Free Windy City Blues by Sara Paretsky

of spit covered his mouth by the time he finished. The idea that he looked like Gabriella seemed obscene. Ranier slapped him hard and ordered him to calm down.
    “She wants us excited. It’s her only hope for disarming me.” He tapped the handle of the gun lightlyon my left kneecap. “Now tell me where the score is, or I’ll smash your kneecap and make you walk on it.”
    My hands turned clammy. “I hid it down the hall. There’s a wiring closet…. The metal door near the elevators. …”
    “Go see,” Ranier ordered Verazi.
    My cousin returned a few minutes later with the news that the door was locked.
    “Are you lying?” Ranier growled at me. “How did you get into it?”
    “Same as into here,” I muttered. “Picklocks. In my hip pocket.”
    Ranier had Vico take them from me, then seemed disgusted that my cousin didn’t know how to use them. He decided to take me down to unlock the closet myself.
    “No one’s working late on this side of the floor tonight, and the cleaning staff don’t arrive until nine. We should be clear.”
    They frog-marched me down the hall to the closet before untying my hands. I knelt to work the lock. As it clicked free Vico grabbed the door and yanked it open. I fell forward into the wires. Grabbing a large armful I pulled with all my strength. The hall turned black and an alarm began to blare.
    Vico grabbed my left leg. I kicked him in the head with my right. He let go. I turned and grabbed him by the throat and pounded his head against the floor. He got hold of my left arm and pulled it free. Beforehe could hit me I rolled clear and kicked again at his head. I hit only air. My eyes adjusted to the dark: I could make out his shape as a darker shape against the floor, squirming out of reach.
    “Roll clear and call out!” Ranier shouted at him. “On the count of five I’m going to shoot.”
    I dove for Ranier’s legs and knocked him flat. The gun went off as he hit the floor. I slammed my fist into the bridge of his nose and he lost consciousness. Vico reached for the gun. Suddenly the hall lights came on. I blinked in the brightness and rolled toward Vico, hoping to kick the gun free before he could focus and fire.
    “Enough! Hands behind your heads, all of you.” It was a city cop. Behind him stood one of the Caleb’s security force.

X
    It didn’t take me as long to sort out my legal problems as I’d feared. Ranier’s claim, that I’d broken into his office and he was protecting himself, didn’t impress the cops: if Ranier was defending his office why was he shooting at me out in the hall? Besides, the city cops had long had an eye on him: they had a pretty good idea he was connected to the Mob, but no real evidence. I had to do some fancy tap dancing on why I’d been in his office to begin with, but I was helped by Bobby Mallory’s arrival on the scene. Assaultsin the Loop went across his desk, and one with his oldest friend’s daughter on the rap sheet brought him into the holding cells on the double.
    For once I told him everything I knew. And for once he was not only empathetic, but helpful: he retrieved the score for me—himself—from behind the Modigliani, along with the fragments of the olivewood box. Without talking to the state’s attorney, or even suggesting that it should be impounded to make part of the state’s case. It was when he started blowing his nose as someone translated Gabriella’s letter for him—he didn’t trust me to do it myself—that I figured he’d come through for me.
    “But what is it?” he asked, when he’d handed me the score.
    I hunched a shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s old music that belonged to my mother’s voice teacher. I figure Max Loewenthal can sort it out.”
    Max is the executive director of Beth Israel, the hospital where Lotty Herschel is chief of perinatology, but he collects antiques and knows a lot about music. I told him the story later that day and gave the score to him. Max is usually