“Petra, you are up to something. I don’t know what, but …”

She flushed, and played with her array of rubber bracelets. “Oh, he’s turning seventy next year, and Mom and I were trying to think of something really special to do. I thought of the baseball, and—”

“I thought you just said you’d talked to him about it and that he’d love to have it.”

“Why are you biting on me like I was some steak bone? I’m just making conversation!” She nearly tilted the wing chair over in her agitation.

“Then let’s make some more conversation. What really brought you to Sister Frances’s apartment the other night? And who came with you?”

“I told you—”

“Baby, I’ve been listening to line spinners since I was six, and you are not in the majors. Not even double A.”

She scowled at me. “If I tell you now, you’ll make even more fun of me.”

“Try me.”

“I thought, it’s not like you have an assistant or anything. And when we went to South Chicago, I loved how you dealt with those gangbangers. I thought if I went in and found something—a clue or something—maybe you’d take me on as an apprentice when the campaign winds down. But if you’re just going to laugh at me …”

Her face was so red that it almost glowed in the soft light of the guest room. I slid off the bed and knelt next to her, patting her shoulder.

“You want to be a detective? You know the ‘fun stuff ’ you said I got to do, after I tangled with that gangbanger on Houston Street? Your folks would eat me for lunch if you were working for me and got your eyes burned. Not to mention that you could have gone through the floor in that apartment.”

I sat back on the daybed as another thought occurred to me. “Petra, someone threw a smoke bomb into my old house on Houston last Sunday. Señora Andarra said she saw one of us watching from across the street. That wasn’t you, was it?”

“Vic! You told me not to go down there alone.”

“Does that mean no?” I asked. “You weren’t trying to play detective and get into that house?”

“I wasn’t playing detective at your old house, okay?” Her face turned red again in her agitation. “Now I’m sorry I ever said anything to you about it. Daddy says your mom spoiled you something rotten, so you never learned how to let anyone else be in the limelight.”

“That a fact? Is that what you were doing at the Freedom Center the other night? Showing me how to let you be in the limelight?”

“Oh, you twist everything I say the wrong way.” She strode from the room, her rubber bracelets bobbing up and down on her arms.