Sara Paretsky - Total Recall

“What’s up?”

“Beth Blacksin has phoned three times, wanting a comment; Murray Ryerson has called twice, besides messages from a whole bunch of other reporters.” She read off a string of names and numbers. “Mary Louise, she called and said she was switching the office line over to us because she felt like she was under siege.”

“But about what?”

“I don’t know, Vic, I just take the messages. Murray said something about Alderman Durham, though, and-here it is.” She read the message in a flat, uninflected voice. “‘Call me and tell me what’s going on with Bull Durham. Since when have you started robbing the widow and orphan of their mite?’”

I was completely bewildered. “I guess just forward all those to my office computer. Are there any business messages, things that don’t come from reporters?”

I could hear her clicking through her screen. “I don’t think-oh, here is something from a Mr. Devereux at Ajax.” She read me Ralph’s number.

I tried Murray first. He’s an investigative reporter with the Herald-Star who does occasional special reports for Channel 13. This was the first time he’d called me in some months-we’d had quite a falling out over a case that had involved the Star’s owners. In the end, we’d made a kind of fragile peace, but we’ve been avoiding involvement with each other’s cases.

“Warshawski, what in hell did you do to yank Bull Durham’s chain so hard?”

“Hi, Murray. Yes, I’m depressed about the Cubs and worried because Morrell is leaving for Kabul in a few days. But otherwise things go on same as always. How about you?”

He paused briefly, then snarled at me not to be a smart-mouthed pain in the ass.

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” I suggested. “I’ve been in meetings all morning and have no idea what our aldercreatures have been saying or doing.”

“Bull Durham is leading a charge of pickets outside the Ajax company headquarters.”

“Oh-on the slave-reparations issue?”

“Right. Ajax is his first target. His handouts name you as an agent of the company involved in the continuing suppression of black policyholders by depriving them of their settlements.”

“I see.” A recorded message interrupted us, telling me to deposit twenty-five cents if I wanted to continue the call. “Gotta go, Murray, I’m out of change.”

I hung up on his squawk that that was hardly an answer-what had I done?! That must be why Ralph Devereux was calling. To find out what I’d done to provoke a full-scale picket. What a mess. When my client-ex-client-told me he was going to take steps, these must have been the ones he had in mind. I gritted my teeth and put another thirty-five cents into the phone.

I got Ralph’s secretary, but by the time she put me through to him I’d been on hold so long I really had run out of quarters. “Ralph, I’m at a pay phone with no more money, so let’s be brief: I just heard about Durham.”

“Did you feed the Sommers file to him?” he asked, voice heavy with suspicion.

“So that he could denounce me as an Ajax stooge and have every reporter in the city hounding me? Thank you, no. My client’s aunt reacted with indignation to my asking her about the previous death certificate and the check; my client fired me. I’m guessing he went to Durham, but I don’t know that definitely. When I find out, I’ll call you. Anything else? Rossy on your butt over this?”

“The whole sixty-third floor. Although Rossy is saying it shows he was right not to trust you.”

“He’s just flailing in fury, looking for a target. These are the snows of summer, they won’t stick on Ajax, although they may freeze me some. I’m going to see Sommers to find out what he told Durham. What about your historian, Amy Blount, the young woman who wrote up the book on Ajax? Yesterday Rossy was saying he didn’t trust her not to give Ajax data to Durham. Did he ask her that?”

“She denied showing our private papers to anyone, but how else could Durham have found out who we insured back in the 1850’s? We mention Birnbaum in our history, bragging that they go back with us to 1852, but not the detail Durham has, about insuring plow shipments they made to slaveholders. Now the Birnbaum lawyers are threatening us with breach of fiduciary responsibility, although whether it extends back that far-”

“Do you have Blount’s phone number? I could try asking her.”

The metallic voice announced that I needed another twenty-five cents. Ralph quickly told me Blount had gotten her Ph.D. in economic history at the University of Chicago last June; I could reach her through the department. “Call me when you-” he started to add, but the phone company cut us off.

I dashed through the lobby to the cab rank, but the sight of a pair of smokers huddled along the wall made me remember Don, sitting in the Ritz bar. I hesitated, then remembered my phone charger was still in Morrell’s car-I wouldn’t be able to call Don from the road to explain why I’d stood him up.

I found him under a fern tree in the smoking section of the bar, with two glasses of champagne in front of him. When he saw me he put out his cigarette. I bent over to kiss his cheek.

“Don-I wish you every success. With this book and with your career.” I picked up a glass to toast him. “But I can’t stay to drink: there’s a crisis involving the players you originally came here to interview.”

When I told him about Durham ’s pickets outside Ajax and that I wanted to go see what they were up to, he relit his cigarette. “Did anyone ever tell you you have too much energy, Vic? It’ll age Morrell before his time, trying to keep up with you. I am going to sit here with my champagne, having a happy conversation about Rhea Wiell’s book with my literary agent. I will then drink your glass as well. If you learn anything as you bounce around Chicago like a pinball in the hands of a demented wizard, I will listen breathlessly to your every word.”

“For which I will charge you a hundred dollars an hour.” I swallowed a large gulp of champagne, then handed him the glass. I curbed my impulse to dart across the lobby to the elevators: the image of myself as a pinball careening around the city was embarrassing-although it kept recurring to me as the afternoon progressed.

I bounced first to the Ajax building on Adams. Durham only had a small band of pickets out-in the middle of a workday most people don’t have time to demonstrate. Durham himself led the charge, surrounded by his cadre of Empower Youth Energy members, their eyes watching the passersby with the sullenness of men prepared to fight on a moment’s notice. Behind them came a small group of ministers and community leaders from the South and West Sides, followed by the usual handful of earnest college students. They chanted “Justice now,” “No high-rises on the bones of slaves,” and “No reparations for slaveowners.” I walked in step with one of the students, who welcomed me as a convert to the fold.

“I didn’t realize Ajax had benefited so much from slavery,” I said.

“It’s not just that, but did you hear what happened yesterday? They sicced a detective on this poor old woman who had just lost her husband. They cashed his life-insurance check and then, like, pretended she had done it and sent this detective down to accuse her, right in the middle of the funeral.”

“What?” I shouted.

“Really sucks, doesn’t it. Here-you can read the details.” He thrust a broadsheet at me. My name jumped out at me.

AJAX -HAVE YOU NO MERCY?

WARSHAWSKI-HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

BIRNBAUM-HAVE YOU NO COMPASSION?

Where is the widow’s mite? Gertrude Sommers, a God-fearing woman, a churchgoing woman, a taxpaying woman, lost her son. Then she lost her husband. Must she lose her dignity, as well?