Mr. Contreras had been so subdued behind his door that I phoned downstairs before leaving to make sure he was really there. He answered on the sixth ring, sounding like a man on his way to face a firing squad, but determined to accompany me. When I got downstairs he spent several minutes fondling Peppy and her nurslings, as if this were their last good-bye.

“I’ve got to get going,” I said gently. “You really don’t have to come.”

“No, no. I said I would and I will.” He finally tore himself from the dogs and followed me into the hall. “You don’t mind my saying so, doll, it’s kind of obvious that you’re carrying a gun. I hope you’re not planning on shooting Eddie.”

“Only if he shoots at me first.” I unlocked the Impala and held the passenger door for him.

“If he sees you’re carrying a gun, and only an idiot could ignore it, he ain’t going to feel too much like talking. Not that he’s likely to say much, anyway.”

“Oh?” I steered the Impala onto Belmont, toward the Kennedy. “What makes you think that?”

He didn’t say anything. When I glanced at him he turned a dull red under his leathery tan and turned to look out the passenger window.

“Why does it bother you so much, my going to see him?”

He didn’t answer, just continued staring out the window. We’d been on the Kennedy for twenty minutes, inching our way past the Loop exits, when he suddenly burst out, “It just doesn’t seem right. First Mitch goes and gets himself killed, and now you want to pin it on the president of my local. I feel like I’m betraying the local, and that’s a fact.”

“I see.” I let a semi move in front of me before starting my crawl across lanes to the Stevenson exit. “I don’t want to pin anything on Eddie Mohr. But I can’t get your old management to talk to me. If I don’t speak to somebody connected with Diamond Head pretty soon, I’m going to have to stop my investigation. I just can’t get a lever anywhere.”

“I know, doll, I know,” he muttered miserably. “I understand all that. I still don’t like it.”

44

Terminal Call

Neither of us spoke again until we left the Stevenson at Kedzie. We were in an area where warehouses and factories jostled residential streets. Kedzie was badly pitted here from the semis that roared along it. We bounced south between two fast-moving sixty-tonners. I kept the Impala close to fifty, gritting my teeth against the jolts and hoping no one had to stop fast.