The two baristas lived in Waukegan to the north, but the maids all lived in the city. They crammed into the Mustang, a tight fit for the two in my small backseat, but better than the three buses they told me they took to get from the far northern suburbs down to their homes on Chicago’s West Side.
When I finally returned to my office, Petra was still there, calling hospitals to see if anyone named Karen Buckley or Frannie Pindero had sought care for deep cuts. I was so tired that I just shook my head when she asked me if I’d found Steve Pindero. I went into my back room, where my portable bed is. My jeans and socks were wet from the snow. I took them off and flung them on a radiator and collapsed on the bed.
I was on a freight train, rocking along. The tracks were badly scarred, and the train kept bouncing, jolting me from side to side.
“Vic! Wake up, why can’t you? Mr. Vishneski’s on the phone.”
It wasn’t a train, just my cousin shaking my shoulder.
“I said he could leave a message with me, but he wouldn’t.”
I staggered upright, pulled on my jeans, and padded out to my desk in my bare feet. There was still an inch of cold cappuccino in the cup I’d bought this morning. I swallowed it, trying to clear the thickness of sleep out of my voice.
“Mr. Vishneski. Sorry to keep you waiting.”
He was too intent on his story to care. “We have good news. My boy came to for a minute. He’d been restless all night, and the docs said that was a good sign. And then he opened his eyes.”
“That’s wonderful news,” I said. “Did he seem to know you?”
“We couldn’t tell, his eyes weren’t focusing that great. He said a couple of words, then he passed out again.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“She says it’s a good sign, and maybe he’ll make a full recovery. But it could be days or a week before he really regains consciousness for good.”
So we couldn’t ask him any questions.
“What did he say? Anything about the shooting? Or if someone came home from Plotzky’s bar with him?”
“He wants a vest. Mona and me, we both agreed that that was what he was saying. The nurse, she heard it, too. But we don’t feel like we want to leave the hospital right now, so we thought—we hoped—we want you go to Mona’s place and bring it here to the hospital for him.”
“A vest?” I said blankly. “What does it look like?”
“We don’t know,” Vishneski said. “Neither Mona nor me gave him one, so we’re thinking one of his buddies, or maybe a girlfriend. If you find any vests, bring them all over, and we’ll see which one he wants. Could be he left something in a pocket, a good-luck charm or something.”
I started to say I’d come to the hospital to collect keys, but then I imagined the drive through snow-packed streets to the hospital, parking, waiting while someone fetched Mona out of the ICU, and her haphazard search through her giant bag for her keys. It would be easier for me to pick the lock, but I didn’t share that thought with the client.
Before I left, I went over Petra’s work for the hour I’d been sleeping. She’d finished checking hospitals, but no one who sounded like the Body Artist had come in to have cuts treated.
“Peewee, it’s been a long day, but I need you to stay here until I get back. Tim Radke is coming to see if he can find out who’s blocking the Embodied Art website. He’s probably not going to have a computer with him, which means he’ll use mine. There’s too much confidential data on the Mac Pro—I’ll want you to hover to see what files he looks at.”
“What should I tell him you want him to do?”
“The Artist said her hosting service told her the site was being blocked from her computer, but she claims not to know who’s doing it. I want to know if Tim can verify that one way or another.”
Petra looked doubtful, not wanting to be left in charge. “Won’t he need her computer?”
“I don’t know. If he does, I think she left it at Club Gouge last night. Which means checking at the club, if it’s open. While you wait for him, can you start viewing some of these discs I took away from Frannie Pindero’s place? I don’t