Pain Management

“Pretty swank,” Ann said, as I walked her toward the Cigarette.

“I even got us a driver for the night,” I told her, so she wouldn’t spook when I opened the back door for her.

“And got all dressed up, too,” she tossed back, making an approval-face at my dove-gray alpaca suit. Michelle had made me buy it before I went hunting for the man who’d changed my face with a bullet. It had cost a fortune, but everything she’d said about it was right. Maybe it didn’t transform my appearance, but it sure answered any questions about my financial standing.

Flacco was behind the wheel, Gordo in the front passenger seat. Neither of them said a word, looking straight ahead. As soon as they heard the door close, they took off, slow and smooth. The big SUV rode like a taut limo.

“Do you think—?” Ann started to ask, before I cut her off with a finger against her lips.

She nodded that she understood. Flacco and Gordo had end-played me perfectly. Anytime a man offers to back your play, you’re cornered. So we went through this whole elaborate game where I’d tell Ann they were just hired for the night and they’d pretend they were really worried about me . . . instead of Gem.

When Gem hadn’t even asked me where I was going, I knew I was right. I didn’t blame them for it. They were with her, not with me. She wouldn’t ask them to spy on me—besides anything else, it would be a real loss of face. But if they decided to ride along on their own, well . . .

Flacco docked the Cigarette like it was a boat, backing it into a narrow slot between two other cars only a few yards from the front door of the joint. Once in, he moved forward so we could open the back door, making it clear that he’d be ready to leave as soon as we were, and that we wouldn’t have to look for him when we came out.

I jumped down, held out a hand for Ann. She wasn’t wearing a streetwalking outfit, but her burnt-orange sheath was slit so deep on one side that it opened almost to her waist as she stepped down. A beret of the same color sat jauntily on top of long straight black hair that fell to her shoulders.

If there was a doorman at the club, he stayed invisible. Two-fifteen in the morning; the place was moderately full, most of the attention on an angular brunette in a classy blue dress. She was singing “Cry Me a River” into a microphone that looked like it was out of the forties. The mike had to be a prop—the sound system was Now and Today all the way, draping itself over and around the crowd without a hint as to speaker location.

The waitresses all wore French-maid uniforms with only a moderate amount of cleavage. This wasn’t a joint for jerkoffs or gawkers—players were expected to bring their own.

I ordered a bourbon-and-branch, told her not to mix them. Ann asked for a glass of white wine.

“You like her?” she asked me, making a little gesture with her head in the direction of the singer.

“She’s no Judy Henske.”

“Who is?”

“You know her?” I said, surprised. Judy’s river runs real deep, but it doesn’t run wide.

“I know her work. I caught her in L.A. Twice. She’s . . . amazing. What’s your favorite?”

“ ‘Till the Real Thing Comes Along,’ “ I told her.

“Amen,” Ann said, holding up her glass.

The girl in the blue dress finished her set, walked off with a wave, glowing in the applause.

“Pretty slick, huh?” Ann said.

“What is?”

“That girl, she’s one of Kruger’s.”

“A hooker?”

“A ‘performer’ is what he’d say. All his girls are stars. They want to be actresses, Kruger gets a video made, sends it on the rounds of studios. They want to be singers, he’s got a place for them to perform. And he’s got an agent, a legit one, handles their careers.”

“It’s a scam, though, right?”

“It is and it isn’t. That’s the secret of how he stays on top. Is that girl who just got off the stage going to get a recording contract? I don’t think so. But this town is loaded with great musicians who never get studio time, just work the clubs, building a following. And everybody knows that, so . . . is it really a scam? She is working.”

“And the movie girls? Where do they end up? In porno?”

“Some do,” she said, seriously. “There’s all kinds of porn, some of it real high-end. Kruger wouldn’t go near the ugly stuff. Wouldn’t let any of his girls do it, either.”

“You sound as if you admire him.”

“I admire anyone who knows how to work a system. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“With the pain-management thing?”

“Yes. But now’s not the time to talk about it.” She turned to the hovering waitress, handed over one of her poker-chip business cards and a folded bill. “Would you please tell Kruger that my man would like to buy him a drink?” she said, smiling sweetly.

The girl in the blue dress was just starting another set when the waitress came over, bent down, and whispered something in Ann’s ear.

“Let’s go,” she said to me.

I followed her as she made her way between tables, heading for a horseshoe-shaped booth in the far corner. When she stopped, we were standing before a man seated at the apex of the booth, a line of girls stretching out on either side. He was a mixed-breed of some kind. Small head, dark-complected face with fine features and very thin lips under a narrow, perfectly etched mustache. Dark hair worn very close to his scalp, tightly waved. He was draped in several shades of off-white silk: sports coat, shirt, and tie. A two-finger ring on his right hand held a diamond too big to be fake.

“Well, Miss Ann,” he said, just a trace of Louisiana in his voice.

One of the black girls on his left laughed at the crack. I kept my face flat, as if I hadn’t gotten it.

“Kruger,” is all Ann said.

He made a little gesture with his diamond. Every woman to his right stood up and walked away.

Ann slid in first. I had to look past her shoulder to see Kruger, who turned his back on the girls to his left and squared up to face us.

“So?” he said, smiling just enough to show a razor-slash of white.

“This is Mr. Hazard,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Why didn’t you simply come yourself?” he asked me.

“You don’t know me,” I said. “I’m nobody. You’re an important man. It wouldn’t be respectful to just roll up on you, unannounced.”

He measured my eyes to see if I was juking him.

“What is it that you do, Mr. Hazard?”

“I find people.”

“Yes. Well, you found me. And . . . ?”

“I’m looking for a girl. A teenage girl. Runaway. She’s—”

“Oh, Miss Ann here will tell you, I wouldn’t have anything to do with—”

“I know,” I cut him off. “The thing is, I’m not the only one who’s looking. A couple of the other people looking, they came to you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. And it’s them I’m interested in.”

