"Can't Peppy look after me?"

"Peppy's a lover, not a fighter. And don't you have allergies? I thought that's why your granny said Ernest couldn't get a dog."

Clara sat up. "I'm not really allergic, at least not very-it's just that my abuela abuela doesn't want a dog. She thinks she'll be stuck looking after it." doesn't want a dog. She thinks she'll be stuck looking after it."

Clara's skin was puffy, and the broken nose was radiating bruises out under her eyes. Just as well Lotty had taken care of her at the clinic. Clara would have been whisked off by Child Protective Services faster than the speed of light if a hospital social worker had seen that face.

I dug out some clean jeans and a sweater that I thought would fit her. "You need to get dressed, and get some food. Then we'll talk to your mom and your school and figure out how to navigate the next week or so until we get this nightmare all sorted out."

"I can't go home! Mom is so furious with me. And those people, they'll be watching for me."

"That's why you need to move. Because as soon as I have you squared away, I'm going to call Prince Rainier to tell him I have the doc.u.ments. That will bring him hotfoot to my side. Where you definitely definitely don't need to be." don't need to be."

"But where can I go?"

"I have an idea on that, but I need to see your mom first. Meanwhile, time's a-wasting. We have three hours to accomplish our whole agenda. You get dressed while I organize some food. Come on, up and at 'em. It's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog, and all that good stuff."

Between a laugh and a snarl, Clara finally hoisted herself out of bed and shuffled off to the bathroom. I phoned down to Mr. Contreras, who was vociferous in relief at hearing from me-Didn't want to call up in case you was sleeping in, but I been worrying about the kid. She okay? As I'd shamelessly a.s.sumed, he was glad to provide breakfast-French toast, his specialty-and the kid wasn't one of those teens who starved herself, was she, whatever for, healthy girls thinking they had to act like they lived in Darfur? As I'd shamelessly a.s.sumed, he was glad to provide breakfast-French toast, his specialty-and the kid wasn't one of those teens who starved herself, was she, whatever for, healthy girls thinking they had to act like they lived in Darfur?

"Give us half an hour."

Clara was spending a teenage eternity in the bathroom. I put on coffee and got dressed for my meeting with Darraugh. The current pride of my wardrobe was a burgundy Carolina Herrera pantsuit that I'd found in Mexico City at Christmas, cut on the bias so that the wool jacket fell in a flattering line from the high-standing collar to the hips. My gun made an unsightly bulge at the waist, so I dug an ankle holster out of my closet.

I rapped on the bathroom door.

"Come on, Clara. I need to get in there to put on makeup."

"I can't come out, I look like I've been attacked by g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers. What will the kids say when they see me?"

"I already know what you look like, so your face isn't going to shock me. We'll figure out the rest after breakfast."

There was silence for a few more seconds on the other side of the door, and then Clara switched on my hair dryer. I packed a suitcase with enough clothes for a few days away from home. A box of sh.e.l.ls and a spare clip for the Smith & Wesson. My laptop and my backup drive. By the time I'd done all that, turned down the heat, and parked my mother's Venetian gla.s.ses and my personal financial doc.u.ments in Jake's front room, Clara finally emerged.

She'd used my foundation with a lavish hand, covering the spidery network of broken blood vessels so thoroughly that her face looked startling, like a Kabuki mask.

"Well done," I said briskly, collecting what was left of my makeup and sticking it in my bag. I'd finish my own face later.

Before she could come up with any more delaying tactics, I picked up her French book and ushered her down the stairs toward Mr. Contreras. My neighbor had breakfast laid out on his kitchen table. It wasn't until we were facing each other across his wife's old checked red tablecloth that I remembered her name had also been Clara. This would add to his already strong interest in the youngest Guaman sister's welfare, and it would make it harder for him to let her go back into the world.

"We are going to have a long day," I told him. "We're going to Clara's school to explain why she's tardy and see if it's a secure enough campus. Then we're going to see her mother and find a safe place for them to sleep."

Mr. Contreras said there wasn't any place safer than his apartment, and I had to go through a longer version of the litany I'd just covered with Clara, including the fact that I was going to announce myself as the tethered goat.

He didn't like any of it, sending Clara away, letting her go to school, or even me using myself as bait, although that was at the bottom of his list of objections. I finally suggested he accompany us to her school.

"I'll go get the car and meet you in the alley in twenty minutes. Clara can finish her breakfast and say good-bye to Peppy."

I went out the back way and down the alley to the side street, where I'd parked early this morning. The car didn't blow up when I unlocked it or even when I turned over the engine. Good signs. And, even better, Mr. Contreras and Clara arrived within a minute of my pulling up behind our building.

