“Nothing that I know of,” William said, looking with annoyance at his sister-in-law. “We were hoping he might have left some kind of clue about his plans. He’d given away his cell phone and his car, which makes him hard to trace. If you know anything about him, Ms.—uh—you would do well to tell me.”

“I know,” I said, bored. “Or I’ll never eat lunch in this town again.”

“Don’t treat it like a joke,” he warned me. “My family has a lot of power in Chicago.”

“And Congress and everywhere else,” I agreed.

He glared at me, but strode down the corridor without answering. Jacqui clicked along next to him in her high heels, her bias-cut skirt swirling around her knees in a very feminine way. I felt acutely aware of my torn trousers and dirty parka.

35

Why, Freddy, What a Surprise!

The truckers didn’t take long with Grobian. When they came back out, the Harley driver gave me a wink and a thumbs-up, which sent me in to see the manager with a lighter heart. Is it such a bad thing to depend on the kindness of strangers?

Grobian was talking on the phone while signing papers. His buzz cut was still at a military length—to keep it like that he had to get it mowed every couple of days, although it was hard to know how the manager of a domain like his found time to fit it in. He was in his shirtsleeves, and I couldn’t help noticing how big his forearms were: a tattoo with the marine logo covered about four hairy inches.

He didn’t really look at me, just waved me to a folding chair while he finished his conversation. My hard hat and torn trousers weren’t as feminine as Jacqui’s fluttering skirt, but they did help me blend in. As I sat, I noticed mud caked on my leather half boots. Not surprising, considering how I had crawled under the fence to get into the warehouse, but annoying all the same.

When Grobian hung up, it was clear I wasn’t who he was expecting, but equally clear that he didn’t remember me.

“V. I. Warshawski,” I said heartily. “I was here two weeks ago, with young Billy.”

His lips tightened: he would have shown me the door, not a chair, if he’d looked at me when I came in. “Oh. The do-gooder. Whatever Billy may tell you, the company doesn’t care about your school day care program.”

“Basketball.”

“What?”

“It’s basketball, not day care, which shows you haven’t really studied the proposal. I’ll send you a new set of numbers.” I clasped my hands on his desk with the saintly smile of a confirmed do-gooder.