Deadlock

by Sara Paretsky

  A small trickle of beautifully suited lawyers and doctors oozed from the 210 East Chestnut building. They had the unhealthy faces of people who eat and drink too much most of the time but keep their weight down through strenuous diets and racquetball in between. One of them held the door without really noticing me.

  Up in Boom Boom’s condo I stopped again for a few minutes to look at the lake. The wind whipped whitecaps up on the green water. A tiny red sliver moved on the horizon, a freighter on its journey to the other side of the lakes. I stared for a long time before bracing my shoulders and heading to the study.

  An appalling sight met me. The papers I had left in eight discrete piles were thrown pell-mell around the room. Drawers were open-ended, pictures pulled from the wall, pillows torn from a daybed in the corner and the bedding strewn about.

  The wreckage was so confused and so violent that the worst abomination didn’t hit me for a few seconds. A body lay crumpled in the corner on the far side of the desk.

  I walked gingerly past the mess of papers, trying not to disturb the chaos lest it contain any evidence. The man was dead. He held a gun in his hand, a Smith & Wesson.358, but he’d never used it. His neck had been broken, as nearly as I could tell without moving the body-I couldn’t see any wounds.

  I lifted the head gently. The face stared at me impassively, the same expressionless face that had looked at me two nights ago in the lobby. It was the old black man who’d been on night duty. I lowered his head carefully and sprinted to Boom Boom’s lavish bathroom.

  I drank a glass of water from the bathroom tap and the heaving subsided in my stomach. Using the phone next to the king-size bed to call the police, I noticed that the bedroom had come in for some minor disruption. The red and purple painting on the wall had been taken down and the magazines thrown to the floor. Drawers stood open in the polished walnut dresser and socks and underwear were on the floor.

  I went through the rest of the apartment. Someone had clearly been looking for something. But what?

  The night guard’s name had been Henry Kelvin. Mrs. Kelvin came with the police to identify the body, a dark, dignified woman whose grief was more impressive for the restraint with which she contained it.

  The cops who showed up insisted on treating this as an ordinary break-in. Boom Boom’s death had been widely publicized. Some enterprising burglar no doubt took advantage of the situation; it was unfortunate that Kelvin had surprised him in the act. I kept pointing out that nothing of value had been taken but they insisted that Kelvin’s death had frightened off the intruders. In the end I gave up on it.

  I called Margolis, the elevator foreman, to explain that I would be delayed, perhaps until the following day. At noon the police finished with me and took the body away on a stretcher. They were going to seal the apartment until they finished fingerprinting and analyzing everything.

  I took a last look around. Either the intruders had found what they came for, or my cousin had hidden what they were looking for elsewhere, or there was nothing to find but they were running scared. My mind flicked to Paige Carrington. Love letters? How close had she been to Boom Boom, really? I needed to talk to her again. Maybe to some of my cousin’s friends as well.

  Mrs. Kelvin was sitting stiffly on the edge of one of the nubby white sofas in the lobby. When I got off the elevator she came over to me.

  “I need to talk to you.” Her voice was harsh, the voice of someone who wanted to cry and was becoming angry instead.

  “All right. I have an office downtown. Will that do?”

  She looked around the exposed lobby, at the residents staring at her on their way to and from the elevator, and agreed. She followed me silently outside and over to Delaware, where I’d found a place to squeeze my little Mercury. Someday I’d have enough money for something really wonderful, like an Audi Quarto. But in the meantime I buy American.

  Mrs. Kelvin didn’t say anything on the way downtown. I parked the car in a garage across from the Pulteney Building. She didn’t spare a glance for the dirty mosaic floors and the pitted marble walls. Fortunately the tired elevator was functioning. It creaked down to the ground floor and saved me the embarrassment of asking her to climb the four flights to my office.

  We walked to the east end of the hall where my office overlooks the Wabash Avenue el, the side where cheap rents are even lower because of the noise. A train was squeaking and rattling its way past as I unlocked the door and ushered her to the armchair I keep for visitors.

