Carol gave a twisted smile. “You going to break and enter for a stranger, V.I.? Then I guess I can come along and give her mouth-to-mouth if she needs it.”
The police had confiscated my professional picklocks a number of years ago, but during the winter I’d acquired some new ones—billed, of course, as “state of the art”—at a security conference out at O’Hare. Tonight might be my first chance to use them. The thrill was less than overwhelming: the razor edge of excitement that comes from chasing and being chased seems to diminish with age. I stuck the picklocks in a jacket pocket and went downstairs with Mr. Contreras and Carol.
“Hi, Todd, Vinnie. Getting the lynch mob together?”
The two looked enough alike to be brothers—white men in their mid-thirties with blow-dried, carefully cut hair and square, conventionally good-looking faces now flushed in righteous anger. My neighbor and I had enjoyed, if that’s the word, a rapprochement while he’d been having an affair with a set designer I liked. But when Back left him, Vinnie and I went back to a more natural hostility. So far I hadn’t found anything that brought me closer to Todd Pichea, even for an afternoon.
Hovering behind Pichea were a couple of women I recognized vaguely from the block. One was a plump blonde in her fifties or sixties, wearing black stretch pants that revealed the sags of time. The second woman made the pair an ad for “Then and Now on Racine Avenue.” Her spandex leggings hugged a body toned to perfection in a gym. The diamond drops in her ears showed up the clunkiness of the older woman’s faux pearls, and the impatient frown marring her perfect complexion contrasted sharply with the other’s expression of plain worry.
Pichea’s scowl deepened when he heard me. “Look, Warshawski, I know you don’t give a damn about the value of your property, but you ought to respect the rights of others.”
“I am. I do. It’s been a while since I studied constitutional law, but isn’t there at least an implication in the Fourth Amendment that Mrs. Frizell has the right to be secure in her own home?”
Pichea tightened his lips into a thin line. “As long as she isn’t creating a public nuisance. I don’t know why you have such a hot spot for the old bag, but if you lived across the street and had those damned dogs keeping you awake you’d change your tune fast enough.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If I knew you were on her case I could probably bring myself to tolerate the barking. You work for some big downtown firm, you’ve got a lot of connections in the courts, and you want to use all your muscle to smash some helpless old woman. She’s been living here a long time, you know—forty or fifty years. She didn’t try to stop you coming in and ruining the street for her. Why don’t you engage in a little reciprocity?”
“That’s the thing,” the older woman broke in in an anxious voice. “Hattie—Harriet—Mrs. Frizell—has never been an easy neighbor, but she minds her own business as long as you mind yours. Only, I’m kind of worried, I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning, so when I saw this gentleman ringing her bell I went over to see what the problem was—”
“Ruining the street? Ruining the street?” The woman in spandex barked sharply. “Todd and I improved this rattail block. We spent a hundred grand fixing up that house and yard—they’d look like her place if not for us.”
“Yeah, but you’re disturbing her peace, trying to force her out of her home, put her dogs to sleep, whatever.”
Before the argument could escalate further, Carol put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go see if the lady’s home and awake, Vic. We can sort out who’s done the most harm to the street later.”
The older woman smiled gratefully at her. “Yes. I’m kind of worried. Only, she can be rude if you bother her, but if we all went together…”
Our convoy moved slowly to the front sidewalk. “I’m giving her fair warning,” Pichea said to Vinnie. “The next time those dogs are out barking past ten I’ll see her ass in court.”
“And that will make you feel like a real he-man, I suppose?” I shot over my shoulder.
Pichea gave a contemptuous laugh. “I can understand why you’re so worked up: you’re scared you’ll end up alone and crazy at eighty-five, with nothing but a bunch of flea-ridden dogs to keep you company.”
“Well, Pichea, if you’re an example of the available talent, I’d rather be alone till I’m eighty-five.”
Carol grabbed my arm and hustled me up the street. “Come on, Vic. I don’t mind you dragging me into your business, but don’t make me listen to this crap. I could lean out my back door and hear it in the alley if I were interested.”
I was sufficiently abashed to ignore Pichea’s follow-up comment—an ostentatious whisper to his wife that I needed a good lay—but not sorry I’d picked up the cudgels to begin with. In fact, I kind of wished I’d given him a good punch in the sternum.
Chapter 6 - Down and Out on Racine Avenue