“Thank you for the tip, Ms. War-sha-sky,” he finally said in a careful voice. “Maybe I misjudged you.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Do you want-” but he hung up before I could finish asking him if he wanted to see me.

I pulled over to the curb to relay Billy’s message to his father. Naturally enough, Mr. William wasn’t pleased, but his response took the form of petulant bullying (“That’s all? You think I’m paying your fee for sending me a disrespectful message? I want my son now.”) But when I told him I was going to have to quit the assignment, he stopped complaining about the message and demanded that I get back to work.

“I can’t, Mr. William, not when I promised Billy to stop looking for him.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” He was astonished. “It was a good ploy-he won’t be suspecting you.”

“It’s my word, Mr. William-I don’t have three thousand stores to carry me through lean times. My good word is my only asset. If I lose that, well, it would be a bigger disaster for me than losing all those stores would be for you, because I wouldn’t have any capital to start over again.”

He still didn’t seem to understand: he was willing to overlook my insolence, but he wanted his son without delay.

“Fee, fie, foe, fum,” I muttered, slamming the car into gear. Halfway up Lake Shore Drive to Morrell’s place, I decided to put everything behind me, the Bysens, the South Side, even my important paying clients and my tangled love life. I needed time alone, just for myself. I went to my own apartment and collected the dogs. When Morrell didn’t answer the phone, I left a message on his voice mail, told a startled Mr. Contreras I’d be back late on Sunday, and took off for the country. I ended up in a B and B in Michigan, took the dogs for ten-mile rambles along the lakeshore, read one of Paula Sharpe’s quirky novels. Every now and then, I wondered about Morrell, with Marcena down the hall, but not even those thoughts undid my essential pleasure in my private weekend.

15 Heart-stopper

My peaceful mood held until Monday afternoon, when April Czernin collapsed in the middle of practice. At first, I thought Celine Jackman had taken her out in an escalation of their ongoing feud, but Celine was in the back-court; April had been driving under the basket when she fell all in a heap, as if she’d been shot.

I blew my whistle to stop practice and ran to her side. Her skin was blue around the mouth, and I couldn’t feel a pulse. I started CPR on her, trying to keep my own panic at bay so my horrified team wouldn’t disintegrate completely.

The girls crowded around us.

“Coach, what happened?”

“Coach, is she dead?”

“Did someone shoot her?”

Josie’s face loomed next to mine. “Coach, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I panted. “Do-you-know of any health problems, problems April has?”

“No, nothing, this never happened before.” Josie’s cheeks were white with fear; she could hardly get the words out.

“Josie,” I kept pushing on April’s diaphragm, “my cell phone is locked in the equipment room, inside my bag in the desk.”

I took my hands away from April for a brief second and handed the keys to her. “Go get it, call 911, tell them exactly where we are. Repeat for me!”

When she parroted back my instructions, I told her to move. She ran, stumbling, to the equipment room. Sancia went with her, murmuring petitions to Jesus.

Celine I sent to the principal’s office: gangbanger she might be, but she had the coolest head on the team. Maybe the school nurse was still here, maybe she knew something about April’s history. Josie came back with the phone, her face pinched and white: she was so nervous, she couldn’t figure out how to use the phone. I stepped her through it, not pausing in my work on April’s chest, and had her put the phone to my head so I could talk to the dispatcher myself. I waited long enough for an acknowledgment of our location, then told Josie to take the phone and try to reach April’s folks.

“They’re both at work, Coach, and I don’t know how to get them. April’s mom, she’s a cashier over at the By-Smart on Ninety-fifth and, well, you know, her dad, he drives that truck, I don’t know where he is.” Her voice cracked.

“Okay, girl, it’s okay. You call…this number, and hit the send key.” I squinted, trying to calm down enough to remember Morrell’s number. When I finally came up with it, I had Josie type it in and then hold the little phone up to my head.

“V. I.,” I said, continuing my work on April’s chest. “Emergency, with Romeo’s kid…need to find Romeo. Ask…Marcena, okay? If she can…track him down…have him…call my cell.”

Years in battle zones made Morrell accept what I said without wasting time on useless questions. He simply said he was on it and let me get back to the task at hand. I didn’t know what else to do while I waited for the ambulance, so I kept pushing on April’s chest and blowing into her mouth.

Natalie Gault, the assistant principal, sailed into the room. The girls reluctantly pulled back to let her in next to me.

“What’s happened here? Another team fight?”

“No. April…Czernin…collapsed. You got anything…in her file…on medical history?” Sweat was running down my neck, and my back was wet with it.

“I didn’t check for that-I thought this was more of your gang warfare.”

I didn’t have energy to waste on anger. “Nope. Nature’s doing. Worried…about her heart. Check her file, call…her mother.”

Gault looked down at me, as if deciding whether she could take an order from me. Fortunately, at that moment, we had one of the South Side’s major miracles: an ambulance crew actually arrived, in under four minutes. I got gratefully to my feet and wiped sweat from my eyes.

While I gave the techs a sketch of what had happened, they moved in next to April with a portable defibrillator. They slid her onto a stretcher and pulled up her damp T-shirt to attach the pads, one below her left breast, the other on her right shoulder. The girls crowded in, anxious and titillated at the same time. As if we were in a movie, the techs told us to stand clear; I pulled the girls away while the techs administered a shock. Just as in a movie, April’s body jerked. They watched their monitor anxiously; no heartbeat. They had to shock her twice more before the muscle came back to life and began a sluggish beat, like an engine slowly turning over on a cold day. As soon as they were sure she was breathing, the techs packed up their equipment and began running across the gym with the stretcher.

I trotted along next to them. “Where are you taking her?”

“ University of Chicago -it’s the closest pediatric trauma center. They’ll need an adult to admit her.”

“The school is trying to find the parents,” I said.

“You in a position to okay medical treatment?”

“I don’t know. I’m the basketball coach; she collapsed during practice, but I don’t think that gives me legal rights.”

“Up to you, but the kid needs an adult and an advocate.”

We were outside now. The ambulance had drawn a crowd, but the students stood back respectfully as the techs opened the door and slid April inside. I couldn’t let her go alone; I could see that.

I scrambled into the back and took her hand. “It’s okay, baby, you’ll be okay, you’ll see,” I kept murmuring, squeezing her hand while she lay semiconscious, her eyes blunking back in her head.

The heart monitor was the loudest sound in the world, louder than the siren, louder than my cell phone, which rang without my hearing it until the EMT crew told me to turn it off because it could interfere with their instruments. The irregular beeping bounced in my head like a basketball. A-pril’s still alive but isn’t stable, A-pril’s still alive but isn’t stable. It drowned any other thoughts, about By-Smart, or Andrés, or where Romeo Czernin might be. The sound seemed to go on forever, so when we arrived at the hospital I was startled to see we’d covered seven city miles in twelve minutes.