“George is putting a team together for us,” Harvey Krumas said. “We know you love your cousin. But someone like you will hurt us more than help us.”
“Someone like me being what?”
“A pretty ineffectual solo op,” Strangwell said crisply. “You haven’t found a person you’ve been hunting for over a month. But you did get a wonderful nun killed.”
I felt it where he intended it, right below the diaphragm, that place where your insides collapse in on you when you think of all the terrible mistakes you’ve made.
“I’m impressed that you’ve gone to so much trouble to uncover my workload.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Still, I don’t think you should discount what I can do.”
“I don’t want you to do anything.” My uncle was close to tears. “Rachel has left town to be with the girls, and I’m turning everything over to George. He’s in charge.”
“What did Derek Hatfield tell you when you met with the FBI?” I asked. “Is he comfortable, too, with letting George’s team run the search?”
“They’re overworked, Vicki,” Dornick said. “Of course they’ll put some agents in play. But Hatfield knows what I can do, and he knows he can trust my operatives to behave sensibly if it turns out we have a ransom or hostage situation on our hands.”
I looked at my uncle. “Petra usually calls Rachel at least once a day. Hasn’t she been in touch at all?”
My uncle made a rough, meaningless gesture. “We kept calling and getting her voice mail. Why she can’t answer-”
“Her battery seems to be dead,” Dornick said.
I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve been using your GPS monitors to track her, then. Where did you last pick up a trace?”
Dornick pressed his lips together. He hadn’t meant to tell me he was tracking Petra, but he didn’t compound the blunder by trying to deny it. “We didn’t get on it until early this morning, so we don’t know where she went after she ran out your back door.”
“Now that you have Hatfield’s acquiescence in letting the private sector handle the search, what are your plans?”
Dornick smiled thinly. “The first thing we’ll do, of course, is to sweat Merton.”
I was astonished. “You really think the Anacondas are involved in this, Georgie?”
He flushed at the nickname. “Don’t be naïve, Vicki… Vic. You know that even doing life at Stateville, Merton runs a big chunk of the South and West sides of this city. Drugs, whores, ID theft. We can squeeze him where it hurts.”
“And that would be where?” I asked politely. “He can’t do more time than he’s already doing.”
“He’s proud of his daughter. We can put pressure on her.”
“I didn’t think they were close,” I objected.
“That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be upset as hell if her law firm decided she was a security risk,” Dornick said.
“And if it turns out Merton had nothing to do with Petra’s disappearance, will you restore Dayo Merton’s reputation and make sure she gets another job as good as the one she has now?” I asked, adding to my uncle, “Is that how you’d want Petra treated?”
“If he’s behind her disappearance, he’s already treating her-”
“Okay. So you’ll start by sitting on the Hammer. And, at the same time, just in case…”
“We’ll pull in some of the Anacondas who hold a grudge against… well, let’s say, against your dad. People like this Steve Sawyer you’ve been looking for.”
“You know where he is?”
A little smile played around Dornick’s mouth, condescension mostly. “I feel pretty confident I can track him down.”
“And we’ll talk to you, Vic,” Strangwell said. “We need to know what Petra was doing for you.”
Peter was looking at Harvey Krumas with an odd, almost pleading expression. It seemed to me that the two men were holding their breath, waiting for my answer.
“Nothing, really.” I spoke slowly, studying their faces, trying to guess what they were hoping to hear. “When I was injured in the fire that killed Sister Frances, my eyes were damaged. They told me not to look at a computer for a few days, and Petra offered to look up an address in one of my databases. Then she told me Les here had sat on her and that she couldn’t do the search.”
“Are you telling the truth?” Harvey Krumas demanded.
“That’s a useless question, Mr. Krumas. If I say yes, would you believe me? And why on earth would I say no? Besides, why do you care? It’s data that’s readily available to the public at large. What difference does it make if Petra saw it or not?”
