“We can’t interrogate them here,” Tim objected. “There are people all over the place. Besides, the cops might find us.”
“Where do you want to go, ma’am?” Jepson asked.
I thought of Mexico City-sunshine, sleep-but I told him to head toward South Chicago, the poverty-stricken corner of the Southeast Side where I grew up. “We can talk on the way.”
I turned painfully in the seat to look at the captives in the back. “Which one of you is Ludwig?” I asked.
“Bitch, we don’t tell you nothing.”
“Want me to hit them?” Tim asked. “They have a few punches coming, judging from how they were roughing you up.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “We know what they are-creeps who work for Anton Kystarnik-and we know their names are Ludwig and Konstantin. Now, which one of you is which?”
They stared at me, sullen, silent.
“Okay,” I said, “just so we can call you something, you, by the window, you’re Konstantin, and your pal is Ludwig. We can find you easily enough if we need you again. Go on over to Lake Shore Drive, Marty, and head south.”
A cell phone rang in Ludwig’s pocket, and he reached for it. Tim knocked his hand away, and we listened to the phone ringing. Konstantin’s phone started next, a sound like a buzz saw.
“What does Anton think I have?” I asked over the ringing.
“We tell you nothing… You or your boy toys, you dried-up cougar!”
“A dried-up cougar? Is that a step up from a bitch or a step down?” I wondered. “Anyway, so far you and your pal are oh for nothing, so let me explain where we’re going.”
We had reached Lake Shore Drive and were heading south, passing the enormous exhibition halls that made up McCormick Place. “You know those high-rise projects the city’s been tearing down? They were home to old-line gangs like the Vice Lords. The city’s relocated a lot of the residents to South Chicago, and the gangs who are coming in have unsettled all the power relationships on the Southeast Side. It’s not a good place for strangers, especially white strangers, to wander around after dark.”
All the time I was talking, both their cell phones kept sounding. I wondered if Anton was trying to reach them, trying to find out if they’d killed me.
“When we get to Ninety-first Street,” I said, “take a right. We’ll drop these creeps off at Houston-that’s where I grew up. Ludwig and Konstantin can see who will drive them north again. Maybe they can flash a bankroll and hire a ride. But maybe that wouldn’t be so smart. Because a bankroll-”
“We don’t know.” That was Ludwig. “Rodney, he calls us, texts us, tells us we are looking for you. Someone is tracking your GPS in your phone. They-”
“Shut up!” Konstantin cried.
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and removed the battery. We’d reached the north end of Hyde Park, the toney neighborhood around the University of Chicago where Barack Obama has his home. If someone was tracking my GPS, with any luck they wouldn’t have a tail in place already.
“Tim,” I said. “Just in case Anton cares enough about these two to track them, pull out their cell phones and remove the batteries.”
I covered the pair with my gun, while Tim carefully stuck an arm across each man and found their phones. We were riding close to the lake now, close enough to see the desolate, ice-covered surface stretch to the horizon under the pale starlight.
“You guys were at the nightclub last night,” I said. “What did Anton Kystarnik hear me say, or where did he see me go, that has him so interested in me?”
“We not knowing,” the talkative thug said. “We following orders only.”
“Order followers-the lowest of the low.” I turned around to face front. “Let’s get this pond scum down to South Chicago and go home. I’ve had it.”
“I can pull over, ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Jepson said. “Tim and me, we can beat the truth out of them.”
I thought of Anton’s threat to me, that he could torture me into talking. “You can beat them into saying something,” I said, “but who knows if it will be the truth? Let’s just drop them in the middle of Latin Kings turf. Let them get home as best they can.”
I switched on the radio and stumbled on Nina Simone covering “Strange Fruit.” Her voice, pausing on the beat, cracking, brought a heart-wrenching vividness to the lyrics.
Outside the truck’s dirty windows, the lake had disappeared. The expressway had ended; we were on city streets. We passed shabby houses and boarded-over apartment buildings, the ominous empty lots of a neighborhood that had gone past decay into ruin. Jepson hit a hidden pothole, and we bounced so hard that I couldn’t hold back a cry of pain as my abdomen shook. In the backseat, our duo conferred in Ukrainian.
