I put twelve bucks on the check and got to my feet.
“You don’t have to do it. I can get someone from an agency.”
“I will, I will,” my cousin stood up, too. “Just don’t be a bully. I work best when I’m part of a team, not a robot.”
“There’s a certain amount of robot to the assistant job,” I warned her. “You’ll have to pretend I’m not your cousin, that this job is as important as, well, as keeping Olympia’s customers happy. There’s filing, there’s keeping track of e-mails, phone messages—a lot of all investigative work is sheer, unmitigated, boring routine.”
Petra nodded. “I will be the unbullied gofer to end all unbullied gofers, as long as you don’t hog all the good stuff.”
I smiled at her. “I promise I will let you take the next metal shard to the hand.”
As we waited at the long light on Milwaukee, I asked if the Body Artist had ever said anything that suggested she knew Rodney Treffer as more than one of Olympia’s customers.
“Why?”
“When I was trying to help her escape last night, she fought me, screaming that I’d totally messed things up. So even though she fought back against the guys who were pounding her on the stage, she didn’t want me to save her from them. Which makes me wonder.”
Petra shook her head. “She likes being mysterious. And she likes, well, fucking with the waitstaff. That’s about all I can tell you.”
“Fucking with the waitstaff?”
“Oh, you know, she’ll ask for a drink after her show, and you know who she is screwing by who was willing to take it in. It was, like, some kind of initiation rite when I started work there, to answer the call. And then she’d be, like, ‘Oh, Petra—is that your name?—just get this makeup off my ass,’ and she’d see how far you’d go with her.”
I made a sour face but changed the subject. “You know, by the way, that Chad Vishneski’s father is my client. And that means the Warshawski Agency is committed to Chad’s innocence.”
Petra grinned. “I love being part of the Warshawski Agency. I renounce all other loyalties. I am one hundred percent behind Chad.”
We’d crossed the street and made it to my building, where another surprise visitor waited. Rivka Darling was pacing the sidewalk outside my front door. When she saw me, she burst out, “Where is she?”
“Where’s who?” I asked.
“The Artist!”
I typed in the code on the door keypad. “Darling Rivka, Rivka Darling. What makes you think Karen is missing?”
“Because she is. You knew she was when you called last night, and she never did come home—”
“Does she live with you?”
Rivka paused. “She’s been staying with me. While her life is in danger. And—”
I ushered her and Petra down the hall to my office. I sat Rivka on a couch in the client alcove and turned to my cousin. “Petra, this is a potential client. She also is a potential suspect in a murder inquiry. So we ask questions and take notes, but we won’t volunteer information. Although we will tell her what we know about last night.”
Rivka gasped as if I’d stuck her headfirst in the icy lake. “What do you mean, I’m a suspect? I came here for help. You have to find Karen. They could have killed her—”
“Who are ‘they,’ Rivka?”
“The people who attacked her last night.” Rivka was shrieking with fury at my refusal to join her in hysteria. “I called over to the club this morning, looking for Karen. Olympia was there. She told me you set the place on fire, and—”
I turned to my cousin. “Petra, your first assignment is to phone Olympia and tell her that we are making a note of every time she says I set her club on fire and that these statements will form the basis of a lawsuit for defamation.”
Petra’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Yep. Don’t argue with her, just tell her you’re calling to give her information. I’m sure she’s scared. But being scared should make you smarter, not stupider. Call from the landline on my desk. The law requires you to tell her you’re recording the conversation; you’ll see a RECORD button on the phone. Olympia will try to get under your skin. Don’t let her.”
Petra moved toward my desk but slowly, nervous about making the call. I turned back to Rivka, who’d been shocked into silence.