The librarian came over to ask if we would carry on our conversation outside; other patrons were complaining about our noise. Amy walked out with me.

“Not as evidence,” I said. “But come on: the article on ComThought you found said it started at an integrated bar on the West Side called Flora’s, where left-leaning intellectuals and labor organizers met. Pelletier’s manuscript talks about a West Side bar called Goldie’s where artists and labor organizers met. This manuscript casts light on all these people. Even if Armand is distorting what happened for the sake of his story, or because he saw himself as a victim at Calvin’s hands, or even at Augustus Llewellyn’s, the manuscript suggests that Llewellyn and Ballantine and Geraldine all hung out together with Pelletier and Calvin Bayard back before the McCarthy hearings. They all dabbled in Communism. Which might be the secret Taverner sat on for fifty years. Although it doesn’t explain why Taverner kept quiet until the night Marc came to see him.

I kicked a stone in irritation. “Damn it all! I’d better run. Look, just read the thing, will you-I’ll call you tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll read the blessed book, and I’ll make you a copy of it. Now

go, unless these are clients you want to blow off.” Amy gave me a push between my shoulder blades.

I sprinted past the dorms stuffed behind the library to Fifty-fifth Street, where I’d left my car. My clients were in the west Loop, on Wacker Drive, which the city had completely dismembered; by the time I found parking and ran back to their building, I was over twenty minutes late. Not good for my professional image. Worse, I had forgotten to put a pen in my bag and had to borrow one from the client. Worse still, I had trouble keeping my mind on their problem, which wasn’t fair, since they pay their bills on time. As I was looking at my notes in the elevator down to the ground floor, I saw to my embarrassment that I’d written “Toffee Noble” on my legal pad three or four times, like a schoolgirl with a crush.

The reports I’d read on Llewellyn said he still came to work every dayunless he was in Jamaica or Paris. I looked at my watch. It was five-thirty, and the lobby was thick with departing office workers. But I was only a ten minute walk across the river from Llewellyn’s building, and it was possible that he stayed late. I stuffed my notes into my bag and started north.

When I got to Erie Street, my optimism was rewarded: a navy Bentley with a license reading “T-SQUARE” was parked in front of the building. A uniformed chauffeur sat inside with the Sun-Times propped open on the steering wheel. That meant the great man was still in his office.

As I’d trotted up Franklin Street, I tried to figure out how to get past the hostile receptionist in the lobby. It was one thing to crawl through a culvert to get into Anodyne Park, but more difficult to get into an office building where they don’t want to see you. I still hadn’t come up with a good idea when I saw Jason Tompkin about half a block away on Erie. I broke into a run again. When I caught up with him at the light on Wells, I tapped him on the arm and called his name.