The early evening editions had arrived in the downstairs lobby. I stopped in the coffee shop to read them over a cappuccino and a cheese sandwich. The fire had made the Herald Star’s front page-ARSON ON THE NORTH SIDE- in the lower left corner. Interview with the De Paul students. Interview with the Takamokus’ worried daughter. Then, in a separate paragraph with its own subhead: “V. I. Warshawski, whose apartment was the focal point of the fire, has been investigating a problem involving forged securities at the Priory of Albertus Magnus in Melrose Park. Ms. Warshawski, the victim of an acid-throwing mugger two weeks ago, was not available for comment on a connection between her investigation and the fire.”

I ground my teeth. Thanks a bunch, Murray. The Herald-Star had already run the acid story, but now the police were bound to read it and see the connection. I drank some more cappuccino, then flipped to the personal section of the classifieds. A small message was waiting for me: “The oak has sprouted.” Uncle Stefan and I had agreed on this since he’d been working with my certificates of Acorn stock. I had last looked at the personals on Sunday; today was Thursday. How long had the ad been running?

Roger was home when I got back to the apartment. He told me apologetically that he was all done in; could I manage dinner alone while he went to bed?

“No problem. I slept all day.” I helped him into bed and gave him a backrub. He was asleep by the time I left the room.

I pulled on long underwear and as many sweatshirts as I could manage, then walked back to Lake Shore Drive to retrieve my car. A wind blowing across the lake cut through my pullovers and long underwear. Tomorrow I’d definitely stop at Army-Navy Surplus for a new pea jacket.

I wondered about the tail Bobby claimed he was going to slap on me. No one had followed me to my car. Looking in the rearview mirror, I didn’t see any waiting cars. And no one would loiter on the street in this wind. I decided it must have been bravado-or someone had countermanded Bobby.

The Omega started only after severe grumbling. We sat and shivered together, the car refusing to produce any heat. A five-minute warm-up finally persuaded the transmission to groan into gear.

While side streets were still piled with snow, Lake Shore Drive was clear. After a few turgid blocks, the car moved north briskly. At Montrose the heater finally kicked grudgingly into life. At the Evanston border I had stopped shivering and was able to pay more attention to traffic and road conditions.

The night was clear; on Dempster the heavy rush-hour traffic was moving well. I spun off onto Crawford Avenue and made it to Uncle Stefan’s a few minutes before seven. Before leaving the car, I jammed the Smith & Wesson into the front of my jeans where the butt dug into my abdomen-the pullovers made a shoulder holster impractical.

Whistling through my teeth, I rang Uncle Stefan’s bell. No answer. I shivered in the entryway a few minutes, and rang again. It hadn’t occurred to me that he wouldn’t be home. I could wait in the car, but the heater wasn’t very efficient. I rang the other bells until someone buzzed me in-one in every building, letting the muggers and buggers in.

Uncle Stefan’s apartment was on the fourth floor. On my way up, I passed a pretty young woman coming down with a baby and a stroller. She looked at me curiously. “Are you going to visit Mr. Herschel? I’ve been wondering whether I should look in on him-I’m Ruth Silverstein-I live across the hall. When I take Mark for a walk at four, he usually comes out to give us cookies. I didn’t see him this afternoon.”

“He could have gone out.”

I could see her flush in the stairway light. “I’m home alone with the baby, so maybe I pay more attention to my neighbors than I should. I usually hear him leave-he walks with a cane, you know, and it makes a particular kind of noise on the stairs.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Silverstein.” I trotted up the last flight of stairs, frowning. Uncle Stefan was in good health, but eighty-two years old. Did I have any right to break in on him? Did I have a duty to do so? What would Lotty say?

I pounded loudly on the heavy apartment door. Put an ear to the panel and heard nothing. No, a faint buzz of noise. The TV or radio. Shit.

I went back down the stairs two at a time, propped open the outer door with a glove, and jogged across the slippery sidewalk to the Omega. My picklocks were in the glove compartment.

As I dashed back into the building, I watched Mrs. Silverstein and Mark disappear into a small grocery store up the block. I might have ten minutes to get the door open.

The trick about prying open other people’s doors is to relax and go by feel. Uncle Stefan had two locks, a deadbolt and a regular Yale. I worked the deadbolt first. It clicked and I realized with dismay that it had been open when I started on it; I’d just double-locked the door. Trying to breathe loosely I chivvied it the other way. It had just slid back when I heard Mrs. Silverstein come into the building. At least, judging from the sounds, that’s who it was; someone talking briskly to a baby about the nice chicken Daddy would have when he got back from his late meeting. The stroller bumped its way to the fourth-floor landing. The lower lock clicked back and I was inside.

I picked my way past an Imari umbrella stand into the ornately decorated living room. In the light of a brass lamp I could see Uncle Stefan lying across the leather desk, its green dyed red-brown by a large congealing pool of blood. “Oh, Christ!” I muttered. While I felt the old man’s wrist, all I could think of was how furious Lotty would be. Unbelievably, a faint pulse still fluttered. I leaped over chairs and footstools and pounded on the Silverstein door. Mrs. Silverstein opened it at once-she’d just come home, coat still on, baby still in stroller.

“Get an ambulance as fast as you can-he’s seriously injured.”

She nodded matter-of-factly and bustled into the interior of her apartment. I went back to Uncle Stefan. Grabbing blankets from a tidy bed in a room off the kitchen, wrapping him, lowering him gently on the floor, raising his feet onto an intricately cut leather footstool, and then waiting. Waiting.

Mrs. Silverstein had sensibly asked for paramedics. When they heard about shock and blood loss, they set up a couple of drips-plasma and glucose. They were taking him to Ben Gurion Memorial Hospital, they told me, adding that they would make a police report and could I wait in the apartment, please.

As soon as they were gone, I phoned Lotty.

“Where are you?” she demanded. “I read about the fire and tried phoning you.”

“Yes, well, that can wait. It’s Uncle Stefan. He’s been seriously wounded. I don’t know if he’ll live. They’re taking him to Ben Gurion.”

A long silence at the other end, then Lotty said very quietly, “Wounded? Shot?”

“Stabbed, I think. He lost a lot of blood, but they missed the heart. It had clotted by the time I found him.”

“And that was when?”

“About ten minutes ago… I waited to call until I knew what hospital he’d be going to.”

“I see. We’ll talk later.”

She hung up, leaving me staring at the phone. I prowled around the living room, waiting for the police, trying not to touch anything. As the minutes passed, my patience ran out. I found a pair of gloves in a drawer in the tidy bedroom. They were several sizes too large, but they kept me from leaving prints on the papers on the desk. I couldn’t find any stock certificates at all-not forged, not my Acorn shares.

The room, while crowded with furniture, held few real hiding places. A quick search revealed nothing. Suddenly it occurred to me that if Uncle Stefan had made a forged stock certificate, he’d have to have tools lying around, tools the police would be just as happy not seeing. I sped up my search and found parchment, blocks, and tools in the oven. I bundled them up into a paper bag and went to find Mrs. Silverstein.