Finally, Konstantin said, his voice sullen, “We telling what we are knowing.”
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, Nina Simone was singing.
“And what are you knowing?” I asked. “About the Body Artist, or why Anton doesn’t care about her website anymore, or about what he thinks I have?”
“Anton, he says you have special papers, but we not knowing what they are. We knowing only about Body Artist.”
Jepson kept driving, following Route 41 as it twisted past the weed-filled land where U.S. Steel used to operate. I turned off the radio.
“So… tell me about the Body Artist.”
“Everyone is paying attention to Anton. The police, the FBI, everyone. Anton can’t move, we can’t move, without the police, the FBI, the Secret Service, moving with us.
“How did he manage it tonight?” I asked.
“Oh, there’s always a way. With Owen.” He pronounced it O-ven. “We switch cars-back, forth, back, forth-until we know we’re clear. But Anton knows they are also watching computer, e-mail, telephone. So he talks to Rodney. And Rodney paints Anton’s words on the Body Artist. And then all our friends overseas can read Anton’s wishes.”
It took Konstantin a few minutes to explain the system, and he wasn’t clear on all the terminology. He was one of Anton’s pit bulls, not part of the decision-making inner circle, so he could only repeat what he’d overheard when he’d been bodyguarding Anton and Rodney.
Basically, it seemed that Rodney had been using the Body Artist to signal Anton’s offshore money-laundering partners. The letters Rodney painted stood for countries-Lichtenstein, Cayman, sometimes Belize-wherever Anton kept accounts. He opened and closed them frequently, trying to stay a few steps ahead of the Secret Service. From what Ludwig could recount, it sounded as though one string of the numbers painted by Rodney stood for banking sort codes; the other string probably represented the password for a given account. Simple, easy for anyone to pick up on the World Wide Web, and hard to prove what it was or that Anton was masterminding it.
“So then that stupid bitch, she is shutting her site, and Anton is crazy. Team members are calling from Switzerland, from the Caymans, from the Middle East, they’re saying the accounts are in a mess. All because of her. And you. We saw you helping her leave the club.”
“If you saw that, then you saw her knock me away and tear off into the night. I have no idea where she is.”
“Maybe,” Konstantin said. “Maybe not. Only suddenly tonight, Anton, he calls us, saying the website isn’t important now. Only you, and the papers you are stealing, these, we need to get back.”
They had no more idea what papers Anton was hunting than I did. I asked them a dozen different ways, but they were thugs, not thinkers. Anton talked in front of them, but not about what he was looking for.
If it was Karen Buckley’s computer they wanted, I wondered why they hadn’t taken it last night when they attacked the club. But, of course, the cops had arrived, it hadn’t been possible. Maybe Anton had headed to the boarded-up club tonight. Maybe they got there just as we were leaving and followed us. But a computer wasn’t paper, and Anton had very specifically been looking for papers.
I was too tired to think clearly. I told
Marty to turn around, drop the thugs near McCormick Place, and get the rest of us home for the night.
37 Checkup by Lotty, Ordered by Contreras
I slept around the clock that night, waking up around eleven with my abdomen so sore that I cried out when I tried to get out of bed. I gave up the effort and lay listening to the wind whip against the windows. It didn’t seem as though spring would ever come, or that I would ever care enough about anything-clients, baseball, food, sex-to want to get up again.
I wondered what Anton Kystarnik had said when his team reported in. Miserable losers, he’d cried in Ukrainian when they finally made their way back to his office. I will whip you all and send you to bed without supper. Or would his response have been vengeful? She has insulted me by embarrassing you. Bring me V. I. Warshawski’s head on a platter.
Staff Sergeant Jepson had dropped the two thugs at Thirty-first Street, a mile south of McCormick Place. If they couldn’t find a cab, it was only a mile or so to Printers Row, the Yuppie haven south of the Loop. Konstantin protested when Tim Radke yanked them from the backseat, but I told them I was doing them a favor.
