He waved a bottle of Valpolicella at me, but I declined. I couldn’t afford to drink anything this late at night if I wanted to be able to move fast. He bustled off to the kitchen.

I went over to the maternity ward—I hadn’t taken time to coo over the puppies earlier. Their eyes had opened and they were making tentative sorties from Peppy’s side. She watched me closely when I picked them up to stroke them, but it didn’t upset her the way it had when they were first born.

Mr. Contreras came back with a plate of ribs, some garlic bread, and—in deference to my eating habits—a plate of iceberg lettuce. He unfolded a TV table for me and sat down with the wine. As soon as I saw the ribs I realized how hungry I was.

“Tell me about your day. You went to see Jake Sokolowski?” I asked through a mouthful of food.

“No. I just phoned him at Tonia Coriolano’s place. I didn’t figure he’d know anything about Mitch’s kid—none of us did. Mitch didn’t care enough to keep up with the boy and Rosie when they up and left thirty-five years ago.” He swallowed some wine reflectively. “Or maybe he was just too ashamed at not being able to look after them the way a man ought to do—and don’t go telling me women can look after themselves. You marry a woman and get her a baby, you’re obligated to look after them.”

After glaring at me a minute to see if I would respond to the challenge in his voice, he went on. “No, who I went to see was Eddie Mohr.”

“Eddie Mohr?” I echoed.

“The guy whose car was stolen. The one that the guys used for beating up the doc.”

“I didn’t know you knew him.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure I did, until after I checked with Jake. I mean, it’s not a common name, but there could be more than one.”

I put down my ribs, controlling an impulse to shout at him. When Mr. Contreras has hot news, he tells it in pieces and usually backward.

“I’ll bite: Who is Eddie Mohr? Besides owning the death car, of course.”

“Guy used to be president of our local. He’s a few years younger’n Jake and me, maybe only just turned seventy, so he started after us and wasn’t in our particular crowd. But of course I knew him, so I went to see him. Got a nice little house on Fortieth, east of Kedzie, lives with his wife, keeps a nice Buick. Besides the Olds that got stolen, I mean. The Buick is his wife’s car, see—the other one, the Olds, that’s his.” Mr. Contreras beamed in satisfaction at being able to report important news.