Page 45 of Fade Out
I nodded. “I’ve heard that before.”
* * *
I drove backinto the city, found a parking space near Brian’s, and then walked over to the Belmont El station. After a ten-minute wait, I took the Ravenswood down to the Merchandise Mart stop. Then I walked across the river and down to 333 Wacker. It was a teal glass tower that reflected the gray sky, except when the building was done the sky wasn’t gray anymore. It was a steel blue, the kind of color a decorator might call bold and determined.
I walked into the green marble lobby and went right over to the onyx-and-chrome security desk. When I’d been before it was during the week, so I’d simply carried an envelope and acted like I belonged. That wasn’t going to work this time. It was too empty to get away with it. I was going to have to try something else.
The guard was a black woman in her fifties. She looked pissed off. I didn’t think I was going to make things any better.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I have a meeting at Carney, Greenbaum and Turner.”
“With whom?”
“Oh, you know, I left the card in my other jeans.”
“Did you. I can’t let you up there if you don’t know who it is you want to see.”
“Well, he’s a lawyer.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down.”
“Maybe you could just call up there.”
She looked at me for a moment; looking for the path of least resistance, I think. When she found it, she said, “Fine. What’s your name?”
I decided I’d use the same gambit I’d used on Gloria except with a twist. “Rita Lindquist.”
“You don’t look like any Rita Lindquist.”
“It’s probably the way the light’s catching my face.”
“That’s not funny,” she deadpanned and then, after a long moment, added, “You know what’s funny? I forgot my lunch money.”
I took a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to her. She crumbled it up in her palm, picked up the phone and dialed. After a moment someone answered. “I have a Rita Lindquist here.”
She waited. Then she said, “All right. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and said, “They’re on the fourteenth floor. But you probably already know that.”
“I do. Thank you. Enjoy your lunch.”
“You have a nice day, Rita.”
I took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. When the doors opened a man around my own age was standing there, waiting. He was heavy around the middle, wore an expensive pair of khakis and pink button-down, and he was sweating. Profusely.
I stepped out of the elevator.
“You’re not Rita,” he said in a sigh.
“I’m not. But I’m here to talk about her.”
“That’s not really—”
A young woman in her twenties, also casually dressed with a cardigan sweater wrapped around her, came out of the double doors that bore the name of the firm. She crossed the lobby to the blank set of doors on the other side. As she walked by, she said, “Tommy, I’ll be ready to sit down in a half an hour.” With a glance to me she added, “If you’re free.”
“I’ll be free.”
When she was completely gone, he said, “Follow me.” We went through the double doors into a bigger lobby, then worked our way around until we got to one of the large, outer offices. The design of the building was clever. There weren’t really any corner offices, so it wasn’t immediately apparent who was important and who wasn’t. Although, Tommy’s office was expensively decorated, so it was obvious that he was a big deal.
