Shell Game Read online

  31

  Safe House

  A Jeep Wrangler pulled up, spilling out teens—two girls, three boys—shouting and punching each other. Teri’s children and their friends home from school. They pushed past me into the house, as if I were a part of the door. I guess it’s a sign of aging when you cluck your tongue over the poor manners of the modern youth. And when you’re invisible to them.

  I was heading along the road toward my car when Claudia appeared through some shrubbery.

  “You are aunt? You are Mr. Yarborough sister?”

  “I was Dick Yarborough’s first wife. We’ve been divorced for many years now. Dick had a sister named Becky who died about twenty years ago. Her two daughters are Reno and Harmony; Reno has disappeared. Harmony asked me to help find her.”

  “You name?”

  “V.I. Warshawski. Victoria Warshawski.”

  “Ah! Now am understand. Teri, she tell your name when niece calling. Teri say, call to Aunt Vic, she detective. Teri say, girl must not bother to Mr. Yarborough and family. Then Teri tell to Mr. Yarborough and he very much angry. Why you give Vic name to niece, he asking. Why you—can’t think word—ask, maybe. Why you tell girl talk to Vic, now Vic sticking nose to my business.”

  Claudia gave me an appraising look. “And you, you are this Vic, this detective? But you not finding girl?”

  “Yes. I’m this Vic and I’m not finding anyone,” I said. “Did you talk to my niece—Dick and Teri and my niece? When was it?”

  Claudia nodded. “She talking me with phone, telling she is niece to Mr. Yarborough, telling name is Harmony. Like music? I asking, and she saying yes, like music.”

  Claudia stopped to count under her breath in Polish. “Is one week back. She want talk Teri, I get Teri to telephone. I speak Teri, Harmony very worry, no one know where is sister to her. Mr. Yarborough saying, not worry, no problems. Now I go, sons needing snack.”

  She flitted behind the shrubbery toward the back of the house.

  I trudged on toward my car. Had Teri and Dick told their housekeeper to mind her own business because they didn’t care about Reno, or because they knew what had happened to her?

  My hand was throbbing more painfully and I thought I might be starting a fever. I still hadn’t taken my first dose of Cipro; I needed to get on that. Self-care, the gurus are always advising private investigators. Don’t neglect your own well-being for that of your clients.

  Near the expressway entrance I found a 7-Eleven where I bought a container of hummus and a bottle of water. I sat cross-legged on the passenger seat, took my pills with the hummus, swigged water, and checked my messages. Mr. Contreras said that Mitch had made it fine through surgery; the clinic would keep him overnight. He, Mr. Contreras, had gone home and was cooking a steak for Peppy.

  Lotty’s message reported that Harmony was awake and responsive; she could remember part of the attack. Lotty hoped I could take her home at least for tonight, since the clinic wasn’t equipped for an overnight stay.

  I felt the muscles on my head tighten. I did not want to be responsible for Harmony, even for tonight. I had a wistful fantasy of packing her in a rosebush crate and shipping her to Portland.

  It was close to five now. The clinic would be open until eight—Lotty was one of the few doctors in America who understood that working people couldn’t leave their daytime jobs to see a doctor without being penalized.

  I called Lotty and spoke first, of course, to the clinic manager. Mrs. Coltrain told me she’d talked to Harmony’s boss in Portland. “He sounds like a decent man,” she assured me, “and even though it’s a very small firm, they do have health insurance.”

  Your first worry when you’re sick in America: Can you afford to get treated?

  Mrs. Coltrain put me through to Lotty, who felt reassured by Harmony’s current condition. “She doesn’t need hospitalization, although she would benefit from a full psych work-up. She’s had two violent shocks in three days, on top of her fears for her sister’s safety.”

  “Is there any way she could be faking this?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not. Why would you suggest that, Victoria?”

  I tried to explain the doubts Teri had sown in my mind.

  “No, my dear. Even if she were pretending these retreats from self, it’s because that’s her historic safe space. It’s a tribute to her strength of character, and the love she got from the foster parents, that she isn’t disappearing permanently. But one more event like this morning’s and she may not come back to us. Can you watch over her tonight?”

