Sara Paretsky - Body Work

She sucked in a breath, and I knew I’d made a lucky guess. “So what if I did?” she said. “Is that a crime?”

“I don’t know anymore what’s a crime, what’s stupid, or what’s just plain wrong,” I said. “Lazar Guaman-was he stupid to say yes to Tintrey’s money? He had a brain-damaged kid to support and no power to go up against them to fight over Alexandra’s death. Was it criminal to shoot Rainier Cowles? A jury may say so if the police make an arrest, but I’m not so sure. Was it just plain wrong of you to go to Rainier Cowles? I don’t know. You tell me.”

The Artist kneaded her fingers together. “It was wrong and stupid and criminal to sell drugs with Zina, I know that. And I didn’t go to prison, but I might as well have, the life I’ve been living the last thirteen years.”

“Maybe you’ve been a prisoner of your fears, but it still beats an orange jumpsuit and sexual assault by guards when they’re in the mood. What did you tell Cowles?”

“I said I’d call Anton for him if he needed any extra muscle for anything. Okay? Are you happy now?”

“I’m ecstatic. Is there anything else I’ve been too ignorant to know before you take off?”

She paused, one foot on the stairs. “Alexandra Guaman was incredibly beautiful and very sweet. Even I-fell for her the one week of her life that I spent with her. She made me so angry, not wanting to meet me in Chicago. I wanted to out her to her family! But she didn’t return my calls. And then she disappeared.”

“She didn’t disappear, not the way you do.”

“How was I to know that? It wasn’t until Nadia showed up that I learned what happened to Alexandra. When Nadia introduced herself to me as Allie’s sister, I hoped-I thought, maybe-she would be the same. They looked alike, and Nadia even seemed to want to go to bed with me. Then it turned out she was using me! She didn’t care about me at all. She was using me just to get answers about her sister.” Her colorless eyes turned dark again.

I smiled sourly: only Buckley, or Pindero-or whatever her name was-got to use people. Nadia had broken the rules. A modest revenge for a modest girl. I didn’t say any of this-I wouldn’t get anything more out of the Artist if she felt I was judging her.

“So she made you really angry. Did you finger her? For Anton?”

“Don’t you understand anything? Anton is poison. I try to stay out of his way. Just-when I saw those two guys hanging around the alley after my show the night Nadia was killed, I thought, Oh, let them jump her. I didn’t know they were going to kill her. But once she was dead, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t go to the cops. Not with my past, not with Anton and the drugs and everything. No one would come forward for me, none of those North Shore snots who used to come to Anton’s pill parties. They’d be glad to see me go to prison.”

She had come back into the room, her pale face flushed, animated in a way I’d never seen before. Nothing like the need for self-exculpation to get your blood pressure up.

“So those were Anton’s men who killed Nadia?” I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I’d been so wrong about Rainier Cowles and Scalia and the rest of the Tintrey gang.

“I don’t know who they were,” she said. “I just could tell they were bad news, the way they were lurking in the alley, ski masks over their faces, leaning against this old Jaguar, like they thought they were in a movie or something. At first, I thought they were after me. I was really panicking, but then I saw they’d spotted me. They looked me over, the way guys do, and shook their heads. That made me see they were after someone else, so I went onto Lake Street and got in a cab for home.”

I wanted to shake her or smack her, something that would force some kind of empathy into her. Didn’t she care that five seconds could’ve saved Nadia’s life? All she needed to do was ask the valets to call the cops-she didn’t even need to put herself on a 911 tape.

I swallowed my bitter words. Nothing I said in this cold basement tonight would change Karen Buckley, but an angry tirade would drive her away. She’d said something else that was more to the point.

The men were leaning against an old Jaguar. I’d seen an old Jaguar, a beautiful one; I’d been coveting it. Where? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to think back over the past month. There had been one outside the Tintrey offices. The day I went up there and Scalia threw me out, I’d seen it in the executive parking area.

“So you let Chad Vishneski take the fall,” I said. “It looks like, after tonight’s charade, the police may pressure the state’s attorney to drop charges against Chad. But if they don’t, I’m making sure that you, my sister, are in the hot seat as a witness.”

“Not if you can’t find me.” The Artist smiled naughtily like a toddler in a game of “I dare you.”

“I’ll find you,” I said drily. “I’ve done it once; the second time won’t be nearly as hard. That car in the alley, the Jaguar. Do you know enough about cars to know the make? Could you see the color?”

“It was in an alley, it was night. I couldn’t tell the color, just in the street light I could see it said Jaguar on the trunk and then a letter, E, and I thought, oh, gross, another code. Just like what Rodney was always painting on me. And what does that have to do with anything, anyway?… I’m leaving now. So tell your goons not to try to stop me.”

An E-Type Jaguar. The car of my dreams. The car I’d seen at Tintrey. “Do you enjoy living on the run?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you like to get Anton off your back, take your art to a bigger stage?”

“If you think you’re stronger than Anton, you’re even dumber than I thought you were.”

I laughed. “Not possible. But the feds are hot on his trail. He’s not long for this world. If you know anything, the least thing that could tip off the FBI to-oh, I don’t know-how he killed his wife or some other murder we’ve never heard of, you wouldn’t have to come forward, you wouldn’t have to talk about your dad and the drugs and all that ancient history. Just a tip that would send an investigator in the right direction. Once Anton’s out of the picture, the rest of his goons will melt like this snow is going to one of these days. And I’d run interference. I’d leak the tip and wouldn’t reveal you as a source.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” she asked.

“You don’t. You can only go with your gut. And what you’ve seen of me. That I took a beating from Rodney and didn’t stop my investigation. That I did the best I could for Clara Guaman and Chad Vishneski.”

“You took a beating from Rodney?” She was suspicious.

Once again, I showed off my discolored abdomen, although, ten days out, the bruises had faded to a dull yellow.

“Didn’t you wonder tonight how I knew about the messages they were sending through your body? After Rodney jumped me and tried to kick me into submission, I managed to leave him unconscious on the street. And then I persuaded two of his team to talk to me.”

It sounded more impressive that way, leaving out Tim Radke’s and Marty Jepson’s help, and my pure dumb luck when Rodney slipped on my vomit.

“If you rat me out and Anton gets wind of it, I’ll send him after you,” she warned me.

“I’m not afraid of the big bad wolf,” I lied. “Any thoughts on how he might have offed his wife?”

She held her breath, shut her eyes, ready to jump off the high dive. “Acid. It’s how he made a helicopter go down when I was in high school. He put acid on wires running from the master switch to the solenoid, and it ate through the insulation about twenty minutes after the chopper took off. Anton was laughing about it on the phone one night during one of his horrid parties. Zina and I were hiding behind the couch, where his pals couldn’t see us. As soon as he left the room, we ran like hell. Even Zina didn’t want Anton to know she’d heard something like that.”