Yes, he’d saved my life all right, and that meant he thought he’d acquired property rights in it. But looking at his angry stare, I couldn’t say something that would hurt him so painfully. I couldn’t bring myself to apologize, but I asked in a milder tone what had brought him up to the third floor.

He frowned for another few seconds, then decided to let it go. “It’s that lawyer up the street, that Pichea. He’s downstairs trying to get a posse together, and of course Vinnie Buttone is only too happy to sign on. I was sure you’d want to know about it.”

“Posse to do what?”

“To get the county to come for the old lady’s dogs. He says they’ve been creating a nuisance for twenty-four hours and no one’s answering her bell.”

I remembered wondering why she hadn’t come to her window this morning. “Isn’t the boy worried about Mrs. Frizell?”

“You think something’s happened to her?” His eyes grew large in his weather-beaten face.

“I don’t think anything. She might not answer her door because she knows it’s Pichea and he’s a pain in the tail. On the other hand, she might be unconscious in the bath. I think before we get the county to haul her dogs away we ought to see where she is and what she has to say.”

He trailed behind me when I returned to the living room to describe the situation to Carol. “I’m going to see if some thing’s wrong with her. I know I’ve just been lecturing you against succoring the world—but I would appreciate on-the-spot medical expertise if she’s had a stroke or something.”

Carol gave a twisted smile. “You going to break and enter for a stranger, V.I.? Then I guess I can come along and give her mouth-to-mouth if she needs it.”

The police had confiscated my professional picklocks a number of years ago, but during the winter I’d acquired some new ones—billed, of course, as “state of the art”—at a security conference out at O’Hare. Tonight might be my first chance to use them. The thrill was less than overwhelming: the razor edge of excitement that comes from chasing and being chased seems to diminish with age. I stuck the picklocks in a jacket pocket and went downstairs with Mr. Contreras and Carol.

“Hi, Todd, Vinnie. Getting the lynch mob together?”