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not my style, but for the second time in a day that was already feeling too long, I had no choice but to scramble and punt.
    I motioned toward the wing chairs near my desk, but it was clear that Kate didn’t make a move unless it was her idea. She held out a hand, and as if by magic, Margot had a raspberry in a flute and the champagne, too. She handed it to Kate, who took an appreciative sip. It wasn’t until she swallowed that she looked my way. “Well, what are you waiting for?” she demanded. “I don’t have all day. Let’s get down to business.”

    STAN MARZCAK, WHO lives across the hall from me, has a hairline that receded long ago; a long, thin nose; and a faraway look in his rheumy blue eyes that people who don’t know him mistake for senility. If they paid attention, they would realize that though Stan is old enough to be retired from the Chicago Police Department, he’s nobody’s stereotype of a little old man.
    And nobody’s fool.
    Sure, Stan always looks like his mind is wandering. Because it is. Usually straight to the heart of a problem.
    He proved it once again when he stopped by for coffee the next morning and completely ignored the subject of Kate the Great. I was grateful, and that was no big surprise. My other neighbors had peppered me from the time I walked into my apartment building to the time I went to bed with the usual who, what, when, and what was she wearing questions.
    Stan? Not so much. He got right down to business.
    “Here’s what’s got me baffled.” He drummed his fingers against my kitchen table, trying to work through the problem. “Why would a couple burglars bother with a place like yours?”
    He didn’t apologize for what sounded almost like an insult.
    He didn’t need to.
    I knew exactly what Stan was getting at. But then, I’d spent all night thinking the same thing. That is, when I wasn’t tossing and turning my way through dreams about a giant in a black leather jacket who was sipping a glass of champagne while he did a flamenco dance atop my button inventory.
    “What you’re saying is that there are plenty of other shops in the neighborhood, and any self-respecting burglar would find any one of them more appealing,” I said, and Stan nodded. There was nothing he appreciated more than logic. Except maybe the fact that I was easy to beat at the monthly poker games he hosted.
    My finger drumming echoed his. “There are a few doctor’s offices down the street,” I said.
    “And doctors always have drugs.”
    “And there’s a jeweler two stores down from me.”
    “Jewelry.” Stan was on his way over to his weekly senior softball game. He sat back and crossed his arms over his gray uniform shirt. “Jewelry is easy to carry and easy to pawn. No offense, kiddo, but I don’t know a hock shop in the city that would give you fifty cents for a boatload of buttons.”
    This, too, was something I’d considered in the hours between flamenco dreams when I couldn’t sleep.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” I said.
    Understatement.
    Stan was nice enough not to point it out.
    “So the cops who came to check things out . . . Who did you say they were?”
    I’d already told Stan the story, but I wasn’t surprised he asked again. Stan is an all-ducks-in-a-row kind of guy. “Gonzalez,” I said. “And Morzowski. And the guy who dusted for fingerprints was—”
    “Don’t know them anymore.” Stan waved away the fact as inconsequential. “Brand-spanking-new college graduates who watch too many cop shows on TV and think that’s what it’s really like to be on the job. Gonzalez, though, I remember him. Good man. Talks too much, but he’s got a head on his shoulders. And he said—”
    I shrugged. “What you said. That he couldn’t imagine why any burglar would bother with buttons.” There was one theory that had occurred to me in the wee small hours of the morning, and truth be told, I was rooting for it to be true. If it was, it would mean I had nothing to worry