I tried to stay awake enough to follow Conrad’s story, but behind the pain meds my shoulders throbbed from being pulled from their sockets. My kidneys ached, my whole body, from head to toe, was one pulsing sore; after a while, I just let go of it all and went to sleep.

When I woke again, Conrad had left, but Lotty was there, along with Morrell. The hospital wanted to discharge me, and Lotty was taking me home with her.

“It’s criminal to move you now, and I said so to the director, but their managed care owners decree how much care a battered body gets, and yours gets twelve hours.” Lotty’s black eyes flashed—I realized that she was only partly indignant on my behalf—she was furious that a hospital could pay more attention to their owners than to an important surgeon.

After his own recent injuries, Morrell knew what to bring for the battered body to wear home. He’d stopped at a fancy Oak Street boutique and bought me a warm-up suit made of a cashmere so soft it felt like kitten fur. He’d bought fleece-lined boots so I wouldn’t have to deal with shoes and socks. As I dressed in a wobbly, lethargic way, I saw that my skin looked like an eggplant harvest, more purple than olive. On our way out, the nurse gave me a bag with my slime-crusted clothes. I was even more grateful to Morrell for keeping me from having to look at them this morning.

Morrell helped me into a wheelchair, and laid his cane in my lap so he could push me down the hall. Lotty walked alongside like a terrier, her fur bristling when she had to speak to someone on the staff about my discharge.

Not even my injuries could keep Lotty from treating the city streets like the course of the Grand Prix, but I was too dopey to worry about her near miss with a truck at Seventy-first Street.

Morrell rode with us as far as her apartment: he would take a cab back to Evanston from there. In the elevator going up, he said that the British Foreign Office had finally located Marcena’s parents in India; they were flying into Chicago tonight, and would be staying with him.

“That’s nice,” I said, trying to summon the energy to be interested. “What about Don?”

“He’s moving to the living room couch, but he’ll go back to New York on Sunday.” He traced a finger along the line of my head bandage. “Can you stay out of the wars for a few days, Hippolyte? Marcena is having her first skin graft on Monday; it would be nice not to have to worry about you as well.”

“Victoria is not going anywhere,” Lotty pronounced. “I’m ordering the doorman to carry her back upstairs to bed if he sees her in the lobby.”