Brush Back (V.I. Warshawski Novels Book 17)

by Sara Paretsky

  “No, Conrad. I know that, absent my father, you are the most honest, steadfast cop in Chicago. But I’ve lived my whole life in this city, and I know too much about how business gets done here. Yesterday morning, someone called to warn me away from this case, told me what happened to my dad when he ‘got the wrong people’ pissed off. I called Captain Mallory. He assured me it wasn’t Scanlon, but still . . .” My voice trailed off, remembering Tony’s refusal to ride in Scanlon’s bus to Boom-Boom’s debut all those years ago. And Scanlon’s jibe about the Warshawskis—what had it been? Was I upholding justice the same way my dad had? Something like that.

  “Mallory’s word isn’t good enough for you?” Conrad demanded. “I came here for a one-on-one out of concern for you, but you are always Almighty God, knowing more than us mere mortals.”

  “Conrad, please: it’s not that, and you know it. But Bobby is going on decades-old information, he’s not in the Fourth every day, and you are up to your eyeballs in gang shootings and drugs and garbage—you don’t have a reason to be looking at these people, not the way I do. So cut me some slack, don’t assume I’m doing what I’m doing in an effort to make you look bad, or to thumb my nose at my dad’s oldest, staunchest friend!”

  Conrad breathed heavily, paced to the wall where my outsize map of the six counties hung, studied it long enough to memorize all the streets. “Anyone else in your sights, besides the local power players?” He spoke to the map.

  “I’ve crossed paths with Boris Nabiyev, who hung out with Jerry Fugher, and I’ve seen the Sturlese brothers, whose cement company Nabiyev has a stake in. Or his masters have a stake in, anyway. Bobby assures me that Judge Grigsby and Stella’s new lawyer wouldn’t be in the threats business. I don’t know about Stella’s current lawyer, but Grigsby is connected to Democratic politics, all those years he was going to fund-raisers for his campaign war chests—he had to scratch a lot of backs. And all these people circle around and tie back either to Scanlon or Bagby. And Scanlon and Bagby and Nina Quarles are cousins.”

  “Nina Quarles?” Conrad turned around.

  “She’s the absentee owner of the South Chicago branch of Mandel & McClelland. And Spike Hurlihey is related to Scanlon.”

  Conrad groaned. “I should have known you wouldn’t think a couple of homeboys were big enough targets. Still and all, Ms. W., even though you’re the biggest pain in this copper’s ass, I don’t want to see you on a slab. You moved north; do yourself a favor and me in the bargain: stay north.”

  PINCH HITTER

  I watched Conrad on my security monitor, made sure he was leaving the building, getting into his car and driving off, before I once more shut down my computer. Before leaving, I checked in with Tim Streeter. All was quiet on the northern front—he was eating spaghetti with Mr. Contreras and Bernie. The three of them were going to watch the Bruins-Canadiens game; face-off was in ten minutes.

  When I got to the Golden Glow, Murray was on his second Holsten, eating a rare hamburger and flirting with Erica, Sal’s head bartender. Erica was a vegan and a lesbian but she enjoyed teasing Murray.

  Time was when Sal didn’t serve food at all—her core clientele, the traders from the nearby Board of Trade, tended to blow off steam over vodka or bourbon without wanting to eat. But the South Loop has come back to life; the old industrial buildings from a century back, when this area housed printing presses for many of the nation’s magazines, phone books and the like, have been converted to loft apartments. Young professionals and retired couples have moved in. They want poached salmon with a glass of Sancerre, not a shot and a beer with a pretzel.

  Sal cut a door in a wall of the bar that backs onto the kitchen of one of those trendy South Loop restaurants. Sal supplies their booze and they feed her drinkers from an abbreviated menu.

  What hasn’t changed are the Tiffany lamps over the mahogany tables, giving the room the soft glow of its name. Sal came over with the bottle of Johnnie Walker as I was laying my papers out under one of the lamps.

  “I hope the cement truck looks worse than you do, girl. What happened?”

  “You know how it is. I was jumping over a tall building and forgot that it takes me two bounds these days.”