  I took the seat behind my desk, a big wooden model I picked up at a police auction. My desk faces the wall so that open space lies between me and my clients. I’ve never liked using furniture for hiding or intimidating.

  Mrs. Kelvin sat stiffly in the armchair, her black handbag upright in her lap. Her black hair was straightened and shaped away from her long face in severely regimented waves. She wore no makeup except for a dark orange lipstick.

  “You talked to my husband Tuesday night, didn’t you?” she finally said.

  “Yes, I did.” I kept my voice neutral. People talk more when you make yourself part of the scenery.

  She nodded to herself. “He came home and told me about it. This job was pretty boring for him, so anything out of the way happened, he told me about it.” She nodded again. “You young Warshawski’s executor or something, that right?”

  “I’m his cousin and his executor. My name is V. I. Warshawski.”

  “My husband wasn’t a hockey fan, but he liked young Warshawski. Anyway, he came home Tuesday night-yesterday morning that would be-and told me some uppity white girl was telling him to look after the boy’s apartment. That was you.” She nodded again. I didn’t say anything.

  “Now Henry did not need anybody telling him how to do his job.” She gave an angry half sob and controlled herself again. “But you told him special not to let anyone into your cousin’s apartment. So you must have known something was going on. Is that right?”

  I looked at her steadily and shook my head. “The day man, Hinckley, had let someone into the apartment without my knowing about it ahead of time. There were things there that some crazy fan would find valuable-his hockey stick, stuff like that-and legal documents I didn’t want anyone else going through.”

  “You didn’t know someone was going to break in like that?”

  “No, Mrs. Kelvin. If I’d had any suspicion of such a thing I would have taken greater precautions.”

  She compressed her lips. “You say you had no suspicion. Yet you took it upon yourself to tell my husband how to do his job.”

  “I didn’t know your husband, Mrs. Kelvin. I’d never met him. So I couldn’t see whether he was the kind of person who took his work seriously. I wasn’t trying to tell him how to do his job, just trying to safeguard the interests my cousin left to my charge.”

  “Well, he told me, he said, ‘I don’t know who that girl’-that’s you-‘thinks is going to try to get into that place. But I got my eye on it.’ So he plays the hero, and he gets killed. But you say you weren’t expecting anything special.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Sorry doesn’t bring the dead back to life.”

  After she left I sat for a long time without doing anything. I did feel in a way as though I had sent the old man to his death. He got my goat Tuesday, acting like I was a talking elevator door or something. But he’d taken what I said seriously-more seriously than I had. He must have kept a close watch on the twenty-second floor from his TV console and seen someone go into my cousin’s place. Then he’d gone up after him. The rest was unpleasantly clear.

  It was true I’d had no reason to think anyone would be going into Boom Boom’s apartment, let alone be so desperate to find something he’d kill for it. Yet it had happened, and I felt responsible. It seemed to me I had a murdered man’s death to investigate.

  Paige Carrington’s answering service took my phone call. I didn’t leave a message but looked up the address for the Windy City Balletworks: 5400 N. C
lark. I stopped on the way for a sandwich and a Coke.

  The Balletworks occupied an old warehouse between a Korean restaurant and a package goods store. The warehouse was dingy on the outside but had been refinished within. An empty hallway with a clapboard box office was lined with pictures of the Windy City ballerinas in various roles. The company did some standard pieces, including a lot of Balanchine, but it also experimented with its own choreography. Paige was on the wall as a cowgirl in Rodeo, as Bianca in Taming of the Shrew, and in her own light comic role in Clark Street Fantasy. I’d seen that piece twice.

  The auditorium was to the left. A little sign outside it announced that a rehearsal was in progress. I slipped in quietly and joined a handful of people seated in the house. Onstage someone was clapping her hands and calling for quiet.

  “We’ll take it from the scherzo entrance again. Karl, you’re coming in a second behind the beat. And, Paige, you want to stay downstage until the grand jete. Places, please.”

