Brush Back

Before I descended too far into melancholy, Adelaide returned to take me to the room overlooking Lake Michigan where I’d seen Villard on Saturday. He was in his easy chair, the custom table that fitted into the arms holding a book and a glass.

“You finish writing that book already, young lady?” he asked as I bent over to shake his hand.

“Right now, that book is about as remote as a Cubs championship,” I said ruefully. “I have a favor, I guess yet another favor to ask. I want to play a recording for you and ask whether you recognize any of the voices you hear.”

He was pleased to help out; it would take his mind off the impending move.

“It’s not necessarily going to bring you pleasure: it’s a recording someone made of an attempt at extortion.”

I stepped him through the background of the recording before I played it. He was old, as old as Mr. Contreras, and he needed time to absorb the story, so I told it in small steps. Adelaide gave little gasps of horror at the description of Jerry Fugher’s death.

When Mr. Villard seemed to have the details under his belt, I took out my cell phone and played the recording for him. He had trouble hearing it, so I asked Adelaide to hold it to his ear.

At the end, he stared hard at me, eyes troubled. “You knew who it was before you played it for me, didn’t you?”

“No, sir,” I said quietly. “The first speaker is a man named Jerry Fugher. He was murdered last week, but I have no idea who the second person is. I thought it might be a politician, but now I’m thinking it’s someone co

“I’m old. It’s easy to con the old.” He looked up at Adelaide. “Should I believe her?”

“Why did you think Mr. Villard would know who it was?” Adelaide asked.

“It was a guess, a leap, but Sturlese Cement plays a role in this, and there’s a mobster who has a stake in Sturlese. I saw him outside the ballpark almost two weeks ago. I’m wondering if they were meeting with someone in the team’s organization.”

She didn’t like what I was doing, but she told Mr. Villard I was telling the truth. “Probably telling the truth,” she amended.

He picked up his glass with his distorted fingers and took a deep swallow. “I’m old. My hearing is crap. Can you leave that recording here? I want to check with someone else before I say for sure.”

I hesitated. “There are a lot of ugly players in this game, sir. The way they disposed of Jerry Fugher is proof of that. Quite possibly this unusual makeup I have on my left eye came from them as well. I can’t let you put yourself in danger.”

Adelaide nodded. “She’s right, Mr. Villard. You know what your daughters would say.”

“My daughters, God love them, think their job is to swaddle me in baby blankets so that nothing bruises me between now and my funeral.” He put the glass down with a snap. “I’m ninety-one. I’m tired of no one thinking I’m good for anything besides being a gri

I explained that I needed to copy it to an electronic device—I couldn’t hand over my cell phone. Adelaide didn’t have a smartphone, but the daughters had given their father one and Adelaide knew the basic technology; she’d help him listen to it if I forwarded the file to his e-mail.

DINNER PARTY

By now I was cutting it close for collecting Bernie so we could meet Pierre’s flight at O’Hare. The Subaru was a sturdy beast, not built for speed. That didn’t really matter, given the thick traffic, but I missed the Mustang’s ability to maneuver.

I found Bernie and Mr. Contreras having a sad farewell. The old man tried to persuade me that he and Mitch could take care of anyone who came after Bernie.

“Her parents are the ones who are summoning her home,” I said, “and after the attack last week, I agree it’s the right decision.

“Let’s go,” I added to Bernie. “Your dad’s flight lands in under an hour and he will be very disappointed if you’re not there to meet him.”

We stowed her backpack and suitcase in the Subaru along with her hockey stick. She and Pierre were spending two nights at the Trefoil Hotel. They would detour back to Florida for the Canadiens’ next playoff game, then fly to Quebec.

Mr. Contreras brought the dogs out to see us off. While Bernie knelt on the sidewalk to clutch Mitch’s neck, I told Tom Streeter, who was on duty this afternoon, that the brothers could end their surveillance for now.

“No one’s been sniffing around that I could see, Vic, but a young woman tried to get into your place this afternoon—”

“Right, Viola Mesaline. Kind of a client.”

“Yes, Mr. Contreras told me. There may have been someone on her tail, someone on a Hog. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, and I didn’t want to follow them in case they’d been sent to smoke out Bernie’s protection detail.”

My stomach turned to ice. If someone was tailing Viola—Nabiyev? Bagby? Scanlon?—it was because—how could I know why? Not because they thought she’d be easier to track than me—I had done nothing to cover my trail lately. Then because they thought she’d lead them to someone? To her brother? Which meant he was probably still alive.

“Do you want us to check in with her, see if we can spot the Hog again?” Tom Streeter asked.

I didn’t like to think how much the Streeters’ bill might run. The last few weeks, all I’d incurred was overhead, not income, but I couldn’t leave Viola naked if the Grozny Mob was after her. I agreed, but said they didn’t need to stay on her during business hours, assuming she went to her job at Ajax.

“Got it, Vic. I’ll cover you as far as the expressway.”

That was helpful, too: once we were on the glue called the Ke

We seemed clean, unless the pursuit was doing it with multiple vehicles, which implies both a security team with a lot of resources—think NSA—and a target worth spending them on. The Uzbeki Mob’s finances might rival the NSA’s, but I wasn’t that kind of target. I’d be easy to take out the old-fashioned way, a good marksman with one bullet to the head. I rubbed my forehead reflexively.

I glanced over at Bernie, but she had her earbuds in and the volume turned up. She was texting friends, ignoring me, leaving me to send my brain uselessly around a maze that didn’t seem to have a center.

Where did Sebastian and the Cubs fit into this scenario? Villard had been briefly angry when I played Sebastian’s recording for him, accusing me of knowing who was on the other end of the conversation before I played it. Someone I’d met when I’d been at the ballpark? Will Drechen in Media Relations was the only man I’d talked to, and it didn’t sound like his voice.

“What are you thinking?” Bernie asked as we finally reached the airport exit. “You look angry.”

“Not angry, frustrated.”

“Are you glad I’m leaving? Uncle Sal told me I was making you worried.”

“I worry because I can’t keep you safe. When you come back in July for Northwestern’s hockey camp, I hope all this Guzzo business will be resolved so you can run from my home to the lake without my worrying that someone might hurt you.”

“And me, I am sad to leave without clearing Uncle Boom-Boom’s name. And of course, I am happy that we have met,” she added as a formal afterthought. “Also the dogs and Uncle Sal. And Jake. I know Uncle Sal is sorry I’m going.”

“Yes, you’ve brightened his life,” I agreed.

When we reached the O’Hare parking garage, I passed up the first few open spaces to make sure that none of the cars following us up the ramp was sticking with us.

Pierre’s plane was on time, a miracle on the route between O’Hare and the Northeast. He ran through the revolving doors at the security exit, bag over his shoulder, and scooped his daughter into his arms.