Sara Paretsky - Body Work

“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 when 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.”

Lotty was in her clinic today, not at Beth Israel. When Mr. Contreras and I reached the storefront on Damen Avenue, we found a roomful of the usual clientele: streppy kids, overweight adults with diabetes, worried pregnant teens. Mrs. Coltrain, Lotty’s receptionist, has handled all of her patients for fifteen years, with the poise of Solti conducting the CSO. When I told her what had happened, she promised to fit me in as soon as she could.

While I waited, I used the clinic landline to call my cousin. Konstantin and Ludwig had told me last night that Anton was tracking me through my cell phone, so I just couldn’t take a chance on using it.

Petra was at her apartment, tired, nervous, not sure she was ready for detective work. “Marty Jepson is here, though,” she suddenly thought to say. “He came over to see how I was doing. And we’re watching some of the Body Artist’s DVDs together. So far, it looks like old stuff. Collages, things that she photographed and uploaded later.”

Jewel Kim, the advanced practice nurse who ran the clinic while Lotty was at the hospital, interrupted me then and took me into one of the exam rooms. “We can send you for an MRI if you want it, Vic, and I’ll have Lotty double-check you, but I don’t think you have any organ damage. I know it’s miserable outside, but you should put cold packs on your belly until the swelling goes down. Try arnica as well.”

Lotty came in a few minutes later. “Victoria, what on earth-no, never mind, I don’t have time, what with all these people worried that their colds are swine flu and the ones with swine flu who waited too late to come in. You weren’t reckless, no one could ever say you were reckless. Simply, you were minding your own business until someone kicked you. That’s good enough for me.”

“Thank you, Lotty, I knew you would understand.” I was bitter at her sarcasm. “In fact, I was minding my own business-at least, I was tending to my detective business. I do not go out of my way to get hurt. If a bully is running the street, do you want me to stay inside with the door locked and hope he hurts someone else?”

Lotty had been probing my abdomen with quick, skillful pressure, pinpointing the sorest spots, but she stopped, fingers over my right ovary. “I don’t suppose there’s a middle ground? Perhaps with a bully, there never is.”

She finished her probing. “So-do as Jewel suggests, a cold compress, arnica. I’ll give you prescriptions for a good anti-inflammatory, and an antibiotic, to be on the safe side. In a day or two, with your DNA, the worst will be past. You won’t run or let those dogs pull on you for a week.”

The last sentence was a command, not an observation, and I took it meekly with me to the waiting room.

Mr. Contreras was torn between relief that nothing serious was amiss and disappointment that I couldn��t be confined to quarters for a month or two while he looked after me. He rode with me in the taxi down to my office so I could collect my car. When I told him I wasn’t going home, he tried to argue with me at first, then decided he should drive me.

“I’m going to pay a surprise visit to Olympia Koilada,” I said. “You sure you want to come along? I can’t have you breaking her neck, or anything, just because you don’t like the way she treated Petra.”

“You’re the one that likes to run around town getting beat up. I’ll be there to protect whichever one of you needs it most.”

I laughed, clutching my abdomen, and turned the keys over to him.

Olympia lived in a loft building just northwest of the Gold Coast, one of those conversions that followed the gutting of Chicago’s old industrial corridor. According to my computer search, she’d paid almost a million dollars for half of the fourth floor, the side that faced the Chicago River. I wondered what it would fetch if she had to liquidate in the middle of this slump.

When I rang Olympia’s bell, she squawked at me through the intercom.

“It’s V. I. Warshawski, Olympia.”

“Go away,” she snapped.

“I don’t think so. I think we’ll have a lovely conversation about you, Anton, and money laundering.”

A couple of minutes passed where the wind made a good substitute for an ice pack on my sore belly, and then a buzzer sounded, unlocking the door. When we got off the elevator at the fourth floor, Olympia’s door was cracked open. She waited until we got close enough for her to identify us before she opened it all the way.