  The dancers wore a motley collection of garments, their legs covered with heavy warmers to prevent muscle cramps. Paige had on a bronze leotard with matching leg warmers. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail. She looked about sixteen from where I sat.

  Someone operated a fancy tape deck in front of the stage. The music began. The piece was a jarring modern one and the choreography matched it, a dance on the depravity of modern urban life. Karl, entering on time in what was apparently the scherzo movement-hard to tell amidst all the wailing and jangling-seemed to be dying of a heroin overdose. Paige arrived on the scene seconds ahead of the narc squad, watched him die, and departed. I didn’t pick all that up right away, but I got to see the thing six times before the director was satisfied with it.

  A little after five the director dismissed the troupe, reminding them that they had a rehearsal at ten in the morning and a performance at eight the next night. I moved up front with the other members of the audience. We followed the dancers backstage; no one questioned our right to be there.

  Following the sound of voices, I stuck my head into a dressing room. A young woman pulling a leotard from her freckled body asked me what I wanted. I told her I was looking for Paige.

  “Oh, Paige… She’s in the soloists’ dressing-room-three doors down on your left.”

  The soloists’ dressing-room door was shut. I knocked and entered. Two women were there. One of them told me Paige was taking a shower and asked me to wait in the hall-there wasn’t an inch of extra room in the place.

  Presently Paige herself came down the hall from the shower, muffled in a white terry-cloth robe with a large white towel wrapped around her head.

  “Vic! What are you doing here?”

  “Hi, Paige. I came to talk to you. When you’re dressed I’ll take you out for coffee or gin or whatever you drink this time of day.”

  The honey-colored eyes widened slightly: she wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of orders, even when given in a subtle way. “I’m not sure I have time.”

  “Then I’ll talk to you while you get dressed.”

  “Is it that important?”

  “It’s extremely important.”

  She shrugged. “Wait for me here. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  The few minutes stretched into forty before she reappeared. The other two women came out together, carrying on a vigorous conversation about someone named Larry. They glanced at me and one of them broke off to say, “She’s about halfway through her makeup” as they passed.

  Paige presently emerged in a gold silk shirt and white full skirt. She wore a couple of thin gold chains at her throat with little diamond chips in them. Her makeup was perfect-rusty tones that looked like the delicate flush of Mother Nature-and her hair framed her face in a smooth pageboy.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting-it always takes longer than I think it will-and the more I try to hurry the longer it seems to take.”

  “You people work up a good sweat. What was that you were rehearsing this afternoon? It looked pretty grim.”

  “It’s one of Ann’s flights-Ann Bidermyer, the director, you know. Pavane for a Dope Dealer. Not in the best taste but it’s a good role. For Karl too. Gives us both a great chance to show off. We open with it tomorrow. Want to see it? I’ll get them to leave a ticket for you at the box office.”

  “Thanks… Anyplace around here to talk, or do we need to head farther south?”

  She considered. “There’s a little coffee shop around the corner on Victoria. It’s a hole in the wall but they have good cappuccino.”

  We went out into the brisk spring evening. The coffee shop seated only six people at tiny round tables on spindly cast-iron chairs. They sold fresh coffee beans, a vast assortment of tea, and a few homemade pastries. I ordered espresso and Paige had English Breakfast tea. Both came in heavy porcelain mugs.

  “What were you looking for in my cousin’s apartment?”

  Paige drew herself up in her chair. “My letters, Vic. I told you that.”

  “You’re not the kind of person who embarrasses easily-I just can’t picture you getting that worked up about some letters, even if they are personal… Come to think of it, why would two people in the same city write each other anyway?”

  She flushed below the rouge. “We were on tour.”

  “How did you meet Boom Boom?”

  “At a party. A man I know was thinking about buying a share in the Black Hawks and Guy Odinflute invited some of the players. Boom Boom came.” Her voice was cold.

