Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders

“Maybe. But that may be too late. We’re doing what we can-sending mailings to shareholders urging them to support current management. Our lawyers are working madly. But no one’s getting results.” He leaned across the table earnestly and took my hand. “Look. It’s a lot to ask. I realize that. But you know Mrs. Paciorek. Can’t you talk to her-find out if Corpus Christi is involved in this Wood-Sage thing at all?”

“Roger, the lady doesn’t talk to me. I don’t even know what I could do to get her to see me.”

He looked at me soberly. “I’m not asking you to do me a favor. I’ll hire you. Whatever your normal fee is, Scupperfield, Plouder will double it. I just cannot run the risk of omitting a course of action that might help. If we knew who the owners were, if we knew why they were trying to buy the company, it could make a big difference to our being able to hold on to Ajax.”

I thought of the three dollars in my wallet, the new furniture I was going to have to buy, the fee to the Streeter brothers for protecting Uncle Stefan. And then my shoulders sank. It was my fault Uncle Stefan was lying in the hospital needing protection. After a couple of weeks of working on the forgeries, I had done nothing but lose my apartment and my life’s possessions. Lotty, my refuge, wouldn’t speak to me. I had never felt so discouraged or incapable in all my years as an investigator. I tried, awkwardly, to explain some of my feelings.

Roger squeezed my hand. “I understand how you feel.” He grinned briefly. “I was the young hotshot coming over to manage the Ajax operation, show them how to do the job. Now our management are fighting for our lives. I know it’s not my fault-but I feel futile and embarrassed that I can’t do anything about it.”

I made a wry face, but returned his handshake. “So we’ll bolster each other’s failing vanity? I suppose… But next week you’ve got to go to the FBI and the SEC. Set up a meeting for me with them. They won’t talk to me otherwise. Just as long as you know it’s a most unlikely project, I’ll try to think of a way to get Catherine Paciorek to talk to me.”

He smiled gratefully. “You don’t know what a relief this is to me, Vic. Just the idea that someone I can trust absolutely will be involved. Can you come in Monday and meet the board? The lawyers can give you a full picture on what they know-three hours to say nothing, maybe.”

“Monday’s full. Tuesday?” He agreed. Eight A.M. I blenched slightly but wrote the time into my date book.

We left the Filigree at nine and went to a movie. I called the hospital from the theater to check on Uncle Stefan. All was well there. I wished someone cared enough for my safety to hire some huge bodyguards to protect me. Of course, a hardboiled detective is never scared. So what I was feeling couldn’t be fear. Perhaps nervous excitement at the treats in store for me. Even so, when Roger asked me, tentatively, if I wanted to go back to the Hancock with him, I assented without hesitation.

By morning the Herald-Star and the Tribune had both picked up the Wood-Sage story in their Sunday business sections. No one on the Ajax board had been available for comment. Pat Kollar, the Herald-Star’s financial analyst, explained why someone would want to acquire an insurance company. There wasn’t much else to say about Wood-Sage.

Roger read the papers gloomily. He left at two to meet his partner’s plane. “He’ll have the Financial Times and the Guardian with him and I’ll get The New York Times on my way to the car. That way we can have a real wake surrounded by all the bad news at once… Want to stay to meet him?”

I shook my head. Godfrey Anstey would be sleeping in the apartment’s second bedroom. Two’s company but three’s embarrassing.

After Roger left, I stayed for a few minutes to call my answering service. Phyllis Lording had phoned several times around noon. Somewhat surprised, I dialed the Chestnut Street apartment.

Phyllis’s high, rather squeaky voice sounded more flustered than usual. “Oh, hi, Vic. Is that you? Do you have any time this afternoon, by any chance?”

“What’s up?”

She gave a nervous laugh. “Probably nothing. Only it’s hard to explain over the phone.”

I shrugged and agreed to walk over. When she met me at the door, she appeared thinner than ever. Her chestnut hair was pulled carelessly from her face, pinned on her head. Her swanlike neck seemed pitifully slender beneath the mass of hair, the fine planes in her face standing out sharply. In an oversize shirt and tight jeans she looked unbearably fragile.

She led me into the living room where the day’s papers were spread out on the floor. Like Agnes, she was a heavy smoker, and a blue haze hung in the air. I sneezed involuntarily.

She offered me coffee from an electric percolator sitting on the floor near the overflowing ashtray. When I saw how brackish it was I asked for milk.

“You can check in the refrigerator,” she said doubtfully, “but I don’t think I have any.”

The huge refrigerator held nothing except a few condiments and a bottle of beer. I went back to the living room. “Phyllis! What are you eating?”

She lit a cigarette. “I’m just not hungry, Vic. At first I kept trying to make myself meals, but I’d get sick if I ate anything. Now I’m just not hungry.”

I squatted down on the floor next to her and put a hand on her arm. “Not good, Phyl. It’s not a way to memorialize Agnes.”

She blinked a few times through the smoke. “I just feel so alone, Vic. Agnes and I didn’t have many friends in common- the people I know are all at the university and her friends were brokers and investors. Her family won’t talk to me Her voice trailed off and she hunched her thin shoulders.

“Agnes’s youngest sister would like very much to talk to you. Why don’t you give her a call? She was twenty years younger than Agnes and didn’t know her too well, but she liked and admired her. She’s too young to know how to phone you without embarrassment after the way her mother’s acted.”

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then she gave her intense smile and a brief nod. “Okay. I’ll call her.”

“And start eating something?”

She nodded again. “I’ll try, Vic.”

We talked about her courses for a bit. I wondered if she could get someone to take them for her a week while she went south for some sunshine; she said she’d think about it. After a while, she got around to the reason behind her phone call.

“Agnes and I shared a subscription to The New York Times.” She smiled painfully and lit another cigarette-her fifth since I’d arrived forty minutes earlier. “She always went straight to the business section while I hit the book reviews. She… she teased me about it. I don’t have much of a sense of humor; Agnes did, and it always got under my skin a bit… Since she died, I’ve, I’ve”-she bit her lips and looked away, trying to hide tears trickling down the inner corners of her face-” I’ve started reading the business section. It’s.. it’s a way to feel I’m still in touch with her.”

The last sentence came out in a whisper and I had to strain to hear her. “I don’t think that’s foolish, Phyl. I have a feeling if it had been you who died, Agnes would plunge into Proust with the same spirit.”

She turned to look at me again. “You were closer to Agnes in some ways than I could ever be. You and she are a lot alike. It’s funny. I loved her, desperately, but I didn’t understand her very well… I was always a little jealous of you because you understood her.”

I nodded. “Agnes and I were good friends for a long time. I’ve had times when I was jealous of your closeness with her.”