Can you tell me about her incompetence?
Conroy leaned back in his chair a little, and gave me a hard CEO look.
I guess Id better see some identification, he said.
Amy Peters told me she was fired because she talked to me.
Youre that fucking private detective, Conroy said.
I smiled at him.
I am he, I said.
Conroy stared at me and opened his mouth and thought about what he was going to say and decided not to say it and closed his mouth. Then he thought of something else.
Fuck you, he said.
He stood abruptly and walked through the food court and out into the mall. I got up and strolled into the mall after him. At the far end I saw Vinnie Morris come out of a music store wearing a Walkman and earphones. He went out through the mall door onto the street ahead of Conroy. After Conroy went out, Hawk stopped window-shopping and drifted out after him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
You seem down, I said to Susan. Would you like me to have sex with you and brighten up your week?
She shook her head. We were at a small table in the high-ceilinged bar at the Hotel Meridien. I had beer. Susan was barely touching a cosmopolitan.
Thats the answer everybody gives me, I said.
The parents of the boy who committed suicide are suing me, Susan said.
They blame you, I said.
Yes.
I guess theyd probably have to, I said.
I know.
Youve seen a lawyer?
I
talked with Rita.
Rita? I thought you didnt trust Rita.
I dont trust her with you, Susan said. I think shes a good lawyer.
She is, I said. And a big firm like Cone Oakes has a lot of resources.
Susan smiled without much pleasure. So Im employing Rita, Susan said. And shes employing you.
Whats she say about the lawsuit?
She feels its groundless.
The Hotel Meridien was in a building that had once been a bank. The bar was in a room where they probably used to keep the money. The ornate ceiling looked fifty feet high.
How do you feel?
I feel guilty.
I ate a few peanuts. Eating a few peanuts was not easy. Mostly, I tended to eat them all.
Be surprising if you didnt, I said.
I know. I know the guilty feeling comes from my reaction to the event. Not the event itself.
Still feels bad, though, I said.
Yes.
I ate a few more peanuts, and determined to eat no more. The waitress brought me a second beer. Susan took in a milligram of her drink.
You know what makes me love you? she said.
My manliness?
She smiled.
You havent tried to talk me out of feeling guilty, she said.
Be aimless, I said.
Yes. But not everyone would know that.
Its a gift, I said.
I could almost see Susan decide that she had been down as much as she was prepared to be.
Tell me about whats going on in that case youre working on for Rita.
It keeps spreading out on me, I said. The more I investigate, the more I learn. And the more I learn, the more I dont know whats going on.
That happens to me often in therapy, Susan said. I know somethings in there in the dark and I keep groping for it.
That would be me, I said. Groping.
What do you know?
I know that Smith is dead. I know that I talked to a woman at his bank and she got fired and now shes dead.
How did she die?
Appears to be suicide, I said.
But?
But she had just been to a lawyer about a gender discrimination lawsuit against the bank, I said.
So why would she be making long-range plans just before killing herself?
Yes.
It happens sometimes, Susan said. It is an attempt to convince themselves of the future.
I shrugged and had a Brazil nut that I plucked out from among the remaining peanuts. One Brazil nut wouldnt hurt anything.
The bank was a family-owned business, until Marvin Conroy came aboard. He fired the woman for incompetence. And he doesnt want to talk with me. I know that some people from Soldiers Field Development Limited are interested in what Im doing and want me to stop doing it. I talked with Smiths broker and was assaulted shortly thereafter.
Assaulted?
Yeah. They werent very good at it.
Thats nice, Susan said.
DeRosa, the guy that says Mary Smith wanted him to kill her husband, is represented by Ann Kiley, Bobby Kileys daughter.
The defense lawyer?
Yes. The firm is Kiley and Harbaugh, but its really Kiley and Kiley. Father and daughter.
Thats sort of charming, Susan said.
It is, I said. But why is a firm like that representing a stiff like DeRosa?
Social conscience?
You bet, I said. And then we have Mary Smith herself. She still seems to have a relationship of some sort with an old high school boyfriend who is evasive when asked about it.
By you.
By me.
And what did he say?
As I recall, I said, he told me to shove fucking off.
She must have been attracted to him by his silver tongue, Susan said. What does Mary say?
Youd have to talk with Mary to understand, I said.
Why? Whats she like?
I found another Brazil nut in the dish, and a cashew. I ate both of them. I hadnt seen the cashew before.
Shes a living testament to the power of dumb.
Meaning?
Meaning you ask her something and she seems too dumb to answer it. You cant catch her in contradictions because she doesnt seem aware of them even after theyre pointed out.