“I’m Ida Maiercyk, but everyone calls me Mrs. May,” she said as I passed her desk.

“How do you do?” I continued to smile and went on by to where Art was standing miserably in front of his office. I hoped she was scowling impotently, but didn’t turn around to check.

Art flipped on a wall switch and illuminated one of the most barren cubicles I’d seen outside a monastery. It held a plain pressed-wood desk and two metal folding chairs. Nothing else. Not even a filing cabinet to give the pretense of work. A wise alderman knows better than to live above the community that’s supporting him, especially when half that community is out of work, but this was downright insulting. Even the secretary had more lavish appointments.

“Why do you put up with this?” I demanded.

“With what?” he said, flushing again.

“You know—with that loathsome woman out there treating you like a submoronic two-year-old. With those ward heelers waiting to bait you like a carp. Why don’t you go get a position in someone else’s agency?”

He shook his head. “These things aren’t as easy as they look to you. I just graduated two years ago. If—if I can prove to my dad that I can handle some of his workload …” His voice trailed away.

“If you’re hanging around hoping for his approval, you’ll be here the rest of your life,” I said brutally. “If he doesn’t want to give it to you, there’s nothing you can do to make him. You’re better off stopping the effort, because you’re only making yourself miserable and you’re not impressing him.”

He gave an unhappy little smile that made me want to take him by the scruff of the neck and shake him. “You don’t know him and you don’t know me, so you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just—I’ve always been—just too big a disappointment. But it’s nothing to do with you. If you’ve come around to talk to me about Nancy Cleghorn, I can’t help you any more than I could this morning.”

“You and she were lovers, weren’t you?” I wondered if his chiseled good looks could possibly have compensated Nancy for his youth and insecurity.

He shook his head without speaking.

“Nancy had a lover here that she didn’t want any of her friends to know about. It doesn’t seem too likely that it was Moe, Curly, or Larry downstairs. Or even Mrs. May—Nancy had better taste than that. And anyway, why else would you go to her funeral?”

“Maybe I just respected the work she was doing here in the community,” he muttered.

Mrs. May opened the door without knocking. “You two need anything? If you don’t, I’m going to take off now. You want to leave any message for your father about your meeting, Art?”

He looked helplessly at me for a second, then just shook his head again without speaking.

“Thanks, Mrs. May,” I said genially. “It was good to meet you.”