AFTER PETER AND RACHEL LEFT, I HAD A LONG TALK WITH Mr. Contreras, which included a promise to involve him in any action necessary to rescue Petra. I even shared with him the list I’d made of all the odd questions I had about my cousin during the past few weeks: the Nellie Fox baseball, her relentless interest in the contents of my trunk, her wish to see any storage places in the old family home in Back of the Yards, her effort to tour my own childhood home in South Chicago, her arrival at Sister Frankie’s gutted apartment last week, the smoke bomb that forced the Andarra family to vacate the house the night before Sister Frankie’s murder.

At first he put up a spirited defense of her youth and impulsiveness, but by the time I got to her late-night trip to the Freedom Center even Mr. Contreras was uneasy. “But, doll, if she was doing something she shouldn’ta been, it was because she was pushed into it. You listen to me. She’s as good as gold, little Peewee, and don’t you go thinking otherwise. When you get to the end of this story, you’re going to find Johnny Merton was behind it. Mark my words.”

“Let’s find her first and argue over who got her in over her head later, right?”

He agreed gruffly, and watched while I printed out a couple of shots I’d taken of Petra on my cellphone. I also printed random pictures off the Web of young blond women: some celebrities, some pictures that people had posted on their blogs, finishing with a few shots of myself.

I uploaded the photo I’d snapped of Alito and Strangwell at the Prudential Plaza the other day. It wasn’t a very clear shot, but it was the only one I could find of Alito. Strangwell was highly visible. His website showed him with various Illinois politicos, with U.S. presidents and a Supreme Court justice, and with entertainers like Michael Jordan. I guess if you were coming to Strangwell for help, the portraits showed you what kind of access a thousand dollars an hour bought you. I printed a couple of those images, and pulled one of Dornick from the Mountain Hawk Security website as well.

The old man finally left when I went into the bathroom to get ready for my day outside. As I covered my face and arms with protective creams, it seemed somehow wrong to be tending to my body when my cousin’s life might be in danger. I put on my hat, my gloves, checked the clip in my gun and put it in its tuck holster, and went out the back door.

Jake Thibaut was on his little porch with a cup of coffee. “That’s a fetching costume. You going undercover on a Civil War plantation?”