He shifted his small head slightly. Said, “I didn’t think you liked men, Miss Ann.”

“Some men,” she answered him, levelly.

“You’ve got game,” he said. Approvingly, as if he was complimenting a kid on the basketball court.

“I’m straight-edge,” she told him.

“I don’t think so, Miss Ann. You’re all curves, girl.”

Ann twisted her mouth enough to acknowledge the barbed stroke, said, “Something for something.”

“What have you got?” he asked me.

“I wouldn’t insult you with money. . . .” I let my voice trail away, in case he wanted to disabuse me of that notion, but he just sat there, waiting. “I’m out and about. A lot. I hear things. I could run across something that might be valuable to you. If I did, I’d just bring it. No bargaining, no back-and-forth, I’d just turn it over.”

“You must be . . . an unusual man, I’ll grant you that. I’ve never seen Miss Ann here with a man before. Are you and she close?”

“Is that what we can trade for? The rundown?”

“Hah!” he snorted delicately. “That was just idle curiosity, Mr. Hazard. What is your first name?”

“B.B.,” I said.

“As in King?”

“No relation.”

“Maybe it stands for Big Boy,” a blonde on his left said, giggling.

Kruger turned slightly in her direction. He didn’t say anything. The other girls got up.

“I . . .” the blonde girl appealed.

Dead silence.

She slid out of the booth and walked away.

Kruger leaned forward slightly. “It’s always difficult to determine what something is worth to someone else. A man like you, if a fly landed on the table, you’d probably ignore it. But if someone paid you, you’d slap your hand on that same table and crush it. The fly isn’t worth anything, do you follow me? But your time is.”

“Sure.”

“My time is valuable as well. And right now I’m afraid I can’t spare any of it. I’ve been quite preoccupied with this problem I’ve been having.”

“Yeah?”

“I am unsure as to the . . . dimensions of this problem, to be frank. But one aspect of it stands out rather clearly. He calls himself Blaze,” Kruger said, shifting his glance to Ann.

She nodded at Kruger. Dropped her hand to the inside of my thigh, squeezed hard enough to get my attention, said, “Some other time, then,” and twitched her hip against me to tell me to get up.

I held out my hand. Kruger made a “Why not?” face and shook it.

Flacco and Gordo dropped us off on a quiet block in the Northwest. The Cigarette purred off into the night. We got into Ann’s Subaru.

“I’ve got to go change,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it there.”

She hung the burnt-orange sheath carefully on a padded hanger, put the black wig on a Styrofoam head, and sat across from me. She crossed her legs as casually as if she’d been fully dressed.

“You can smoke, if you want,” she said.

I made a “Thank you” expression, fired one up, and put it in a heavy crystal ashtray.

The smoke rose between us.

“You’re not an impatient man,” she finally said.

“It never changes anything.”

“Yes, it does!” she whispered harshly. “Me, I’m impatient. Tired of waiting for the government to do the right thing. You know my name. Do you know what it means?”

“Yeah, I know what ‘anodyne’ means,” I said. “I just look stupid.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I don’t think you could. We’re just talking about a different kind of patience. You ever been on a flight where the take-off’s been delayed? You know, you sit out on the tarmac for an hour or two, you know damn well you’re going to miss your connection, and the pilot comes on the PA system in that fake down-home accent they all use and says, ‘Thank you for your patience.’

“Some people get real angry at that. I don’t. That’s the kind of patience I have. When I got no choice, I wait. When it’s smarter to wait, I wait. But it’s not a religious thing. I don’t think people should wait for what’s theirs.”

“Like civil rights?”

“Or revenge.”

“I’m done waiting,” she said. “There’s a new drug, Ultracept-7. It’s only been out a few months. Another form of morphine sulfate, but this one’s supposed to be the most potent of all.”

“I never heard of it.”

“Why would you? But you’ve heard of Paxil, right? And Zyrtec, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone who’s ever watched TV has. Some drugs get advertised very heavily. Because there’s a big market for them. Anti-anxiety, impotence, allergies, baldness—lots of competition for those dollars. But pain? There’s no competition. Not much point convincing you to ask your doctor for a certain kind of medicine when it’s the dosage that’s your real problem.”

“This new stuff . . .” I put out there, to try and stop a rant-in-progress.

“It’s sensational,” she said. “Maybe ten times as potent as anything out there now. A tiny bit goes a real long way. But that’s not what’s so great about it. What’s so great about it is that I know where there’s going to be a lot of it . . . a whole lot of it.”

“And that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want. It’s got a much longer shelf life—much deeper expiration dates—than anything else out there. I get enough of it, it could last for years. Enough time for things to change, maybe.”

“I already told you—”

“I know. And here’s what Kruger was really telling you. There’s a crew, nobody knows how big, moving on working girls.”

“Trying to pull them?”

“No. They’re not pimps. They sell insurance. Operating insurance.”

“What tolls are they charging?”

“Nickel-and-dime. Literally. They must be crazy. Even if they got every girl in Portland to pay, at twenty bucks a night, how much could they be making?”

“I don’t know. But whatever they make from a lame hustle like that, it’s all gravy.”

“It’s not a hustle,” she said. “The one who calls himself Blaze? He cut two different girls. He’s got a white knife. Supposed to be so sharp the girls didn’t even know they were cut until blood started spurting all over the place.”

“He cut them for not coming up with twenty bucks?”

“Yes. And he may have done more. He told one girl he was going to fire her up, for real. Showed her a spray bottle, said it was full of gasoline. Said that’s where he got his name. Scared her out of her mind.”

“How come the local pimps don’t—?”

“I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but it isn’t an organized thing here. Not many stables. A lot of girls freelancing. And for most of them, their pimp is their boyfriend. Probably even another addict like they are. Nobody’s exactly patrolling the streets looking for punks with knives.”