  “Bet you can’t see the color of my underwear anymore, either,” Sal said.

  “You’d be wrong about that, but only because your décolletage is revealing black lace, not because I still have my X-ray vision.”

  It felt good to be in the place where everybody knew my name. I ordered a bowl of soup, although trendy restaurants only serve designer soups, perhaps lotus blossoms pureed with chives and a whiff of liquid nitrogen, not the hearty minestrone I was longing for.

  I waited for Murray to finish his raw meat, then brought him to my table. He studied my documents carefully while I ate my soup, which I had to admit was pretty good, despite its delicate ingredients—good enough that I ordered a second bowl.

  I told him everything I could think of, including the business about the break-in at Villard’s place, and my concern about what Boom-Boom might have been up to.

  “All his papers are in Toronto at the Hockey Hall of Fame, but I looked at them before I sent them up there; if he’d been protecting some scandal under cover of a trustee account, I’d have seen it then. And he never kept a journal that I ever discovered.”

  “Yeah, but the secret could be something that doesn’t look like anything.” Murray waved to Erica for another beer and ordered a basket of French fries—fried, of course, in duck fat, not in something dull like safflower oil. “Could be something that Boom-Boom himself didn’t know was explosive. You know con artists are always trying to get a sports star’s money. And their old friends are always trying to get a piece of reflected glory.”

  “That suggests Frank Guzzo,” I said.

  “I could go up to Toronto and take a look at Boom-Boom’s papers,” Murray suggested.

  “It might be worthwhile,” I agreed doubtfully. “You’d have to pay your own way, though—I haven’t seen a dime from the Guzzos and I’m likely to be in the hole for legal fees to get this wretched restraining order lifted. But before booking a flight, why don’t you comb the Herald-Star’s archives. Your old gossip columnist, Freda Somebody, might have had a few titillating hints about Boom-Boom.”

  “It’s the Spike Hurlihey part of the story I want most,” Murray said. “There’s a lot here, but it’s all vague. Before looking at Freda’s old columns, I’m going to double back into what we have on Spike, The Early Years. He wasn’t born with the Speaker’s gavel in his hand, he muscled his way into the job. Nobody can write anything about him now, he’s so goddam powerful, but twenty years ago, when he was first starting to gobble up the smaller fish, it was a different story. Of course, my current owners love him. They like oligarchs and he is the consummate protector of the oligarchy, so Global isn’t likely to let me print dirt in the Herald-Star, but Salon or even the New York Times might be interested.”

  “If you expose his dirty underwear you could be unemployed,” I said.

  He grinned, the old Murray grin. “Won’t be the first time. What will you be doing, Girl Wonder?”

  I played with my soup spoon, drawing a design in the bottom of the bowl with the remains. “I’ll talk to Pierre Fouchard. He’s flying in on Monday to collect his daughter before anything disastrous happens. If Boom-Boom confided in anyone besides me, it would have been Pierre.”

  “Too many unknown unknowns,” Murray grunted.

  “The one I’m worried about is Nabiyev,” I said. “The unknown I want clarified is who he’s working for, and if they think I’m as much a threat as—as, I don’t know—Jerry Fugher, for instance.”

  “Nabiyev! How the hell did you get yourself tangled up with him?”

  “I’ve been delving in genealogy.” I pulled out the page that dealt with Sturlese and showed Murray, but I realized I’d never told him
about Sebastian and Viola. When I explained that story to Murray, including how terrified Viola was, he frowned in worry.

  “Crap, V.I.—that doesn’t have anything to do with whose ma was whose grandfather’s second cousin five times removed. If this Viola is frightened about Nabiyev, you shouldn’t go near her without full body armor, and even then you’d be pushing your luck. What I hear about Nabiyev is he’s a freelance enforcer, but he gets legal help from the attorneys who manage the Grozny Mob’s affairs. No one knows if the Uzbeks bought a cop or a state’s attorney, could be either or both: Nabiyev has been arrested a bunch of times but never charged. If you haven’t made a will, better get to it before you do anything else.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think it’s very funny, either. I wish to God I could shift Bernie tonight—I could go underground if I didn’t have to worry about her.”

