My dad said, "You're right."
I said, "Barry, you may be furious at me for telling the truth about what I saw. But it's time for you to say to me, 'Oh, thanks, Cat. We owe you. You helped out with my festival, and then you probably saved the life of my child. You put your body between him and a bullet.' And what I want to know is
why do I have to ask for this? What is wrong with you people?
Is there one human being here who would like to say 'Thanks, Cat'?"
15
NO HEART?
I left the house.
I felt so alone. My family hated me. McCoo was busy, and the cop in charge of the investigation— the investigation that could potentially free my brother from suspicion— was a haughty, rigid idiot. As if that weren't enough, I put my hand in my pocket and found the picture Jeremy had had me take at the festival— me as the Wicked Witch.
McCoo would probably talk with me if I went to his office. And he'd probably be there even though it was Saturday. But there wasn't much point. He'd only have to check with Hightower to find out what had developed. And he'd owe it to Hightower and his own principles not to give too much information away to a relative of the leading suspect.
I called Sam. Dr. Sam Davidian, my semi-significant other, is a trauma surgeon working in the ED at University Hospital. He'd probably be my significant other if our schedules let us get together for more than four hours or so in a given week.
He was on duty. No surprise there.
I said, "Sam, I have an ethical dilemma. Are you getting off work anytime today?"
"Matter of fact, no. It's Saturday. Rush hour in the trauma unit. Head trauma. Motorcycle accidents. Drunk drivers. Domestic violence. Alcohol poisoning."
"But you have other staff members."
"Yes. But we're low on people tonight. We had a little unfortunate accident."
"What happened?"
"You know Freddy? The new senior resident? He'd been on the floor twenty consecutive hours, truly beat, takes a shower, wants to sleep in the cot room, but there's only three beds and they're all in use. So he pulls on a johnny and goes and lies down in an empty exam room, Number Twenty-one. One of the docs has a call to start an epidural on a patient in Room Twelve. He and a third-year go into Twenty-one and find Freddy dead to the world, swab him, try to start the epidural, but he fights them. They've already been told that the patient is combative, so they wrestle him down and get the epidural in and flowing. About this time the attending is looking for them. Why haven't they started the epidural on the patient in Twelve? He finds them. Everybody is horrified."
"Especially Freddy, I would think. Sam, don't they always look at the wrist bracelet? He wouldn't have had one on."
"Of
course
they're supposed to look at the wrist bracelet. Unfortunately, they'd been on the floor thirty-six hours and were exhausted. You know, in this irrational world airline pilots can only fly a certain maximum number of hours, because sleep deprivation is a brain-killer. Planes could crash. But somebody who has your life at the end of a syringe— oh no!"
"But why didn't they recognize Freddy?"
"He'd just transferred in from another shift. They'd never seen him before."
"This sounds absolutely impossible!"
"Right. Is. It also happened. When you've got layers of safeguards, every accident that gets by sounds impossible."
"So they must be in hot water."
"Boiling water. They're both on suspension. Freddy, by the way, is perfectly all right, but he's taking two days off to recover. And he deserves it. So I'm working two shifts. If I'm lucky, it won't be three."
"But I need your advice."
"Can I give this advice over the phone?"
"It's too complicated."
"Then I guess— gee, I'm really sorry, Cat, but is tomorrow okay?"
"Is that like take two aspirin and call me in the morning?"
* * *
Blast!
Nobody loved me. As we used to say in high school when we were feeling excessively sorry for ourselves, guess I'd better go eat worms.
And then I realized there was one person on this earth I could go to who would care and who would
be there
.
* * *
Hal Briskman is the editor of
Chicago Today.
He is a constant buyer for my stories, which, of course, makes him a saint. Hal is not only a great editor, but often gets ideas that brew up into interesting long articles for the "think-piece" section. And he knows everything about Chicago politics.
Like McCoo, Hal is always at work. Saturdays, Sundays, plus all night as far as I know. Hal's only drawback is his affection for antique slang. A good story, for example, is "spiffy." Unless it's an extra-great story, in which case it's "spiffarootie."
I love him.
* * *
"Cat!" Hal said. "Light of my life."
"I brought coffee." I had brought really good gourmet fresh-ground fresh-brewed extra-strong coffee, not my mother's.
"So you want something."
"Yes. You know everything and everybody."
"Silver-tongued devil. Ask away."
"I've been working on the Oz Festival, as you know. I should have the material for the article about the Oz-haters for you soon. You know, no matter how you look at it, it's very strange that people would particularly pick on the Oz books."
When they were first published, the Oz books were immediately popular with children. They were also hailed as the first real American fairy tales. Earlier stories for children had been either heavily moralistic fables or the grisly stories of the likes of the Brothers Grimm, with children taken to the woods by their parents and left to starve.
But in the 1930s a librarian in New York City named Anne Carroll Moore had pulled the entire Oz series from the Children's Room of the New York Public Library. Since she was the doyenne of American librarians, librarians all over the United States followed her direction and pulled the books.
"She would never explain why," I said to Hal.
In the 1950s, I told him, a Detroit librarian eliminated all the Oz series books from his system because there was "nothing uplifting or elevating" about them. Somebody else said they were "a cowardly approach to life," whatever that may mean. How could Dorothy's brave search for a way back home be called cowardly? A librarian from Florida said they were "untrue to life." You want to say, "Hello? True to life? These are whimsical stories for children."