“So why does Kruger care? They cut one of his girls?”

“No. At least, not that I ever heard about. But nobody can be sure these guys can tell who’s who, and it’s got everyone nervous. It’d be good for his profile if he did something about it, anyway. His game is that he looks out for all the working girls.”

“You know anything else about this Blaze guy?”

“White. Young guy, but not a kid. Tattoos on his hands. Nobody got a close enough look to see any more than that.”

“His car?”

“No.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Not even a week.”

“And two girls cut already?”

“At least.”

“There isn’t much chance of catching a guy who operates like that. Nobody can watch all the girls all the time.”

“I know how to do it,” she said. “Let me show you something.”

I was sitting at the kitchen table in Ann’s hideout, a streetmap of Portland spread out in front of me. Ann’s hand rested casually on my shoulder. Every time she leaned forward to point out something, her breast casually brushed my cheek. Thewhole thing would have been a lot more casual if she’d had any clothes on.

“One girl was here,” she said, tapping a street corner with a burnt-orange fingernail. “The other was . . . here. And he confronted other ones here, here, and . . . here. You see it?”

“A triangle.”

“Right. And not a big one.”

“He doesn’t have to be operating from inside the triangle. But it makes the most sense.”

“Because he doesn’t have a car?”

“I don’t know about that. But . . . yeah, that could be it. If those tattoos are jailhouse, it probably is.”

“Why would an ex-con be more likely to—?”

“Pro bank robbers don’t do Bonnie and Clyde crap anymore. It’s still hit-and-run, but you don’t run far. Best way is to have a place to hole up real close to the bank. Just put a little distance between you and the job, then go to ground. And stay there. Disappear. The longer the law looks, the farther away they think you got. Sounds like the way this guy is playing it, too.”

“He would have learned that in prison?”

“Sure.”

“It doesn’t seem . . . I mean, it’s like a trade secret, right? Why would anyone give away information like that?”

“Couple of reasons. In prison, talking is one of the major activities. And you want to be as high up on the status ladder as you can get. There’s always old cons doing the book who’ll—”

“Doing the book?”

“Life. Some older guys, they like the idea of being mentors, pass along what they’ve learned, teach the techniques. And not just the pros. The freaks do it, too.”

“Freaks?”

“Rapists, child molesters, giggle-at-the-flames arsonists . . .”

“What ‘techniques’ could they have?”

“Why do you think so many ex-con rapists use condoms? So they won’t leave a DNA trail. Or why so many ex-con child molesters marry single mothers? Or why—”

“I get it,” she said, repulsion bathing her voice.

“This guy learned about shaking down street whores from somewhere. And about having a place close by to duck into. But whoever told him about ceramic knives left something out.”

“What’s a ceramic knife?”

“What he’s using. They’re not made from steel, they’re made from glass . . . like the obsidian knives the Aztecs used a long time ago. Glass takes a much sharper edge than any metal could. Ceramic knives come in black, too, but steel doesn’t come in white, see? So, if the word’s right about a white knife . . .”

“It is,” she said, confidently.

“Okay, then that’s how we play it. Thing is, ceramic knives aren’t just made of glass, they can also break like glass. They’re great for kitchens, but you wouldn’t want to fight with one.”

“He’s not doing any fighting.”

“That’s right. They’re for slashing, not stabbing. But it’s what he carries. And if he has to use it against someone who’s got a blade of his own, he’s going to come up short . . . unless he’s very good with it. That’s the problem with prison knowledge—there’s no way to really check it out until you make it back to the bricks. Inside, everybody’s fascinated with knives. A good knife-fighter can get to be a legend in there,” I said, thinking of Jester the matador, a million years ago. “And a good shank-maker can get rich. So maybe somebody was talking about how ceramic knives are the sharpest thing going. This guy was listening. And when he got out, that’s the first thing he bought.”

“Or maybe he . . .”

“What?”

“Maybe he wasn’t talking with knife-fighters at all. Maybe the prisoners he was talking with, like you said before, their experience was in terrifying people.”

“Or torturing them, yeah. There’s a school of martial arts that concentrates on fighting with edged weapons. Filipino, I think. Or maybe Indonesian. But they teach offense and defense. Meaning, the other guy’s got one, too, see? It’s for a culture where they don’t have a lot of guns. Prison’s like that, but Portland’s sure as hell not. You probably nailed it, girl. He wasn’t learning from pros, he was learning from freaks. I’ll bet that’s why he went with white. He wants people to remember him.”

“Do you think I’m right about the other thing, too? That he has a place inside the triangle?”

“I do. It scans like a guy just out of the joint, looking to build up a little stake before he tries something bigger. But there’s a few things I’d need to know.”

“What?”

“Housing inside that triangle. Is it expensive?”

“Nothing’s all that cheap in Portland, especially with all the gentrification going on. Neighborhoods that used to be skid row are fashionable now. But right in here,” she said, tapping the spot on the map, “there’s a couple of buildings tabbed for renovation. You know what that means.”

“Yep. Okay, you said the knifeman was with a crew, nobody knows exactly how big. Where’d you get that?”

“There’s at least one more. A black guy. Even younger than the guy with the knife. He’s collected from some of the girls.”

“Any more than him?”

“Not that I know about.”

“All right. But even if they’re holed up close, in one of the squats, that doesn’t solve it. I can’t go door-to-door without tipping them. And I can’t Rambo a whole building by myself.”

“But if you followed him . . .”

“Sure. But what’s the odds of me being in the exact spot where he—?”

“Pretty good,” she said, putting both arms around my neck and pulling herself against me, “if you have the right bait.”

It took us the better part of the next day to get the four different cars in place. If Flacco and Gordo were getting a little tired of playing rent-free Hertz for me, they kept it off their faces. But since they pretty much kept everything off their faces, I didn’t have a clue.

