Warshawski 01 - Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky Read Free Book Online

won’t tell you anything it didn’t tell me, Bobby.”
    “I don’t believe he gave you a card,” Mallory said. “You knew the guy and you’re covering for him.
    I shrugged and went to the bedroom and got the card out of my top drawer. I wiped it clean of prints with a scarf and brought it back to Mallory. The Fort Dearborn logo was in the lower left-hand corner. “John L. Thayer, Executive Vice-President, Trust” was in the middle, with his phone number. On the bottom I had scribbled the alleged home number.
    Mallory grunted with satisfaction and put it in a plastic bag. I didn’t tell him the only prints on it at this point were mine. Why spoil one of his few pleasures?
    Mallory leaned forward. “What are you going to do next?”
    “Well, I don’t know. I got paid some money to find a girl and I feel like I ought to find her.”
    “You going to ask for a revelation, Vicki?” Mallory said with heavy humor. “Or do you have something to go on?”
    “I might talk to some people.”
    “Vicki, if you know anything that you’re not telling me in connection with this murder—”
    “You’ll be the first to know, Bobby,” I promised. That wasn’t exactly a lie, because I didn’t know for sure that Ajax was involved in the murder—but we all have our own ideas on what’s connected to what.
    “Vicki, we’re on the case. You don’t have to prove anything to me about how cute or clever you are. But do me a favor—do a favor for Tony—let Sergeant McGormigal and me find the murderer.”
    I stared limpidly at Bobby. He leaned forwardearnestly. “Vicki, what did you notice about the body?”
    “He’d been shot, Bobby. I didn’t do a postmortem. ”
    “Vicki, for two cents I’d kick you in your cute little behind. You’ve made a career out of something which no nice girl would touch, but you’re no dummy. I know when you—got yourself into that apartment—and we’ll overlook just how you got in there right now—you didn’t scream or throw up, the way any decent girl would. You looked the place over. And if something didn’t strike you straight off about that corpus, you deserve to go out and get your head blown off.”
    I sighed and slouched back in the chair. “Okay, Bobby: the kid was set up. No dope-crazed radical fired that shot. Someone he knew, whom he would invite to sit down for a cup of coffee, had to be there. To my mind, a pro fired the shot, because it was perfectly done—just one bullet and right on the target—but someone he knew had to be along. Or it could have been an acquaintance who’s a heck of a marksman…. You looking into his family?”
    Mallory ignored my question. “I figured you’d work that out. It’s because you’re smart enough to see how dangerous this thing could be that I’m asking you to leave it alone.” I yawned. Mallory was determined not to lose his temper. “Look, Vicki, stay out of that mess. I can smell organized crime, organized labor, a whole lot of organizations that you shouldn’t mess with.”
    “You figure because the boy’s got radical friends and waves some posters he’s glued into organized labor? Come on, Bobby!”
    Mallory’s struggle between the desire to get me out of the Thayer case and the need to keep police secrets to himself showed on his face. Finally he said, “We have evidence that the kids were getting some of their posters from a firm which does most of the printing for the Knifegrinders.”
    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