Sara Paretsky - 1994 - [V.I. Warshawski 08] - Tunnel Vision by Tunnel Vision

Author:Tunnel Vision
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-08T23:04:28+00:00

33

Knock Before

Picking Conrad’s beeper went off at two-thirty. He stumbled to the living room to use the phone, trying to be quiet about it. A few minutes later he moved stealthily back to the bedroom. I could hear him fumbling in the dark for his clothes. I switched on the light and sat up.

“Sorry, babe. Didn’t think both of us had to be roused by the city’s punks.

One of my informers was just killed. Could be a simple drive-by, or it could be a warning to other stooges. I’ve got to go listen to some statements. If we finish before dawn maybe I’ll come back here?” He finished it as a question.

I put on a T-shirt and went to the kitchen for my spare keys. “You wearing your vest?”

He ran a hand through my hair. “I’m just going to be at the station listening to lies.”

“You don’t know where the night will take you. You can’t afford to move around without it these days, you know that, and the super would tell you the same.”

“Call Fabian and get him to put in a word to the chief of detectives for me,” he gibed, but he went back to the bedroom and took his vest from the chair.

I locked the door behind him and went to the living room window to watch him leave. When he’d unlocked his car he looked up and waved at me. After he’d driven off I continued to watch the street, focusing on nothing in particular, depressed by the amount of pointless violence in the city. I stood there for some minutes, until I realized that Ken Graham’s Spider was parked down the street.

I didn’t know whether I felt more angry or amused. Did he think he was protecting me? Or was he just filling in time? I wished fervently I’d been able to find a placement for him so that he’d have a legitimate piece of work to look after, instead of trailing around after me. Although it would be a boon if he could rebuild my files, his hovering presence was a worse nuisance than Mr.

Contreras’s.

Somewhere between dreaming and waking I’d decided to become aggressive in my search for Home Free’s secrets. It would be difficult to break into the Gant-Ag complex in search of information about JAD, but if the musketeers were all for one and one for all, Jasper might have some data. And at the very least I might find out why their construction projects were so secret.

I trotted to the bedroom to put on jeans and a jacket. I thought for a minute about what I needed. My picklocks. My Smith & Wesson. A couple of pairs of surgical gloves, donated by Lotty in a friendly mood. I had a flashlight in the car. A stepladder? I didn’t think I could get one from the basement without rousing Mr. Contreras. If I needed something more than the portable stool I kept in my trunk I’d have to improvise. A note for Conrad taped to the front door telling him I’d gone out on an errand.

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