"Forgot about her already," Clive said, "If you go by the blonde who's-"

"Clive," the heavyset woman warned.

This time, he subsided, but as I opened the door to leave I heard the others pick up the gossip. One woman, who worked at a neighboring estate, had heard the doctor say the new girlfriend was already five months pregnant. Another had seen her wearing a necklace that used to belong to Melanie. Diamonds and emeralds, worth a hundred grand, easy.

As I got into my car, the two men who'd been watching me left the coffee bar and climbed into the utility truck. They followed me when I turned onto Argos Lane. I didn't slow for the Kystarnik estate, but the truck stayed with me as the road wound around a golf course and bent south. When I connected with a major artery, I stood on the brakes and jumped out.

The pa.s.senger got out of the utility truck and came over to me, no hurry. "You're just visiting the area, but you drive a car registered to a local person, hmm?"

"And you drive a truck, but you've got computer access to the Illinois DMV in it," I said. "You handling the feds' stakeout on Kystarnik?"

Hands on hips, he gave me a Clint Eastwood stare that made him think he looked tough. "Maybe you should get back to the city where you belong."

"Maybe, indeed," I agreed. "Any reason to think my old friend Melanie was killed to make way for the new pregnant blonde?"

"We've entered your plate number into our database," he said by way of reply.

"Now I am impressed. Or I would be if I didn't already have a federal file. By the way, if you want anyone to believe your work really requires a hard hat, nix the weekly manicures."

When he pulled off one of his gloves to look at his nails, I took a picture of the utility truck's license plate with my cell phone. He ran to my side, dropping his glove, and tried to grab my phone.

"Off-limits," he said.

I shook my head. "I have no idea who you are. I thought you were with the feds, but now I'm thinking you work for Kystarnik. The Chicago cops need to see who's tied to his operation."

The other guy got out of the truck. "What's the problem here?"

"Problem is, she took a picture of our plate."

"Problem is," I said, "you guys are hanging out around a thug. If you're on his payroll-"

"Oh, Chrissake, Troy, show her your badge."

The first guy scowled but pulled out his ID. Troy Murano was with the Secret Service, not the FBI after all. In a spirit of generous reciprocity, I showed them my PI license.

Besides guarding the President, the Secret Service investigates large-scale fraud, but when I tried to ask Troy and his partner what they thought Kystarnik was up to, they told me to mind my own business.

"So why is a Chicago PI sniffing around him?" the partner asked.

"Just minding my own business," I said in the spirit of reciprocity. I tucked my cell phone into my pocket before getting back into my car.

The utility truck didn't follow me when I turned onto the main road. I pulled into another strip mall and shared my sandwich with the dogs, who were getting restless after spending several hours in the car.

If the Secret Service was tagging around after Kystarnik, they weren't being too secretive about it-those security cameras dotting Kystarnik's fence would have spotted the utility truck long ago. Maybe the feds were hoping to pressure him into a misstep. If he was laundering money, maybe they thought he'd reveal his bank accounts to their electronic scanners. Maybe I should have suggested they look at Club Gouge, but, for all I knew, they already had a lead on Rodney and the club. More than ever, I wanted to get my cousin out of the place.

I guess it had been instructive to drive up here, although it was hard to say what I'd gained besides seeing my tax dollars at work.

I turned to my voice mail, which had been beeping at me in some indignation. "You have eleven new messages," it cried in my ear.

One of the calls was from Sanford Rieff at the Cheviot labs, saying he'd found something interesting. Since I was in their neck of the woods, I drove on west to Cheviot's complex.

Rieff came out to the lobby to see me. "Vic! I don't have anything so dramatic or definite that you needed to make a trip out here."

"I was in the area," I explained. "What's up?"

"We're still waiting for a report back from a national ballistics clearing center to see if the two guns are involved in any other shootings, but we've done an a.n.a.lysis of the beer cans. Ma.s.s spectrometry shows a high concentration of Rohypnol. Roofie, you probably call it. In beer like that-whoever drank it is probably very sick."

Roofie. The date rape drug.

"He's in a coma," I said slowly. "Is there any way to tell if he put it in the beer himself?"

Rieff smiled. "That's the interesting piece of your little puzzle. If this comes to court, it's going to be tricky, very tricky. Lawyers and expert witnesses will battle for days, and defendants will watch their bank accounts vanish before their startled eyes."

"Thanks, Sandy, but why?"

He led me back to his office and brought my report up on his computer screen so I could see the graphics.

"The fingerprints on the cans are odd, at least to Louis Arata, who's our expert. If you pick up a can or a gla.s.s yourself, you press only one finger, usually the middle, full against it. Besides your thumb, of course. You touch the can with the tips of the other fingers. Here, face on, we have prints for all five fingers."

He tapped the screen with a soft pointer to show me what he meant. "The can is clean except for those five fingers. Usually, you pick a can up, put it down, pick it up. Your prints soon overlay one another. I'm betting-or Louis Arata is betting-that a third party held the drinker's fingers on the can. I'll put it all in writing for you."

I stared at the screen while Rieff rotated the image for me. Who would have gone to so much trouble to frame Chad Vishneski? Rodney and Olympia? Karen Buckley? Anton Kystarnik? And why? That was the even more urgent question.

