“Some circumstances,” Carp said. “My wife was a volunteer social worker. And not like you see them on the society page, sitting around at the luncheon table and smiling for the photographer. My wife was really a worker. She gave it all she had and then some. But calling her a worker is only part of it. Because mostly she was a soldier. She was a soldier for the poor and underprivileged, yelling her head off in City Hall, demanding action from the health inspectors and building inspectors and especially from the inspectors in the fire department. Telling them to go and see for themselves, to take a good close look at the neighborhood. And—”

“Hold it,” Corey cut in. “What neighborhood?”

“This neighborhood,” Carp said. “This neighborhood here. The Swamp.”

The puzzled look gradually faded from Corey’s face. His eyes narrowed as he looked off to the side. He murmured, “Someone shoulda told her—ain’t no way to clean up the Swamp. Anyplace but the Swamp.” And then, looking at the little man, he asked, “Wasn’t she warned?”

“Just once. And it wasn’t really a warning. It was more likely a friendly suggestion.”

“Grogan?”

Carp nodded very slowly. He gazed past the wall, as though seeing the Swamp of twenty-three years ago when Walter Grogan had wiped out all competition and had the neighborhood in his pocket, controlling rent, the prices for plumbing improvements, for fire extinguishers which most tenants couldn’t buy because they didn’t have the money, controlling the interest rate on loans. And almost everyone borrowed at some time or other, inasmuch as money that would have been on hand to pay the grocer, the druggist and the doctor, was spent instead at the Hangout bar. All this was reflected in Carp’s eyes as he nodded slowly.

He said, “It was all very friendly. She told me about it. She said that Grogan invited her to lunch and she refused and Grogan stood there and told her that he admired her for the work she was doing, but it wasn’t really needed in this neighborhood. The people in this neighborhood didn’t want any changes. And then he told her that many people resented her coming around knocking on doors, and he hoped she wouldn’t get hurt. So what it all came to, he was telling her in a nice way that if she knew what was good for her, she’d stay away from the Swamp. But she kept coming back.

“And a few weeks later she was in the grave. And the children were in the grave. It was more than I could take. I kept trying to do away with myself, and finally I flipped all the way, and they put me in the booby hatch. ‘Incurable,’ they said.”

“How long were you in?”

“Nineteen years.”

Corey let out a low whistle. “How’d you get out?”