I couldn’t keep on this way, not knowing where the next menace might come from. Whether Baladine was carrying on a war of nerves, or he wanted me dead or arrested, or all three, I couldn’t run a business when I was afraid to be both in my office and in my home. I couldn’t turn to my oldest friends for fear of jeopardizing their lives or families. Murray, who I’d worked with for so many years, was carrying a bucket for the other side this time. Mary Louise had been frightened into leaving me alone.

If only I could get the story together I might be able to find a way to make it public. It had something to do with Coolis and something to do with Frenada’s factory, although how those two places came together on Nicola Aguinaldo’s frail body I didn’t understand. I needed to get in touch with Morrell and insist that he take me to Aguinaldo’s mother before Baladine succeeded in whatever his plan was.

When I finally climbed out of the tub it was dark outside. I could hear the steady popping of firecrackers as people in the area geared up for the Fourth of July, coming up on Saturday.

When I was a child my father used to take me for a walk on the Fourth, telling me a thrilling version of the War of Independence, stressing the role of General Kosciuszko and other Poles in the American Revolution. My mother always followed my father’s tale with a reminder that it was Italian explorers who found the New World and made it possible for the English and Poles to leave Europe.

In the afternoons we’d make a picnic with my father’s pals on the force and my mother’s vocal coach and his daughter. My mother would make my favorite dessert—an Umbrian rice pudding with currant jelly and sweet wine sauce—and I’d race around screaming with the other children, playing baseball and wishing I had a big family instead of just my one cousin, Boom–Boom.

I wondered what the Baladines taught their children on the Fourth of July. Perhaps something instructive about free markets.

I took that bitter thought to bed with me. Despite my fatigue I couldn’t relax. Coolis, Aguinaldo, Frenada chased through my mind, sometimes with Baladine in pursuit, sometimes Alex Fisher. I was just deciding I’d do better to get up and pay bills than lie churning over these profitless ideas when my front doorbell rang.

No one in Chicago pays calls at midnight if they have your well–being in mind. I pulled my jeans on and grabbed my gun from the closet safe before calling down through the intercom.

A voice quavered, “It’s me. It’s Robbie Baladine.”