I got up to go.

"I'd say this is pretty darn dramatic, Sandy. Guard those beer cans and so on in your deepest vault."

Back in my car, I talked with Lotty's clinic nurse, Jewel Kim, and told her about the Rohypnol. "Can you make sure that Lotty and her pet neurosurgeon know ASAP? I don't know if it can help with Chad's treatment this many days out, but that's probably what put him in the coma."

Jewel looked at Lotty's notes on Chad. "She's ordered a broad-spectrum search for drugs, but I will let her know that she can narrow it down to Rohypnol. Thanks, Vic."

I stared out the windshield for a long time, thinking over Rieff's report. I e-mailed the gist of it to Freeman Carter, and then, even though I knew Freeman would advise against it, I called Terry Finchley. He answered the line himself, but when I announced myself his voice grew cold. He was still angry, which prompted me to become super-perky.

"Guess where I am right now."

"If you said sunning yourself on a Florida beach, now that would cheer me up."

"Almost. I'm on the banks of the Skokie Lagoon. At the Cheviot labs, where they did some nifty forensic work on the beer cans that had been in Chad Vishneski's bed. Guess what they found?"

"I'm not in the mood, V.I. Just tell me."

"Roofies."

"So the perp tried to off himself. Make my day."

"The fingerprint a.n.a.lysis suggests a third party was present."

The dogs had been cooped up in the car too long. They were whining at me, making it hard to hear Finchley. Cheviot's building sat in a culde-sac that backed into one of the lagoons that dot the area. I let Mitch and Peppy out.

"Why are you doing this?" Finchley demanded.

"Doing what?"

"Trying to show me up over the Guaman homicide. I know you and I have had our differences, but-"

"Terry, I've always liked you, and I respect you as a cop. I'm not trying to show you up. If I were, I'd be giving my news to Murray Ryerson to broadcast wholesale instead of telling you."

Mitch had found something to roll in. Peppy was barking at him, demanding her turn. I pretended I didn't know them.

"I told you yesterday that Nadia Guaman's and Chad Vishneski's computers were both missing. This makes me think that one or both of them knew something a third party wants to keep hidden. I just learned there's a story about Vishneski's beer cans: not only did someone mix Rohypnol in his beer, they wiped the cans clean and then placed his fingers on them to make prints once he'd pa.s.sed out."

"You'd be hard-pressed to argue fingerprint pressure in court," Finchley said.

"That may be true, although Freeman Carter has persuaded juries of more implausible things. But I don't think we'll get to a courtroom. I started this investigation prejudiced against my client's son, but the more I learn, the more I think he was framed, poor stressed-out vet. Someone's covering their tracks exceptionally well, but somewhere, somehow, they're sure to have slipped up. When I find whatever mistake the real perp made, I'm counting on you to release Chad Vishneski. a.s.suming he's still alive."

"Oh, d.a.m.n you, anyway, Warshawski."

He cut the connection. The dogs had moved down to the lagoon. I trailed after them, stopping where they'd been rolling. A dead racc.o.o.n. When I'd persuaded them to get back in the car, I was annoyed with myself for my stupidity in letting them run free. They stank, and it was too cold to ride the Tollway with the windows open.

I drove along Dundee Road until I came to a groomer's. I had to wait almost an hour until they could fit in Mitch and Peppy, but the wait allowed me to catch up on the rest of my calls. Even the expense of two shampoos beat wrestling the dogs into my own bathtub at home.

22.

The Road to Kufah.

I stopped at my apartment just long enough to leave the dogs with Mr. Contreras. At my office, I found a little pot of tulips heavily wrapped in newspaper on the doorstep and a note from the client. stopped at my apartment just long enough to leave the dogs with Mr. Contreras. At my office, I found a little pot of tulips heavily wrapped in newspaper on the doorstep and a note from the client.

We got Chad moved to Beth Israel, and now Mona's sitting with him. I like your doc. She said to bring along some of his music to play when we can't be there, so Mona's got his iPod running and I'll play my clarinet for him tonight. I guess you know what you're doing.

J.V.

The candy-cane-striped tulips made a bright circle of color on my desk. Heartened by the flowers, and the client's goodwill, I wrote up my notes for the day. I synced my handheld with my machine so that the names I'd seen in Widermayer's a.s.sistant's spreadsheet got uploaded into my case file software. Ludwig Nastase, Michael Durante, Konstantin Feder. There'd been a woman as well, a Bettina Lyzhneska. A truly diverse, international crew, rounded out by Rodney Treffer.

I went back to Rodney's cryptic jottings, wondering if any of the letters he'd written on the Body Artist corresponded to his teammates' names. There'd been several I I's and O O's, along with C, L, C, L, and and S. S. Except for Lyzhneska and Ludwig, I couldn't see a match. Except for Lyzhneska and Ludwig, I couldn't see a match.

I wrestled with the numbers. I've never been a fan of codes and ciphers, and these looked so random that you probably needed a key to uncode them. Maybe they were page numbers, where you counted lines and letters, but you'd have to know the book first.

