Sara Paretsky - Indemnity Only

“No, no, I know that. It’s just that-they’ve been living together in some disgusting commune or other-did I tell you they’re students at the University of Chicago? Anyway, he, Pete, he’s taken to talking about becoming a union organizer and not going to business school, so I went down to talk to the girl. Make her see reason, kind of.”

“What’s her last name, Mr. Thayer?”

“Hill. Anita Hill. Well, as I said, I went down to try to make her see reason. And-right after that she disappeared.”

“It sounds to me like your problem’s solved.”

“I wish it was. The thing is, now Pete’s saying I bought her off, paid her to disappear. And he’s threatening to change his name and drop out of sight unless she turns up again.”

Now I’ve heard everything, I thought. Hired to find a person so her boyfriend would go to business school.

“And were you responsible for her disappearance, Mr. Thayer?”

“Me? If I was, I’d be able to get her back.”

“Not necessarily. She could have squeezed fifty grand out of you and gone off on her own so you couldn’t get it back. Or you could have paid her to disappear completely. Or you may have killed her or caused her to he killed and want someone else to take the rap for you. A guy like you has a lot of resources.”

He seemed to laugh a little at that. “Yeah, I suppose all that could be true. Anyway, I want you to find her-to find Anita.”

“Mr. Thayer, I don’t like to turn down work, but why not get the police-they’re much better equipped than I for this sort of thing.”

“The police and I-” he started, then broke off. “I don’t feel like advertising my family problems to the police,” he said heavily.

That had the ring of truth-but what had he started to say? “And why were you so worried about things getting heavy?” I wondered aloud.

He shifted in his chair a bit. “Some of those students can get pretty wild,” he muttered. I raised my eyebrows skeptically, but he couldn’t see that in the dark.

“How did you get my name?” I asked. Like an advertising survey-did you hear about us in Rolling Stone or through a friend?

“I found your name in the Yellow Pages. And I wanted someone in the Loop and someone who didn’t know-my business associates.”

“Mr. Thayer, I charge a hundred and a quarter a day, plus expenses. And I need a five-hundred-dollar deposit. I make progress reports, but clients don’t tell me how to do the job-any more than your widows and orphans tell you how to run the Fort Dearborn’s Trust Department.”

“Then you will take the job?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said shortly. Unless the girl was dead, it shouldn’t be too hard to find her. “I’ll need your son’s address at the university,” I added. “And a picture of the girl if you have one.”

He hesitated over that, seemed about to say something, but then gave it to me: 5462 South Harper. I hoped it was the right place. He also produced a picture of Anita Hill. I couldn’t make it out in the spasmodic light, but it looked like a yearbook snap. My client asked me to call him at home to report progress, rather than at the office. I jotted his home number on the business card and put it back in my pocket.

“How soon do you think you’ll know something?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you until I’ve looked at it, Mr. Thayer. But I’ll get on the case first thing tomorrow.”

“Why can’t you go down there tonight?” he persisted.

“Because I have other things to do,” I answered shortly. Like dinner and a drink.

He argued for a bit, not so much because he thought I’d change my mind as because he was used to getting his own way. He finally gave up on it and handed me five hundred-dollar bills.

I squinted at them in the light from Arnie’s. “I take checks, Mr. Thayer.”

“I’m trying to keep people at the office from knowing I’ve been to a detective. And my secretary balances my checkbook.”

I was staggered, but not surprised. An amazing number of executives have their secretaries do that. My own feeling was that only God, the IRS, and my bank should have access to my financial transactions.

He got up to go and I walked out with him. By the time I’d locked the door, he had started down the stairs. I wanted to get a better look at him, and hurried after him. I didn’t want to have to see every man in Chicago under a flashing neon sign to recognize my client again. The stairwell lighting wasn’t that good, but under it his face appeared square and rugged. Irish-looking, I would have said, not what I would have thought of as second-in-command at the Fort Dearborn. His suit was expensive and well cut, but he looked more as if he’d stepped from an Edward G. Robinson movie than the nation’s eighth largest bank. But then, did I look like a detective? Come to think of it, most people don’t try to guess what women do for a living by the way they look-but they are usually astounded to find out what I do.

My client turned east, toward Michigan Avenue. I shrugged and crossed the street to Arnie’s. The owner gave me a double Johnnie Walker Black and a sirloin from his private collection.

Dropping Out of School

I woke up early to a day that promised to be as hot and steamy as the one before. Four days out of seven, I try to force myself to get some kind of exercise. I’d missed the previous two days, hoping that the heat would break, but I knew I’d better get out this morning. When thirty is a fond memory, the more days that pass without exercise, the worse you feel going back to it. Then, too, I’m undisciplined in a way that makes it easier to exercise than to diet, and the running helps keep my weight down. It doesn’t mean I love it, though, especially on mornings like this.

The five hundred dollars John Thayer had given me last night cheered me up considerably, and I felt good as I put on cutoffs and a T-shirt. The money helped take my mind off the thick air when I got outside. I did five easy miles-over to the lake and around Belmont Harbor and back to my large, cheap apartment on Halsted. It was only 8:30, but I was sweating freely from running in the heat. I drank a tall glass of orange juice and made coffee before taking a shower. I left my running clothes on a chair and didn’t bother with the bed. After all, I was on a job and didn’t have time-besides, who was going to see it?

Over coffee and some smoked herring I tried to decide how to approach Peter Thayer about his missing girl friend. If his family disapproved of her, he would probably resent his father hiring a private detective to look into her disappearance. I’d have to be someone connected with the university-maybe in one of her classes wanting to borrow some notes? I looked pretty old for an undergraduate-and what if she wasn’t registered for the summer quarter? Maybe I’d be from an underground journal, wanting her to do an article on something. Something on labor unions-Thayer had said she was trying to push Peter into being a union organizer.

I stacked my dishes by the sink and eyed them thoughtfully: one more day and I’d have to wash them. I took the garbage out, though-I’m messy but not a slob. Newspapers had been piling up for some time, so I took a few minutes to carry them out next to the garbage cans. The building super’s son made extra money recycling paper.

I put on jeans and a yellow cotton top and surveyed myself in the mirror with critical approval. I look my best in the summer. I inherited my Italian mother’s olive coloring, and tan beautifully. I grinned at myself. I could hear her saying, “Yes, Vic, you are pretty-but pretty is no good. Any girl can be pretty-but to take care of yourself you must have brains. And you must have a job, a profession. You must work.” She had hoped I would be a singer and had trained me patiently; she certainly wouldn’t have liked my being a detective. Nor would my father. He’d been a policeman himself, Polish in an Irish world. He’d never made it beyond sergeant, due partly to his lack of ambition, but also, I was sure, to his ancestry. But he’d expected great things of me… My grin went a little sour in the mirror and I turned away abruptly.