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Before I went to bed, it occurred to me that Taylor’s expertise in the current political scene might come in useful. I got the piece of stationery with the two black fists and showed it to him.

He shook his head. “I’m not sure, but I think I might have seen this logo somewhere,” he said. “It means something. I just don’t know what.” I was about to leave when he added, “But you know who might?”

“Who?”

“Your friend Nat. Either him or that guy who’s always with him at the Wobbly hall. Torvald.”

I imagined De Lawd would not be happy to have me contact him about something other than us—our relationship, that trite, overused word. My apology to him would have to be abject. If he wanted me to fall on my knees before him, I knew I’d have to do just that.

I had a hot bath, smoking and soaking in the tub for almost ninety minutes. By the time I dried off and changed into my night things, the house was quiet and dark. I got into bed, rolled another skinny joint, tried to unclog my mind. Nat was part of the logjam. I kept going back to the time line of the murders, thinking how Cliff and Mia were probably getting slaughtered while I was at Nat’s place. Thinking, too, about my shame at suspecting even for a moment that Nat could have been my attacker.

All kinds of images floated in and out of my head as I was drifting off to sleep: the table radio back in my room at Woody and Ivy’s; the beautifully browned cornbread Nat had made for me; the brass ashtray on Jack Klaus’s desk; three Chicago PD officers in dark blue jackets, looking like fat birds on a telephone wire; Annabeth’s lovely hands sorting Indian cotton blouses; the comfy leather chair in the Mobleys’ drawing room; the peace sign on Wilton’s key ring; the buttery yellow of Sim’s shirt collar peeking out of his jacket; Henry Waddell’s obscenely wet lips.

But just before I fell off, I heard a muffled commotion in the hall. When I snatched the door open, I saw Sim, in pajama bottoms, and Cliff, in long johns, both reaching for the knob to my door.

The three of us stood frozen for a minute, nobody saying a thing. I merely closed the door quietly, and turned the lock. Then I pulled the covers way up over my head.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SUNDAY

1

The last one to get up, Sim still looked sleepy. He found us in the kitchen, all dressed and in our coats. “Y’all going to church?” he asked, rubbing at his eyes.

“We’re going out for breakfast,” I said. “And then I’ve got to go see somebody. Although church doesn’t seem like such a bad idea at this point.”

It took Sim a few minutes to notice Jordan, who was staring up at him in wonderment, as though he were looking at a brown bear in a bathrobe. “This is a little friend of ours from the neighborhood,” I explained. “We’re going to get him some pancakes. Jordan, say hello to Sim.”

The boy wouldn’t speak, though. He just looked down shyly at his galoshes and moved closer to Cliff.

“There’s nothing to eat here,” Taylor said to Sim. “If you want, we can bring something back.”

“Naw, I gotta go with y’all. Mr. Woody said I should stay close.”

We waited downstairs while he dressed. The street had that enchanted feel to it, soft, heaven-sent snow beginning to blanket everything. But that’s the kind of weather that’s dangerous in Chicago. While you’re distracted, thinking how lovely it is, the whole city shuts down, traffic paralyzed, kids lost in snowdrifts, old people dying in their lonely rooms, riots over the last quart of milk at the corner store. We’d had a blizzard last year that blew every other one off the books.

Taylor and I watched as Cliff and the child made snowballs and frolicked in that Norman Rockwell kind of way.

“Go long!” Cliff shouted to Jordan as he backed away, lengthening the distance between them.

Taylor gave me a cigarette. “So we’re okay again? Friends?” he asked. “Or do you still think I’m ripping you off?”

“I guess we’re okay,” I said. “Anyway, what difference does it make what you