Body Work

front room Petra and I had found yesterday afternoon.

After a bit, though, the two vets wandered off to join Mr. Contreras and Petra in my kitchen. The dog walker rang my bell. I sent Petra downstairs, with Staff Sergeant Jepson as protection. I kept watching videos as they came back up with the animals.

I saw footage of Leander Marvelle and Kevin Piuma dancing without their burkas. They moved beautifully-a marvel, a feather; they’d named themselves well-in a bare space that I guessed was the Columbia College rehearsal room.

Karen had taped herself with Vesta. They were in bed together. Vesta murmured something, low-voiced, out of mike range, and then sprang to her feet and ordered Karen to leave.

“Take your camera with you, Karen. And your clothes, your toothbrush-all those things. I don’t want you back here.”

And Karen hadn’t argued. She sat up in bed, her face as impassive a mask as when it was covered with paint. I saw her naked torso, her hand stretched out. She wasn’t beseeching Vesta but holding a small remote control and turning off the camera.

I looked for footage during the weeks Nadia had been visiting Club Gouge. I found a scene in Rivka’s bedroom with Rivka demanding to know what Nadia meant to Karen.

A chance to explore the world of art. She’s a tormented soul, little Rivulet. Don’t torment your own soul over her. And certainly not over me.

I moved on to other files. And came upon a crucifix with a doll’s head, black plastic hair tied around Jesus’ hands. That was the cross Nadia had kept over her bed.

Karen said, You’ve never done this before, have you? Her voice held cool amusement, no tenderness.

Wherever she’d placed her camera, it wasn’t quite close enough for good focus. I could tell Nadia was naked, but not what her face was registering. Her response to Karen was so soft that the mike didn’t pick it up.

Why did you hustle me so hard after the show, then? Karen said. Just out of curiosity.

A long tick of silence, except for the rustling of the bedclothes, and then Nadia said, You knew my sister. Alexandra.

I meet a lot of people, Nadia.

In Michigan, at a music festival. Maybe she told you to call her Allie; that’s her pet name at home.

Oh, yes. Beautiful girl, totally ashamed of herself. Are you the go-between? Is she ready to come out? Or did she tell you to use me for your own sexual experiments? If so, try this.

It wasn’t clear what Karen did next, but it hurt. Nadia gave a sharp yelp and sat up, wrapping a sheet around her shoulders.

Alexandra is dead. She was killed in Iraq.

Do you want me to stand at attention and play the “Star-Spangled Banner”? Karen’s cool tone didn’t change.

Do you have any feelings at all, for anyone besides yourself?

I figure chicks like you, emoting all over the place, have so many exhausting feelings that there isn’t room for mine. Karen was being sarcastic, but I thought there was an undercurrent in her tone- anger? bitterness?

If you had a sister like Allie and she was murdered, you might not be so cold.

Karen sat up in bed so fast that the camera recorded only a blur. I heard the slap, hand on face. Fuck you, bitch. I had someone like Allie who was murdered. So stop bleating at me like a sentimental sheep.

I hit PAUSE, startled. Did she mean Anton’s daughter, Zina? Was that a person Karen/Frannie had felt close to? If that was the case, then maybe Zina’s overdose had been someone else’s deliberate work. Or maybe Karen/Frannie just thought an OD was an act of murder. Impossible to know.

I clicked PLAY, and the recording began again. Nadia was apologizing. But my sister was tormented, she was hounded, she wrote it in her journal. All because someone where she worked in Baghdad found out that she liked, she preferred-that women-

That she was a dyke. Why can’t you just say it?

Don’t use that word about Allie! Who told them? Was it you? Because you were so angry with her for not returning your calls?

Karen sat up and began pulling on clothes-sweater, jeans, boots.

Nadia, you want someone to be at fault because the sister you adored so much is dead. But if she was a lesbian, people in Baghdad would have known. Believe me, I did not say one word to one person about my week with her. She was of no interest to me once she made it clear that I was of no interest to her.

For once, Karen spoke in a real voice, someone who was feeling the words she was saying. Or at least someone who acted as though she felt them.

The clip ended there, abruptly, as had the segment with Vesta. There was no way of knowing whether Nadia, like Vesta, had realized Karen/ Frannie was recording her.

41 A Clutch of Apartment Raiders, Plus Dogs

Dinner was a success, at least for my guests. Petra had recovered from last night’s trauma, aided by her military escort, and they, in turn, seemed to be thawing in her ebullience. My neighbor was beaming happily. Mr. Contreras wanted to see Petra settle down with “some nice boy,” and Marty Jepson and Tim Radke both fit the bill.

I sat at the end of the table, smiling, nodding, wondering where Alexandra Guaman’s journal was. I had played the video the Body Artist had recorded with Nadia three times. Alexandra felt so hounded and tormented that she wrote about it in her journal. Nadia had said that. Which meant Nadia had seen the journal. Which meant that whoever ransacked Nadia’s apartment might have been looking for it.

“Julian Urbanke,” I suddenly said out loud.

Everyone at the table stared at me, until Petra said, “Vic, there’s no one with a name like that in my family, unless it’s someone on the Warshawski side. Marty was asking who in my mom’s family had been in the service.”

My aunt’s ancestors had mostly been in the Confederate Army. I wondered how the veterans would react to that.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was trying to remember the name of the man who lived across the hall from Nadia Guaman. Her apartment was ripped apart, the pictures even taken down from the walls. A couple of days after she died, someone took her computer and all her discs. Urbanke had a key to her apartment. He seemed to have had a crush on Nadia-maybe he helped himself to Alexandra’s journal, thinking it was Nadia’s, before the home-wrecking crew arrived.”

“What would you like us to do, ma’am?” Jepson asked.

“Marty, it’s so funny to hear you call Vic ‘ma’am.’” Petra laughed. “She may be older than us, but she’s not, like, a hundred. Just call her ‘Vic,’ like everybody else does.”

“Darling, I love the staff sergeant’s impeccable manners,” I said. “Who knows, maybe some of them will rub off on you and me.”

I looked at Jepson, who was staring straight ahead, blushing.

“I’d like to go over to Urbanke’s place,” I continued, “see if he has the diary.”

Petra’s eyes sparkled. “All of us? A midnight raid-”

She stopped, remembering last night’s fight. The muscles in her face tightened. “Vic,” she said, “why don’t you just call and ask him.”

“Too easy to brush people off on the phone,” I said.