"So why," Harold said, "did this happen?"
"I don't know. To be fair, not all librarians agreed with these stick-in-the-muds. Some people called the Baum style flat, but it isn't. It's humorous and lively. People thought librarians might have been worried about the expense of buying a whole line, but there were other series like
Little House
and
Doctor Dolittle
that they bought."
"And so?"
"Some said it was because the Oz books were commercialized. It seems strange to us today. I mean, look at Disney. Every new movie spawns product spin-offs. But in the early 1900s this was all new."
"Can you get me the story on this within a few days?"
"I think so. There were Wizard of Oz musical comedies, during Baum's lifetime, some written by him, and movies and toys later. He made several movies himself. Later on, a critic of the critics suggested that librarians might have objected to the 'commodification' of Oz. I wouldn't be surprised if that was it. I think we could do an article on Oz as the first case of product sales on this scale based around a children's story. And it all ties to Chicago, of course."
"You're saying Oz laid the groundwork for Walt Disney enterprises."
"Right. And suffered for it."
"I'll buy that."
"But will you pay me for it?" I asked.
"Up to a point. Commodification only goes so far."
"I expected that."
"Cat, are you avoiding talking about the festival murders?"
"Not really. Delaying, maybe." He'd heard only that I was there as a witness. I told him what had happened to Jeremy and me in the tunnels, extra details that he wouldn't have gleaned from the police reports, his own reporters, and his extensive gossip grapevine.
When I finished, he said, "Dang!" It was his latest favorite word. "Makes me wish we were a daily."
"Hal, you realize I couldn't write you an on-the-spot about it, even if
Chicago Today
were a daily. I'm not going to do anything to focus attention on Barry."
I asked him, "Tell me about those three guys, Edmond Pottle, E. T. Taubman, and Larry Mazzanovich."
"You think the three got together and stabbed Plumly?"
"Honestly, Hal, much as I'd prefer that, I don't really see it. If three guys are gonna kill somebody together, wouldn't they do it in secret? Do Pottle, Taubman, and Mazzanovich have any kind of common history?"
"Like they all went to school together, went out behind the barn, cut their fingers, and swore in blood one for all and all for one?"
"Yeah, like that."
"I hate to have to tell you this, Cat, but I doubt they even knew each other before the Oz Festival. They're totally different types of people from totally different backgrounds, and as you well know, doing totally different types of jobs."
"I was afraid you'd say that."
"Take Taubman for starters. I've known E.T. slightly for years. He grew up in Winnetka, which as you know is one of the highest-income suburbs in the country."
"Or the planet."
"Or the planet. But his family wasn't especially rich. There are a lot more modest houses in Winnetka than most people realize. He went to New Trier High School, did a lot of theater, which New Trier is known for, did art, and went on to Swarthmore. I'm told he's always been a real culture-vulture. He's also had a tendency to hang around the rich. He finally married one, sort of."
"Sort of married somebody? I've heard of that."
"No, sort of rich. Her name is Stephanie Mathilda Sotor. Her parents have a lot of money, but their idea of raising children is to deprive them of as much as possible for fear of their becoming 'spoiled,' so Stephanie won't have any serious money until the parents pass on to their reward."
"I'm not sure that approach really works. I mean, when it's very artificial, the kids just think they're being punished."
"Well, in Stephanie's case, it produced some odd behaviors. She married E.T., knowing he didn't have serious simoleons, either, but nags him incessantly to make more. She, by the way, works as a travel agent to the snazzy. Sends people to St. Tropez or whatever's the in place of the day. Brings in a small but for them significant amount of commission. Enough to keep them in brown rice and Chablis. Anyhow, she goes to the opera, the theater, classical concerts. In other words, she never goes to hear music that young people like. They both donate time to cultural causes. And she pushes people to hire E.T. as lighting designer. For concerts and galleries. Which I think embarrasses him. I don't know him well, but I've seen him wince sometimes when she's talking to a potential customer about how great he is."
"I saw some of his work. It's good."
"He
is
good. That's the heck of it. She makes him look like a fool. He could make it in the lighting design world better if she'd leave him alone and let him have at it."
"He's got a huge studio on Chestnut Street that has to be pricey."
"Yup. She insisted. In case a prospective client wants to do a 'studio visit,' she wants him to look successful."
We drank coffee and contemplated the folly of Stephanie Sotor-Taubman for a few minutes. Then I said, "What about Pottle?"
"Different story altogether. He isn't originally from Chicago. Has family money. Went to Princeton, unless I misremember."
"Which has never happened yet as far as I know."
"Butter me up. I'll give you work. To continue: he came here to extend the family's banking empire. I don't mean he has world-class money. He's not Henry Ford, much less Bill Gates."
"Bill Gates indeed! Microsoft has a larger GNP than Canada!"
"I know. But Pottle is very, very comfortable."
"Came here from where?"
"Family's in New York. Illinois used to have a law against branch banks, but no more. You know, to found a bank, you apply to the Federal Reserve and get a charter, demonstrate you have assets, demonstrate you have no criminal record, and then you can open a bank. Banks lend money, and naturally, politicians who can dispense favors are among the borrowers."
"Do banks really lend money to politicians? I've never thought about it. Of course, they must."