By the time we were done, we had the yellow Camaro, the black Corvette, a blue Ford F150 pickup, and a clapped-out eighties-era Pontiac in red primer all within a two mile radius of where Ann was going to make her stand.

“You sure you want to do this?” I asked Flacco.

“Why not?” He shrugged. “What’s the risk?”

“It’s not that. It’s . . .”

“What?” Gordo tossed in. “What’s up with you, hombre? This is just business, right?”

“I don’t know,” I told them, honestly. “I’m getting paid. But the guy who’s paying me, he isn’t paying for this, understand?”

“You double-backing on him?”

“I might,” I said. “If he turns out to be what I think he is.”

“I still don’t see what’s the problem,” Flacco said.

“Look . . . I don’t feel right about . . . this. You guys, you’re doing things for me out of friendship, right? But I’m getting paid. I’d feel better if I was—”

I caught Gordo’s look, nodded, and swiveled my head to bring Flacco into it, too. “See what I mean?” I said to them both. “You’re insulted if I offer you money, but . . .”

“We like you, amigo,” Flacco said, his voice soft. “But this isn’t about you, okay?”

“Then what—?”

“It’s about Gem, ¿comprende?”

“No,” I said, flatly, squaring up to face him. Glad to finally be getting it on.

“She didn’t ask us to do anything,” Flacco said, hands extended on either side of his face, palms out, as if ready to ward off a blow. “But we know how you and her . . . and . . . we’re with her, you see where I’m going?”

“Yeah. But I don’t even know how it is between me and Gem. So you shouldn’t be—”

“That’s not our business,” Gordo said, quickly.

“But you just told me—”

“Gem, she wouldn’t want nothing to happen to you. We don’t know what you’re doing. From what you say—what you say now—maybe she don’t know what you’re doing, either. Don’t matter to us. You know how it is with women. You don’t have to be with them for them to be with you.”

I didn’t say anything, listening to the quiet of the big garage, trying to decode what they were telling me.

“You know a guy . . . a cop, named Hong?” I asked them.

If anything, their faces went even flatter than usual. When neither of them said a word for a long minute, I tossed them a half-salute and walked out.

I made the first run just before eleven that night, driving the Corvette. Ann was standing in front of a vacant lot, about a third of the way down the block from the corner where some working girls were showing their stuff. Her location would make sense to the watcher that we hoped was on the set: close enough to the action, but not right in the middle of it. Just about right for a new girl who didn’t have a pimp with enough muscle to clear a prime spot for her.

She was wearing neon-lime hot pants, chunky stacked heels with ankle straps, and a not-up-to-the-job black halter top. Her hair was short, straight, and black. She looked luscious . . . but already too used to stay that way for much longer. Perfect.

She played it perfect, too. Let the Corvette cruise by the girls on the corner, then stepped out and waved like she was greeting a friend. I pulled over. She poked her head in the window.

“Any sign of him?” I asked her.

“Nothing.”

“Okay. Get in. If he is out there, let’s give him something to see.”

I brought her back about twenty minutes later. She jumped out quick, still trying to stuff her breasts back into the halter top as I left rubber pulling away.

At the corner, I passed the Camaro, Flacco behind the wheel. Making sure Ann wouldn’t be spending any time out there alone.

And by the time Flacco came back, I was ready with the pickup.

“Anything?” I asked, as soon as she climbed in.

“No. But he’s there.”

“How do you know?”

“I got the high-sign from one of the girls on the corner. He’s been around tonight. Collecting. I figure I’ve been doing so much business he hasn’t had a chance to move on me yet.”

“We’re going to do one more. You remember?”

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “Black Corvette, yellow Camaro, blue pickup—all done. Next up’s a rusty old Pontiac.”

“Good. Now, don’t be—”

“Just relax, B.B. I’m not getting in any strange cars.”

“And if he does make his move . . .”

“I just turn it over, and watch where he goes, if I can. I don’t try and follow him,” she recited, sighing deeply to show she didn’t need another rehearsal.

“Okay.”

“At least it’s easier to do it in a truck.” She chuckled.

“Ann . . .”

“Just stop it, all right? I’m fine. I know what I’m doing. He’s not going to do anything if I turn over the money.”

“And you think Kruger will really pay off? Tell me what he knows?”

“If you get it done? Sure. That’s his rep. He’s had it a long time. And he wants to keep it.”

I pulled over where she told me. Saw several other cars full of the same cargo. But this was no Lovers’ Lane; it was the checkout line in a sex supermarket, and I wasn’t worried about disturbos interrupting the action. Ann made herself comfortable on the front seat, her head in my lap. From the outside, it would look like the real thing.

“Are you going to do it?” she asked, softly.

“What? This isn’t a—”

“Not this,” she said harshly, giving my cock a squeeze. “Help me get the Ultracept.”

“I told you before. I don’t know if—”

“I don’t have much more time.”

“Then maybe you’d better go ahead without me.”

“Didn’t anything I showed you mean anything?”

“You’ve got me confused with one of the good guys,” I told her.

“No, I don’t. How does a hundred thousand dollars—in cash—sound to you?”

“Like nice words.”

“Not just words.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Never mind. Just take me back and let’s get this part done. Then we’ll . . . then you’ll see.”

I met Gordo where we’d arranged. Flacco and I changed places. I took the passenger seat of the ’Vette, he got behind the wheel of the pickup and moved off. Gordo drove me around to the back of the vacant lot, kept the peek while I pulled on a black hooded sweatshirt. I was already wearing black jersey pants, black running shoes, and black socks. A thin pair of black calfskin gloves covered my hands. I pulled a navy watch cap so low down on my head that only my eyes showed . . . then I slashed some light-eating black grease below them, and pulled the hood up. The Beretta went into my waistband, concealed by the sweatshirt. I fitted a heavy rubber wristband over the black leather slapjack, and I was ready.

