Brush Back

I woke to yet another cold cloudy day in the city that spring forgot, but finally felt well enough to run the lakefront with the dogs. My muscles were loose, I was moving easily, I was happy.

At the Fullerton Avenue beach, I returned phone calls while the dogs swam after their te

“How’s the nose?”

“Almost well enough to smell the peonies you sent.”

“And the girl you’re looking after?”

“Back in Canada with her parents. Why?” I kept my voice friendly, but I didn’t trust him with the truth.

“I’m a friendly guy, Warshawski, who’s trying to make conversation. I’d be glad to show you face-to-face—you free for di

“Not until after I find Sebastian Mesaline, and even then, no guarantees.” I found myself checking the gun in my tuck holster.

“Come on, Warshawski, you can’t be interested in a wussy kid like him.”

“I’ve never met him,” I said. “Tell me what’s so wussy about him.”

Mitch and Peppy, sensing my attention was elsewhere, started wandering up the beach. I whistled to them sharply.

“You have to do that into the mike? You damn near broke my eardrums.”

“What’s so wussy about Mesaline?” I repeated.

“Word on the street. When you meet him, you can let me know. I hope it happens soon—I’m going to hold you to that di

I pocketed my phone while I went after the dogs. Why had Bagby called? To see how much I knew or because he actually had taken a liking to me? I guess there was no reason it couldn’t be both; he was a friendly guy, as he himself agreed: he got along with everyone, from the security manager at the Guisar dock to me.

Mitch was cleaning up after the Canada geese. I brought him to heel and jogged the rest of the way to the car.

It was interesting that Bagby knew about Sebastian Mesaline. I’d never mentioned Sebastian around him, but Bagby also knew Jerry Fugher, Nabiyev and, presumably, the Sturlese brothers, the people on the Virejas Tower project, perhaps even the contractor who had placed Sebastian there.

“Too wide a field to analyze,” I told the dogs, unlocking the Subaru. “But Bagby is definitely playing with a very rough crowd.”

They showed their agreement by shaking hard and covering me with wet sand. I guess that was a good thing—it meant less sand for me to vacuum out of the Subaru before I returned it to Luke.

Back home, I changed into office clothes and brought espressos over to Jake’s. He was still asleep, but when I sat cross-legged on the bed, he stuck a hand out from under the covers for one of the cups.

“Trucker who might have Mob ties invited me to di

Jake propped himself up on an elbow. “You want me to play while you eat? Those gigs are so depressing. You get to measure 113 of the Martinsson, for instance, where the bass goes into an upper register that sounds like a cello, and at table nine, the trucker with the oil under his fingernails starts telling a crude joke, and the detective next to him, who you thought at first had some understanding of you and your music, in fact you were imagining what her skin might feel like under that red thing she has on, this detective laughs so loudly no one can hear—”

“You make it sound so romantic.” I put my cup down and curled up next to him. “I didn’t know the detective had such a disruptive laugh.”

“When she’s genuinely happy, it sounds like champagne fizzing out of the bottle, but when she’s faking it, like laughing at a mobster’s vulgarities, it’s more like a barnyard cackle.”

To protect my relationship, I’d left the gun at my place, but my phone was in my hip pocket. I ignored it when it started to ring, but the terrified voice leaving the message made me forget laughter, whether fizzy or cackling.

“This is Adelaide, you know, from Mr. Villard. Someone shot him, it’s really bad, I’m calling his daughters, I’m calling the hospital, but you’re a detective, I need you to come.”

Jake sat up. “Who was that?”

“Caregiver to an elderly gentleman I met with yesterday.” I rolled over and off the bed, tucking the red thing I had on back into my slacks.

Jake pulled on a pair of jeans and walked me to the door. “Be careful, V.I. Whoever your elderly gentleman is and whatever happened to him, don’t risk your life, please. I hate that way worse than people telling jokes while I’m playing.”

I squeezed his fingers and ran across the hall to put on shoes and collect my gun. While I tied my laces I called Adelaide to let her know I was on my way. Her phone went to voice mail, which sent me to the car at double-speed, worried that if someone had attacked Villard, she might be in danger, too.

When I reached the cul-de-sac in Evanston where the mansion sat, police sawhorses were blocking the road. I didn’t bother trying to argue my way past the cops, but turned left, away from the lake, and found parking on a through street a block away. I jogged back to Sheridan Road and cut across the garden of a house north of the barricade. This section of Evanston sits twenty or thirty feet above Lake Michigan. A high rock fence runs about a quarter mile up the coast here, more to keep kids and dogs from tumbling down the bluff to the water than to keep out miscreants like me.

I scrambled to the top of the fence and started walking down toward Villard’s place. The top was only about as wide as one of my feet, and there were places where a thin iron rail had been inserted. As I skirted the grounds of Villard’s neighbor, a woman came to the door, shouting at me. I smiled, waved, which made me teeter and grab the overhanging branch of a tree. The woman opened the door and let out one of those Hungarian hunting dogs, which roared over to me, yelping in a high-pitched, indignant tone. Using the branch, I swung over the edge of the wall into a corner of Villard’s garden.

“Nice doggie,” I said as it stood on its hind legs to bark across the wall at me. Probably playful, since it was a house pet, but you never know.

I was screened from the road by a thicket of bushes and spiky prairie grasses, but I could make out a clutch of Evanston squad cars, as well as an officer at the bottom of the marble steps. I watched the woman who’d sicced the dog on me cross the drive and begin talking urgently to the officer on duty.

I did not need to be picked up by the Evanston cops. I faded behind a giant ash to text Adelaide. Mercifully, she came out through the back door a moment later. Her skirt and shirt were stained with blood.

“What happened? How badly is Mr. Villard hurt? Did they get you, too?” I demanded.

Her usually calm face was crumpled with worry and fear. “He was alive when the ambulance came, I hope he still is. I didn’t know, if I’d known I’d never have left him on his own, but my gentlemen and ladies, they need respect, you shouldn’t treat them like they’re little children, only the daughters don’t believe me.”

“Of course they need respect,” I assured her, “and I’ve watched you with Mr. Villard. He told you to leave him on his own because he was meeting someone he wanted to be private with?”

She nodded, miserable.

“After you left last night, he was very troubled. I was blaming you, to say the truth, for upsetting him in his mind. He sat looking at his old pictures from the baseball team for hours, letting his food get cold. When I came in to help him up the stairs to his bedroom, he was on the phone and motioned to me to leave, so I only heard a little bit of the conversation.”

“Which was?” I prompted.

“Something about of course he’d listen to the other person’s side of the story. Then this morning he told me someone would be coming to see him. He asked me to help him out to the garden and then to leave him on his own. I brought out a tray with coffee and cups and the little cookies he likes, but I went inside, only I stood with the door open, so I could hear him if he needed me. I could only see his back, or the back of the chair where he sat, but not the driveway, or anyone who might be sitting with him.”