Sara Paretsky - Hardball

The coffee helped, but not enough to get my muzzy brain fully functioning. I uncoiled myself from the armchair and took some of the publicity letters out of the books. Scrabbling in the drawers of a little desk, I found an old pencil stub. It would have to do. I couldn’t see well enough to write, and the pencil stub was too blunt for cursive, so I used block letters.

1. FEDS WATCHING FRANKIE: WHY?

2. LAMONT GADSDEN = SNITCH: TRUE?

3. WHAT IN BOTTLES-PRO OR STREET-GRADE ACCELERANT?

Who would tell me any of these things? There was something else, too, another important question, nagging the back of my mind. I took off my boots, tucked my legs under me, and let my mind drift. I dozed and woke and dozed, but it was Lotty’s anger that kept coming to the surface. It couldn’t be about Lotty. It must be the law enforcement people she sent about their business yesterday. They had asked something odd.

I stuffed the paper into my jacket pocket and bent to pull my boots on. When I stood, I had to clutch the chair to keep from falling over. It was infuriating to be so weak. I needed to be out on the streets, talking to people, not so shaky that a walk down a hospital corridor did me in. I made my unsteady way back to my room.

I had just sunk down on my egg-carton mattress when a nurse looked in. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking all over the hospital for you! Didn’t you hear us page you?”

“Sorry. I was testing my legs and got so tired I fell asleep in a chair. I didn’t hear anything.”

She took my temperature and felt my pulse and disappeared to spread the good news that I was back. As soon as she was gone, the bathroom door opened, and Murray came out.

“Well, well, Warshawski. They were telling the truth. You’re not dead yet.”

“Ryerson, get the fuck out of my hospital room.” I was startled into fury.

“Oh, those sweet words.” He grinned and peered at me. “You know, you do look pretty strange, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I do mind. I survived a fire. It was extremely unpleasant. Now leave.”

“After you talk to me, my fire-eating private eye.”

“I’ll talk to you if you do something for me.”

He bowed low over his tape recorder. “As you command, O Queen, so shall it be done.”

“I need some clothes. I can’t wear these. And my wallet and credit cards and whatnot are all at the sister’s apartment.”

Murray sat up. “I’m not going to your place. You know the old guy hates me. He’d sic that hellhound of yours on me, and I’d be fish food before I could explain why I was rummaging in your closet.”

“Buy me something, then. Jeans, a long-sleeved white shirt, and a bra. That’s all I need.”

“A bra? You mean, like brassiere? Ix-nay.”

“Murray, you were wearing a twenty-something blonde at Krumas’s fundraiser. You can’t tell me you blush and get prickly heat in a lingerie department. Size 36-C. And size 12 shirt, 31 long jeans. You record all that for posterity?”

“Okay,” Murray scowled. “I got it. Now, what were you doing at Sister Frances Kerrigan’s home to get her killed?”

I sat up in bed and looked at my arms. “Somehow, I don’t seem to have a shirt on.”

“Before we talk? Do you know what it took to get in here? I had to find the name of a patient and pretend to be visiting her. And then I had to skulk around until I could get at a computer and hack in to find your room number. They won’t let me back in. I’m not leaving until you talk.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d welsh on your end of the deal, but don’t worry your perfectly groomed head. Mr. Contreras will be glad to bring me some clothes. He loves me most when I’m on the DL.” I closed my eyes behind my dark lenses and leaned back against the pillows.

“Oh, damn you, you manipulative bitch, Warshawski!”

“I’m going to call the nurse in ten seconds, Ryerson. I’m not the bottom-feeder who hacked into a hospital computer system.”

“You’re the bottom-feeder who got a nun fried.”

I sat up and pulled off my shades. “You put that out anywhere-in print, on a blog, in a text message-and you will spend the rest of your life defending a libel action, do you hear me?”

There was an uneasy silence between us, before Murray said, “You were there when she was attacked.”

I ignored him. “And to speak in such language about Sister Frances’s death… She worked her whole life for social justice and civil liberties, and you think you can talk about her death like a Chris Matthews gag line! Do you know what it’s like to hold someone whose head is on fire, burning on top her body like the wick on a candle? Get out of here!”

“I’m sorry, V.I., okay? We all spend too much time trying to think of the next clever, cynical thing to say. That was tasteless and thoughtless. I apologize.” He pulled out his cellphone, in contravention of all the posted signs, and called someone to buy me clothes. He even gave his gofer a credit-card number and told her to deliver them to the hospital.

I put my shades back on. The dim light in the room was making my eyes hurt. And, besides, I’d started crying, which I didn’t want Murray to see.

“What are your sources saying?” I asked after a moment. “Do they think she was attacked because of her immigrant work?”

“We’re not getting anything off the street about that,” Murray admitted. “The nun in charge of the Freedom Center, a Sister Carolyn Zabinska, says they got death threats back when the Iraq war started-the nuns were opposed to it and started these weekly vigils against it-but no one’s ever threatened them because of their prison or immigrant-aid work.”

He paused. “People are wondering why she was attacked the very night you visited her.”

I lay very still in the bed, eyes closed. “What people? Besides you, of course.”

“Just what I hear around,” Murray said.

“Ever since Global bought the Star, you’ve been more on the entertainment side than the crime beat,” I said, still angry, wanting to prick him as he had me. “So who you hear from doesn’t carry the punch it used to.”

“When have I ever skimped on a story, Warshawski?” Murray was furious now, too. “You on your pedestal, it’s easy to work solo as an investigator, but I have to work for a company if I want to write for a newspaper. And my sources trust me.”

I looked at my wrapped hands and wished I worked for a big company where someone would pick up the slack when I was on the disabled list. “So what are your sources telling you about the perps? Lawrence Avenue was hopping when I rang Sister Frankie’s bell. They all suffer from witness-phobic amnesia?”

I couldn’t see his face through my lenses in the darkened room, but Murray was still breathing hard. He didn’t speak for a long moment, but, despite my nasty accusation, he was a reporter through and through. He wanted my story and knew he had to answer some questions if I was going to talk.

“There are a ton of witnesses to the perps. A Ford Expedition drove up at high speed, honking. Everyone jumped out of the way, and the Expedition pulled up onto the sidewalk. A guy-or maybe a gal, but they’re pretty sure a guy-with a stocking pulled over his head got out, threw the bottles, jumped back in, and the Expedition took off before anyone really realized what was happening.”

“License plate?”

“No one bothered. Or they know and aren’t telling. I’ve heard both stories,” Murray said. “One of my sources says the boys in the alley recognized the SUV and are afraid to admit it for fear of being targeted next. Someone who will fire bomb a nun will pretty much do anything.”

I was quiet for a moment, digesting that. “The FBI and OEM had a stakeout going. Any news out of them?”