That was what Bobby called me when he thought I was being a nuisance. It wasn’t exactly a term of endearment-but he would never have used it in front of the DuPage and federal officials.
When Terry had left to find me a driver, Bobby told me to join him at the head of the table so he wouldn’t have to shout. `Jack Zeelander is a pain in the behind,” he commented. “All the Feds these days are chasing shadows. They’re so upset at missing the obvious last summer that they grab at every straw the wind blows by ‘em, hoping it’ll lead them someplace. I can understand that-we’ve had murder investigations here where the heat was so high we burned ourselves and never caught the perp. But Zeelander wants to be in Washington so bad you can smell the ambition on him and it doesn’t make him a trustable colleague.”
Bobby’s remarks took me by surprise: he’s never let his hair down in front of me before. “Do you think this is a straw blowing past? The missing kid, I mean?”
He grunted. “That’s not my call, thank God. What is my call is you. I didn’t lean on you in front of all those people, but don’t lie to me now, Vicki. Do you know where that kid is?”
The hair-letting-down, that had been the tactic of a skilled interrogator. I felt the twist of guilt I was supposed to. Tony and Gabriella’s good friend, I couldn’t lie to him. I thought of Catherine Bayard crying out to her grandmother not to ask her anything else because she didn’t want to lie to her. I thought of the vast expanses of St. Remigio’s, the gym, the classrooms, the chapel, the kitchen and bedrooms. I had no idea which room Benjamin Sadawi was in right now.
I slowly shook my head. “I don’t know, Bobby.”
He narrowed his small gray eyes. “You better not be lying to me, Vicki.” I looked at him solemnly. “I know: Gabriella would hate it.”
“Yeah, Tony wouldn’t be crazy about it, either, but the two of them would protect you. Me, if I catch you in a whopper on this one, I’ll hang you out to dry. What were you doing since checking out of that motel? After you went to that Tech-whatever place?”
I drew a circle in the tabletop with my finger. “Morrell has gone underground. I went to see a friend who knows him.”
“For six hours? Don’t try my patience.”
“If I tell you my private business, you’ll use it against me.”
“What the-Oh. Unless you’re about to reveal a criminal act, I’ll keep it to myself.”
I had played games with the truth about Sadawi; I’d level with him on this. “Your guys staked out the front of my building, but not the alley. I thought the Feds or that ape Schorr might be tailing me, so I went in through the back. I needed a decent meal, I wanted to run the dogs, I wanted some time with my neighbor. I did all those things, then changed my clothes, went out through the alley again and came up the street to the front door.”
Bobby stared at me, then let out a hoarse sound somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. “No wonder we can’t find a missing Egyptian boy. It’s a wonder we can find our feet to put our shoes on in the morning, when we don’t have the brains to cover both entrances to a building. Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”
CHAPTER 35
Among Friends-for a Change
I slept in the squad car going home. It was only ten, but the two hours at Thirtyfifth and Michigan had worn me out almost more than last night’s physical stresses. When the driver shook me awake, I blinked, momentarily disoriented: I had expected to see the little bungalow on Houston Street where I grew up. I had expected, or wanted, to find my mother waiting for me.
Instead, Mr. Contreras and the dogs came bustling down the walk to greet me, the old man voluble in relief that I hadn’t been locked up. I lay on his living room floor with my arms around Peppy, running through the highlights, or maybe lowlights, of the evening. When he learned the FBI had also searched my office, and might well be tapping my phone, Mr. Contreras spoke his views on the law colorfully and at length. He might think any and all measures the government had taken in the name of protecting America were justified, no matter whose rights they violated-but when it came down to me, the Feds had crossed an inviolable line. I’d always miss my mother when times were hard, but having my neighbor as a partisan was a pretty good second.
“But going out the window of that mansion, doll, that musta shook you up bad. I see how you been favoring your shoulder.”
“It wasn’t the window, it was diving into the pond and then climbing up
that wretched wall. I saw”-I stopped just before blurting out Father Lou’s name-“a sports trainer on my way home this afternoon. He gave me some salve and told me to tape up the shoulder. I just haven’t had time to stop at a drugstore for firm enough tape-I’ve been using an Ace bandage, which doesn’t hold the muscle quite in place.”