“Well, about me signing on with you guys. Maybe you got an in?”
Foster looked at him without an ounce of enthusiasm or encouragement. “Go online. Find out when the next test is scheduled. Sign up to take it.”
He looked disappointed. “Test? You gotta take a test? Why? I’m, like, ready-made for the work. Look at this.” He lifted up his short sleeve, flexed. “The guns alone, I mean, c’mon. No knock on you gals, but guy cops with guns like these have it over whatever it is you all bring to the table, no offense.”
“The man who passed us a minute ago. Describe him to me.”
Aarons’s face went blank. “What man?”
“White guy. Midforties. He got out of that gray Nissan over there.” Aarons turned toward the lot and spotted the Nissan—nothing about it seeming to ring a bell from the look on his face. “He’s wearing a blue suit—white shirt, blue tie—under a tan raincoat with a plaid lining,” Foster said. “He’s carrying a brown leather sample case about the size of a businessman’s special in his right hand, slightly worn at the seams. Dark eyes, dark-brown hair cut short, thinning on top. Thin nose. Thin lips. Approximately six foot one, no wedding ring. Black shoes. He doesn’t work here, or else he would have acknowledged you in some way when he passed by, or you him. Pharmaceutical rep?”
Aarons’s cigarette dangled from his slightly parted lips. “What the fuck?”
“It’s not about the biceps. Thanks for the information, Mr. Aarons.”
She slowed on her way to the lot to send Li a text. Short, sweet. Re: Silva. Let’s check Baltimore for that missing year. Some trouble there.
Before sliding into the car, she gave the hospital entrance a final look. Aarons had gone back inside, likely to track down the man she’d described. Just what the department needed, another Lonergan. She shook her head and started the car.
“Biceps.”
CHAPTER 52
The studio was in an old factory building in the West Loop. Redbrick, solid, built to last, though the businesses that had built them, that had carved the names of their entrepreneurial founders into the stone over the entrances, had gone bust long ago. Times had changed and found them lacking. There were now cheaper, more efficient ways to manufacture pickles, bread, steel cans, and shirt buttons. But the buildings still stood occupied, now by quaint antique shops and chic art galleries, frilly bridal boutiques, and artisanal cafés. There was no signage out front, but there was nothing much you couldn’t find by a simple internet search. This was Amelia’s place.
She wasn’t inside. He knew when she came and went. It was the Black woman with the strange hair and the squat bulldog who he watched through the window. She was sculpting something, the dog by her side. He didn’t like dogs, and they didn’t like him. But he wanted to see what Amelia had built. He wanted to get a sense of who she’d become. And he wanted her to know that good things, glorious things, were coming. That there would be a house like before, projects like before, and family.
The smell of turpentine and plaster were the first things to register as he pushed his way inside to stand in the center of the long, wide room. Nothing surprising about the interior; he’d expected no less. The factory dinge had been replaced by exposed brick, high ceilings scored by track lighting, and white walls. Artsy, like the cafés and galleries down the street. Not a single remnant of the indentured factory workers who eked out difficult lives for dimes a day remained. His eyes drifted to the large painting anchored to the wall, unfinished, its colors and complexity and genius pinning him to where he stood, flooding his senses, filling him with pride, awe, and envy.
“Help you?”
Reluctantly, he turned from the canvas to address the young woman with the purple streak in her curly hair. She peeked from behind a plaster statue that made no sense to him, something with wings, something esoteric and frustratingly ambiguous. The dog leaped off its pad and trotted toward him, halting halfway there. The low growl started deep in its belly and rumbled up, gaining momentum, until it turned into a round of wild, frenzied barking, the noise of it as painful as a red-hot spike through his head. He took a step forward but stopped himself. He needed the barking to stop. He couldn’t be held responsible if it didn’t stop.
“Winston, relax. What’s the matter with you?” She grabbed the dog by his collar and held him back. The dog glared at him as if he could see his soul, as if he knew what he’d done and what he’d keep on doing.
He smiled, and the rage passed; the burning in his brain cooled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset him.”
The growl was back, low but growing. “He’s usually cool with people. I don’t know what’s the matter with him.”
The man ventured forward, closer to the silly plaster block. He could tell the woman was worried about her dog’s reaction. It was out of character, and now she was suspicious of him. Searching his memory bank, he ratcheted up the smile, adding warmth and a playful twinkle to his brown eyes. He became a person.
“This is beautiful.” He stared at the statue in progress. “What’s it called?”
“Not sure yet. It’ll tell me when I’m done, or at least I hope it will.” Winston retreated to his pad, but his dark eyes followed his every move. “I’m Joie, by the way.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Joie. I was looking for Amelia? I thought she might be in.”
He could feel the woman’s guard drop, though he made sure not to get too close, not to invade her personal space. Easy to do. She held no interest for him. Neither did the dog.
She dusted her hands off on the plaster-splotched apron she wore. “Oh, she hasn’t been in today. We don’t keep regular hours. Was she expecting you?”
“No, I’m just passing through. Unplanned stop.” He turned back to the canvas, letting the lie sit. Amelia’s painting really was magnificent. “Did she paint this?”
“Yeah. It’s her masterpiece, for sure. She’s obsessed with it, but I suppose all artists get wrapped up in their work, right? Otherwise, why bother in the first place. Eh, how do you know Amelia?”
He moved closer to the canvas, taking the work in, every inch, every line. Reaching out, he lightly touched it with his index finger, feeling the tracks in the paint left behind by the artist’s brush. “We’re old friends.”
He could almost feel Joie working it out. Old friends, yet he was considerably older and unspectacular, average in every outward way. The grin on his face when he turned away from the canvas was self-deprecating, shy, not the truth. “You could say I knew her when.”
“If you leave your name, I’ll let her know you stopped by.”
The woman looked down at Winston, who was on full alert, watching him, ready to go at him if he made even the slightest of wrong moves. Protecting his owner, of course, but the dog’s vigilance was making Joie uneasy. He watched as she stepped back and put the block of plaster between them, sneakily slipping her chisel out of her apron pocket. It was a subtle move, one that told him she wasn’t comfortable. The chisel would not have been enough. “Or your number,” she said. “I’m sure she’d like to get in touch.”