“What’s up, Vic? You got something on the Kelvin death for me?”

“Not a sniffle. But I’m hoping you might oblige a lady and get one of your society people to do a little digging for me.”

“Vic, any time you want something like that, it’s usually a cover-up for some big story you don’t let us in on until after it’s over.”

“Murray! What a remark. How about Anita McGraw? How about Edward Purcell? And John Cotton? Weren’t those good stories?”

“Yeah, they were. But you led me around in circles first. You got something hot on Kelvin?”

“Well, maybe, in a way. I want some background on Paige Carrington.”

“Who’s she?”

“She’s a dancer. And she was hanging out with my cousin before he died. She was looking for some love letters in his condo the other day. Then Kelvin got knocked off. Whoever did it searched the place pretty thoroughly. It makes me nervous—I’d like to find out something about her background, and I also wondered if any of your gossip people—Greta Simon, for example—had sniffed out the relationship between her and Boom Boom.”

“Oh, yeah. Boom Boom Warshawski was your cousin. I should have guessed. You’re the only two Warshawskis I ever heard of. I was sorry to hear he died: I was quite a fan of his … Nothing fishy about his death, is there?”

“Not as far as I know, Murray. He seems to have slipped on some wet planks and gone under the screw of a lakes freighter.”

“Ouch. Jesus! Hard to imagine someone as agile as Boom Boom doing something like that … Look, as an old fan of his, I’ll be glad to help you out. But I’ve got dibs if anything turns up. Paige Carrington … What’s her father’s name?”

“I don’t know. She did mention something about growing up in Lake Bluff.”

“Okay, Vic. I’ll call you in two, three days.”

I unwrapped Janet’s tidy package and pulled out the papers. Three big accordion files marked June, July, and August were filled with hundreds of flimsies, each a carbon of a computer printout. Before going through them I went downstairs to Johnnie’s Steak Joynt, where I had a Fresca and a gyros sandwich. Thumbing through the Herald-Star, I saw a notice about Kelvin’s wake. It was today, starting at four, in a funeral home on the South Side. Maybe I should go.