Before any of the men could speak, we heard a muffled shout outside the door, a scrabbling sound as the lock was pushed back. The door opened, and the candidate himself walked in.
35
IN THE HALL OF THE TITANS
HARVEY KRUMAS GAPED AT HIS SON. DORNICK GOT TO HIS feet, but, for once, he seemed at a loss, looking from Peter to Harvey and then to Les Strangwell, who picked up the cue and spoke first.
“Brian, you have a full schedule with donors in L.A. today. Why did you cancel that? We’re going to have to do some serious damage control out there now.”
“Chrissake, Les, the damage control isn’t about me and some B-movie starlets but about finding Petra Warshawski. I need to be here.” Brian’s tie was unknotted, and his dark hair hadn’t seen a comb for some time.
“We have the situation under control,” Les said. “George is putting his best people into finding Petra.”
“How about just once, Les, Dad, George-and whoever you two are”-Brian looked at my uncle and me without recognition-“just once, we pretend this is my campaign, my life, my staffers, that we aren’t all pawns in your big power game. I want to know what the cops have said about Petra and what we know about her disappearance. And why is George here, at damage-control central, instead of meeting with his best people to get them moving?”
“We want to minimize media attention on Petra’s disappearance,” Strangwell said. “You coming back here like this sends a message that we think it’s more serious than it is.”
Brian’s face turned white. “Are you saying it isn’t serious when a young woman on my staff vanishes into thin air? The Web is saying the FBI suspects kidnapping. And you’re nuts if you don’t think the media isn’t already on it like flies on a dead cow. When I got to LAX this morning, I had a dozen mikes under my nose wanting to know where I was when the kid disappeared and what did I think about it, and on and on and on. Tell me what’s happened. Not the sound bite you think I should chew on but what the cops and the FBI have said and done.”
“Of course,” Dornick said. “I’ll tell Derek Hatfield he should give Brian a full briefing on what the Bureau knows. And I’ll go to my office and get my team organized. Warshawski, you want to come with me?”
I started to get up, surprised at the invitation, then realized Dornick was talking to my uncle. As soon as Brian heard the Warshawski name, he realized who my uncle was and crossed the room to his side.
“I’m sorry, Pete. With all this crisis, I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry as hell about Petra. I can’t believe her work with the campaign had anything to do with her disappearance. But George will find her, I’m sure, whatever she was doing. Is Rachel here? Do you need anything? A place to stay? Anything at all?”
“That’s right,” Harvey Krumas put in. “Come on out to the house, Pete. Jolenta will be glad to have you to look after. We all feel helpless, and she needs to be doing something.”
“Helpless? Not you, Harve.” My uncle gave a bitter smile. “Besides, I want to be where I can get to the FBI or-or anyone-fast. I’m fine at the Drake.”
“The Roscoe Street apartment, then,” Brian urged. “I can go out to Barrington Hills with Dad. Why should you run up a hotel bill?”
“No, you need to stay in the city, where you’re accessible,” Strangwell told Brian. “Now that you’re back here, we can schedule some events and some press.
This is a good opportunity to build support with women, showing how sensitive you are to their needs… violence against women, that kind of thing. Art and Melanie are standing by with some ideas on how to craft-”
“Les, you are a fucking machine! I don’t want you to craft a statement on how to talk about a missing kid. I want a rundown on what we’re doing to find her. And Pete, I want to make sure you and Rachel are getting all the support you need. You’re sure you don’t want the apartment?”
“Thanks, Brian, let’s leave it lie. Vic, you can ride up to the Drake with me.”
That was an announcement, a command, that the meeting was over. Harvey Krumas and George Dornick lingered to talk to Strangwell, but Brian left the office with Peter and me.
“You’re Petra’s cousin? Aren’t you the person I talked to last night? Am I right that she was in your office yesterday and that’s the last place she was seen?”
