I was afraid she was going to argue with me, but my stunned mood got across to her. She asked if I was all right, if it was okay to leave me with young Art. When I reassured her she went back to the living room for her coat.

She stopped briefly at the door on her way out and said in a small voice, “I didn’t mean all those things I was saying. I came here to get back on good terms with you, not to shout like that.”

I rubbed her shoulders gently. “It’s okay, fireball—it goes with the territory. I said some stupid things myself. Let’s forget it.”

She gave me a quick hug and took off.

32

Flushed Out of the Pocket

I took Art into the living room and poured him a glass of the Barolo. He gulped it down. Water would probably have been just as good under the circumstances.

“Where have you been hiding? Do you know every beat cop in Chicago is carrying your description? Or that your mother’s going crazy?” They weren’t the questions I really wanted to ask, but I couldn’t figure out how to frame those.

His lips stretched in a nervous parody of his usual beautiful smile. “I was at Nancy’s. I figured no one would look there.”

“Hn-unh.” I shook my head. “You’ve been gone since Monday night and I was at Nancy’s on Tuesday with Mrs. Cleghorn.”

“I spent Monday night in my car. Then I figured no one would be bothering with Nancy’s house. I—I could see it had been torn up pretty good. It’s been kind of spooky, but I knew I’d be safe there since they’d already searched it.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The people who killed Nancy.”

“And who are they?” I felt as though I was interrogating a jug of molasses.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, looking away.

“But you can guess,” I prodded. “Tell me about the insurance your father manages for Xerxes. What was Nancy’s interest in it?”

“How did you get those papers?” he whispered. “I called my mother this morning, I knew she’d be worried, and she said you had been by. My—my old man—Big Art had found the card you left and really blown sky high, she said. He was screaming that—that if he got his hands on me, he’d see I remembered never to betray him again. That’s why I came here. To see what you know. See if you can help me.”

I looked at him sourly. “I’ve been trying to get you to tell me a few things for the last two weeks and you’ve been acting as though English was your second language and you weren’t too fluent in it.”

He scrunched up his face in misery. “I know. But when Nancy died I was so afraid. Afraid my old man had something to do with it.”

“Why didn’t you run away then? Why wait until I talked to you?”

He flushed an even deeper red. “I thought maybe no one would know—know the connection. But if you saw it, anyone could.”