  Having reminded myself of that worry, I signaled Erica for the check: I wanted to get back north to make sure Bernie and everyone else I cared about was safe. As a sign of goodwill, I split the bill without looking to see how much more four Holstens cost than one Johnnie Walker.

  Murray and I exchanged those meaningless hugs and agreed to check in with each other at the end of the day tomorrow—unless we uncovered something dramatic beforehand. We didn’t vow never to let the sun go down on an anger again—we knew each other too well to believe a promise like that.

  I could hear Jake moving around his apartment when I came up the stairs. I wondered if he’d brought a violinist home with him, someone who carried a Strad, not a gun. I put the Smith & Wesson in my nightstand drawer with the lock on and texted him that I was home.

  When he came across our shared porch to the kitchen a few minutes later, he couldn’t help staring at my hips, so I turned my waistband inside out to show him it was empty.

  He was still a bit stiff and circumspect, but after we’d had a glass of Torgiano, he kissed my bruised eye and gave me a shoulder rub while I told him about the meeting with Villard—the one part of my day that I figured he’d genuinely enjoy.

  “You are going to have to write that book about your cousin, V.I.: you’ve got too many people excited about it. Or write an opera. Of course, this town loves sports more than music, if High Plainsong could put together a hockey opera, that might solve our funding problems.”

  We agreed that Boom-Boom should be a baritone, not a tenor, and spent a happy hour debating which leading singer should have the privilege of debuting, “With my slap shot I am invincible,” while Jake improvised an accompaniment on my piano. His boom! boom! in the bass clef was tremendously convincing.

  He went back to his own place for the night—it’s no fun trying to sleep when your partner is snuffling and coughing—but I had my first peaceful night’s rest in several weeks. No dreams of being beaten up or having the people who love me turn their backs on me.

  On Sunday, I luxuriated in doing nothing. Bernie came with me for a long walk up the lakefront with the dogs. She didn’t bring up Boom-Boom or Annie, and we ended the day with a movie, a pizza and a sense of goodwill.

  By Monday morning, both my cold and my bruises were fading. I did my routine of stretches and weights—longer, because I’m at an age where laying off for two days means it takes twice as long to get in shape—and took the dogs to the park for a good workout. Tom Streeter stayed inside Mr. Contreras’s place while we were gone, but when I returned the dogs, he went back to his post on the perimeter. Bernie was still asleep in my neighbor’s guest bed when I headed to work.

  My good mood soured somewhat at my office: my insurance adjuster had left a message. The Mustang wasn’t salvageable, and, given my high deductible, all I’d get from them was five hundred thirty-seven dollars. I called Luke and told him to sell it for scrap; he could keep whatever he got in exchange for letting me hang on to the Subaru a few more days.

  “You wreck it, Warshawski, and the deal is off,” he warned me.

  “Right you are, Eeyore.”

  I hung up on his demand to know what in hell I meant by that. I needed a car, I needed a vacation in the Umbrian hills, I needed a wealthy benefactor. Instead, I scanned the photos Mr. Villard had given me on Saturday. When I had them stored in the Cloud and on a flash drive, I felt a little easier about doing other errands.

  I trudged across North Avenue until I came to a branch of Global American, where I opened an account. Back in my office, I repeated the steps I’d gone through with Stella’s account at Fort Dearborn Trust, noting the security questions GA asked.

  Before trying to bypass GA’s security to get Fugher’s account number, I called the guy who owned the garage where Fugher had lived. If he’d taken a security deposit, he might give me the information without my needing to squirm my way through another round of illegal data gathering. Unfortunately, the rent was cash only. And no, he’d never had occasion to need Fugher’s Social Security number.

  I looked involuntarily at the Uffizi engraving, the avatar of my mother’s ethical standards. “Sorry, Gabriella,” I whispered, logging onto my LifeMonitor search engine. It didn’t care if I was a creep as long as I paid the five-thousand-a-year subscription price. It gave me all the information I needed to look at Fugher’s bank account.

