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“Whatever I am, Cantabile, my friend and I aren’t going with you.” I hurried to the Thunderbird to try to stop Thaxter, who was getting in. He was already pulling in his cloak about him, sinking into the supple upholstery. He looked very pleased. I put my head in and said, “Come out of there. You and I are walking.”

But Cantabile shoved me in to the car beside Thaxter. He put his hands on my rear and thrust me in. Then he jammed the front seat back to keep me there. In the next motion he pulled the door shut with a slam and said, “Take off, Polly.” Polly did just that.

“Now what the hell do you think you’re doing, pushing and trapping me in here,” I said.

“The cops are right on top of us. I didn’t have time to argue,” Cantabile said.

“Well, this is nothing but a kidnap,” I told him. And as soon as I pronounced the word “kidnap” my heart was instantly swollen with a childish sense of terrible injury. But Thaxter was laughing, chuckling through his wide mouth, and his eyes were wrinkling and twinkling. He said, “Hee-hee, don’t take it so hard, Charlie. It’s a very funny moment. Enjoy it.”

Thaxter couldn’t have been happier. He was having a real Chicago treat. For his sake, the city was living up to its reputation. Observing this, I cooled off somewhat. I guess I really love to entertain my friends. Hadn’t I brought sturgeon and fresh rolls and marmalade when the bailiff said that Thaxter was in town? I was still holding the paper bag from Stop and Shop.

Traffic was thick but Polly’s mastery of the car was extraordinary. She worked the white Thunderbird into the left lane without touching the brake, without a jolt, with fearless competency, a marvelous driver.

Restless Cantabile twisted about to the rear to face us and said to me, “Look what I’ve got here. An early copy of tomorrow morning’s paper. I bought it from a guy in the press room. It cost me plenty. You want to know something? You and I made Mike Schneiderman’s column. Listen,” he read. “ ‘Charlie Citrine, the Chevrolet of the French Legion and Chicago scribe, who authored the flick Von Trenck, made a card-debt payoff to an underworld figure at the Playboy Club. Better go take a poker seminar at the University, Charles.’ What do you say, Charlie. It’s a pity Mike didn’t know all the facts about your car and the skyscraper and all the rest of it. Now what do you think?”

“What do I think? I won’t accept author as a verb. I also want to get out at Wabash Avenue.”

Chicago was more bearable if you didn’t read the papers. We had turned west on Madison Street and passed under the black frames of the El. “Don’t pull up, Polly,” said Cantabile. We moved on toward the Christmas ornaments of State Street, the Santa Clauses and the reindeer. The only element of stability in this moment lay in Polly’s wonderful handling of the machine.

“Tell me about the Mercedes,” said Thaxter. “What happened to it? And what was the skyscraper thing, Mr. Cantabile? Is the underworld figure at the Playboy Club you yourself?”

“Those in the know will know,” said Cantabile. “Charlie, how much will they charge for the bodywork on your car? Did you take it back to the dealer? I hope you keep away from those rip-off specialists. Four hundred bucks a day for one grease monkey. What crooks! I know a good cheap shop.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t be ironical with me. But the least I can do is make you back some of the money this will cost.”

I made no answer. My heart hammered upon a single theme: I urgently desired to be elsewhere. I simply didn’t want to be here. It was utter misery. This was not the moment to remember certain words of John Stuart Mill, but I remembered them anyway. They went something like this: The tasks of noble spirits at a time when the works which most of us are appointed to do are trivial and contemptible—da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da. Well the only thing valuable in these contemptible works is the spirit in which they are done. I couldn’t see any values in the vicinity at all. But if the tasks of the durum genus hominum, said the great Mill, were performed by a supernatural