Gordo looked me over, nodded approval, and vanished. He’d be close by, in case I had to exit fast.

I’d been over the waste ground a couple of times in daylight, and had a sense of where things were. I found a deep pool of pitch-black near a pile of rubble that was an open invitation to rats, and settled in.

From where I knelt, I could see the old Pontiac pull up. Watched Ann climb in. I knew I’d have some time to wait, so I concentrated on my breathing, letting the ground come up inside of me, settling my heartbeat, trying to become one with the rubble I was lurking in.

By the time I’d achieved that state, I knew we weren’t alone.

It took me a few minutes to focus him out of the shadows. Tall and slender, wearing a denim jacket with some kind of glitter design sewn along the sleeves, light-colored slacks that billowed around the knees, then narrowed to the top of shiny boots that looked like plastic alligator, at least from the thirty yards or so that separated us.

He wasn’t so much lurking as lounging, his stance as lame as his outfit. Whoever schooled him forgot to mention that predators don’t pose. There’s always bigger ones around. Or smarter ones.

He stuck something in his mouth and fired it up. From how long it took him to get it going, I figured it for a blunt. Pathetic little punk. Then I thought about the white knife, and let the ice come in.

All he did for the next fifteen minutes was watch the street, drag on his maryjane stogie, and fidget like a guy who thought he was going to get stood up. He was about as inconspicuous as a macaw on a glacier.

The Pontiac rolled to the curb. Ann got out, taking her time, as if she was scanning the street for new customers. When nothing showed, she stepped into the lot, walked behind an abandoned sofa, pulled the hot pants down to her thighs, and squatted below my sight line.

I couldn’t tell if she was relieving herself, or just making it look real. The watcher thought it was real—he hung back until she straightened up and pulled her pants back on. When he made his move, I made mine, cutting across his path, hanging just over his right shoulder so I’d be ready to follow him as soon as he split.

I didn’t want to get close enough to spook him. Couldn’t hear what either of them said, but I could see him brace her. Saw the white knife that earned him his rep. Watched Ann open her tiny little purse and take something out, hand it to him.

I saw him turn to leave. That should have been it, then—just follow him to his crib and take care of business. But he changed the game when he reached out and grabbed Ann by the arm. I saw the white knife slash, heard her make a grunting sound and go down to one knee. I was already moving by then, heard him say, “Fucking cunt! Don’t ever forget me!” as he backhanded her across the face.

Ann saw me coming, waved her hand frantically. He took it as a “No more!” gesture. I took it that she wanted me to stay with the plan. He made up my mind for me when he wheeled and headed back toward where he’d come from.

As I merged with the shadows, I caught a glimpse of Ann sticking a small packet in her teeth, tearing it open with one hand, then smearing it all over her arm. Alcohol swab? I couldn’t wait to see—the knifeman was moving now. Not exactly running, but making good time. And plenty of noise. Following him was no trick.

Ann’s guess about his hideout was on the money. He made his way through an alley to the side of an abandoned building. The door was barely hanging on the hinges. But when he swung it open, I could see a metal gate inside. His key opened the padlock. He stepped inside, about to vanish.

“Show me your hands, punk. Empty!” I said softly, the Beretta a couple of feet from the back of his head.

He whirled to face me. “I . . .”

“Now!” I almost whispered, cocking the piece.

His hands came up. Slow and open.

“You made a mistake,” I said, moving toward him, using the cushion of air between us to force him back inside the building. We were in a long, unlit hallway. All I could make out behind him was a set of stairs.

“Look, man. You got the wrong—”

“I don’t think so. They told me, look for a jailhouse turnout who carries a little white knife. And that’s you, right?”

“I’m not no—”

“Yeah, you are. That’s why you hate women so bad. And the white knife, that’s like your trademark, huh?”

“That was your woman? I didn’t know—”

“My woman? I look like a fucking pimp to you, pussy?”

“No, man. I didn’t mean—”

“Where’s your partner?”

“My . . . I don’t have no—”

“I don’t care what you call him, punk. The nigger you’ve been working with.”

“Look, you don’t get—”

“Yeah. I do,” I said, reading his face. “I do now. He’s not your partner, he’s your jockey, right?”

“Cocksucker!” he snarled, dropping his right shoulder to swing. I chopped the Beretta viciously into the exposed left side of his neck. He slumped against the wall, making a mewling sound, left hand hanging loosely at his side. I brought my knee up in a feint. He went for it, tried to cup his balls with his good hand. By then, the slapjack was in my left hand. I crushed his right cheekbone with it.

I pocketed the slapjack, then turned him over. It was hard to do with only one hand, especially with him vomiting, but I managed it without letting go of the Beretta. When I saw there was nothing left to him, I went back to work with the slapjack, elbows and knees, all the while whispering promises about how much worse this could get, until he passed out.

Kruger hadn’t asked for a body. And he hadn’t offered enough to trade for one, either. My job was done.

I started to get up and fade away when I flashed on Ann. In that vacant lot. The white knife . . .

A good needle-artist could change the tattoos on his hands. But no surgeon was going to reattach the first two joints of both his index fingers. I took them with me.

The maggot wasn’t going to bleed to death, even in that abandoned building—I used the little blowtorch to cauterize the nice clean amputations his pretty white knife had made.

By the time I got back to the vacant lot, Ann was gone.

“She took off in her own ride. The Subaru,” Gordo told me. “I asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital, but she told me she had it under control. I didn’t know what to—”

“You handled it perfect, Gordo. Let’s get out of here.”

“You have to do the motherfucker?”

I unwrapped the black handkerchief, showed Gordo the two index fingers.

