Sara Paretsky - Blacklist

“I thought you were a detective.” Her voice was scornful. “Don’t you know to watch for tails?”

“Check for tails! Now, you tell me. Gosh.” I slapped my forehead. “Listen, you little mutt, I drove in circles at six in the morning. The streets were empty. No one was behind me. One of two things happened: they put a tracer on my car so they can watch me on a screen instead of wasting gas. Or they have been tracking down every person I know and checking up on them. Father Lou had time to get Benji into a safe place inside the church, but the kid can’t stay there much longer. For obvious reasons, I can’t take him to any of my friends. I was hoping you could talk to your grandmother and get her to agree to let him stay at your New Solway house. She’s basically on the side-“

“No! She thinks I’m in love with Benji, or in love with Benji’s adventure. She wants him out of-the country. The only thing she and Daddy agree on is that Benji needs to go back to Egypt. If I tell her I know where he is, she’ll call the justice Department. But they won’t deport him, they’ll lock him up. You said I didn’t read any news, but I’ve been reading on this and reading on this and reading on this. It happens all the time, people are caught with their visas expired, and they can’t even go home. They get put in detention some place and held for months. I promised Benji, I won’t let him down.” She started to cry.

I patted her good hand. “It’s okay, babe: we’ll think of something else. You’re recovering from a bullet wound. Try to calm down: you need to save your strength for healing. I’m on your side in this, really, truly. If I wasn’t, I would have talked to your granny without consulting you, you know.”

She blew her nose. “I can’t even braid my own hair. I can’t play lacrosse or ride for months until this stupid arm heals. Everything takes forever, or I have to get people to do stuff for me. I hate it.”

“Speaking as one who’s been through the wars, I agree: it’s a pain. Want me to finish buttoning you? Just this once?”

She nodded, her eyes still tearing a bit. Judging by the size and the cut, the shirt must have been filched from her father’s closet. It covered her tasted right arm with room to spare.

“Your dad off getting your lesson plans?”

“Yeah. He’s meeting with Ms. Milford to see what I can do online. It’s only a few days, I keep telling him not to be so anal.”

“And he says, `Young lady, where did you pick up that kind of language?”’ I suggested.

She gave a shaky laugh. “Something like that. And that it’s a competitive world and I need to learn that losers are not strivers. Then he adds he’s going to take me to Washington, to a school with my natural peers where I’ll learn how to behave with proper respect. Like, learning how to totally trash the environment or something while I’m pretending to protect it, that’s his idea of respect. Where can Benji go i? he has to leave St. Remigio’s?”

“I’ve only had one not very bright idea. I could put him up in a motel for a few days, while I try to find an immigration lawyer who can help him. It’s not the best idea-I hate for him to have keep skulking around, not to mention for him to have to be by himself. It’s not good for his spirits, and, anyway, as he himself says, there’s no point in his staying here if he can’t work. And he ought to be with kids his age-your age-and feel able to relax.”

“But he can’t do that as long as those racists are looking for him.” She

smacked the dressing table with her good hand. “I tried to get him to let me send his mom money, but he wouldn’t take it. No matter what Daddy and Granny are saying, he isn’t trying to exploit me.”

“I have a tiny idea about that, too. Last Sunday night, when Marcus Whitby drowned in the Larchmont pond, Benji was standing at the attic window watching for you. I’m almost certain Benji saw what happened. If Marcus Whitby didn’t go in on his own, Benji saw who pushed him in. Benji won’t tell me or Father Lou, but if you could get him to talk about it, I might be able to work out a deal with the Chicago police. Captain Mallory, who’s in charge of the city’s antiterrorism squad, could-“

“No!” she shouted, her face very white. “You’re not on my side or his, are you? You only want to use him for what you can get out of him about your stupid murder. I should have known better than to trust you. Get out of here! Don’t come near me again. Don’t go near Benji again!”

“Catherine. Something has to change if he’s going to stay here without being arrested or deported. If he witnessed a murder-“

“Go away! If you don’t leave now, I’ll page Granny and she’ll get our lawyers. I hate you, I hate you.” She doubled over with sobs.

I stood up. “I’m leaving my card on your desk. If you change your mind, if you realize I’m on your side, you can call me on my cell phone at any hour. But I’m going to have to move Benji, whether he’s willing to talk to me or not.”

I waited another minute, but she only sobbed, “Oh, go, why aren’t you gone yet?”

I left a card inside her laptop, away from her grandmother and father’s prying eyes, but where she’d see it when she next went to log on. On my way out of the apartment, Elsbetta appeared from the other wing, the one that held Renee’s office. She was taken aback, since she hadn’t let me in, and demanded to know my business. I told her I’d been calling on Catherine, yes, I knew Mrs. Renee didn’t want me here, but I had come anyway, and now I was leaving.

My visit was completed by running into Edwards Bayard just as I opened the gate to the street. He also wanted to know what I was doing there.

“I peddle Tupperware door-to-door; it augments my agency income. I hit Schiller Street yesterday, but this neighborhood is a tough sell.”

He reacted as predictably as Peppy to a squirrel: he was a presidential adviser, he was a Bayard, no one talked to him like that.

“Yeah, you’re a Bayard when you want to call up some privileges. The rest of the time, you slink away from your parents.”

I stomped west, away from the island of wealth and privilege, back toward my own world. I felt exhausted, the morning’s good omens dissipated by Catherine’s outburst. Her wound and the anesthesia that lingered in her system were knocking her off balance. And then, she was sixteen, it wasn’t like her judgment was the steadiest to begin with.

I knew these things, but her tantrum left me feeling as though I had been beaten by sticks. I kept replaying the conversation, wondering what I should have said differently. I should have described Bobby first, explained that he was at odds with the Feds, I should have spent more time talking to her on neutral topics first, I should have this, I shouldn’t have that, over and over. You’d think a detective like me would be thick-skinned by now, as J.T had said last night, but lately every whack against my rhino hide was making me more prey to self-doubt.

I walked up to North Avenue, where I caught a crosstown bus to my office. The street is an important conduit between the city and the expressway, which is why I suppose the big national chains have stuffed it full of outlets. The traffic is so heavy on North these days that it took half an hour for the bus to trundle the three miles across town. Delays like that usually leave me gnawing my nails in annoyance. Today I welcomed the chance to rest.

When I finally got off at Western, I didn’t bother to check for tails. I was tired, I didn’t care and, anyway, it didn’t matter if people followed me to my office-if they were tapping me, they’d know I was in there: