When I’d finished picking up glass shards and mopping whisky I turned on the light in the living room and looked Todd Pichea up in the phone book. His home number wasn’t given, but he did list his office, at an address on North LaSalle that I recognized.

I hunted around the living room for my private address book, which was usually interleaved in the papers on the coffee table. In my cleaning frenzy Tuesday morning I had tidied things so violently that I couldn’t find it. After half an hour of going through every drawer in the place I discovered the book inside the piano bench. Really, it was a waste of time to clean.

I dialed Richard Yarborough’s unlisted Oak Brook number. He answered the phone himself.

“Dick, hi. How are you? … It’s me, your good old ex-wife, Vic,” I added when it was clear he hadn’t recognized my voice.

“Vic! What do you want?” He sounded startled, but not actively hostile.

My normal conversations with him begin with a little brittle banter, but I was too upset tonight for cleverness. “You know a boy named Todd Pichea?”

“Pichea? I might. Why?”

“The one I’ve met lives across the street from me. About five-ten, thirtyish, brown hair, square face.” My voice trailed away—I couldn’t think of any way to describe Todd that would distinguish him from ten thousand other young professionals.

“And?”

“His law office seems to have the same address as yours. I thought maybe he was one of your hot young lawyers champing at the bit.”

“Yes, I believe we do have an associate with that name.” Dick wasn’t going to give me anything willingly.

I hadn’t thought this phone call through before making it. Like everything else I’d done tonight, from ringing the Picheas’ doorbell to breaking a glass of whisky, it had been impulsive and perhaps stupid. I plunged ahead, feeling as though I were wrestling quicksand.

“He’s gotten involved in some extracurricular legal work. Extraterrestrial, really: made himself guardian of an old woman in the neighborhood who’s in the hospital, and had her five dogs collected by the county and put to sleep.”

“That’s not really any of my business, Vic, and I don’t see that it’s yours either. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re entertaining tonight.”