I dug a twenty out of my bag and handed it to her.

She eyed the twenty, eyed me. “No tip? I walked three shakes over here.”

I added another ten.

Muna shook her head, tsked, glanced at the door Bucky T. just exited by. “That fool has no idea how close he came to dying today.”

I sighed. “Not a clue.”

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I headed to Jung’s apartment, which was just south of Midway Plaisance, an expansive stretch of dipped lawn running four or five blocks through the U of C campus. You’d have thought with the school being so close to his front door that Jung would have managed to complete his studies in a timely manner and get up and out into the world, yet he seemed hell-bent on matriculating forever. I wondered who was footing the bill.

No one answered when I rang the bell. None of Jung’s neighbors answered their bells, either. That made it official. Time-suck. And that was it. I was done. Jung was chronologically an adult. If he wanted to do something stupid, I couldn’t stop him. He was just going to have to cinch up his big-boy pants and work it out for himself. I had real work to do.

* * *

Just after five that evening, I managed to track down the last target on my list for the law firm. This time I didn’t have to buy balloons, giggle, or run for my life. I just walked up to the guy, tapped him on the shoulder, handed it over, said my bit, and walked away; sometimes simple works. To celebrate a job well done, I took my bike out and did a twenty-mile loop of the Lakefront path at a fiendish clip, hoping the speed and the sweat washed thoughts of Jung and Bucky T. out of my head, then I stopped by my office to work up my final bill for Golden, Sprague, and Bendelson. The sooner they got my invoice, the sooner I’d get paid. I added in the charge for Earlene Skipper’s helium balloons, too. I wasn’t in the charity business.

It was close to seven when I bounded up the stairs to my apartment. No fear of incurring the landlord’s wrath for running in the halls, as I was both landlord and owner of the neat little three-flat, bequeathed to me by my grandparents. It’d been a long day and I needed food, a shower, and sleep, in that order. The first two I could guarantee, the third not so much. I’d been working nonstop for weeks, trying to keep busy, distracted, hoping the more I worked, the less time I’d have to focus on Pop being gone, and on Ted Raines, the runaway father he’d had to step in for.