He took off in a cloud of antiseptic. I looked at my cousin’s calendar again. On the twenty-third he’d seen Margolis. Must have been over at the elevator. On the twenty-fourth, a Saturday, he’d been with Paige. He hadn’t written in any other appointments. On Monday he talked to MacKelvy, the dispatcher at Grafalk, and to two people whose names I didn’t recognize. I’d show Mattingly’s picture to Margolis. Maybe get Pierre to do that.
I looked at my watch, strapped awkwardly on my right wrist. Four-thirty-Paige was probably at the theater. I called, got her answering service, and left a message.
Lotty came in around five, noting the disarray of papers and bedclothes with her thick black eyebrows raised. “You’re a terrible patient, my dear. They tell me you’re rejecting all medication… Now I do not mind if you don’t want the pain pills-that’s your choice. But you must take the antibiotics. I don’t want any secondary infection in the arm.”
She straightened the mess around the bed with a few efficient motions. I like watching Lotty-she’s so compact and tidy. She sat down on the bed. A nurse, bringing a supper tray, pursed her lips in disapproval. No sitting on beds, but doctors are sacrosanct.
Lotty looked at the food. “Everything’s boiled to death. Good-no digestive problems for you.” She grinned wickedly.
“Pizza,” I groaned. “Pasta. Wine.”
She laughed. “Everything’s coming along nicely. If you can stand it for one more day I’ll take you home on Monday. Maybe spend a few days with me while you recover, okay?”
I looked at her through narrowed eyes. “I’ve got work to do, Lotty. I’m not going to lie in bed for two weeks waiting for these shoulder muscles to heal.”
“Don’t threaten me, Vic: I’m not one of these silly nurses. When have I ever tried to stop you from doing your job, even when you were being a pit dog?”
I struggled up. “Pit dog, Lotty? Pit dog! What the hell do you mean?”
“A dog that has to get down in the pit-the ring-and fight every damn person, even its friends.”
I lay down again. “You’re right, Lotty. Sorry. It’s very kind of you to invite me home. I would appreciate that.”
She brushed a kiss on my cheek and disappeared for a while, coming back with a deep-dish onion and anchovy pizza. My favorite. “No wine while you’re on antibiotics.”
We ate the pizza and played gin. Lotty won. She whiled away a lot of World War II in London bomb shelters playing gin with the family who had taken her in. She almost always beats me.
Sunday morning I tried Paige again but she still wasn’t home. Around noon, however, she showed up in person, looking beautiful in a green ruffled blouse and black and green Guatemalan skirt. She moved buoyantly into the room, smelling faintly of spring, and kissed me on the forehead.
“Paige! How nice to see you. Thanks so much for the flowers-they brighten the place up, as you can see.”
“Vic, I was so sorry about the accident. But I’m glad you weren’t hurt more seriously. My answering service said you were trying to get in touch with me-I thought I’d come in person and see how you’re doing.”
I asked how Pavane for a Dope Dealer was doing and she laughed and told me about the performance. We chatted for a few minutes, then I explained that I was trying to follow up on my cousin’s movements the last few days before he died.
Her arched brows snapped together in a momentary annoyance. “Are you still trailing him around? Don’t you think it’s time you let the dead bury the dead, Vic?”
I smiled with what calmness I could, feeling at a disadvantage with my hair unwashed and wearing a hospital gown. “I’m doing a favor for an old friend of Boom Boom’s-Pierre Bouchard.”
Yes, she’d met Pierre. He was a sweetheart. What did he want to know?
“If you’d seen Howard Mattingly recently.”
An indefinable expression crossed her face. “I don’t know who that is.”
“He’s one of the second-string players. Boom Boom didn’t like him, so he might never have introduced you to him… Where did you two go on that last Saturday? Anyplace that he might have seen the guy?”
She shrugged and gave me a disdainful look, designed to make me feel like a ghoul. I waited. “You’re being extremely vulgar, Vic. That was my last private day with Boom Boom. I want to keep it to myself.”
“You didn’t see him Monday night?”
She turned red. “Vic! I know you’re a detective, but this is excessive. You have a morbid interest in your cousin that’s very unhealthy. I believe you can’t stand the thought that he might have been close to any other woman but you!”
“Paige, I’m not asking you to tell me what kind of lover Boom Boom was or to describe any intimate passages of your lives together. I just want to know what you did on Saturday and whether you saw him on Monday… Look, I don’t want to turn this into a big, hostile ordeal. I like you. I don’t want to start calling Ann Bidermyer and your mother and everyone you know to get a bead on you. I’m just asking you.”
The honey-colored eyes filled with tears. “I like you too, Vic. You remind me of Boom Boom. But he was never so aggressive, even though he was a hockey player.
“We were sailing on Saturday. We got back at four so I could get to rehearsal. He may have stayed in Lake Bluff with the boat. I don’t know. Monday night we had dinner at the Gypsy. I never saw him after that. Are you satisfied? Does that tell you what you have to find out? Or will you still be calling my mother and everyone else I know?”
She turned and left. My head was aching again.
13 Sherry at Valhalla
Monday morning, Lotty removed the cast, pronounced the swelling down and healing well under way, and had me released from bondage. We went north to her tidy apartment.
Lotty drives her green Datsun recklessly, believing that all other cars will move out of the way. A dent in the right fender and a long scrape along the passenger door are testimony to the success of her approach. I opened my eyes on Addison-a mistake, since it was in time to see her swerve in front of a CTA bus and to turn right onto Sheffield.
“Lotty, if you’re going to drive like this, get a semi-the guy who’s responsible for putting my shoulder in this sling walked away from the accident unscratched.”
Lotty turned off the ignition and hopped out of the car. “Firmness is necessary, Vic. Firmness or the others will drive one from the streets.”
It was hopeless; I gave up an unequal struggle.
We had stopped by my apartment to pick up clothes and a bottle of Black Label-Lotty doesn’t keep whiskey in the house. I’d also taken my Smith & Wesson from a locked cupboard in the bedroom closet. Someone had tried to smash me to bits on the Dan Ryan. I didn’t feel like roving the streets unprotected.
Lotty went to the clinic she operates nearby. I settled down in her living room with a telephone. I was going to talk to everyone who’d had a chance to take a crack at me. My rage had disappeared as my head wound healed, but my sense of purpose was strengthened.
I reached the helpful young office manager at the Pole Star Line on the third ring. The news she gave me was not encouraging. The Lucella Wieser had delivered her load in Buffalo and was steaming to Erie to pick up coal bound for Detroit. After that she was booked on the upper lakes for some time-they didn’t expert her in Chicago until the middle of June. They could help me set up a radio conversation if it was urgent. I couldn’t see going over the issues I needed to cover by radio-I’d have to speak to the Pole Star contingent face to face.
Baffled there, I called down to Eudora Grain’s office and asked for Janet. She came to the phone and told me she was sorry about my accident and glad I was feeling better. I asked her if she knew where Phillips lived-I might pay a surprise visit to his wife to find out what time her husband had come home the night of my accident.