“If that’s all, we’re running a plant here and everyone needs to get back to work,” Sturlese said.
I bade him a polite farewell, but stopped outside the office, back against the wall, to hear what he had to say next. It was a sharp question to Mavis about what else I had said and what she had told me.
“Honest, Mr. Sturlese, she came in all huffy and puffy, wanting to know about Sebastian Mesaline, but I couldn’t tell her anything because I don’t know anything.”
“Has Nabby been around today?” Sturlese asked.
“I—he came in for a cash advance about an hour ago, but I think maybe he took off again?”
Sturlese grunted. I trotted back to the stairwell and managed to get down to the landing before he came out to the hall. Once outside, I slowed down: jogging only made my head feel worse. I trudged to my car, wondering what I’d accomplished—besides waving my arms like a demented matador in the face of a rogue bull. When I’d left Sturlese and was on Harlem Avenue, I pulled over, leaning back in the seat, pinching my nose to stop the bleeding.
The revving of a heavy engine made me look up. The driver of the silver SRT was honking at the inbound chain of cement trucks, and then gunning the engine to dart around them. A Subaru is no match for a muscle car, but I followed it down Harlem Avenue as best I could, helped by the thick traffic and stoplights—although the SRT was essentially ignoring both. I got hung up in traffic at Foster, about a mile south of the plant, and lost him.
This stretch of Harlem is one long mall. I ended up driving more than a mile before I came to an east-west through street. I was craving sleep, driving with the windows open, hoping the cold air would keep me alert, when it started to rain. I knew what Luke would have to say if I let the Subaru’s upholstery get damp so I rolled up the windows and tried singing in an effort to stay awake.
It was only a fluke that made me look to my left as I passed the Firestone outlet near Wilson. The SRT was pulling up in front of an “all you can eat” Thai buffet in a nearby strip mall.
I forgot my wounds and drove to the next mall, where I parked in the middle of a cluster of cars. One of the many items I’d lost in my Mustang’s dismemberment was a set of Bushnell night-vision binoculars. And an umbrella. Fortunately I was outside a gigantic drugstore. Even more fortunately, they had umbrellas up front, by the cash registers, so that I didn’t have to go into the neon wilderness beyond. I picked up a Kane County Cougars baseball cap to hide my black eye and red nose and plodded through the parking lot, shivering. The umbrella wasn’t much protection against the driving rain; my pantlegs were soaked by the time I reached the Thai restaurant.
The SRT was still there. I looked through the restaurant windows. Like every place in mall-land, it was enormous, with the buffet stretching beyond my sight range.
I went inside for a quick look. The place was filling up with shift workers picking up cheap, filling food on their way home. Brightly painted statuettes of deities and demons were hanging from the ceiling. I suppose it was an attempt to make the place look less cavernous, but the plastic figures looked as beaten down as the clientele. The food, colored as luridly as the figurines, took away my appetite. I pretended to study it, and finally glimpsed Sturlese at a table toward the back. He was twisting a drink around, looking expectantly toward the entrance.
I ducked my head to my chest, and shuffled to the exit. Keeping my head low, I mumbled to the bored hostess that I’d forgotten my wallet and went back into the cold. I kept the bill of the Cougars cap pulled over my forehead and the umbrella at an angle to shield my face.
After half an hour, in which I got thoroughly wet and cold, an Infiniti SUV pulled up next to the SRT. The paint was a gunmetal gray, but next to Boris Nabiyev’s face, the color seemed warm, vibrant.
I couldn’t think of any way to get close enough to Nabiyev and Sturlese to eavesdrop. Besides, I was sneezing so loudly I’d drown out their conversation. I pulled my wet jacket collar around my neck and stumbled back to the Subaru.
FAMILY TIES
It took me the better part of an hour to drive across town to my apartment, snuffling and sneezing the whole way. I’d have to have a decontamination specialist clean the Subaru before I gave it back.
I wanted a hot bath, a hot drink and bed, but Mr. Contreras saw me dragging my way up the sidewalk and came to the door, clucking over my wet clothes, my rheumy eyes, my snuffles. “Bernie’s fine, doll. You go change into something dry.”