We had a quick run down Ashland to St. Teresa of Avila. It was after one-thirty now, and I was starting to worry about the clock. Clara's princ.i.p.al, Dr. Hausman, turned out to be a sharp, intelligent woman who quickly took in the details of what had happened. Hausman was cautious at first about talking to me, which made Mr. Contreras bristle. As soon as I put her in touch with Lotty, though, the princ.i.p.al became briskly professional.

"We did call your mother when you didn't appear this morning," Hausman said to Clara, "and she was quite upset but didn't give me any details. I can see why now. We'll give you a pa.s.s for today, but I'm going to send you off to your counselor to work out how to make up your missing a.s.signments for today. Ms. Warshawski and I will figure out the best way to keep you in school and keep you safe."

Dr. Hausman had the happy notion of sending Mr. Contreras with Clara. As soon as they had gone down the hall to the counselor's office, she said, "I've been here long enough that I knew both Alexandra and Nadia. Their deaths have been a heavy burden on Clara, and she's taken refuge in sarcasm and hostility, but, mercifully, she's also taken refuge in her studies. I don't want her cla.s.s attendance to suffer, yet I also don't want her in the kind of danger that cost her sisters their lives."

"I'm going to try to persuade her mother to go to Arcadia House," I said. "It's a shelter for domestic-violence victims, and I'm on the board. If I can line up someone to act as a bodyguard to and from the shelter to the school, will Clara be safe here during the day or should I try to have someone sit with her?"

The princ.i.p.al thought it over. "How secure did you think we were when you got in just now?"

"It wasn't bad, as far as it went-we came in through the main door, and we had to show some ID. I don't know what the rest of your campus is like, how many open doors there are, and I don't have time to look around this afternoon."

Hausman nodded. "I'll talk to my security staff and arrange for someone to be outside any cla.s.sroom where Clara is for the next week. If it goes on longer than that, then you'll have to hire guards. It's not fair to the school as a whole to divert resources to one student. We had an Israeli diplomat's child here for a semester, and he'd brought in his own guards. The kids took it in stride, once the initial excitement died down, so I don't think they'll overreact to anyone you bring in for Clara."

She walked with me down to the counselor's office, where we collected Clara and Mr. Contreras. As we walked through the high limestone gates separating the school from the street, I put my gun into my coat pocket and kept my hand on it, but the only people on the street were waiting at the bus stop at the corner, and none of them paid us any attention.

If our meeting at the school went more easily than I'd feared, our conversation with Clara's mother was more difficult. When we got to Twenty-first Place, it was clear that someone was watching the house and not making any secret of it. A late-model black Lexus was parked in front, engine running, with either Konstantin or Ludwig at the wheel.

I didn't slow, just went straight on to Ashland, where I parked near a busy coffee shop.

"That car in front of the house," Clara said, "that was one of the men who hit me last night." Her eyes were big in her Kabuki face.

"Yes," I said, "I know who he is. I need you to call your mother, see if she's home or at work, and get her to meet us here." I put the battery in my cell phone and handed it to Clara.

After a moment's hesitation, looking from me to Mr. Contreras, she typed in the number. "Ma, it's me . . . I'm fine, just sore. Dr. Herschel, she did a great job fixing my nose. She says I shouldn't even need surgery . . . No, I can't come home! . . . No, he's in front of the house, waiting for me . . . No, Ma, if I come home, he'll kill me. You want all your children gone? . . . I'm sorry, I'm sorry . . . Please, Ma, come to me. I'm at Julia's Cafe con Leche on Ashland . . . No, now. Please, Mama!"

The incipient hysteria in her voice was genuine and apparently got through to her mother. Clara handed me back the phone, saying Cristina was coming. I removed the battery again and hustled our little group into Julia's to buy coffee and sandwiches. I insisted that we eat in the car. I didn't want a row of sitting ducklings inside the coffee shop if someone trailed Clara's mother here.

We had an agonizing half hour before Cristina appeared. As soon as Clara saw her mother, she jumped out of the car and ran to embrace her. I hurried after, anxious to get the Guamans off the streets.

Cristina Guaman's face was as gray and puffy as her daughter's. "Why are you torturing my family?"

I surveyed the street behind her. "Were you followed here?"

"I don't know. I hope not. I went out the back door and crossed the neighbor's yard to come out on Twenty-second Street. Why are you putting Clara in harm's way? Why did you get my Nadia killed?"

Mr. Contreras said, "She ain't the person killing your children. If you'd been a better ma to your girls, not blaming them for the lives they were leading, your oldest kid wouldn't never have gone off to Iraq in the first place."

"How dare you!" Cristina said to him. She turned to me, "Is this your husband?"

The question embarra.s.sed me almost as much as it did the old man, but I didn't bother to answer. We were starting to draw an audience, people wanting to know who was attacking who here-and it was was hard to tell, from the way we were standing, who was the a.s.sailant, who the victim. Since I was a well-dressed gringa in a poor area, I didn't want to push my luck. hard to tell, from the way we were standing, who was the a.s.sailant, who the victim. Since I was a well-dressed gringa in a poor area, I didn't want to push my luck.

