‘You heard?’ Glet asked.
‘Hypothermia.’
‘The only things frozen are the brains of McGarry and the three wise men he paraded out to take the heat,’ Glet said. ‘McGarry’s a nervous fool. He should have insisted they keep examining, instead of trotting out those doctors to say they couldn’t find shit other than murder by freezing.’
‘And Lehman’s Klaus Lanz pinch?’
‘Everybody knows Lehman’s just buying time, using Lanz to show he’s hot on the case.’
‘What are you hot on, these days?’
‘Chasing a lead.’
‘Working the girls though, right?’ Rigg asked.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘You don’t know if you’re working the biggest heater case in town?’
‘It’s a fragile thread I’m pulling.’
‘Cut the poetic, Jerome. Why the subterfuge?’
‘I heard you came by the house,’ Glet said, dodging.
‘Something came from that cabbie you tipped me to.’
‘What?’ Glet asked.
‘He had a story. Does the name “Richie Fernandez” mean anything to you?’
‘Who?’ Glet’s confusion sounded genuine.
It was Glet’s tip, so Rigg gave it all to him.
‘No shit?’ Glet said when Rigg was done. ‘Lehman actually arrested the guy?’
‘But never charged him with anything, and now the guy’s disappeared. He didn’t even go back to his flop for his things.’
‘It was a catch-and-release, then,’ Glet said. ‘Guy was probably so scared, he ran all the way out of town.’
‘Or Lehman’s still got him.’
‘Unbooked for a whole week?’ Glet paused to think, and then spoke slowly. ‘It’s possible. He could have stashed him in some motel where Lehman scares the owner, but that’s risky, even for Lehman. He can’t just book a suspect after holding him for a week. Unless … No, Jeez, it’s got to be another catch-and-release.’
‘Why didn’t you chase the cabbie yourself, Jerome?’
Glet named Lehman’s secretary. ‘I told you: I was near her desk when the tip came in. “You’re sure it was the girls?” she’s saying to the caller, writing, Rocco Enrice, cabbie, on a pink message pad. I called downtown, got the licensing bureau, found out he drove a Checker south of Midway. I gave it to you as a gesture of goodwill.’
‘You copped a lead meant for Lehman—’
‘Which, as it turned out, was a damned good lead,’ Glet interrupted.
‘What’s got you more interested than the girls?’
‘Like I said, I don’t know yet.’
‘You’re sounding odd, Jerome.’
‘Maybe I’m looking back further.’
‘The boys?’
‘Not now, Milo.’
‘Lehman knows what you’re chasing?’
‘He thinks I’m assisting on a weapons distribution thing, which ain’t all untrue.’
‘Tip me, Jerome.’
‘Later,’ Glet said, and hung up.
From the doorway, the Pink was the same, and it wasn’t.
Eleanor and one of the bridge hens were there. The pink-tile floor was just as scuffed, the pink walls just as faded. The five metal desks were arranged as always: Eleanor’s gray one in front, the two gold ones used by the part-time hens right behind it, and, farther back still, the black one that had once been used by the cuttery’s owner and was now reserved for the relentlessly plaid advertising salesman. Rigg’s red desk, too, was where it should be – jammed against the back wall, as if to isolate a recalcitrant child.
It was the sound of the place that had changed. The Pink never had been energized by the clatter of a real working newsroom. It was a former beauty salon, a place that still smelled of dyes and shampoos intermixed with Benten’s cigarette smoke, peopled now by folks who chuckled softly to entice eighth-of-a-page advertisers. But, overarching it all, there’d always been the irregular thrum of Benten’s exhaust fan vibrating the glass of his office wall and the metal of the desks, and even the plaster of the old walls.
That thrum was gone; the fan had been silenced. Now, the Pink squeaked.
Eleanor gave him a half-smile as he walked past her desk.
A woman stood making great brownish swirls on the inside of Benten’s glass wall. She was quite beautiful, quite tall, quite dark-haired, quite slim, and she wore a quite black sheath of a dress and pearls – pearls, for damned sake. She was spraying Windex on to the glass with her right hand, wiping away great gobs of dark brown nicotine goo with the bunched paper towels in her left. Benten was being cleansed away.
Rigg went to his red desk, sat down and turned to watch the woman behind the smeared glass. She seemed to give him no notice and continued scrubbing, though the glass seemed to give her scrubbing no notice as well. Benten had been exhaling tar and nicotine on to it for several years and, despite the efforts of the rickety fan, much of it had stuck like glue, apparently. All she was accomplishing was to smear the brown film into wide swirls before tossing each bunch of toweling into one of three open black garbage bags and reaching for more. After a couple of moments, Rigg got up and walked to her doorway.
