“There’s a ten-dollar cover whether you sit down or not,” he said when we shook our heads.
I stuck a hand into my pocket, fishing for my wallet. My gun was there. The thugs hadn’t patted me down, that was how ineffectual I’d looked to them. I found the wallet and took out two twenties, then cracked open the door.
The Mercedes was listing toward its right side, both tires completely flat. As I watched, Anton’s driver flagged down a passing cab. He held the door open for Anton and climbed in next to him. Konstantin and Ludwig started to get into the front seat, but apparently Kystarnik didn’t want them along-they shut the door and darted looks at the club we’d entered.
“Uh, you guys want to sit, or what?” the manager asked us.
I flashed a smile, or at least tried to. “We’re looking for Club Gouge. We wanted to see this Body Artist everybody talks about.”
“Oh. They burned down last night. But we have a good act coming on in half an hour, a stand-up comic. Take a seat, you’ll see.” His heart wasn’t in the spiel.
I watched Konstantin and Ludwig kneel behind parked cars as I opened the door all the way.
“Konstantin! Ludwig! We’re in here. Come on, the act’s going to start in half an hour!” When they didn’t stand up, I shouted, “Come on guys, no games tonight-it’s too darned cold!”
The two smokers outside the door looked from me to the two thugs. The manager hovered nervously behind me. “If you’re drunk, maybe you should come back another night. You’re kind of making too much noise.”
“You’re so right,” I said. “Petra, just hold the door here while Tim and your friend and I go tell those two bozos to head for home. If anything happens, well, dial 911.”
The three of us ran across the street. Anton’s men got to their feet, guns drawn, but Tim hurled himself at one man’s knees, knocking him into the path of an oncoming car. The driver slammed on his brakes, stopping inches from the thug’s head.
I pressed my own gun against the base of the other man’s skull. “Drop your gun. Now!”
The driver of the car had rolled down his window and was yelling at Tim. My thug thought about turning around to slug me, but I had my left leg outside his and slammed him behind the ear with my left hand. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him out, but it dazed him, and he dropped his weapon. My anonymous teammate scooped up the gun and put our guy in a choke hold.
I hurried to the car and bent down to talk to the driver. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Our friend is drunk. We were trying to get him to come with us to the L, and he tried to fight us off. You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. If I’d hit him, it would have been your fault.”
“You’re absolutely right. We’ll get him out of here right now.”
The thug in the street was groaning but getting to his feet. “They attacked me,” he said blearily to the driver.
“That’s right, Ludwig, we attacked you. That’s right, that’s what we’ll tell your wife when we get you home. Upsy-daisy, now. Tim, get him back on his feet and out of the street before someone really gets hurt.”
Petra hurried out to join us. “Guys, the manager, he’s, like, calling the cops. What are we going to do?”
“I’m parked just over there on Lake Street,” our new helper said. “Can we get these lowlifes that far?”
“Marty, we’ll cover them,” Tim said. “You go get your truck, if that’s okay with Vic, here: double-time.”
Marty sprinted down the street. The manager and the waiters were crowding the sidewalk outside the club entrance. Tim had taken over the choke hold on Marty’s thug. The guy who’d been knocked into the street was too dazed to fight, but I kept my gun on him, anyway. Petra’s teeth were chattering, and she kept up a flow of nervous, worried commentary: Where is he? Doesn’t he know we have to get out of here? What will we do if the cops get here first?
“Say your prayers, sweetheart,” I finally said to her.
A battered pickup bounced to a stop next to us. Marty got down and helped Tim and me shove our captives into the backseat. Tim and I joined them, leaving the front seat to Marty and Petra.
I leaned back in my corner as Marty pulled away from the club. We’d reached the intersection of Racine before blue strobes swept up the street to the club.
36 A Trip South-Alas, Not to Sunshine!
Now what?” Petra said.
The backseat hadn’t been designed for four. None of us could maneuver well, and I wasn’t happy at the possibilities this gave the thugs when they regained their equilibrium. I told Marty to pull over and let me put Petra into a taxi home. If we had more violence tonight, or the police caught up with us, I didn’t want her involved, anyway.
We were just a few blocks from the heart of the restaurant scene, where taxis were plentiful. My abdomen was so sore that it was painful to climb down from the pickup and hard to walk, but I made it to the curb, flagged a cab, got my cousin tucked away. I gave her a twenty and told her to get home to bed, to call me in the morning before she tried to go to the office.
I climbed into the front seat next to Marty. “Who are you, by the way? And how did you guys show up like that?”
“Marty Jepson,” Tim said for him. “He was a Marine staff sergeant in Iraq. He’s one of the gang who Chad and me met at the VA. I texted Marty as soon as Petra and me left you, and he was at Plotzky’s, so he hustled over to help out.”
“Bless you, Staff Sergeant. Was that you who shot out the Mercedes’ tires?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tim here thought the guy who was passed out back there by the L might have a gun, so I crawled over and found it and shot into the rims-fastest way to deflate tires. What do you want me to do with these bastards, pardon my French?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to drive them down to Thirty-fifth and Michigan, give them to Detective Finchley, see what he can pin on them. They must have records for extortion or murder or something.”
The men began spewing invectives, curses in two languages. If their English was any guide, they didn’t think much of me in Ukrainian, either.
“On the other hand,” I said, “if we learned a couple of things from them, like why they thought I had a piece of interesting property, and why Anton Kystarnik is interested in whatever it is, we might let them go off into the night.”
“We can’t interrogate them here,” Tim objected. “There are people all over the place. Besides, the cops might find us.”
“Where do you want to go, ma’am?” Jepson asked.
I thought of Mexico City-sunshine, sleep-but I told him to head toward South Chicago, the poverty-stricken corner of the Southeast Side where I grew up. “We can talk on the way.”
I turned painfully in the seat to look at the captives in the back. “Which one of you is Ludwig?” I asked.
“Bitch, we don’t tell you nothing.”
“Want me to hit them?” Tim asked. “They have a few punches coming, judging from how they were roughing you up.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “We know what they are-creeps who work for Anton Kystarnik-and we know their names are Ludwig and Konstantin. Now, which one of you is which?”
They stared at me, sullen, silent.
“Okay,” I said, “just so we can call you something, you, by the window, you’re Konstantin, and your pal is Ludwig. We can find you easily enough if we need you again. Go on over to Lake Shore Drive, Marty, and head south.”
A cell phone rang in Ludwig’s pocket, and he reached for it. Tim knocked his hand away, and we listened to the phone ringing. Konstantin’s phone started next, a sound like a buzz saw.
“What does Anton think I have?” I asked over the ringing.
“We tell you nothing… You or your boy toys, you dried-up cougar!”
“A dried-up cougar? Is that a step up from a bitch or a step down?” I wondered. “Anyway, so far you and your
