I tried to imagine where he might be. I didn’t think he’d gone home, at least not willingly. I suppose his grandfather might have had him picked up—Buffalo Bill was clearly capable of anything. Billy had given his cell phone away, Josie said: obviously, my remark about the GSM chip in it had made him cautious. I wondered if he’d also ditched the Miata.

“Phone Pastor Andrés,” I said at last. “He’s the one person Billy talks to these days. If you can find Billy, I think you’ll find Josie, or, at least, Billy may know where she is.”

Ten minutes later, Rose called back. “Pastor Andrés, he says he doesn’t know where Billy is. He hasn’t seen him since church yesterday. You got to come down here and help me find Josie. Who else can I ask? Who else can I turn to?”

“The police,” I suggested. “They know how to hunt missing persons.”

“The police,” she spat. “If they even answer my call, you think they would care?”

“I know the watch commander down there,” I offered. “I could phone him.”

“You come, Ms. V. I. War—War—”

I realized she was reading from one of the cards I’d left with her daughters, that she didn’t in fact know my name. When I pronounced it for her, she reiterated her demand that I come. The police wouldn’t listen to her, she knew all about that; I was a detective, I knew the neighborhood, please, it was all too much for her right now, the factory burning down, being out of work, all those children, and now this?

I was tired, and I’d had two glasses of heavy Italian red. And I’d been in South Chicago once already today, and it was twenty-five miles, and I’d split my shoulder open this afternoon…and I told her I’d be there as soon as I could.

25

Bedtime Stories

It was close to eleven when we pulled up in front of the Dorrado apartment on Escanaba. Mr. Contreras was with me, and we’d brought Mitch as well. Who knows—his hunting stock might give him a good tracking nose.

My neighbor had been predictably annoyed that I was going out again, but I shut him up by the simple expedient of inviting him to join me. “I know it’s late, and I agree I shouldn’t be driving. If you want to ride along and help keep me alert, that’d be great.”

“Sure, doll, sure.” He was touchingly ecstatic.