“She led them to me,” I said, “and they’ve left me alone. At least, I think they have. Or maybe I haven’t yet found whatever it is they’re looking for. My only guess is that they want Sebastian Mesaline. That’s why Viola is scared every time I try to see her: they’ve been to her, threatened her, but believed her when she said she hired me to find him. And now I’m the stalking horse who’s supposed to lead them to her brother!”
Murray had only been able to follow the conversation from my end, but it was enough to put him in the picture. When I’d hung up, he said, “You know, Warshawski, I’m not any fonder than you of letting the Feds or the cops get between me and an investigation, but if the Grozny Mob really want Sebastian dead and they think you can find him, you should talk to your pals in blue.”
I didn’t like it, but he was right. I spent much of the rest of the day talking first with Conrad Rawlings and Bobby Mallory, and then with an array of officers in Organized Crime. Of course, the hit on Stan Villard had happened in Evanston, not Chicago, but the two cities share a lot of streets, so they have protocols for sharing leads and even resources.
Because Villard had been with the Cubs, the team was breathing down the necks of both forces. Powerful citizens get more police attention than people like the Guzzos. Fact of life, not a nice one, but it meant that both Bobby and Conrad tried to be cordial, instead of snarling at me for keeping Sebastian’s recording from them. They snarled a little, but that was just a reflex.
They also needed to talk to Viola and didn’t really believe me when I said I’d been trying to talk her into going to them.
“Vicki, you need to take us to her, or her to us,” Bobby said. “No dodging around, no sleights of hand.”
We were meeting in a conference room at the CPD headquarters on South Michigan, me, Conrad, Bobby, three officers from Organized Crime, and another trio from Evanston. Also a couple of junior officers to take notes and make coffee runs.
“There’s a guy on a Harley who’s been keeping tabs on her,” I said, “and at least one on a bicycle. The Harley seems to pick her up after work, but they probably have somebody on foot, since she takes the Green Line home. We haven’t spotted any cars, but that doesn’t mean the trackers aren’t using them.”
“We’ll try to keep an eye on Nabiyev,” an officer from Organized Crime said, “but he’s gone to ground for the time being, may even have left Chicago. If we’d known he was a person of interest in the shooting, we could have taken steps at the airports right away.”
All ten officers glared at me in unison. They had a good choreographer.
“I suggested it to the detective in charge at the crime scene,” I said. “He was so eager to pin the blame on Mr. Villard’s caregiver that he wasn’t interested in anything I had to say.”
“Yeah, well, when you’re with us poor dim-witted coppers, you have a habit of making your suggestions sound like sarcasm. It’s a good trick,” Bobby said, “because it means we don’t take you seriously and then you get to go off and pull your own rabbits out of your own hats and make us look ineffectual. And that also is annoying.”
“Put it in my file,” I couldn’t help saying. “‘When she’s most annoying, she’s on to something worth paying attention to.’”
Bobby made a sour face. “I’d love it if just once you’d act your age. You can go—we’ll take it from here.”
He followed me into the hall. “Vicki, if you see or hear or even smell anything from Nabiyev, you call me or Rawlings at once. Don’t try to tackle him on your own because you can’t. I don’t want your ma greeting me at the Pearly Gates, telling Saint Peter not to admit me because I let you run headfirst into danger, but that’s what will happen if you keep thinking you’re smart enough to handle thugs like Nabiyev. Capisce?”
“Capisco,” I said. I felt my age plus another decade as I walked to the elevator.
IN THE MADHOUSE
My seat used to be up near the rafters, where the noise shook one’s bones. Seventeen thousand fans slamming our chairs up and down, stomping, screaming, whistling, while the foghorn under the scoreboard bellowed whenever Steve Larmer or Boom-Boom scored. The Madhouse on Madison, it was called, and rightly so—decibel level around 130 on average, up to 300 when all the noisemakers were turned on. The sound coming from the rafters could push skaters to their knees.