V.I. Warshawski: Hard Time Part 30

I sat back in my chair. "No proof, but very suggestive," I said to Morrell.

"Let's get some copies of this before I send it back to the Baladines."

He grunted agreement, although he pointed out there wasn't enough there to get Baladine arrested, let alone convicted. I agreed and put in the first of the Nicola tapes to see if it might give us something more concrete.

The tape was dated about six months before Nicola's arrest for theft. We watched Nicola waking Utah and Madison, a sleepy Utah clinging to her nanny while Madison chatted vivaciously about the many things she was doing better in at school than anyone else. We saw Eleanor and BB kissing briefly as he left for the office on a "don't know how late I'll be tonight, sweetheart" line and Eleanor in the nursery adjuring Nicola not to baby Utah. "She's almost three.

It's time you stopped carrying her everywhere." When Nicola said brokenly that she didn't understand, Eleanor told her not to play stupid and plunked Utah from Nicola's arms onto the floor. Utah began to howl. As soon as Eleanor left the room, Nicola picked her up and began soothing her in a language I didn't know, presumably Tagalog.

It was unnerving to watch Nicola Aguinaldo alive, even in the grainy production of the home video. She was pet.i.te, so small that next to Eleanor Baladine she looked like a child herself. In Eleanor's presence she became as waxen as one of the children's dolls, but alone with the little girls she grew more relaxed.

Robbie came in and began playing with Utah. He spoke Spanish to Nicola, who teased him about his accent and got him to laugh back at her. I had never seen Robbie happy. Talking in Spanish to him, Nicola became vivacious, almost beautiful. Eleanor called up to say the school bus was there.

The tape covered a twoweek period. Scenes broke off abruptly as people either moved out of camera range or turned off the camera. A conversation Eleanor was having with a gardener ended suddenly as Baladine called Nicola to his study. We watched her enter and stand with a face drained of expression. When she quietly took off and folded her clothes, she seemed to treat it as the same kind of ch.o.r.e that putting away Madison and Utah's clothes was. Baladine himself did not undress. It was unbearable, and I couldn't watch. When Morrell heard me crying he switched off the machine.

"I can't show that to a roomful of reporters," I muttered. "It's too indecent."

"Do you want me to watch the other reel and summarize it for you?" he asked.

"Yes. No. I think I'd better see for myself."

The second reel was similar to the first, except for the scene in Baladine's study. This time Nicola was begging for money for her child's hospital bills and Baladine was telling her impatiently that he paid her a good wage and that she had a h.e.l.l of a nerve to try begging for money on a madeup story. Nicola offered herself to him and he laughed at her. It was a scene of such agonizing humiliation that I finally left the library to pace the school corridor. When I came back, Morrell had finished the tape and rewound it. Father Lou had slipped into the room while I was walking around.

"There wasn't anything on it about the necklace or her arrest. We'll have to imagine that part," Morrell said.

"That poor child," Father Lou said. "What a crucifixion she endured. That man, her boss, he's the one you're after?"

I was as sweaty and depleted as if I'd run a marathon and could only nod.

"I still don't know if you're doing the right thing or not, but I'll help you out. Let you use the library here for your press conference."

I blinked. "But, Father, you know-Baladine not only has a lot of artillery at his disposal, he's not afraid to use it. Women and children don't mean anything special to him. I couldn't possibly guarantee your safety, or the safety of the school. Unless . . ."

"Unless what?" Morrell said sharply when I didn't finish the sentence.

"Unless I get Baladine to come to me first. Before we lay the case out to the media. Especially since we can prove Frenada was at his pool the night he died.

If I bring him to me, I won't have to lie here tensely waiting for him to make some kind of move."

"No," Morrell said. "Putting your head on the block for him to chop off is nuts.

You know Freeman Carter would give you the same advice."

I scrunched up my mouth in a monkey face. "More than likely. But I'm tired of walking around in terror. Ever since he sicced Lemour on me in June, I've had to watch every step I take, and my time in Coolis has only made me more nervous. If I let him know I've got these tapes and the tape he made of him and Alex, I think he'll come get them. And if I leave the church, he won't do it here where the kids will be in danger."

"Your press presentation is your best route," Morrell said patiently. "Bringing that much publicity not just to his Coolis operation but to his use of a Chicago police officer to plant drugs in your office will force Baladine to stop hara.s.sing you. Probably force his board to make him quit, too."

"Abigail Trant told me that he can't stand the notion of being bested. I saw it-or heard it-yesterday: he was furious when Alex got the tape from him. He hurt her to get it back: it wasn't a game to him. There's no telling what he might do."

"Think about it overnight," Father Lou suggested. "Offer a special intention at ma.s.s in the morning. Do some manual labor in the crypt. Nothing like hard work to clear the mind."

