I moved my hands indecisively. “He left an urgent message for me with my answering service-I’ve been out of town, you know. I wondered if he might’ve been feeling desperate.”

Bobby shook his head. “Your cousin wasn’t the kind of man to throw himself under a ship. You should know that as well as I do.”

I didn’t want a lecture on the cowardice of suicide. “Is that what happened?”

“If the grain company didn’t let you know, they had a reason. But you can’t accept that, can you?” He sighed. “You’ll probably just go butting your head in down there if I don’t tell you. A ship was tied up at the dock and Boom Boom went under the screw as she pulled away. He was chewed up pretty badly.”

“I see.” I turned my head to look at the Eisenhower Expressway and the unpainted homes lining it.

“It was a wet day, Vicki. That’s an old wooden dock-they get very slippery in the rain. I read the M.E.’s report myself. I think he slipped and fell in. I don’t think he jumped.”

I nodded and patted his head. Hockey had been Boom Boom’s life and he hadn’t taken easily to forced retirement. I agreed with Bobby that my cousin wasn’t a quitter, but he’d been apathetic the last year or so. Apathetic enough to fall under the propeller of a ship?

I tried to push the thought out of my mind as we pulled up in front of the tidy brick ranch house where Boom Boom’s Aunt Helen lived. She had followed a flock of other South Chicago Poles to Elmwood Park. I believe she had a husband around someplace, a retired steel-worker, but, like all the Wojcik men, he stayed far in the background.

Cuthbert let us out in front of the house, then went off to park the limo behind a long string of Cadillacs. Bobby accompanied me to the door, but I quickly lost sight of him in the crowd.

The next two hours put a formidable strain on my frayed temper. Various relatives said it was a pity Bernard insisted on playing hockey when poor dear Marie hated it so much. Others said it was a pity I had divorced Dick and didn’t have a family to keep me busy-just look at Cheryl’s and Martha’s and Betty’s babies. The house was swarming with children: all the Wojciks were appallingly prolific.