Windy City Blues

VII

Brigitte was furious. Her cheeks flamed with natural color and her cobalt eyes glittered. I couldn’t help wondering if this was how she looked when Jade and B. B. Wilder were fighting over her.

“So he knew all along where she was! I ought to have him sent over for that. Can’t I charge him with contributing to her delinquency?”

“Not if you’re pla

She ignored me. “And her, too. Taking Lady Iva off like that. Mating her with some alley cat.”

As if on cue, Casper of Valletta squawked loudly and started clawing the deep silver plush covering Brigitte’s living room floor. Joel Sirop picked up the torn and spoke soothingly to him.

“It is bad, Brigitte, very bad. Maybe you should let the girl go back to Mobile if she wants to so badly. After three days, you know, it’s too late to give Lady Iva a shot. And Cori

Brigitte’s nostrils flared. “I should send her to reform school. Show her what discipline is really like.”

“Why in hell do you even want custody over Cori

She stopped swirling around her living room and turned to frown at me. “Why, I love her, of course. She is my sister, you know.”

“Concentrate on that. Keep saying it to yourself. She’s not a cat that you can breed and mold to suit your fancy.”

“I just want her to be happy when she’s older. She won’t be if she can’t learn to control herself. Look at what happened when she started hanging around trash like that Lily Hellman. She would never have let Lady Iva breed with an alley cat if she hadn’t made that kind of friend.”

I ground my teeth. “Just because Lily lives in five rooms over a store doesn’t make her trash. Look, Brigitte. You wanted to lead your own life. I expect your parents tried keeping you on a short leash. Hell, maybe they even threatened you with reform school. So you started fucking every hulk you could get your hands on. Are you so angry about that that you have to treat Cori

She gaped at me. Her jaw worked but she couldn’t find any words. Finally she went over to a burled oak cabinet that concealed a bar. She pulled out a chilled bottle of Sancerre and poured herself a glass. When she’d gulped it down she sat at her desk.

“Is it that obvious? Why I went after Jade and B. B. and all those boys?”

I hunched a shoulder. “It was just a guess, Brigitte. A guess based on what I’ve learned about you and your sister and Jade the last two days. He’s not such an awful guy, you know, but he clearly was an awful guy for you. And Cori

“And me?” Her cobalt eyes glittered again. “What do I need? The embraces of my cat?”

“To shed some of those porcupine quills so someone can love you, too. You could’ve offered me a glass of wine, for example.”

She started an ugly retort, then went over to the liquor cabinet and got out a glass for me. “So I bring Flitcraft up to Chicago and stable her. I put Cori

“She might graduate.” I swallowed some of the wine. It was cold and crisp and eased some of the tension the LeBlancs and Pierces were putting into my throat. “And in another year she won’t run away to Lily’s, but she’ll go off to Mobile or hit the streets. Now’s your chance.”

“Oh, all right,” she snapped. “You’re some kind of saint, I know, who never said a bad word to anyone. You can tell Cori

I rubbed my head. “Send her back to Mobile, Brigitte. There must be a grandmother or aunt or na

“You can say that again, detective.” It was Jade, his bulk filling the double doors to the living room.

Behind him we could hear the housekeeper without being able to see her. “I tried to keep him out, Brigitte, but Cori

“I have a right to ask whoever I want into my own house,” came Cori

Squawking and yowling, Casper broke from Joel Sirop’s hold. He hurtled himself at the doorway and stuffed his body through the gap between Jade’s feet. On the other side of the barricade we could hear Lady Iva’s answering yodel and a scream from Cori

“Why don’t you move, Jade, so we can see the action?” I suggested.

He lumbered into the living room and perched his bulk on the edge of a pale gray sofa. Cori

Brigitte watched the blood drip from Cori

When the housekeeper left, she turned to her sister. “Next time you’re that angry at me take it out on me, not the cat. Did you really have to let her breed in a back alley?”

“It’s all one to Iva,” Cori

Brigitte marched to the couch. Jade caught her hand as she Was preparing to smack Cori

“Now look here, Brigitte,” he said. “You two girls don’t belong together. You know that as well as I do. Maybe you think you owe it to your public image to be a mamma to Cori

Brigitte glared at him. “And you’re Mister Wonderful who can sit in judgment on everyone else?”

He shook his massive jade dome. “Nope. I won’t claim that. But maybe Cori

“On Cori

Jade nodded. “She’d have to put up the stake. But I know some guys who’d back me to get started in somethin’. Commodities, somethin’ like that.”

“You’d be drunk or doped up all the time. And then you’d rape her-” She broke off as he did his ugly-black-slit number with his eyes.

“You’d better not say anything else, Brigitte Le-Blanc. Damned well better not say anything. You want me to get up in the congregation and yell that I never touched a piece of ass that shoved itself in my nose, I ain’t going to. But you know better’n anyone that I never in my life laid hands on a girl to hurt her. As for the rest…” His eyes returned to normal and he put a redwood branch around Cori

The football analogy brought her own mean look to Brigitte’s face. Before she could say anything Joel bleated in the background, “It sounds like a good idea to me, Brigitte. Really. You ought to give it a try. Lady Iva’s nerves will never be stable with the fighting that goes on around her when Cori

“No one asked you,” Brigitte snapped.

“And no one asked me, either,” Cori