Hardball

My uncle shifted uneasily. Maybe no one had said it out loud to him, but they’d made it clear that he’d get Petra in exchange for me and whatever evidence was still floating around from Marquette Park all those years ago. “Where are you going? What are you doing now? If you talk to Bobby-”

“I’m not telling you what I’m doing because I don’t want to be an easier target for your pal George than I already am. If you have anything to say to me, put it out on the Web. I’ll try to find a safe place to check my e-mails now and then.”

He grabbed my arm, trying to hector me into making a public declaration that I would drop the investigation, but I was angry, scared, and short of time. I shoved him away and sprinted through the tu

The skin on my arms and scalp was throbbing from where the sun had burned the raw patches. There are a couple of big fountains in the park, slabs of glass where water falls from the top and children dance and slide in it as it hits the ground. I held my burning arms and head under the water, not minding that my clothes were getting wet, keeping myself just turned away enough that the water didn’t hit my back hip and my gun sitting in its tuck holster.

I don’t know how long I stood, soothed by the water, oblivious to the exuberant children around me. I finally trudged on leaden feet to the garage entrance. A man was selling Streetwise.

“Come on, beautiful, let’s have a smile on that gorgeous face of yours. Nothing is this bad. Not if you have a roof over your head and a family that loves you.”

“I don’t.” I walked past him into the garage.

In Morrell’s Honda, I leaned back in the seat, my wet clothes squelching against the vinyl upholstery. I could picture Morrell’s expression-a

“This for your brother.” That’s what Steve Sawyer-Kimathi said Dornick and Alito had told Tony. We’re torturing Kimathi for your brother’s sake. And Tony had turned around and left them to it.

“Nothing is this bad. Not if you have a roof over your head and a family that loves you.” What kind of love had Tony given me-all that wise, patient advice-what had it been grounded in? And my mother: how much had she known about Steve Sawyer and her husband’s brother and her husband?

I thought of some of the men I’d known over the years: my ex-husband, Murray, Conrad. My ex-husband and Murray Ryerson were ordinary, ambitious men, but Morrell at least was decent, even heroic. Maybe I carried some taint I’d never been aware of, something I’d been unwilling to face. Melodrama. The trouble was, I’d never imagined any taint could be attached to my father.

I was unexpectedly wracked again by sobs, so violent that they banged me against the steering wheel. I tried not to howl out loud, the last vestige of reason warning me not to attract attention.

43

I FINALLY RETURNED TO MORRELL’S PLACE, TOO WORN BY my emotional storm to do anything but sleep. When I woke again, it was after six. I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and found that Max had slid a note through the back door on his way home.

Karen Le

Max

I drank tea, slowly. I felt like someone convalescing from a devastating illness, that if I moved too quickly the fever would return and carry me away for good.

Bobby wanted to see me. He had gone to the clinic in person, hadn’t sent a minion. He knows Lotty, knows that the sight of a police badge stirs such terrible memories in her that even the best cop in the world receives a hostile reception, but, even so, for a routine inquiry he would have sent Terry Finchley. So he needed me badly and he needed me privately.

But Miss Claudia was slipping out of this life. She might have died while I was weeping in Mille

I looked wistfully at the phone. The trouble with the Age of Fear is that you don’t know who is listening in on your conversations. You don’t know if you can talk safely or not. Probably I could talk to Karen Le

It was too late in the day to expect to find Karen at Lionsgate Manor. I drove down to Howard Street, the honky-tonk dividing line between Chicago’s Mexican-Pakistani-Russian north border and the very much more staid Evanston, and found a pay phone at the El stop there. Even more amazing, the phone’s cord and handset were both attached, and the phone asked me to deposit a dollar when I listened to it. I put my battery in my cellphone just long enough to look up Karen Le

“Vic, thank goodness! I’ve been trying to reach you since last night. I finally called Max this morning, and he told me you’re having to stay underground, so thank you for coming up for air and getting back to me. I’m sorry about your cousin, but Miss Claudia’s been asking for you. I’ve been afraid she’d pass while you were hiding.”

“If I go to Lionsgate Manor now, will I be able to see her?”

“If I’m with you, it should be okay. I’m home, but I can be there in twenty-five minutes. I’ll meet you at the main entrance, okay?”

“Not okay. I don’t know how long I can stay undercover, but I can’t have anyone know where I am. I’ll meet you outside Miss Claudia’s room.”

Karen wanted to know how I’d get into the building; you had to go past the guard station at night. I told her not to worry about that, just to give me the room number. She started to object, but I cut her off.

“Please, I don’t have enough time to do the things I have to do. Let’s not waste the last hours of Miss Claudia’s life arguing about this.”

I drove along Howard until I came to a shop that sold uniforms and business apparel. There are several ways to be invisible in a large institution. The best, in a nursing home, is to be a janitor. If you show up in a nurse’s uniform, all the other nurses think they know you and study your face too closely. A janitor, however, at the low end of the food chain, gets only a cursory look. I found a jumpsuit in gray, which I put on over my jeans, and a square-cut cap. I bought a big mop to complete the outfit. I stuck my gun into a side pocket-not the safest way to carry a firearm, but I wanted it close to hand.

When I reached Lionsgate, I parked on a side street so I could get away fast if I had to. Mop in hand, cap low on my forehead, I walked down the ramp at the manor’s parking garage and entered the building using one of those elevators. On the ground floor, I had to pass the guard station to get to the main elevators. The massive woman behind the counter, wearing a Lionsgate pale blue security blazer, was watching television. But she looked up as I passed and called out to me: Who was I? Where was my security ID?

My Polish is limited to a few stilted phrases garnered unwillingly as a child from Boom-Boom’s mother. Tonight, I didn’t stop walking but shouted over my shoulder in Polish instead that di