“It’s okay, guys,” I assured them. “It’s just talk. No one’s going to shoot me. At least not tonight.”

Mr. Contreras, unable to do anything else, offered me his grappa bottle. I waved it aside. The threat had cleared out my brain; I didn’t see any point in fogging it up again with my neighbor’s repellent booze.

On the other hand, I wasn’t quite ready to be on my own again. Amid the stack of old notebooks and school papers in the back closet I dug out a worn checker set my dad and Bobby Mallory used to linger over.

We played four or five games, the dog contentedly returning to her bone in the comer behind the piano. Mr. Contreras was just getting reluctantly to his feet when the doorbell rang. The dog let out a deep bark. The old man became extremely excited, urging me to get out my gun, to let him go downstairs, telling me to go down the back way and summon help.

“Oh, nonsense,” I said. “No one’s going to shoot me in my own home two hours after a phone call-they’ll at least wait until morning to see if I’ve listened to them.”

I went to the intercom by the front door.

“Vic! Let me in! I need to see you.” It was Caroline Djiak.

I pressed the button releasing the lobby door and went out to wait in the upper hallway for her. Peppy stood next to me, her golden tail lowered and moving gently to show she was on the alert. Caroline ran up the stairs, her feet clattering on the uncarpeted risers like an ancient el rounding the curve at Thirty-fifth Street.

“Vic!” she shrieked when she saw me. “What are you doing? I thought I told you to stop looking for my father. Why can’t you just once do what I ask you to!”

Peppy, taking exception to her ferocity, began to bark. One of the second-floor tenants came to his door and yelled up at us to shut up. “Some people have to work, you know!”

Before Mr. Contreras could leap to my defense, I took Caroline firmly by the arm and dragged her into my apartment. Mr. Contreras looked at her critically. Deciding she wasn’t dangerous-at least not an immediate physical threat -he stuck a calloused hand at her and introduced himself

Caroline was in no mood for ordinary civility. “Vic, I’m begging you. I came all this way since you wouldn’t listen to me on the phone. You’ve got to leave my affairs alone.”

“Caroline Djiak,” I informed Mr. Contreras. “She’s pretty upset. Maybe you should leave me to talk to her.”

He started getting the dinner dishes together. I pulled Caroline to the couch.

“What is going on with you, Caroline? What is frightening you so much?”

“I’m not frightened,” she yelled. “I’m angry. Angry with you for not leaving me alone when I asked you to.”

“Look, kiddo, I’m not a television you turn on and off. I could overlook my conversation with your grandparents-they’re so sick nothing I could do would make any difference to them anyway. But everyone at Humboldt Chemical is lying to me about the men your mother used to work with, the ones who had the best chance of being your father. I just can’t let that go. And it’s not trivial, what they’re saying-they’re completely reinventing the last years of these guys’ lives.”

“Vic, you don’t understand.” She grabbed my right hand in her intensity, squeezing it hard. “You can’t keep crossing these people. They’re totally ruthless. You don’t know what they might do.”

“Such as what?”

She looked wildly around the room, seeking inspiration. “They might kill you, Vic. They might see you end up in the swamp the way Nancy did, or in the river!”

Mr. Contreras had stopped all pretense of getting ready to leave. I removed my hand from Caroline’s grasp and stared at her coldly.

“Okay. I want the truth now. Not your embellished version. What do you know about the people who killed Nancy?”

“Nothing, Vic. Nothing. Honestly. You have to believe me. It’s just… just…”

“Just what?” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Who threatened Nancy? You’ve been saying for the last week that it was Art Jurshak because he didn’t want her starting the recycling plant. Now you want it to be the people down at Xerxes because I’m hunting for your old man there? Goddamnit, Caroline, can’t you see how important this is? Can’t you see that this is life and death?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you, Vic!” She shouted so loudly that the dog started barking again. “That’s why I’m telling you to mind your own business!”

“Caroline!” I felt my voice go into an upper register and tried to get a grip on myself before I broke her neck. I moved to the easy chair next to the sofa.

“Caroline. Who called you? Dr. Chigwell? Art Jurshak? Steve Dresberg? Gustav Humboldt himself?”

“No one, Vic.” The gentian eyes were awash with tears. “No one. You just don’t understand anything about life in South Chicago anymore, you’ve been away so long. Can’t you just take my word for it, take my word that you should quit already?”

I ignored her. “Ron Kappelman? Did he call you this afternoon?”

“People talk to me,” she said. “You know how it is down there. At least you would if-”

“If I hadn’t been a chicken shit and run away,” I finished for her. “You’ve been hearing little rumblings around the office that someone-you don’t know who-has it in for me, and you’re here to save my butt. Thanks a bundle. You’re scared out of your little mind, Caroline. I want to know who’s been frightening you, and don’t tell me it’s some street snitch with tales of drowning me, because I just won’t buy it. You wouldn’t be beside yourself if it was just that. Lay it out for me. Now.”

Caroline jerked herself to her feet. “What do I have to do to get you to listen to me?” she screamed. “Someone called me today from the Xerxes plant and said they were sorry I’d gone to all the expense of hiring you. They said that they had proof that Joey Pankowski was my father. They told me to get you to believe me and get off the case.”

“And did they offer to show you this remarkable evidence?”

“I didn’t need to see it! I’m not as untrusting as you are.”

I put a restraining hand on Peppy, who was starting to growl. “And did they threaten you with mayhem if you didn’t force me to withdraw?”

“I wouldn’t care what anyone threatened me with. Can’t you believe that?”

I looked at her as calmly as I could. She was wild, manipulative, unscrupulous in getting her own way. But I would never in my remotest imagination think of her as a coward.

“I can believe it,” I said slowly. “But I want to hear the truth. Did they really tell you they’d hurt me if I didn’t stop looking?”

The gentian eyes turned away. “Yes,” she muttered.

“Not good enough, Caroline.”

“Believe what you want to. If they kill you, don’t expect me to show up at your funeral, because I won’t care.” She burst into tears and stormed out of the apartment.

Mr. Contreras finally left around one. I slept fitfully, my mind thrashing over Caroline’s visit. Caroline didn’t fear anything. That’s why she confidently followed me into Lake Michigan’s pounding surf when she was four years old. Even a near-drowning hadn’t scared her-she’d been ready to go right back again when I’d gotten her lungs cleaned out. If someone had told her my life was on the line, it might’ve made her mad, but it wouldn’t terrify her.

Someone had called to tell her Joey Pankowski was her father. She couldn’t have pulled that out of the blue. But had they added a rider about hurting me, or was that an inspired guess? I hadn’t seen her for a decade, but you don’t forget the mannerisms of the people you grow up with: that sidelong glance when I asked her directly made me think she was lying.

The only reason I believed her at all-about the threat, that is-was because I’d gotten my own call. Until Caroline showed up I’d been assuming my threat came from Art Jurshak because I’d accosted his son. Or because I’d talked to Ron Kappelman. But what if it came from Humboldt?