“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.”