She handed me a quarter and waved away my efforts to leave it on the bar top. “Hope you find him, honey. These old drunks eat up a lot of family time.”

I stood on the curb trying to figure out my next move. Mrs. Polter had disappeared from her front porch and I didn’t see her three tormentors anywhere on the street. A tired woman with two small children in tow was coming up the sidewalk. Another woman was heading into the Excelsior Tap three doors down from Tessie’s. Not much street life for a June afternoon.

Tessie was right. If Kruger was going on a bender, he wouldn’t do it here. He’d go back to his old neighborhood and drink at his usual tavern. I should have gotten his previous address from Mr. Contreras before I started searching. I could call my neighbor—there was a pay phone at the corner—but I didn’t have the stomach for any more landladies or beer this afternoon.

I climbed back into my car. It was only four-fifteen. Someone might still be in the office at Diamond Head. If I didn’t go there now it would be Monday before I could check them out.

The plant proved difficult to find. The address, on the 2000 block of Thirty-first Street, was clear enough, but I couldn’t seem to get at it. I went up Damen, which crosses the canal at Thirty-first Street, and found a promising road that snaked along the legs of the expressway. Weeds already grew waist-high there, partly concealing discarded mattresses and tires. Semis roared past me, taking the curves at fifty. I realized too late that we were being decanted onto the Stevenson.

By now rush-hour traffic had turned the two miles to Kedzie into a twenty-minute drive. When I got off, I didn’t try to make the return on the expressway. Instead I rode down Thirty-ninth Street and came back up to Damen. This time I parked the Trans Am at the bottom of the bridge and walked up the pedestrian path to the disused drawbridge tower in the middle.

It had been years since anyone had last used the tower. Its windows were boarded shut. The locks on the small iron door were so badly rusted that they couldn’t have been opened even if you had a key. Someone had announced the presence of the Insane Spanish Cobras along one wall; a giant swastika filled another.

The parapet had also rusted badly. A number of the rails had come loose. I didn’t risk leaning over it—a misstep would land me headfirst on the log pilings tied up underneath. Instead I lay flat on my stomach on the walk and peered below.