Mr. Contreras was torn between relief that nothing serious was amiss and disappointment that I couldnt be confined to quarters for a month or two while he looked after me. He rode with me in the taxi down to my office so I could collect my car. When I told him I wasn’t going home, he tried to argue with me at first, then decided he should drive me.
“I’m going to pay a surprise visit to Olympia Koilada,” I said. “You sure you want to come along? I can’t have you breaking her neck, or anything, just because you don’t like the way she treated Petra.”
“You’re the one that likes to run around town getting beat up. I’ll be there to protect whichever one of you needs it most.”
I laughed, clutching my abdomen, and turned the keys over to him.
Olympia lived in a loft building just northwest of the Gold Coast, one of those conversions that followed the gutting of Chicago’s old industrial corridor. According to my computer search, she’d paid almost a million dollars for half of the fourth floor, the side that faced the Chicago River. I wondered what it would fetch if she had to liquidate in the middle of this slump.
When I rang Olympia’s bell, she squawked at me through the intercom.
“It’s V. I. Warshawski, Olympia.”
“Go away,” she snapped.
“I don’t think so. I think we’ll have a lovely conversation about you, Anton, and money laundering.”
A couple of minutes passed where the wind made a good substitute for an ice pack on my sore belly, and then a buzzer sounded, unlocking the door. When we got off the elevator at the fourth floor, Olympia’s door was cracked open. She waited until we got close enough for her to identify us before she opened it all the way.
I had never seen her away from the club. In blue jeans and a turtle-neck, without makeup, she looked younger, even a bit vulnerable, although the large gun in her left hand kind of countered that image.
“Rodney kicked me so hard last night that I’m having trouble getting around today,” I said. “My neighbor, Salvatore Contreras, is helping me out. Mr. Contreras, Olympia Koilada.”
Mr. Contreras stuck a hand out, but Olympia didn’t move. I lifted my sweater and peeled back the Ace bandage to show her my bruises.
She blenched. “Rodney did that?”
“Yes indeed. But it was all for the good because, after he got knocked out, I persuaded two of his cretinous team to confide Anton’s code to me.”
“You knocked Rodney out? Oh my God.”
I didn’t tell her the big role luck played in my salvation last night. I wanted her to think that I was as powerful—more powerful, even—than her tormentor. Besides, in a way I had knocked him out—he’d slipped on my vomit, after all.
“Weeks ago, I told you to trust me,” I said. “If you had talked to me to begin with, I wouldn’t have these bruises today.”
Olympia moved away from the door, the gun shaking in her left hand. We followed her in, shutting and bolting the door. I took her gun and sat down on a white couch. My boots were making dirty little puddles on the salt-and-pepper rug, but Olympia didn’t seem to notice.
“You know about Anton’s code, right? You knew the feds were investigating Kystarnik’s mob ties, but you let him have the run of your club, or at least let his chief enforcer have the run, because he’d bailed you out. What other favors are you doing for him?”
“Where is Rodney now?” Olympia didn’t seem to have heard me. “Did he follow you here?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care, but you apparently do. Don’t tell me you’re sleeping with him—that’s so disgusting, I can’t bear to think about it.”
“If Anton and Rodney think I’m helping you,” she said, “I might as well jump off the roof right now and end everything the easy way.” Her words were melodramatic, but her tone was matter-of-fact.
“Hey, that’s no way to talk,” Mr. Contreras reproved her. “If you’ve gotten yourself in trouble and you’re too scared to talk to the cops, talk to Vic here. She’s helped people in worse trouble than you are in.”
Olympia flicked a contemptuous glance at him: no one had ever been in worse trouble than she.
“So,” I said, “Rodney telegraphed bank codes to Anton’s overseas pals via the Body Artist’s butt. What else? You slipped Petra extra money to pretend she hadn’t noticed him copping a feel. Don’t tell me you let him sleep with your staff.”
“Not everyone thinks her body is as sacred as you seem to.” Olympia shrugged. “If the money was right . . . It’s a bad economy . . .”
I thought I might throw up again. My neighbor, as her meaning dawned on him, started a furious protest—directed against me—for letting Petra work in such an environment.
“Later,” I said to him. “Rodney had the hots for Petra, so you kept her on, but I was too close to her for his comfort. He told you to give her the ax, right?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that.”