I riffled through the remaining files quickly, hoping to find a reference to Chicago Settlement. When I couldn’t find anything, I stashed the papers back where they belonged and turned once again to the stack dealing with Paragon Steel. Mr. Contreras finished his photocopying. Laying the copies next to me, he said with a delicate cough that he was going to find a men’s room. I nodded absently, forgetting Dick’s private john until after he’d disappeared down the hall.

I had just gotten to what looked like a juicy section, dealing with Paragon’s obligation to keep Diamond Head functioning, when Mr. Contreras came racing back in.

“Someone’s come in, doll. I think it may be the cops. I’d sort of wandered to the front, just giving the place the once-over—”

“Pack up your tools and explain the rest to me later. If they come here, I want them to find you in the act of restoring the vent cover.”

He stumbled back to the waiting room. I shoved the papers back in their folders and jammed them into the drawers any old way. I looked at the photocopies in momentary indecision. If it was indeed the cops and I got searched, I couldn’t be found with those on me.

I opened Harriet’s side drawer and took out a large manila envelope with Crawford, Mead’s return address on the corner. Stuffing my copies into it, I addressed the envelope to myself at my office and sprinted down the hall. I called out to Mr. Contreras as I left not to worry, that I wasn’t abandoning him.

Mr. Contreras was right: we had cops. I could hear them at the bottom of the interior staircase planning how to search the upper floors. Panicking slightly, I went from room to room until I found one with outgoing mail in a basket. I slid my envelope into the middle of the stack and walked back up the hall to join Mr. Contreras.

I got there just as one of the patrolmen came down the hall with the night guard from the lobby.

48

Off the Hook

Fred Roper, the night guard, was triumphant. “I knew there couldn’t be something wrong with the air-conditioning. Not without them telling me about it when I came on duty.”

“It only took you five hours to figure it out,” Mr. Contreras said. “What’d you have to do—take off your shoes and socks and think it through with your toes?”