A bus lumbered up to the stop. I fed two of my crumpled bills into the money maw, awkwardly because of my gauzy mitts, and slumped back onto one of the seats set aside for the disabled and elderly. I felt disconnected from the world around me, and when we got to the Kedzie stop I had to coach myself on how to walk down the steps.

My car was parked on Kedzie, but my keys had been in the handbag I’d dropped in Sister Frankie’s apartment. I walked up Kedzie to see if I could get into my Mustang—I have picklocks in the glove compartment—but of course I’d locked all the doors. However, the city hadn’t forgotten me: three tickets for meter violations were stuffed under the wipers. I ground my teeth but left the tickets. I couldn’t do anything about them tonight.

It was easy to spot Sister Frankie’s apartment from the street: the windows were boarded over and the brick and concrete around the frames were charred black. Lights showed through open windows on some of the upper floors, though, meaning the fire had been contained quickly enough for the building’s wiring and plumbing to be usable. That was one mercy, that others hadn’t been injured in or made homeless by the blast. It also meant the federal morons watching the building hadn’t stopped the fire department from doing their job.

The street was full, as it had been three nights ago, with kids and shoppers and lovers and drunks. People stared at me: the building was a stage and I was a new actor on it, but I couldn’t help that.

I took off my plastic dark glasses. The sun had set, the streetlamps were on, and the city was bathed in the haze of midsummer twilight. Surely that wouldn’t hurt my eyes. I pushed the gauze back on my right hand, exposing my thumb and my forefinger, and used the edge of the glasses to push in the tongue on the front door. As I’d thought the other night, it was a simple lock to undo. I hoped if OEM was watching, they wouldn’t come after me.

The stairwell smelled like a lab sink, a musty, sour chemical stench mingled with charred wood and damp. I wished for a flashlight, the only light coming from a single bulb two stories up. I worried about missing steps or tripping on debris, but my flashlight was also in my glove compartment. The things you can do so easily with money: walk to the nearest drugstore, buy a flashlight. Hop a cab, buy a new outfit. No wonder women who look like me walk down the street shouting their heads off.