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I ran along the avenue, zigzagging around the deadly patches of ice. Coat collar open. No hat or gloves. The cold was deep inside me now. Rattling around in there with my grief and confusion. No, I wasn’t going to turn to heroin. But I did need a drink.

5

Strung with lights on a lonely corner of Willow Street, the Tap Root was our neighborhood bar. It was an old German beer garden that brought together a hodgepodge of white pensioner drunks, folkies and blues men from other North Side bars, college kids, journalists, the aged Wobblies from the IWW hall on Lincoln Avenue, even a few tourists who had read about the landmark watering hole in their guidebooks and were maybe hoping to meet Studs Terkel.

They served the best franks and sauerkraut at the Tap Root. Wilt and I had lunched there many a time, and as we ate, he always extracted the same promise from me—“For Christ’s sake don’t tell Mia. I can’t take another one of her raps about preservatives.”

Not much of a mix of people that day. Everybody looked old. Old and lonely. I took a stool at the bar and ordered the bitter brown ale. The Louis Armstrong concert from the juke flowed into a Jo Stafford extravaganza. I wasn’t unhappy to hear that old-fashioned music; there was an odd comfort in it.

Not a soul interfered with me as I downed one tankard after another. I was getting drunk and that was just fine. It was almost enough to obliterate all the memories. Please, God, no more memories just now. Not the good ones, like holding on tight to Wilt as we roared up Lincoln Avenue on a borrowed motorcycle. And surely not the newer ones, like the sight of him in that chair, or the sucking noises my boots made as I waded through Mia’s blood.

“Cass.”

I turned at the sound of my name, already knowing who had spoken it.

Ivy. I wanted to speak her name in return, but I was tongue-tied.

But then she took hold of my hand and looked at me, the familiar kindness in her eyes.

It slipped out then. “I’m sorry.”

“Never mind that now.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for you, Cass. Your friends told me I was pretty sure to find you here. Woody’s got himself under control now, baby. We all acted ugly. But we’re going to get past it. All right?”

I was swaying on the barstool. I straightened myself, tried to sound authoritative. “Just because I’m calmed down doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind. You can’t just boss me around anymore.”

“Fine. Now, you lay that drink aside and let’s get down to business.”

I frowned at her. What business?

“Did you mean what you said about finding out who killed your friend?”

“Of course I did.”

“And the rest of it?”

“What rest?”

“You said you would be willing to come back home after the killings were solved.”

“I did?”

“Not in so many words. But you said you’d consider it.”

“I did?”

“By implication, Cassandra.”

I couldn’t help it; I actually laughed.

“Well?” she said. “Are you willing to make a bargain with us? Can we come to an understanding? After justice is done, you’ll give up living with—”

“With these people, right?”

“Cassandra, what are you laughing about?”

“Justice,” I said. And then I burped.

“Are you listening to me, girl?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Woody wants your word that you’ll think about coming home after you find out what happened to your friend.”

“Sure. Okay. And what’s Woody’s part of the bargain?”

“He’s going to help you do it.”

“Ain’t no justice. Ain’t no truth and beauty, neither,” Wilton said. May have been right here in this bar that he said it. “Sandy, if we could learn to accept that, we’d probably be much happier Negroes.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THURSDAY

1

My room was gray and musty from cigarette smoke. It was long past sunrise, but light was hard to come by. The news issuing from my clock radio was just as sunless and heavy—

Death toll for the week so far: 80. That was just “our” side. No figures on how many of the enemy incinerated. A Christmas truce was in the offing, and Bob Hope was on the way to Saigon.