I sat back, picturing Vince at eight or nine, trotting around after his big cousin. Rory, who liked to look after the neighborhood, would have paid special attention to a young cousin. Taken him to ball games, to the beach, to the bank, whatever the magnificent big cousin wanted, the little cousin would sign on for as well.
I checked the Sturlese, Previn and Guzzo genealogies as well, but no Burzles or Bagbys or Scanlons appeared. I’d expected Stella Guzzo to show a connection to one or the other families—it might explain why Mandel & McClelland had agreed to represent her—but the Irish family she’d grown up in didn’t connect to Scanlon, Burzle or Bagby, even when I traced them back to their first generation in America.
I couldn’t find a connection for Sebastian and Viola Mesaline, either, nor for their Uncle Jerry’s adoptive family. As for Boris Nabiyev, I dug up a meager file on him in a Homeland Security database. He had arrived in Chicago from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, eleven years ago. He had a green card. That was all the computer could tell me about him—not his address, or even his age.
On the other hand, when I looked up Spike Hurlihey, he turned out to be a cousin of Rory Scanlon’s. Hurlihey, Scanlon, Nina Quarles and Vince Bagby all grew up in the same pack. One for all, all for one. Maybe they hadn’t deliberately kept the relationship a secret from me, but I could feel them giving each other a nod and a wink on their side of the fence: we’re keeping her chasing her tail, while we write the script.
A cold anger began to build in me. I could rewrite this story. Maybe not tonight, but soon. I had learned one of their secrets and I would uncover others.
I’d lost track of the time and of my cold. It was midnight when Bernie bounced into my apartment, Mitch at her heels, announcing that the Blackhawks had lost the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs in triple overtime.
“The Canadiens won their first game, so it’s not so bad. Papa will be here the day after tomorrow, but you have to tell him I’m not going back to Canada, not until we’ve cleared Uncle Boom-Boom’s name, and anyway, I have summer camp at Northwestern, so what’s the point? I’ll just be coming back in July.”
“Bernie, if it were up to your mother and me, I’d be packing you in a box to ship to Quebec tonight. I’ll be happier seeing your father walk off that plane than I would be looking at Stanley Cup celebrations in Grant Park. And I want you back down with Mr. Contreras tonight. It’s safer than it is up here.”
Her lips twitched—she wanted to argue back but realized in time she was out on an unsupported limb. She gave a rueful smile, an endearing Gallic shrug. We rounded up the stuffed animals she slept with, I found her cell phone charger under the sofa, retrieved her retainer from its burial ground in the sofa cushions, and loaded everything into a backpack with a change of clothes for the morning.
I got dressed myself to escort her back down the stairs to Mr. Contreras’s place. The old man was standing in the doorway, keeping a watch over the street door.
“We thought you’d be back down for dinner, doll, but then I thought maybe you’d gone to sleep. You should, with that cold and everything, but we have a plate of spaghetti for you if you’re hungry.”
“Sorry.” I kissed his cheek. “I lay too long in the bath, but I should have called.”
I wrapped up in one of his old coats to take the dogs out back for a last time. Jake was coming in the front door when I got back. I walked upstairs with him, but repeated what I’d said to Bernie.
“I don’t want to huddle alone in my place, but these people scare me. I don’t want anyone I love caught in their crossfire.”
He looked at me quizzically. “You think if they firebomb your apartment the rest of the building will escape unscathed? I’m more afraid of catching your cold than I am of Uzbeki hit men or Insane Dragons.”
“That’s because you never saw the hitman.”
“I never saw a germ, either.” He put his free arm around me for a moment before going into his own place to park the bass. “But I know what they can do to my sense of hearing.”
When I went back inside my own place, I saw a coaster from Weeghman’s Whales on the floor. I frowned over it—it’s a Wrigleyville bar that I never go to. It must have fallen out of the sofa when we were collecting Bernie’s animals, but what had Bernie been doing there? Another problem for another day. I went into my closet safe to take out my gun storage box.
Jake came in behind me, unfortunately: he hates guns, he hates to know I even own one. The sight of the weapon made him back away from me.
“Call me when you’ve put that thing away, V.I. I can overcome my terror of the rhinovirus, but a gun is a total antiaphrodisiac.”
CHANGEUP