I thought about it. “He could see expansion potential cutting into his business down the road. Or maybe he wants SCRAP to use his trucks to do the hauling.”

He shook his head. “If that was the case, he’d just be putting an arm on them to use his trucks, not offing Nancy. I’m not saying it’s impossible he was involved. The plant’s certainly in his sphere. But it doesn’t leap out at me on the surface.”

We let the talk drift after that, to friends we had in common at the Illinois bar, to my cousin Boom-Boom, whom Kappelman used to watch at the Stadium when he was with the Hawks.

“There’s never been another player like him,” Kappelman said regretfully.

“You’re telling me.” I got up and put on my coat. “So if you come across something strange-anything, whether it seems to have a direct bearing on Nancy’s death or not-give me a call, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” His gaze seemed a little unfocused. He seemed about to say something, then changed his mind, shook my hand, and escorted me to the door.

I didn’t disbelieve Kappelman. I didn’t believe him, either. I mean the guy made a living persuading judges and commissioners to support community groups instead of the industrial or political heavyweights they usually favored. Despite his frayed trousers and jacket, I suspected he was pretty convincing. And if Nancy and he were the good buddies he claimed they’d been, was it really credible that she hadn’t given him the ghost of an idea about what she’d learned from the alderman’s office?

Of course it was a little pat on my part looking for Dresberg to be the fall guy. Just because he had made threats in the past and had a lot of muscle and was interested in waste disposal.

I meandered across side streets and headed into East Side, to the ward offices on Avenue M. It was a little after three and the place was hopping. I passed a couple of patrol cops coming out. When I got into the main office my old pals with the paunches were hard at it with a half-dozen or so favor-seekers. Another couple, maybe patronage workers through with street cleaning for the day, were playing checkers in the window.

Nobody really looked at me, but the conversations quieted down, “I’m looking for young Art,” I said amiably in the direction of the bald man who’d been the spokesman on my first visit.

“Not here,” he said briefly, without looking up.

“When do you expect him?”

The three office workers exchanged the silent communication I’d observed earlier and agreed that my question warranted a slight chuckle.

“We don’t,” Baldy said, going back to his client.

“Do you know where else I could find him?”

“We don’t keep tabs on the kid,” Baldy expanded, thinking perhaps of the claim drafts they were expecting from me. “Sometimes he shows up in the afternoon, sometimes he don’t. He hasn’t been in today so he might turn up. You never know.”

“I see.” I picked up the Sun-Times from his desk and sat in one of the chairs lining the wall. It was an old wooden one, yellow and scuffed, extremely uncomfortable. I read “Sylvia,” skimmed the sports pages, and tried interesting myself in the latest Greylord trial, shifting my pelvis around on the hard surface in an unsuccessful search for a spot that wouldn’t rub against my bones. After about half an hour I gave it up and put one of my cards on Baldy’s desk.

“V. I. Warshawski. I’ll try back in a bit. Tell him to call me if I miss him.”

Except for the blueberry muffin Ron Kappelman had given me, I hadn’t really eaten today. I went down to the comer of Ewing, where a neighborhood bar advertised submarines and Italian beef, and had a meatball sub with a draft. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but it seemed more suited to the neighborhood than diet soda.

When I got back to the ward office the visitors had pretty well cleared out except for the checker players in the comer. Baldy shook his head at me to indicate-I think-that young Art hadn’t been in. I felt proud of myself-I was beginning to seem like a regular.

I pulled a little spiral notebook from my bag. To entertain myself while I waited I tried calculating the expenses I’d incurred since starting to look for Caroline Djiak’s old man. I’ve always been a little jealous of Kinsey Milhone’s immaculate record-keeping; I didn’t even have receipts for meals or gas. Certainly not for cleaning up the Magli pumps, which was going to run close to thirty dollars.

I’d gotten up to two hundred and fifty when young Art came in with his usual diffident step. There was something in his face, a naked desire for acceptance from the tired old pols in the room, that made me flinch. They looked at him unblinkingly, waiting for him to speak. And finally he obliged.

“Any-anything for me from my dad?” He licked his lips reflexively.

Baldy shook his head and returned to his paper. “Lady wants to talk to you,” he said from the depths of the Sun-Times.

Art hadn’t seen me until then-he’d been too intent on the disappointment he felt bound to suffer from the men. He looked around the room then and located me. He didn’t recognize me at first: his perfect forehead furrowed in a momentary question. It wasn’t until he’d come over to shake my hand that he remembered where he’d seen me, and then he didn’t think he could flee without achieving total humiliation.

“Where can we go to talk?” I asked briskly, taking his hand in a firm grasp in case he decided to chance the indignity.

He smiled unhappily. “Upstairs, I guess. I-I have an office. A small office.”

I followed him up the linoleum-covered stairs to a suite with his father’s name on it. A middle-aged woman, her brown hair neatly coiffed above a well-cut dress, was sitting in the outer office. Her desk was a little jungle of potted plants twined around family photographs. Behind her were doors to the inner offices, one with Art, Sr.’s, name repeated on it, the other blank.

“Your dad isn’t here, Art,” she said in a motherly way. “He’s been at a Council meeting all day. I really don’t expect him until Wednesday.”

He flushed miserably. “Thanks, Mrs. May. I just need to use my office for a few minutes.”

“Of course, Art. You don’t need my permission to do that.” She continued to stare at me, hoping to force me to introduce myself It seemed to me it would be a small but important victory for Art if she didn’t know whom he was seeing. I smiled at her without speaking, but I’d underestimated her tenacity.

“I’m Ida Maiercyk, but everyone calls me Mrs. May,” she said as I passed her desk.

“How do you do?” I continued to smile and went on by to where Art was standing miserably in front of his office. I hoped she was scowling impotently, but didn’t turn around to check.

Art flipped on a wall switch and illuminated one of the most barren cubicles I’d seen outside a monastery. It held a plain pressed-wood desk and two metal folding chairs. Nothing else. Not even a filing cabinet to give the pretense of work. A wise alderman knows better than to live above the community that’s supporting him, especially when half that community is out of work, but this was downright insulting. Even the secretary had more lavish appointments.

“Why do you put up with this?” I demanded.

“With what?” he said, flushing again.

“You know-with that loathsome woman out there treating you like a submoronic two-year-old. With those ward heelers waiting to bait you like a carp. Why don’t you go get a position in someone else’s agency?”

He shook his head. “These things aren’t as easy as they look to you. I just graduated two years ago. If-if I can prove to my dad that I can handle some of his workload…” His voice trailed away.

“If you’re hanging around hoping for his approval, you’ll be here the rest of your life,” I said brutally. “If he doesn’t want to give it to you, there’s nothing you can do to make him. You’re better off stopping the effort, because you’re only making yourself miserable and you’re not impressing him.”