  “I’m sure her assailants knew she was staying in my building last night. They may be camped out there right now, waiting for her. If I bring her back, they’ll attack her, or break into the building.”

  “What do you suggest?” Lotty’s voice was ragged from strain.

  “Arcadia House,” I finally suggested.

  “But that’s for women fleeing domestic violence,” Lotty objected.

  “I’d make a strong case for Harmony,” I said. “She was abused as a child, the stable family she came to as a ten-year-old has disintegrated, her sister has disappeared, she suffers from PTSD, which puts her mental health at greater-than-average risk after all these assaults.”

  Lotty and I both serve on Arcadia’s board; they would respond to an SOS from one of us, particularly from Lotty.

  “And if I know Harmony is in a safe house, I can put some energy tomorrow into working on Felix’s problems,” I added.

  That clinched the argument: Lotty agreed to talk to Harmony and persuade her to go into the shelter, at least for the next few days. She’d also make the necessary call to Arcadia’s resident manager. As soon as I got back to the city, I’d drive Harmony to the pickup point. It would have to work. I was out of other ideas, and I was out of stamina for another physical attack.

  I picked up Mr. Contreras and Peppy on my way to Lotty’s clinic; I wanted Harmony to feel she had a team on her side, not that Lotty and I were bullying her to go into a shelter. I’d alerted the Streeter brothers, whom I often use for surveillance or bodyguarding: they would escort Harmony and help make sure we didn’t have a tail.

  To my surprise—and relief—it didn’t take much urging to get Harmony to go to Arcadia House. We met in the exam room where the nurses had created a makeshift bed from one of the tables. Harmony was squatting on the floor, her arms around Peppy. Lotty doesn’t like dogs, especially not in her exam rooms. She was making a brief exception for Harmony’s therapeutic needs, but her mouth was set in a tight line.

  Mr. Contreras was the hard sell; he couldn’t admit that he and Peppy and his pipe wrench weren’t enough to vanquish any number of thugs.

  “I love you, Uncle Sal,” Harmony whispered from the floor. “You make me remember Henry. I’ve been in shelters before. Some are crummy, but the safe ones are really safe. I need safe right now.”

  My neighbor looked mulish, but before he could keep up the argument, I said, “I’m giving you a burn phone with Mr. Contreras’s number on speed dial. If Arcadia House doesn’t feel right to you for any reason, you press hashtag, then one, and he’ll know that we need to find you and move you.”

  I knelt to talk to Harmony. “I drove out to see Teri—your uncle Dick’s wife—this afternoon.

  “Let me ask you again if Reno told you anything that would help find her. I put my body on the line this morning to protect you. I think you can trust me to stick with you, but I need to know you’re telling me the truth.”

  A long silence, and then, eyes still shut, fingers digging so deeply into Peppy’s neck that the dog winced, Harmony whispered, “When you don’t know someone, you don’t know if they’ll get mad at you.”

  I rubbed my head with my swollen hand; the jolt of pain jerked me into enough awareness to parse what she was saying. “If you lie, and someone gets mad, they’re not mad at you—they’re mad at the lie?”

  Another minuscule nod. “Clarisse used to say, face up to the truth sooner, not
later. And me and Reno, we used to try to, because Clarisse—she protected us—but now—now, who—” She broke off in a choking sob.

  “Now see what you done!” Mr. Contreras exclaimed. He couldn’t bend his arthritic joints to join her on the ground, but he stroked her head. “You got me, Harmony. And even if Vic don’t know enough not to bother you when you’re low, you got her, so don’t you worry none. You ain’t alone as long as you’re in Chicago.”

  “It’s okay, Uncle Sal.” Harmony was still whispering. “Reno said, the richest men only think about sex and money, just like the low-rent jerks on the Bay Bridge. She said this time she would get a name, but until she had that, there was nothing she could do.”

  I helped Harmony to her feet. Maybe this was what had struck Teri as cunning and manipulative: the sisters’ self-protective silences and oblique hints of what they knew. My mother had been like Clarisse, only more pungent: vomit out the lie and you’ll feel better at once.

