St. Olaf’s church bells pealed as he lay in bed, sharpening his hangover to a spike driven through his skull. With a groan he stood, pulled on his robe, and paced the room, trying to ignore the disturbing images that fed his thoughts, even now that he was awake. After a few minutes, he sat at his desk and calmed himself by smoking a hashish cigarette. He waited for the heaviness to seep through his body, then read through what he had revised in his latest scenario, hoping to placate Spoor.

Stripped of blood and fire and secrets, the photoplay was dull as wet newsprint. Spoor was wrong. What was the point of a story, or a life, without shadows and unseen things?

He turned to gaze at his reflection in the mirror. Other than his red-rimmed eyes, no one would ever guess what he got up to when he was alone. He ran a hand across his stubbled cheek. Most barbershops closed on Sunday, but he knew of one on the fringes of Bronzeville that catered to men, white and colored, whose business or pleasure demanded they look sharp seven days a week. He dressed in his usual summer attire: white shirt, seersucker suit, red bow tie. He popped his boater on his head, grabbed his pencil and notebook, and went to catch the L to the South Side.

“Settle yourself,” the barber said as Lionel walked in. A figure swaddled in steaming towels sat in the chair in front of him. “Be ten minutes. Maybe twenty.”

The small shop was crowded with men reading newspapers. Lionel counted six, all colored, along with the man in the chair. He assumed he was a Negro as well. But when the barber removed the towels from the man’s head, he revealed a white man in early middle age. Lionel took a seat near an elderly man perusing the Police Gazette and opened a copy of the Chicago Defender. The barber dropped the used towels into a receptacle, picked up a china cup and bristle brush, and whipped the shaving soap into a froth.

“In a minute, nobody going to know you been up all night, Mr. Demarest,” he said. “I couldn’t do what you do. I need my beauty sleep.”

“Me too, Morris,” replied the white man in the chair. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his expression was grim. “But I get the call, I gotta take it.”

“Terrible thing, what a ugly thing. Young girl like that.” Morris shook his head and began covering the man’s face with lather. “They catch him yet?”

“Not sure. The captain at Robey Street station’s supposed to talk to us this morning. Someone on the Riverview force told me they’d taken a Negro man into custody.”

Every head turned. “Do you know who?” the barber asked.

“No.”