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“Criminals always have a reason for breaking the law—usually because they think they’re better than the people whose lives they’re destroying.”

“You cut a wide swath yourself, Warshawski, so careful who you sling mud at.” He hung up.

FLORAL OFFERING

Conrad hung up
without remembering to ask about Fugher’s nephew. He wouldn’t forget, but if he dug up Fugher’s adoption, and his birth family, and found Viola, he might also find Sebastian. Which would be a relief. If the police took over the hunt for Sebastian I would for once get out of their way with a good grace.

I looked again at the newsprint lists I’d made yesterday. I needed to figure out which of these players knew something about my dad, which of them might have called to threaten me. And had one of them orchestrated last night’s attack?

It was a fact that my car had been disabled, forcing Bernie and me to take to the street. Which meant the personal attack was connected to the vandalism, whether thought up by the Dragons on their own, or egged to it by someone else.

Joel Previn had told me about the head-butting Mandel and McClelland encouraged their associates to go through when they handed out cases. I’d also witnessed Ira’s contempt for his son. Would either father or son have been so angry or threatened by my questions that they’d sic thugs on me?

Joel was passive enough to let someone else do his dirty work, but he’d spilled out his rage and self-loathing to me; I didn’t think he’d feel he had to maim or kill me.

But what about his father? Ira, the hero of workers and civil libertarians, it was painful to believe he’d cross that line between civility and ferality. He was so highly regarded, especially on the South Side, that I couldn’t believe he’d risk his reputation to hire thugs. On the other hand, there was a connection between him and Rory Scanlon: Judge Grigsby, who’d presided over Stella’s murder trial, had huffed to me about his friendship with Ira.

None of them would give me a convincing reason why the partners took on the defense of Annie’s killer. Was that the secret Ira, or Grigsby or Scanlon himself, was afraid I’d ferret out?

It seemed far-fetched, but the whole situation was beyond my understanding. The order of protection I’d been served to keep me from Stella, and now, the addition of Betty and Frank and their children’s names to the order, was infuriating. I couldn’t talk to them, or pound some semblance of the truth out of Frank—maybe just as well, since my pounding muscles were wobbly today.

My mechanic called as I was uselessly churning my mind. Luke Edwards makes Eeyore sound like Doris Day.

“Vic, that Mustang of yours just arrived at my place. Why’d you leave it down south all night? It’s missing the hood, the battery, the wheels and the dashboard. Besides all that, the hoses need replacing, and you’ve got 132,000 miles on it. You ever hear the word ‘maintenance’?”

The news made me feel so tired I rested my head on the desk. “You are a ray of sunshine, Luke, no matter what anyone tells you.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean? I’m merely telling you the story of your car. Why don’t you get something big and unbreakable, like, I don’t know, a decommissioned army tank. Since I’ve known you, you’ve totaled a Trans Am, an Omega, a Lynx and now this Mustang. You want me to try to repair it, it’s going to cost more than the car is worth. You gotta learn to drive a car in a way that keeps the engine—”

I sat up again. “This car was parked at a curb when all this damage happened. Even if I was Danica Patrick, I couldn’t have kept punks from stripping it.”

He grumbled that Danica Patrick wouldn’t have left her car overnight where vandals could attack it, but agreed to hold the Mustang until my insurance adjuster could get to his garage. I sometimes think Luke’s parents named him that because the sound makes you think “lugubrious,” but he’s a demon mechanic, and charges less than the dealer’s shop.

I had hoped the Mustang would make it to 175,000, but maybe the adjuster would disagree with Luke and offer to fork over six or seven thousand for repairs. Or for scrap. I got up and hobbled around my office, working the stiffness out of my joints again. As I circled back to my desk, someone rang the outside door. Tessa wasn’t in today; I went to the intercom.

Delivery for V. I. Warshawski, flowers. It was a big package, covered in florist paper. I told the delivery guy to unwrap it so I could see it on my camera feed. Sure enough, it was an elaborate arrangement of spring flowers, not a sawed-off shotgun or an RPG launcher.

I went down the hall, smiling to myself: Jake had been feeling sorry for me. When I tipped the guy and brought the flowers back to my office, I was startled to see that they were from Vince Bagby. Startled and wistful. Jake had other ways of showing his love, but flowers would have made a nice gesture.

Don’t let last night turn you against the South Side. Most of us are decent hardworking people. Sorry about your car—we can lend you a truck if you need wheels.

I smiled again, but I also taped the card to the newsprint where I’d written Bagby’s name. Under it I’d noted that he’d shown up right after the cops last night, that he knew Nabiyev and Jerry Fugher but had pretended not to, that Nabiyev had been driving one of his trucks up by Wrigley Field. And he already knew my car had been stripped. A big bunch of peonies and iris did not make these facts go away.

Is he attracted to me, or trying to distract me?
I printed under the card.

MIXING IT UP

Sturlese Cement,
Paving Illinois and the World, had their offices on the far northwest side of the city, a difficult destination on public transportation. I stopped at Luke’s garage, to look at the remains of my poor old Mustang, which was a heartbreaking sight, and to rent one of his loaners. He let me take a Subaru, with his usual animadversions on my driving. In addition to taking the wheels, the dashboard, the hood and the battery from my car, thieves had helped themselves to most of what was in it, except the towels I carry for my dogs. My hard hat was still in the backseat, as well. I put those into the Subaru, with Luke telling me the upholstery better not be covered in dog hair on my return, swallowed a few ibuprofen and headed north and west.

