“With the kid whose father had me arrested the last time he ran away to me.”

Father Lou unscraped the dead bolts and let them in. Mr. Contreras started speaking as the door opened. All I caught was, “Sorry, doll, but I didn’t want to use the phone in case they was tapping my line,” before the dogs overwhelmed me with their ecstatic greeting and Robbie, painfully thin and grubby, started apologizing: “I know you said to wait until I heard from you, but BB called.”

Father Lou shut the door. “Okay. Into the kitchen for tea, and let’s sort this out one voice at a time. These dogs housebroken?”

“Where’s the car?” I asked, before Father Lou pushed the dead bolts home.

“Sorry, doll, sorry, it’s out front, you want me to move it?”

“It needs to go away from here. It’s very identifiable, and if Baladine is scouring the city for me, he’ll find it.”

“Rectory garage,” Father Lou said. “Filled with old junk but room for the car. I’ll show—what’s your name?—Contreras the garage. You take the boy into the kitchen. Put on the kettle.”

Robbie and the dogs bounded down the hall with me to the kitchen. Robbie was trying hard not to flinch from Mitch, which seemed more heartbreaking than anything else about him.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Warshawski,” he whispered, “but they figured out you weren’t Aunt Claudia. They were going to lock me in the punishment barracks. I didn’t know when I’d ever get out. And I thought if BB did something else bad to you because you came to see me, I’d have to kill myself. So I ran away. But now I see he can put you in prison no matter what I do.”

“Sh, sh, poverino. It’s okay. You’re here, let’s deal with that. Tell me the story when Father Lou and Mr. Contreras get back; that way we’ll all get the same version and you’ll only have to tell it once.”

When the two men came in, the kettle was boiling. Father Lou made a large mug of cambric tea for Robbie and black tea with sugar for himself. I poured more hot milk into a mug for myself.

Mr. Contreras impatiently waved away refreshments. “He showed up about an hour ago, doll. He’s done in. I didn’t know what to do—like I say, I was afraid to use the phone—but I figured if they had any kind of watch on the place, it wasn’t good to leave him there. I guess I could have gone up to Morrell, but all I thought was, you’d be in real trouble now if that creep Baladine—sorry, son, I know he’s your old man—”