“Living together don’t guarantee peace for the building,” Mr. Contreras said, his color heightened. “Maybe no one ever told you, but when you and your husband or boyfriend or whatever he is get to shouting at each other, even I can make out every word, and my hearing ain’t a hundred percent these days.”
Before the quarrel could build, I pushed myself upright and said I needed to take a cold shower and change out of my business clothes. The woman muttered something that ended with “show some consideration” and slammed her front door shut. Mitch barked sharply, to say he didn’t like her attitude, but I persuaded Mr. Contreras to take him inside and let me get some rest.
I lay in the tub for a long time, long after the grime of the drive and the prison were out of my skin and hair, trying to figure out what Baladine was up to. Maybe he only wanted to discredit me, possibly with a spectacular arrest for drug possession, rather than kill me outright, but in a way it didn’t matter.
I couldn’t keep on this way, not knowing where the next menace might come from. Whether Baladine was carrying on a war of nerves, or he wanted me dead or arrested, or all three, I couldn’t run a business when I was afraid to be both in my office and in my home. I couldn’t turn to my oldest friends for fear of jeopardizing their lives or families. Murray, who I’d worked with for so many years, was carrying a bucket for the other side this time. Mary Louise had been frightened into leaving me alone.
If only I could get the story together I might be able to find a way to make it public. It had something to do with Coolis and something to do with Frenada’s factory, although how those two places came together on Nicola Aguinaldo’s frail body I didn’t understand. I needed to get in touch with Morrell and insist that he take me to Aguinaldo’s mother before Baladine succeeded in whatever his plan was.
When I finally climbed out of the tub it was dark outside. I could hear the steady popping of firecrackers as people in the area geared up for the Fourth of July, coming up on Saturday.
When I was a child my father used to take me for a walk on the Fourth, telling me a thrilling version of the War of Independence, stressing the role of General Kosciuszko and other Poles in the American Revolution. My mother always followed my father’s tale with a reminder that it was Italian explorers who found the New World and made it possible for the English and Poles to leave Europe.
In the afternoons we’d make a picnic with my father’s pals on the force and my mother’s vocal coach and his daughter. My mother would make my favorite dessert—an Umbrian rice pudding with currant jelly and sweet wine sauce—and I’d race around screaming with the other children, playing baseball and wishing I had a big family instead of just my one cousin, Boom–Boom.
I wondered what the Baladines taught their children on the Fourth of July. Perhaps something instructive about free markets.
I took that bitter thought to bed with me. Despite my fatigue I couldn’t relax. Coolis, Aguinaldo, Frenada chased through my mind, sometimes with Baladine in pursuit, sometimes Alex Fisher. I was just deciding I’d do better to get up and pay bills than lie churning over these profitless ideas when my front doorbell rang.
No one in Chicago pays calls at midnight if they have your well–being in mind. I pulled my jeans on and grabbed my gun from the closet safe before calling down through the intercom.
A voice quavered, “It’s me. It’s Robbie Baladine.”
I stuck the gun in the back of my jeans and went downstairs. Sure enough, Robbie Baladine was standing, by himself, on the other side of the door. His plump cheeks were dirt–stained, and he looked exhausted. I opened the front door at the same time that Mr. Contreras came into the hallway with Mitch and Peppy: he probably thought Morrell was paying another late–night call.
When the dogs bounded forward to greet him, Robbie stood stock still and turned white. Yelling at the dogs to stay, I caught the boy as he started to crumple. I caught him before he hit the floor. His deadweight hit my low back and hamstrings like a pile driver.
“Put the dogs inside, will you?” I panted to Mr. Contreras. “And let’s get this young man warm.”
Robbie hadn’t quite fainted. While my neighbor dragged the reluctant dogs back to his apartment, I helped Robbie to the bottom of the stairwell and made him sit with his head between his legs. He was shaking with suppressed sobs. His skin was clammy, his sweat acrid with the smell of fear.
“I’m such a weakling, aren’t I, fainting at the sight of a dog,” he gasped.
“Is that what happened? Mitch is a pretty big dog, and he took you by surprise. And you look done in. Don’t worry about it.”
Mr. Contreras returned with an old sweater and helped me wrap it around Robbie’s shoulders. “This a friend of yours, doll? He needs hot cocoa. You stay here with him; I’ll heat up some milk.”