Chapter eight
Sully
On my next day off, I finally returnedDevil in the White Citythe way I did most things I'd let slide, with a practiced air of mild contrition. On the way in, the Harold Washington Library's gargoyles loomed over me. I gave them a quick glance, checking whether they’d noticed.
The woman at the circulation desk scanned the book without looking up. "Chicago doesn't charge overdue fines," she said in the tone of someone who'd delivered the information several thousand times to people who braced unnecessarily.
"Right," I said. "I knew that."
She looked at me for exactly one second. "Okay."
I stood there a moment with my prepared apology going nowhere, then pocketed my hands and left.
The coffee place two blocks south of our building had a short line. The guy behind the counter remembered my order and started on it when I came through the door. I respected the efficiency.
"You look like you're thinking."
I shrugged. "I try not to do that before coffee."
"Smart man."
I paid and picked up my cup. Then I turned back.
"You forget something?"
"Actually—can I get a second? Same thing."
He looked at me. "You don't usually."
"I know."
The rest of the way home, I didn't try to figure out why I'd bought the second cup. Examining too closely was how I talked myself out of things worth doing.
The hallway was quiet. Pratt's door was closed. It wasn't a game day, so he was either at the practice facility or home lying low.
I set the second cup down in front of his door and straightened. My keys were in my pocket. I turned them over once without taking them out.
I didn't knock.
I stood there for a minute, maybe less. If the door opened, I had something ready.
The door didn't open, and I went to my place. I put music on, "Rhiannon." I still didn't understand what Stevie was onto with that one.
I opened the cabinet above the stove where I kept things that didn't have a permanent home. There was a tin of loose tea from a phase I'd gone through in October, a can of bacon, and a box of matches. I realized I didn't need any of those and closed the cabinet.
My plants on the sill were still hanging on. I watered them, probably too much, but they received it without comment.
I looked at the wall and thought about knocking. It would tell Pratt I was home.
I didn't. The coffee was already out there. If it meant something, I didn't need to knock. If it didn't, knocking would make it mean something, and that felt like cheating.
Strategic patience was foreign to me. I sat on the couch while Stevie sang.
I made it through the day, but eventually I needed something to do with my hands. I could cook.
There was pasta in the kitchen. It was that or cereal, and I'd had cereal last night for dinner.
The pot was the first thing I grabbed. It was the big one that I used when I had people over. I'd already filled it and had it on the stove before I registered which one I'd reached for. I stood there a moment, looking at it.
