see through the house to the kitchen and the avocado green stove and refrigerator. The house inside was simply decorated with motel-style furniture. Plain and thrifty, but serviceable.
“Can I help you?”
I blinked when a man stepped up to the door—the man from the Temple Bar video. He wore a Yankees sweatshirt that had seen better days and a pair of well-worn jeans. He smiled, revealing a mouthful of straight, white teeth. And he might have lived in Chicago, but the accent was all New York.
I decided to get to the point. “Paulie Cermak?”
“You got him,” he said, head tilted to the side as he took in my features . . . and then my sword.
“You’re Merit.”
He must have seen the surprise in my eyes, as he chuckled. “I know who you are, kid. I watch television. And I expect I know why you’re here.” He flipped the lock on the screen door and pulled it open a little. “You wanna come in?”
“I’m good where I am.” I might have been curious, but I wasn’t stupid. I’d rather stay out here with the city at my back than willingly go into the home of a suspect.
He let the door shut again and crossed his arms on the other side of it. “In that case, why don’t we get to it? You were looking for me—now you found me. What do you want with me?”
“You’ve spent some time at Temple Bar lately.”
“That a question or a statement?”
“Since we both know you parked your car outside the bar, let’s say it’s a statement.”
He shrugged negligently. “I’m a small businessman, just trying to make my way in the world.”
“What’s your business, Mr. Cermak?”
He smiled grandly. “Community relations.”
“Is Wrigleyville the relevant community?”
Paulie rolled his eyes. “Kid, I got interests all over this city.”
All these questions, and I was beginning to feel like a cross between a cop and an investigative reporter— with none of the credentials or authority. “Is it any coincidence that you start popping up outside Temple Bar and a new drug hits the streets?”
“In case you ain’t already aware, the men and women in blue have been through my house from top to bottom. You imply that I’ve been distributing drugs, but don’t you think they would have found something if I had been?”
I sized him up for a moment. “Mr. Cermak, would you like to know what I think?”
He smiled slowly, like an eager hyena. “As it turns out, yeah. I would like to hear what you think.”
“You had the forethought to keep any trace of V out of your house. I think that makes you an incredibly smart and resourceful man. The question, then, is where you’re keeping the drugs
. . . and who you’re getting them from. How’d you like to fill me in on that?”
Paulie Cermak stared at me, wide-eyed, for a moment before erupting with laughter, the belly-aching kind that soon had him coughing uncontrollably.
When he finally stopped guffawing, he wiped tears from the corners of his eyes with fingers that were longer and more delicate than I’d thought they’d be. Like the fingers of a pianist, but attached to a shortish, barrel-chested drug pusher.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “You are gonna give me an embolism, kid. But you are a kick, you know that? And you aren’t exactly shy, are you?”
“Is that a no?”
“The business world is a very delicate place.
You’ve got higherups. Middlemen. And everyday, run-of-the-mill vendors.”
“Such as yourself?”
“As you say. Now, if I draw too much attention to those other levels, the entire balance gets thrown off, and that makes management unhappy.”
“Is McKetrick your management?”
He went quiet for a moment. “Who’s McKetrick?”
I couldn’t be certain, but I had a sense his confusion was legitimate, that Cermak really didn’t know who McKetrick was. Besides, he’d all but admitted he was selling drugs. Why start lying now?
A thought occurred to me—and not the kind of thought that was going to help me sleep better at night. I was the granddaughter of a cop, and a vampire with connections to Cadogan House.
Why wouldn’t he lie to me, unless he thought vampires couldn’t touch him . . . or whomever he worked for? And who was the only woman the GP wouldn’t let us touch?
I had to inquire, but I didn’t want to make him—or Celina—skittish.
“Do you work alone?” I asked him.
“Most of the time,” he carefully said, as if not sure where the question was headed.
“With vampires?”
“Honey, I’ve got a carotid. Given the nature of the merch, I prefer to get in and get out with as few fangs as possible.”
“You were spotted with a vamp named Marie.”
Paulie stared back at me, refusing to respond.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed the security camera.
Brave as he might have been about the V, Cermak apparently wasn’t willing to admit to Celina’s involvement. I wasn’t sure what that signaled, if anything. And I was running out of ideas.
“I know what you think it stands for,” Paulie said.
“What?”
“V,” he said. “The name of the drug. You think it means ‘vampire,’ right?”
I paused for a moment, surprised he was willing to be that overt about it. “It had occurred to me,” I finally got out.
He pointed a finger at me. “Then you’d be wrong. Stands for
“Personally, I appreciate that.”
That was an awfully philosophical explanation.
“And what makes you so generous toward vamps?”
“I’m not generous, kid. I’m not saying I’ve seen V, but if I had, it ain’t the kind of thing I’d get involved in out of the goodness of my heart.
It’s more the kind of thing I’d consider making a living from.”
“Who would?”
Paulie snorted. “Who do you think would have the motivation to do something like that? To make vamps crazy for blood, to make them want to act like ‘real vampires’?” He shrugged. “All I can say is, you gotta go higher in the chain than me, doll.”
Another hint about Celina? Or maybe another higher-up in Chicago’s Houses? I needed more info. “You wanna point me in the right direction?”
“And take the chance of reducing my income?
No, thanks, kid.” An old-school telephone rang from somewhere in the house. Paulie glanced back at it, and then at me. “You need anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
“In that case, you know where to find me.” He stepped away and closed the door, and the house shook a bit on its foundations as he walked back to the phone and silenced its ringing.
I closed my eyes and closed out some of the extraneous neighborhood noise, focusing in on the phone
