“You know the sad old story about the man who leaves his wife for a cute young thing? And the first wife, who worked hard and put him through school and scrimped so he could build his business, she gets left with the shirt on her back and not much more? And he gets the kids, because how can she give the kids a decent home when she doesn’t have any money and she has to be out at work all day?”

“I heard a bunch of versions of that story in my time.” She kept her eyes straight ahead, talking in a prison mumble out of the corner of her mouth.

“My twist on it is I figure the guy for about the meanest bastard in Chicago. So I take the oldest child. A boy, who’s overweight and sensitive, and Daddy likes to beat on him, make him cry, then beat on him some more for crying like a girl. Daddy had me arrested for kidnapping.”

“Uh–hunh. And you couldn’t make bail. Everyone says you got a real lawyer, not a PD. Not to mention, of course, your fancy education that lets you write all those letters.”

“Guy’s got a lot of important friends. The judge set bail at a quarter of a million. If your friends ran a financial check on me they could tell you why I couldn’t pull together that much money overnight.”

“And how’d you learn to fight like you do, taking out two big women in the shower?” she demanded. “Not to mention Angie, which I watched you do.”

“Same way Angie did,” I said softly. “On the streets of Chicago. Ninety–first and Commercial to be exact. But I was lucky. My mother wanted me to have an education, and she made me study when the other girls on my street were getting pregnant or doing drugs.”

Miss Ruby thought this over. “I don’t know whether to believe you or not. But I hear you’ve been asking questions about a young woman who used to be here. I hear you’ve been saying you want to talk to me about her. And so here I am, talking to you, wondering how you know her and if that’s the real reason you’re at Coolis.”

I sidestepped the comment. “I never met Nicola Aguinaldo. I know her mother. Señora Mercedes is grateful to you for looking after Nicola.”

“Hmm. She’s not very grateful in person.”

“She doesn’t have any money. And she doesn’t have a green card. She’s afraid to come out here in case they inspect her documents and report her to INS, and she can’t write in English. But Nicola’s last letter to Señora Mercedes brought her great comfort, because Nicola told her mother you were keeping an eye on her.”