“I WANT TO THANK MR. WEEKES FOR MAKING THIS STUDIO available for today’s taping of Chicago Beat. I want to thank the friends and family of V.I. Warshawski for being present, as well. We know this was a difficult decision for them.”
A woman with a clipboard, who’d identified herself as Deirdre Zhou, paused while the audience turned to gape at the friends and family. Petra Warshawski shrank into her chair as the cameras panned them, but Lotty Herschel held herself upright, looking straight ahead, as if she weren’t there. Max, on Lotty’s left, could feel her trembling, and gently squeezed her hand.
Deirdre Zhou thanked the audience for understanding why the studio inspected their cell phones on their way in. “We tape this, but the show goes out live. We don’t want you tempted to make that one ultra-important call in the middle of the show.”
A little ripple of laughter greeted that.
“We’ll be starting in about five minutes. We debated whether to call the show, ‘V.I.’s Last Case’ or ‘Chicago’s Own Nancy Drew.’ We chose the second title because even though V. I. Warshawski is well known in our city, the show goes out to many other locations where they won’t have heard of her, and we in the production team decided she was very much Chicago’s own girl detective.”
“Vic would just hate that,” Petra burst out. “She can’t—couldn’t stand it when people call grown-up women ‘girls.’ ”
The cameras swung around again to focus on her. Mr. Contreras, sitting next to her, shielded her face with his straw boater. “They’re acting like we’re some kind of zoo exhibit or something,” he said to Lotty and Max. “That Beth Blacksin, the reporter who Cookie gave a million leads to, she even tried to come up to us with a mike when we got here, like we’re a movie or something, not people with real feelings.”
Jake Thibaut, who’d driven him and Petra to the event, patted Mr. Contreras comfortingly on the shoulder, and the older man subsided. His voice had carried through the small space, though, and a number of people turned to look at him, including Wade Lawlor. Lawlor, in his signature checked shirt, had smirked at Lotty when she and Max arrived. She had withdrawn into what Max called her “Princess of Austria” hauteur: Lawlor was vermin whose existence she didn’t acknowledge.
Murray had never before rated Global One’s premier studio space, where Wade Lawlor taped Wade’s World in front of a live audience. Lawlor was unhappy at Weekes’s decision to let Murray use the studio, but the head of the news division was adamant: Chicago’s Own Nancy Drew was generating ad revenues almost as big as a Wade’s World taping. Tickets to the show were gone within five minutes of appearing online.
Weekes stayed on the forty-eighth floor for the show, but most of Global’s other big guns arrived, including their pet Senate candidate and commentator, Helen Kendrick. After looking at Kendrick, resplendent in red, Lotty noticed a pudgy, balding man sitting next to her. Although his round cheeks and turned-up nose made him look like a surprised baby, he had cold, shrewd eyes that Lotty found unnerving. She nudged Max, who—unlike Lotty—followed local news.
“Les Strangwell,” Max scribbled on a piece of paper. “Right-wing kingmaker, Kendrick’s campaign adviser.”
Lawlor’s and Kendrick’s excited supporters leaned across Max and Lotty, hoping for autographs from their stars. Max tried to keep people from stepping on Lotty, but two small older people apparently didn’t exist for the excited fans. Lotty shrank from the fawning fans. She wished she hadn’t agreed to attend. This is not my method, to make a display, a pretense of feeling. Everything I hate about the current world is present in this vulgarity. She looked at her watch, wishing the program would start, end, be done.
Murray Ryerson had moved onto the set while she’d looked away. The brashness that usually annoyed her had left him; he seemed withdrawn, uneasy, and while he was going over some details with Zhou, he ran a finger behind his collar button, as if his shirt felt too tight.
Zhou said, “Thirty seconds to live, people.”
The theater lights went down. Zhou stood in the wings, looking into a monitor. She held up a hand, lowering her fingers one at a time, and then the Chicago Beat theme song began and Murray half danced to stand in front of a city map. As the opening credits rolled, he touched parts of the map and the city beneath came alive, ballparks, suburban forests, the malls, the beaches along Lake Michigan.