I was sitting on a couch next to Rita in her brother’s one-room living quarters on the lower floor of the Norman house. Rita didn’t seem angry with me, though she wasn’t pleased, either; apparently she felt my little whitey lie classified me more like kid-in-the-cookie-jar than Judas. I’d expected my confrontation with brother Harold to be rather on the short side; he’d show up and it would all be over but the shouting. Well, it wasn’t over and there wasn’t any shouting. He had quietly escorted me out of Simon Norman’s presence, down the stairs and into his room, where Rita was waiting. And now Harold Washington was politely asking me if he could make a proposition. I shrugged. “Propose away.” He said, “I have to go back up and give Mr. Norman his medication. If you’ll wait here while I do that, I’ll come back and answer some questions. Providing, of course, that you’re first willing to answer a few of mine.” I managed to nod. Where was the cyclops-like, bus station brute of Tuesday past?
