He took me into a small infirmary built off the gym. He handed me a towel to use as an improvised robe and told me to take off my sweatshirt. I sat on a stool with my back to him, draped modestly in the towel, while he ran his hands along my shoulders and upper back. When he found the spot that made me squawk loudest, he rubbed something into it.

“Used this on horses when I was a boy. Got them back between the traces in no time flat.” He gave another of his sudden barks of laughter. “Put some in ajar for you, get someone to rub it in if you can’t reach the spot. Best if you tape it up. Leave that stinking shirt here, take one of ours.”

He handed me an orange and gray St. Remigio’s sweatshirt, faded from much washing, but mercifully clean. When I pulled it on, my trapezius already moved a bit more smoothly.

He escorted me out the back door of the school to my borrowed wheels. “You get in trouble, girl, come back here. No one to look after you but those two dogs and an old man.” He laughed again. “Probably only got six to seven years on Contreras, but I fight regularly and he don’t: INS, city cops, they’re around here all the time. FBI wants to join in, won’t bother me.”

When I put the Jaguar in gear and drove off, my shoulder moved only a little better, but my spirits were easier. The voice of believable authority — it worked on me, too.

CHAPTER 31

Superhero

While I was still in the clear-I hoped-I went to a place called TechSurround to send Whitby’s pocket organizer to the forensic lab I use. You can do everything at TechSurround, from photocopying to sending mail; I used their computer to type up a letter to the lab, explaining where the wallet had been, said that I wanted to see any papers Whitby might have kept in it, told them to make it a top priority job, and put the whole thing in a bubble-pack envelope.

I was about to stick the envelope into a FedEx packet, but today was Saturday; the lab wouldn’t get it until Monday. I didn’t want to use my cell phone, in case someone was actively tracing me, but the one thing TechSurround lacked was a pay phone. I risked turning on my mobile for a minute to phone the messenger service I use, arranging for a pickup at TechSurround-I planned to be here for a bit, checking messages.

I logged onto one of their computers and looked at both my phone log and my e-mails, which depressed me, since there was nothing from Morrell and a slew of messages from Murray Ryerson. Catherine Bayard had been shot, this was big news in Chicago, he had scooped the city because of me, so I got dinner at the Filigree-especially since DuPage had first tried to pretend she’d been shot by a fleeing Arab-but why the hell hadn’t