“I think this is where we go home to bed.” I yawned so widely my jaw cracked. “I’m seeing spots instead of street signs, which is not a good time to be driving.”

“You tired this early, doll?” my neighbor grinned. “You often ain’t later than this.”

“Not that you pay any attention, right?” I grinned back.

“No way, doll: I know you don’t like me poking around in your business.”

Usually when I’m out this late, I’m at a club with friends, dancing, exhilarated by music and motion. Sitting in a car, peering anxiously through the windshield, was another story. South Chicago was a hard area to drive in, too: streets dead-end into bits of the old swamp that underlies the city, or into a canal or shipping lane; others bump into the Skyway. I thought I remembered that I could cross west to the expressway at 103rd Street, but I ended up at the Calumet River and had to turn around. On the far side of the river lay the By-Smart warehouse. I wondered if Romeo Czernin was driving for them tonight, if he and Marcena were parked in some schoolyard, making love behind the seats in the cab.

The road was rutted here, and the houses were spaced wide apart. The long stretches in between weren’t really vacant: old beds, tires, and rusted-out car frames poked out of heaps of rotting marsh grasses and dead trees. A couple of rats crossed the road in front of me and slid into the ditch on my left; Mitch began whimpering and turning in the narrow backseat—he’d seen them, too, and was sure he could catch them if I’d just turn him loose.

I flexed my cramped shoulder muscles and opened my window to get some fresh air on my face. Mr. Contreras tutted in concern and turned on the radio, hoping the noise would keep me alert. I turned north again, on a street that should get me to an access road for the expressway.

The temperature was hovering just above freezing, WBBM reported, and the expressways were all moving freely—clearly, two in the morning was the time to drive in Chicago. Stock markets had opened sluggishly in London and Frankfurt. The Chiefs had rallied after the two-minute warning, but still fell short by eight points.

“So you beat the spread, cookie,” Mr. Contreras consoled me. “That means you only owe me seven bucks more, two for the third-quarter score, one for the total number of sacks by New England, one for—”

“Hang on a second.” I stood on the brakes.