And who was to say it hadn’t happened that way? At any rate I was pretty sure that Bobby would look at it like that before he’d go after someone as important in Chicago as Gustav Humboldt. I could give Murray the whole story, but far from sharing Bobby’s reluctance to go after Humboldt, Murray would leave a swath like General Sherman’s through the lives of the people involved. I just didn’t want to give him anything that would make him go after Louisa.

I stopped at my own apartment to cheer Mr. Contreras up over the loss of young Art and to see the dog. It was too dark for me to feel comfortable about going out with her, but she was clearly developing the restlessness an active animal feels when she doesn’t get enough exercise. Another reason to get Humboldt off my back—so I could run the dog.

Once more I checked the roads around me, but my tail still seemed clear. In a way this made me less cheerful rather than more. Maybe my pals were just waiting for Troy and Wally to make bail. But maybe they’d decided that an ordinary hit wouldn’t do and were looking for something more decisively spectacular, like a bomb in my car or at Lotty’s apartment. Just in case, I parked some distance from her building and rode the bus back down Irving Park.

I made a frittata for dinner, a greater success than the chicken, since it wasn’t scorched, but whether it had any taste I couldn’t have said. I told Lotty my various dilemmas, about how to bring matters home to Jurshak and Humboldt, and about whether to tell Caroline I’d found her father.

She pursed her lips. “I can’t advise you about Mr. Humboldt. You will have to think of a plan. But about Caroline’s father, I must tell you that in my experience it is always better for people to know. You say it is horrible news, and it is. But she is not a weakling. And you cannot decide for her what she can know, what she is better off not learning. For one thing, she may discover it in a more terrible way from someone else. And for another, she can easily imagine things that seem more hideous to her. So in your place I would tell her.”

It was a more articulate way of stating my own thoughts. I nodded. “Thanks, Lotty.”

We spent the rest of the evening silently. Lotty was going through the morning’s papers, the light making little prisms on the half-glasses she wore for reading. I did nothing. I felt as though my mind were encased in lead shielding—protective covering to keep any ideas from entering. The residue of my fear. I kept nipping at the big shark but I was afraid to find a harpoon and attack him directly. I hated knowing he’d been able to intimidate nie, but knowing it didn’t make a stream of ideas gush forth.