He wasn’t happy; he wasn’t even sure he believed me. But he undid the dead bolts on his back door and walked me to the alley. “I’m gonna fix you up with one of those things the cops carry, so if you get in trouble you can give me a signal.”

The thought of a twenty-four-hour umbilical cord to the old man made me gulp. I went down the alley as fast as I could, as if to get away from the very air that had carried the suggestion.

26

Bad Girls Stay Out Late

The South Loop is a ghost town at night. Its bars close with the evening rush hour. Although the Auditorium and a movie theater are on its eastern edge and Dearborn Park has sprung up on the south, little night life has spread north of the Congress Expressway. A lot of that is of such dubious quality that you’d rather encounter an actual ghost.

The address for Jonas Carver—the man Lexis showed as Diamond Head’s registered agent—proved to be just north of Van Buren. I parked the Impala a discreet distance away, waited for a drunk—or perhaps dopehead—to drift across the street, and went into the lobby.

It was an old building that had been given a superficial rehab—just enough paint to justify a rent increase commensurate with the new construction in Dearborn Park. One of the cosmetic features was a heavy glass door with a double lock: you had to have working keys in both of them at the same time for the door to open. This would be a good test of the range of my picklocks. They had set me back seven hundred dollars, but were supposed to be up to this kind of job.

I also noted bitterly that the tenant addresses—listed next to a phone outside the outer door—were coded. Doubtless useful for private residents, but if you wanted to see a business, like Jonas Carver’s, how were you supposed to know what floor to go to? Fortunately the building was only eleven stories high—that would cut my exploration time down significantly.

Just to be on the safe side I dialed Carver’s code number. No one answered. Why would anyone be here at midnight, anyway?

Looking around to make sure no one was watching me, I set to work on the locks. After half an hour I began to wonder if I should bunk down in the Impala and go in on the coattails of the first person to arrive in the morning. I was also tempted just to pull out the Smith & Wesson and blow the door down. I didn’t think the noise would rouse anyone.