"In case you ain't already aware, the men and women in blue have been through my house from top to bottom. You imply that I've been distributing drugs, but don't you think they would have found something if I had been?"
I sized him up for a moment. "Mr. Cermak, would you like to know what I think?"
He smiled slowly, like an eager hyena. "As it turns out, yeah. I would like to hear what you think."
"You had the forethought to keep any trace of V out of your house. I think that makes you an incredibly smart and resourceful man. The question, then, is where you're keeping the drugs . . . and who you're getting them from. How'd you like to fill me in on that?"
Paulie Cermak stared at me, wide-eyed, for a moment before erupting with laughter, the bellyaching kind that soon had him coughing uncontrollably.
When he finally stopped guffawing, he wiped tears from the corners of his eyes with fingers that were longer and more delicate than I'd thought they'd be. Like the fingers of a pianist, but attached to a shortish, barrel-chested drug pusher.
"Oh, Jesus," he said. "You are gonna give me an embolism, kid. But you are a kick, you know that? And you aren't exactly shy, are you?"
"Is that a no?"
"The business world is a very delicate place.
You've got higherups. Middlemen. And everyday, run-of-the-mill vendors."
"Such as yourself?"
"As you say. Now, if I draw too much attention to those other levels, the entire balance gets thrown off, and that makes management unhappy."
"Is McKetrick your management?"
He went quiet for a moment. "Who's McKetrick?"
I couldn't be certain, but I had a sense his confusion was legitimate, that Cermak really didn't know who McKetrick was. Besides, he'd all but admitted he was selling drugs. Why start lying now?
A thought occurred to me - and not the kind of thought that was going to help me sleep better at night. I was the granddaughter of a cop, and a vampire with connections to Cadogan House.
Why wouldn't he lie to me, unless he thought vampires couldn't touch him . . . or whomever he worked for? And who was the only woman the GP wouldn't let us touch?
I had to inquire, but I didn't want to make him - or Celina - skittish.
"Do you work alone?" I asked him.
"Most of the time," he carefully said, as if not sure where the question was headed.
"With vampires?"
"Honey, I've got a carotid. Given the nature of the merch, I prefer to get in and get out with as few fangs as possible."
"You were spotted with a vamp named Marie."
Paulie stared back at me, refusing to respond.
Maybe he hadn't noticed the security camera.
Brave as he might have been about the V, Cermak apparently wasn't willing to admit to Celina's involvement. I wasn't sure what that signaled, if anything. And I was running out of ideas.
"I know what you think it stands for," Paulie said.
"What?"
"V," he said. "The name of the drug. You think it means 'vampire,' right?"
I paused for a moment, surprised he was willing to be that overt about it. "It had occurred to me," I finally got out.
He pointed a finger at me. "Then you'd be wrong. Stands for veritas. That's a Latin word meaning 'truth.' Idea is, it's supposed to remind vamps what being a real vampire feels like. The old-school, flying-bats, Transylvania, horror-film bloodlust. The good kind of bloodlust. And battling. No wussy, pansy human bullshit. Getting out there and mixing it up. It's a gift, V, to the vampires. Veritas. Truth," he repeated.
"Personally, I appreciate that."
That was an awfully philosophical explanation.
"And what makes you so generous toward vamps?"
"I'm not generous, kid. I'm not saying I've seen V, but if I had, it ain't the kind of thing I'd get involved in out of the goodness of my heart.
It's more the kind of thing I'd consider making a living from."
"Who would?"
Paulie snorted. "Who do you think would have the motivation to do something like that? To make vamps crazy for blood, to make them want to act like 'real vampires'?" He shrugged. "All I can say is, you gotta go higher in the chain than me, doll."
Another hint about Celina? Or maybe another higher-up in Chicago's Houses? I needed more info. "You wanna point me in the right direction?"
"And take the chance of reducing my income?
No, thanks, kid." An old-school telephone rang from somewhere in the house. Paulie glanced back at it, and then at me. "You need anything else?"
"Not at the moment."
"In that case, you know where to find me." He stepped away and closed the door, and the house shook a bit on its foundations as he walked back to the phone and silenced its ringing.
I closed my eyes and closed out some of the extraneous neighborhood noise, focusing in on the phone call.
"Wrong number," I heard him say, the phone's bell ringing as he put it back on its cradle again.
I walked back down the stairs and across the yard to the driveway, then turned back to face the house. I gnawed my lip for a moment, trying to figure out my next move. Even in the dark, it was obvious the paint was peeling in sizable chunks away from the shingles. The roof looked awful, and the screen in the door was ripped across the bottom.
I glanced back at the garage. Paulie's house was in pretty miserable shape - but he had a perfect vintage Mustang? If he couldn't even afford to fix up the house, how could he afford to pay for the Mustang?
I didn't know the answer, but I thought it was worth exploring. I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Jeff. "NO DICE AT THE CERMAK HOUSE. KEEP LOOKING AT THE CAR."
I'd just gotten back into the car when Jeff called back.
"That was fast," I said.
"We were on the same wavelength. I've been poring through databases since we talked earlier, and I've got nothing about the sale of the car. If this thing was actually sold - I mean if money exchanged hands - it was an off-the-grid sale.
The only way we're going to be able to trace it now is if Cermak happened to tell you who sold it to him."
"Negatory on that one. I guess that makes the car a dead end."
"Unless you randomly bump into the guy who sold it to Cermak."
"In a city of nearly three million? Unlikely."
But he did give me an idea. While I couldn't exactly cuddle up to Celina and ask her if she knew Paulie Cermak, I knew someone else who might.
I checked my watch. It was only eleven o'clock. I had time for a little trip east . . . and some Zen deep-breathing exercises before I got there, because I was going to need all the patience I could muster.