Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

“Why talk to me? Just make it up. Like your story of a couple of days ago.”

“Trade you photographs for a story. Who do you want?”

“Walter Novick.”

“You figure he stabbed Herschel?”

“I just want to know what he looks like in case he comes after me again.”

“All right, all right. I’ll have your pictures at the Golden Glow around four. And you give me half an hour.”

“Just remember you’re not Bobby Mallory,” I said irritably. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“What I hear, you don’t tell Mallory much either.” He hung up.

I looked at my watch. Two o’clock. Time enough to think of a way to get at the papers I wanted to see. I could disguise myself as an itinerant member of Corpus Christi and go knocking on Mrs. Paciorek’s door. Then, while she was praying intensely, I could find her safe, crack the combination and.

And… I could disguise myself. Not for Mrs. Paciorek, but for the priory. If O’Faolin was out there, I could take care of him and Pelly in one trip. If the disguise worked. It sounded like a lunatic idea. But I couldn’t think of anything better.

As you go along Jackson Street to the river, you pass a number of fabric shops. At Hofmanstahls, on the corner of Jackson and Wells, I found a bolt of soft white wool. When they asked how much I needed I had no idea. I sketched the garment and we settled on ten yards. At eight dollars a yard, not exactly a bargain. They didn’t have belts and it took close to an hour of wandering around leather stores and men’s shops to find the heavy black strap I needed. A religious-goods store near Union Station provided the other accessories.

As I walked back across the slushy streets toward the Golden Glow, I passed a seedy print shop. On an impulse I went in. They had some photographs of old Chicago gangsters. I took a collection of six to mix in with the shots of Novick that Murray was bringing me.

It was almost four-there wasn’t time to get to the little tailor on Montrose before meeting Murray. But if I didn’t make it there today, it would have to wait till Monday and that was too late. Murray would have to come with me and talk in the car.

He obliged with ill grace. When I came in he was happily absorbed in his second beer, had taken off his boots, and was warming his socks on a small fender next to the horseshoe mahogany bar. While he bitterly pulled on his wet boots I picked up a manila folder from the bar in front of him. In it were two shots of Novick, neither in sharp focus, but clear enough to identify him. Both were courtroom shots taken when Novick had been arrested for attempted manslaughter and armed robbery. He’d never been convicted. Pasquale’s friends seldom were.

I was relieved at not recognizing Novick’s face. I’d been half afraid that he might have been the man I’d kicked last night- if he was that close to Pasquale there was no chance the don would turn him loose.

I led Murray down the street to my car at a good clip.

“Damn it, V.1., slow down. I’ve been working all day and just drank a beer.”

“You want your story, come and get it, Ryerson.”

He climbed into the passenger seat, grumbling that the car was too small for him. I put the Omega in gear and headed for Lake Shore Drive.

“So how come you were visiting Stefan Herschel the day he got knifed?”

“What’s he say about it?”

“Damned hospital won’t let us in to talk to him. That’s why I’m stuck asking you, and I know what that means-half a story. My gofer at the police station told me you’d been booked. For concealing evidence of a crime. What crime?”

“That’s just Lieutenant Mallory’s flamboyant imagination. He didn’t like my being at Mr. Herschel’s apartment and saving his life. He had to charge me with something.”

Murray demanded to know what I was doing there. I gave him my standard story-about Uncle Stefan being a lonely old man and my just happening to drop in. “Now when I saw him at the hospital-”

“You’ve talked to him!” Murray’s shout made the little car’s windows rattle. “What did he say? Are you going there now? Did Novick stab him?”

“No, I’m not going there now. I don’t know if Novick stabbed him. The police story right now is that this was random housebreaking. Since Novick runs with the mob I don’t see him as a housebreaker unless he does his own thing on the side. I don’t know.” I explained about the silver collection, and how eager Uncle Stefan was to shower people with tortes and hot chocolate. “If someone rang the bell, he’d just assume it was the neighborhood kids and let them in. Maybe it was the neighborhood kids. Poor old goon.” I had an inspiration. “You know, you should talk to his neighbor-Mrs. Silverstein. She saw a lot of him. I bet she could give you some good tips.”

Murray made a few notes. “Still, I don’t trust you, V.!. It’s just too damned pat, you being there.”

I shrugged and pulled up in front of the cleaners. “That’s the story. Take it or leave it.”

“We had to drive all this way so you could get to the cleaners? That’s your emergency? You’d better be planning on getting me back to the Loop.”

“Some emergencies are more obscure than others.”

I took my parcel of fabric and went into the little store. The tailoring part of the shop was a jumbled array of old spools of thread, a Singer that must have dated to the turn of the century, and scraps and snippets of cloth. The man huddled crosslegged on a chair in the corner, hunched over a length of brown suiting, might have gone back to 1900 as well.

Although he jerked a sideways glance at me, he continued to sew, When he’d finished whatever he was doing, he folded the fabric tidily, put it on a heaped table to his left, and looked at me. “Yes?” He spoke with a heavy accent.

“Could you sew something for me without a pattern?”

“Oh, yes, young lady. No question about it. When I was a young man, I cut for Marshall Field, for Charles Stevens. Those were the days before you were born, when they made clothes right there in the store. I cut all day long, and made, with no patterns. What is it you want?”

I showed him my sketch and pulled the wool from its brown wrapping. He studied the picture for a moment, and then me. “Oh, that would be no problem. No problem at all.”

“And-could I have it by Monday?”

“Monday? Oh, the young lady is in a hurry.” He waved an arm in the direction of several heaps of cloth. “Look at all these orders. They thought in advance. They bring their work in many weeks ahead of you. Monday, my dear young lady!”

I sat down on a footstool and negotiated in earnest. At last he agreed to do it for double his normal fee, payable in advance. “Forty dollars. I cannot do it for a penny less.”

I tried to appear incredulous, as if I thought I was being gouged. The fabric alone had cost double that. Finally I pulled two twenties from my wallet. He told me to stop in at noon on Monday. “But next time, no rushes.”

Murray had left a note under my windshield wiper, informing me that he’d caught a cab downtown and that I owed him sixteen dollars. I tossed the paper in the trashcan and headed for Skokie.

Uncle Stefan had been moved to a regular room that afternoon. That meant I didn’t have to go through a routine with nurses and Metzinger just to see him. However, the police guard had also been removed-if his attackers were ordinary B & E men, he wasn’t in any danger, according to the cops. I bit my lip. Caught by my own story, damn it. Unless I told the truth about the forgeries and the Mob, there was no way to convince the police that Uncle Stefan needed protection.

The old man was delighted to see me. Lotty had been by in the morning, but no one else was visiting him. I pulled out the photographs and showed them to him. He nodded calmly, “Just like Hill Street Blues. Do I recognize the mug shots?”