Killing Orders (20 page)

“If something called Corpus Christi is buying Ajax stock, I know nothing about it.”

“That’s marginally better,” I conceded. “The problem is, when Agnes—your daughter, you know—died, she left behind some notes showing a connection between Corpus Christi and Wood-Sage. If I turn the FBI’s attention to your lawyers, I’m sure it would be able to get the name of the broker who handles the Corpus Christi portfolio. That is presumably where Agnes got her information. In addition, on a smaller scale, it will be interested in the block transfers Preston Tilford handled.”

There was silence at the other end while Mrs. Paciorek marshaled her defenses. I shouldn’t have expected to force such a controlled woman into blurting out anything indiscreet. At last she said, “My attorneys will doubtless know how to handle any investigation, however harassing. That isn’t my concern.”

“We’ll see about that. But the police may want to ask you some questions, too. They may want to know to what lengths you would go to keep Agnes from publishing Corpus Christi’s attempted takeover of Ajax.”

After a long pause, she replied, “Victoria, you are obviously hysterical. If you think you know something about the death of my daughter, perhaps I will see you.”

I started to say something, then thought better of it. The woman was going to talk to me—what more did I need right now? She wasn’t free today, but she could see me at her home tomorrow night at eight.

With my nerves in their current jangled state, I didn’t feel like going back to the Bellerophon. I explained the fire and my predicament to Phyllis, who instantly offered me her spare bedroom. She drove with me to visit Uncle Stefan, now feeling well enough to be bored in the hospital. To my relief, the doctors wanted to hold him a few more days—once he got home he would be impossible to keep an eye on.

Robert Streeter, the youngest brother, was with him when we arrived. Apparently someone had tried to get into the room around midnight. Jim, then on duty, sensibly didn’t try to chase him since that would have left the room unguarded. By the time he’d roused hospital security, the intruder was long gone.

I shook my head helplessly. One more problem I couldn’t handle. Lotty arrived as we were leaving. At the sight of Phyllis, her heavy black brows went up. “So! Vic is roping you into her masquerade as well?”

“Lotty! You and I need to talk,” I said sharply.

She gave me a measuring look. “Yes. I think that would be a good thing. . . . Are these thugs with Stefan your idea or his?”

“Call me when you’ve climbed off your cross!” I snapped and walked away.

Phyllis was too polite to ask about the incident. We didn’t speak much, but had a pleasant meal at a little restaurant on Irving Park Road before heading back to Chestnut Street.

Cigarette smoke had permeated the bedclothes in the guest room. The smell, combined with my nervous tension, made sleep difficult. At three, I got up to read, and found Phyllis sitting in the living room with a biography of Margaret Fuller. W6 talked companionably for several hours. After that I slept until Phyllis stopped in to say good-bye before going to her eight-thirty class. She invited me to come back at night. Despite the stale air, I accepted gratefully.

I thought I might be safer with a rental car than my own, which was by now well known to any hoodlum in Chicago trying to find me. On my way over to the police station I stopped at a rental agency and got a Toyota whose steering must have been used by the U.S. weightlifting team while they trained for the Olympics. They told me they didn’t have anything else that size and to take it or leave it. Snarling, I took it—I didn’t have time to shop for cars.

Lieutenant Mallory wasn’t in when I got to Roosevelt Road. I gave my statement to Detective Finchley. Not having Bobby’s history with me, he accepted what I had to say and returned the Smith & Wesson. Freeman Carter, who accompanied me, told me we’d have a formal hearing in the morning, but that my character was once more unblemished—not even a moving violation in the last three years.

It was afternoon when I reached my ancient tailor on Montrose. He had finished the robe for me; it fit perfectly, right hem length, right sleeve length. I thanked him profusely, but he responded with more harsh words on young ladies who couldn’t plan ahead—he’d had to work all day Sunday for me.

I had to make a stop at the Bellerophon to pick up the rest of my disguise. Mrs. Climzak came out breathlessly from behind the counter with my shoes. She’d never have taken them if she’d known she’d have to be responsible for them for two days. If I was going to turn out to be the thoughtless type of tenant, she didn’t know if they could keep me. And certainly not if I entertained men in the middle of the night.

I was turning to go upstairs, but this seemed like a specific, not a generic accusation. “What men in the middle of the night?”

“Oh, don’t try to act so innocent, Miss Warshawski. The neighbors heard him and called the night clerk. He got the police and your friend left. Don’t pretend you don’t remember that.”

I left her midsentence and galloped up the stairs to the fourth floor. I hadn’t had time to make a mess of my shabby little room. Someone else had done it for me. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much to toss around—no books, except a Gideon Bible. No food. Just my clothes, the Murphy bed mattress, and the pots and pans in the kitchen. I held my breath while I inspected the Venetian glasses. Whoever had been here wasn’t totally vindictive: They stood unharmed on the little card table.

