Sandison watched my little performance incredulously. “That’s what goes on with that la-de-da bunch? Dry-goods clerks and young women afraid they’ll be old maids sit there and actually follow Stevenson’s stories from scene to scene?”

“Stranger things have happened,” I said, true as far as it went.

He smacked a hand to his desktop, a sound like a shot. “That’s genius for you. What a writer.” I was given the kind of look a cowboy probably received for coming late to the corral. “Why didn’t you tell me this before, Morgan? Go on over to Simonetti’s music store and buy the things.” He jerked open his bottom drawer, dug into the small strongbox that held petty cash, and handed me some money. I waited for him to jot down the sum or have me sign for it or however he handled a disbursement, but he simply waved me out of his sight and went back to pawing through the list of books he craved.

Out on the street in the freshness of the day, and having survived both Sandisons, I sauntered along with snatches of song in me; Gilbert and Sullivan can do that to you. The Montana weather for once was as perfect as could be, sunshine slanting between the tall buildings, checkerboarding the busy street, passersby in their downtown clothes brightening or dimming according to warmth or shade. The street tableau of shoppers and strollers seemed removed from talk of a strike, even though the Hill and its clashes were never far off. The day was so fine I tried to put such thoughts away and simply enjoy being out on my errand.

Emerging from the music store with my arms full of music stands I felt like an itinerant choirmaster, but Butte apparently saw stranger sights every day and no one paid me much attention. I was passing a haberdashery when my own eye was caught by the window display. An Arrow collar mannequin was admiring itself in a mirror; I could do without the collar, but draped on the mannequin torso was an exemplary suit-blue serge, librarianly. I stopped to admire the cut and material, smiling to myself as I thought of something Casper would say when about to commit an extravagance: “How’s a guy ever going to be rich if he doesn’t practice at it?” Riches were still eluding me-I needed to do something about that at some point-but my library wages were adding up a trifle, and that suit beckoned, come payday.

Turning to go, I glimpsed past the mannequin into the mirror and froze in my tracks. In the reflection, I could see across the street, half a block down, to where two bulky figures were assiduously studying the plate-glass display of a pet store. They were not the type to be in the market for parakeets.

Window men.

I would know the species anywhere, but in Chicago they had been rife enough to be a civic nuisance. Private detectives spying on lovers who happened to be married to other people. Pinkerton operatives lurking on some mission. Plainclothes policemen trying to keep an eye on the mob, or mobsters trying to get something on the police. Sometimes it seemed every Chicagoan was trailed by another, half a block behind. And whenever the one in front paused to tie a shoelace or buy a newspaper, the one trailing had to evince sudden interest in the nearest store window. The duo in the mirror-why should I rate two?-still were rapt over pets.

As I committed their sizable outlines to memory, another mental image was jostled: these two together were a near fit to the worst of those shadows that had followed me from wakes. But that was too much imagination. Wasn’t it?

Casually as I could manage, I walked back to the library, the music stands feeling like an armful of lightning rods with a storm on the horizon. When I reached the big front door, I opened it slowly so that I could see behind me in the glass. The window men were gone, naturally.

THAT EVENING AFTER SUPPER, I knocked on Griffith’s door.

The shuffle of carpet slippers, then the door flung open and Griff stood there in his long underwear and workpants, like a watchman roused by an out-of-place noise in the night. “What’s up, Morrie?” Down at his side, in his right hand, something sharp glinted. “Need a new notch in your belt?”

For the second time that day, my feet felt planted in quicksand. “I didn’t mean to intrude, I’ll come back another-”

“Naw, step on in.” The pointed instrument cut a circle in the air as he indicated a table and chair crammed into the far corner of the room. “Fixing Grace’s purse strap for her.” Ushering me in, he went on over and put down the awl he was holding, atop the leatherwork. “Guest gets the chair.” He perched on the edge of his bed, toes of his slippers barely reaching the floor. “What’s on your mind? You look spooked.”

“This will sound silly, but I think I’m being followed around town.”

Griff perused me, his wrinkles wrinkling even more. “Let’s get Hoop in on this.” He banged the heel of his fist on the wall, and shortly Hooper came in, bringing his own chair.

I described to them that morning’s experience, and the unlikelihood that the two idlers were pet fanciers. “Keep this to yourselves, please. I don’t wish to worry Grace about this.”

“Or have her kick you out of here on your can,” Hoop said.

“Well put.”

Griff hopped off the bed, went to the window, and pulled down the blind. “Tell me this,” he intoned, turning to me. “When you lit down from the train, was there a couple of bruisers hanging around?”

“Big and bigger,” Hoop specified.

“Beefier than ordinary, yes, now that you say so, there was such a pair at the depot.”

“That’s them,” Griff said. “Anaconda’s goons. The one big enough to eat soup off the top of your head is Typhoon Tolliver.”

I felt as if the seat of my chair had just pinched me.

Hoop was saying, “Jim Jeffries flattened him-”

“-in the second round of the title bout, right hook to the jaw,” I finished for him. “What on earth is he doing in Butte?”

“Beating people up,” Griff had no trouble answering that. “The Anaconda Company don’t play pattycake.”

“But-” Some questions scare off words. Why was I a candidate for a beating from an ex-heavyweight pug?

Hooper answered that without it being asked. “That bunch in the Hennessy Building sics the goons on any union organizers who come in from the outside.” He and Griff looked at me critically.

I shook my head.

“Especially anybody working for the Wobblies,” Griff prompted.

I shook my head harder.

“Somebody who’d lay low until the right time,” said Hoop.

“Then stir things up like poking a hornets’ nest,” said Griff.

“Anaconda don’t like that kind of thing,” Hoop added.

Another shake of my head, as much to clear it as anything else. “I am not any kind of an organizer, believe me. I simply came here to get ri-to find decent work.” Both old men watched me mutely. “The goons, as you call them, are wasting their time on me.”

One or the other of my listeners, like ancients who had heard it all before, spoke up. “You better hope they get tired of it.”

THE NEXT DAY WAS SUNDAY, day of rest for the library, but not for the boardinghouse. Scarcely was I seated for breakfast, wondering where the others were, when Grace forged out of the kitchen all but wrapped in a tie-around apron over a nice dark dress. Along with my plate of sidepork and eggs, she delivered with a flourish:

“I wondered if you might like to go to church.”

“Church.” I hadn’t meant for it to come out quite like that, but it sounded as though I was trying to identify the concept.

Hooper came through the doorway, also dressed in surprising Sunday best and smelling of musky cologne. “What this is, Griff’s filling in with the choir. They’re hard up.”

“Ah. And bringing his own audience, insofar as it can be conscripted?”

“He’ll be in much better voice if he sees us there, he happened to mention,” Grace coaxed with a nice example of a Sunday smile.