The woman at the cleaners informed me triumphantly that it would cost me extra to get the smoke out. She made a great show of inspecting each garment, clucking her teeth over it, and writing it down on a slip with the laboriousness of a traffic cop writing a ticket. At last, impatient, I grabbed up the clothes and left.
A second cleaner, sharing a dingy storefront with a tailor several blocks down, was more obliging. The woman at the counter accepted the smoky clothes without comment and wrote up the ticket quickly. She directed me to a lunch counter that served homemade soup and stuffed cabbage. Not the ideal choice for the day’s first meal, but the piping hot, fresh barley soup was delicious.
Using their pay phone to check in with my answering service, I learned Phil Paciorek had called several times. I’d forgotten all about him, Murray Ryerson. Detective Finchley.
I called Illinois Bell and explained my situation. They agreed to switch my number over to the Bellerophon. Also to charge me for the stolen phone. I called Freeman Carter and said I’d seen Uncle Stefan and would make a statement to the police if they would drop charges. He agreed to look into it. I called Phil and left a message with the hospital that I would get back to him. I saved Murray and the police for later.
Once downtown I retrieved my car and headed for the Pulteney Building. The mail piled in front of my office door was horrendous. Sorting through it quickly for checks and letters, I tossed the rest. No bills until my life had stabilized a bit. I looked around me affectionately. Bare, but mine. Maybe I could move in a mattress and a little sink and stove and live here for a while.
The desk top was covered with a film of grime. Whatever pollution the L exudes had filtered under the window. I filled an old coffee cup at the hall drinking fountain and scrubbed the desk with some Kleenex. Good enough.
Using one of the envelopes I’d just pitched, I made out a “To Do” list:
1. Inspect Mrs. Paciorek’s private finances & papers
2. Ditto for O’Faolin
3. Ditto for Pelly
4. Find out if Walter Novick had stabbed Uncle Stefan
5. If yes, bag him
I couldn’t figure out what to do with the first three items. But it should be easy enough to take care of four. Five might follow, I called Murray at the Herald-Star.
“V.I.-you ain’t dead yet,” he greeted me.
“Not for lack of trying,” I answered. “I need some photographs.”
“Wonderful. The Art Institute has some on sale. I tried calling you last night. We’d like to do a story about Stefan Herschel and your arrest.”
“Why talk to me? Just make it up. Like your story of a couple of days ago.”
“Trade you photographs for a story. Who do you want?”
“Walter Novick.”
“You figure he stabbed Herschel?”
“I just want to know what he looks like in case he comes after me again.”
“All right, all right. I’ll have your pictures at the Golden Glow around four. And you give me half an hour.”
“Just remember you’re not Bobby Mallory,” I said irritably. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“What I hear, you don’t tell Mallory much either.” He hung up.
I looked at my watch. Two o’clock. Time enough to think of a way to get at the papers I wanted to see. I could disguise myself as an itinerant member of Corpus Christi and go knocking on Mrs. Paciorek’s door. Then, while she was praying intensely, I could find her safe, crack the combination and.
And… I could disguise myself. Not for Mrs. Paciorek, but for the priory. If O’Faolin was out there, I could take care of him and Pelly in one trip. If the disguise worked. It sounded like a lunatic idea. But I couldn’t think of anything better.
As you go along Jackson Street to the river, you pass a number of fabric shops. At Hofmanstahls, on the corner of Jackson and Wells, I found a bolt of soft white wool. When they asked how much I needed I had no idea. I sketched the garment and we settled on ten yards. At eight dollars a yard, not exactly a bargain. They didn’t have belts and it took close to an hour of wandering around leather stores and men’s shops to find the heavy black strap I needed. A religious-goods store near Union Station provided the other accessories.
As I walked back across the slushy streets toward the Golden Glow, I passed a seedy print shop. On an impulse I went in. They had some photographs of old Chicago gangsters. I took a collection of six to mix in with the shots of Novick that Murray was bringing me.
It was almost four-there wasn’t time to get to the little tailor on Montrose before meeting Murray. But if I didn’t make it there today, it would have to wait till Monday and that was too late. Murray would have to come with me and talk in the car.
He obliged with ill grace. When I came in he was happily absorbed in his second beer, had taken off his boots, and was warming his socks on a small fender next to the horseshoe mahogany bar. While he bitterly pulled on his wet boots I picked up a manila folder from the bar in front of him. In it were two shots of Novick, neither in sharp focus, but clear enough to identify him. Both were courtroom shots taken when Novick had been arrested for attempted manslaughter and armed robbery. He’d never been convicted. Pasquale’s friends seldom were.
I was relieved at not recognizing Novick’s face. I’d been half afraid that he might have been the man I’d kicked last night- if he was that close to Pasquale there was no chance the don would turn him loose.
I led Murray down the street to my car at a good clip.
“Damn it, V.1., slow down. I’ve been working all day and just drank a beer.”
“You want your story, come and get it, Ryerson.”
He climbed into the passenger seat, grumbling that the car was too small for him. I put the Omega in gear and headed for Lake Shore Drive.
“So how come you were visiting Stefan Herschel the day he got knifed?”
“What’s he say about it?”
“Damned hospital won’t let us in to talk to him. That’s why I’m stuck asking you, and I know what that means-half a story. My gofer at the police station told me you’d been booked. For concealing evidence of a crime. What crime?”
“That’s just Lieutenant Mallory’s flamboyant imagination. He didn’t like my being at Mr. Herschel’s apartment and saving his life. He had to charge me with something.”
Murray demanded to know what I was doing there. I gave him my standard story-about Uncle Stefan being a lonely old man and my just happening to drop in. “Now when I saw him at the hospital-”
“You’ve talked to him!” Murray’s shout made the little car’s windows rattle. “What did he say? Are you going there now? Did Novick stab him?”
“No, I’m not going there now. I don’t know if Novick stabbed him. The police story right now is that this was random housebreaking. Since Novick runs with the mob I don’t see him as a housebreaker unless he does his own thing on the side. I don’t know.” I explained about the silver collection, and how eager Uncle Stefan was to shower people with tortes and hot chocolate. “If someone rang the bell, he’d just assume it was the neighborhood kids and let them in. Maybe it was the neighborhood kids. Poor old goon.” I had an inspiration. “You know, you should talk to his neighbor-Mrs. Silverstein. She saw a lot of him. I bet she could give you some good tips.”
Murray made a few notes. “Still, I don’t trust you, V.!. It’s just too damned pat, you being there.”
I shrugged and pulled up in front of the cleaners. “That’s the story. Take it or leave it.”
“We had to drive all this way so you could get to the cleaners? That’s your emergency? You’d better be planning on getting me back to the Loop.”