“Bullshit. You take the bannister, okay. Your father’s office gone—fine, that is your life, not mine. The condiments go sour, I buy new ones. We don’t have the money, but I find it, because that is what I do. My coffeepot slips away while my back is turned? I say goodbye. I don’t ask questions. I’m not your mother. I’m not even your housekeeper. I’m just Hellida. I’m just here.”

She crossed the room and picked up her pan.

“Hellida . . .”

“Don’t be sorry. Just get into your kitchen and sit down at that filthy table. I’m making you breakfast, damn it.”

She lit the stove, and I emptied my bag across the table. In one corner, I stacked leather gloves: Copeland’s, Barbarossa’s, and Mary Fall’s. That part of my investigation was complete. The gun I put back in the bag. From now on, I would be asking big questions, or none at all.

Hellida added the flour without measuring, whisked the eggs without looking, and didn’t need to check to see the pan was ripping hot. She ladled the first serving of batter onto the skillet. It went straight through. The fire hissed out, and the batter flooded across the stove.

“Curse it!” said Hellida.

“What is it?”

“The pan—”

In the center of the pan, there was a perfect hole. The iron had been eaten away as if by acid. I know because she picked it up and showed it to me—only for a moment, because the pan was hot enough to blister her palm. She dropped it and fell to her knees, fist pounding the floor in pain.

I wet a rag and pressed it to her palm. I wouldn’t let her pull away.

“Here,” I said. “Under the faucet.”

“It’s fine. I’ve burned myself worse a thousand times. It’s the stupidity of it that stings. And that pan. I’ve had that pan for seventeen years, damn it. This is no way for it to die. Damn this city. Damn this neighborhood. And damn your business, Gilda, because that is what’s causing all this. You’ll kill this house. You’ll kill us both.”

“I didn’t—I never meant to make you worry.”

“They never do.”

“Is your hand all right?”

“Tolerable.”

“Then get your hat. I’m buying you breakfast.”

I stood her up. She leaned on the table, and she saw my display of gloves, and the pain fell away from her face.

“This is the glove?” she said, clutching the one recovered the night before.

“That’s the one.”

She wrapped me tight in the finest hug a girl could ever hope to receive.

“Then it’s over,” she said. “It’s over.”