"We need to get you and Clara and the rest of your family to a safe house," I said. "I want to take you to Arcadia House. It's a women's shelter, and they are expert at keeping their residents free from harm, as long as we can think of a place for your husband to stay."

"Papi could sleep with his cousin Rafi," Clara offered. "He does, sometimes, if the weather is too bad for him to make it home. Rafi lives in Bensenville, up by the airport."

"We can look after Clara," Cristina Guaman said fiercely. "I will not have her stay with strangers, especially strangers who will judge us. I know the kind of shelter you mean, where they look down their noses at us for being Latinas."

"I don't think the staff at Arcadia House behaves that way," I said, "but, even if they do, better to be in such an environment for a week than face those thugs in your house again tonight."

Cristina Guaman looked at the group on the sidewalk, who continued to interject their own comments and queries-some of them knew her from the hardware store-and told them in Spanish that she was all right, just distracted with worry over Ernest's health and Nadia's death.

That marked the turning point in our confrontation, although it took another minute of cajoling before she and Clara got into the backseat of the Mustang. I drove to the house behind the Guamans', to the neighbor whose yard Cristina had used when she left her own house. She crossed their yard to her boarded-over back door and returned in fairly short order with Ernest, her mother-in-law, and a couple of suitcases.

I drove a circuitous route to Arcadia House's shelter, an anonymous building that lay just beyond the big medical complexes on the near West Side. It took some time to explain the Guamans' situation to the staff. Arcadia House was bursting at the seams, and they weren't happy about offering an adult male shelter, but after a prolonged conversation with him, and among themselves, they finally agreed to let the four Guamans stay for a few nights.

"If it's any longer than that, Vic," the executive director said, "you're going to have to make other arrangements. In this economy, more and more families are breaking down into violence, and we're overcrowded as it is."

"If I can't fix this situation within a week," I said, "I'll probably be dead, anyway. I'll be in touch later today to tell you who will show up in the morning to escort Clara to school."

49.

Darraugh Gets Things Done.

I was running out of time to make my meeting with Darraugh. I told Mr. Contreras I'd get out at Darraugh's building on Wacker Drive. was running out of time to make my meeting with Darraugh. I told Mr. Contreras I'd get out at Darraugh's building on Wacker Drive.

"Can you take the car home?" I asked. "I'll be checking into a hotel tonight, but I'll get you word somehow about where I am and where to meet me. There's a lot of work to do and not much time to do it in. Will you call Petra, too, and tell her to lie low for now? I don't want her running around town, exposing herself to danger."

Mr. Contreras was delighted to be part of the team. When we reached the building on Wacker where Darraugh had his headquarters, my neighbor gave me a rough hug and told me not to worry about Petra, he'd take good care of her.

I jogged inside, trying to comb my hair while I waited for the elevator. As I got off on the seventy-third floor, I thought it was a pity Arcadia House couldn't lease Darraugh's lobby. It seemed to be bigger than the entire shelter on Taylor Street.

Darraugh's a.s.sistant ushered me into the conference room and sent a message to his office to let him know we were ready when he was. Darraugh ran through the meeting with his usual briskness. I managed to be focused enough to cover my part of the agenda, which seemed like a major achievement, given my ragged condition. While Darraugh's vice president for overseas operations wrapped up-at such length that Darraugh cut him short with a pithy remark-I thought again about the building's beautiful, well-guarded s.p.a.ce.

Everyone got up to leave. The chief of operations started a private conversation with Darraugh, but I interrupted, asking if I could have five minutes alone.

Darraugh's brows went up, but he took me into his own office and shut the door. "Well?"

"I'm working on a case that is really scaring me, and I have an extraordinary favor to ask."

I gave him a fast precis of how Chad Vishneski and Nadia Guaman had met, and why-at least in my opinion-she'd been murdered and he'd been framed.

"Tintrey has access to America's most sophisticated tracking systems, and I need a secure place where I can meet with my team. I'm hoping-begging you, really-that we could use one of your conference rooms . . ." My voice petered out under his cold blue stare.

He didn't speak right away, looking me up and down as if a.s.sessing my competence.

"You know why I work with you when I have companies like Tintrey on retainer as well?" He finally said. "Their size-I mean, their global scope. I don't do business with Tintrey. Don't like Jarvis MacLean. We're on civic committees together. He always manages to duck his pledges."

"I a.s.sumed it's because when you work with me, the right hand knows what the right fingers are doing." I said stiffly. I knew I couldn't compete with the global monsters, and that without Darraugh, I wouldn't be able to pay my bills very easily.

