“I don’t think even you will be beaten up. And I hope I won’t either. I want to know if—let’s see—Richard Yarborough, Jason or Peter Felitti, or Ben Loring sits on their board.”

Max repeated the names to me, getting the spelling right. I realized I didn’t have the CEO of Paragon Steel—he would be more likely than his controller to sit on an important board. My Who’s Who in Chicago Commerce and Industry was down in my office, but my old Wall Street Journals were in front of me on the coffee table. While Max made impatient noises about needing to get to his next meeting I thumbed through the back issues until I found the story on Paragon Steel.

“Theodore Bancroft. Any of those five. Can I call you at home tonight?”

“You’re ready to jump into action, so everyone else has to too?” Max grumbled. “I’m on my way to another meeting and when I get out of that I’m going home to unwind. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”

When Max hung up I continued rubbing my toes absent-mindedly. Stock parking. Why not bond parking? What if Diamond Head was getting Chicago Settlement to take its junk at face value, then letting them sell it—at a steep loss, but still, they’d have money they didn’t have before?

It was a nice, neat idea. But how had Mitch Kruger stumbled onto it? It was way too sophisticated for him. But maybe not for Eddie Mohr, the old president of the local. Time to go see him and ask.

I sat up and pulled my socks back on, thin pink anklets with roses up the side, pretty to look at but not providing much padding for the feet. I slipped my loafers on and went to my bedroom to collect the Smith & Wesson. Going down the hall I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. My silk shirt looked as though I’d slept in it. I pulled it off and sponged myself under the bathroom tap.

I hadn’t done any laundry for two weeks. It was hard to find a clean shirt that looked respectable enough to go interrogating in. I finally had to pull a dressy black top from a dry-cleaning bag. I could only hope the shoulder holster wouldn’t tear into the delicate fabric—I wasn’t going out of the neighborhood without my gun. A black houndstooth jacket sort of made the top into an outfit, and sort of covered the gun. It was cut a little snugly for total concealment.