Not so the Escalade. Metal hit metal, hard. Guns erupted everywhere. I slowed to look behind.
Hell was raining from the sky. Small fires were falling, burning remnants from the barrel. Others lay strewn on the asphalt and, most disrespectfully, on the black vinyl top of the shiny blue Chevy that rested, crumpled like a cheap toy, against the side of a garage.
The toughs stood surrounding the Escalade, aiming guns at its shattered windshield. Steam hissed from what was left of its grille. I could not see Robinson’s towel-wrapped head.
I turned right, and left, and finally found streets that had been well salted.
“We’re good, Wendell,” I shouted at the phone on the dash.
He did not respond. I picked up the phone. The battery was dead. I laughed.
Thirty minutes later, I drove up the curved driveway of Amanda’s high-rise.
Wendell had indeed summoned up troops. A man with a medical bag on his lap sat inside the opened door of a Mercedes. The garage attendant, an always affable, always armed fellow, stood under a huge black umbrella, out in the drizzle. As did three thickset men who had to belong to Wendell’s private security force. Jarobi stood holding an umbrella, talking to two uniformed Chicago police officers sitting in a cruiser.
Wendell, the great man himself, shared an umbrella with a slick, silver-haired man. Though we’d never been introduced, because we’d never travel in the same circles, I knew him. He was a wealthy commodities trader named Richard Rudolph, and he always seemed to be at Amanda’s side every time a newspaper photographer ran pictures of her at a charity event.
After I slid slightly to a stop, it was Rudolph who hurried to open Amanda’s door. Her breathing had stabilized, and she appeared to have regained her focus. She looked over at me looking at the silver-maned snake. She might have given me a smile, but I don’t know; Rudolph slid her out so quickly I couldn’t be sure. Her father came up then, and together the six-legged creature of affluence, joined in ways I could only imagine, walked under the canopy and through the door, trailed by the doctor, security men, and cops that would keep her safe.
Not even Jarobi came over to say anything.
It was just as well. I turned around and drove back onto Lake Shore Drive. I wanted to be absolutely alone.
I drove north on Lake Shore Drive, putting more miles between Amanda and me. There was little traffic, no ice, and, despite my incessant checking, no Escalades.
My cell phone rang. It was Jarobi. “Care to share before the Rivertown police pick you up for arson?”
“There’s a fire?”
“Apparently a house belonging to Rivertown’s chief building inspector caught fire early this morning. Reports are sketchy, other than it appears the fire originated in the basement. There are persons of interest. A rather shabby-looking fellow and a disheveled woman were seen leaving the bungalow in a rusted red Jeep adorned with much silver tape.”
“That’s the problem with those eyesore Jeeps. There are hundreds of them. Too many are red, and most have been patched with silver tape.”
“Mr. Phelps whisked his daughter up into her condo. She needed medical attention, so I did not intrude.”
“If Robinson’s basement hasn’t been totally destroyed, you’ll find traces of Amanda being held hostage there.”
“Speaking of that painting…?”
“There might be traces of it, or he might have grabbed it on his way out.”
“Where is he?”
“West Side, in a bad place, likely dead of gunshot.”
Suddenly, I was numb with fatigue. Other than snatches on the plane, returning from L.A., I couldn’t remember when I’d last slept.
Jarobi must have heard it in my voice. “Where are you?”
“North Avenue Beach.”
“Pull into the parking lot. I’ll send a blue-and-white to escort you home. And Elstrom?”
“Yes?”
“Keep that Peacemaker handy until we find Robinson.”
“Peacemaker?” I asked, too tired for puzzles.
“That old Colt you were waving, the first time I came to your place. It’s a variation of the old single-action Colts they used in the Wild, Wild West. They called them Peacemakers. Keep it handy until we find Robinson.”
“It was stolen,” I managed to offer up. It was better than saying I’d dropped the gun in Robinson’s basement, where someone was sure to find it, a cop or a fireman, and trace it to a man lying under loose stones.
It was a worry for a more alert man. I needed sleep.
An officer pulled up in a marked Chicago car then and followed me back to Rivertown. He settled back in the driver’s seat as I walked up to my door. He was going to stay.
I supposed I should call Jarobi, to thank him for the bodyguard, but though it wasn’t much past noon, the thought of trying to do anything except crawl into bed was too complicated to consider.
Fifty
In the middle of the afternoon, Henny Bennett’s lawyer sent me fishing for the prepaid cell phone I’d brought to L.A. It was chirping in the pocket of my khakis, buried under a thin layer of other clothes on the chair next to my bed. I keep my duds close, so I don’t have far to sprint in the cold. Also because I don’t yet have a closet.
It was two thirty, Chicago time, which meant it was lunchtime in L.A.
“You were a bit cryptic yesterday,” Mickey Gare said, oozing affability. Cryptic was hardly the word for the lies I’d spun, but I was too groggy to quibble.
“How’s the weather out there? Sunny and around seventy-two?” I ventured my other hand from beneath the blankets to grab for the trio of sweatshirts.
“There’s no need to play games. We’ve heard nothing from you, and Mr. Bennett remains most interested in acquiring the Daisy.”
“As is the equally lovable Mrs. Bennett.”
He snorted, and I remembered the slight dusting of powder I’d seen under his nose. I’d wanted to dismiss it as a bit of sugar doughnut residue, such were my sensibilities, but L.A., being a land of tight abs and loose nostrils, demanded other interpretations.
“We’d like to offer an enticement.”
“A bribe? Bribes are always fun.” I rubbed my legs with my free hand, to warm them.
He snorted again, and I became certain he was enjoying a lunch of power powder.
“What’s that clicking sound?” he asked.
It was my teeth, chattering. “Hold, please.” I set the phone down and put on the first of my sweatshirts, the XL, in gray. Then, picking up the phone, “How much of a bribe?”
“An enticement to make the final offer.”
The man was a sleazy ass, and my chin was still quivering from the cold. I reached for the second sweatshirt, the plain dark blue XXL. “Last look has already been promised to Mrs. Bennett,” I said, still talking as I slipped in one arm, then the other, as agile as a python.
Two snorts came this time, one loud, one more distant. Gare must have been having lunch with Henny Bennett.
“Hiya, Henny,” I called out.
“No one has contacted us,” Gare bleated. “Not you, not your principal. We’ll pay the highest dollar.”
“You already said that.”
“Rudy Cassone? You do know that name, Mr. Elstrom?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I presume you know he’s the one who claimed the Daisy was stolen from him and threatened to sue anyone who has possession of the picture. We did some research. So far as we can tell, no one has owned that painting since before World War II, and even then its provenance is cloudy.” He paused. “And now he’s dead.” He took a deep sniff that sounded like a tornado sucking a tree out of hard ground.
“Why are you calling?”
“Damn it: Will this Rudy Cassone business wreck things?”