“Should have taken his fucking cojones. He cut that girl for no—”

“He didn’t have any to take. Besides, the other one’s still out there.”

“Yeah? You think that gusano could describe you?”

“Not a chance,” I said confidently. “His eyes were closed.” But even as I spoke, I knew he’d gotten a real good look at Ann. And if I was right about the black guy being the jockey . . .

“Where you want to toss the fingers, hombre?” Gordo asked.

“Anyplace there’s rats,” I told him.

“Never in all my life been no place where there ain’t,” he said, pointing the Corvette toward the waterfront.

“You okay?” I said into the cell phone, relieved that she’d answered at all.

“Fine. It was a clean cut. Shallow. He was just like any other trick, doing whatever he has to do to get off.”

“Look, knife wounds can be—”

“It’s fine, okay? I swabbed it out, put on some antibiotic paste, gave myself a tetanus shot, and butterflied it closed. It was strictly subcue, didn’t get near the muscle. I’ll be fine.”

“You did that all yourself? You didn’t go to the—?”

“Don’t be dense,” she said curtly. “And don’t talk so much on the phone.”

“Okay. When do we get to see—?”

“Meet me at my . . . at the place I use.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Can you drop me at—?”

“No, hombre. Here’s what’s up. I call Flacco, he comes to where we park, we leave you the ’Vette. You come back whenever you come back.”

“Why not just—?”

“Don’t be putting us in a cross, amigo,” he said, his voice full of that special sadness that works best in Spanish. “Gem asks us—and—you know what?—I don’t think she’s gonna ask us, but, if she does—we tell her the truth, understand? We don’t want to know where you meet anybody. Especially that woman.”

“It’s just a—”

“Don’t matter what it is. What you think it is, anyway. We had your back tonight, yes?”

“Yes. And I’m—”

“You don’t got to be nothing, man. Like we told you; it’s for Gem, bottom line. Get it?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Gordo.”

“De nada.”

As I guided the Corvette to where Ann said she’d be, I turned to one of the blues programs you can find on KBOO at odd hours. Slim Harpo’s “What’s Going On?” growled its way out of the speakers. The way I was going, I might make that one my Portland theme song.

The radio kept it going. Butterfield’s “Our Love Is Drifting.” Then Bo Diddley’s “Before You Accuse Me.” As if the DJ knew I was listening.

But before I could call Hong the other mule, what I had to figure out was . . . if it was really my stall.

Ann was waiting on me, her left biceps wrapped in a startlingly white bandage.

“Pretty sexy-looking, huh?” she greeted me.

Considering the bandage was all she was wearing, I decided not to guess what game she was playing and just nodded.

“What happened?” she asked, following me to the armchair.

“I took your signal, shadowed him back to where he was holed up. He went for his knife,” I lied, planting my self-defense seed just in case. “He ended up getting hurt.”

“Bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Dead?”

“No.”

“Think he’ll go to the cops?”

“Not a chance.”

“And he’s done putting the muscle on the girls?”

“He’s done with muscle, period.”

“So we can go to Kruger now.”

“We’d better give it a few days. No reason Kruger should take anyone’s word for anything. Besides,” I said, watching her closely, “that other one—the black guy—he’s still out there.”

“But he never cut—”

“Listen to me, Ann. I was there, okay?”

“So was I.”

“Not the same way I was. And you don’t come from the same place I do. The white guy, he liked doing what he did. But, the way I see it, the black guy, the whole shakedown thing was his idea. And he had a bigger plan in mind than these penny-ante payoffs.”

“What are you saying?”

“That it may not be over. And if it’s not, we’ve got nothing to trade to Kruger.”

“Damn! All this for . . .”

“Maybe not. But for the next few days, I think we have to play it out.”

“How?”

“You go back on the stroll. Or at least be visible. And I’ll be right with you. Only not.”

“Not . . . what?”

“Visible.”

“Like my bodyguard?”

“Not like tonight. If I even see him, I’m going to drop him.”

“But you don’t know what he looks like. And neither do I. Those descriptions, they aren’t worth the . . .”

“If it’s like I think, it won’t matter,” I told her, keeping my voice level.

“I don’t—”

I reached over, grabbed the fleshy pad at the inside of her thigh, squeezed it hard, pulling her closer to me.

“You’re—”

“I know I am,” I said. “But you are going to listen. And you are going to fucking ‘care,’ understand?”

“Yes! Now let me—”

I released my grip.

“You want to kiss it and make it better?” she half-snarled, flexing her thigh.

“You really are a stupid bitch, aren’t you? Fuck you, listen or don’t. The way I see it, the black guy can’t let this one go. He’s got a lot invested. Plus, he has to show his punk he’s stronger, understand?”

“No.”

“Stop pouting and pay attention. The black guy wasn’t the lackey; he was the leader. He’s been watching the street for a while. He probably knows you’re no hooker. He probably knows your car. And he’s probably going to try to take you out.”

“Kill me?”

“At the very least, hurt you. Real, real bad.”

She dropped into my lap. A bruise was blossoming on the inside of her thigh. It took me a minute to realize she was crying.

Gem wasn’t around when I got back to the loft. I realized how I felt about that when I let out the breath I was holding.

It didn’t take me long to throw everything I needed into my duffel. I found one of her cross-ruled pads; wrote:

I spent a minute trying to think of how to close it. Came up with nothing. So that’s how I signed it, too.

The penthouse topped a high-rise in downtown Portland. The woman who let us in looked to be in her early forties—impossible to tell when they’ve got unlimited money and are willing to spend it on their looks. The living room was overpowered by a condo-sized aquarium, densely packed with brilliantly colored fish. I didn’t recognize anything inside it except for what looked like a pair of miniature gray sharks near the bottom.

“It probably started with gays smuggling AZT,” the woman said. “That wasn’t even for pain, necessarily. But the pain of knowing there’s something out there that could maybe save you—or give you more of your life—and you can’t have it, that’s . . .”

