Brush Back

“Tap-dancing, clowning and playing a dangerous game? Way more energetic than I’m up to after getting my nose broken and a whole lot of other injuries.” I leaned forward and kissed Bobby’s cheek. “You know my parents’ memories are sacred to me, Bobby, so anything is possible, but I’m more concerned about someone getting a green light for murder just because he put a new piece of stained glass over a church altar.”

Bobby’s staff officer drove me back to my office. It wasn’t until he dropped me off that I started to feel that prickle along the back of the neck, that fear you get when someone is following you or is training a sniper’s rifle on your neck.

I went through the day with as much focus as I could manage, met with Darraugh Graham and a couple of other Loop clients, took the dogs to the lake, borrowed Jake’s Fiat to go grocery shopping—Luke Edwards had reclaimed the Subaru after our shoot-out near Dead Stick Pond—he’d seen the damage to the rental Taurus on YouTube and hadn’t wanted to risk the Subaru in my hands a day longer.

They struck in the middle of the night. Fast, ruthless, jimmying open the building door, hydraulic ram on my apartment’s steel front door, thugs at the kitchen exit when I tried to escape through the back. The dogs were barking ferociously from Mr. Contreras’s place, but the goons had me bound, gagged, a hood on my head, and flung into a pickup bed before the old man could get them outside. I’d gone to sleep in my clothes, just in case, but they’d moved so fast I didn’t have time to put on shoes.

Three in the morning, couldn’t tell where we were going. Expressway, maybe. South, maybe. Wind whipped underneath the hood, rubbing against my face. After a time I smelled the lake through the sack, and then my eyes were tearing, I was coughing and choking behind the gag. Pet coke dust. We were close to the Guisar slip.

The air changed overhead. A closed space. Hands dragged me from the back of the truck, thumped me down onto a chair. Tied me to it.

When the hood was unbuckled and pulled off, the light blinded me. I blinked and a wall of metal filing cabinets came into focus. Metal desks. A locked grate with a pay window and a safe behind it. The office for Bagby & Family Haulage. Vince Bagby was leaning against one desk, Rory Scanlon was seated in the chair where Delphina Bagby had been playing solitaire. Three solid-looking youths in the green T-shirts of Say, Yes! lounged by the door, faces blank.

“So those flowers and di

Bagby squirmed, shrugged, gave a fake-hearty laugh.

“One last Warshawski,” Scanlon said. “One last person thinking they don’t have to play by the rules.”

“Depends on the rules,” I said. “I guess Tony’s mistake was thinking the law meant something besides pay to play.”

Scanlon nodded at one of the Say, Yes! youths, who walked over and hit me in the face. I was able to move my head away from the blow, but it still hurt.

“Where did you get that diary you put out?” Scanlon asked.

“Fu

“I don’t believe it’s real,” Scanlon said flatly.

“It’s on the Global Entertainment website,” I said. “It looks pretty real.”

“I want to see it,” Scanlon said. “I think you hired someone to forge it.”

“If it is a forgery, I bet it’s way better than the one you had Frank put in his sister’s underwear drawer. It actually looks like A

“Pretty convenient, how it showed up,” Scanlon said, his lips a flat, ugly line.

“Yeah, that’s how I felt when Stella’s version showed up. It will be fun to get both diaries vetted by experts.”

“Not any kind of fun you’ll ever have,” Scanlon barked. “You could have died in your bed if you’d kept your goddam nose out of my business. But no, just like your parents, all of you thinking you were too good for this neighborhood. I do a lot for people down here, I did a lot for your family, but I never got any gratitude.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for getting my dad transferred to the Seventh, for putting a bad rap out on him so that he was sent without backup into gang shootings. Does that help?”

Scanlon nodded again at his pet, who smacked me again. I didn’t move as fast this time; my nose started to bleed. Bagby winced. He didn’t like seeing me beaten? Maybe my beautiful eyes had played a small role.

“Your precious cousin.” Scanlon was panting. “I got him his chance, but Tony, high-and-mighty Tony Warshawski, bad-mouthed me in the precinct.”

“My cousin’s talent and drive got him where he needed to be,” I snapped.

“I made the co

“Is that the only kind of employee Bagby has?” I asked, looked at Vince. “Frank Guzzo works hard, he keeps his family going. That isn’t a loser’s behavior. A loser is someone who can’t operate without a lot of people in his pocket to do his dirty work for him.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve cost Frankie Junior his chance to go to ball camp,” Scanlon said. “I warned Guzzo to keep you away from here, but he’s such a useless piece of quivering jelly he couldn’t even manage that. His ma is twice the man he is. Twice the man old Mateo was, too.”

“You’ve been watching too many Clint Eastwood movies,” I said. “Mateo was like Frank: honest, quiet, hardworking. Twice—no—ten times the man you and your cousin are. Although ten times zero is still zero.”

Another blow. My mouth started to fill with blood and I spoke with difficulty. “On the night she died, A

“I need to know where you got the diary,” Scanlon said. “I need to know if there’s more out there.”

“You mean, did A

The circulation was starting to go in my hands. I would have been worried about them, except I was more worried that I was going to die soon. I curled and uncurled my fingers. My wrists scraped against the rope.

“Mandel was soft,” Scanlon said. “He let that little bitch bleed him, instead of taking care of her from day one. As soon as he told me what she was up to, he agreed something had to be done, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. I made him go to the Guzzo’s front door, on the pretext of reasoning with the girl about her demands. We let Spike do the honors, since it was his career we were helping build.”

Vince made a restless gesture.

“You think I shouldn’t say anything, little cousin?” Scanlon jeered. “Don’t tell me you’re soft, too. Warshawski isn’t going anywhere, isn’t going to tell anyone anything. Mandel and McClelland both knew Spike was tough enough to do anything, and he’s proved that over and over again in Springfield.”

“Yes, all you cousins,” I said, proud that my voice was steady, despite my terror and my aching mouth. “You and Vince, and Nina Quarles, who owns that law firm. Did you have her buy it in case Mandel had left any loose bits of evidence lying around in his old files?”