Sara Paretsky - Hardball

Peter and George Dornick wouldn’t care about Brian’s campaign, only Les Strangwell and the candidate’s father would put that first. But when I showed up unannounced, they kept on talking behind closed doors for half an hour. They were deciding on how to handle me. But what were they deciding to do about Petra? And why had my aunt gone home?

“Was it a game to you, little cousin? Or did they utter those mystic, magic words, ‘national security,’ and get you to believe them? They told you under no circumstances to confide in me. What about your Uncle Sal?”

“Not Uncle Sal, Uncle Sam, Uncle Sam be watching you. He know when you be sleeping, / He know when you awake, / He say it all be for national security’s sake.”

My partner on the other side of the statue’s plinth was still in full throttle on the people he said were watching him. Since I myself kept talking out loud, it was hard for me to feel that I was a more stable girder on the bridge than him. When was it paranoia and when were they really watching you?

I got up and pulled a five from my pocket for my companion. One thing about our outbursts: they’d driven everyone else away from us. Although, these days, with so many people spouting their secrets into the ether, it was hard to know who had real friends and who had invisible ones.

I crossed Lake Shore Drive at Roosevelt Road and waited for a northbound bus at the natural history museum. My cousin was queen of the texters. When we were riding back from South Chicago together and I mentioned I hadn’t heard her on her phone, she’d confessed she’d been texting. Had she sent a message to Strangwell, telling him we hadn’t been able to get into the Houston Street house? Did he send a team down then to throw a smoke bomb into my old house so they could search for… what?

Petra texting. She’d been texting at the Freedom Center. Petra leaning in the doorway to Caroline Zabinska’s apartment, her hands busy in front of her. I’d been ninety percent unconscious, and she hadn’t thought I’d notice, but maybe she’d summoned the person who collected the bag of evidence I’d been gathering, those pieces of the Molotov cocktail bottles I wanted to send to the Cheviot Labs to test what kind of accelerant had been used.

The FBI and Homeland Security had both been watching the Freedom Center building, but they’d claimed they didn’t have any record of the person who’d broken in to get my evidence bag. So they knew who’d gone in and didn’t care. Or someone who had very big clout persuaded the feds to look the other way. They had photographed me going in that night, but not Petra. And not the person who’d stolen the evidence bag. And then, the very next day, the apartment was taken apart by some tame construction company, paid for by a man who wanted to make a donation to the sisters for the Freedom Center. Very cute.

Brian Krumas had said something critical during the meeting. It had only registered at the time as a faint puzzler, and now, playing back what I could remember of the conversation, I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was something about his relationship with my uncle, something that connected my uncle to Sister Frankie, but the more I pushed on it, the further it retreated from my mind.

Petra wasn’t a drug user, I was sure of that despite putting the question to Peter. As for gambling or some other expensive vice, I couldn’t picture it. But I wouldn’t have pictured her breaking into my office, either.

I was tangling myself up like a bowl of cold spaghetti. Assume, for sanity’s sake, that Petra was an unwitting or unwilling partner in Strangwell’s machinations. She was an overgrown puppy, not a malicious schemer. If she was in over her head, I needed to help her out. If she was trying to hide out in this big, bad city, or if she was hitchhik ing to her friend Kelsey’s, Homeland Security, or even George Dornick’s Mountain Hawk Security team, could track her easily. I needed to warn her. They know when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake, and, if you’re texting, they can find you so fast it will take you completely by surprise.

I pulled out my phone. I didn’t have the nimble thumbs of a twenty-year-old, but I tapped out:

Petra: wherever u r, stop texting, calling. Take battery out of phone: disconnect. U can b traced by GPS. Lay low until I send all clear.

Trust me. Vic.

Please trust me, little cousin, I begged in my head. I promise if you are in the hands of baddies, I will not jeopardize your safety. But if you are hiding and scared, let me clear this up. I’m putting my best person on it.

Of course, I, too, could be traced through my cellphone. Piece of cake, for a sophisticated crew. I called my voice mail and left a message that I would be off cellphone for a while and gave the number of my answering service for people to call. I took out the battery and stuck it in my briefcase.

Five buses had stopped while I’d been churning over what I knew or didn’t know. I boarded the next one, a Number 6, that lumbered over to Michigan and slowly took me up to the hotel where I’d left my car this morning. When I handed my ticket through the cashier’s window, I was told someone had already paid for my parking. I asked to see the receipt, sure there was some mistake, but when the attendant found it it was for cash. No one could remember what the man looked like who paid the bill, but he’d described the car, told them the ticket number, even paid a lost-ticket premium.

Strangwell, or Homeland Security, wanted me to know they could find me and deal with me whenever it suited them. I drove home slowly, meandering along the side streets, not because I wanted to check for the tail that was surely behind me but because I was too tired for speed. They could find me and stomp me out. Why hadn’t they done so already? Maybe because they thought I had whatever it was they were looking for. As soon as I produced whatever it was, they would dispose of me. Sister Frankie’s head, full of flames, appeared in front of me, and I shuddered so violently that I had to pull over to the curb until it passed.

The hunt, with a full pack of hounds closing in on a lame and limping fox and her brash and ignorant cub, that was my cousin and me just now. I went back to my burrow because I didn’t know where else to go. But I didn’t feel safe, reaching home.

I took my neighbor and the dogs into the backyard, away from any possible surveillance, and explained the situation as best I could, given how little I understood of it myself.

“You don’t think Peewee’s pa is really in on this!” Mr. Contreras was horrified.

“I think he knows what his pals are looking for, and he’s a frightened man indeed, but I don’t believe he knowingly put his kid in harm’s way.”

“So where is she?” the old man fretted.

I shook my head. “I’m too tired to think clearly. I’m hoping she’s run away, hoping they don’t know where she is. If she calls you, tell her to lay low. Then tell her to hang up at once before they can trace her. These guys have me totally off balance. If only I had the faintest idea what they want!”

THE OLD MAN AND THE DOGS HELPED ME SEARCH MY apartment for any obvious intruders or bombs. Mr. Contreras offered to feed me, but I was too tired to eat. As soon as they left, I went to bed and fell deeply asleep. I was so tired, none of my anxieties had the power to disturb me. But when my phone rang at one in the morning, I was instantly awake.

“Petra?” I cried into the mouthpiece.

“Ms. Warshawski, is that you?” The voice on the other end was diffident.

“Who is this?” I choked out.

“I woke you again. I’m sorry. It seems like it’s only in the middle of the night that I have the courage to talk to you.”