Back in the muggy sunshine, exhaustion overwhelmed me. It was only twelve-thirty, but a fight with Dick and hard work at two banks made me want to go back to bed. I still needed to canvass some of my neighbors and try to talk to Murray Ryerson this afternoon before Mr. Contreras and I went off to meet Eddie Mohr. And I wanted to get hold of Max Loewenthal. My body couldn’t be allowed the luxury of wearing out so early.

I hiked back to State Street and started down the stairs to the el. The thought of the long trek home from Sheffield seemed too much. I turned around and waved down a cab. The driver, who swayed and pounded the steering wheel in tune to the beat booming from his stereo, had a serene disregard for any other traffic. On the short stretch from LaSalle to Fullerton he managed to get up to seventy. His anger at my request to slow down was so menacing that I slid out when he stopped at the light on Diversey, tossing the amount of the meter onto the seat next to him. His screaming, mixed with the booming of his radio, followed me as I crossed the street to board the Diversey bus.

The ponderous journey west let me slump comatose in a corner. The chance to pull back from the world around me, even for a quarter of an hour, was unexpectedly refreshing. When I climbed off at Racine I wasn’t ready to leap tall buildings at a single bound, but I thought I might be able to manage an afternoon of work.

Back at my place I expected Mr. Contreras to come out, either to talk to me about the work in my apartment or remonstrate some more against going to see the old local president this evening. It seemed like a lucky break when he stayed inside his own apartment, but it did make me wonder if he was too upset to want to talk to me. When I saw he wasn’t out back fiddling with his garden, I even got a little worried. He’d been looking after himself for a lot of years, though. I had to assume he could do it for one more afternoon.

The workmen for my apartment had come and gone. They’d put electronic fingerprints on all the doors and windows. A note by my front entrance explained how to activate the system. Mr. Contreras had paid the bills for me. That was another thousand dollars I’d have to scramble together in a hurry. I hadn’t realized they had to be paid on the spot.

Following the instructions in the manual they’d left, I programmed the little control box next to my front door. If anyone tried to climb in on me now, Chicago’s finest should be with me in minutes.