Still, I'd had a bit of a break today, getting Rodney's last name. I did a little rooting around on him, and on Owen Widermayer as well. Rodney had been a cop with the Milwaukee PD. Now LifeStory claimed he was an independent security contractor. I remembered Olympia's brittle laugh, her referring to him as her "insecurity." He'd been divorced-twice-and both his ex-wives had entered orders of protection against him. Big surprise there.

Widermayer's profile was blander. He lived in Winnetka, he was on the board of his temple, serving as their accountant. Other than that, I couldn't get a client list out of my databases, but that didn't really surprise me. I kind of thought Kystarnik might be Widermayer's only client; looking after a mob thug could be a full-time job.

At six-thirty, I left for my meeting with Tim Radke. Plotzky's, the bar he'd chosen, was on the western end of Division Street where Nelson Algren used to hang out. Algren probably wouldn't recognize the street anymore. West of Ashland, the newest Yuppie invasion had turned the cold-water flats and honky-tonk joints into expensive lofts and restaurants with names like Suivi and Arret. Instead of a shot and a beer, you got martinis with funny names and weird ingredients.

Plotzky's was one of the last surviving blue-collar joints. With an upscale sushi place on one side and a wine bar on the other, I didn't give them much chance.

It was a few minutes before seven when I got there. A handful of men in their forties or fifties were sitting at the bar, their parkas unzipped to reveal dirty work clothes. Unlike my federal friends in Roehampton this afternoon, these men had earned their hard hats.

The Black Hawks pregame show was on the TV over the bar. No one was watching it. They were rehashing their own lives with each other and with the bartender, a middle-aged woman with bleached hair and thick pancake makeup. Like Sal at the Golden Glow, she kept an eye on the whole room while nodding empathically at the men talking to her.

I looked around but didn't see anyone who seemed to be waiting for me. I perched on a stool near the street door. The bartender put her hand on the arm of one of the men.

"Be right back, Phil. What'll yours be, honey? Scotch? We got Dewar's, White Horse, Johnnie Red."

I chose Dewar's. The regulars eyed me with a frank, impersonal curiosity, then went back to their own conversations. After twenty minutes, when I was beginning to wonder if Radke had gotten cold feet, a guy in a worn Army parka came in. I recognized his pitted, craggy face. He was the man who'd run after Chad when he'd confronted Nadia in the parking lot.

I got to my feet and sketched a wave. Radke came over to me at once, but nodded along the way at the other men at the bar, who called out greetings when they saw him.

"Gerri, don't go bringing him no beer without seeing his ID first. Kid's too young to drink in public, even if he's trying to impress his date."

"Don't pay them any mind, honey. They're just jealous that they have to drink alone," Gerri said to Tim. "Bud?" She slapped down a bottle on the bar in front of him.

"You were at the club, weren't you?" Radke said to me once the men stopped razzing him.

"Yes-you and I almost ran over each other backstage when Chad was chasing after Nadia Guaman that time. I told you on the phone that Chad's father hired me to find out what was going on, how Chad got involved with Nadia Guaman."

Radke nodded cautiously over the neck of the bottle.

"I'm having trouble getting any information about either Chad or Nadia," I said, "so anything you can tell me would be a help."

"I didn't know him that well," Radke warned me.

"I thought you were in Iraq together."

"Iraq's a big country, and we were in a big Army. Chad, he was in a rifle company. Me? I was in Network Support."

"Network Support? Computers in the field, you mean?"

"The whole Army runs on computers these days. I came to be pretty good, but I don't have a college degree or anything, so when I got out I could only get me a job installing electronics. Maybe something better'll come along when the economy picks up, if I haven't forgotten everything the Army taught me."

He gave a tired smile. "Anyway, Chad, him and me, we never met until we got home. We were part of the same post-deployment group at the VA. How is he? On the news, they said he tried to commit suicide and was unconscious, but when I tried to go see him, they had him in prison, not in a hospital."

He smacked his bottle down on the countertop. "I couldn't get permission to go see him. Him and me, we fought for our country, and some two-bit county employee gets to tell me whether I can see my own buddy or not. If it was even a cop, I wouldn't take it so hard-they're like every soldier I ever met, putting their lives on the line every d.a.m.ned day of the week. But these county a.s.sholes, getting jobs just because they raised so much money for some politician, and then lording it over . . ."

Gerri moved within range in case I needed to be thrown out for annoying one of her regulars. Radke subsided but twisted his beer bottle so ferociously, I thought the gla.s.s might break in his hands.

"I got the police to let us move Chad from the prison hospital to Beth Israel," I told him. "I haven't been able to speak to the doctor in charge, so I can't tell you how he's doing, but I'm sure his folks would let you go see him now that he's in a regular hospital."

Radke asked me to write down the address, and the name of the doctor, and promised he'd stop by as soon as he had time. "It'd be better if he was at the VA on account of the insurance, but I know you went out of your way getting him out of that h.e.l.lhole. Well, you didn't ask me here to rant and rave. What did you want to know?"

"When Chad and Nadia were arguing, it sounded like a couple in the middle of an angry divorce. But John Vishneski says Chad didn't know Nadia."

"I don't think he did."