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off the corner of the building, reading
    “Chicago Police Department.” I tried not to grind my teeth as I climbed the steps into the building.
    At the end of the entrance hall, a double door opened onto a squad room. A chest-high front desk blocked entry into the room. Behind the desk, sitting on a stool, was my fat cousin, Jan Duda.
    He’s a good ten years older than I am. Apparently, he finally made sergeant.
    I walked up to the desk and said, “I need to file a report.”
    “You get beat up again?” he asked.
    “Burgled.”
    “Yeah? That’s too bad,” he said insincerely as he slid a clipboard my way. There was a pen tied to it with a piece of string and a blank incident report shoved under the clip.
    I filled out the report as quickly as I could. I was part way through the inventory of what was taken when Jan asked, “You like sunshine, Nicky?”
    “It’s got its good points.”
    “You should move out to San Francisco. They like your kind out there.”
    “I have roots here.”
    “Yeah, but your roots don’t want you.”
    I gave him a look that I hoped was cold and withering. He smirked. I went back to working on the report. When I finished, I slid the clipboard back to Jan. He glanced at it, like he wasn’t going to bother with it much, but then he stopped.
    “You had a gun stolen?” He gave me the cop eye. “Why didn’t you call and have someone come over? Give the place the once over.”
    I gave him a look that said, “You gotta be kidding.” He gave it right back to me.
    “You’re not up to something, are you? Something that would require being disassociated from your own gun.”
    “I’m a private investigator. Not a criminal.”
    “Private investigator. A noble profession,” he said in a way that meant the opposite.
    I walked out of the station and broke my New Year’s resolution by picking up a pack of cigarettes at a little shop next to the El. Marlboro reds in a box. Then I stood on the Addison Boystown - 26

    platform and smoked half a dozen cigarettes while I watched the trains go by. Each time I inhaled it felt like a toddler kicking me in the chest. God, I’d missed smoking.
    The unreasonable part of me wanted to get a semi-automatic weapon and blow away every cop in the city. The reasonable part just wanted to limit the destruction to my family members. San Francisco. No, that wasn’t for me. I’d miss the suspense of wondering which of my toes had frostbite.
    I finally hopped a train and made my way to my office. Near my office, I picked up a grilled ham and cheese, an extra greasy order of fries, and a Pepsi. When I unwrapped the sandwich, the cheese stuck to the paper. Meticulously, I scraped it off and put it back onto the sandwich. It was delicious and gone in four minutes flat.
    I lit a cigarette and thought, “If there is a God, he’s a son of a bitch. If he wanted to do us a favor he would have made raw carrots and bean sprouts as appealing as a fatty, fried sandwich and a Marlboro.”
    At 2:11, Walt Paddington hadn’t called. Something was off about him. I’d felt that from the start.
    I just didn’t know what. Of course, when he did finally call, I’d let him know I found Brian and give him the kid’s address. That was my job. That’s what I’d been paid to do. That’s the deal I’d struck. But I was starting to feel bad about it.
    The phone rang at 2:27. Even though I was expecting it to ring, I jumped. “Mr. Nowak?”
    “Mr. Paddington.”
    “Yes. Yes, it’s me.” He had the same nervous quality I’d noticed the first time I talked to him.
    Except now it seemed fake, although I didn’t know exactly why. “Please tell me you have good news for me.”
    “How’s Carbondale? Snowing down there?”
    “I... I don’t know, haven’t been outside.”
    “You don’t have windows?”
    “I have curtains. Which are closed. Mr. Nowak, I didn’t call to talk about the weather--”
    “Radio said you guys got hit pretty hard.” They didn’t say that on