I shook my head sorrowfully. “Terrible.” The International Brotherhood of Knifegrinders was notorious for their underworld connections. They’d hired muscle in the rough-and-tumble days of the thirties and had never been able to get rid of them since. As a result most of their elections and a lot of their finances were corrupt and-and suddenly it dawned on me who my elusive client was, why Anita McGraw’s name sounded familiar, and why the guy had picked me out of the Yellow Pages. I leaned farther back in my chair but said nothing.
Mallory’s face turned red. “Vicki, if I find you crossing my path on this case, I’m going to turn you in for your own good!” He stood so violently that his chair turned over. He motioned to Sergeant McGonnigal and the two slammed the door behind them.
I poured myself another cup of coffee and took it into the bathroom with me where I dumped a generous dollop of Azuree mineral salts into the tub and ran myself a hot bath. As I sank into it, the aftereffects of my late-night drinking seeping out of my bones, I recalled a night more than twenty years ago. My mother was putting me to bed when the doorbell rang and the man who lived in the apartment below us staggered in. A burly man my dad’s age, maybe younger-all big men seem old to little girls. I’d peeped around the door because everyone was making such a commotion and seen him covered with blood before my mother rounded on me and hustled me into the bedroom. She stayed there with me and together we heard snatches of conversation: The man had been shot, possibly by management-hired thugs, but he was afraid to go to the police officially because he’d hired thugs himself, and would my dad help him.
Tony did, fixing up the wound. But he ordered him-unusual in a man usually so gentle-to leave the neighborhood and never come around to us again. The man was Andrew McGraw.
I’d never seen him again, never even connected him with the McGraw who was now president of Local 108 and hence, in effect, of the whole union. But he’d obviously remembered my dad. I guessed he’d tried to reach Tony at the police and, when he’d learned my dad was dead, had pulled me out of the Yellow Pages, assuming I would be Tony’s son. Well, I wasn’t: I was his daughter, and not the easygoing type my dad had been. I had my Italian mother’s drive, and I try to emulate her insistence on fighting battles to the finish. But regardless of what kind of person I was, McGraw might be finding himself now in trouble of the kind that not even easygoing Tony would have helped him out of.
I drank some more coffee and flexed my toes in the water. The bath shimmered turquoise, but clear. I peered through it at my feet, trying to figure out what I knew. McGraw had a daughter. She probably loved him, since she seemed dedicated to the labor movement. Children usually do not espouse causes or careers of parents they hate. Had she disappeared, or was he hiding her? Did he know who had killed young Peter and had she run away because of this? Or did he think she’d killed the boy? Most murders, I reminded myself, were committed between loved ones, which made her statistically the odds-on favorite. What were McGraw’s connections with the hired muscle with whom the International Brotherhood lived so cozily? How easily could he have hired someone to fire that shot? He was someone the boy would let in and talk to, no matter what their feelings for each other were, because McGraw was his girl friend’s father.
The bathwater was warm, but I shivered as I finished my coffee.
4
You Can’t Scare Me
(I’m Sticking to the Union)
The headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Knifegrinders, Shear Edgers, and Blade Sharpeners is located on Sheridan Road just south of Evanston. The ten-story building was put up about five years ago, and is sided with white Italian marble. The only other building in Chicago built with such opulence is the headquarters for Standard of Indiana; I figured that put the brotherhood’s excess profits on a par with those of the oil industry.
Local 108 headquarters was on the ninth floor. I gave the floor receptionist my card. “Mr. McGraw is expecting me,” I told her. I was shunted down the north corridor. McGraw’s secretary was guarding the entrance to a lakeside office in an antechamber that would have done Louis XIV proud. I wondered how the International Brothers felt when they saw what their dues had built for them. Or maybe there were some beaten-up offices lower down for entertaining the rank-and-file.
I gave my card to the secretary, a middle-aged woman with gray sausage curls and a red-and-white dress that revealed an unlovely sag in her upper arms. I keep thinking I should lift five-pound weights to firm up my triceps. Looking at her, I wondered if I would have time to stop at Stan’s Sporting Goods on my way home to pick up some barbells.
“I have an appointment with Mr. McGraw.”
“You’re not in the book,” she said abruptly, not really looking at me. I had on my navy raw silk suit, with the blouson jacket. I looked stunning in this outfit and thought I deserved a little more attention. Must be those sagging triceps.
I smiled. “I’m sure you know as well as I do that Mr. McGraw conducts some of his business on his own. He arranged to see me privately.”
“Mr. McGraw may sometimes take up with whores,” she said, her face red, her eyes on her desktop, “but this is the first time he’s ever asked one up to his office.”
I restrained an impulse to brain her with her desk lamp. “Good-looking lady like you in his front office, he doesn’t need outside talent… Now will you please inform Mr. McGraw that I’m here?”
Her shapeless face shook under the thick pancake. “Mr. McGraw is in conference and can’t be disturbed.” Her voice trembled. I felt like a creep-I couldn’t find a girl or a murderer, but I sure knew how to rough up middle-aged secretaries.
McGraw’s office was soundproofed, but noise of the conference came into the antechamber. Quite a conference. I was about to announce my intention of sitting and waiting when one sentence rose above the din and penetrated the rosewood door.
“Goddamnit, you set my son up!”
How many people could possibly have sons who might have been set up in the last forty-eight hours and be connected with the Knifegrinders? Maybe more than one, but the odds were against it. With the sausage curls protesting loudly, I opened the door into the inner office.
Not as large as Masters’s, but by no means shabby, it overlooked Lake Michigan and a nice little private beach. At the moment it was none too peaceful. Two men had been sitting at a round table in the corner, but one was on his feet yelling to make his point. Even with his face distorted by anger I didn’t have any trouble recognizing the original of the picture in the Fort Dearborn Trust’s annual report. And rising to his feet and yelling back as I entered was surely my client. Short, squat without being fat, and wearing a shiny gray suit.
They both stopped cold as they saw me.
“What the hell are you doing in here!” my client roared. “Mildred?”
Sausage curls waddled in, her eyes gleaming. “I told her you wouldn’t want to see her, but no, she has to come barging in like she’s-”
“Mr. McGraw, I am V. I. Warshawski.” I pitched my voice to penetrate the din. “And you may not want to see me, but I look like an angel compared to a couple of homicide dicks who’re going to be after you pretty soon… Hi, Mr. Thayer,” I added, holding out a hand. “I’m sorry about your son-I’m the person who found the body.”
“It’s all right, Mildred,” McGraw said weakly. “I know this lady and I do want to talk to her.” Mildred gave me a furious look, then turned and stalked out, shutting the door with what seemed unnecessary violence.
“Mr. Thayer, what makes you think Mr. McGraw set your son up?” I asked conversationally, seating myself in a leather armchair in a corner.