“Vic, you know there’s not a lot we can do if Koilada insists on her story. Not unless the—uh—Artist backs up your statement. But just for my own curiosity, what was going on in there?”
“I don’t know, Terry. Olympia owes a bundle to someone. It could be as much as a million dollars, and it could be to Anton Kystarnik. Rodney Treffer, the heavy you picked up tonight, works for Kystarnik, and the boys and girls who took over the place tonight were speaking some Slavic language. Connect the dots your own way, but to me it looks as though Olympia lets them use the club as some kind of way of getting information to each other without going through any wires. That’s why they’re so furious that they can’t get access to the pictures on her site. My opinion only, of course.”
I started my engine.
“What were you doing here tonight?”
For a moment I couldn’t remember, the evening had been so full of drama.
“Nadia Guaman’s older sister died in Iraq,” I finally said. “I’m thinking Nadia’s murder is connected to that, to the fact that Chad Vishneski was over there when Alexandra Guaman died.”
Terry slapped the roof of my car in frustration.
“I don’t know who gets my goat more: that piece of work in there”—he gestured toward the club—“pretending a bunch of lowlifes were rehearsing a show, or you, thinking you can skate right over evidence of murder because it doesn’t fit some damned theory of yours.”
“Listen to me . . . Oh, forget it. Do what you want.” I fumbled in my bag for a dollar bill. “This picture of Washington bets that when your team gets to the address Olympia gave you, you’ll find a vacant lot. Or maybe an abandoned warehouse. You won’t find Karen Buckley.”
He was starting to answer me when his phone rang. He had a short, biting conversation with someone and then squatted to look me in the eye.
“How did you know?” he asked. “Have you been over there?”
“That was your officer out on West Superior?”
“It’s a warehouse, but it’s empty. How did you know, Warshawski? Are you involved in some con of your own?”
“It was a guess. I’ve been around these women awhile now and they are the original shell shufflers.”
“Oh, hell !” he swore uncharacteristically. “That explains—”
“What?” I asked, when he bit off the sentence.
“Just that an alert squad car found the SUV your Artist boosted. She’d dumped it on Irving near the Blue Line, which means she could have jumped the L to anywhere in town or even the airport. We put an alert out at O’Hare, but TSA can’t find the bathroom with both hands most days. If you know where the Buckley woman lives and you’re not saying—”
“Terry, on my mother’s name, I do not know word one about the Body Artist—not even whether Karen Buckley is her real name or not.”
He shut my door, none too gently, and stomped to his waiting car.
As I drove down Lake Street, my right hand hurt so badly I couldn’t hold the steering wheel. I stopped at the light on Ashland and took off my glove. A fragment of the palette knife was lodged in my index finger near the palm. I hadn’t noticed it during the heat of battle.
I wasn’t about to go to an emergency room and sit for the rest of the night. Nursing my hand in my lap, I went north to Ukrainian Village, to Rivka Darling’s home. If Karen Buckley had ridden the L back down here, Kystarnik would have found her easily.
A Hummer was parked in front of Rivka’s building, engine running. The driver flicked up the brights as I went passed, looking to see who was on the street. I pretended not to notice, although they probably had my license plate in their files.
I called Rivka on my cell phone. We had a short, annoying conversation. She wouldn’t say one way or another if Karen was there, even when I said that the Artist’s life was at risk.
“You weren’t in the club tonight,” I said, “but a gang of serious thugs attacked her at the end of the performance. She managed to get away, but if she’s with you, you need to call the cops. One of the creeps is in front of your building, so if she’s there, don’t let her leave without a police escort. If she doesn’t want the cops, call me. Do you hear?”
“Karen can look after herself. She doesn’t need you.”
I guessed from the quiver in Rivka’s voice that the Artist hadn’t shown up. I drove to my own home, where I looked at my right hand under my piano light. The fragment was just visible below the skin. I found a bottle of peroxide in my pantry cupboard and poured it into a mixing bowl. Tweezers and a needle, which took a little more finding—I don’t often mend clothes or dig out splinters. When I had my kit assembled, I went back to the living room and stuck my hand in the peroxide.
“Courage, Victoria,” I said.
I’m right-handed, and digging around for metal splinters with my left was a challenge that brought me close to the screaming point. I was beginning to think an emergency room was the answer when Jake knocked at my front door.