“You’re getting soft because you only attack helpless targets. If any muggers are foolish enough to be out on such a bitter night, they’ll help you polish your street-fighting skills.”
When we were moving again, I asked Jepson to take me to my office so I could pick up my car. In his polite Marine voice, he told me I was in no condition to drive tonight, “ma’am.” He and Tim would take me home if I would give him the address.
After that, I dozed my way up to Racine and Belmont. When the vets woke me in front of my building, Tim said he’d get some work done on the Body Artist’s website on his lunch break the next day.
“You have the computer?” I was amazed that he’d remembered it in the middle of our street fight.
“I took it with me when Petra and I jumped ship. It’s under Jepson’s front seat.”
He and the staff sergeant helped me up the walk to my building. They made me feel old and frail, supporting my arms. I wasn’t a dried-up cougar, I was just dried up.
While I found my keys and unlocked the outer door, Tim asked, “This business tonight anything to do with Chad Vishneski?”
“It’s got something to do with it, I just don’t know what.” I remembered the mitt and sand in the trunk of my car. “I’ve got to get that out, too-I’ve got to keep it safe. If that’s what Rodney was looking for and he wakes up remembering that he didn’t get it, his master may think to look in my car.”
“We’ll take care of it, ma’am, if you give us your car keys,” Jepson said. “Tell me what you want me to do with it.”
“Drive it up to Cheviot labs in Northbrook. Take it to Sanford Rieff. I want the mitt and the contents and Chad’s duffel bag searched for-anything that may be in it. And I want a priority turnaround, which means paying a fifty percent premium. If you have time in the morning, I would be grateful if you took care of it.”
“Nothing but time, ma’am,” Jepson said. “I’m job hunting, these days.”
The dogs had been whining behind Mr. Contreras’s front door while we talked. The old man opened the door and the dogs ran to me, barking eager questions: Where had I been, What had I been doing, Was I all right, Could they trust these strangers, they seemed to ask. It was only as I extricated myself and the vets from their onslaught that I saw Petra had followed my neighbor into the hall. She’d needed petting, pulling together, and no one could do that better than her Uncle Sal.
When Petra saw me, she burst into tears. “I’ve been calling you and calling you,” she said. “When you didn’t answer, I thought you were dead.”
“Told you she had a hundred and nine lives,” my neighbor said, but he did come over to inspect me and my escort. “Why do you need to keep sticking your neck out, just so Peewee and I can break our hearts?”
I hugged him, feeling his unshaven chin against my face. “I’m as burned out as last year’s firecrackers. These are the heroes of the evening. A couple of Iraq vets, Tim Radke, Marty Jepson. Guys, Mr. Contreras fought at Anzio. Gave him a taste for grappa. Which I’m sure he’ll be glad to share with you.”
Before I left him and the young people with the dogs and the grappa, I asked Petra about her Pathfinder. As far as she knew, it was still in the middle of the street where I’d abandoned it.
“Tim, Marty, can you pull it to the curb if it’s still there when you go back to get Tim’s car? We’ll deal with towing and repairs when we have more time.”
Marty solemnly promised I could count on him, ma’am.
With that comforting thought, I staggered up the stairs to bed. I undressed only because I know that if you sleep in a bra you wake up uncomfortable. I didn’t even take time to pull on a nightshirt before falling deep into sleep.
The next day, when I’d finally forced myself out of bed, I called Terry Finchley at the Central District. He wasn’t available, so I told the receptionist that my business concerned Club Gouge. After a longish wait, Officer Milkova came to the phone.
When she said that Detective Finchley had warned her I might call about the Vishneski-Guaman case, I remembered her. She’d been one of the officers who’d responded the night Nadia Guaman was killed.
“Do you have any new information on the murder, ma’am?”
I was starting to feel embalmed, the way everyone under thirty was calling me ma’am.
