Roger looked at me bleakly, his face pale. “Maybe you should leave, Vic. I don’t have the stamina for any more nights like this. But let me tell you one thing, Wonder Woman: If you’d shared what you were doing with me, I wouldn’t have had to tell the cops-I’d have known that you didn’t need their particular help. I told them not to sandbag you but to protect you.”

Anger was tightening my vocal cords. “No one protects me, Roger. I don’t live in that kind of universe. I wouldn’t screw around with some business deal you were cutting just because there are a lot of dangerous and unscrupulous people dealing in your world. You want to talk to me about your work, I’ll listen and try to make suggestions if you want them. But I won’t try to protect you.” I got out of the tub. “Well, give me the same respect. Just because the people I deal with play with fire instead of money doesn’t mean I need or want protection. If I did, how do you think I’d have survived all these years?”

I was clenching and unclenching my fists, trying to keep rage under control. Protection. The middle-class dream. My father protecting Gabriella in a Milwaukee Avenue bar. My mother giving him loyalty and channeling her fierce creative passions into a South Chicago tenement in gratitude.

Roger picked up a towel and began soberly drying my back. He wrapped it around my shoulders and gave me a hug. I tried to relax, but couldn’t. “Vic. I have to go screw around in some business deals… You’re right-I glory in knowing I can come out on top in a real scrum. If you sailed in and dislocated someone’s thorax, or whatever you do, I’d be furious… I don’t think I own you. But the remoter you get, the more I need something to grab hold of.”

“I see.” I turned around. “I still think it would be easier on both of us if I found another place to stay. But I’ll-I’ll try to keep in better touch.” I stood on my toes and kissed him gently.

The phone rang. I went to the dryer where I’d left my clothes and pulled out fresh jeans and another shirt while Roger picked up the bathroom extension. “For you, Vic.”

I took it in the bedroom. Roger said he was leaving and hung up. The caller was Phil Paciorek. “You still want your man with the non-accent? There’s an archdiocesan dinner tonight at the Hanover House Hotel-Farber’s giving a party for O’Faolin. Because Mother shells out a million or so to the Church every year, we’re invited. Most of the people at the funeral will be there. Want to be my date?”

An archdiocesan dinner. Thrills. That meant a dress and nylons. Which meant a trip to the shops, as anything even remotely suitable for the Hanover House was still lying smoke-filled in my suitcase. Since Phil wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital until seven, he asked if I’d mind meeting him at the hotel-he’d be there as close to seven-thirty as possible. “And I’ve called the archdiocese-if I’m not there, just give your name to the woman at the reception desk.”

After that I tried taking a nap, but I couldn’t sleep. Lotty, Uncle Stefan, Don Pasquale were churning around in the foreground of my brain. Along with Rosa and Albert and Agnes.

At noon I gave up on rest and tried calling Lotty. Carol Alvarado, the nurse at Lotty’s North Side clinic, answered the phone. She went to find the doctor, but came back with the message that she was too busy to talk to me right now.

I walked across the street to Water Tower and found a severely tailored crimson wool crepe dress on sale at Lord & Taylor. In front, it had a scalloped neck; in back the neckline dropped to a V closing just above my bra strap. I could wear my mother’s diamond drops with it and be the belle of the ball.

Back at the Hancock I tried Lotty again. She was still too busy to talk. I got the morning paper and looked through the classifieds for furnished apartments. After an hour of calling, I found a place on Racine and Montrose that offered two-month leases. I packed the suitcase again, mushing laundered clothes together with the smoke-stained ones, then left a long note to Roger, explaining where I was moving and what I was doing for dinner and could we please stay in touch, and tried Lotty one last time. Still too busy.

The Bellerophon had seen better days, but it was well cared for. For two fifty a month, I had possession of a sitting room with a Murphy bed, a comfortable armchair, a small TV, and a respectable table. The kitchen included a minuscule refrigerator and two gas burners, no oven, while the bathroom had a real tub in it. Good enough. The room had phone jacks. If the neighborhood vandals hadn’t walked off with my phones, I ought to be able to get service switched through. I gave Mrs. Climzak a check for the first month’s rent and left.

My old apartment looked forlorn in the winter sunlight- Manderley burned out-broken glass in the windows, the Takamokus’ print curtains sagging on their rods. I climbed past the debris on the stairs through the hole in the living-room wall. The piano was still there-too big to move-but the sofa and coffee table were gone. Charred copies of Forbes and The Wall Street Journal were scattered around the room. The living-room phone had been ripped out of the wall. In the dining room, someone had swiped all the liquor. Naturally. Most of the plates were gone. Thank God I’d never had enough money for Crown Derby.

My bedroom extension was still there, buried under a pile of loose plaster. I unplugged it from the wall and left. Stopped at the Lincoln Park Post Office to arrange forwarding for my mail and pick up what they’d held for me since the fire. Then, gritting my teeth, I drove north on Sheffield to Lotty’s storefront clinic.

The waiting room was full of women and small children. A din combined of Spanish, Korean, and Lebanese shrieks made the small space seem even tinier. Babies crawled on the floor with sturdy wooden blocks in their fists.

Lotty’s receptionist was a sixty-year-old woman who’d raised seven children of her own. Her chief skills were keeping order in the waiting room and making sure that people were seen in order either of appearance or emergency. She never lost her temper, but she knew her clientele like a good bartender and kept order the same way.

“Miss Warshawski. Nice to see you. We have a pretty full house today-lots of winters cold and flu. Is Dr. Herschel expecting you?”

Mrs. Coltrain would not call anyone by her first name. After years of coaxing, Lotty and I had given up. “No, Mrs. Coltrain. I stopped by to see how her uncle was doing, to find out if I can visit him.”

Mrs. Coltrain disappeared into the back of the clinic. She came back with Carol Alvarado a few minutes later. Carol told me Lotty was with a patient but would see me for a few minutes if I’d go into her office.

Lotty’s office, like the waiting room, was furnished to set worried mothers and frightened children at ease. She didn’t need a desk, she said-after all, Mrs. Coltrain kept all the files in file cabinets. Instead, a few comfortable chairs, pictures, a thick carpet, and the ever present building blocks made the room a cheerful place. Today I didn’t find it relaxing.

Lotty made me wait half an hour. I thumbed through the Journal of Surgical Obstetrics. I drummed my fingers on the table next to my chair, did leg lifts and a few other stretches.

At four, Lotty came in quietly. Above her white lab coat her face was set in uncompromising lines. “I am almost too angry to speak to you, Vic. Fortunately, my uncle has survived. And I know he owes his life to you. But he almost owes his death to you, too.”

I was too tired for another fight today. I ran my hands through my hair, trying to stimulate my brain. “Lotty, you don’t have to work to make me feel guilty: I do. I should never have involved him in such a crazy, dangerous business. All I can say is, I’ve taken my share of the knocks. If I’d known what was coming, I would have done my utmost to keep him from being attacked.” I laughed mirthlessly. “A few hours ago I had a blazing fight with Roger Ferrant-he wants to protect me from arsonists and suchlike. Now you’re fighting me because I didn’t protect your uncle.”