I was tired, body-sore from spending too many hours in the car, frustrated by my inability to speak with Belchar. Not yet ready to engage in another round of Slumlord versus the Bwana, I stopped at The Leonard.

Where I was the only person in the bar. The camphor-like smell of urinal disinfectant drifted from the restrooms. The plastic cover of a small pool table was pulled halfway off, exposing the table’s dark green felt; I could see the cigarette burns from my seat. There was something comforting about the dark gloom of a tavern not yet filled with its patrons’ anguish.

Eventually, a tall stocky man in a battered red waiter’s jacket walked behind the oval formica. He nodded in my direction, and said, “We’re not open.” Then he winked, “What’ll it be?”

You didn’t have to tap kegs to know he was proposing an off register cash deal. Bartenders hate to put money in the box if they don’t own the bar. I enjoyed his look of anticipation when I said, “Information.”

“What kind of information?” He didn’t bother to mask his greed. “I want to know when Tom Belchar gets in.”

“I got a bad memory.”

I withdrew my wallet and handed him a five. “Throw in a bourbon. The answer is too easy for this.”

He stuffed the five, yanked the short-waisted coat down over the top of his belly, and poured a shot. “He plays at eight, but he’s usually here early.”

“Why early?”

A sarcastic look and smile crossed his face. “He don’t like kids.”

I dug into my wallet again and came up with a couple more fives. I put one under my fingers. “Double if I like your answer.”

Redcoat slid the bill out. “He meets with people.” The man sounded envious.

“You just made a few extra bucks,” I said, pushing him the five. “How does Belchar make his?”

The bartender’s head bobbed from side to side. “Don’t bother reaching for your wallet, buddy, I don’t know. Ask him yourself.”

I’d hit his limit. He wasn’t going to tell me Belchar sold drugs, and I knew better than to press. I thought for a moment and came up sideways. “Is there anyone he regularly meets?”

“No one I want to see busted.”

“I’m not asking about steadies. Someone who shows up once in a while, but doesn’t hang around or stay for the show?”

I watched his dubious sense of loyalty battle with his greed. I yanked out two twenties. It was lucky I hadn’t gone junking. Maybe I was doing it now.

He shrugged and said, “Some guy occasionally drops in. Drinks fucking Screwdrivers. Belchar calls him J.B.”

I gave him the money, killed the shot, and felt the cheap alcohol set fire to my esophagus. “Are you sure?” I asked.

The bartender turned his back and walked away. Since he’d already pocketed the money, his loyalty was unexcelled. That was okay by me; I was done paying.

I sat at the bar for another few minutes trying to make sense of what I’d been told. The sense I made disturbed me enough to drive me through the door.

Outside the hotel, the day after Thanksgiving shoppers were out in force. I melded into the crowd, walking slowly toward the car. I felt a delicious moment of anonymity engulf me; then it slipped away as I approached my parking spot. Suddenly dizzy from morning whisky and lousy sleep, I hoisted myself on top of the fender. Once the dizziness passed, I slid down onto my feet and slipped another four quarters into the meter. Boots lived only a few blocks away. Right then I felt better about knocking on an empty apartment door than going home to company.

I dry-mouthed when I heard her voice respond to the buzzer. After an initial inclination to bolt, I managed to identify myself. On the elevator ride I cursed myself for not asking whether Hal was there. And, for imagining Boots wasn’t.

She was, he wasn’t. It was nice to catch a break. I walked in on her pouring two cups of coffee. She looked up and nodded, a grim smile across her face. “Have you been home yet?”

“What do you mean?” I was nonplussed; I didn’t look much more wrinkled than usual.

“Your father-in-law is worried sick about you. He said you hadn’t been home since yesterday. And you hadn’t done too well the night before that.”

I shrugged and drained my coffee cup. “I thought you were away. Do you mind if I take a shower?”

“Of course not. Why don’t you call Lou and let him know you’re all right.” She walked toward the telephone adding, “I got back early.”

I was already down the short hall to the bathroom. I turned around and looked out her wall-to-wall windows at the steady stream of cars cruising the Drive in front of the Esplanade.

“Did you hear me, Matt?” Boots asked, holding the phone in her outstretched hand. “Lou’s worried.”

“I heard you.” I turned, stopped at the built-in hutch and grabbed a towel. “I’ll be out in a second.”

