“Oh. Now that Fly the Flag is gone—I didn’t even think.” He sighed. “All I thought was, What difference does it make?, and, of course, it makes a terrible difference to the people who worked there. Thank you for reminding me, Ms. War-sha-sky.”

“All you thought was ‘What difference does it make?’” I repeated sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

He waved his arms in a vague gesture that seemed to mean the South Side around him, or maybe the world around him, and shook his head unhappily.

I turned on my heel to cross the street, then remembered the frog soap dish. I pulled out the baggie again from my bag and showed the frog to him.

He shook his head again. “What is it?”

“To me, it looks like a soap dish in the shape of a frog. Julia Dorrado says she bought it, or one like it, at By-Smart last Christmas.”

“We carry so much stuff, I don’t know our whole inventory. And I only met Josie this summer, when my church did the exchange. Where did you find it? I hope you aren’t trying to say we sell things that are this dirty.”

He was so serious all the time that it took me a moment to realize he was trying to make a joke. The license plate, and now a joke: maybe there were depths in the Kid that I was overlooking. I smiled dutifully, and explained where I’d picked it up.

He hunched a shoulder. “Maybe someone dropped it there. There’s always a lot of garbage around these old buildings.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But judging from where it was lying when I picked it up, I think it came shooting out when the windows in the drying room blew. So I think it was inside the factory.”

He turned the baggie over in his hands several times. “Maybe someone wanted it, like, as an ornament on a flagpole. Or maybe one of the ladies who worked there used it as a mascot. I see that a lot down here, people have funny things as mascots.”

“Don’t be a wet blanket,” I said. “It’s my only clue; I have to pursue it enthusiastically.”

“And then what? What if it leads you to some poor person down here who’s already spent their whole life being harassed by the police?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Do you know who put this in the factory, or why?”

“No, but you, you’re treating it like it was a game, like you’re in Crossing Jordan or something. And people down here—”