So Morrell and I spent the rest of the morning in the chamber underneath the altar, s.h.i.+fting old boxes of hymnals that Father Lou had decided the church would never use again, digging out the costumes the children wore in their Christmas pageant, and uncovering an actual reliquary that the Italians who built the church a hundred years ago had brought with them. This caused an explosion of nervous ribaldry from the boys working with us.

I hadn't resolved matters by three, when Father Lou called a halt to our work so that the boys could attend the parish picnic. Nor did a nap while Morrell joined them in a baseball game in Humboldt Park bring any special vision. I still wanted to call Baladine and tell him I had his videotapes: something like a childhood taunt-come catch me if you can.

The problem remained where I would be when I issued the taunt. At the church I endangered Father Lou and his schoolchildren. In my own home there were Mr.

Contreras and the other tenants. Tessa's studio ruled out using my office. And he might be so berserk that he'd go after someone like Lotty out of sheer terrorism, even if I wasn't near her.

All evening long, as Morrell and I worked on my presentation-preparing the photographs in order, figuring out what video sequences to show of Lemour in action against me, where to put Trant and Frenada with Baladine at his pool, discussing whether to use any of the Aguinaldo footage, typing up cameraready copy in St. Remigio's school computer lab-Morrell and I debated the question. At midnight, when Morrell left with the material-he was taking it to the Unblinking Eye in the morning for production-I was no nearer a solution.

I went to bed and fell into a restless sleep. It was only an hour later when Father Lou shook me awake. "Old man's at the door with a kid and some dogs. Says he's your neighbor."

"My neighbor?" I pulled on my jeans and jammed my feet into my running shoes and sprinted down the hall, Father Lou following on his rolling boxer's gait.

I looked through the peephole at the figures on the doorstep. Mr. Contreras.

With Mitch, Peppy, and Robbie Baladine. My heart sank, but I told Father Lou it was, in fact, my neighbor.

"With the kid whose father had me arrested the last time he ran away to me."

Father Lou unsc.r.a.ped the dead bolts and let them in. Mr. Contreras started speaking as the door opened. All I caught was, "Sorry, doll, but I didn't want to use the phone in case they was tapping my line," before the dogs overwhelmed me with their ecstatic greeting and Robbie, painfully thin and grubby, started apologizing: "I know you said to wait until I heard from you, but BB called."

Father Lou shut the door. "Okay. Into the kitchen for tea, and let's sort this out one voice at a time. These dogs housebroken?"

"Where's the car?" I asked, before Father Lou pushed the dead bolts home.

"Sorry, doll, sorry, it's out front, you want me to move it?"

"It needs to go away from here. It's very identifiable, and if Baladine is scouring the city for me, he'll find it."

"Rectory garage," Father Lou said. "Filled with old junk but room for the car.

I'll show-what's your name?-Contreras the garage. You take the boy into the kitchen. Put on the kettle."

Robbie and the dogs bounded down the hall with me to the kitchen. Robbie was trying hard not to flinch from Mitch, which seemed more heartbreaking than anything else about him.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Warshawski," he whispered, "but they figured out you weren't Aunt Claudia. They were going to lock me in the punishment barracks. I didn't know when I'd ever get out. And I thought if BB did something else bad to you because you came to see me, I'd have to kill myself. So I ran away. But now I see he can put you in prison no matter what I do."

"Sh, sh,poverino. It's okay. You're here, let's deal with that. Tell me the story when Father Lou and Mr. Contreras get back; that way we'll all get the same version and you'll only have to tell it once."

When the two men came in, the kettle was boiling. Father Lou made a large mug of cambric tea for Robbie and black tea with sugar for himself. I poured more hot milk into a mug for myself.

Mr. Contreras impatiently waved away refreshments. "He showed up about an hour ago, doll. He's done in. I didn't know what to do-like I say, I was afraid to use the phone-but I figured if they had any kind of watch on the place, it wasn't good to leave him there. I guess I could have gone up to Morrell, but all I thought was, you'd be in real trouble now if that creep Baladine-sorry, son, I know he's your old man-"

"Let's have it from the beginning, and short," Father Lou said. "Have to say ma.s.s in a few hours, don't want to stay up all night."

As short as any story involving Mr. Contreras could be, it boiled down to this: the camp commandant had summoned Robbie and questioned him about my visit.

Robbie stuck to the story that I was his Aunt Claudia, his mother's younger sister, but the commandant revealed he had talked both to BB and to the real Claudia Sunday night after the swim meet. All Robbie could do was insist that I was Aunt Claudia. The commandant said Robbie would be sent to the punishment block for a few days until Eleanor arrived in person to talk to the commandant.

