got to his feet. “Anyone who comes into a place like this can expect to hear that kind of comment and more besides. If you can’t handle it, then you shouldn’t be here.”
“Are you saying that Nadia deserved to be shot?”
He made an angry gesture. “Of course not. But this is a rough place. I don’t want to cause the Guamans more pain than they feel already, so I’m going to whitewash my report of what goes on in here. But you know as well as I do that it’s a strip joint going under a classier name. Look at that guy there—” He pointed at Rodney. “You can’t tell me he’s the kind of person a woman who respects herself would hang around.”
“You’ve got me there, Mr. Cowles,” I admitted. “He looks like a Class X felony waiting to happen.”
“What was all that about, his painting on that woman’s ass?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t want to join him, Cowles,” one of his friends said.
“What would you have put there?” the man they’d called Mac said.
“Maybe the same numbers,” the first man said. “They’d be his billable hours for the last month.”
The three who were sitting down all laughed, and Cowles, after a brief hesitation, joined in, but he said to me, “If you’re here because of Nadia Guaman, I’d advise you to leave her and her family strictly alone.”
“Whoa, Mr. Cowles! You told me you were their honorary uncle. You didn’t say you were their legal guardian or their mouthpiece. If they want to talk to me, they have a right to. And vice versa.”
“Just who are you, anyway?”
I smiled again. “I am V. I. Warshawski. Good night, Mr. Cowles.”
I returned to my own chair, which had been taken over by a couple who were sharing the small seat. As I extracted my coat from beneath them, I saw Cowles flag down a server and point at me. The server smiled and gestured. Within a few minutes, Cowles probably knew I was a private eye. There wasn’t any real point in my keeping my identity a secret, after all.
14
And Besides, the Wench Is Dead
As I handed two twenties to Petra for my drinks, Rodney got to his feet and swaggered to the exit. I told Petra I’d be back for my change and hurried behind the stage, down the corridor that led past the toilets and dressing rooms to the rear exit. I reached the alley just in time to see Rodney climb into a Mercedes sedan. I squatted behind another car and managed to copy his license plate before he bounced out of the lot.
When I’d corralled Petra and gotten my change—fifteen dollars, more than I wanted to leave her, or anyone, on a twenty-five-dollar tab—I went backstage again, this time to the star’s dressing room. Two women were with Karen. One, very young and white, was sponging the angel from the Artist’s back. The second, an African-American with a soft short Afro, was perched on a stool, playing with the paintbrushes.
The Artist looked at me and said to her companions, “The detective I was telling you about.”
I smiled at the women. “My name is V. I. Warshawski. I’m sad to see you destroy the angel. It was stunning. And amazing that you could create all these images in one day.”
“It’s ephemeral art. Like Goldsworthy, only even more ephemeral than leaves along a lakeshore.” Karen spoke gruffly, but she turned away from me, as if to hide any pleasure in my compliment. “This is Rivka, who did the tedious work of painting the designs on me and now is doing the equally hard part of removing them again. She’s my most reliable aide-de-camp when I’m doing serious work of my own.”
The younger woman flushed, and said, “You have to take them off, even though they’re so beautiful, because it’s hard on the Artist’s skin if she sleeps in the paint.”
“That’s Vesta on the stool.” The Artist didn’t pay any attention to Rivka’s interjection. “She’s a third-degree black belt.”
“Did you bring her to protect you from overeager fans, or from Rodney?” I asked.
“I think she was just trying to impress you,” Vesta said. “I’m not a bodyguard.”
She sat easily on her stool, with a kind of confidence in her bearing that I’d seen in other experienced martial artists—no need to be aggressive in the world. I’d learned to fight the hard way, on the streets of South Chicago, and it made me too pugnacious, too willing to believe the