I stopped to look in the window, where Rivers was displaying goods to “Help your feet / Feel pretty neat / When they hit that concrete.” Toe pads, arch supports, gel inserts. Above them hung a clotheslineful of dog leashes and collars, and, on the shelves at the back, bright headbands, sashes, handbags, and even a little cache of toys. The tidy, cheery window did its own work for change in a hard world.

When I opened the door, I found myself in a thicket of leather. Ropes hanging from the ceiling displayed more purses, briefcases, harnesses, berets, even work boots and cowboy boots. Behind the ropes, a radio was tuned to Talk of the Nation, and I could hear the whine of a belt sander. When I pushed the ropes apart, a steam whistle blew, and a voice cried, “Welcome to Chicago.”

I stopped, startled. Two men in front of a chessboard looked up at me and laughed. The counter was behind them. A man working on a pair of shoes, his back to the room, didn’t turn around but kept sanding the edges on a new heel. I didn’t see the man who’d flourished his broom at me.

“Whistle always makes people jump when they don’t know it’s coming,” one of the chess players said. He was a balding man with a paunch that pressed against an old T-shirt with the Machinists Union logo on it.

“You lost?” His partner was skinnier and older, with skin the color of dusty ebony.

“Often. I’m looking for Curtis Rivers.”

The man behind the counter picked up the second shoe, still not looking at me.

“IRS or paternity suit?” the first chess player said. The savage tone underlying the jokey comment was directed at me, not the man at the belt sander. What are you doing down here, anyway?

“My father isn’t present, but he’s accounted for,” I said. “Ditto my children. Miss Ella Gadsden is the reason I’m looking for him.”

The sander fell silent. The only noise in the room came from a woman on the radio asking how consumers could ever be sure they were buying clothes made in a factory that respected the workers.

The chess players didn’t seem to know Miss Ella’s name, but the man behind the counter finally turned around. He placed the shoe he was working on, an old brown Florsheim, in the middle of the counter and leaned over to look at me.

“That’s a name I haven’t heard for a while,” he said, “but I don’t think I’ve heard yours at all.”

“V. I. Warshawski. I’m a private investigator. Miss Ella hired me to look for Lamont Gadsden. She said Curtis Rivers was one of his friends.”