Warshawski 01 - Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky Page B

it.
    “Don’t clown with me, Warchoski—I can call in plenty of people to wipe that smirk off your face.”
    “I don’t think it would take very many,” I said, “but I still don’t have any idea what part of your turf I’m messing in.”
    Earl signaled to the doorman, who came and held my shoulders against the chair. Joe was hovering in the background, a lascivious look on his face. My stomach turned slightly.
    “Okay, Earl, I’m terrified,” I said.
    He hit me again. I was going to look like absolute hell tomorrow, I thought. I hoped I wasn’t shaking; my stomach was knotted with nervousness. I took several deep diaphragm breaths to try to relieve the tension.
    The last slap seemed to satisfy Earl. He sat down on a dark couch close to my chair.
    “Warchoski,” he squeaked, “I called you down here to tell you to lay off the Thayer case.”
    “You kill the boy, Earl?” I asked.
    He was on his feet again. “I can mark you good, so good that no one will ever want to look at your face again,” he shouted. “Now just do what I say and keep your mitts outta that.”
    I decided not to argue with him—I didn’t feel in any shape to take on both him and the doorman, who continued to hold my shoulders back. I wondered if his scar had turned redder with all the excitement but voted against asking him.
    “Suppose you do scare me off? What about the police?” I objected. “Bobby Mallory’s hot on the trail, and whatever his faults, you can’t buy Bobby.”
    “I’m not worried about Mallory,” Earl’s voice was back in its normal register, so I concluded the brainstorm was passing. “And I’m not buying you—I’m telling you.”
    “Who got you involved, Earl? College kids aren’t part of your turf—unless young Thayer was cutting into your dope territory?”
    “I thought I’d just told you not to pry into my affairs,” he said, getting up again. Earl was determined to pound me. Maybe it would be better to get it over with quickly and get out, rather than let him go on for hours. As he came at me, I pulled my foot back and kicked him squarely in the crotch. He howled in anguish and collapsed in a heap on the couch. “Get her, Tony, get her,” he squealed.
    I didn’t have a chance against Tony, the doorman.He was trained in the art of working over loan defaulters without showing a mark. When he finished. Earl came hobbling over from the couch. “This is just a taste, Warchoski,” he hissed. “You lay off the Thayer case. Agreed?”
    I looked at him without speaking. He really could kill me and get away with it—he’d done it to others. He had good connections with City Hall and probably in the police department, too. I shrugged and winced. He seemed to accept that as agreement. “Get her out, Tony.”
    Tony dumped me unceremoniously outside the front door. I sat for a few minutes on the stairs, shivering in the heat and trying to pull myself together. I was violently ill over the railing, which cleared my headache a bit. A woman walking by with a man said, “Disgusting so early in the evening. The police should keep people like that out of this neighborhood.” I agreed. I got to my feet, rather wobbly, but I could walk. I felt my arms. They were sore, but nothing was broken. I staggered over to the inner drive, parallel to Lake Shore Drive and only a block away, and hailed a taxi home. The first one pulled off after a look at me, but the second one took me. The driver clucked and fussed like a Jewish mother, wanting to know what I’d done to myself and offering to take me to a hospital or the police or both. I thanked him for his concern but assured him I was all right.

6

In the Cool of the Night
    I’d dropped my purse by my door when Freddie and I were scuffling, and asked the cabdriver to come upstairs with me to get paid off. Living at the top of the building, I was pretty confident that my bag would still be there. It was, and my keys were still in the door.
    The driver tried one