Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

“Someone must have seen him,” I said stubbornly. “What about it, Mr. Margolis? Any problem with you if I talk to the men on the elevator?”

Margolis shrugged. “Everyone liked your cousin, Miss Warshawski. If they’d seen anything they’d have come forward with it by now… But you think it’ll do some good I don’t mind. They’ll break for lunch in two shifts starting in twenty-five minutes.”

I scanned the wharf. “Maybe you could show me exactly where my cousin went in.”

“We really don’t know,” Phillips responded, his deep voice trying to hide impatience. “But if it will make you feel better in some way… Pete, maybe you could take Miss Warshawski down.”

Margolis looked back at the elevator, hesitated, then reluctantly agreed.

“This isn’t the ship that was here then, is it?”

“No, of course not,” Phillips said.

“Know which one was?” I asked.

“There’s no way of knowing that,” Phillips said, just as Margolis said, “The Bertha Krupnik.”

“Well, maybe you’re right.” Phillips gave a strained smile. “I keep forgetting that Pete here has the day-to-day details of this operation at his fingertips.”

“Yup. It was supposed to be the Lucella Wieser . Then she had that accident-water in the hold or something-and they brought up three old tubs to take her load. The Bertha was the last of ’em. Pilot’s an old friend of mine. He like to’ve lost his lunch when he heard about Boom Boom… your cousin, I mean. He was a hockey fan himself.”

“Where’s the Bertha Krupnik now?”

Margolis shook his head. “No way of knowing that. She’s one of Grafalk’s, though. You could ask them. Their dispatcher would know.” He hesitated for a minute. “You might want to check with the Lucella . She was tied up over there.” He pointed across the old boat at our feet to another pier about two hundred yards away. “They moved her over out of the way while they cleaned out her holds. She moved out yesterday or the day before.” He shook his head. “Don’t think anyone’s going to be able to tell you anything, though. You know what people are like. If they’d seen your cousin go in they’d have said something fast enough at the time.”

Unless they were embarrassed at not doing anything to help, I thought. “Where’s Grafalk’s office?”

“Do you really want to go there, Miss Warshawski?” Phillips asked. “It’s not the kind of place you should just go into without some sort of credential or justification.”

“I have a credential.” I fished my private investigator’s license out of my wallet. “I’ve asked a lot of people a lot of questions based on this.”

His wooden expression didn’t change, but he turned red to the roots of his pale blond hair. “I think I should go over with you and introduce you to the right person.”

“You want to swing by the Lucella with her, too, Mr. Phillips?” Margolis asked.

“Not particularly. I’m running late as it is. I’ll have to go back to your office, Pete, and call Rodriguez from there.”

“Look, Mr. Phillips,” I put in, “I can take care of myself perfectly well. I don’t need you to interrupt your schedule to ferry me around.”

He assured me it was no problem, he really wanted to do it if I thought it was necessary. It occurred to me he might be worrying that I would turn up some witness suggesting that Eudora Grain had been negligent. In any case, he could smooth my path at Grafalk’s, so I didn’t mind his tagging along.

While he went back through the elevator to use the phone, Margolis took me down a narrow iron ladder to the wharf. Close up, the ship looked even dirtier. Heavy cables extended from the deck and tied her up fast to large knobs sticking out of the concrete wharf. Like the ship, the cables were old, frayed, and none too clean. As Margolis led me to the rear of the O. R. Daley , I notice how badly the paint had cracked above the waterline. “ O. R. Daley . Grafalk Steamship Line. Chicago.” was painted in chipped white letters near the back.

“Your cousin was probably standing here.” The concrete had ended, replaced by faded wood planks. “It was a sloppy day. We had to stop loading every few hours, cover the hatches, and wait for the rain to end. Very long job. Anyway, wood like this-real old, you know-gets very slippery when it’s wet. If Boom Boom-your cousin, I mean-was leaning over to see something, he might’ve just slipped and fallen right in. He did have that bad leg.”

“What would he be leaning over to look at, though?”

“Anything. He was an inquisitive guy. Very interested in everything and anything about the ships and the business. Between you and me, he got on Phillips’s nerves a bit.” He spat expertly into the water. “But, what I hear, Argus got him this job and Phillips didn’t like to stand up to him.”

David Argus was chairman of Eudora Grain. He’d flown in from Eudora, Kansas, to attend Boom Boom’s funeral and had made a hundred-dollar donation to a children’s home in Boom Boom’s name. He hadn’t gone to the post-funeral party, lucky devil, but he’d shaken my hand briefly after the ceremony, a short, stocky guy in his sixties who exuded a blast-furnace personality. If he had been my cousin’s patron, Boom Boom was well protected in the organization. But I couldn’t believe Boom Boom would abuse the relationship, and said so.

“Naw, nothing like that. But Phillips didn’t like having a young guy around that he had to look after. Nope, Boom Boom worked real hard, didn’t ask for any special favors the way he might’ve, being a star and all. I’d say the fellows liked him pretty well.”

“Someone was telling me there was a lot of talk down here about my cousin-that he might have committed suicide.” I looked at the foreman steadily.

He gave a surprised grimace. “Not so far as I know. I haven’t heard anything. You could talk to the men. But, like I say, I haven’t heard anything.”

Phillips walked toward us dusting his hands. Margolis jerked his head toward Phillips. “You going with him? Want to come back later to talk to the men?”

We settled on ten the next morning, break time for the morning shift. Margolis said he would talk to them in the meantime, but he really thought if anyone had seen anything he would have volunteered it. “An accident always gets a lot of talk. And Warshawski, being a celebrity and all, everyone who knew anything was mouthing off. I don’t think you’ll find out anything.”

Phillips came up to us. “Are you ready? I’ve talked to the dispatcher at Grafalk’s. They’re very reluctant to let you know where the Bertha Krupnik is, but they’ll talk to you if I bring you over.” He looked self-consciously at his watch.

I shook hands with Margolis, told him I’d see him in the morning, and followed Phillips on down the pier and around the back of the elevator. We picked our way across the deeply pocked yard, stepping over strips of rusted metal, to where Phillips’s green Alfa sat, sleek and incongruous between an old Impala and a rusty pickup. He put his hard hat carefully on the back seat and made a great show of starting the car, reversing it between ruts and sliding to the yard entrance. Once we’d turned onto 130th Street and were moving with the traffic I said, “You’re clearly annoyed about chauffeuring me around the Port. It doesn’t bother me to barge in on people without an escort-just as I did on you this morning. Why do you feel you have to come with me?”

He shot a quick glance at me. I noticed his hands gripping the wheel so tightly that the knuckles showed white. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes and I thought perhaps he was going to ignore me altogether. Finally he said in his deep, tight voice, “Who asked you to come down to the Port?”