Even without Lotty’s adjuration, I would have stuck to side streets: simply moving my head between the side mirrors started the throbbing in my eye again. Spenser never complained about pain, I reminded myself, nor Marlowe, let alone Kate Fansler. Suck it up, Warshawski, don’t let those WASPs show up the Pollacks.

For the last few blocks, I followed a train of Sturlese trucks, with their distinctive blue lines weaving around their cement mixers. When we got to the Sturlese yard, the trucks peeled off to the left, where they could take on a fresh load, while I followed signs on the right to the office and visitors’ parking.

Trucks dig heavy ruts. Even at five miles an hour, I bounced enough to make my nose start bleeding. I pulled into one of the visitors’ spaces and studied myself in the rearview mirror. Blood wasn’t gushing down my face, but a large red stain covered my upper lip. Fatigue and pain had turned my olive skin an unhealthy whitish-gray. The blood added a nice touch of color, but it might also distract people from anything I had to say. I blotted it away, combed my hair, fingered the purple around my eye. Ready as I’d ever be.

On my way up the walk to the entrance I passed a silver Dodge SRT8. I squinted through the tinted windows. It had real gauges, not an iPad screen, satisfactory for a muscle car. Maybe if Frank Guzzo paid my outstanding bill I could afford a set of hubcaps.

I sighed and went on into the nondescript building that housed the offices: a working plant doesn’t waste money on corporate frills. No one staffed the entrance, but a signboard listed offices by their function, from Information Technology to sales offices for private, industrial or commercial ventures. I found Human Resources, second floor, and climbed a flight of bare metal stairs.

At the HR office, a man in a hard hat was arguing with a woman behind a gunmetal desk: he needed two more hours to round out a full workweek, but she wasn’t budging. “Sorry, Arnie, not my call, you know that. You gotta do it through dispatch.”

“Mavis, I wouldn’t be here if Shep had given me the hours, but it’s the difference between coverage and the exchanges, you know that.”

“I do know it, which is why I can’t fudge your hours: Mr. Sturlese audits those time sheets himself, and I cannot go into the computer—” She caught sight of me and broke off to ask what I needed.

The man in the hard hat moved aside so I could approach the desk.

“I’m looking for Sebastian Mesaline,” I said.

“Not on our payroll,” Mavis said.

“He was being considered for a job at Sturlese.”

“
I
never heard of him. They never asked
me
to put him in the system.” Mavis crossed her arms, her mouth set in an uncompromising line: she was queen of her fief and questions about her rule were not welcome.

“Could you look him up? Maybe someone else put him in without consulting you.”

I spelled the name. Mavis’s nostrils flared—she didn’t like being challenged, but I leaned over the desk, trying to look authoritative. Maybe I just looked scary, because she typed in Mesaline, grumbling under her breath.

“Told you!” She turned the monitor so I could see it, triumph in her face.
No results for M-E-S-A-L-I-N-E. Make sure you are spelling the name correctly or start a new search.

“Who are you?” a voice demanded behind me.

I turned around to see a man about my age with a hard square face, white shirt and tie but no jacket—the uniform of managers or engineers at industrial plants.

“She came in here demanding information about some guy who never worked here,” Mavis said.

“Sebastian Mesaline,” I said. “Someone told me Sturlese might be offering him a job.”

“You his ma, checking up on her boy?” the man said.

“Nope. I’m a private investigator, looking for Mr. Mesaline.” I pulled out a card. “And you are?”

While the man frowned over my card, Arnie slipped past him into the corridor.

“You with the auto parts Warshawskis or the hockey?”

“I’m with the private investigating Warshawskis,” I said. “Looking for Sebastian Mesaline.”

“People must not want to tell you about him, if that’s how you got beat up so bad.”

I smiled. “The guy on the other end is in intensive care today, so it doesn’t hurt as much as you might think. And you are?”

He frowned some more, as if worried that revealing his name might be a sign of weakness. “Brian Sturlese. I manage this facility, and I can promise you that kid doesn’t work here.”

“Who said he was a kid?” I asked.

Sturlese gave a fake laugh. “Figure of speech.”

“What about Boris Nabiyev? He knows Mr. Mesaline because they’ve worked together on the Virejas Tower. Would Nabiyev have offered Sebastian Mesaline a job without consulting you?”

“Nabby isn’t on the payroll,” Sturlese said, flashing a warning look at Mavis. “He does freelance projects for us from time to time. Maybe one of my brothers sent him to Virejas Tower, to oversee our part of the pour.”

Mavis didn’t need any warning glares; at Nabiyev’s name she’d become a whirlwind of efficient administrator, typing so fast her fingers blurred on the keyboard, swiveling to consult documents in a filing cabinet and returning to her keyboard without looking up.

“Going back to your idea that Sebastian Mesaline is a young guy, a kid, I’m wondering if Mr. Nabiyev talked about him, if maybe he said something that stuck in your mind even if you don’t remember exactly what.”

Sturlese debated that point with himself and decided it was okay to answer. “Could be. There was a young civil engineer at the Virejas site who approached him about a job here, but Nabiyev thought he was a lightweight, and now that you mention it, it could have been this boy Sebastian.”