Free V.I. Warshawski 04 - Bitter Medicine by Sara Paretsky

curtained store. No one shot at me. In the dark, though, I could sense the presence around me of many Lions.
     
    I rapped smartly on the glass door. It opened promptly, the width of a chain. A gun barrel appeared. Naturally. The heavy drama of the gangs, the alleviation of the relentless boredom of life on the streets.
     
    “It’s V. I. Warshawski, reporting as commanded, clean in thought, word, and deed.”
     
    I felt someone come up behind me and braced myself against an expected touch; I couldn’t afford to follow my reflexes and kick. Hands patted me down clumsily.
     
    “She’s dean, man,” the youth behind me twanged. “I didn’t see no one wit5 her.”
     
    The door shut while the chain was removed, then reopened. I walked into a dark room. The doorman took my arm and guided me across bare floors that echoed our footsteps against empty walls. We went through some heavy drapery concealing a door. My escort tapped a complicated tattoo and more chains were scraped back.
     
    Sergio Rodriguez sat in splendor on the other side. Wearing a blue silk shirt opened to the fourth button and a quantity of gold chains around his neck, he leaned back in a large leather desk chair behind a slab of mahogany. The carpet was thick underfoot, the air, cooled by a window unit, redolent of reefer. A large box in one corner was tuned loudly to a Hispanic station. When I came in, someone turned down the volume.
     
    Three young men were with Sergio. One wore a T-shirt, revealing tattoos all the way up his arms. On the left forearm was a peacock, whose elaborate tail feathers probably covered track marks. The second had on a long-sleeved pink shirt that clung to his slender body like a leotard. He and Tattoo both ostentatiously carried guns. The third was Fabiano. As far as I could see he was unarmed.
     
    “Bet you didn’t expect to see me here, bitch.” He smirked importantly.
     
    “What’d you do-run straight to Daddy after talking to me?” I asked. “You really must be scared of Sergio asking too many questions about that Caddy.”
     
    Fabiano lunged toward me. “You bitch! You wait! I show you what fear is! I show you-”
     
    “Okay!” Sergio said in his husky voice. “You be quiet. I handle the talk tonight… So, Warshawski. It’s been a long time. A long time since you worked for me, huh?”
     
    Fabiano retreated to the back of the room. Pink Shirt moved with him, guarding him a little. So the gang didn’t trust Fabiano, either.
     
    “You’ve done very well, Sergio-meetings with aldermen, meetings with the Office of Community Development-your mother is very proud of you.” I kept my voice level, expressing neither contempt nor admiration.
     
    “I’m doing okay. But you-you’re not any better off than when I saw you last, Warshawski. I hear you’re still driving a beater, still living by yourself. You should get married, Warshawski. Settle down.”
     
    “Sergio! I’m touched-after all these years. And I thought you didn’t care.”
     
    He smiled, the same breathtaking, angelic smile that had dazzled me ten years ago. It was how we’d gotten the sentence reduced.
     
    “Oh, I’m a married man now, Warshawski. Got me a nice wife, a little baby, good home, good cars. What you got?”
     
    “At least I don’t have Fabiano. He one of yours?”
     
    Sergio waved a negligent arm. “He runs a few errands from time to time. What’s your beef with him, anyway?”
     
    “I don’t have a beef with him. I’m overcome with admiration for his style, and empathy for his grief.” I turned to pick up a folding chair-only Sergio got to sit in comfort- and saw Fabiano make an angry gesture, while Pink Shirt laid a calming hand on him. I pulled the chair up next to the desk and sat.
     
    “I would like to know for sure that his grief didn’t take the regrettable form of beating Malcolm Tregiere’s brains out.”
     
    “Malcolm Tregiere? The name is vaguely familiar…” Sergio rolled it around his