“Oh,
damn!”
I shouted. “Leave me alone!” I shuffled things together as best I could, but didn’t really have time to clean up. Didn’t feel like cleaning up, come to that. What I felt like was taking to my bed for a week. Except I didn’t have a bed anymore, not my own anyway.

I lugged the heavy mattress back onto the bed and lay on it. The cracks in the ceiling made a fine mesh. They resembled my own incoherent thoughts. I stared at them morosely for a quarter of an hour before forcing myself to abandon self-pity and start thinking. The likeliest reason someone was searching my room was to find the evidence I’d told Catherine Paciorek about yesterday. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to see me last night. She was getting someone to find me and find whatever document Agnes had left behind. Very well. That would make it easier to get her to talk when I saw her tonight.

I put Catherine and the ransacking to one side. Now that I was thinking again, I could cope. Changing into jeans and boots, I put the robe into a paper bag with the rest of my disguise, digging the component pieces out of the mess in the room.

My shoulder holster was wedged under the chest of drawers in the closet. It took close to half an hour to find. I looked nervously at my watch, not sure what my deadline was, but fearing that time was running very short indeed. I still had to stop for some bullets, but that delay was essential. I wasn’t going to the bathroom unarmed until this mess was straightened out.

Chapter 22 - Wandering Friar

A STORE IN Lincolnwood sold me three dozen bullets for twenty-five dollars. Despite what the gun haters may think, it isn’t cheap killing people. Not only is it not cheap, it’s timeconsuming. It was nearly three. I didn’t have time for lunch if I wanted to get to the priory on schedule. Stopping at a corner grocery I picked up an apple and ate it as I drove.

A bright winter sun reflected against the snow, breaking into diamonds of glinting, blinding color. My dark glasses, I suddenly remembered, had been in a dresser drawer in the old apartment. No doubt they were a lump of plastic now. I shielded my eyes as best I could with the visor and my left hand.

Once in Melrose Park, I toured the streets looking for a park. Pulling in from the roadway, I took off my pea jacket and pulled the white wool robe on over jeans and shirt. The black leather belt tightened the gown at the middle. The rosary I attached to the right side of the belt. It wasn’t exactly the real thing, but in dim light I ought to be able to pass for a Dominican friar.

By the time I got back to the priory and parked behind the main building it was almost four-thirty, time for evening prayers and mass. I waited until four-thirty-five, and went into the main hallway.

The ascetic youth sat hunched over a devotional work. He glanced up at me briefly. When I headed for the stairs instead of the chapel, he said, “You’re late for vespers, Brother,” but went back to his reading.

My heart was pounding as I reached the wide landing where the marble staircase turned back on itself up into the private upper reaches of the friary. The area was cloistered, not open to the public, male or female, and I couldn’t suppress a feeling of dread, as though I were committing some kind of sacrilege.

I’d been expecting a long, open ward like a nineteenth century hospital. Instead, I came on a quiet corridor with doors opening onto it, rather like a hotel. The doors were

shut, but not locked. Next to each, making my task infinitely easier, were little placards with the monks’ names printed in a neat scroll. Each man had a room to himself.

I squinted at each in turn until I came to one that had no name on it. Cautiously, I knocked, then opened the door. The room contained only a bare single bed and a crucifix. At the far end of the hall, I came to a second nameless room, which I opened in turn. This was O’Faolin’s temporary quarters.

Besides the bed and crucifix, the room held a small dresser and a little table with a drawer in the middle. O’Faolin’s Panamanian passport and his airline ticket were in the drawer. He was on a ten P.M. Alitalia flight on Wednesday. Forty-eight hours to—to what?

The dresser was filled with stacks of beautiful linen, hand-tailored shirts, and a fine collection of silk socks. The Vatican’s poverty didn’t force her employees to live in squalor.

Finally, under the bed, I found a locked attaché case. I mourned my picklocks. Using the barrel of the Smith & Wesson, I smashed the hinges. I hated doing anything so blatant, but time was short.

The case was stacked with papers, most in Italian, some in Spanish. I looked at my watch. Five o’clock. Thirty minutes more. I shuffled through the stack. A number of papers with the Vatican seal—the keys to the kingdom—dealt with O’Faolin’s fund-raising tour of the States. However, Ajax’s name caught my eye and I looked slowly through the papers until I found three or four referring to the insurance company. I don’t read Italian as fast as I do English, but these seemed to be technical documents from a financial house, detailing the assets, outstanding debt, number of shares of common stock, and names and expiration dates of the terms of the current board of directors.

