“And what about Stefan Herschel? What were you doing there the day he was stabbed?”

“Just chance. Is he all right?”

“No way, Warshawski. I’m asking the questions tonight. What were you doing at his place?”

“He’s an uncle of a friend of mine. You know Dr. Herschel He’s an interesting old man and he gets lonely; he wanted me to have tea with him.”

“Tea? So you let yourself in?”

“The door was open when I got there-that worried me.”

“I’ll bet. The girl across the hall says the door was shut and that worried her.”

“Not standing open-just not locked.”

Bobby held up my collection of picklocks. “You wouldn’t have used these, by any chance?”

I shook my head. “Don’t know how to use them-they’re a souvenir from one of my clients when I was a public defender.”

“And you carry them around for sentiment after what- eight years as a P.I.? Come on, let’s have it.”

“You got it, Bobby. You got the acid, you got Novick, you got Rosa. Talk to Derek Hatfield, why don’t you. I’d be real curious who was backing the FBI off those securities.”

“I’m talking to you. And speaking of Hatfield, you wouldn’t know why his name was on the register at the Stock Exchange, would you, the night someone broke into Tilford and Sutton’s office?”

“You ask Hatfield what he was doing there?”

“He says he wasn’t.”

I shrugged. “The feds never tell you anything. You know that.”

“Well, neither do you, and you’ve got less excuse to hold back. Why were you visiting Stefan Herschel?”

“He invited me.”

“Yeah. Your apartment burned down last night, so today you’ve been feeling chipper, you’ll just go to tea in Skokie. Damn it, Vicki, level with me.” Mallory was truly upset. He doesn’t hold with swearing around women. Finchley looked worried. I was worried, too; but I just couldn’t blow the whistle on Stefan Herschel. The old man had got himself killed, or close to it, on account of the forgery. I didn’t want to get him arrested, too.

At five, Bobby charged me with concealing evidence of a crime. I was printed, photographed, and taken to the holding cells at Twenty-sixth and California with some rather disgruntled prostitutes. Most wore high-heeled boots and very short skirts-jail must at least have been a warmer place on a January night than Rush and Oak. There was a little hostility at first as they tried to make sure I wasn’t working any of their territories.

“Sorry, ladies-I’m just here on a murder charge.” Yeah, my old man, I explained. Yeah, the bastard beat me. But the last straw was when he tried to burn me. I showed them my arms where the fire had scorched the skin.

Lots of sympathetic clucking. “Oh, honey, you did right.

Man touch me that way, I stick him.” “Oh, yeah, ‘member when Freddie tried to cut me, I throw boil’ water on him.”

They quickly forgot me as each tried to outdo the other with tales of male violence and bravado in handling it. The stories made my skin crawl. At eight though, when the Freddies and Slims and JJ₅ showed up to collect them, they acted glad enough to see them. Home is where they have to take you in, I guess.

Freeman Carter came for me at nine. He’s the partner in Crawford, Meade-my ex-husband’s high-prestige firm-who does their criminal stuff. It’s a constant thorn to Dick-my ex-that Freeman does my legal work. But not only is he good, in a smooth, WASPy way, he likes me.

“Hi, Freeman. The other pimps got their hookers out an hour ago. I guess I’m not very valuable merchandise.”

“Hi, Vic. If you had a mirror you’d see why your street value has plummeted. You’re going to have a hearing in Women’s Court at eleven. Just a formality, and they’ll release you on an I-bond.” An I-bond, as in I-solemnly-swear-to-come-back-for-the-trial, is given to people the court knows as responsible citizens. Like me. Freeman lent me a comb and I made myself as presentable as possible.

We went down the hall to a small meeting room. Freeman looked as elegant as ever, his pale blond hair cut close to his head, smooth-shaven, his perfectly tailored navy suit fitted to his lean body. If I looked only half as grubby as I felt, I must be pretty disgusting. Freeman glanced at his watch. “Want to talk? They booked you because they felt you were withholding on Stefan Herschel.”

“I was,” I admitted. “How is he?”

“I called the hospital on my way over here. He’s in intensive care, but seems to have stabilized.”

“I see.” I felt a lot better already. “You know he had a forgery rap back in the fifties? Well, I’m afraid someone knifed him because he was playing boy detective on some stock forgeries. But I can’t tell Bobby Mallory until I’ve talked to the old man. I just don’t want to get him in trouble with the police and the feds.”

Freeman made a sour face. “If I were your pimp, I’d beat you with a clothes hanger. Since I’m just your lawyer, could I urge you to tell Mallory all you know? He’s a good cop. He’s not going to railroad an eighty-year-old man.”

“He might not, but Derek Hatfield would in thirty seconds. Less. And once the feds move in, there isn’t shit Bobby or I- or even you-can do.”

Freeman remained unconvinced as I told him about the forgeries and Uncle Stefan’s role in them, but he swept me through the hearing with aplomb. He kissed me good-bye afterward when he dropped me at the Roosevelt Road L stop. “And that is proof of devotion, Vic. You are badly in need of a bath.”

I rode the L to Howard street, caught the Skokie Swift, and walked the ten blocks from the station to my car. A bath, a nap, Roger, Lotty, and Uncle Stefan. Those were priorities in reverse order, but I needed to get clean before I could face talking to anyone else.

The priorities got reversed a bit-Roger was waiting for me when I got back to the Hancock. He was on the phone, apparently with Ajax. I sketched a wave and headed for the bathroom. He came in ten minutes later as I was lying in the tub. Trying to lie in the tub. It was one of those nasty modern affairs where your knees come up to your chin. My apartment had a wonderful thirties bath, long enough for a tall person to lie down in it.

Roger closed the toilet and sat on it. “The police woke me at one this morning to ask me about your acid burn. I told them everything I knew, which was damned little. I had no idea where you were, what you were doing, what danger you might be in. I begged you yesterday morning not to do anything stupid. But when I wake up at one in the morning and you’re not here, no note-goddamn it, why did you do this?”

I sat up in the tub. “I had an eventful evening. Saved an old man’s life, then spent five hours in a Skokie jail and four in a Chicago one. I got one phone call and I needed it for my lawyer. Since he wasn’t home, only his kid, I couldn’t send messages to my friends and relations.”

“But damn it, Vic, you know I’m worried sick about you and this whole business”-he waved an arm, indicating frustration and incoherence. “Why the hell didn’t you leave me a note?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t think I was going to be gone long. Gosh, Roger, if I’d known what I was going to find, I would have written you a novel.”

“That’s not the point. You know it’s not. We talked about this last night, or two nights ago, whenever the hell your place burned down. You can’t just slide off and leave everyone else gasping for air.”

I was starting to get angry, too. “You don’t own me, Ferrant. And if my staying here makes you think you do, I’ll leave at once. I’m a detective. I’m paid to detect things. If I told everyone and his dog Rover what I was up to, not only would my clients lose all confidence in me, I’d be sandbagged everywhere I went. You told the cops everything you knew. If you’d known everything I know, a poor old man would be under arrest right now as well as in intensive care.”