“Spill all my secrets in bed after the second drink? No—don’t get upset, that was supposed to be a joke. You just couldn’t tell in the dark.” It sounded appealing, but Lotty would be anxiously awaiting me—I couldn’t leave her hanging. I tried explaining this to McGonnigal.

“She’s the one person I never lie to. She’s—not my conscience—the person who helps me see who I really am, I guess.”

He didn’t answer until he’d pulled off the Kennedy at Irving Park. “Yeah, I understand. My grandfather was like that. I was trying to picture myself in your situation with him waiting up for me; I’d have to go back too.”

They didn’t teach that in any seminar in Springfield. I asked about his grandfather. He’d died five years ago.

“The week before my promotion came through. I was so mad I almost resigned—why couldn’t they have given it to me when he was still alive to see it? But then I could hear him saying, ‘What do you think, Johnnie—God runs the universe with you in mind?’ ” He laughed a little to himself. “You know, Warshawski, I’ve never told that to another soul?”

He pulled up in front of Lotty’s place.

“How’re you going to get home?” I asked.

“Umm, I’ll summon a squad car. They’ll be glad to have an excuse to leave the mayhem in Uptown for a chance to drive me.”

He held the keys out to me. Under the sodium light I could see his eyebrows lift in inquiry. I leaned across the seat divider and put my arms around him and kissed him. He smelled of leather and sweat, human smells that made me wriggle closer to him. We sat like that for several minutes, but the ashtray in the divider was digging into my side.

I pulled away. “Thanks for the ride, Sergeant.”

“A pleasure, Warshawski. We serve and protect, you know.”

I invited him to come up and call a squad car from Lotty’s but he said he’d do it from the street, that he needed the night air. He watched while I undid the lobby locks, then sketched a wave and walked off.

Lotty was in her sitting room, still in the dark skirt and sweater she’d put on for the hospital seven hours earlier. She was flicking the pages of The Guardian, making only a pretext of interest in Scottish economic woes. She put the paper down as soon as she saw me.

It felt like home to nestle in her arms; I was glad I’d decided to come back here instead of going off with McGonnigal. While she bathed my face and fed me hot milk, I told her the night’s tale, the strange ride up the river, my fears, Ms. Chigwell’s indomitable courage. She frowned deeply over Chigwell’s betrayal of his medical vows. Lotty knows there are unethical doctors but she never likes to hear about them.

“The worst part in a way was when Louisa woke up and thought I was Gabriella,” I said as Lotty led me into the spare room. “I don’t want to be back there, you know, back in South Chicago cleaning up behind the Djiaks the way my mother did.”