“Lotty, if you’re going to drive like this, get a semi—the guy who’s responsible for putting my shoulder in this sling walked away from the accident unscratched.”

Lotty turned off the ignition and hopped out of the car. “Firmness is necessary, Vic. Firmness or the others will drive one from the streets.”

It was hopeless; I gave up an unequal struggle.

We had stopped by my apartment to pick up clothes and a bottle of Black Label—Lotty doesn’t keep whiskey in the house. I’d also taken my Smith & Wesson from a locked cupboard in the bedroom closet. Someone had tried to smash me to bits on the Dan Ryan. I didn’t feel like roving the streets unprotected.

Lotty went to the clinic she operates nearby. I settled down in her living room with a telephone. I was going to talk to everyone who’d had a chance to take a crack at me. My rage had disappeared as my head wound healed, but my sense of purpose was strengthened.

I reached the helpful young office manager at the Pole Star Line on the third ring. The news she gave me was not encouraging. The Lucella Wieser had delivered her load in Buffalo and was steaming to Erie to pick up coal bound for Detroit. After that she was booked on the upper lakes for some time—they didn’t expert her in Chicago until the middle of June. They could help me set up a radio conversation if it was urgent. I couldn’t see going over the issues I needed to cover by radio—I’d have to speak to the Pole Star contingent face to face.

Baffled there, I called down to Eudora Grain’s office and asked for Janet. She came to the phone and told me she was sorry about my accident and glad I was feeling better. I asked her if she knew where Phillips lived—I might pay a surprise visit to his wife to find out what time her husband had come home the night of my accident.

Janet didn’t know. It was up north someplace. If it was important, she could ask around and find out. It was important, I said, and gave her Lotty’s number.

While I was waiting I got Howard Mattingly’s number from Myron Fackley. Boom Boom told Pierre he’d seen Mattingly in a strange place. I was betting Mattingly was hanging around Lake Bluff when Boom Boom went sailing there with Paige the Saturday before he died. I wanted to find out.

Mattingly wasn’t home, but his wife, Elsie the Breathless, was. I reminded her we’d met at a number of hockey functions. Oh yes, she gasped, she remembered me.

“Boom Boom told me he’d seen your husband sailing on the twenty-third. Did you go with him?”