“You’re sure about the Ultracept?” Ann interrupted.

The rich lady didn’t seem to mind. “Absolutely sure. Men just love to boast, don’t they?” she said, talking to Ann while giving me a piece-of-meat look. “It’s not information they’d guard zealously, like some hot stock tip. One thing about those dot-com parties, honey, they’re much more egalitarian than the kind you’d find at a country club. They’re all so very into mind, you know? Nerdy little biochemists who wouldn’t get listened to at a backyard cookout behind one of their tract houses, well, they get a lot of attention from people who just come at the prospect of a new IPO.”

“I’ll need some—”

“Whatever.” The rich lady waved her away. “Is this the man you’re going to use?” she asked.

“No,” Ann said smoothly.

“He doesn’t talk much. Is he yours?”

I didn’t rise to the bait.

“He’s not anybody’s,” Ann told her.

The football game filled the big-screen TV that dominated the glassed-in back porch of the little house set into the side of a hill. I figured it for European pro; it was too early for pre-season NFL.

“Hi, Pop,” Ann greeted the massive man in the recliner. She bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Who’s winning?”

“Not the fans, that’s for damn sure,” the old man snorted.

“Pop used to play,” Ann told me.

“Is that right?”

“That’s right,” he answered. “Played for NYU when it was a national power.” Seeing my slightly raised eyebrows, he went on, “That was before your time, of course. But you could look it up. Hell, I played against Vince Lombardi; that was the caliber of the opposition back then.”

“The game’s changed since—”

“Changed? It’s not the same game, son. We didn’t play with all those pads. And the helmets we had, they wouldn’t turn a good slap. You played both ways then, offense and defense. None of this ‘special teams’ crap, either.”

“And no steroids,” Ann put in.

“That’s right, gal,” he said, smiling approvingly. “Annie knows more about the game than ninety-nine percent of the wannabe faggots who lose the rent money every week.”

“People bet their emotions,” I told him, on more familiar ground now.

“They do; that’s a fact,” the old man said. “Especially with pro ball. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. What’s the point betting on men who don’t give a damn themselves?”

“You mean the big salaries?”

“I mean the guaranteed salaries. When I played pro, it was a pretty harsh deal. Fifty bucks if you won. And five if you lost.”

“Was that a lot of—?”

“In 1936? That was still the shadow of the Depression. Fifty bucks, that was more than most men could hope to make in a month, and you could earn it in a couple of hard hours.”

“Who’d you play for?”

“Ah, teams you wouldn’t recognize. Not the big leagues. My dad did that,” he said proudly. “He played for the Canton Bulldogs, before the NFL. With me, it was all semi-pro. I was just a kid then. I did time with the City Island Skippers. . . . You know where City Island is?”

“Sure. In The Bronx.”

“Ah! You from the City?”

“Born and raised.”

“Good! Best place in the world . . . if you’re young and strong.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be rich and white, either.”

“That doesn’t hurt anywhere, son. I played with the Paterson Panthers, too. Same time as I was playing college ball. Way it worked, you played college on Saturdays, pro on Sundays.”

“Did the coaches know about it?”

His laugh was deep and harsh. “Know about it? Who the hell do you think took us to the games on Sunday? And got paid to do it?”

“I thought they were insane-strict with amateurs back then.”

“Yeah, if your name was Jim Thorpe, the racist hypocrites. The same ones who wouldn’t let Marty Glickman run in the Olympics, mark my words. Nah, they all knew. And they all looked the other way.”

“Did you play pro ball after college?”

“Never finished college,” he said, pride and sadness mixed in his voice. “Once that piece of shit Hitler made his move, well, I was bound and determined to make mine.”

“Pop was a war hero,” Ann said, standing next to him, hand on his soldier, as if daring me to dispute it.

“Shut up, gal,” he said, grinning. “I wasn’t a hero, son. Got a few medals, but they gave those out like cigarettes to bar girls, if you were in on any of the big ones. I started at Normandy and made it all the way up with my unit—what was left of it by then. But I’ll tell you this: wasn’t for guys like me, guys your age, you’d be in a slave-labor camp or gassed by now. You’re a Gypsy, right?”

“Right,” I said. No point in telling this fiercely proud old man that I didn’t have a clue as to what I was. And even less pride in it.

He had small eyes, light blue, set deep into a broad face. I watched his eyes watching me. “You were a soldier yourself, weren’t you?” he asked.

“Not me.”

“You’ve got the look. Maybe you were one of those mercenaries . . . ?”

“I was in Africa. During a war. But I wasn’t serving—”

“I don’t hold with that,” he said, plenty of power still in his barrel chest. “When I went in, I could speak a little high-school French. So they put me in charge of a Senegalese gun crew. Bravest fighting men I ever saw in my life. Didn’t have much use for the damn mortars, I’ll tell you that. Couldn’t wait to get nose-to-nose with the krauts. One volley, and they pulled those big damn knives and charged. I don’t hold with a white man killing people who aren’t bothering him. Far as I’m concerned, Custer got what he fucking deserved.”

“Pop . . .” Ann said, putting a hand on his arm.

“Ah, she’s always worried about my blood pressure, aren’t you, gal?”

“I just don’t want you to get all excited over nothing. B.B. wasn’t a mercenary, that’s all he was trying to tell you.”

“B.B.?” he asked me.

“That’s what it says on the birth certificate,” I told him, truthfully.

The old man sat in silence for a minute. Then he turned to Ann and looked a silent question at her, his glance including me in a way I didn’t understand.

“We’re going to do it, Pop,” she told him, her eyes shining.