  Armed with that, I called Global American, repeating my tremulous pitch, this time about my brother with dementia. The bank was regretful, but someone had closed and emptied the account on Friday.

  “That’s not possible: I have his power of attorney,” I exclaimed. “The scam artists must have drained his assets and closed the account. This is terrible—his bill at the nursing home is due tomorrow.”

  Because I had the Social Security number, along with his adoptive mother’s birth name and the street he’d grown up on, they finally told me the account number. I promised I’d take it up immediately with their security office in Atlanta.

  When I hung up, I wondered if I might be a sociopath, I lied so glibly, so easily. At least I’d gotten what I needed. When I went back to Stella’s accounts, sure enough, the account that had covered her bills while she was in prison had belonged to Uncle Jerry.

  I stared at the screen for a long time. Fugher was connected to Stella, but who was pulling those strings? Except for the money he got from Viola and Sebastian through their debt to Sleep-EZ, and the occasional payout from his betting account, all his deposits had been made in cash, some in the high four figures.

  I made up a spreadsheet, showing both Fugher’s and Stella’s accounts, with a paragraph summarizing where Fugher’s money came from, and sent it to Murray. I didn’t like being the only person to know something about a man with ties to Nabiyev.

  I was pacing around my office when my phone rang, an unknown caller.

  “Is this the detective? . . . I’m Aliana Bartok. At the Virejas Tower project.”

  Oh, yes, the promising young engineer with beaded braids. “What’s up?”

  “You know how we were all trying to figure out what Sebastian was doing here so early in the morning the last day we saw him? I think I know. It’s—I can’t explain it on the phone. Can you come to the job site?”

  SOUND CHECK

  Aliana met me at the entrance to the hoist. She’d refused to answer any questions on the phone, just saying that I had to be at the computer to understand it. While we waited for the hoist, she fiddled nervously with the ends of her braids, looking aslant at my bruised face.

  The hoist operator remembered me. “You go ten rounds with Nabiyev?” he asked jovially. “He was in early this morning looking same as always, so you must not have landed any of your punches.”

  “I hit the kidneys,” I said. “My face looks spectacular but it’s blows to the kidneys that leave the other person limping for a week or two.”

  The operator laughed more heartily than the comment merited, expanding on the fight theme all the way up.

  They’d poured thr
ee more floors since I was last here. When we got off at twelve, the rough work on the walls was done and carpenters were marking off spots to start building interior walls. As she led me across the floor to the engineers’ room, Aliana asked if I’d really been in a fight with Nabiyev.

  “No. Your hoist operator seems to have a one-string guitar that he likes to keep plucking. I was jumped by some street punks and fortunately the cops drove up before they murdered me. You know Nabiyev?”

  “Not personally, but when he’s on the job site everyone gets tense.” She knocked on the door to the architects’ and engineers’ room, which had a sign on it that read “Temporarily Off-Limits to All Personnel.”

  A couple of the engineers I’d seen the first time I was here were hovering nearby and were infuriated when Tyler, the senior man, unlocked the door for Aliana.

  “Hey, man, what gives?” one of them demanded, trying to muscle past us into the room. “I need to get to my machine. There’s an array whose specs I have to check—”

  “The room will be open in fifteen minutes, Clay. I’m sure you can do the calculations on your tablet, right?” Tyler pulled the door shut behind Aliana and me, and slid the dead bolt home.

  “Aliana brief you on what she found?” he said.

  “I didn’t think I could explain it on the phone,” Aliana said.

  She took me to one of the computers set up on a work counter that ran the length of the far wall. “We each have our own laptops, of course, but these are machines we can all access during the project to see what everyone is doing—the files are shared pretty much among the design and structural people. The computers aren’t assigned—anyone can use any machine—but we all get in the habit of sitting at one particular spot, set up our coffee mugs there, that kind of thing.”

  The cloth board that lined the wall behind the computers was filled with photos and cartoons. Personal items—coffee mugs, pencil cups, action figures—sat on the shelf that ran the length of the counter. A faded photo of Cubs legend Ryne Sandberg, signed to Sebastian, was pinned behind the computer where Aliana was standing.