money through Club Gouge.
“No wonder your business began to take off last fall when the Body Artist appeared on your stage. You suddenly had money to burn. At least, it was Anton’s money, but you could advertise in the important places, you could invest in that shiny set of plasma screens and that really cool sound system. What was the Artist’s role in all this? Did she sleep with Rodney?”
Olympia made a sour face. “It was all I could do to get her to sit still when he was painting her. That was Anton’s idea, when he first heard about her act. He thought it would be a good way to keep the feds from tracking his offshore accounts. Now that you’ve ruined that, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Say it more plaintively,” I suggested. “Make me care. Karen Buckley has disappeared, by the way. Any thoughts on where she’d go? On who would take her in?”
“That stupid girl who drools on her, I suppose,” Olympia said.
“Rivka Darling? Think harder, dig deeper in your brain.”
“I don’t care,” Olympia shouted. “She was a royal pain to work with, a fucking prima donna! If Anton hadn’t told me-”
“Told you what?” I said when she bit the statement off. “What her real name was?”
“I
“How did you know?”
She looked sulky but said, “You’re not the only detective in Chicago. I saw Anton had some kind of hold on Karen, so I hired Brett Taylor to run a background check. He dug deep, but he couldn’t find word one about her. And then he charged me a bundle!”
Brett Taylor was another solo op in town. Our paths crossed occasionally.
“What a happy little band you are at Club Gouge,” I said. “Anton has you clamped in a vise. You spy on your performers so that you can hold any secrets you uncover over their heads-we won’t use such an ugly word as
A sly smile tilted the corners of her mouth. “I couldn’t say, although if I knew Karen Buckley’s real name, it might trigger a memory or two.”
“Can’t tell you that.” I got to my feet. “I’ll be talking to Terry Finchley, the cop who’s spearheading the Guaman murder investigation. I’ll be sure to let him know he should look at your books. Not the books the IRS sees-the ones Anton’s pet CPA, Owen Widermayer, keeps for you.”
“You wouldn’t! You can’t go to the cops. Not when your own niece-”
“She’s my cousin, not my niece. And if you try to smear her, it won’t be Anton Kystarnik who puts a bullet through you.”
“Yeah, it’ll be me.” Mr. Contreras startled both of us, he’d been silent so long. “You letting a horror show like that Rodney stick a hand on her and paying her-you’re no better than a pimp yourself.”
Olympia looked from Mr. Contreras to me. “If I tell you,” she said, “if I help you, will you promise not to talk to this cop, this Finchley?”
“Of course not: I’m a licensed investigator. I could lose my license if I covered up a crime, especially one like laundering money for the mob.” I moved to the door.
“I’ll call Officer Finchley myself,” she said boldly. “I’ll tell him I just found out that Anton was using my club as a front.”
“And he’ll believe you because he’s such a gullible guy. Especially if you wear that black thing that shows off your cleavage,” I suggested.
She held out her hands, beseeching, sister to sister. “You could help me,” she pleaded. “You could tell him you discovered the discrepancy when you were investigating this Guaman murder. And when you brought it to my attention-”
“Your cooked books are connected to the Guaman murder? Is that what Chad and Nadia were arguing about?” I stopped with my hand on the knob, my jaw gaping in astonishment. Was that what had been in Chad’s black mitt- some microchip with Olympia’s accounting data on it?
“What do you mean, my cooked books?” she protested belatedly. “As for Chad and Nadia, they were just a couple of fucked-up people who came to the club. And that’s all you’ll get from me. Unless you back me up when you talk to your tame cop.”
39 Girlie Mags-and
As soon as we were in the elevator, Mr. Contreras tore into me.
???Why didn’t you tell me that woman was letting some scumbag put his filthy hands on Peewee? Why didn’t she tell me herself? She shoulda known I’d help her out if she got in a jam.”
I put an arm around him.
“Darling, the only reason we didn’t tell you is because we love you. What good would it do either of us if you were in prison for murder, even if you killed a scumbag who wouldn’t be missed?”
He let himself be mollified at the suggestion that I thought he was tough enough to kill someone who bothered Petra. He drove me to the store, helped me push my shopping cart, didn’t fight me over the bill even though he’d put a few items of his own in the cart.
“Guess I can call that payment for chauffeuring you, doll.”
I needed to be in motion, but I was so exhausted by the outing that I had to lie down when we got home. I let Mr. Contreras put my chicken in the oven to roast, let him make me an ice pack to put on my sore stomach while he settled down in my living room with the dogs.
I tried to relax, but I kept replaying my conversation with Olympia. She was afraid of Anton, but who wouldn’t be? She seemed especially afraid that he would know that I’d been to see her. I felt a grudging sympathy. When I met Anton last night, I hadn’t been sure I’d be alive today. In fact, if Tim and Marty hadn’t come along, I might well not be.
The ice had melted through my Ace bandage, and my stomach was wet and cold. A counter-irritant to take my mind off the pain. I rolled to a sitting position and unwrapped the bandage.
Nadia had kept painting Allie’s face surrounded by the same design that was on Chad’s body armor. If Rodney and Anton had been using the Body Artist as a message board, maybe Nadia had been doing the same thing. She was writing about her sister, that was definite. But the rest of the message was obscure. There was a connection to Chad’s body armor, but was it to the secret object he might have brought back with him from Iraq? Or was it to Chad himself, or to his massacred squad?
I thought of the porn magazines I’d taken from under Mona Vishneski’s bed, the magazines Chad had tucked away so Mom wouldn’t see them. Maybe Allie had posed in one of them and Chad was blackmailing the Guaman family. The magazines were at my office.
I got to my feet, put on a dry shirt, pulled on a sweater over it-a big, loose one that didn’t require me to wriggle and struggle-and went to the living room. Mr. Contreras was dozing on the couch. I thought about slipping out without waking him on the theory that it was better to apologize than to explain, but we’d had too many skirmishes over the years about my secretive nature. And I was too weak and sore to fight my friends along with my enemies.
When I woke my neighbor, he didn’t want to go back out in the cold and snow, and who could blame him? He argued that the magazines could wait until morning, but when I said I’d call Petra, ask her to stop at the office and find what I needed, he grumped to his feet.
“You ain’t sticking Peewee’s head in another tiger trap.”
“There’s nothing dangerous about going to my office,” I objected.
“Trust me, if you send little Petra there to get a magazine for you, chances are someone’s put a bomb in it.”
“So you’d rather my head got blown off?” I was half teasing, half hurt.
“Don’t give me those puppy-dog eyes,” he growled. “All the years I been knowing you, I been begging you to keep yourself safe, and you ain’t paid one minute of heed to me. I’m just asking you to take better care of the kid than you do of yourself. Look at you-bruises on your hand, your stomach, would make your own mother faint-”
