Unless they were embarrassed at not doing anything to help, I thought. “Where’s Grafalk’s office?”
“Do you really want to go there, Miss Warshawski?” Phillips asked. “It’s not the kind of place you should just go into without some sort of credential or justification.”
“I have a credential.” I fished my private investigator’s license out of my wallet. “I’ve asked a lot of people a lot of questions based on this.”
His wooden expression didn’t change, but he turned red to the roots of his pale blond hair. “I think I should go over with you and introduce you to the right person.”
“You want to swing by the Lucella with her, too, Mr. Phillips?” Margolis asked.
“Not particularly. I’m running late as it is. I’ll have to go back to your office, Pete, and call Rodriguez from there.”
“Look, Mr. Phillips,” I put in, “I can take care of myself perfectly well. I don’t need you to interrupt your schedule to ferry me around.”
He assured me it was no problem, he really wanted to do it if I thought it was necessary. It occurred to me he might be worrying that I would turn up some witness suggesting that Eudora Grain had been negligent. In any case, he could smooth my path at Grafalk’s, so I didn’t mind his tagging along.
While he went back through the elevator to use the phone, Margolis took me down a narrow iron ladder to the wharf. Close up, the ship looked even dirtier. Heavy cables extended from the deck and tied her up fast to large knobs sticking out of the concrete wharf. Like the ship, the cables were old, frayed, and none too clean. As Margolis led me to the rear of the O. R. Daley, I notice how badly the paint had cracked above the waterline. “O. R. Daley. Grafalk Steamship Line. Chicago.” was painted in chipped white letters near the back.
“Your cousin was probably standing here.” The concrete had ended, replaced by faded wood planks. “It was a sloppy day. We had to stop loading every few hours, cover the hatches, and wait for the rain to end. Very long job. Anyway, wood like this-real old, you know-gets very slippery when it’s wet. If Boom Boom-your cousin, I mean-was leaning over to see something, he might’ve just slipped and fallen right in. He did have that bad leg.”
“What would he be leaning over to look at, though?”
“Anything. He was an inquisitive guy. Very interested in everything and anything about the ships and the business. Between you and me, he got on Phillips’s nerves a bit.” He spat expertly into the water. “But, what I hear, Argus got him this job and Phillips didn’t like to stand up to him.”
David Argus was chairman of Eudora Grain. He’d flown in from Eudora, Kansas, to attend Boom Boom’s funeral and had made a hundred-dollar donation to a children’s home in Boom Boom’s name. He hadn’t gone to the post-funeral party, lucky devil, but he’d shaken my hand briefly after the ceremony, a short, stocky guy in his sixties who exuded a blast-furnace personality. If he had been my cousin’s patron, Boom Boom was well protected in the organization. But I couldn’t believe Boom Boom would abuse the relationship, and said so.
“Naw, nothing like that. But Phillips didn’t like having a young guy around that he had to look after. Nope, Boom Boom worked real hard, didn’t ask for any special favors the way he might’ve, being a star and all. I’d say the fellows liked him pretty well.”
“Someone was telling me there was a lot of talk down here about my cousin-that he might have committed suicide.” I looked at the foreman steadily.
He gave a surprised grimace. “Not so far as I know. I haven’t heard anything. You could talk to the men. But, like I say, I haven’t heard anything.”
Phillips walked toward us dusting his hands. Margolis jerked his head toward Phillips. “You going with him? Want to come back later to talk to the men?”
We settled on ten the next morning, break time for the morning shift. Margolis said he would talk to them in the meantime, but he really thought if anyone had seen anything he would have volunteered it. “An accident always gets a lot of talk. And Warshawski, being a celebrity and all, everyone who knew anything was mouthing off. I don’t think you’ll find out anything.”
Phillips came up to us. “Are you ready? I’ve talked to the dispatcher at Grafalk’s. They’re very reluctant to let you know where the Bertha Krupnik is, but they’ll talk to you if I bring you over.” He looked self-consciously at his watch.
I shook hands with Margolis, told him I’d see him in the morning, and followed Phillips on down the pier and around the back of the elevator. We picked our way across the deeply pocked yard, stepping over strips of rusted metal, to where Phillips’s green Alfa sat, sleek and incongruous between an old Impala and a rusty pickup. He put his hard hat carefully on the back seat and made a great show of starting the car, reversing it between ruts and sliding to the yard entrance. Once we’d turned onto 130th Street and were moving with the traffic I said, “You’re clearly annoyed about chauffeuring me around the Port. It doesn’t bother me to barge in on people without an escort-just as I did on you this morning. Why do you feel you have to come with me?”
He shot a quick glance at me. I noticed his hands gripping the wheel so tightly that the knuckles showed white. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes and I thought perhaps he was going to ignore me altogether. Finally he said in his deep, tight voice, “Who asked you to come down to the Port?”
“No one: I came on my own. Boom Boom Warshawski was my cousin and I feel an obligation to find out the circumstances surrounding his death.”
“Argus came to the funeral. Did he suggest there was anything wrong?”
“What are you trying to tell me, Phillips? Is there some reason to think that my cousin’s death was not an accident?”
“No. No,” he repeated quickly. He smiled and suddenly looked more human. “He came down here on Tuesday-Argus did-and put us through the wringer on safety at the elevators. He took a personal interest in your cousin and he was very upset when he died. I just wondered if he’d asked you to investigate this as part of your professional function rather than as Warshawski’s cousin.”
“I see… Well, Mr. Argus didn’t hire me. I guess I hired myself.” I thought about explaining my personal concern but my detective training made me cautious. Rule number something or other-never tell anybody anything unless you’re going to get something better in return. Maybe someday I’d write up a Manual for the Neophyte Detective.
We were driving past the elevators lining the Calumet River and the entrance to the main Port. Large ships loomed everywhere, poking black smokestacks between gray columns of grain and cement elevators. Little trees struggled for life in patches of earth between railroad tracks, slag heaps, and pitted roadbeds. We passed a dead steel mill, a massive complex of rust-red buildings and railway junctions. The cyclone fence was padlocked shut at the entrance: the recession having its impact-the plant was closed.
The headquarters for the Port of Chicago were completely rebuilt a few years ago. With new buildings, modern docks, and a well-paved road the place looked modern and efficient. Phillips stopped at a guard station where a city cop looked up from his paper and nodded him in. The Alfa purred across smooth tarmac and we stopped in a slot labeled EUDORA GRAIN. We locked the doors and I followed Phillips toward a row of modern buildings.