“Sorry, Murray. I was there, you know. I should have been inside, checking the place over. I’d seen someone there a few days earlier, I should have been inside.” My voice was rising in panic, and I kept repeating the same sentence: “I should have been inside.”

“Hey, Warshawski, easy does it, easy does it. Would the guy have let you in? You said he stiffed you when you were there last week. Where are you? Your office? Need me to come by?”

I gulped back my hysteria and said shakily, “I think I just need to eat. It’s been a while.”

When he’d reiterated his offer of help, and urged me on to food and rest, he hung up on the promise of trying to do a story on Rose and some of the other people who’d worked at Fly the Flag.

I walked down to La Llorona, a Mexican diner that’s hanging on to its lease by its fingernails—my office is in a neighborhood that’s gentrifying so fast rents seem to double every day. After two bowls of Mrs. Aguilar’s chicken-tortilla soup, and a short nap on the cot in my office’s back room, I finished my phone calls.

I left voice messages with my impatient clients. I didn’t tell them I was late because I’d been injured—it makes you seem unreliable if you go and get shot or stabbed when they’re expecting you to be thinking about their problems. I just said I had preliminary reports for them, which would be true by the end of the day tomorrow, if my shoulder would let me type all afternoon. I didn’t even try to reach Mr. William: whatever was yanking his chain, I couldn’t deal with the Bysen family today.

Mitch barked from behind Mr. Contreras’s door when I came in, but either my neighbor was busy or he was still miffed with me for disregarding his advice this morning. When he didn’t come out to greet me, I took Peppy up to my place.

Morrell greeted me with relief—he was sick of his book, sick of my small space, tired of being up three flights that were so hard for him to negotiate that he felt almost like a prisoner. He limped slowly down the stairs with me for the drive over to Lotty’s.

Lotty used to live in a two-flat near her clinic, but a few years ago she’d moved to one of the tony old buildings on Lake Shore Drive. In the summer, it’s impossible to park near her place, but on a cold November afternoon, with the gray day fading to the black of early night, we found a space without too much trouble.