just what it was Cristina Guaman didn’t want me to know about her daughter. Daughters.
I stopped in a taqueria across the street for a bowl of rice and beans. Ernie couldn’t tell me anything. Even if I could get past security at O’Hare to reach Lazar Guaman, it was hard to convince myself that such a gray and beaten man would talk to me. That left the surviving daughter, poor young Clara. It was two-thirty-with luck, I’d make it to her school before she left.
17 Vow of Silence
I rode the Green Line to Halsted and walked the few blocks to St. Teresa of Avila Prep. School got out at three, and the city buses were already lined up. Unless the Guamans’ self-appointed protector could leave his La Salle Street practice to collect Clara, the easiest route home for her was on the Number 60 bus down Blue Island Avenue.
I reached the school about ten minutes ahead of the exodus. I shivered in the bus stop catty-corner to the school until the tall doors opened and the students poured out.
They seemed to arrive in one giant wave of screaming, jostling teens, but as they passed me they broke into little clots-groups of high-spirited boys, or girls laughing and kidding together, or couples in that adolescent embrace that doesn’t allow a single molecule of air between their bodies. A number were walking alone, shoulders hunched to avoid the glances of a pitying world. Most were bent under their giant backpacks, looking much as their peasant forebears must have, lugging cotton or corn or wood. And all, it seemed, were madly reconnecting to their cell phones and music players after a day of forced withdrawal.
My dressy boots were elegant, but they weren’t very warm. I was beginning to think I’d have to amputate my toes if I stood outside much longer, when Clara Guaman appeared in the middle of a knot of other girls. Unlike yesterday, when she’d gone bare-armed to her sister’s funeral, she was dressed sensibly in a parka, although she hadn’t bothered to zip it shut. She also had foresworn the gaudy eye shadow she’d sported at the funeral. When she and her friends had boarded their bus, I followed them and swiped my CTA card through the machine.
The driver, a thickset woman in her forties, nodded at the kids as they climbed up the steps. She looked at me in surprise-adults don’t usually ride the school routes-but she didn’t say anything. When the bus was packed from stem to stern, she rolled away from the curb. The shrieks and shouts of sixty or so kids, moaning over tests, over boyfriends or girlfriends, hotly arguing who’d said what to whom, made my head drum, but the driver just smiled to herself, focusing on the potholes that littered Blue Island Avenue. Like the rest of the world, she had her own little soundstage plugged into her ears.
I worked my way to the back, where Clara and her friends had found seats. She was talking animatedly, but her skin was gray, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“V. I. Warshawski,” I said when she looked up at me. “We met yesterday at your sister’s funeral.”
Her face shut down into the arrogant angry lines I’d seen at the church.
“Are you here to apologize some more? Don’t bother.”
“I want to know when I can talk to you-”
“You’re doing it right now. I guess I can’t make you shut up.”
Her friends stared at us with frank curiosity.
“Privately.”
“You can’t. If there’s something you want to say to me, do it right here. And then get out of my life.”
We had both been bellowing to be heard over the ruckus around us, but the noise began dying down as kids nearby caught what we were saying. One of them asked if Clara wanted him to call 911.
“She’s harmless,” Clara said roughly.
I didn’t want to say too much in front of this texting, Tweeting audience, but I needed some way of getting her to talk to me.
“When I heard the shots, I ran to your sister’s side. I held her as she died. Her last word was a call to Allie.”
The silence around us became absolute. Clara sucked in a breath, her face as shocked as if I’d slapped her. Her friends gazed at her with vampire-like avidity.
When Clara didn’t say anything, I said, “Could we go someplace to talk about Nadia and your other sister?”
“You can’t talk about Allie!” Clara cried.
“Why not?”
She looked around wildly, and then said, “Her name is sacred! You can’t use it. No one is allowed to talk about her!”
The kids around us began murmuring excitedly among themselves. Even if I hadn’t been tired and cold, the chatter made it hard to think. It certainly made the bus a stupid place to try to talk, but I plowed ahead.
“When did you last talk to Nadia?”
“I don’t remember, and it’s none of your business, anyway.”
The lurching of the bus meant I couldn’t keep my eyes on her face, but I thought Clara looked more scared than angry despite her defiant words.
“Your mother says she called Nadia when your sister was seen on YouTube painting on the Body Artist. How did Nadia respond?”
“Have you been talking to my mother? She has enough to worry about without someone like you butting in.”
“Karen Buckley put on a special program in your sister’s honor last night. Karen’s the Body Artist who came to your sister’s funeral.”
“I remember who came to my own sister’s funeral.”
“What did Nadia tell you about Alexandra’s death?”
At that question, Clara definitely looked more frightened than angry.
“I told you we can’t talk about Allie, so butt out!”
“All right, if we can’t talk about Allie, let’s talk about the Body Artist. How did Nadia find her?”
Clara looked at me but didn’t speak. One of the boys near her left the bus. I took his place.
“The club was full last night for the Artist’s program in your sister’s memory. Rainier Cowles brought a party; one of the men-”
Clara bounced to her feet and bent to stick her head in my face. “If you’re a pal of Rainier’s, you can leave me alone. Go back to Prince Rainier and suck his dick.”
The raw language was meant to shock. She stared at me for a few seconds, hoping for some sign that she’d hit home. When I only smiled sadly because her youth and pain were so poignant, she marched to the front of the bus, deliberately shoving people, as if vicariously punching me.
Her friends gave me the kind of frigid looks I remembered from my own adolescence. They sniffed as if smelling garbage and pointedly turned away from me, then started giggling loudly.
“It would be more to the point if you’d help Clara,” I said. “She’s frightened and lonely.”
This made them laugh more loudly.
The bus was stopped for the light at Nineteenth Street. I pulled out one of my business cards and scribbled on the back, “Rainier Cowles is not a friend or business associate of mine, and I would never repeat anything you told me. Call or text me when you feel up to talking.”
Enough kids had left the bus that it was easy for me to walk to the front and stand next to Clara. Her rigid posture, despite the weight of her backpack, told me she was very aware of my presence. I tucked the card into her parka pocket, but she refused to turn her head. I got off at the next stop and crossed the street to pick up a northbound bus.
As the winter twilight closed in on me, I rode buses and trains back to my office. My leasemate Tessa was hard at work, her half of the building flooded with spotlights and the flame of her blowtorch.
My own half was dark. I didn’t bother turning on a light, just took off my boots and sat with my feet curled up under me on the sofa to warm them, trying to decode Clara Guaman’s response to my questions.
