Mr. Contreras pawed through the newspapers on his coffee table and came up with an envelope that had the Cheviot labs logo-two rams going head-to-head-on the corner. Inside were my car keys and a receipt from Sanford Rieff's a.s.sistant, listing the duffel bag, the black armor mitt, and the sand, and summarizing the search I'd requested.

Mr. Contreras insisted on cooking for me, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast. When he saw how painful it was for me to sit down, he also insisted that I go see Lotty.

"We'll take a cab, doll. You can't take a chance. If you got a perforated kidney or something, you gotta get it looked at."

"You know darned well how much I hate being in the medical maw," I grumbled. "I can eat, I'm not bleeding when I go to the bathroom."

"Even so, even so . . . I'm calling that service you used for the dogs when you was in Italy last summer; they'll walk them until you're fit again. And I'm going upstairs to get your coat while you finish your eggs."

Lotty was in her clinic today, not at Beth Israel. When Mr. Contreras and I reached the storefront on Damen Avenue, we found a roomful of the usual clientele: streppy kids, overweight adults with diabetes, worried pregnant teens. Mrs. Coltrain, Lotty's receptionist, has handled all of her patients for fifteen years, with the poise of Solti conducting the CSO. When I told her what had happened, she promised to fit me in as soon as she could.

While I waited, I used the clinic landline to call my cousin. Konstantin and Ludwig had told me last night that Anton was tracking me through my cell phone, so I just couldn't take a chance on using it.

Petra was at her apartment, tired, nervous, not sure she was ready for detective work. "Marty Jepson is here, though," she suddenly thought to say. "He came over to see how I was doing. And we're watching some of the Body Artist's DVDs together. So far, it looks like old stuff. Collages, things that she photographed and uploaded later."

Jewel Kim, the advanced practice nurse who ran the clinic while Lotty was at the hospital, interrupted me then and took me into one of the exam rooms. "We can send you for an MRI if you want it, Vic, and I'll have Lotty double-check you, but I don't think you have any organ damage. I know it's miserable outside, but you should put cold packs on your belly until the swelling goes down. Try arnica as well."

Lotty came in a few minutes later. "Victoria, what on earth-no, never mind, I don't have time, what with all these people worried that their colds are swine flu and the ones with swine flu who waited too late to come in. You weren't reckless, no one could ever ever say you were reckless. Simply, you were minding your own business until someone kicked you. That's good enough for me." say you were reckless. Simply, you were minding your own business until someone kicked you. That's good enough for me."

"Thank you, Lotty, I knew you would understand." I was bitter at her sarcasm. "In fact, I was minding my own business-at least, I was tending to my detective business. I do not go out of my way to get hurt. If a bully is running the street, do you want me to stay inside with the door locked and hope he hurts someone else?"

Lotty had been probing my abdomen with quick, skillful pressure, pinpointing the sorest spots, but she stopped, fingers over my right ovary. "I don't suppose there's a middle ground? Perhaps with a bully, there never is."

She finished her probing. "So-do as Jewel suggests, a cold compress, arnica. I'll give you prescriptions for a good anti-inflammatory, and an antibiotic, to be on the safe side. In a day or two, with your DNA, the worst will be past. You won't run or let those dogs pull on you for a week."

The last sentence was a command, not an observation, and I took it meekly with me to the waiting room.

38.

A Pleasant Chat with Olympia.

Mr. Contreras was torn between relief that nothing serious was amiss and disappointment that I couldn't be confined to quarters for a month or two while he looked after me. He rode with me in the taxi down to my office so I could collect my car. When I told him I wasn't going home, he tried to argue with me at first, then decided he should drive me.

"I'm going to pay a surprise visit to Olympia Koilada," I said. "You sure you want to come along? I can't have you breaking her neck, or anything, just because you don't like the way she treated Petra."

"You're the one that likes to run around town getting beat up. I'll be there to protect whichever one of you needs it most."

I laughed, clutching my abdomen, and turned the keys over to him.

Olympia lived in a loft building just northwest of the Gold Coast, one of those conversions that followed the gutting of Chicago's old industrial corridor. According to my computer search, she'd paid almost a million dollars for half of the fourth floor, the side that faced the Chicago River. I wondered what it would fetch if she had to liquidate in the middle of this slump.

When I rang Olympia's bell, she squawked at me through the intercom.

"It's V. I. Warshawski, Olympia."

"Go away," she snapped.

"I don't think so. I think we'll have a lovely conversation about you, Anton, and money laundering."

A couple of minutes pa.s.sed where the wind made a good subst.i.tute for an ice pack on my sore belly, and then a buzzer sounded, unlocking the door. When we got off the elevator at the fourth floor, Olympia's door was cracked open. She waited until we got close enough for her to identify us before she opened it all the way.

I had never seen her away from the club. In blue jeans and a turtle-neck, without makeup, she looked younger, even a bit vulnerable, although the large gun in her left hand kind of countered that image.

"Rodney kicked me so hard last night that I'm having trouble getting around today," I said. "My neighbor, Salvatore Contreras, is helping me out. Mr. Contreras, Olympia Koilada."