‘It’s going to be really nice when you get it done,’ he said. ‘You’ll have a clear view of all of us, or at least those who are left.’
‘You’re Rigg,’ she said, dropping another bunch of soiled paper towels into a bag.
‘You’re Aria, the person who intercepted my copy.’
‘Not intercepted. Accepted.’
‘You’re Features at the Bastion.’
‘I’m no longer necessary at the Bastion,’ she said, reaching for more towels and misting more Windex on to the glass. ‘I’m here to help boost ad revenue.’
‘Where’s Benten?’
‘At home, I presume.’
‘Whacked?’
‘Leave of absence, I heard. I don’t know.’
‘Why are you wearing pearls?’ The woman’s vagueness was irritating.
‘Don’t you like pearls?’ she asked, swirling.
‘I do, so long as they’re not sported by someone who got a good editor like Harold Benten bounced from his job.’
‘I told you: I don’t know what precipitated the change. Call Donovan,’ she said, naming the real-estate developer bastard who’d bought the Examiner two years earlier and was hastening its descent into oblivion.
‘Are they real, or are they plastic?’
With the briefest glance down toward her chest, she smiled. ‘You’re referring to the pearls?’
He felt his face flush, which hadn’t happened in years. ‘Yes … yes, of—’
‘Why don’t you call Donovan – or Benten at home?’ she said, grinning even more broadly now, from making him stammer.
‘He knows pearls?’
‘I’m here to help bring in advertising, like I said.’
‘But Benten’s not coming back?’
‘Call him at home,’ she said again.
‘And the rest?’ he asked, pointing out to the almost empty newsroom.
‘They scattered when I came in this morning.’ She dropped more soiled towels, grabbed more clean ones.
‘Should I scatter, too?’
‘Meaning, should you back off the Graves case?’ She stepped back from the glass, frowned at the swirled film and went to sit behind the desk.
‘I’d like to pursue things,’ he said, sitting at the edge of one of the shampoo chairs.
‘By “things”, do you mean the Graves girls or Stemec Henderson?’
‘At the moment, it’s something else. Richie Fernandez, mystery man,’ he said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Are you my boss?’ he asked.
‘As I keep saying, call Donovan or Benten.’
Trusting her was preferable to calling Donovan about anything. He told her what he suspected.
‘You don’t have corroboration on the arrest?’ she asked, when he was done.
‘So far, only the night clerk at the Kellington Arms has Lehman and another cop arresting Fernandez. Nobody at the sheriff’s knows anything about him being charged.’
‘And you’re sure Glet knew nothing of the Fernandez bust when he tipped you to the cabbie?’
‘Meaning, was he setting me up somehow? I don’t think so – though, with Glet, you never know when he’s lying. He said he’s got a better lead to chase.’
‘Better than a good lead in the Graves girls?’
‘He implied it might go back to the boys, or it might be something else entirely. As for Fernandez, Glet thinks Lehman turned him loose right away, scared the guy so badly he left his stuff behind and took off for parts unknown.’
‘Fernandez is here illegally or he’s dodging a warrant,’ she said.
‘Either would explain why he ran.’ He paused, then said, ‘Benten picked a hell of a time to leave.’
She gestured toward the still-filthy glass. ‘He should have quit smoking,’ she said.
He hung around until she, the bridge hen, and Eleanor were gone, and then he Googled. Aria Gamble’s byline had begun appearing in a suburban weekly four years earlier, reporting the same sort of inconsequential bits he was doing now for the supplement. She came to the Examiner two years later, to cover society goings-on along the North Shore, city fundraising events, marriages of prominent Chicagoans and, occasionally, in-depth profiles of people in the news. He found two of the long and admiring pieces she’d done on Corky Feldott, citing his Northwestern education, his joining the Citizens’ Investigation Bureau after two years at an insurance company following graduation, and then his advancement to become the assistant to the Cook County medical examiner.
He also found a piece written about a party held to celebrate her graduation from Northwestern University. She’d been Aria Fall then, and the party had been hosted by her uncle, Benjamin Fall. He was one of the Lake Forest and Chicago Falls, who were among the richest families on the North Shore. Luther Donovan was a North Shore multimillionaire, and, likely, the families knew each other.
He searched further, but could find no mention of a husband named Gamble. Rigg figured him for irrelevant. What mattered, even if it was only for help dropping into a losing outpost such as the Pink, was how well one’s family knew their neighbors.
He called Benten’s landline on his way home. A woman answered, presumably Mrs Benten.
‘Hi,’ Rigg said. ‘I work for Harold.’
‘He’s out.’
‘I’m calling to find out if everything is OK.’
‘Just peachy,’ the woman said, and hung up.