The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [77]
Reggie said, “Della’s told me the Gold trial is what got her interested in the law.”
Vallentine smiled with the half of his mouth nearest Kloska and added quietly, “Which is funny, because that was the trial that almost made me lose interest in the law.”
Della smashed a line drive right at the Aon Center, the ball dipping into the grass just before the left fielder. Girl can hit, Kloska thought with an immodest amount of arousal.
Bobby’s head was a jumble of clues, none of them more significant than the others. There was the gun and Pythagoras and ancient religious cults and harmonia and doctors who wore suits and computer chips that gave you boners and so forth and like that and so on. The itch he couldn’t scratch was that Russo acted like he’d hardly ever heard of Pythagoras, but when Bobby peered through that office door and looked at the reflection of the desk in the glass hanging on the wall, he saw a tetraktys. It looked like it could be a Lucite slab, maybe six inches square, with the circles etched into it. If that didn’t belong to Dr. Falcone, then somebody else at Executive Concierge was into this Pythagoras business, and either way, Russo was lying when he said he’d never heard of it.
Della advanced to second on a single. “Christ it’s hot,” Kloska said. Between fields, a Middle Eastern guy had the misfortune to be selling Vienna Beef franks from an aluminum cart instead of ice cream. He’d sold out of cold Pepsi. Even the usually reliable Lake Michigan, just a hundred or so yards to the east, was unable to produce a breeze. Bobby recognized Reggie’s wife, who was wearing a pressed white T-shirt and khaki shorts, sitting in a folding lawn chair behind the backstop. Not that they’d ever met, but he knew her handsome face from the pictures the Trib was always printing of charity balls and whatnot. It seemed clear Reggie wasn’t going to introduce them today, and Kloska resented that a little bit. He’d heard Reggie say he liked to “compartmentalize” his life. Maybe keeping Kloska and Stephanie separate was just his way.
Nevertheless, for Kloska it remained a source of suspicion. Reggie was holding something back, even as Kloska was mostly spilling his guts. Vallentine had an angle on this business that he wasn’t telling. That’s the advantage defense attorneys always have in court. They never have to tell you exactly what they’re up to.
Della scored on a double. Kloska watched her run around third, short arms pumping and hips turning and ponytail bouncing out the back of her cap and big white teeth clenched and grinning all the way. She crossed home plate and walked right to them, and as Kloska and Reggie clapped their congratulations, she pushed her ass in between them on the bench, and now Kloska’s thigh was pressed right up against hers.
“Boys,” she said, hardly out of breath.
“Nice hit,” Kloska said.
She smiled and straightened her cap. “What are you two talking about?”
Kloska tried to contain his excitement. He was up in two batters.
“Mostly how Detective Kloska here won’t play by anybody’s rules,” Reggie said.
Della rolled her eyes, but then she smiled. She’d been listening to Bobby whine about the Brain and his suspension all afternoon.
“You want to go to a show Friday night?” Della asked.
Bobby’s imagination