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that sounded like it would land on the roof seemed to come from a football field from the back of my skull. A foot kicked the bottom of my shoe, kept kicking, not hard but sending jolts up my body to both ends of my brain. Parents don’t teach kids how to behave nowadays. This one never learned not to kick a man when he’s down.
    I wobbled to my knees and tried to see my feet. Spots jumped before my eyes on a murky field of purple and red. I blinked twice and saw the silhouette of a three-foot person with a big head blocking the light from the dining room. The back of my skull trapped a gorilla inside banging to get out. At least the wailing had stopped, but now it said “mister, mister” about a hundred times and all I could do was grunt.
    The footsteps ran away out the front and the silhouette was gone and so was the voice. I flopped to a sitting position against the refrigerator where someone had hidden between the back door frame. I sat there shuffling and rearranging the past twenty-four hours until all the pieces fit. Mostly. Inside my jacket I felt the reassuring cold grip of my Browning-Colt .45 automatic. My wallet was intact and didn’t look like it had been rifled. Whoever slugged me had been in a rush to get away, and didn’t care who I was or if I carried a piece or a wad of cash.
    I crawled to the sink, pulled myself up on wobbly legs. Blood raced from my eyes to other more important places, trying to satisfy every limb that screamed deficit. I gripped the counter and turned on the faucet, hanging my head under the stream. I had a lump the size of Texas behind my left ear, a swollen mound that pulsed electricity up and down my spine like a neurotic flamenco dancer on speed. The water ran cold and colder.
    After awhile the little feet returned with a pair of big feet, the boy’s mother, a neighbor from the courtyard apartments who was nice enough to make me an ice bag and show me where the end of my head was. She hadn’t seen or heard anything and knew Gail only enough to say hello and goodbye. Gail often let her boy play in the yard, the only lawn on the street. I thanked the kind neighbor but felt like smacking the kid, who was at that age that wants to know why to every answered question.
    The telephone was working so I dialed Julia’s number.
    “Someone’s visited your sister’s place since you were here, and left a little mess. Can you get here right away?”
    “If it’s more information you need, I have what you asked for. Could Miss Mathews deliver it?” The thought of Miss Efficiency made my head pound harder. I winced, trying to put together just the right swear words. Before I could insist that she come, she said: “And what do you mean a little mess?”
    “They’ve torn the place apart. Be here in fifteen minutes and don’t send Bird Legs if you want to keep me on the case.”
    I hung up.
     

 
Chapter 5
     
    I sat on the front steps waiting for the purr of Julia’s 300 SL watching six-year-old Elmore push his three-wheeler up and down the walk, each time asking me a question that had no answer. The ones I gave him seemed to satisfy him: The sky was blue because it wasn’t red. The rain isn’t snow because it’s not white enough. Bears don’t live in Chicago because they won’t let them on the El but they put them in uniform and let them play football. They call it Soldier’s Field because George Washington built the place with a bunch of GI’s and everyone knows Bear fans never tell a lie, just like George, who’s real name was Clarence.
    Gail’s phone rang at least twenty times before I could pull myself to my feet and stagger in the house. Even if it wasn’t Julia, it’d be useful to know who wanted Gail that badly. A wee female voice dipped in puddles of fright said my name like a life-or-death question from the bottom of a deep well. I didn’t recognize her until she told me who she was, Dee Mathews. She’d dispensed with formalities, and her fog voice needed