  Odinflute was a North Shore tycoon with a flair for business matchmaking. He’d be the ideal person to bring together buyers and sellers of the Black Hawks.

  “When was that?”

  “At Christmas, Vic, if you must know.”

  I’d seen Boom Boom a couple of times during the winter and he’d never mentioned Paige. But was that so strange? I never told him who I was dating either. When he got married, at twenty-four, I first met his wife a few weeks before the wedding. That was a little different-he’d been slightly ashamed to introduce me to Connie. When she left him three weeks later and received an annulment, he’d gotten gloriously drunk with me, but still hadn’t really talked about it. He kept his private life emphatically private.

  “What are you thinking, Vic? You look very hostile, and I resent it.”

  “Do you? Henry Kelvin was killed last night when some people broke into Boom Boom’s place. They tore it apart. I want to know if they were looking for the same thing you were. And if so, what?”

  “Henry? The night watchman? Oh, I’m so sorry, Vic. Sorry to get mad at you, too. If you’d only told me, instead of playing games with me… Was anything stolen? Could it have been a robbery?”

  “Nothing was taken, but the place was sure chewed up pretty thoroughly. I think I saw everything Boom Boom had in his files and I can’t imagine what value any of it would have to anyone besides a hockey memorabilia collector.”

  She shook her head, her eyes troubled. “I don’t know either. Unless it was a robbery. I know he kept some share certificates there, even though I kept telling him to put them in a safe deposit box. He just couldn’t be bothered with stuff like that. Were those gone?”

  “I didn’t see them when I was there on Tuesday. Maybe he did take them to a bank.” Another point to check with the lawyer Simonds.

  “They were probably the most valuable things in the place, barring that antique chest in the dining room. Why don’t you try to locate them?” She put her hand on my arm. “I know it sounds crazy about the letters. But it’s true. In fact I’ll show you the one your cousin wrote me while we were away, if that’s what it will take to convince you.” She rummaged in her large handbag and unzipped a side compartment. She pulled out a letter, still in its typed envelope, addressed to her at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. Paige unfolded the letter. I recognized my cousin’s tiny, careful handwriting at once. It began, “Beautiful Paige.” I didn’t think I should read the rest.

 
“I see,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  The honey-colored eyes looked at me reproachfully and with a hint of coldness. “I’m sorry, too. Sorry that you couldn’t trust what I said to you.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t doubt Boom Boom had sent the letter-his handwriting was unmistakable-but why was she carrying it around in her handbag ready to show to anyone?

  “I hope you’re not jealous of me for being Boom Boom’s lover.”

  I grinned. “I hope not too, Paige.” Of course, that might explain my suspicions. Maybe to Paige at any rate.

  We took off shortly after that, Paige to an unknown destination and I for home. What a thoroughly dispiriting day. Kelvin dead, the encounter with Mrs. Kelvin, and an unsatisfactory meeting with Paige. Maybe I was just a tiny bit jealous. If you were going to fall in love, Cousin, did it have to be with someone that perfect?

  I couldn’t figure out where Boom Boom would have kept his most private papers. He didn’t have a safe deposit box. Simonds, his attorney, didn’t have any secret documents. Myron Fackley, his agent, didn’t have any. I didn’t. If Paige was right about the stock certificates, where were they? Whom had Boom Boom trusted besides me? Perhaps his old teammates. I’d call Fackley tomorrow and see if he could put me in touch with Pierre Bouchard, the guy Boom Boom was closest to.

  I took myself out to dinner at the Gypsy, a pleasant, quiet restaurant farther south on Clark. After the frustrating day I’d had I was due some peace and quiet. Over calf’s liver with mustard sauce and a half bottle of Barolo I made a list of things to do. Find out something about Paige Carrington’s background. Get Pierre Bouchard’s phone number from Fackley. And get back down to the Port of Chicago. If Henry Kelvin’s death and Boom Boom’s were connected, the link lay in something my cousin had learned down there.