Sara Paretsky - Hardball

I entered the address in my PDA and continued working through my messages. In the afternoon, an appointment took me to a building in the east Loop, across a wide plaza from the skyscraper where Krumas for Illinois had its headquarters. After my meeting, I wondered if I should drop in on Petra, to see if she might tell me something face-to-face that she couldn’t say over the phone.

It could be, of course, that she’d been chewed out by her boss for too many personal calls. Maybe her old boss didn’t care much about in-office discipline, but Petra was on Les Strangwell’s staff now. From what I knew of Strangwell, you belonged to him body and soul. You didn’t fritter away time on your cousin’s projects when you had to get Brian Krumas into the Senate. In case Strangwell was keeping a close watch on my cousin, I decided to leave her alone.

Before returning to the hot summer afternoon, I turned into the coffee bar in my client’s building lobby for an iced cappuccino. As I waited for them to make my drink, I stared idly around the way one does and caught sight of a familiar face at one of the spindly tables tucked into the corner of the bar. The thinning dark hair combed sharply back from a jowly red face, I’d seen him, two weeks ago in Lake Catherine.

What had brought Larry Alito into downtown Chicago on a hot July day and into a coffee bar instead of a beer joint? I was going to slide back into the shadows when I realized my outsize hat, dark glasses, and gloves made a pretty good disguise. I collected my drink and went to sit on one of the high stools by the window near Alito’s table.

The man he was talking to looked like many other middle-aged middle managers with spreading middles. He had fine sandy hair that had receded to the middle of his head, which he wisely had trimmed short instead of trying for a comb-over. With his turned-up nose and pursed mouth, he had the expression of a perpetually surprised baby. Only his small gray eyes, cold and shrewd, made it clear that it was he, not Alito, who was running the meeting.

I couldn’t hear any of their conversation because the coffee bar had a sound track with a loud bass thumping. The two men were going over a set of papers in a manila folder, and the man running the meeting was tapping the papers with his thumb. He wasn’t happy with the work Alito had given him. I pulled out my cellphone and took a quick shot of the two of them while pretending to be texting. When they got up, I waited until they were almost to the building lobby before I followed them.

As they reached the lobby, they separated without looking or speaking to each other. The meeting commander headed for the exit, while Alito studied the door to a FedEx shop near the coffee bar. I knelt on one knee to adjust my socks. Alito may have been a crappy cop, but he’d spent three decades studying wanted posters and he might recognize me close up despite my disguise. From my kneeling position on the floor, I looked out at the plaza and saw that the commander was going into the building where the Krumas campaign had its offices.

Alito’s phone rang, and I stood, moving behind him to a newsstand where I picked up a pack of gum. “Yeah,” he said into the phone, “Les already told me, and I know what he wants. You think I’m some kind of retard, you have to double-check everything I do?… Oh, the same to the horse you rode in on!”

He snapped his cellphone shut and stormed through the revolving door. “Les” had told him, had he? That man with the sandy hair and cold eyes: that was Les Strangwell.

I took my coffee out onto the plaza and sat in the shade. What line connected Strangwell to Alito? Of course, ex-cops do freelance work all the time, but what kind of security work did the Krumas campaign… George Dornick. Dornick was advising Brian on terrorism and Homeland Security issues. He was Alito’s ex-partner. Maybe Dornick was throwing some crumbs his way.

But what crumbs? I thought of my apartment. Someone who knew how to pick locks in a sophisticated way had gotten in there. A cop would have access to all kinds of tools. And George Dornick, with his special security services, had access to even more. But what could I have that Dornick, let alone Les Strangwell, might want? The picture of my dad’s softball team? Larry Alito had been in it, as had Dornick, Bobby Mallory, and a lot of other guys.

Alito was proud of his police service. It defined him. I couldn’t imagine any reason why he would want the picture unless it was pure spite against me. But there wasn’t any reason for that, either.

I didn’t have enough data to make up a believable story. I gave up trying, and took the El back to my office. Elton Grainger was out front, hawking Streetwise. He didn’t recognize me at first. But when he realized I’d been in a fire, he was all sympathy.

“And a nun got killed, you say? Oh, Vic, I don’t have a TV, I don’t see the news. That’s terrible. No wonder you haven’t been around. How’s that cute cousin of yours?”

“Cute as ever.” I tried not to grind my teeth. “Anyone been coming around looking for me while I’ve been away?”

“I haven’t been looking. But I’ll put out a guest book. Anyone comes up to the door, they got to sign in with me.”

He parodied a hotel doorman, and I had to laugh. Of course it was idiotic to think Elton would pay attention to anyone scouting out my office. I typed in the code on the door lock and went inside, keeping a hand on the handle of my gun in its tuck holster.

When I was inside, I searched the office, from the cot to the bathroom I shared with my sculpting lease-mate, but no one was there. I answered a few e-mails. But I had reached the end of my stamina, and set out for home.

When I got there, I found Petra out in the backyard with the dogs. Mr. Contreras had his barbecue going. She was sitting on the grass with her arms around Mitch, who acknowledged my arrival by lifting his head to look at me. Peppy, at least, came over to meet me.

“Poor Peewee is beat.They got her working too hard,” Mr. Contreras announced. “We’re doing burgers and corn. You want some?”

I accepted gratefully, and went upstairs for wine and a salad, leaving my hat and gloves. I brought some cushions down with me and stretched out on the grass, where I could see my cousin’s face. She looked pinched and anxious. But when she saw me studying her, she tried to grin in her usual enthusiastic fashion.

“I’m pretty beat myself, first day back on the job. I had to go to the Prudential Plaza this afternoon, and I finally got a look at Les Strangwell.”

“You didn’t talk to him, did you?” Petra asked, a little breathless.

“Not about you, not about anything. Guy has freaky eyes, don’t you think?”

She shivered but didn’t say anything.

“Petra, are you in trouble at work?”

Mr. Contreras frowned and started to protest, but he caught my little headshake and was silent.

“No, no! Why should I be in trouble? I do whatever they tell me to, and faster than a speeding bullet.”

“You just seemed jumpy on the phone today. And you’re definitely not your usual high-voltage self tonight.”

She played with her stack of rubber bracelets. “It’s like Uncle Sal said: they’re working me too hard. I even have to go back in tonight, as soon as I scarf down some of Uncle Sal’s home cooking. What took you downtown? Are you still looking for that missing gangbanger? Did you think you’d find him in the Prudential building?”

“Yep. Selling bonds out of the fiftieth-floor office. Actually, I’m going back out to Joliet tomorrow afternoon. Johnny Merton, the head snake charmer, has agreed to see me again, and I’m hoping the murder of Sister Frances may jolt him into telling me something.”