“I think he’s sixty-two,” she answered through a mouthful of chicken.

“Not about his age,” Caroline said impatiently. “That Jurshak must be trying to block the plant.”

Nancy licked her fingers. She looked around for a place to put the bone and finally laid it back on the plate with the rest of the chicken. “I don’t see how you figure that, Caroline. There could be a lot of people who don’t want to see a recycling center down here.”

Caroline looked at her through narrowed eyes. “What did O’Gara say? I mean, he must have given some reason for not giving us a hearing.”

Nancy frowned. “He said we shouldn’t try to make proposals like this without community backing. I told him the community was a hundred percent behind us, and got ready to show him copies of petitions and crap, when he gave this jolly laugh and said, not a hundred percent. He’d heard from people who weren’t behind it at all.”

“But why Jurshak?” I asked, interested in spite of myself. “Why not Xerxes, or the Mob, or some rival solvent recycler?”

“Just the political tie-in,” Caroline answered. “O’Gara’s chairman of the zoning board because he’s good buddies with all the old hack Dems.”

“But, Caroline—Art’s got no reason to oppose us. Our last meeting he even acted like he would support us.”

“He never put it in so many words,” Caroline said grimly. “And all it would take is someone willing to wave a big enough campaign contribution in front of him for him to change his mind.”

“I suppose,” Nancy agreed reluctantly. “I just don’t like to think it.”

“Why are you so pally with Jurshak all of a sudden?” Caroline demanded.

It was Nancy’s turn to flush. “I’m not. But if he’s against us, it’ll be damned near impossible to get O’Gara to give us a hearing. Unless we could come up with a bribe big enough to make Jurshak respond to us. So how do I find who’s against the plant, Vic? Aren’t you a detective or something these days?”

I frowned at her and said hurriedly, “Or something. Trouble is, you’ve got too many possibilities in a political mess like this. The Mob. They’re into a lot of waste-disposal projects in Chicago. Maybe they figure you’d be cutting into their turf. Or Return to Eden. I know they’re supposed to be foursquare for the environment, but they’ve been raising a lot of money lately based on dramatic gestures they’re making here in South Chicago. Maybe they don’t want something that cuts off their fund-raising tactics. Or the Sanitary District—maybe they’re taking kickbacks to look the other way on local pollution and they don’t want to lose the revenues. Or Xerxes doesn’t—”

“Enough!” she protested. “You’re right, of course. It could be all of them or any of them. But in my place, where would you look first?”

“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully. “Probably nuzzle up to someone on Jurshak’s staff. See if the pressure came from there to begin with. And if it did, why. It’d save you the trouble of making the rounds of an infinite number of possibilities. Plus you wouldn’t rub against someone who might want to put you in cement booties just for asking.”