"During reveille, while everyone stands at attention, I snuck off. It was only this morning, but it seems like it must've been a year ago. I ran in a ditch alongside the camp and got out the back way and hitched into Columbia. Then I used your money to get the bus to Chicago, but I didn't know where to go except to your apartment. I'm awful sorry, Ms. Warshawski; if this means BB sends you back to jail for kidnapping, I don't know what I'll do."

His eyes were dilating with fear and exhaustion. Father Lou cut off a hunk of bread and smeared it with b.u.t.ter.

"Eat that, son. Cross that bridge when you come to it, but if you stand up in court and tell your story like a man, no one will send her to prison. Time you were in bed. You've had too long a day. You can sleep in in the morning, but you go to school in the afternoon. What year you in? Seventh grade. Get you a uniform-have extras for kids too poor to buy 'em. Worry about everything else later."

Father Lou looked a bit like Popeye, but his voice had the authoritative rea.s.surance that children respond to. Robbie calmed down and followed me docilely to a bedroom near mine. I pulled clean sheets from a shelf and made up the narrow bed.

I heard a barking and yelping in the kitchen and ran back down the hall to find that Mitch had made himself into a hero: he'd emerged from the pantry with a rat in his mouth. Father Lou said in that case the dogs could stay the night. As an afterthought he offered Mr. Contreras a bed, too.

The priest stomped off to bed, leaving me to make up another bed for my neighbor. When he said good night, Mr. Contreras handed me a paper bag. "I been holding this for you since the day you was arrested, doll. I figure you might need it now."

It was my Smith & Wesson, which had been in the handbag I'd flung to Mr.

Contreras the day Lemour came to get me.

46.

In the Church Militant Mitch had caught another rat and was barking with joy. "That's a good boy," I mumbled. "Now be quiet and let me sleep."

I put out a hand to pet him and woke up when I was stroking air and the barking hadn't stopped. I pulled on my jeans again and picked up the Smith & Wesson.

I'd gotten used to finding my way through the rectory in the dark and went down the hall in the direction of Mitch's voice. He and Peppy were trying to get into the church from the rectory pa.s.sage. When they heard me they ran to me and pawed at my legs, trying to get me to open the door leading into the church.

Peppy, scratching on the door, only made impatient grunts in the back of her throat, but I couldn't quiet Mitch enough to listen for sounds from the church.

Finally, I clamped his muzzle shut with my left hand, but he thrashed so violently that I still couldn't hear anything. I was trying to picture the geography of the buildings, wondering how to get around to the rear, when Father Lou materialized behind me.

"Think it's your man in there?"

"I don't know. You get many g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers breaking in at night?" I whispered back.

"Usually know better. Could call the cops, but it takes them an hour to show around here. Hold the dogs. I'm opening the door into the church, want to see what's going on without animals running wild in the sanctuary."

He undid the three ma.s.sive locks to the church door and went inside. Mitch was whining and straining to be after him, and even Peppy was pulling on my arms in angry protest. I'd counted to a hundred, figuring I'd go to onefifty before I plunged after the priest, when he slipped back through the pa.s.sage.

"Think they're coming in through the school. Fourthfloor windows don't have bars-must've scaled the wall somehow. I'm going outside to holler them down."

"No!" I let Mitch go. He scampered into the church and made a beeline for the door that connected the nave to the school. "If it is Baladine, he may have someone outside to pick off anyone who leaves the building. If he's coming in through the school he's probably hoping for a surprise attack, but it could still be a feint designed to draw us-me-outside."

There wasn't any light; I felt rather than saw the priest scowling. "Old coal pa.s.sages connect church, school, rectory through the crypt. Keep them locked to stop the kids horsing around down there. I can come into the school behind him through the bas.e.m.e.nt. Know my way in the dark, you don't, you stay here. Don't want any shooting in the church; do your best if they come in. Calling the cops on my way; hope they get here sometime before we're all dead."

By tacit consent we left Mr. Contreras asleep. Father Lou went down the hall to the kitchen, and I went into the church. I didn't know what time it was, but it was still too early for any light to come in through the church's dirty east windows. The red sanctuary lamp gave off the only light. I fumbled my way to the sanctuary, trying to orient myself by the lamp and by Mitch, who was barking sharply at the door to the school.

I b.u.mped into Peppy and almost screamed. She wagged her tail against my legs. I clutched her collar and let her guide me. At the steps to the altar I could follow the altar rail toward the raised podium used for sermons on formal occasions.

When we finally reached Mitch he had gotten tired of his frenzied a.s.sault on the door and was lying on his haunches. I felt his raised hackles when I touched him, and he jerked his head impatiently away from my hand. The door was too thick for me to make out the sounds he was hearing on the other side. I took it for about five minutes, then retraced my way to the altar. A ma.s.sive wood and marble carving rose behind it. When I worked my away around to the back, where the crypt entrance was, the altarpiece itself blocked most of the glow from the sanctuary lamp.

