Burn Marks

Thanks

Angelo Polvere of the Mayfair Construction Company in Chicago provided me an overview of how a general contractor builds a major project and how a contractor’s office works. Jay Meyer took me to the top of a sixty-story high rise going up in Chicago and walked me back down, explaining the different stages of construction. I experienced the terrors of an unenclosed concrete deck firsthand. Ed Keane made these connections for me. My ignorance of big projects greatly exceeds my knowledge- any errors of fact should be credited to my poor understanding rather than to these excellent teachers.

Ray Gibson shared different research tools for covering the kinds of things V.I. looks into in this book. Dr. Robert Kirschner, Chief Deputy Medical Examiner for Cook County, gave me a grand tour of the county morgue. It was not pleasant but it was enlightening.

As is always the case in V.I.’s adventures, no reference is made to any real public figures currently serving time or in office. Boots Meagher, Ralph MacDonald, Roz Fuentes, Alma Mejicana, and Wunsch and Grasso are products of my perfervid imagination. Nor is the construction at Rapelec Towers based on any building now standing or under construction in Chicago.

Courtenay, Cardhu, and other friends supported me through the various trials that beset me in writing this book.