Sara Paretsky - Burn Marks

“We’re waiting, Vic.” Velma’s cold voice interrupted my flurried thoughts. “Or are you trying to embellish your story to make it more credible?”

I gave her a bitter smile. “I’ll wrap it up fast. And believe it or not as you please, but worse is going to follow soon. Alma Mejicana was on the fringes of the construction business up until two years ago. They had a couple of suits against the county, claiming discrimination in the matter of bids, but they were strictly small potatoes-parking lots, a few sidewalks, that kind of thing. They really weren’t big enough for the projects they were bidding on.

“Run the cameras forward. Suddenly they’ve dropped their suits and by a remarkable coincidence they pick up a piece of the Dan Ryan action. You’ve got to be a heavy roller to play at that table. Where did they come up with the equipment and the expertise?

“Now Roz is a partner in Alma Mejicana. I’m just guessing this part-” I ignored an explosive interruption from Velma. “I don’t know whether she went to Boots or he came to her. But his support has eroded badly in the Hispanic wards. They’ve been backing Solomon Hayes to oust Meagher as board chairman. As long as they’re going with Hayes and the blacks have a different candidate, Meagher can scrape by. But lately it’s been sounding like the old Washington coalition is perking up again. And if the Hispanics got together with the black coalitions and united on a black candidate, Boots could kiss his forty years of power and patronage good-bye.”

Velma was muttering to my right, but Camellia Maldonado sat with a look of glassy composure, much as an Edwardian lady might have watched a drunk in her living room.

Loren Richter was tapping his pencil rapidly against the chair leg. “That’s not news. It’s not even a crime.”

“Of course not,” I agreed. “Coalitions, changing loyalties, that’s the name of the game. But Boots isn’t ready to turn in his chips yet. So say he went to Roz. If he put her on the ticket, she’d bring in Humboldt Park and Pilsen for him-she’s gold here. In return he’d see that Alma got a big piece of county action. They drop their discrimination suits, tie in with a dummy corporation, the work will really go to Wunsch and Grasso, who will share out the profits and everybody’s happy. Alma doesn’t do a lick of work on the Ryan-I’ve been there and seen it. They got the bid, they pay everything out to a dummy corporation, and let Wunsch and Grasso supply the equipment and the personnel.”

“You don’t have any proof of this, none at all. It’s a total fabrication,” Camellia Maldonado said hotly. “Whatever Velma said of you you’re ten times worse.”

I got up. “I’m not going to stay to fight it. I’m beat. I just wanted to give Roz a chance to answer before I go to the papers. There’s one more thing I don’t understand, though.”

“One?” Velma spat out. “Just one? I thought you understood the whole universe, Warshawski.”

I ignored her. “I don’t know why Roz thought a story like this would hurt her chances on the ticket. It’s just business as usual in this old town. When the story finally breaks the good old boys will breathe a collective sigh that she’s not a flaming radical, that she’s one of them after all.”

I turned on my heel, not listening to the three of them shouting at me. Camellia ran to the door on pencil-heels and grabbed my arm.

“You must tell us what proof you have of this terrible allegation. You can’t come in here and drop such a bomb and then just walk off.”

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. “It’s all there. You just have to go to the Ryan and look at their part of the zone. Although maybe now they know I’ve been there they’ll bring in a few minority or women workers for the photographers. But the real kicker is to visit their offices. They’re a sham. There’re only three desks occupied in the whole place. You don’t run a big business out of a cubbyhole, at least not a contracting business.”

Camellia looked at me with such anger that it made my knees feel wobbly. “I’ve worked for Roz’s success for a long time,” she hissed. “You’re not going to be able to ruin her with your lies.”

“Great,” I said. “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

I glanced back at Velma, sitting in the swivel chair. She didn’t say anything, but dropped her gaze to the desktop. Camellia followed me to the big front room. She was too savvy a campaigner to let the hired hands see a crisis was in the works. She shook hands formally with me at the door, gave me a big smile, and said she’d be sure to let Roz know we’d spoken.

Death Rattle

When I got back to the Chevy I was exhausted past the point of feeling or thinking. In some recess of my mind I knew I needed to see August Cray, to try to understand the connection that apparently lay between Farmworks and Seligman. Even if it hadn’t been too late to visit his Loop address I couldn’t have gone-I just didn’t have the stamina left to talk to anyone else today. All I wanted was to get home to a bath and my bed.

Peppy, curled in the front seat, gave me a look of disgust when I got in. She didn’t deign to lift her head- after three hours in the car she didn’t think I was good for much.

“Sorry, girl,” I apologized. “We’ll go home now, General Motors willing.”

The Chevy was grinding horribly even at twenty-five. I forced it forward like a knight with a battle-shy horse. It went about as happily. With the car whining and screaming I couldn’t follow the frantic line of thought I’d started at Roz’s any further. Aside from the noise, I was too nervous that the car might stop altogether to be able to think about anything else.

When I turned onto Racine it went on me, going from a brain-shattering whine to a lurching rattle to a final dead silence. I turned the ignition key. The engine ground horribly but wouldn’t catch. Behind me cars were honking furiously-it’s well known that the best cure for a stalled engine is for a hundred thousand drivers to blow their horns in unison.

I was less than three blocks from home. If I could push the Chevy to the curb, I could leave it there for a tow truck and walk home with Peppy. Peppy had other ideas. When I opened the door she bounded across the set divider and outside so fast I was just able to grab a hind leg before she hurled herself in front of a delivery van. I wrestled her to the ground and dragged her back into the front seat.

“You gotta wait five more minutes,” I told her. She wasn’t buying it. Usually the most docile of dogs, she snarled at me now and I had to wrap her leash around the seat divider to keep her in the car. She stood on the passenger seat barking at me furiously.

My legs had cramped up from tensing them so hard while I drove. When I stood up I almost fell over. I steadied myself against the car door.

“Neither of us is in good shape, are we?” I murmured to the Chevy. “I promise I won’t sell you for scrap if you’ll do the same for me.”

Cars were moving around me now that they saw I was stalled, but the ones farther back kept up their honking. I was too tired to react to the insistent blare. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the doorframe, I tried pushing the car to the curb. Too much strain in the last few days had left my shoulders so weak that I couldn’t urge the extra force into them to muscle the car forward.

I leaned my forehead against the roof. Someone across the street was adding to the cacophony on Racine. I ignored him along with the rest until finally over the din of the traffic I heard my name.