“We’ll go on in.” The shorter, younger one, Mr. Roger, was clearly another Bysen—unlike Mr. William, he looked strikingly like Buffalo Bill: the same stocky body, the same thick eyebrows and pincer-shaped nose.

When the pair pushed open the door to the inner office, I followed them, ignoring a flustered protest from the corner. Bysen was standing in front of his desk with Billy, young Mr. William, and Mildred, the skillet-faced woman from the meeting. Another man, tall and thin like Mr. William, was with them, but the two I’d followed ignored everyone but Bysen and Billy.

“Good morning, Father. Billy, what in hell were you thinking, bringing a rabble-rouser into the prayer meeting?”

Again an attack on Billy by one of his grown sons made Bysen rise to the Kid’s defense. “It’s not as bad as all that, Roger. We’ll have to spend the morning putting out fires, is all—half the board has heard about it already. Bunch of silly old women: the stock dropped two-fifty on the rumor that we’re letting in the union.” He cuffed his grandson on the head. “Just a couple of guys with more zeal than fore-thought, that’s all. Billy says this spi—Mexican preacher isn’t a labor leader.”

Billy was bright-eyed with emotion. “Pastor Andrés only cares about the welfare of the community, Uncle Roger. They have forty percent unemployment down there, so people have to take jobs—”

“That’s neither here nor there,” William said. “Really,

Father, you let Billy get away with murder. If Roger or Gary or I did something that drove the stock down that far, you’d be—”

“Oh, it will come back up, it will come back up. Linus, you get onto the corporate communications staff? They good to go? Who is this? One of the speechwriters?”

Everyone turned to look at me: the skillet-faced woman, who was standing next to Bysen’s desk with a laptop open in front of her, the two sons, the man named Linus.

I smiled sunnily. “I’m V. I. Warshawski. Morning, Billy.”

Billy’s face relaxed for the first time since his grandfather had stormed from the meeting. “Ms. War-sha-sky, I’m sorry I forgot about you. I should have waited for you after the meeting, but I wanted to escort Pastor Andrés to the parking lot. Grandpa, Father, this here is the lady I told you about.”

“So you’re the social worker down at the high school, hnnh?” Buffalo Bill lowered his head at me like a bull about to charge.

“I’m like you, Mr. Bysen: I grew up on the old South Side, but I haven’t lived there for a long time,” I said easily. “When I agreed to fill in as a basketball coach for the girls’ team, I was truly dismayed by the terrible changes in the neighborhood and at Bertha Palmer. When were you last in the school?”