He produced his wintry smile. "Right fingers, right hand-yes, I suppose that's part of it. When I was a boy, I found a stray dog on our land. Someone had dumped him there with a broken leg, and I brought him inside. Mother's chauffeur showed me how to set the leg. I've never known why Mother and my grandmother let me keep him. My grandmother despised sentimentality, hated the whole idea of pets. Unsanitary, she said, but the truth was, she hated the idea that any creature under her roof might show my mother or me affection.

"Some adult intervened," he continued. "Don't know who to this day. I called the dog Sergeant Rock, a comic-book hero when I was seven. Rock was small, some kind of terrier mix, but he took on anyone or any animal he thought was a threat to me. Growled whenever my grandmother came near me. Saved me once when I got cornered in the woods by some pa.s.sing tramp who kicked me hard enough to break a rib. Died when I was fifteen. Broke my heart.

"You remind me of Rock. Sc.r.a.ppy. Sink your teeth into anyone's calf if you see them kicking a kid."

I felt myself flush but didn't say anything.

"When do you want your team here?" he asked.

"Tomorrow. Maybe around noon."

He nodded. "I'll tell Caroline to let you have a room. She'll clear it with security. She can get your people up here without leaving a trail. Just give her a list of names, phone numbers."

I started to thank him, to offer him a month of free detecting, but he shook his head and took me over to his a.s.sistant.

"Vic's going to give you a list of names and phone numbers. People we're hosting tomorrow at noon. A number of compet.i.tors are interested in the attendance list and the agenda, so do your usual security magic for us, right?"

Caroline Griswold had been with Darraugh for nearly a decade. She spoke fluent French and serviceable Chinese, and often entertained Darraugh's overseas clients or compet.i.tors. Two secretaries worked for her, but when Darraugh needed to be confident that security arrangements had been properly made, she handled all the clerical details of the a.s.signment on her own.

While Darraugh went into his boardroom for a video conference, Caroline took me into his inner office and shut the door. I gave her a quick summary of the problems I was working on, then turned on my cell phone long enough to look up the names and phone numbers of everyone I hoped to see tomorrow: Petra, Murray Ryerson, Rivka and Vesta, the Vishneskis. Mr. Contreras, of course. Tim Radke and Marty Jepson. Even Sanford Rieff up at Cheviot labs. I put Sal Barthele on the list, but said I would speak to her privately ahead of the meeting.

Finally, I thought about the ultimatum the thugs had given the Guamans: Produce the autopsy report by tonight or watch your house go up in smoke.

"Do you have a way to make a call to a lawyer here in the Loop so that it's impossible to tell what city it came from?" I asked.

Caroline's usual face is the smooth mask of the high-stakes corporate poker player, but after a moment she smiled mischievously. "Tell me what you want to say, and I'll send an e-mail to our agent in Beirut. He'll be happy to place a call from his cell phone. He's used to dodging bullets, so he knows how to talk from an untraceable line."

"That will be especially fitting. This whole situation has its roots in our war in the Middle East. The lawyer is Rainier Cowles, a partner at Palmer and Statten. I want him to know that the Guamans do not do not have the material his clients are looking for. V. I. Warshawski has taken the papers with her to a remote location, and no one knows where that is. Any communication with Ms. Warshawski should go through her own attorney, Freeman Carter." have the material his clients are looking for. V. I. Warshawski has taken the papers with her to a remote location, and no one knows where that is. Any communication with Ms. Warshawski should go through her own attorney, Freeman Carter."

Caroline wrote it up in an e-mail to their Beirut agent and had me read it before she sent it.

Since I was already begging so many favors, I asked to use her phone so I could try to organize the bodyguards I wanted for Clara. I started with the Streeter brothers, who I know are both skilled and reliable. Only Tom was available, and only afternoons, but I turned down his offer to find someone else for backup. I needed to know the guards I used.

I scowled in thought, then remembered the Body Artist's friend Vesta; she was a third-degree black belt. I reached her at a law firm where she was temping.

"Have you found Karen?" she asked.

"Not yet. But I have the youngest Guaman daughter, and I'm wondering if you'd have the time or the inclination to do a little babysit-ting." Before she could protest, I explained what had happened at the Guaman house the previous night and how I wanted Clara to be able to go to school while I tried to resolve the crisis in her family's life.

"I have someone who can see her home from school," I said, "but if you could get her there in the morning it would be a huge help. I pay twenty-five an hour, going rate for experienced guarding."

"How much risk is there?" she asked. "Really. Not glossing over it to get me to do what you want."

"I don't know. The people trying to get at Clara work for the same outfit as Rodney Treffer. He's the man who was always putting those crude numbers on Karen. If you are skillful at choosing your route, you should be safe. If they get a whiff of where she's staying, it could be awful."

"I don't owe the Guamans, or even Karen Buckley, anything."

"I know that."

"And I know how to spar, how to conduct myself, under attack, but I'm not trained as a bodyguard."

"I understand."