Sara Paretsky - Body Work

The company heard how enraged our soldier became every time Nadia painted their logo on the Body Artist. So they worked out a sweet plan: Kill the sister, frame the angry soldier, give him roofies, and make it look like he committed suicide out of remorse.

And where do you get roofies when you need them? You go to your local drug dealer, to the Body Artist. The Artist was working for a notorious mobster, letting him use her body to send messages to his team of thugs. She’d made a name for herself years ago on the North Shore as drug dealer to the rich and famous, the rich and notorious. When someone came to her asking for Rohypnol, the date rape drug, she knew just where to send them.

“No, you ignorant bitch!” The shout came from the back of the room. “I never gave anyone drugs. You know nothing about me. If they wanted drugs, they wouldn’t come to me, they’d go to the source. They’d go to Anton. Ask him! Ask him how he treated his own daughter!”

The room was briefly silent, and Rivka’s voice rose from somewhere near the bar, “Karen! Karen! It’s me, Rivka. Where are you, oh, don’t go away!”

The audience erupted into noise. I shielded my eyes from the spotlight, but could make out only shadows of people rising from their seats, necks craning. I saw Murray’s unmistakable bulk trying to carve a path through the crowd toward where Karen had been standing. I hoped one of the Streeter brothers would make sure she stayed in the bar until I could talk to her.

Above the roar, I heard a louder roar, the unmistakable sound of a gun, and glass shattering. A second shot, and then screams. In the small space the sounds echoed and bounced from the glassware hanging over the bar; I couldn’t tell where the shots had been fired, but the screams had come from the back of the room, where I’d heard Karen’s voice. Rodney or Anton, they must have tried to kill her. I forgot I was naked. I ran into the crowd, tried to muscle my way toward where Karen/ Frannie had been standing, but my painted body was slippery, and I couldn’t make any headway.

Another shot sounded, so close to me I knew at once it had come from my left. I whipped around and saw a cloud of smoke rising near where the group from Tintrey had been sitting. I managed to push through to their table.

Rainier Cowles was slumped in his chair, blood pouring down his back. His tablemates sat frozen, their eyes on Lazar Guaman, who was pointing a gun at Jarvis MacLean.

“Enough!” I shouted. “Enough bloodshed. Put your gun down, Lazar.”

“They killed my girl,” Lazar said to me, his voice calm, just explaining the situation. “They killed my princess.”

I stepped behind him and chopped my hand down on his arm, hitting the nerve hard enough that he dropped the gun.

“One of you, call 911!” I cried. “Don’t sit there like stuffed frogs!”

I shoved the gun out of reach with my bare foot. “You’re such war heroes when kids are dying far away, do something now! Fold a napkin into a pad for the wound. Call an ambulance.”

Neither of the men seemed able to move. They stared at me glassy-eyed. I put a finger to Cowles’s neck. He still had a faint pulse. The bullet had gone through the side of his head and come out through his jaw. I grabbed a couple of napkins from the table, made pads, and started pushing them against the two wounds. It was a nightmare, a repeat of the scene in the alley when Nadia died. I kept screaming for someone to call 911.

Behind me, I heard John Vishneski come up to Lazar. “Man, it isn’t worth it,” Vishneski said, “spending your life in prison for these scum. You go back to your wife. She’s been through enough, okay?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him ease Lazar away from the table.

Marty Jepson materialized next to me. “Vic, what do you need?”

“Call 911. Get a medical team here. Page Dr. Herschel over the loudspeaker. Get me more linen.”

Jepson took out his cell phone. He started to explain our emergency to a 911 dispatcher, then I heard the phone drop.

“That man,” Jepson said. “He was outside Plotzky’s that night. Chad left early, and I saw that man come over and start talking to him.”

I looked up. “Which one?” I demanded.

Jepson pointed at Scalia. “And what the fuck are you doing with an Iraq service medal?”

Vishneski stared from Jepson to Scalia. It took him a moment to realize what Jepson meant, but he suddenly roared with anger and flung himself across the table. Glassware crashed, and bourbon spilled across my bare thighs.

“Was that you?” Vishneski grabbed Scalia’s neck. “Was that you who killed that gal and tried to kill my boy? You chicken shit, you fucking coward, you send my boy and his friends to war without protection so you can make a few extra bucks and then you flaunt a medal?”

I was struggling to my feet when a welcome voice bellowed through the room.

“This is the police. We have closed the doors. Return to your seats. And one of you people behind the bar, turn up the lights.”

It was Terry Finchley, standing under the spotlight on the stage with a bullhorn. Officer Milkova was behind Vishneski, pulling his hands from Scalia’s throat. Terry tossed the horn to the floor and came to our table.

“An ambulance is on its way, Warshawski. Go put on some clothes. And then you’d better be prepared to tell me all about it.”

As the night wore on, events began to blur. Ambulance crews came for Cowles and for a woman who’d been shot when one of Anton’s thugs tried to kill the Body Artist. Someone-it might have been the Renaissance Raven-wrapped me in a big furry coat. I never did learn who it belonged to.

Terry Finchley had set up operations at the end of the bar. He demanded I give him the names of any key players, besides the group at Tintrey’s table, but I had told him only about the Body Artist and Anton’s creeps. I was pretty sure I’d seen Rodney in the crowd, but he’d managed to slide out ahead of the cops along with Anton. They’d left Konstantin and Ludwig to take any heat coming Anton’s way.

Jarvis MacLean demanded that Finchley arrest Lazar Guaman for shooting Cowles. When MacLean turned to me, insisting that I confirm that Guaman had shot Cowles, I shook my head.

“Can’t help you there, Mr. MacLean,” I said. “I had my back to your table when the gun went off. I didn’t see it.”

“Damn it,” MacLean said, “he was holding the gun. You made him drop it.”

“Still can’t help you,” I said. “Gilbert Scalia might have shot Cowles, the way he shot Nadia Guaman. He framed Chad Vishneski for Nadia’s death, and now he could be trying to frame Nadia’s father for shooting Rainier Cowles.”

That got Terry’s attention in a hurry. He had been prepared to let MacLean and Scalia rush off to their waiting limo, but he ordered me to repeat the accusation.

“What are you basing that on, Vic?” Terry asked. “Your woman’s intuition or actual evidence?”

I gave a tight smile. “Marty Jepson ID’d Scalia as a man who accosted Chad outside Plotzky’s bar the night Nadia Guaman was shot. And one of Mona Vishneski’s neighbors saw him and a second man escorting Chad home about half an hour later. The neighbor recognized Scalia’s Iraq service medal. Maybe he can pick Scalia out of a lineup.”

“I have major responsibilities in a war that the U.S. is waging against our most ferocious enemies,” Scalia said. “I can’t be bothered with this kind of crap.”

Terry’s eyes narrowed. “Murder is a kind of crap, Mr. Scalia, the worst kind. If you’ve shot someone in my city, then you’ll have to take time away from your heavy duties to answer my questions.”