Mr. Contreras stuck a hand out, but Olympia didn't move. I lifted my sweater and peeled back the Ace bandage to show her my bruises.

She blenched. "Rodney did that?"

"Yes indeed. But it was all for the good because, after he got knocked out, I persuaded two of his cretinous team to confide Anton's code to me."

"You knocked Rodney out? Oh my G.o.d."

I didn't tell her the big role luck played in my salvation last night. I wanted her to think that I was as powerful-more powerful, even-than her tormentor. Besides, in a way I had knocked him out-he'd slipped on my vomit, after all.

"Weeks ago, I told you to trust me," I said. "If you had talked to me to begin with, I wouldn't have these bruises today."

Olympia moved away from the door, the gun shaking in her left hand. We followed her in, shutting and bolting the door. I took her gun and sat down on a white couch. My boots were making dirty little puddles on the salt-and-pepper rug, but Olympia didn't seem to notice.

"You know about Anton's code, right? You knew the feds were investigating Kystarnik's mob ties, but you let him have the run of your club, or at least let his chief enforcer have the run, because he'd bailed you out. What other favors are you doing for him?"

"Where is Rodney now?" Olympia didn't seem to have heard me. "Did he follow you here?"

"I don't know, and I don't care, but you apparently do. Don't tell me you're sleeping with him-that's so disgusting, I can't bear to think about it."

"If Anton and Rodney think I'm helping you," she said, "I might as well jump off the roof right now and end everything the easy way." Her words were melodramatic, but her tone was matter-of-fact.

"Hey, that's no way to talk," Mr. Contreras reproved her. "If you've gotten yourself in trouble and you're too scared to talk to the cops, talk to Vic here. She's helped people in worse trouble than you are in."

Olympia flicked a contemptuous glance at him: no one had ever been in worse trouble than she.

"So," I said, "Rodney telegraphed bank codes to Anton's overseas pals via the Body Artist's b.u.t.t. What else? You slipped Petra extra money to pretend she hadn't noticed him copping a feel. Don't tell me you let him sleep with your staff."

"Not everyone thinks her body is as sacred as you seem to." Olympia shrugged. "If the money was right . . . It's a bad economy . . ."

I thought I might throw up again. My neighbor, as her meaning dawned on him, started a furious protest-directed against me-for letting Petra work in such an environment.

"Later," I said to him. "Rodney had the hots for Petra, so you kept her on, but I was too close to her for his comfort. He told you to give her the ax, right?"

She shook her head. "It wasn't like that."

"What was it like, then?"

I didn't keep the contempt out of my voice. She flinched but didn't speak.

"Let's see," I continued. "You provided Rodney with s.e.x partners and set up Anton's message board. That doesn't seem like enough to offset a million dollars of debt. What else? Could it be-money laundering? Anton paid off your debts, right? So that while you used to bleed money like scarlet, your books are now white as wool. And, in return, for whatever businesses he's involved in where he doesn't want the feds to see his cash flow, he can funnel money through Club Gouge.

"No wonder your business began to take off last fall when the Body Artist appeared on your stage. You suddenly had money to burn. At least, it was Anton's money, but you could advertise in the important places, you could invest in that shiny set of plasma screens and that really cool sound system. What was the Artist's role in all this? Did she sleep with Rodney?"

Olympia made a sour face. "It was all I could do to get her to sit still when he was painting her. That was Anton's idea, when he first heard about her act. He thought it would be a good way to keep the feds from tracking his offsh.o.r.e accounts. Now that you've ruined that, I don't know what I'll do."

"Say it more plaintively," I suggested. "Make me care. Karen Buckley has disappeared, by the way. Any thoughts on where she'd go? On who would take her in?"

"That stupid girl who drools on her, I suppose," Olympia said.

"Rivka Darling? Think harder, dig deeper in your brain."

"I don't care," Olympia shouted. "She was a royal pain to work with, a f.u.c.king prima donna! If Anton hadn't told me-"

"Told you what?" I said when she bit the statement off. "What her real name was?"

"I knew knew it couldn't be Karen Buckley! What is it, really?" it couldn't be Karen Buckley! What is it, really?"

"How did you know?"

She looked sulky but said, "You're not the only detective in Chicago. I saw Anton had some kind of hold on Karen, so I hired Brett Taylor to run a background check. He dug deep, but he couldn't find word one about her. And then he charged me a bundle!"

Brett Taylor was another solo op in town. Our paths crossed occasionally.

"What a happy little band you are at Club Gouge," I said. "Anton has you clamped in a vise. You spy on your performers so that you can hold any secrets you uncover over their heads-we won't use such an ugly word as blackmail blackmail. Who's Anton working for now, by the way?"

A sly smile tilted the corners of her mouth. "I couldn't say, although if I knew Karen Buckley's real name, it might trigger a memory or two."

"Can't tell you that." I got to my feet. "I'll be talking to Terry Finchley, the cop who's spearheading the Guaman murder investigation. I'll be sure to let him know he should look at your books. Not the books the IRS sees-the ones Anton's pet CPA, Owen Widermayer, keeps for you."

