“And the favor was what?”
Viola looked at me with large unhappy eyes. “I don’t know. Sebastian wouldn’t tell me, but I know he didn’t want to do it, he and Uncle Jerry fought over it, I heard them, Sebastian saying if he got caught he’d never be able to work as an engineer again, and Uncle Jerry saying did he want to get out from under a rock or not. When they saw I’d come in, they stopped talking. After Uncle Jerry left, I begged Sebastian to tell me, but he said it was better if I didn’t know, he caused the problem, he’d solve the problem. And then he left, and it was the last time I saw him.”
“Do you live together?”
Viola nodded. “It was how we could save a little money, not having to pay rent separately, you know.”
“Why are you here?”
Viola twisted the tissue so tightly that it tore, shedding confetti onto her jeans and the floor. “On TV they said you were one of Chicago’s best investigators. Not with the police. I thought you could find Sebastian.”
“It would be better if you went to the police,” I said. “They have the resources—”
“No, no, no! I keep telling you, no police. If I had to tell them what I told you, they’d think Sebastian was a criminal, and they’d arrest him.”
“The statute of limitations on his embezzling has expired,” I said. “They won’t arrest him, unless what he was doing for Jerry was criminal. Are you sure you don’t know what your uncle asked him to do?”
“I don’t,” she wailed, “but, you know, the way Sebastian said I was better off not knowing . . .”
“Who did your uncle work for? Did you meet the people who gave him the money for Sebastian’s rescue?”
“He didn’t like us to be around him,” Viola said. “Like, we knew he lived in Lansing, but we were never supposed to visit him. We’d meet him once a month at Saint Eloy’s to pay him; he volunteers there. Volunteered.”
I didn’t try to tell her Jerry got paid for his church work, but pulled out my cell phone and showed her the picture I’d taken.
Viola didn’t recognize the gravel-faced man. “I keep telling you, we hardly ever saw Uncle Jerry. He said he didn’t want to talk to me in public, he didn’t want people tracking him, but I’m so desperate about Sebastian, I kept trying to phone Uncle Jerry, but he wouldn’t answer—I guess he saw my name on the caller ID. And now he’s dead, and what if the same people are after Sebastian? I have to find him. Can you do it? If he gets—if someone—I’ll never be able to go on without him.”
I didn’t like this, not one little bit. If Fugher had arranged a juice loan for his nephew, he had ties to some of the scariest people in Chicago. The way he’d been killed meant he for sure had the wrong kind of enemies. As for Sebastian, missing for almost a week after signing on to one of Uncle Jerry’s projects, he was almost certainly dead, as well. Remember Nancy Reagan: Just Say No.
“I charge one hundred dollars an hour,” I heard myself saying instead.
Viola looked at me in astonishment. “I told you, we don’t have any money.”
“You’ll have more money now that your uncle is dead,” I said bracingly. “Anyway, either you sign a contract and agree to my fee, or we shake hands forever.”
SHORT RELIEF
We both froze at what sounded like a cavalry regiment on the stairs—Viola because she was afraid of who might be coming, me because I knew who was coming. Viola scuttled down the hall toward the kitchen. I stayed in my chair. Bernie burst into the apartment, the dogs pushing past her to run over to me. We’d been separated for ten hours and the reunion was noisy and heartfelt. Mr. Contreras, who is ninety, trudged slowly up behind them.
“Doll, we was worrying about you. Bernie said she let some strange lady in and when we didn’t hear anything—and then your clothes in the front hall—”
Bernie was seventeen. She imagined disrobing as the result of uncontrolled passion. Mr. Contreras thought it meant I’d been abducted.
“She’s a potential client. Viola,” I called, “come on back. These are my neighbors.”
Viola returned to the living room, looking suspiciously at Mr. Contreras, the dogs, and even at Bernie, who had let her into the apartment in the first place.
“If you want me to work for you, come to my office, not my home, and we’ll sign a contract and you can give me an advance against expenses. You have to go now; I’m out of time.”
Viola didn’t want to leave by the front way, in case the people who’d killed Uncle Jerry had tracked her down here. That made me think she knew Fugher’s killers, but she denied it vigorously, starting to cry again. I’d run out of patience with her; I got Bernie to take her down the back stairs and out through the gate in the alley.
“What’s she want you to do?” Mr. Contreras asked.
When I told him, he expostulated that I didn’t need the Mob on my case.