The meeting took all afternoon. At five-thirty I left them with a proposal and joined the parking lot on Interstate 290 crawling back to Chicago. There wasn’t any good way to get from the northwest suburbs to Evanston. There wasn’t any good way to move in the northwest suburbs at this time of day, period. I got off at Golf Road to drive directly east. It wouldn’t be any slower than staying on the expressway.

The Cubs were playing in Philadelphia. I turned on the radio to see if the game had started, but got the inane blather Harry Carey called his pregame show. I switched to WBBM and the news. Nothing was going on in the world that I cared much about, from the baking of the Southwest to the news that the savings and loan bailout was now estimated at five hundred billion.

“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered, trying NBC. Traffic was backed up on all the expressways as people like me returned to the city after frolicking in the suburbs. On Golf Road, too, although the man in the helicopter didn’t mention it. I braked hard as a maroon Honda pulled into traffic from one of the five thousand strip malls lining the street. Stupid jerk. He pulled in behind me, close enough to ram me if I had to stop suddenly.

No one had identified the body of an elderly man pulled from the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Stickney earlier today. We got an agitated live report from Ellen Coleman, who had found the body when she and her husband, Fred, were walking along the side of the canal, scavenging for coins.

“And I said to Fred, ‘I don’t think I can face meatloaf tonight after seeing all that ground-up flesh,’ ” I mimicked savagely, turning back to Harry Carey.

It was six before I reached the outskirts of Evanston. My linen jacket was limp from sweat. When I checked my face in the rearview mirror I saw a black smudge across my cheek. My dark curls were lying wet on my forehead. I found a Kleenex in my purse and scrubbed my face clean with spit. I couldn’t do anything about the rest of my appearance.

Max’s house was part of a small block that shared a private park and beach at the south end of Evanston. When I pulled into the driveway Max leaned over the side of the second-story porch.

“The front door is open, Vic; you can come on up.”

A shallow step led to the porticoed front entrance. The air inside was still and cool. I couldn’t imagine heat or sweat among the Chinese porcelains that filled niches and stands along the hall and stairwell. I felt sloppy and out of place in the midst of Max’s immaculate tidiness. My black pumps had a film of dust on them that didn’t belong on the red Persian runner lining the stairs.