"You wouldn't! You can't go to the cops. Not when your own niece-"

"She's my cousin, not my niece. And if you try to smear her, it won't be Anton Kystarnik who puts a bullet through you."

"Yeah, it'll be me." Mr. Contreras startled both of us, he'd been silent so long. "You letting a horror show like that Rodney stick a hand on her and paying her-you're no better than a pimp yourself."

Olympia looked from Mr. Contreras to me. "If I tell you," she said, "if I help you, will you promise not to talk to this cop, this Finchley?"

"Of course not: I'm a licensed investigator. I could lose my license if I covered up a crime, especially one like laundering money for the mob." I moved to the door.

"I'll call Officer Finchley myself," she said boldly. "I'll tell him I just found out that Anton was using my club as a front."

"And he'll believe you because he's such a gullible guy. Especially if you wear that black thing that shows off your cleavage," I suggested.

She held out her hands, beseeching, sister to sister. "You could help me," she pleaded. "You could tell him you discovered the discrepancy when you were investigating this Guaman murder. And when you brought it to my attention-"

"Your cooked books are connected to the Guaman murder? Is that what Chad and Nadia were arguing about?" I stopped with my hand on the k.n.o.b, my jaw gaping in astonishment. Was that what had been in Chad's black mitt-some microchip with Olympia's accounting data on it?

"What do you mean, my cooked books?" she protested belatedly. "As for Chad and Nadia, they were just a couple of f.u.c.ked-up people who came to the club. And that's all you'll get from me. Unless you back me up when you talk to your tame cop."

39.

Girlie Mags-and Fortune Fortune.

As soon as we were in the elevator, Mr. Contreras tore into me.

"Why didn't you tell me that woman was letting some sc.u.mbag put his filthy hands on Peewee? Why didn't she tell me herself? She shoulda known I'd help her out if she got in a jam."

I put an arm around him.

"Darling, the only reason we didn't tell you is because we love you. What good would it do either of us if you were in prison for murder, even if you killed a sc.u.mbag who wouldn't be missed?"

He let himself be mollified at the suggestion that I thought he was tough enough to kill someone who bothered Petra. He drove me to the store, helped me push my shopping cart, didn't fight me over the bill even though he'd put a few items of his own in the cart.

"Guess I can call that payment for chauffeuring you, doll."

I needed to be in motion, but I was so exhausted by the outing that I had to lie down when we got home. I let Mr. Contreras put my chicken in the oven to roast, let him make me an ice pack to put on my sore stomach while he settled down in my living room with the dogs.

I tried to relax, but I kept replaying my conversation with Olympia. She was afraid of Anton, but who wouldn't be? She seemed especially afraid that he would know that I'd been to see her. I felt a grudging sympathy. When I met Anton last night, I hadn't been sure I'd be alive today. In fact, if Tim and Marty hadn't come along, I might well not be.

The ice had melted through my Ace bandage, and my stomach was wet and cold. A counter-irritant to take my mind off the pain. I rolled to a sitting position and unwrapped the bandage.

Nadia had kept painting Allie's face surrounded by the same design that was on Chad's body armor. If Rodney and Anton had been using the Body Artist as a message board, maybe Nadia had been doing the same thing. She was writing about her sister, that was definite. But the rest of the message was obscure. There was a connection to Chad's body armor, but was it to the secret object he might have brought back with him from Iraq? Or was it to Chad himself, or to his ma.s.sacred squad?

I thought of the p.o.r.n magazines I'd taken from under Mona Vishneski's bed, the magazines Chad had tucked away so Mom wouldn't see them. Maybe Allie had posed in one of them and Chad was blackmailing the Guaman family. The magazines were at my office.

I got to my feet, put on a dry shirt, pulled on a sweater over it-a big, loose one that didn't require me to wriggle and struggle-and went to the living room. Mr. Contreras was dozing on the couch. I thought about slipping out without waking him on the theory that it was better to apologize than to explain, but we'd had too many skirmishes over the years about my secretive nature. And I was too weak and sore to fight my friends along with my enemies.

When I woke my neighbor, he didn't want to go back out in the cold and snow, and who could blame him? He argued that the magazines could wait until morning, but when I said I'd call Petra, ask her to stop at the office and find what I needed, he grumped to his feet.

"You ain't sticking Peewee's head in another tiger trap."

"There's nothing dangerous about going to my office," I objected.

"Trust me, if you send little Petra there to get a magazine for you, chances are someone's put a bomb in it."

"So you'd rather my head got blown off?" I was half teasing, half hurt.

"Don't give me those puppy-dog eyes," he growled. "All the years I been knowing you, I been begging you to keep yourself safe, and you ain't paid one minute of heed to me. I'm just asking you to take better care of the kid than you do of yourself. Look at you-bruises on your hand, your stomach, would make your own mother faint-"

"You're right." Gabriella used to beg me the same as Mr. Contreras when my cousin Boom-Boom and I ran into danger. Cuore mio, Cuore mio, spare me more grief than my life has already held. spare me more grief than my life has already held.