It took longer than that. As the hot water washed away the grime and tension of the past few nights, I was filled with a physical weariness that occupied every molecular gap in my body: it was all I could do to lean against the wall of the shower and absorb the wet pelting onrush. I couldn’t even think of a drug that might help.

Once again my spontaneity faced its cost; Boots was probably waiting to talk. I imagined her in the other room, saw myself hugging the shower wall, and couldn’t guess what she was waiting for. There was nothing left.

The water turned cool before I finally pushed myself out. I dried off and walked back into the living room dressed in my slacks and undershirt, the rest of my clothes in hand. Boots was sitting on the couch, the phone at her feet. “Reporting in?” I asked.

She ignored my crack and spoke quietly, without annoyance. “You could ask how he is.” I nodded in agreement. “Is there more coffee?”

She pointed to the sliver of walk-thru space that masqueraded as a kitchen. “Does that mean you want to know?”

I placed my clothes on a chair and poured the coffee from a silver container on the counter. “New?”

She smiled, though a troubled look flitted through her eyes. “Yes.” Her smile disappeared but her voice remained soft. “I paid for it myself.”

I kept my eyes on the cup. “I didn’t ask that.”

“Yes, you did. What’s going on, Matt? You’re fighting with everybody?”

I wasn’t ready to admit the obvious. “Boots. I didn’t bring up Hal, you did.”

“I’m not just talking about us. Lou told me what happened yesterday. And he explained a little about what’s been going on between the two of you.”

I drank from my cup, and lit a cigarette. I reached for the ashtray. I always liked finding it clean. “It’s not very complicated. I don’t enjoy being squeezed. I especially don’t like it when it happens in front of other people. People I have to live with. I ended up walking out on all of them.”

Boots shook her head. “Not all of them, Matt. You’re walking out on Lou.”

I searched hard for some sound of reproach to justify my getting angry, but there was none. “What are you saying?”

“He’s not doing well.”

I felt my stomach lurch. “Is he sick? Do you know something I don’t?” “You don’t want to know. He’s not sick; he’s lost.”

“Lost?”

She moved across the room and stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray’s gleaming surface. “He doesn’t know what to do with his life now that Martha is dead. He probably wants to move here.”

“Move here?” Boots had voiced the fear I’d been actively trying to obscure. Her words echoed inside me with an accuracy my double-clutched belly confirmed. Still, it was a truth I wanted to deny. “I don’t believe that.”

“Does it shock you? It shouldn’t, really. You’re all he has left for family.”

I’d come here to avoid Lou, not to marry him. “Boots, you’re being overdramatic. His whole life is in Chicago. The Democratic Party, everything.”

“Matt, Richard Daley has been dead for a long time.” “But Boots…” I protested without conviction.

“But Boots nothing.” She walked back to her chair by the telephone. “Lou’s glory days are gone, Matt. Gone since long before Martha’s illness. She was his life in Chicago. Not politics, not friends, not even the track. Why wouldn’t he want to move here?”

“Life hasn’t exactly prepared me for family ties,” I said weakly. “Isn’t that what you accuse me of?”

My existence had become a string of Hobson’s choices. “How do you know all this?” I asked. “Private detectives aren’t the only people who can loosen tongues.” She looked at me and grinned. “Lou kept calling me Shoe.” “He likes you.”

Boots started to say something, stopped. “Why are you fighting with everybody, Matt?” she asked again.

I raised the coffee cup and put it back down, overcome by my earlier fatigue. I turned toward her, leaned against the counter, and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I’m tired, Boots, I’m just tired. I don’t know what else to say. Nothing is right. We’re not right. Lou and me aren’t right, I’m not right.” Then ran right out of words.

Boots rose, walked over to me, and took my hand. I followed her silently to the bedroom, where we lay down side by side. I shut my eyes but kept hold. She stayed next to me as I drifted into a depleted doze.

I sensed when she got up, and rolled over into a deeper sleep. When I opened my eyes, the daylight was gone and I was tucked under a puffy down comforter. The room was dark and it took me a moment to get my bearings. Once I realized where I was I took another moment to check my vital signs. I was alert, my body felt refreshed; I’d gotten a decent sleep.

The door to the bedroom opened and Boots waltzed through. “Sleeping Beauty awakens”—she hopped onto the bed—“before the kiss.” She moved her head closer and I put my arms around her. I suddenly felt grateful for the comforter. My undershirt couldn’t have kept out the cold.

