That was frustrating as well as disappointing: I should have realized that if Sister Frances had seen who killed Harmony Newsome, she would have spoken up forty years ago. I had to put the Lamont search on a back burner where the flame was just about ready to go out. I had to wait, anyway, for the trial transcript, for a chance to see Miss Claudia. In a bitter irony, Johnny Merton was beginning to look like my last hope.

Because nothing happens fast in Stateville, I was surprised that my visit to Merton happened ahead of the transcript and seeing Sister Frances. Inmate letters typically sit in bags for weeks, sometimes months, waiting for someone to get around to sorting them. When Johnny’s lawyer Greg Yeoman called me a scant ten days after I sent my letter to Johnny with the news that the old gang leader would see me, I knew the Hammer still had plenty of influence.

My visit to Stateville was scheduled for the day before Brian Krumas’s big shindig on Navy Pier. Before driving to Joliet, I took Mr. Contreras to his safe-deposit box in his old neighborhood so he could pick up his medals.

Even though he was keyed up almost beyond bearing, talking nonstop about the fundraiser, what he thought I should wear, whether he should call Max Loewenthal to borrow a dinner jacket, Mr. Contreras took time to warn me—again—against getting involved with Johnny Merton.

“He’s got a lawyer, you said so yourself. Let the lawyer ask him your questions. If those black friends of his ain’t talking to you, there’s a good bet Merton won’t, either. Would you trust some black detective who came around asking questions about your childhood friends?”

It wasn’t our first go-round on the topic. “I hope I’d have enough sense and skill to evaluate their sincerity and skill. And not judge them or any person on their race.”

“Yeah, well, if you have to have a dish perfect before you eat it, you’re always going to starve to death, cookie, and that’s a fact. It’s pretty darned hard for the rest of us to be perfect enough for you.”

I was just perfect enough not to tell him he could get himself to Petra’s damned fundraiser. At the bank, I waited in the lobby while he went to his safe-deposit box. He returned, glowing with justifiable pride over his collection: a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, his Good Conduct Medal with stars, and his ETO medal, also with stars. I left him polishing them while I drove west to the Big House.