Max went straight to Lotty, but Audrey stopped to talk to me before going to look at the patient. When I told her what had happened she clicked her tongue impatiently and followed Max into Lotty’s bedroom. I sat under the fire-red painting in Lotty’s living room and thumbed through a back issue of National Geographic. Max joined me a few minutes later.

“I can’t believe you would do that to Lotty. Put her life at risk in that way.”

I leaned back in the couch and squeezed my forehead with my left hand. “I don’t want to hear about it, Max, at least not in that angry way. You must know I wouldn’t have traded cars with Lotty if I thought there was a physical risk attached. And if you think I would do such a thing, then there’s no point in talking.”

“Why’d you do it, then?”

“I was being tailed. I wanted to move around with some freedom. Lotty agreed to trade cars with me. I see now I shouldn’t have done it—but I couldn’t have known it then.”

Whoever had been following me didn’t know me by sight or they wouldn’t have jumped Lotty. Would Chamfers have used his own men instead of a detective agency? I thought of the guy I’d met on the loading dock last week. Bruno, I’d called him. What name had Chamfers used? I couldn’t remember—my brain was scraping at the edges, like a needle on a record that wouldn’t lift itself clear.

“I’ve known Lotty since she was fifteen,” Max said abruptly. “She’s sometimes the most infuriating person in the world. But I can’t imagine the world without her.”

“I’ve only known her since she was forty, but I can’t imagine it without her either. Anyway, you can’t blame me more than I blame myself.”

Max finally moved his head, an almost-nod of not-quite assent. He went to the cupboard where Lotty keeps her brandy and poured some out. I took a glass from him, but set it down beside me untasted. We sat without speaking until Audrey came back out.

“She’ll do. I’d like to send her in for X rays—I think her arm is cracked and should be in a cast, and just to be on the safe side she should have a CAT scan of her brain. But it’ll keep till morning. I wrapped the arm up and gave her something to make her sleep. The only thing is, she wouldn’t take it unless I promised her that Vic would stay here tonight. Okay with you, Warshawski?”

I nodded. Max, hurt that Lotty hadn’t chosen him, offered to stay with me.