Sara Paretsky - Body Work

“Papi could sleep with his cousin Rafi,” Clara offered. “He does, sometimes, if the weather is too bad for him to make it home. Rafi lives in Bensenville, up by the airport.”

“We can look after Clara,” Cristina Guaman said fiercely. “I will not have her stay with strangers, especially strangers who will judge us. I know the kind of shelter you mean, where they look down their noses at us for being Latinas.”

“I don’t think the staff at Arcadia House behaves that way,” I said, “but, even if they do, better to be in such an environment for a week than face those thugs in your house again tonight.”

Cristina Guaman looked at the group on the sidewalk, who continued to interject their own comments and queries-some of them knew her from the hardware store-and told them in Spanish that she was all right, just distracted with worry over Ernest’s health and Nadia’s death.

That marked the turning point in our confrontation, although it took another minute of cajoling before she and Clara got into the backseat of the Mustang. I drove to the house behind the Guamans’, to the neighbor whose yard Cristina had used when she left her own house. She crossed their yard to her boarded-over back door and returned in fairly short order with Ernest, her mother-in-law, and a couple of suitcases.

I drove a circuitous route to Arcadia House’s shelter, an anonymous building that lay just beyond the big medical complexes on the near West Side. It took some time to explain the Guamans’ situation to the staff. Arcadia House was bursting at the seams, and they weren’t happy about offering an adult male shelter, but after a prolonged conversation with him, and among themselves, they finally agreed to let the four Guamans stay for a few nights.

“If it’s any longer than that, Vic,” the executive director said, “you’re going to have to make other arrangements. In this economy, more and more families are breaking down into violence, and we’re overcrowded as it is.”

“If I can’t fix this situation within a week,” I said, “I’ll probably be dead, anyway. I’ll be in touch later today to tell you who will show up in the morning to escort Clara to school.”

Iwas running out of time to make my meeting with Darraugh. I told Mr. Contreras I’d get out at Darraugh’s building on Wacker Drive.

“Can you take the car home?” I asked. “I’ll be checking into a hotel tonight, but I’ll get you word somehow about where I am and where to meet me. There’s a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in. Will you call Petra, too, and tell her to lie low for now? I don’t want her running around town, exposing herself to danger.”

Mr. Contreras was delighted to be part of the team. When we reached the building on Wacker where Darraugh had his headquarters, my neighbor gave me a rough hug and told me not to worry about Petra, he’d take good care of her.

I jogged inside, trying to comb my hair while I waited for the elevator. As I got off on the seventy-third floor, I thought it was a pity Arcadia House couldn’t lease Darraugh’s lobby. It seemed to be bigger than the entire shelter on Taylor Street.

Darraugh’s assistant ushered me into the conference room and sent a message to his office to let him know we were ready when he was. Darraugh ran through the meeting with his usual briskness. I managed to be focused enough to cover my part of the agenda, which seemed like a major achievement, given my ragged condition. While Darraugh’s vice president for overseas operations wrapped up-at such length that Darraugh cut him short with a pithy remark-I thought again about the building’s beautiful, well-guarded space.

Everyone got up to leave. The chief of operations started a private conversation with Darraugh, but I interrupted, asking if I could have five minutes alone.

Darraugh’s brows went up, but he took me into his own office and shut the door. “Well?”

“I’m working on a case that is really scaring me, and I have an extraordinary favor to ask.”

I gave him a fast précis of how Chad Vishneski and Nadia Guaman had met, and why-at least in my opinion-she’d been murdered and he’d been framed.

“Tintrey has access to America’s most sophisticated tracking systems, and I need a secure place where I can meet with my team. I’m hoping-begging you, really-that we could use one of your conference rooms…” My voice petered out under his cold blue stare.

He didn’t speak right away, looking me up and down as if assessing my competence.

“You know why I work with you when I have companies like Tintrey on retainer as well?” He finally said. “Their size-I mean, their global scope. I don’t do business with Tintrey. Don’t like Jarvis MacLean. We’re on civic committees together. He always manages to duck his pledges.”

“I assumed it’s because when you work with me, the right hand knows what the right fingers are doing.” I said stiffly. I knew I couldn’t compete with the global monsters, and that without Darraugh, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills very easily.

He produced his wintry smile. “Right fingers, right hand-yes, I suppose that’s part of it. When I was a boy, I found a stray dog on our land. Someone had dumped him there with a broken leg, and I brought him inside. Mother’s chauffeur showed me how to set the leg. I’ve never known why Mother and my grandmother let me keep him. My grandmother despised sentimentality, hated the whole idea of pets. Unsanitary, she said, but the truth was, she hated the idea that any creature under her roof might show my mother or me affection.

“Some adult intervened,” he continued. “Don’t know who to this day. I called the dog Sergeant Rock, a comic-book hero when I was seven. Rock was small, some kind of terrier mix, but he took on anyone or any animal he thought was a threat to me. Growled whenever my grandmother came near me. Saved me once when I got cornered in the woods by some passing tramp who kicked me hard enough to break a rib. Died when I was fifteen. Broke my heart.

“You remind me of Rock. Scrappy. Sink your teeth into anyone’s calf if you see them kicking a kid.”

I felt myself flush but didn’t say anything.

“When do you want your team here?” he asked.

“Tomorrow. Maybe around noon.”

He nodded. “I’ll tell Caroline to let you have a room. She’ll clear it with security. She can get your people up here without leaving a trail. Just give her a list of names, phone numbers.”

I started to thank him, to offer him a month of free detecting, but he shook his head and took me over to his assistant.

“Vic’s going to give you a list of names and phone numbers. People we’re hosting tomorrow at noon. A number of competitors are interested in the attendance list and the agenda, so do your usual security magic for us, right?”

Caroline Griswold had been with Darraugh for nearly a decade. She spoke fluent French and serviceable Chinese, and often entertained Darraugh’s overseas clients or competitors. Two secretaries worked for her, but when Darraugh needed to be confident that security arrangements had been properly made, she handled all the clerical details of the assignment on her own.

While Darraugh went into his boardroom for a video conference, Caroline took me into his inner office and shut the door. I gave her a quick summary of the problems I was working on, then turned on my cell phone long enough to look up the names and phone numbers of everyone I hoped to see tomorrow: Petra, Murray Ryerson, Rivka and Vesta, the Vishneskis. Mr. Contreras, of course. Tim Radke and Marty Jepson. Even Sanford Rieff up at Cheviot labs. I put Sal Barthele on the list, but said I would speak to her privately ahead of the meeting.