I tapped Posner on the arm, telling him I’d like him to come with me away from the cameras. Posner said sternly that he couldn’t talk privately with a woman.
I smiled brightly. “Don’t worry: if your impulses get the better of you I can break one of your arms. Maybe both. But if you prefer, I can ask my question out loud on camera.”
“Everything I have to say about this Lotty Herschel and about you, too, can be on camera,” Radbuka butted in. “You think you can come up here to keep me away from my family, just like you hired that bully to stay with my little cousin over at Max’s, but you won’t get away with it. Rhea and Don are going to help me take my story to the world.”
Posner tried to get Radbuka to be quiet, telling him he’d take care of the detective. To me he added that he had nothing to hide.
“Bertrand Rossy,” I said softly, then looked toward the cameras and raised my voice. “Beth, I’m asking Mr. Posner about his meeting-”
With a rough gesture Posner turned his back to the cameras. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you’d be making a mistake to talk about him on television.”
“What meeting, Mr. Posner?” one of the reporters asked. “Is this anything to do with the defeat of the Asset Recovery bill on Tuesday?”
“You know I’m going to ask you about him, about why you pulled your demonstration away from Ajax,” I said softly to Posner. “It’s up to you whether it’s on- or off-mike. You like publicity, and they are using directional mikes, so if I raise my voice, they’ll pick up our conversation even if they’re not right on top of us.”
Posner couldn’t afford to look indecisive in front of his troops. “Just to keep you from defaming my movement on television, I will talk to you away from the hospital. But not alone.”
He called to another man to join him, ordering the rest of the group to wait in the group’s bus until he got back. The television crews watched in astonishment as the demonstrators drifted off toward the parking lot, then they plunged forward with a babble of excited questions for Posner and me: what had made him decide to cancel the demonstration?
“We achieved our goals this afternoon,” Posner said grandly. “We have made the hospital realize that Jewish-backed institutions are just as liable as secular ones to become complacent and indifferent to Jewish needs. We will be back, however: Max Loewenthal and Charlotte Herschel can feel assured of that.”
“What about you, Dr. Herschel? What do you think of their assertion that you’re keeping Paul Radbuka from his family?”
She curled her lip. “I’m a surgeon with a full-time practice: I don’t have time for comic books. In fact, this man has kept me from my patients for long enough.”
She turned on her heel and went back into the hospital. The reporters surged forward, wanting to know what I’d said to Posner. Who was my client? Did I suspect fraud in Posner’s group, or in the hospital? Who was financing the demonstrations?
I told Beth and the other reporters that as soon as I had interesting information I’d share it with them-but that for right now I didn’t know about any fraud involving Posner or the hospital.
“But, Beth,” I added, “what brought you up here?”
“We were tipped off, you know how that works, Warshawski.” She gave me an urchin’s grin. “Not by him, though-a woman called the station. Could have been anyone, though.”
Posner, annoyed that I’d stolen the limelight, snarled at me to come with him if I wanted to talk to him: he didn’t have all day to spend on foolish women with imaginary ideas. He moved rapidly down the drive with his chosen henchman; I lengthened my stride to catch up with him.
A couple of reporters kept up a halfhearted pursuit. Radbuka, who hadn’t followed the other demonstrators to the bus, began declaiming that Max was his cousin but wouldn’t admit it, and I was the beast of Babylon who was keeping Max from talking to him, but the reporters already had that story; they weren’t interested in the rerun. If I wasn’t going to give the cameras raw meat, there wasn’t anything to keep them around Beth Israel any longer. The crews wrapped up their equipment and headed to their vans.
XXXV Amateur Sleuth
The crowd, realizing the show was over because the cameras had disappeared, began drifting away. By the time Posner and I were at the corner of Catalpa, the driveway in front of the hospital was almost empty. I laughed to myself: I should send Max a bill for this.
I turned to see what Radbuka was doing. He stood alone at the bottom of the drive, his hurt feelings at being abandoned by both Posner and the cameras darkening his mobile face. He looked around uncertainly, then ran down the street after us.
I turned back to Posner, who was impatiently tapping his watch. “So, Mr. Posner. Let’s talk about you and Bertrand Rossy.”
“I have nothing to say about him.” His chin jutted out at a lofty angle: the Gladiator is not afraid of Death.
“Nothing about your meeting with him last night? Nothing about how he persuaded you to abandon your protest outside Ajax for one here at Beth Israel?”
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Whoever told you I met with him is lying. I have private reasons for being here. They have nothing to do with Rossy.”
“Let’s not start our nice little chat with accusations about lying: I saw you at Rossy’s place-I had dinner with him and his wife last night.”
“I didn’t see you!”
“Now, that disclaimer is pretty pure proof that you were there.” I gave a supercilious smile: Posner was so used to being the daddy in the story that I figured the way to keep him rattled was to treat him as if I found him childish.
“Reb Joseph, I don’t think you should talk any more to this woman,” the sidekick said. “She’s trying to trick you into saying something that will discredit us. Remember what Radbuka said, that she’s been keeping him from his family.”
“That’s not true, either,” I said. “I’m eager for Paul to rejoin his true family. But I’m curious about the situation between your Holocaust Asset Recovery group and Ajax Insurance. I know you know Preston Janoff was in Springfield yesterday, killing the Illinois Asset Recovery Act, so what made you abandon Ajax? I’d think today your wrath against them would be greater than ever. My bet is that Bertrand Rossy told you something last night, or offered you a nice little bribe, that made you withdraw from the Loop to come up here.”
“You’re right, Leon.” Posner turned away from me. “This woman doesn’t know anything-she’s playing a guessing game to keep us from disturbing her rich friends at the hospital.”
Even though I was getting tired of being “this woman” instead of having a name, I kept my voice genial. “I may not know anything, but I can make guesses that Beth Blacksin at Global will listen to. And believe me, I did see you at the Rossys’ last night-if I tell her that, she’ll be parked on your doorstep for a week.”
Posner had turned to leave, but at that he looked back at me, darting a worried glance at Leon, then up the street to see if the cameras were there.
I smiled. “I know that you were furious when you got to Rossy’s place, so I figure it was because you knew he was talking to Alderman Durham: you were afraid Ajax was going to offer Durham some special deal that would undercut your movement.
“Rossy refused at first to see you at all when you showed up in the lobby, but you threatened over the house phone to expose him for doing business with Durham. Even so, Rossy said he wouldn’t see you if Durham learned you were there. You arrived at Rossy’s place angry, but by the time you and he finished, you were all smiles again. So Rossy gave you something. Not money, perhaps. But information. He knows you’re aggressive with Jewish-run institutions that you think are too secular, so maybe he told you something that combined both insurance and one of Chicago ’s leading Jewish charities, Beth Israel. You should bring your protest up here, he told you, force the media to shine a light on the hospital and Max Loewenthal.”