Brush Back

When you’re a child, all adults seem both old and fixed in time, so I didn’t know if Rory Scanlon was still alive, or if the torch had been passed. Either way, the business was clearly a success. Looking through the street windows, I saw that the computers were new, the desks in good shape. Five people were talking into their headsets, smiling the way you do so the person at the other end feels your energy and wants to buy from you.

My parents bought their insurance through the Patrolmen’s Union, so I’d never been to Scanlon’s office, but he was such a lively presence in the neighborhood that everyone knew him. He’d been a fixer, the kind of guy you went to if you were going to be evicted or had your gas turned off. He turned out for community events, underwrote the Little League team that Frank Guzzo used to play on. When Boom-Boom made his home-ice debut with the Hawks, Scanlon got the CTA to send buses to ferry the neighborhood from Ninetieth and Commercial to the old Stadium.

My dad had driven up in his own car. One of the few times he took police privilege, he brought me and my uncle Bernie through the streets with his lights flashing, parking right next to the main entrance. He hadn’t gone to the party Scanlon sponsored at Rafters afterward.

“Too old for drunken crowds, Tori. And don’t you need to be studying?”

I’d been surprised—his usual concern about my work was that I kept at it too hard. He was worried, too, about leaving me on my own, which he also never did—at least not out loud.

“Boom-Boom’s signed on for a rough life, but I don’t want that for you, and you know your mama didn’t want it, either.”

My mama wouldn’t have wanted a lot of the things I choose to do. Maybe if she’d lived, I wouldn’t keep tempting fate by skating so close to the edge. Perhaps my recklessness was what destroyed my brief marriage. Or perhaps it was because Richard Yarborough had been a money-obsessed bore.

I went into Scanlon’s building, and looked up a flight of steep stairs. A sign in Spanish and English said there was an elevator behind the stairs. A security camera, the tiny modern kind that is almost invisible to the thief in a hurry, had been installed high on the stairwell wall. Another was set in the lintel above Nina Quarles’s door. It glowed red when I approached, presumably taking my picture. I must have looked honest and sincere: the lock clicked open before I rang the bell.

The walls of the original apartment had been removed to create a long room that stretched from the windows overlooking Commercial Avenue to the alley behind. It wasn’t divided into cubicles, but the desks were far enough apart that people could have private conversations if they kept their voices down. Two doors stood open along the north wall, showing private offices beyond in what probably used to be bedrooms. A third door at the back provided the staff with a toilet.

As in Scanlon’s office, the staff here were hard at it on the phones. Most of them were middle-aged and solidly built, a few wrinkles, hair turning gray—not the lean, workout-obsessed youth that might repel people like the elderly couple conferring in the near corner with a man in a rumpled suit.

I looked around but didn’t see any sign of Nina Quarles. I was on my way to the offices, to see if that’s where she was, when a woman came up behind me and asked what I needed. She was about my age, tall, angular, wearing a shapeless cardigan over beige slacks and spiked heels, which put her about three inches over my head.

“V. I. Warshawski,” I said, putting out a hand.

The angular woman’s eyes widened. “Warshawski? There was something about Boom-Boom Warshawski on the news this morning.”

“Yes, I’m his cousin.”

She said the usual things: she’d grown up on the East Side, she adored Boom-Boom, his death had been a terrible tragedy. In the middle of the outpouring I was able to get her name, Thelma Kalvin.

“What can we do for you?” Kalvin asked.

“I don’t know if you paid attention to the whole story, but my cousin was in the news today because someone is trying to link him to A

Thelma shook her head. “If the name is supposed to mean something to me, it doesn’t. I’m sorry we can’t help you.”

“Stella Guzzo was convicted of killing her daughter A

Thelma shook her head. “Nina doesn’t actually practice here. Our lawyers mostly work on job or property issues—a lot of this community got slammed in the mortgage crisis. And we have a criminal defender. But there isn’t room to store old case files here—they’re in a facility down in Indiana. Anyway, I doubt Nina would let you look at confidential files.”

“It’s not a confidential document,” I said, trying to keep frustration out of my voice. “Just a rare one. I want to see if Stella Guzzo made any effort to blame my cousin for her daughter’s death during her trial. I also would love to know why Mandel & McClelland took on the defense—A

Thelma began saying that Mr. Zapateca would be available at two. I was startled, then realized she was talking to her device; she wore one of those clips that look like a beetle is trying to burrow into your ear.

When she finished she said there was nothing she could do to help, she hadn’t been part of Mandel & McClelland—another interruption for the beetle, this time about Ludo’s bail hearing—no one remembered that far back, and no, I couldn’t talk to Nina Quarles—“Sorry, not you, Mrs. Bialo, talking to someone in the office, please hold for one minute”—because Nina was in Paris.

The beetle had her full attention at this point. I stifled the impulse to yank it out of her ear and stalked out of the office, unreasonably a

The elderly couple who’d been with the guy in the rumpled suit were leaving as well. I held the door for them and put my ill temper to one side to offer an arm down the stairs—although the woman held herself erect, the man was bent over and walked with a slow shuffle.

“There is an elevator,” I suggested when they insisted they were fine on their own.

“It’s out of order, but they say climbing stairs is good for the heart,” the woman said brightly.

“We can’t afford to get dependent on anyone, young lady,” the man said. “Especially since we have to pay the lawyer bill now on top of everything else. Sounds as though you got the lady at the front desk kind of upset.”

“Hard to know why,” I said. “I was just asking a few questions. You buy your insurance here?”

“Oh, yes. The lawyer sends you down to the agency, and they give you a special rate if you’re a customer with the lawyer. And then, if you need a lawyer, the insurance man sends you up here. That’s why we were here, we were hoping to cash in our life insurance now that we need extra help. But the fine print, that’s what always does you in, isn’t it.” He pronounced the word as IN-surance.

I walked down in front of them, slowly, in case the couple changed their minds about wanting help. They were murmuring softly to each other. When we got to the front entryway, they stopped beside the i

“We heard you asking about Stella Guzzo,” the woman said.

“Do you know her?” I tried to sound casual.

“No.” The woman looked up the stairs, to see if anyone was watching. I noticed the camera eye in the entryway ceiling, and ushered the couple outside.

“It was the girl,” the husband said. “A