Thibaut helped himself to a chunk of the pecorino I was eating. “I can’t carry you down the stairs. I’m not sure the case would hold your weight, but I’m sure I can’t.”
“I’ll come down the front stairs and get out to the garden through the basement door. When you’re at the bottom of the back stairs, I’ll try to creep along in your shadow. I’ll wait to climb into the case until you’re at the back gate. You can wheel me down the alley to your car.”
I went into my bathroom to rub mascara on my cheekbones so they wouldn’t reflect light back from the streetlamps; I hoped it wouldn’t come off in Thibaut’s case. I put on a navy windbreaker and stuck my keys and my new wallet, with cash and passport inside, in my hip pocket. I checked that the safety on the Smith & Wesson was on, pulled a Cubs cap low over my forehead, and ran as lightly as I could down the front stairs.
The only difficult moment came as I passed Mr. Contreras’s front door. Mitch let out a sharp bark and a whine, demanding to join me. Once I went past him and into the basement, he quieted down.
When I slid back the bolt on the basement exit, Thibaut was just bumping his case down the last flight of back-porch steps. I waited for him to reach the walk, then slipped into his shadow. He worked the move like a pro, not looking over his shoulder for me but pulling out his phone and complaining to someone he addressed as Lily, “You must be stoned as well as drunk to want to practice the Schulhoff piece this hour of the night. But, my little chickadee, to hear is to obey. I’m on my way.”
At the back gate, I managed to stuff my sixty-eight-inch frame into the fifty-six-inch case. As Thibaut had warned, I could barely breathe. The few minutes where he bumped along the broken concrete into the alley and, panting and wheezing, laid the case across the flattened-out entrance to the backseat were an agony for my spine and neck. Once I was on the seat, he unhooked the case’s hinges. I pushed the lid up a few inches with my knees so that I could straighten out my spine.
Again without looking over his shoulder, Thibaut asked for my office address. I told him he could drop me on Belmont, where I’d flag a cab.
“V. I. Warshawski, I didn’t seriously risk the life of this twenty-two-hundred-dollar case to drive you four blocks. Tell me where you’re going.”
I didn’t put up a serious fight. I was glad of the offer. I sent him on a route up past Wrigley Field, turning onto side streets until he was sure no one was following him. Finally we drove to an intersection a block north and east of my office. If the office was under surveillance, I didn’t want anyone registering Thibaut’s car in a database.
I flexed my spine and did a few neck stretches before leaning into the driver’s window to thank him. “Who’s Lily?”
“The fox terrier we had when I was a kid. When all this is over, I’ll play a concert for you. The Schulhoff concertino, to commemorate my most exciting performance since my Marlborough Festival debut.”
He squeezed my fingers where they rested on his open window. The warmth of his hand stayed with me as I slipped into the shadow of the buildings on Oakley.
38
CONFESSION IN MYSPACE
I DIDN’T KNOW ANY UNOBTRUSIVE WAY TO GET INTO MY office. The alley exit opens only from the inside, and the windows are twelve feet from the ground. It would have to be through the front door.
At this hour of the morning, all the trendy bars and cafés in the area are closed. The coffee shop across the street would open in a few hours, but right now its glass front gleamed black under the streetlamps like a pond.
I moved cautiously down the street, gun in hand. No one was out that I could see. But if pros were conducting surveillance, it could be done by remote camera. They wouldn’t have to be on the street.
A rat leaped from a garbage can at my approach, and I came close to screaming. I had to stop and gulp down the wave of panic that swept over me, as it ran out onto the sidewalk. Still, I couldn’t hold back a little cry. A car drove up the street and turned left onto Cortlandt. It was missing a taillight. Dornick looked like the buttoned-down type who wouldn’t let you work for him if your car was missing a light. Or would he use a car like this to make me think he wasn’t watching me?