The most interesting document in the collection was clipped to the inside cover of Ajax’s 1983 annual report. It was a letter, in Spanish, to O’Faolin from someone named Raül Diaz Figueredo. The letterhead, embossed with an intricate logo, and Figueredo’s name as
Presidente,
was for the Italo-Panama Import-Export Company. Spanish is enough like Italian that I could work out the gist: After reviewing many U.S. financial institutions, Figueredo wished to bring Ajax to O’Faolin’s attention, the easiest object—target?—for a plan of acquisition. The Banco Ambrosiano assets resided happily—no, safely—in Panamanian and Bahamian banks. Yet for these assets to be—fecund, no, productive—as His Excellency wisely understands, they must be usable in public works.

I sat back on my heels and looked soberly at the document. Here was evidence of what lay behind the Ajax takeover. And the connection with Wood-Sage and Corpus Christi? I looked nervously at my watch. Time enough to sort that out later. I slipped the letter from the paper clip, folded it, and put it in my jeans pocket under the robe. Stacking the papers together as neatly as I could, I put them back in the attaché case and slid the case under the bed.

The hallway was still deserted. I had one more stop. Given the Figueredo letter, it was worth the significant risk of being caught.

Father Pelly’s room was at the other end of the hall, near the stairs. I cocked an ear. No voices below. The service must still be in progress. I pushed open his door.

As spartan as the other rooms, Pelly’s nonetheless had the personal stamp of a place that’s been inhabited for a long time by one person. Some family photographs stood on the little deal table, and a bookcase was filled several layers deep.

I found what I was looking for in the bottom drawer of the dresser. A list of Chicago area members of Corpus Christi with their addresses and phone numbers. I went through it quickly, keeping one nervous ear strained for voices. If worse came to worst, I might be able to leave from the window. It was narrow, but we were only on the second floor and I thought I could squeeze through.

Cecelia Paciorek Gleason was listed, and Catherine Paciorek of course. And near the bottom of the list, Rosa Vignelli. Don Pasquale was not a member. One secret society was enough for the man, I supposed.

As I stuck the list in the drawer and got up to leave, I heard voices in the hallway outside, and then a hand on the door. It was too late to try the window. I looked around desperately and slid under the bed, the rosary making a faint clicking noise as I pulled my robes in around me.

My heart was pounding so hard that my body vibrated. I took deep, silent breaths, trying to still the movement. Black shoes appeared near my left eye. Then Pelly kicked them off and climbed onto the bed. The mattress and springs were old and not in the best of shape. The springs sagging under his weight almost touched my nose.

We lay like that for a good quarter of an hour, me stifling a sneeze prompted by the cold steel, Pelly breathing gently. Someone knocked at the door. Pelly sat up. “Come in.”

“Gus. Someone’s been in my room and broken into my attaché case.”

O’Faolin. I’d know his voice anywhere for the rest of my life. Silence. Then Pelly: “When did you last look at it?”

“This morning. I needed to write a letter to an address I had in there. It’s hard to believe one of your brothers would do a thing like this. But who? It couldn’t possibly be Warshawski.”

No indeed.

Pelly asked him sharply if anything was missing.

“Not as far as I can tell. And there wasn’t anything that would prove anything, anyway . . . Except for a letter Figueredo wrote me.”

“If Warshawski broke in—” Pelly began.

“If Warshawski broke in, it doesn’t really matter,” O’Faolin interrupted. “She isn’t going to be a problem after tonight. But if she shows the letter to someone in the meantime, I’ll have to start all over again. I should never have left you on your own to handle this business. Forging those securities was a lunatic idea, and now . . .“ He broke off. “No point rehashing all that. Let’s just see if the letter’s missing.”

He turned abruptly and left. Pelly pulled his shoes back on and followed him. I got up quickly. Pulled the hood well around my face and cracked the door to watch Pelly disappear into O’Faolin’s room. Then, trying to remain calm, I went down the stairs with my head tucked into my chin. A couple of brothers greeted me en route, and I mumbled in response. At the bottom, Carroll said good evening. I mumbled and took off for the front door. Carroll said sharply, “Brother!” Then to someone else, “Who is that? I don’t recognize him.”

Outside, I hitched up my habit and ran to the back of the building, started the Toyota, and drove it bumpily down the drive back to Melrose Park. There I quickly divested myself of the robe at a dry cleaner, telling them it was for Augustine Pelly.

In the car I sat laughing for a few minutes, then soberly considered what I’d found and what it meant. The letter from Figueredo seemed to imply that they wanted to acquire Ajax in order to launder Banco Ambrosiano money. Bizarre. Or maybe not. A bank, or an insurance company, made a highly respectable cover for moving questionable capital into circulation. If you could do it so the multitude of auditors didn’t notice. . . . I thought of Michael Sindona and the Franklin National Bank. Some people thought the Vatican had been involved in that escapade. With the Banco Ambrosiano, the connection was documented, if not understood: The Vatican was part owner of Ambrosiano’s Panamanian subsidiaries. So was it strange that the head of the Vatican’s finance committee would take an interest in the disposition of the ‘Ambrosiano assets?

