in the winter I try to run five miles a day. Although financial crime, my specialty, doesn’t often lead to violence, I grew up in a rough South Side neighborhood where girls as well as boys had to be able to defend themselves. Old habits die hard, so I work out and run to stay in shape. Anyway, running is the best way I know to ward off the effects of pasta. I don’t enjoy exercise, but it beats dieting.
In the winter I wear a light sweatshirt, loose pants, and a down vest. Once warmed up I donned these and ran quickly down the hall and three flights of stairs to keep my muscles loose.
Outside, I wanted to abandon the project. The cold and damp were miserable. Even though the streets were already filling with early commuters, it was hours before my usual waking time, and the sky had barely begun to lighten by the time I got back to Halsted and Belmont. I walked carefully up the stairs to my apartment. The steps were shiny with age and very slippery when wet. I had a vision of myself sliding backward on wet running shoes, cracking my skull on old marble.
A long hallway divides my apartment in half and makes it seem bigger than its four rooms. The dining room and kitchen are to the left; bedroom and living room to the right. For some reason the kitchen connects to the bathroom. I turned on water for a shower and went next door to start coffee.
Armed with coffee, I took my running clothes off and sniffed them. Smelly, but not too bad for one more morning. I dropped them over a chair back and gave myself up to a long hot shower. The stream of water drumming on my skull soothed me. I relaxed, and without realizing it, I started to sing a bit under my breath. After a while the tune drifted into my consciousness, a sad Italian folksong Gabriella used to sing. Rosa was really lying heavy on my mind-the nightmare, visions of my skull breaking, now mournful songs. I was not going to let her control me this way-that would be the ultimate defeat. I shampooed my hair vigorously and forced myself to sing Brahms. I don’t like his Lieder, but some, like “Meine Liebe Ist Grun” are almost painfully cheerful.