Boots had switched from her baggy jeans, and now wore tight, tailored pants with a black silk blouse. I pulled her close; her tough, lean body felt good in my arms. “How come you changed?” She laughed, pulled away, and sat on the bed. “Are you kidding? It’s nighttime, Big Guy.

What do you want to do for supper?”

“Supper? What time is it? I figured it was just another dreary afternoon.” “It’s not afternoon, dear. We’re talking seven here. We’re talking famished.”

I pulled the comforter over my head and toyed with the idea of moving. Tom Belchar came into my head. Tom Belchar could wait. “Baby, it’s cold outside,” I sang, my off-key growl muffled by the down-mixed-with-goose feathers.

“No one says we have to go out.”

I poked my head out from under the cover. “You deliberately mistook my meaning,” I accused.

“That’s right.” She smiled and jumped off the bed. “I’m telling you, boy, I’m hungry. When you only eat one meal a day, it becomes pretty damn important.”

“Is that how you do it?” “Do what?”

“Look so ‘pretty damn’ good?”

She gave me the finger and walked out the door. It took a moment or two to force myself out of bed, then I followed. “If it’s this late, I can drink. Do you want anything?”

“Rum and something. Since when do your vices punch a clock?”

I fixed the drinks, and walked over to where she was busy at the pint-sized stove. “I can’t understand how you survive in a kitchen that’s skinnier than you.”

She looked me in the eye as she took one of the glasses from my hand. “Are you making me an offer?”

I backed away.

She laughed. “Anyhow, you’re a funny one to tout large kitchens. When’s the last time you cooked anything?”

I felt relieved. “Hey, I cooked the other day.” “That’s not what I heard.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard you ate, after watching everyone else cook. There’s a difference.”

I retreated into the living room and lit a cigarette. The ashtray contained more than a few lipsticked butts. Her afternoon hadn’t been a garden stroll.

I looked out over the river lights and imagined I was looking at The End. It was impossible. The End was dark and squalid and on the other side of town. “I really made an ass of myself, didn’t I?”

“Which time?”

“Let’s not make these deliberate misunderstandings a way of life. What’s for supper?”

She smiled at me, and turned her attention to the food. “Slices of roast beef, fried in olive oil with onions and peppers. If I’m only going to have one meal, it will be anything I want. Also, this dish is close enough to a steak sub for you to eat. Yes, you made an ass of yourself. But as usual, those who know you, worry about you. Just talk to them.”

Dinner was good. Very good. We avoided mention of Hal, home, or any problem between us. The only uncomfortable moments came with her questions about my work in The End. I minimized my contact with Mel, and, blessedly, Boots didn’t push.

“I noticed your arm when you had your shirt off.” “Turn you on?”

“Worry doesn’t excite me. If you were leaving, and the truck-driver wants you gone, why don’t you just stay gone?”

“It’s one thing if I make the decision…”

She beat her chest theatrically with her fist. “Ain’t gonna let no one drive me off my land, by golly,” she drawled in a surprisingly good John Wayne. “Even if it ain’t my land, and I do want to leave.” She shook her head and said in her normal voice, “You are a stubborn fuck.”

“Aren’t you one foul-mouthed cowgirl? Listen, I’m in no rush to bust shoplifters.” “That I understand. Don’t go back.”

“What am I supposed to do? The building’s not an option. Maybe I should drive a cab? I’ve done that before.”

“Don’t be an ass. Be a damn detective. At least when you’re working the stubbornness is used to good purpose.”

“How am I supposed to get cases?” “Talk to Simon.”

“Forget it!”

“Sweetheart, if there’s one thing you learn in Corporate America: you don’t have to be friends to do business.”

“You sound like Lou,” I said and began to clear the table. I glanced at the clock on the kitchen radio and was surprised to read nine-thirty. “Speaking of business, I have to see somebody.”

She was on her feet in a flash. “Oh no you don’t. I don’t care what we do”—she looked at my groin—”but we are doing it together.”

Her eyes didn’t put new ideas into my head, but they reminded me of what good ideas they were. But she was right about my stubbornness. I needed to talk with Belchar.

“Why don’t you come with me? It won’t take long and then we’ll come back here.” I had another thought. “Anyhow, I have to get my car.”

“Where are you supposed to go?”

“I gotta talk with the piano player at the Leonard, and the car’s right in front of there.” She was already looking for her shoes. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You dance a slow one with me.”