It felt good to be in the place where everybody knew my name. I ordered a bowl of soup, although trendy restaurants only serve designer soups, perhaps lotus blossoms pureed with chives and a whiff of liquid nitrogen, not the hearty minestrone I was longing for.
I waited for Murray to finish his raw meat, then brought him to my table. He studied my documents carefully while I ate my soup, which I had to admit was pretty good, despite its delicate ingredients—good enough that I ordered a second bowl.
I told him everything I could think of, including the business about the break-in at Villard’s place, and my concern about what Boom-Boom might have been up to.
“All his papers are in Toronto at the Hockey Hall of Fame, but I looked at them before I sent them up there; if he’d been protecting some scandal under cover of a trustee account, I’d have seen it then. And he never kept a journal that I ever discovered.”
“Yeah, but the secret could be something that doesn’t look like anything.” Murray waved to Erica for another beer and ordered a basket of French fries—fried, of course, in duck fat, not in something dull like safflower oil. “Could be something that Boom-Boom himself didn’t know was explosive. You know con artists are always trying to get a sports star’s money. And their old friends are always trying to get a piece of reflected glory.”
“That suggests Frank Guzzo,” I said.
“I could go up to Toronto and take a look at Boom-Boom’s papers,” Murray suggested.
“It might be worthwhile,” I agreed doubtfully. “You’d have to pay your own way, though—I haven’t seen a dime from the Guzzos and I’m likely to be in the hole for legal fees to get this wretched restraining order lifted. But before booking a flight, why don’t you comb the Herald-Star’s archives. Your old gossip columnist, Freda Somebody, might have had a few titillating hints about Boom-Boom.”
“It’s the Spike Hurlihey part of the story I want most,” Murray said. “There’s a lot here, but it’s all vague. Before looking at Freda’s old columns, I’m going to double back into what we have on Spike, The Early Years. He wasn’t born with the Speaker’s gavel in his hand, he muscled his way into the job. Nobody can write anything about him now, he’s so goddam powerful, but twenty years ago, when he was first starting to gobble up the smaller fish, it was a different story. Of course, my current owners love him. They like oligarchs and he is the consummate protector of the oligarchy, so Global isn’t likely to let me print dirt in the Herald-Star, but Salon or even the New York Times might be interested.”
“If you expose his dirty underwear you could be unemployed,” I said.
He grinned, the old Murray grin. “Won’t be the first time. What will you be doing, Girl Wonder?”
I played with my soup spoon, drawing a design in the bottom of the bowl with the remains. “I’ll talk to Pierre Fouchard. He’s flying in on Monday to collect his daughter before anything disastrous happens. If Boom-Boom confided in anyone besides me, it would have been Pierre.”
“Too many unknown unknowns,” Murray grunted.
“The one I’m worried about is Nabiyev,” I said. “The unknown I want clarified is who he’s working for, and if they think I’m as much a threat as—as, I don’t know—Jerry Fugher, for instance.”
“Nabiyev! How the hell did you get yourself tangled up with him?”
“I’ve been delving in genealogy.” I pulled out the page that dealt with Sturlese and showed Murray, but I realized I’d never told him about Sebastian and Viola. When I explained that story to Murray, including how terrified Viola was, he frowned in worry.
“Crap, V.I.—that doesn’t have anything to do with whose ma was whose grandfather’s second cousin five times removed. If this Viola is frightened about Nabiyev, you shouldn’t go near her without full body armor, and even then you’d be pushing your luck. What I hear about Nabiyev is he’s a freelance enforcer, but he gets legal help from the attorneys who manage the Grozny Mob’s affairs. No one knows if the Uzbeks bought a cop or a state’s attorney, could be either or both: Nabiyev has been arrested a bunch of times but never charged. If you haven’t made a will, better get to it before you do anything else.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s very funny, either. I wish to God I could shift Bernie tonight—I could go underground if I didn’t have to worry about her.”
Having reminded myself of that worry, I signaled Erica for the check: I wanted to get back north to make sure Bernie and everyone else I cared about was safe. As a sign of goodwill, I split the bill without looking to see how much more four Holstens cost than one Johnnie Walker.