“Vic doesn’t know anything about Petra,” Peter growled. “She thinks Petra was in her office, but she can’t prove it.”
“It was her bracelet I found outside my back door,” I said to the candidate.
“A million kids wear those rubber bracelets,” Peter said.
“And Rachel identified her from the video footage. I went to Petra’s apartment today. Someone broke down her back door. She had something somebody wants or knew something. Ever since Strangwell moved her onto his personal team, she’s behaved oddly. What did he have her doing, Mr. Krumas?”
“You don’t need to know that,” my uncle said quickly. “It won’t help find her.”
“Petra got into something over her head. Her laptop is missing, so we can’t check the websites she visited. But either she got in with a dangerous crowd on her own or something she was doing for the campaign got her in trouble. Does she have a drug habit I didn’t recognize?”
“No, damn you to hell!”
“Gambling?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter you live in. My girls were brought up to live decent lives. I don’t tolerate the crap that Tony let you get away with. If Petra was kidnapped, it’s because you introduced her to those fucking Anacondas!”
My uncle’s roar brought people out of their cubicles to stare at us. They did a double take at the sight of Brian and began moving their thumbs madly over their handhelds. A small crowd gathered fast, some staffers demanding autographs, others just cheering their boy.
“I’d better say a few words,” Brian muttered to us.
To his team, he flashed his Bobbyesque smile, holding up a hand to acknowledge the applause like a modest major leaguer acknowledging a home run. He gave a quick thank-you to the group for their hard work, a mention of Petra’s disappearance and how worried he knew they all were, an assurance that if a sparrow fell, Brian Krumas would rescue it.
“That’s it, guys. These are a couple of people who are going to help us find Petra.” He ushered Peter and me into a nearby conference room. “I’ll talk to the FBI, of course, but-Vic, is it?-better fill me in on what you know.”
“I think she ran out the back door of my building,” I said. “I’m hoping she ran clean away from the two people she was with, but I can’t imagine where she’s gone. I need to talk to her college roommate-”
“No, you don’t!” Peter screamed. “You need to stay the fuck away from this-far, far away from this-and let George handle it.”
“Peter, we’re all upset, but-”
“You’re not just useless, you’re dangerous!” my uncle shouted. “George knows more than any detective I’ve ever heard of, private or public, including the FBI. He’ll find Petra without letting it get messy. If you look for her, chances are she’ll burn to death in front of your eyes.”
I turned very cold, but I said levelly, “Petra was looking for something the last few weeks. She organized an outing to your old place in Back of the Yards. She was on Houston Street ten days ago when someone forced an evacuation from my old home. She went to the Freedom Center three days after Sister Frances died. What was Petra looking for? Something for you, Mr. Krumas? Or was it for you, Peter? Is that why she was claiming an interest in the Warshawski past?”
My uncle shook his head like a cornered bull. “My girl wants to look at her family roots, and you want it to be some filthy story involving the Anacondas or whatever mud you wallow in.”
I thought of Petra’s fixation with the Nellie Fox baseball. I dumped the red sweatshirt and Scarlett O’Hara hat on the conference room table and pulled the ball from my case.
“Why did Petra want this so badly, Peter?”
Peter and Brian both bent over my hand, looking at the ball with the same puzzlement, and then my uncle’s face turned the color of putty. Sweat covered his face so fast it was as if he had sunk in a pool of water.
“What is it?” Brian asked.
“It’s nothing. It’s an old baseball,” Peter muttered. But he was clutching a chair back for support.
I began to worry about his heart, but when I said I’d get water and call Rachel he brushed my hand away with a violent gesture. “Leave Rachel out of this.”
“My apartment was ransacked two nights before Petra disappeared. Is this what they were looking for?”
“How should I know?” my uncle said. His voice had lost its belligerence. “You’re the one who’s so friendly with the blacks in this city, not me.”