O’Faolin was an old friend of Kitty Paciorek. Mrs. Paciorek’s sizable fortune was tied up with Corpus Christi. Ergo . . . She was expecting me in a couple of hours. I had some evidence, evidence she wanted badly enough to get someone to search the Bellerophon. But did it link her to the Wood-Sage/Corpus Christi connection strongly enough to make her talk? I didn’t think so.

Thoughts of Mrs. Paciorek reminded me of O’Faolin’s last remark: I wasn’t going to be a problem after tonight. The queasiness, which seemed to be more and more a permanent resident, returned to my stomach. He might have meant they’d have Ajax sewn up by tonight. But I didn’t think so. It seemed more likely that Walter Novick would be waiting for me in Lake Forest. Mrs. Paciorek presumably had no scruples about doing such a favor for her old friend, although she probably wouldn’t have me killed while her husband and Barbara were watching. What would she try? An ambush on the grounds?

Between Melrose and Elmwood Park, North Avenue forms a continuous strip of fast-food restaurants, factories, used-car lots, and cheap, small shopping malls. I selected one of these at random and found a public phone. Mrs. Paciorek answered. Using the nasal twang of the South Side, I asked for Barbara. She was spending the night with friends, Mrs. Paciorek said,

demanding in a sharp voice to know who was calling. “Lucy van Pelt,” I answered, hanging up. I couldn’t think of a way to find out where the doctor and the servants were.

A
Jewel/Osco
had a public photocopier, which yielded a greasy gray copy of Figueredo’s letter to O’Faolin. I bought a packet of cheap envelopes and a stamp from a stamp machine and mailed the original to my office. I thought for a minute, then scribbled a note to Murray on one of the envelopes, telling him to look at my office mail if I turned into a Chicago floatfish. Folded in three, it fit into another envelope, which I mailed to the
Herald-Star.
As for Lotty and Roger, what I wanted to tell them was too complicated to fit onto an envelope.

By now it was close to seven, too late for me to have a proper sit-down meal. The apple I’d had at three had been my only meal since breakfast, though, and I needed something to brace me for a possible fight at Mrs. Paciorek’s. ‘I bought a large Hershey bar with almonds at the Jewel and stopped at Wendy’s for a taco salad. Not the ideal thing to eat in a moving car, I realized as I joined the traffic on the tollway, and the salad dribbled down the front of my shirt. If Mrs. Paciorek was planning to sic German shepherds on me they’d know where I was by the chili.

As I exited onto Half Day Road, I went over what I knew of the Paciorek estate. If an ambush was attempted, it would be laid either by the front door or at the garage entrance. In back of the house were the remains of a wood. Agnes and I had sometimes taken sandwiches out there to eat sitting on logs by a stream feeding Lake Michigan.

The property ended a half mile or so back of the house at a bluff overlooking the lake. In the summer, in broad daylight, it might be possible to climb that bluff, but not on a winter’s night with waves roaring underneath. I’d have to come at the house from the side, across neighboring lots, and hope for the best.

I left the Toyota on a side street next to Arbor Road. Lake Forest was dark. There were no street lights, and I had no flashlight. Fortunately the night was relatively clear—a snowstorm would have made the job impossible.

Hunching down in my navy-surplus pea jacket, I made my way quietly past the house on the corner. Once in the backyard, the snow muffled any sound of my feet; it also made walking laborious. As I reached the fence dividing the yard from its neighbor, a dog started barking to my left. Soon it sounded as though all the dogs in suburbia were yapping at me. I climbed over the fence and moved east, away from the baying, hoping to get deep enough to hit the Paciorek house from behind.

The third lot was comparable in size to the Pacioreks’. As I moved into the wooded area, the dogs finally quieted down. Now I could hear the sullen roar of Lake Michigan in front of me. The regular, angry slapping of wave against cliff made me shiver violently with a cold deeper than that of freezing toes and ears.

Totally disoriented in the dark, I kept bumping into trees, stumbling over rotting logs, falling into unexpected holes. Suddenly I skidded down a small bank and landed with a jolt on my butt on some rocky ice. After picking myself up and slipping again. I realized I must be at the stream. If I walked away from the roaring lake, I should, with luck, be at the back of the Paciorek house.

In a few minutes I had fought my way clear of the trees. The house loomed as a blacker hole in the dark in front of me. Agnes and I had usually come out through the kitchen, which was on the far left along with rooms for the servants. No lights shone there now. If the servants were in, they were not giving any sign of it. In front of me were French windows leading into the conservatory-library-organ room.