  Lotty reminded me, sharply, that she had patients waiting and someone would have to disinfect this room before it could be used again. I made a face: it was good to have Lotty back to her usual acerbic self, but her acerbic self could be annoying.

  We bundled Harmony through the clinic’s alley exit, where she and Mr. Contreras—along with Peppy—got into a van that the Streeter brothers use in the piano-moving part of their business.

  Lotty’s lab tech, who was about the same age as Harmony, came out front with me and jumped quickly into the Mustang’s passenger seat. If someone was watching, we hoped they’d think it was Harmony.

  I drove north while the van headed south. Tim Streeter was driving the van, his brother Tom riding shotgun. The third brother, Jim, had a souped-up Kia that shuttled between me and the van. About three blocks from the clinic, Jim spotted a tail on me. I started evasive action but did it slowly, hesitantly, leading the tail farther from the van. When we were about a mile apart, I let the trailing car, a black Mercedes SUV, close the gap.

  In the crawling traffic on Lawrence Avenue, I made a quick U in front of a shop whose sign flashed play go, shogi, janggi, open 24 hours. I nearly hit a cyclist and had to leap out of the way of a furiously honking vegetable truck. We were crossing Kedzie and turning south before the Merc could react. I made another U, turned into an alley, and cut the lights. Backed up until a dumpster shielded me from the street.

  “Your guy is prowling,” Jim warned.

  I gave Jim my location. “Can I come out on Pulaski?” That was a mile farther west.

  “Don’t move. He’s turned off his lights, he’s going down Kedzie heading for your alley. One of them is out of the car. On foot with a high-power flash. Hold tight.”

  Through the open phone, we heard the squeal of brakes, the shivering of metal on metal, and then Jim screaming, “You flaming asshole, why the fuck you stop in the middle of the road with your lights off?”

  Shouting from the Mercedes, then Jim yelling, “I’m on the phone to 911 this minute, dirtbag.”

  I backed up until the alley forked. Turned south, toward the tech’s Pilsen home. We were about half a mile from the alley when Jim came back on the phone. He was laughing and swearing.

  “Guy thought he wanted to beat me up for ramming him. He was coming for me with a tire iron. He whacked my windshield, but it held, and I put the pedal to the metal, acted like I was going to run him down. Don’t know which made him crazier—getting his Merc dented or having a beat-up Kia do it. Love, love, love the armor plating we put in. But God above, why would you think you could be an invisible tail in a GLS 450?”

  This was more than I’d heard Jim say in ten years of working with him. His adrenaline high made him keep repeating the story. I kept making sounds of admiration while I saw the tech into her apartment.

  When I was sure she was safe, I finally interrupted Jim to ask for an update on the van carrying Harmony.

  Tim and Tom had made it to the drop-off point without interference. They’d waited to make sure a legitimate member of the shelter collected her and now were taking Mr. Contreras and Peppy to their shop. The brothers would transfer from the van to another beater for the drive home.

  “Can you get the boys to do a recon before they let Mr. Contreras out? I’m worried that the goons are staking out my place.”

  I was ten miles from home at that point. Tom Streeter called with an all clear while I was still passing the downtown exits. Just in case the gorillas were looking for my car, I detoured to my office and summoned Lyft from there. The driver had to shake me awake when we got to my building.

  I offended Mr. Contreras by heading for the stairs while he was giving me the blow-by-blow on his ride with Harmony to the drop-off point. I just remembered to take more antibiotics; my last conscious thought was gratitude that the Streeter brothers had armor plating on their cars. Although did you really need it for moving pianos? I drifted into a dream of a grand piano with armor plating dropping from the sky and flattening my assailants.

  32

  Metalworks

  I slept the clock around and might have stayed in bed indefinitely if Mr. Contreras hadn’t leaned on my doorbell: I needed to get up and drive him to the animal hospital to collect Mitch. He’d phoned first thing, and the dog was in good shape, ready to be released.

  “I know you, Vic,” he said when I objected to his ruthless awakening. “If I don’t make you go, you’d be off doing a million things for banks or lawyers or whoever, and you’d forget all about your dog.”

