Eycks said, “Nia Durango and Arielle Zitter’s safety is in question here, and you’ll stay up until we get a reliable promise from you not to jeopardize them further.”
“Yeah, well, I promise. On my cousin Boom-Boom’s jersey, and I don’t get more sacred than that. Now I’m going to bed and you’re going home.” I went on through the door.
Eycks grabbed my arm. “Not so fast, not until you talk to Mr. Salanter.”
I dropped the pizza, turned into his body, and chopped his wrist with my left hand. He gasped in shock more than pain but dropped my arm.
I glared at him. “If you want to talk to me about this, ask politely. Every conversation I’ve had with someone from your Schiller Street protectorate has begun with the assumption that I’m a lead-footed cretin out to harm you. So if you want to talk to me, you need to give me a reliable promise to have a civilized conversation.”
I picked up the box and looked inside. The crust had broken into a dozen jagged pieces and goat cheese and spinach were mushed together in the bottom of the box. It didn’t look at all appetizing anymore. I sighed and started up the stairs.
42.
OLD NEWS
EYCKS DIDN’T FOLLOW ME UP THE STAIRS, BUT HE DID STAY inside our entryway, cell phone in his ear. In my own apartment, with all the locks in place, I looked out the front windows and saw Chaim Salanter get out of the back of the Mercedes. Lotty and Max climbed out the other side; Sophy Durango stepped from the front seat.
“Merda!” I said under my breath: I couldn’t shut Lotty out of my home.
I took the pizza to the kitchen, washed my face, took off my shoes and socks, collected a whisky bottle and some glasses. By the time I’d done all that, Eycks was leaning on the bell outside my third-floor door, the rest of his entourage in tow. When I opened the door, I heard a couple of barks from the bottom of the stairwell, and then a shout from Mr. Contreras, wondering if everything was all right.
“Not the dogs, Victoria,” Lotty said. “Make him keep the damned dogs downstairs.”
“We’re absolutely splendid,” I shouted down to Mr. Contreras. “Dr. Herschel’s allergies are acting up—she wants you to hang on to Mitch and Peppy.”
My five visitors entered my living room, looking like a jury in a capital case. I poured myself a few fingers of Johnnie Walker and offered the bottle to my executioners.
Max and Lotty gave me polite negatives, but the other three stared at me glassily. Sophy Durango took the lead.
“In Wade Lawlor’s attack on me this evening, he mentioned that Nia was joining Arielle overseas. How did he learn that? Our two families are the only people who know this!”
“Along with Gabe, Diane Ovech, the flight attendants on El Al, anyone at O’Hare who recognized Nia—”
“Who did you tell?” Gabe interrupted me.
“I’m not going to answer that one, Mr. Eycks. Since you think I’m capable of betraying my word, then you won’t believe anything I say.”
Lotty addressed me gravely. “I know you well, Victoria, and I know you would never put children in danger, but is there any possibility you mentioned this to Murray, thinking you could trust him to keep it confidential?”
Max chipped in with an equally mixed message, whose gist seemed to be that I was wonderful but impulsive. Durango and Salanter were more passionate—I had put their precious girls at risk.
When they’d all finished their differently calibrated pitches, I said to Eycks, “Arielle’s cell phone wasn’t with her when I found her yesterday morning. Did it ever turn up?”
He shook his head. “Julia bought a new one to give to her on the plane.”
I turned to Durango. “Did you and Julia Salanter lift the text-message block on your daughters’ cell phones?”
She looked disdainful. “I assume that question is relevant, or that you are trying to shift attention away from yourself to the girls.”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “I told you yesterday that it was possible someone was monitoring their texts to each other. If Nia and Arielle were telling the truth—”
“Don’t start suggesting that our children are liars just to exculpate your—”
“My involvement in this business began because your children lied about where they were spending the night. Each claimed a sleepover at the other’s home as a cover for going to a midnight rendezvous in a cemetery. So let’s stop pretending the girls are above reproach and concentrate on what we know, okay?”
“What do you think you know?” Max asked, before Durango could leap to a further defense of her daughter.
“Miles Wuchnik apparently was hired to dig up dirt on Chaim Salanter: Nia told me this afternoon that he approached her and Arielle outside Vina Fields earlier this spring.”