“Oh, a little. But not so much that it would distort my judgment. Maybe it’s egocentrism, though. I hadn’t called him for two months. I keep going over it in my head—we’d often let months go by without being in touch. But I can’t help feeling I let him down.”

The hold on my fingers tightened. “Boom Boom knew he could count on you, Vic. You have too many times to remember when that was so. He called you. And he knew you’d come through, even if he had to wait a few days.”

I disengaged my left hand and picked up my wineglass. I swallowed and the tightness in my throat eased. I looked at Lotty. She gave an impish smile.

“You are a detective, Vic. If you really want to be totally sure about Boom Boom, you could try investigating what happened.”

Chapter 4

On the Waterfront

The Eudora Grain Company elevator lay in the labyrinth that makes up the Port of Chicago. The Port lines six miles of the Calumet River as it snakes south and west from its mouth near 95th Street. Each elevator or plant along the river has its own access road, and none of them is clearly marked.

I covered the twenty miles from my North Side apartment to 130th Street in good time, reaching the exit by eight o’clock. After that I got lost trying to make my way past the Calumet River, some steel mills, and a Ford assembly plant. It was nine-thirty before I found Eudora Grain’s regional office.

Their regional headquarters, a modern, single-story block, lay next to a giant elevator on the river. The elevator loomed behind the building at right angles, two sections of massive tubes, each containing perhaps a hundred ten-story-high cylinders. The sections were split by a slip where a boat could tie up. On the right side, railway tracks ran into a shed. A few hopper cars were there now and and a small group of hard-hatted men were fixing one onto a hoist. I watched, fascinated: the car disappeared up inside the elevator. On the far left side I could see the tip of a ship poking out—someone was apparently taking on a load of grain.

The building had a modern lobby with wide windows opening onto the river. Pictures of grain harvests—combines sweeping through thousands of acres of golden wheat, smaller versions of the mammoth elevator outside, trains taking on their golden hoard, boats unloading—covered the walls. I took a quick glance around, then approached a receptionist behind a marble counter set in the middle of the room. She was young and eager to help. After a spirited interchange with his secretary, she located the regional vice-president, Clayton Phillips. He came out to the foyer to meet me.