I couldn’t decide what to do about Pichea after the failure of my letter to the Chicago Lawyer, but the easiest way to take on Diamond Head would be to lie in wait for the end of the shift and tackle the guys as they came up the road for their cars or the bus. It would be a good two hours until then; I could fill in the time by getting a photo of Mitch Kruger to show them. Anyway, a photo would be essential if I was going to do door-to-door canvassing at the row of bungalows tucked beneath the Damen Avenue bridge. I didn’t think Terry Finchley really had the enthusiasm necessary to add those inquiries to his investigation.

I didn’t want to drive back north to see what Mr. Contreras might have. He might dredge up some old group picture from the local, but I doubted he had anything that would make a good identity aid. The real stumbling block, though, would be his desire to come down and take on the bosses in person. Not that I was doing such a great job on my own, but the old man saw himself as Mike Hammer and I wasn’t ready yet for confrontation on that scale.

I thought I remembered a photo ID among the documents I’d found in Kruger’s room at Mrs. Polter’s house. Her place was almost close enough to walk to, but my hours in the hot sun had taken their toll; I moved Lotty’s Cressida over to Archer.

Mrs. Polter was alone at her battle station—her tormentors must have found some cooler entertainment for the afternoon. A couple of men were coming out of Tessie’s, but the rest of the street was quiet.

When I mounted the rickety steps I saw Mrs. Polter drinking something murky-brown out of a corrugated glass. It might have been instant iced tea, but it looked as though it had been mixed with transmission fluid. She was still wearing the brown gingham housedress. The fabric had frayed further on both sides of the safety pin, so her décolletage was better covered, but ominous holes were starting to open on the sides.

“That old man you was looking for—he’s dead,” she said abruptly.

“Oh, yeah? How’d you find out?”

“His son came. His boy. He told me when he come to collect the old man’s stuff.”

“All the way from Arizona, huh?” Mr. Contreras would have told me if he’d gotten in touch with Kruger’s family. Had Terry Finchley done it? If so, young Kruger got here mighty fast—it was only fifteen hours since we’d identified the body.