I picked up the list I’d made in the middle of the night of the things that Petra seemed to be trying to track and took it with me to the coffee shop across the street. While I waited in line for my espresso, I saw Elton Grainger out front hawking Streetwise and accepting donations with his usual unsteady bow and flourish. I took my drink, along with a bag of fruit, yogurt, juice, and some rolls, and went out to the street.

“Elton! I’ve been hoping for a word with you.” I held out the bag. “Help yourself. Juice? Muffin?”

“Hey, Vic.” His bloodshot blue eyes shifted uneasily from me to the sidewalk. “I’m okay. Don’t need no food today.”

“You always need food, Elton. You know what the doc said at the VA when you passed out in June: you have to stop drinking and start eating so it doesn’t happen again.”

“You leave me to sort that out. I don’t need you hovering over me.”

“Okay. No hovering. You know my place was seriously busted two days ago. I wonder if you saw who went in?”

“Vic, I told you before, I ain’t your doorman.”

I pulled a twenty from my wallet. “Early Christmas tip for the non-doorman. My cousin was there. I want to know if you can ID the two people she was with. They were all wearing coats, even though it was September and hot.”

He eyed the twenty but shook his head. “Don’t know any cousin of yours, and that’s a fact.”

“My cousin, Elton—the tall, cute blonde—you met her with me a couple of times, right after you got out of the hospital. Petra.”

“Sorry, Vic. I know you saved my life and all, but I never heard of her.” He turned away from me to greet a couple who were heading into the shop. “Streetwise. New edition today. Streetwise.”

I couldn’t get him to look at me again. Finally, I pushed the twenty into his hand, along with a blueberry muffin, and walked up the street toward Armitage.

I was fuming. Someone had gotten to Elton, scared him into silence. I should have swung by my office yesterday before starting my journey to South Chicago, should have talked to Elton then. If me saving his life, let alone the twenty—the price of a bed for a night or a week in the tank—couldn’t budge him, someone was putting heavy pressure on him.

Strangwell wouldn’t shake down a homeless guy personally, that was way beneath him. But he knew people who would. Larry Alito, for one. I’d seen him with Les Strangwell the day before Petra disappeared. Strangwell gave him an assignment: “I know what Les wants,” he’d snapped at someone who called to check up on him. Could it have been Dornick?