The trapdoor to the crypt was unlocked. I climbed stealthily down the narrow spiral stair, Peppy following me on uncertain feet. She mewed unhappily, and I hoisted her down after me one step at a time.

At the bottom I was in a well of such intense blackness that I had no way of orienting myself. I risked the switch at the foot of the spiral stairs. It showed me the pa.s.sages that I'd overlooked when I was working down here this morning, one on the north to the rectory and another opposite that connected to the school. I flicked off the light and made my way through the south door to the school bas.e.m.e.nt.

Clutching Peppy's collar, I let her guide me again, until she found a staircase.

We crept up, pausing after each step to listen. I heard the humming of machinery, but no human sounds. At the top I pushed open the door. Father Lou had come this way earlier and left it unlocked.

We were in the school kitchen; a streetlight made it possible to see the big stoves and refrigerators. I went through a swinging door into a hallway and suddenly could hear voices. Keeping my hand on Peppy, now more as a warning to her to be silent than because I needed her navigation, I moved toward the sound.

Father Lou was outside the door that led from the school into the church.

"If you thought your son was with me you'd have knocked at the door like an honest man," Father Lou was saying. "You're breaking into a school. I don't know what valuables you thought a poor school in a neighborhood like this has, but I have you redhanded, and the cops will take it from here."

Baladine laughed. "A police detective is stationed outside. If the cops ever show up, he'll tell them he's got the situation under control. I'm sure there would be a lot of mourning in the neighborhood over your death, but wouldn't you rather get out of my way than die defending that stupid Warshawski woman and my tiresome son?"

My stomach tightened at the sound of his voice, at the reckless superiority of it. At first I thought Baladine was alone, and I was willing to risk a shot, but as my ears and eyes adjusted I realized he had at least two other men with him.

I could make out only their ghostly shapes, but Father Lou's bald head reflected what light there was. He was the short ghost whose arms were perhaps pinned by two larger wraiths. Baladine was behind him. I lowered my gun; I couldn't possibly get a clear shot.

"I know you got into the school building from inside the church, Padre,"

Baladine said in the same patronizing voice, "because my man has the outside covered. So be a good fellow and let us into the church, and I promise you'll be alive to say ma.s.s in the morning."

"Jesus wants me tonight, tonight's when He'll get me," Father Lou said. "If not, not your decision, young man."

Baladine laughed. He was making a smartalecky comment back when I heard a worse sound than Baladine's voice: a m.u.f.fled outburst on the other side of the door. I couldn't make out the words, but the cadence told me Mr. Contreras had woken up.

He wanted to know what was going on, did Mitch have someone cornered on the other side? He was fiddling with the bolts.

In the instant that everyone's attention slackened, Father Lou gave one of his captors a punch that knocked him over. I yelled at top volume to Mr. Contreras to leave the door alone and sped back down the hall to the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. I saw a red marker dancing on the floor, trying to find me. For one crazy moment I thought it was another sanctuary light. Then a gun spat fire at me as the red marker danced after me. Baladine had a laser sight. A death marker, not sanctuary. It terrified me so much that I hurled myself through the swinging door into the kitchen, Peppy running with me. In the light from the streetlamp I found the stairs and stumbled down them so fast I tripped over my feet and ended in a heap at the bottom. Behind me a shot echoed along the hallway. I prayed it hadn't hit Father Lou. Or Mr. Contreras.

Peppy landed on top of me. We scrambled to our feet in a confused mess of dog and woman and moved as fast as possible toward the crypt. Behind me I could hear doors slamming as the pursuit looked for the exit I'd taken, and then I saw a flashlight finger on the stairwell. It gave me the view I needed of the bas.e.m.e.nt. I was heading away from the crypt door. I righted myself, called Peppy to me, and managed to get us both inside. I slid the bolt home as another shot sounded.

My legs were shaking as I climbed back up the spiral stairs. Above me the church was still dark, but when I got to the top I could see a light bounce along one of the aisles. I waited behind the altar. I was trying to figure out from the sound what was going on, when I heard Baladine's voice.

"Warshawski? I've got the priest and the old man. Come on out. Your life for theirs."

"Don't do it, doll." Mr. Contreras was panting. "Don't do it; run for help, I been around plenty long enough. Shouldn't have opened the door, anyway."

I slipped around the edge of the altarpiece, keeping low so that the altar itself s.h.i.+elded me from sight. I made my way to the old preaching tower and climbed up into it. From there I could see that the light in the aisle was coming from a flashlight. It was hard to see what lay behind it, but Father Lou and Mr. Contreras seemed to be attached to each other. One of Baladine's thugs had a gun trained on them. I couldn't hear or see Mitch.

"Your quarrel's with me, Baladine," I called. "Let the men go. When they're safely inside the rectory, I'll come out."