Warshawski 01 - Indemnity Only Read Free Page A

wild,” he muttered. I raised my eyebrows skeptically, but he couldn’t see that in the dark.
    “How did you get my name?” I asked. Like an advertising survey—did you hear about us in
Rolling Stone
or through a friend?
    “I found your name in the Yellow Pages. And I wanted someone in the Loop and someone who didn’t know—my business associates.”
    “Mr. Thayer, I charge a hundred and a quarter a day, plus expenses. And I need a five-hundred-dollar deposit. I make progress reports, but clients don’t tell me how to do the job—any more than your widows and orphans tell you how to run the Fort Dearborn’s Trust Department.”
    “Then you will take the job?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said shortly. Unless the girl was dead, it shouldn’t be too hard to find her. “I’ll need your son’s address at the university,” I added. “And a picture of the girl if you have one.”
    He hesitated over that, seemed about to say something, but then gave it to me: 5462 South Harper. I hoped it was the right place. He also produced a picture of Anita Hill. I couldn’t make it out in the spasmodic light, but it looked like a yearbook snap. My client asked me to call him at home to report progress, rather than at the office. I jotted his home number on the business card and put it back in my pocket.
    “How soon do you think you’ll know something?” he asked.
    “I can’t tell you until I’ve looked at it, Mr. Thayer. But I’ll get on the case first thing tomorrow.”
    “Why can’t you go down there tonight?” he persisted.
    “Because I have other things to do,” I answered shortly. Like dinner and a drink.
    He argued for a bit, not so much because he thought I’d change my mind as because he was used to getting his own way. He finally gave up on it and handed me five hundred-dollar bills.
    I squinted at them in the light from Arnie’s. “I take checks, Mr. Thayer.”
    “I’m trying to keep people at the office from knowing I’ve been to a detective. And my secretary balances my checkbook.”
    I was staggered, but not surprised. An amazing number of executives have their secretaries do that.My own feeling was that only God, the IRS, and my bank should have access to my financial transactions.
    He got up to go and I walked out with him. By the time I’d locked the door, he had started down the stairs. I wanted to get a better look at him, and hurried after him. I didn’t want to have to see every man in Chicago under a flashing neon sign to recognize my client again. The stairwell lighting wasn’t that good, but under it his face appeared square and rugged. Irish-looking, I would have said, not what I would have thought of as second-in-command at the Fort Dearborn. His suit was expensive and well cut, but he looked more as if he’d stepped from an Edward G. Robinson movie than the nation’s eighth largest bank. But then, did I look like a detective? Come to think of it, most people don’t try to guess what women do for a living by the way they look—but they are usually astounded to find out what I do.
    My client turned east, toward Michigan Avenue. I shrugged and crossed the street to Arnie’s. The owner gave me a double Johnnie Walker Black and a sirloin from his private collection.

2

Dropping Out of School
    I woke up early to a day that promised to be as hot and steamy as the one before. Four days out of seven, I try to force myself to get some kind of exercise. I’d missed the previous two days, hoping that the heat would break, but I knew I’d better get out this morning. When thirty is a fond memory, the more days that pass without exercise, the worse you feel going back to it. Then, too, I’m undisciplined in a way that makes it easier to exercise than to diet, and the running helps keep my weight down. It doesn’t mean I love it, though, especially on mornings like this.
    The five hundred dollars John Thayer had given me last night cheered me up considerably, and I felt good as I put on