“A lowlife named Rodney Treffer passed out on Lake Street last night, near the Ashland L stop. He’s been beating up people around Club Gouge. He and a team of creeps broke into the club two nights ago and attacked the owner. Last night, he attacked me. Can you find out if he’s in custody or in a hospital someplace?”
“I can’t give you confidential information about any citizen, whether they’re in our custody or not.” Milkova’s voice was severe.
“Ma’am,” I added.
“What?”
“You forgot your punctuation mark,” I explained. “Whether they’re in our custody or not, ma’am. So if my lawyer files an order of protection against Treffer, you can’t tell us whether he’s unconscious or anything?”
She was new to Finchley’s team; she didn’t know how to respond off the top of her head. “You said he passed out, then you said he attacked you. How could he do both?”
“He did them in the reverse order. First he attacked me, then he passed out. I want to know if he’s in a hospital or the morgue or even police custody.”
She thought this over. “I think I need to see you in person. Do you know where Detective Finchley’s office is?”
“I know where it is, but if you want to see me in person, you’ll have to come to me. Rodney hurt me badly enough last night that I’m not hiking down to Thirty-fifth and Michigan in this weather.”
“I’ll tell Detective Finchley you called.”
“He’ll be ecstatic at the news. Tell him I cracked the code on what secrets Kystarnik has been sending to his troops. Although maybe I should call the Secret Service-they’re the ones who’ve been playing cat and mouse with Kystarnik.”
“I think I’d better just ask Detective Finchley to call you,” Milkova said.
When she hung up, I made myself a large espresso and took it with me to drink while I soaked in a hot bath. My abdomen was a mass of purple-black. Jake Thibaut was leaving for Europe tomorrow night. If the blood in my hand had turned him green, what would the sight of my stomach do? Maybe if I wanted to preserve the relationship I should keep out of his way until he got home from his tour.
It was more important that I keep out of Kystarnik’s way. Just because I’d managed to wriggle out of his jaws last night didn’t mean I was home free-especially once he found out that my pals and I had shanghaied his crew. Although maybe Konstantin and Ludwig wouldn’t want Anton to know that a dried-up cougar had outwitted them.
But what papers did Anton think I had? And where had the Body Artist fled? And why had she been so angry w
hen I tried to help her get away from Anton?
Those seemed to be enough questions to keep a fit and lively detective busy for a year or two. How could I handle them with just my cousin’s help-my young, inexperienced cousin who’d been badly shaken by last night’s assault?
When I was dry and warm, I wrapped my torso in an Ace bandage. By pulling it tight across my abdomen, I could move well enough to make my way downstairs to my neighbor.
His face lit up when he saw me. “I didn’t want to come up,” he said, “in case you were asleep. You looked like you was on your way to Grace-land last night, doll.”
By this, my neighbor meant a nearby cemetery where Chicago’s most famous citizens are buried, not Elvis’s Memphis home.
“Those were a couple of nice boys you brought around last night, real thoughtful,” he added. “They drove Peewee home, and the one boy, the Marine, came by a little bit ago. He brought your car keys and a note from that lab you use.”
Mr. Contreras pawed through the newspapers on his coffee table and came up with an envelope that had the Cheviot labs logo-two rams going head-to-head-on the corner. Inside were my car keys and a receipt from Sanford Rieff’s assistant, listing the duffel bag, the black armor mitt, and the sand, and summarizing the search I’d requested.
Mr. Contreras insisted on cooking for me, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast. When he saw how painful it was for me to sit down, he also insisted that I go see Lotty.
“We’ll take a cab, doll. You can’t take a chance. If you got a perforated kidney or something, you gotta get it looked at.”
“You know darned well how much I hate being in the medical maw,” I grumbled. “I can eat, I’m not bleeding when I go to the bathroom.”
“Even so, even so… I’m calling that service you used for the dogs when you was in Italy last summer; they’ll walk them until you’re fit again. And I’m going upstairs to get your coat while you finish your eggs.”
Body Work Page 27