“The people in my apartment weren’t black. Someone saw them.” Of course my witness said he couldn’t make out their race, but my patience was wearing thin. “Did Petra mention the ball in one of her daily chats home? Did you tell her to come back to my place to get it?”
“Nellie Fox. She knew I was a Nellie Fox fan, so she-”
“Peter, who are you protecting? Petra had never heard of Fox. When I mentioned his name, she thought the Sox had put a woman at second. Why won’t you tell me what the story is with this ball?”
“There is no story. There’s nothing to know about it.”
I rolled the ball in my hand while my uncle watched uneasily. The door opened, and Strangwell and Dornick came in with Harvey Krumas, who looked in surprise at my uncle and me. Once again, though, it was Strangwell who spoke first.
“Brian, the kids said you’d popped in here. We’ve got Global Entertainment in the situation room. Gina’s here to do your makeup.”
The candidate let Strangwell lead him away, but Harvey Krumas and Dornick demanded to know why Peter wasn’t back at the Drake lying down. “You look like crap, Pete. What’s going on here?”
“Brian wanted to talk to me,” I said. “Peter wanted to stay close to me. We were talking about what Petra might have been looking for in my childhood home. Any hunches?”
Dornick said, “I don’t know Petra, so I don’t know what might have struck her fancy. Girls her age get romantic ideas about family history sometimes. Maybe she thought there were Warshawski heirlooms.”
“Mr. Krumas? You know her better than I do. You’re her ‘Uncle Harvey,’ after all. Peter says she wasn’t looking for a baseball.”
“This is outrageous,” Harvey fumed. “Pete’s sick with worry-we all are-and you’re treating this like some video game.”
I tossed the baseball in the air, caught it, and put it into my briefcase. “You’re right. I’ll get this to a lab, see what they can tell me about it, and start searching for Petra.”
“No!” Peter said. “How many times do I have to repeat it? Stay the fuck out of this!”
Dornick said, “Out of curiosity, Vicki-Vic-if you were going to look for her, where would you start?”
“I started at her apartment, but someone had been there ahead of me. Since Peter doesn’t want me looking, I’m not going to hunt elsewhere. But I would probably talk to Larry Alito.”
“Alito?” Krumas and Dornick spoke his name in unison. Then Dornick said, “I wouldn’t trust much that an alkie like Larry would have to say.”
“He met with Les Strangwell a couple of days ago. I’d like to kno
w what Strang-”
“How do you know that?” Krumas demanded.
“I’m an investigator, Mr. Krumas. It’s my job to find out stuff. I’m not sure what it would take to get Alito to tell me about that conversation, or some of the other things he knows, but-”
“Guy would sell his wife for a six-pack, probably turn in his own kid for a keg. Stay away from him, Vic, he’s bad news.” Dornick was giving me an indulgent smile, as if I were a toddler who needed extra coaching.
“He’s short-tempered and he drinks, but he’s an experienced cop. And Strangwell wanted him for an urgent, confidential assignment the day before Petra disappeared.”
Dornick laughed. “You think Larry has something to do with Petra’s disappearance? I’m surprised you’ve made it in this field as long as you have, Vic. An imagination like yours belongs on TV. Speaking of which, what are you imagining about that Nellie Fox baseball?”
“And you know it’s a Nellie Fox baseball because…”
The words hung in the air. For a moment, Harvey looked like a stuffed bear on a mantelpiece. And then Dornick laughed, and said, “Lucky guess. Fox was the household god in your grandfather’s family for everyone except your renegade father. Pete, let me give you a lift up to the Drake. Vic, listen to your uncle and stay the hell away from searching for Petra.”
36
WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?
I LEFT THE MEN HAILING CABS ON MICHIGAN AVENUE. I wanted to see all three of them out of sight before reclaiming my car, but even then I took a roundabout route, catching a bus down Michigan to the south end of Grant Park, where only a handful of tourists passed the homeless guys lying on the grass, and it would be easier to see if I had company.
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