“Give it up, Warshawski,” I said out loud. “Any more like that and you’ll be writing scripts for Jerry Springer.”
I was in the western suburbs, looking for a woman who had abandoned a safe-deposit box holding eight million dollars in bearer bonds, and I needed to put all my attention on that project. I located her daughter and son-in-law, who seemed to me to know more than they wanted to say. My client managed the little deli belonging to the woman—she’d gotten worried when the owner suddenly disappeared. A little before three, I finally found the woman in a nursing home where she’d been involuntarily committed. I talked to my client, who rushed out west with a lawyer. I was tired but triumphant as I raced back to South Chicago for my team’s makeup practice.
The girls played well, pleased with their clean gym. For the first time, they actually looked like a team—maybe the fight really had brought them together. We did a short workout, and they left with their heads up, triumphant from my praise—and their pleasure in their own ability.
On my way home, while I sat motionless in the rush hour traffic, I called my answering service to pick up my messages. To my astonishment, I had one from Billy the Kid. When I reached him on his own mobile phone, he stammered that he’d told his grandfather about me and the Bertha Palmer basketball program. If I wanted, I could go to corporate headquarters in the morning to sit in on the prayer meeting that would start the day. “If Grandpa has time, he’ll talk to you afterward. He couldn’t promise me he’d see you, or do anything for you, but he did say you could come out there. The only thing is, you have to be there by around seven-fifteen.”
“Great,” I said with a heartiness I was far from feeling. Even though I’m often up early, I’ve never been as big a cheerleader for mornings as Benjamin Franklin was. I asked young Billy for directions to the Rolling Meadows office.
He spelled these out for me. “I’m actually going to be there myself, Ms. War-sha-sky, because I’m helping a little with the service. The pastor is coming up from Mount Ararat Church of Holiness, you know, the one where my home church is doing the exchange, to preach the morning service. Aunt Jacqui will probably be there, too, so it’s not like everyone will be a stranger. Anyway, I’ll call Herman, he’s the guard on the morning shift, he’ll know to let you in. And Grandpa’s secretary, I’ll let her know, just in case, you know, in case Grandpa has time to talk to you. How’s the basketball team doing?”
“They’re working hard, Billy, but of course they don’t start playing other teams until New Year’s.”
“What about, uh, Sancia, and, uh, Josie?”
“What about them?” I asked.
“Well, you know, they go to Mount Ararat, and, well, how are they doing?”
“Okay, I guess,” I said slowly, wondering if I could enlist Billy’s help in tutoring Josie: if she was going to go to college, she’d need extra help. But I didn’t know what kind of a student he’d been himself, and I didn’t want to start a conversation like that in the middle of the expressway.
“So can I come over sometime and watch them practice? Josie said you’re real strict about not letting boys in the gym.”
I told him we might find a way to make an exception if he could get off work early some afternoon, and ended the conversation with a warm thanks for getting me into his grandfather’s office. Even if it did mean getting up again at five so I could trek across Chicagoland.
When he’d hung up, I thought again about my time with Rose Dorrado this morning. I had handled the whole situation badly, and I needed to apologize to her.
It was Josie who answered the phone. I could hear Baby María Inés squalling close at hand, and before she answered she yelled at her sister to take the child.
“It’s your baby, Julia, you do some of the work for a change…Hello? Oh, Coach, oh!”
“Josie, hi. Is your mom there? I’d like to talk to her.”
She was silent for a moment. “She hasn’t come home yet.”
I eyed a beat-up Chevy that wanted to muscle in front of me, and eased up to make room for it. “I went to the factory this morning; did she tell you that?”
“I haven’t seen her since breakfast, Coach, and now I got to figure out how to make dinner for my brothers, and everything.”
The worried undertone in her voice got through to me. “Are you worried that something’s happened to her?”