  Usually I’m “doll” or “Cookie”: he calls me by name only when he’s miffed. He was still annoyed that I hadn’t paid attention to him when I got home last night, or maybe it was because I’d doubted his ability to protect Harmony—he hates any suggestion that he’s not as strong as he was when he fought at Anzio.

  I reminded him that I’d left my car at my office. He wanted to go with me in a Lyft car to make sure I stayed on mission, but I ran the four miles, to clear my head and stretch my muscles, but mostly to have some time to myself. My hip bruise had eased up and my whole body felt freer for being in motion, not to mention the luxury of a full night’s sleep.

  While I was at my office, I stopped for a cortado at the coffee bar across the street, took a shower in the bathroom at the back of my lease mate’s workshop, put a new dressing on my hand. The swelling was down but the puncture wounds turned my stomach. The thought of the creep digging his teeth into me—I scrubbed the area with a nail brush until the skin all around the wounds was rough and red. Yes, Lady Macbeth, I get it.

  When I looked at my message log, I had a new assignment from Darraugh Graham and a note from Lotty: “Despite my exigent demands, please rest if you can.”

  I wished I could follow her valuable advice. I wished I could decamp to someplace warm, free of monsters, where there was no phone or Internet service. Instead, I phoned IIT and made an appointment with the engineering dean, Richard Pazdur, to discuss Felix. The dean’s assistant slotted me in for one-fifteen but warned me that Pazdur wasn’t going to violate student privacy with a detective. I looked at the clock: if I hustled, there’d be time to drop in on Felix before seeing his dean. Maybe by now he’d be scared enough to talk.

  I drove back home to collect Mr. Contreras—he would never forgive me if I picked up Mitch by myself. As I’d anticipated, though, my neighbor turned dog retrieval into a slow process: he questioned the vet over every detail of the surgery, had the tech repeat after-care instructions three times, double-checked that I had the follow-up appointment in my calendar.

  By the time we’d established Mitch in a comfortable bed in Mr. Contreras’s bedroom, and I’d placated my neighbor by bemoaning Mitch’s shaved left flank, worrying whether the wound would leave Mitch with a limp, and listening to the blow-by-blow of his ride with Harmony to the pickup point for Arcadia House, even talking to unresponsive nephews began feeling like an attractive option.

  Before setting out again, I spoke with Marilyn Lieberman, the executive
director at Arcadia House, about Harmony. Harmony had spent a disturbed night, after the horrors of the last two days.

  “She’s almost feverish with distress,” Marilyn said. “She keeps going over episodes in her sister’s and her lives, talking a lot about her foster parents, and worrying about a necklace. We’re getting her a psych evaluation; it may be good for her to be medicated to help her through the roughest part of this time. Our advanced practice nurse did finally give her some Ativan to help her sleep, and if you were hoping to talk to her, she’s still sleeping.”

  I asked if Harmony was delusional.

  “No. She’s anchored in time and place, but distraught. I’ll keep you posted.”

  I hung up more thankful than before that Mr. Contreras and I weren’t trying to care for Harmony at home. The necklace she was worrying about, that was the chain I’d watched her fingering over the last week. It had been important to her; I’d try to fit in a stop at the park on the extremely remote chance that our muggers had dropped it as they fled and—even more remote chance—no one else had picked it up.

  We were having a rare day of sunshine, but it was still chilly. I put on serge trousers—hoping they’d end the day in better shape than my beautiful cashmere slacks—and draped a silk scarf over a knit top. Professional enough.

  The campus flanks State Street and the L tracks, with offices and classrooms mostly on the west side and dorms on the right. I parked in the rutted ground underneath the L tracks, only a few blocks from Prairie Avenue, where I’d dropped Felix last week. I hugged my coat around me, but the wind whipping down the long tunnel under the tracks made me feel as though I’d gone out bare-skinned.

  When I reached Thirty-First and Prairie, I looked around for any signs of the sheriff’s police. City cops circled the streets around the school. The occasional IIT security car trundled past. When I reached Felix’s building, though, I saw an SUV with the county decal up the street, motor idling.

  Felix answered my ring after a silence long enough to make me think he wasn’t home. When I identified myself, he didn’t buzz me in but came down the stairs to open the street door.