Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

“Five hundred to sponsor.”

“Too rich for my blood. Anyway, I thought you said Meagher was sponsoring her,” I objected, just to be obnoxious.

A thread of impatience finally hit her voice. “Vic, you know the drill. Five hundred to be listed in the program as a sponsor. Two-fifty to be a patron. A hundred to get in the front door.”

“Sorry, Marissa. Way out of my league. And I ain’t that big a fan of Boots anyway.” His real name was Donnel- he’d gotten the nickname when the ′72 reformers thought they could get Daley’s men of the county slate. They’d run some poor earnest wimp whose name I couldn’t even remember on the slogan of “Give Meagher the Boot.” When Daley muscle got the big guy reelected by a landslide, his supporters at the Bismarck celebration party had screamed “Boots, Boots” when he appeared and he’d never been called anything else since.

Marissa said earnestly, “Vic, we need more women out there. Otherwise it’s going to look as though Roz has sold out to Boots and we’ll lose a lot of our grass-roots support. And even though you’re not with the PD anymore, your name still commands a lot of respect with local women.”

Anyway, to make a long story short, she’d used flattery, Fuentes’s pro-choice record, and my guilt for having dropped out of political action for so long to get me to agree to be a patron. And I did have a two-thousand-dollar check beaming at me from the desk.

The thick white envelope held the invitation, a copy of the program, and a return envelope for my two hundred and fifty dollars. Marissa had scrawled on the program in her giant, schoolgirl hand, “ Really looking forward to seeing you again.”

I flipped through the booklet, looking at the list of sponsors and patrons. Having agreed to hold the fundraiser, Boots had gone all out putting the arm on the regular Dems. Or maybe that was Marissa’s work. The pages glittered with judges, state reps, state senators, and directors of large corporations. Near the end of the list of patrons was my name. From some ancient yearbook or birth certificate Marissa had dug up my middle name. When I saw the “Iphigenia” jumping out at me, I was tempted to call her and withdraw my support-I try to keep my mother’s lunacy in naming me a secret known only to family.

The function was this coming Sunday. I looked at my watch-seven-fifteen. I could call Marissa and still make it to Visible Treasures in time.

Late though it was, she was still in her office. She tried to sound pleased at hearing from me, but couldn’t quite carry it off-Marissa likes me better when I’m doing favors for her.

“You all set for Sunday, Vic?”

“You bet,” I said enthusiastically. “What are we wearing? Jeans or evening gowns?”

She relaxed. “Oh, it’s casual-barbecue, you know. I’ll probably wear a dress, but jeans will be fine.”

“Rosty coming? You said he might.”

“No. But the head of his Chicago office will be there. Cindy Mathiessen.”

“Great.” I made myself sound like a cheerleader. “I want to talk to her about Presidential Towers.”

Caution returned to Marissa’s voice at once as she demanded to know why I wanted to discuss the complex.

“The SRO’s,” I said earnestly. “You know, about eight thousand rooms were lost when they cleared that area to put up the Towers. I’ve got this aunt, see.” I explained about Elena and the fire. “So I’m not feeling too crazy about Boots, or Rosty, or any of the other local Dems since I can’t find her a room. But I’m sure if I bring it to- what did you same her name was?-Cindy? If I talk to Cindy about it, she’s bound to be able to help me out.”

It seemed to me the phone vibrated with the sound of wheels turning in Marissa’s brain. Finally she said, “What can your aunt afford?”

“She was paying seventy-five at the Indiana Arms. A month, I mean.” It was past sundown now and the room was dark beyond the pool of light my desk lamp shed. I walked over to the wall with the phone to switch on the overheads.

“If I can get her a place, will you promise not to talk about Presidential Towers on Sunday? With anyone? It’s a little touchy for people.”

For the Dems, she meant. With the spotlight already on the Speaker of the House for ethics questions, they didn’t want anything embarrassing said to one of his buddies.

I made a show of reluctance. “Can you do it by tomorrow night?”

“If that’s what it’ll take, Vic, I’ll do it by tomorrow night.” She didn’t try to keep the snarl from her voice.

I had just twenty minutes to get to Visible Treasures before paying quadruple overtime, but I took the extra minute to write out a check to Cook County Women for Open Government. As I locked the office door behind me I started whistling for the first time all day. Who says blackmailers don’t have fun?

Auntie Does a Bunk

It was almost nine by the time I got off the Kennedy at California and headed over to Racine. I hadn’t had dinner, hadn’t had anything since grabbing a Polish at a hole-in-the-wall on Canal at two. I wanted peace and quiet, a hot bath, a drink, and a pleasant dinner-I had a veal chop in the freezer I’d been saving for just such a tired evening. Instead I braced myself for a night with Elena.

When I parked across the street and looked up at the third floor, the windows were dark. As I trudged up the stairs I imagined my aunt passed out at the kitchen table. Or on the unmade sofa bed in the living room. Or downstairs seducing Mr. Contreras.

I hadn’t given Elena keys or instructions on the two dead bolts. I undid the bottom lock-the one that locks automatically when you shut the door-and switched on the light in the little entryway. It shed a dim glow into the living room. I could see the sofa was restored to its normal upright position.

I went through the dining room to the kitchen and turned on the light there. The kitchen was sparkling. The three days’ accumulation of dishes in the sink had been washed and put away. The newspapers were gone, the floor washed, and the tabletop clean and tidy. In the middle sat a sheet torn from one of my yellow pads covered with Elena’s sprawling, unsteady writing. She’d written “Vicki,” then crossed it out and changed it to “Victoria, Baby.”

Thanks a lot for the loan of a bed last night when I needed it. I knew I could count on you in a pinch, you always were a good girl, but I don’t mean to hang around and be a burden on you, which I can see I would be, so here’s good luck to you kid and I’ll be seeing you in the sweet by and by, like they say.

She’d drawn eight big X’s and signed her name.

Since three this morning I’d been cursing my aunt for coming to me and wishing I’d return home to find that I’d dreamed the whole episode. I’d gotten my wish, but instead of being elated I felt a little hollow under the diaphragm. Despite her easy camaraderie, Elena didn’t have friends. Of course the streets and alleys of Chicago were strewn with her former lovers, but I didn’t think any of them would remember Elena if she showed up at their doors. Come to think of it, I’m not sure Elena would remember any of them well enough to know which doors to knock on.

The other unpleasant notion hovering in my mind’s back cupboard was prompted by Elena’s final sentence. In a high school dramatization of Tom Sawyer we’d sung “In the sweet bye-and-bye.” It was supposed to be typical of late Victorian hymnology. As I recalled, the sweet bye-and-bye was a syrupy euphemism for life beyond the grave. I had never spent enough time with Elena to know if it was just some catch phrase she used or if she’d gone off to throw herself over the Wacker Drive bridge.