Mr. Contreras was rambling on about some of his drunken adventures at Diamond Head, which were meant to prove you wouldn’t fall in the soup even if you were stewed. I debated whether to tell him about the tail; it would take his mind off his worries and get him prepared for battle, if it came to that. Although my friends were following carelessly enough to invite confrontation, I didn’t want to push it. Giving into my angry impulses over the last four days had brought me nothing but misery. I wasn’t going to compound my problems by confronting thugs when I wasn’t at my best physically or mentally. I let Mr. Contreras ramble on, checking periodically to make sure they weren’t going to ram us or start shooting.

The morgue was uncomfortably close to Cook County Hospital, just on the other side of Damen from it. An easy progression from surgery to autopsy. As I pulled into the lot outside the concrete cube housing the dead I glanced up the street, wondering what Mrs. Frizell was doing. Was she still lying like a corpse on her bed? Or was she trying to get well enough to go home to Bruce?

I turned off the ignition, but didn’t get out until the car that had been tailing us continued east on Harrison. In the dark it was impossible to tell what model it was: anything relatively small and modern, from a Toyota to a Dodge.

An ambulance had pulled up outside the big metal doors marked DELIVERIES. Really, it was just like the loading bays at Diamond Head and the neighboring plants I’d seen on Friday. Here it was bodies instead of motors, but the attendants handled their load with the same casual familiarity.

I waited with Mr. Contreras for someone to buzz us in through the main door. The place was kept locked even during the day. I don’t know if the pathologists needed protection from the demented bereaved, or if the county was afraid someone would run off with evidence in a murder case. Finally one of the guards deigned to listen to the doorbell and release the lock.

We went to the high counter immediately inside the entrance. Despite having watched us through the reinforced glass for five minutes, the attendant on duty continued his conversation with two women in lab smocks lounging in a nearby doorway.

I cleared my throat loudly. “I’m here to try to identify a body.”

The attendant finally looked up at us. “Name?”

“I’m V. I. Warshawski. This is Salvatore Contreras.”

“Not yours,” the man said impatiently. “The person you’ve come to ID.”

Mr. Contreras started to say “Mitch Kruger,” but I cut him off.

“The man who was pulled out of the Sanitary Canal this morning. We may know who he is.”