The old man took a deep breath. “I watched her go,” he said, his once-concrete body shuddering at the memory. “That fucking Fentanyl patch, that was supposed to take all her pain. Well, it didn’t. And my wife, she was the strongest woman—the strongest person—I ever knew. She wasn’t afraid of a thing on this earth. All she ever cared about, right down to the end, was what was going to happen to me after she was gone. She was . . . she was screaming, and they wouldn’t give her any more medication, the slimy little . . . I got my hands on one of them once. Shook him like a goddamned rag doll until his eyeballs clicked. So they gave me a shot. Told me I was lucky they didn’t put me in jail. Watching Sherry like she was, I thought my heart was going to snap right in my chest. And then Annie came. With the right stuff. And when my Sherry went out, she went with a smile on her face. You understand what I’m telling you, son?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you do. I hope you’re not fooled by this damn cane I have to use to get around with now. Whatever my little Annie wants, she’s got, long as I’m alive. And when I’m gone, she gets—”

“Shut up, Pop,” Ann said, punching him on the arm hard enough to make a lesser man wince.

The old man just chuckled. “You sure I can’t come along?”

“No, Pop. But you’re in the plan, I promise.”

“Honey, think about it, all right? I can drive. I can pull a trigger. Maybe not like I could, but good enough. What difference would jail make to me now? Be about the same as here, way I see it. They’d have a TV there, I could watch the games. You’d still come and visit. Food’s food. And ever since my Sherry left, I don’t care nothing about . . .”

“Jail’s not like that,” I told him. “Not anymore.” Gently, so he’d know I wasn’t being disrespectful.

He gave me a long, hard look. Nodded. “I see Sherry every night, before I go to bed,” the old man said softly. “She’s smiling. At peace. I know she’s waiting for me.”

Ann was silent for the first half-hour of the drive back. “You never asked me,” she said, suddenly. “About Pop.”

“What’s to ask?”

“If he’s my real father, or . . .”

“He’s your real father,” I told her. “Biology’s got nothing to do with things like that.”

“You have . . . ?”

“Family, too? Yeah. Back home.”

“You miss them?”

“You going to miss him when he’s gone?”

The mobile home hadn’t been mobile for decades. It lurched on its cracked concrete slab as if held in place by the endless guy-wires running from it to the ground. Maybe it had been painted green, once. Now it was impossible to tell. Driving up the rutted dirt road, obeying the signs that said “5 Miles Per Hour!!!” in self-defense, I had mentally placed the trailer about midway up the prestige scale in that particular park. The whole place looked like an insane breeding farm for kids, dogs, and satellite dishes.

Ann said, “We’re right up the road,” into her cell phone.

When we approached the door, it opened before she could knock.

“About time!” a tall, wasp-waisted woman with shoulder-length, improbably red hair yelled at Ann, grabbing her in a hug hard enough for me to hear the air pop out.

“I told you we’d be here,” Ann said, as soon as she could get her breath.

“This him?” the redhead asked.

“B. B. Hazard, meet SueEllen Hathaway.”

“Hmmm . . .” she said. “What’d you look like before you had your face rearranged?”

“I was so good-looking, women used to give me presents.”

“Is that right?” she said, flashing a grin. Her teeth were way too perfect for a trailer-park diet.

“Yeah. But the clinic always had a cure for it.”

“I’ll just bet,” she said, laughing. Then, over her shoulder to Ann: “And, honey, that’s SueEllen Fennell now.”

“You went back to your maiden name?” Ann asked her.

“Always do, child. Always come back here, too. This address makes it a lot easier for my lawyers to squeeze the max out of my exes.”

“Don’t they make you sign a pre-nup?” I asked her.

The redhead fired a killer smile at me, instantly shifted to a sexy pout, put her hands behind her back, bowed her head, thrust her hips a little forward, said, “Oh, baby, you don’t love me at all, do you? Not one little bit, you don’t! You just like what I . . . do for you. Like I’m some mangy whore, after your money. I mean, who’s in charge, Daddy? All this,” she whispered, cupping my balls like she was testing them for weight, “or those nasty little lawyers? Don’t they work for you, sweetheart?”

I laughed. Couldn’t help myself.

“It’s not funny,” she said, still mock-pouting. She turned and walked off. The back pockets on her jeans danced. I could see where a rich old man wouldn’t have a chance.

Ann plopped down on a sagging bile-yellow couch, patted the spot next to her. I took a seat. The redhead perched on the arm of a chair, crossing her ridiculously long legs. She was wearing white spike heels . . . like putting whipped cream on coconut cake.

We’d been touring around for days, and I thought I had it figured out by then. “Who was it for you?” I asked her.

“My brother,” she said, no hesitation. “My little brother Rex. They named him right. He was a king. My mother wasn’t worth crap, and my father made her look like a goddess. I took care of Rex from the time he was born. Anything he ever needed, anything he ever wanted, I got it for him. I was his big sister, and I could do anything. I did all kinds of things to be able to do that. Never bothered me. Rex was my precious.

“When he got sick, I could see it in his eyes. ‘Big Sister, you got to fix this for me.’ And, Christ knows, I tried. I looked for the Devil to sell him my soul. But he wasn’t around. Or maybe he figured mine wasn’t worth it, I don’t know. Rex was always a delicate little boy. He wasn’t much for standing pain. When it came, he . . . I died a thousand times every time he . . . hurt. His pain was so real to me, I could feel its . . . texture, like a piece of cloth against my skin.

“And the pain, it took everything from him. It . . . degraded him. He had no dignity. They wouldn’t give him what he needed. Kept telling me what the ‘dose’ was supposed to be—like he was a fucking gas tank and they were reading a gauge to know when he was full!

“Well, Big Sister, she knows how to play that. I got him what he needed, right to the end. ‘You always watch out for me, SueEllen,’ that’s what he said, just before he left. And I been snake-mean ever since. It just sucked all the honey out of my heart. Before it . . . happened, I never thought about much. I was a party girl. Just having fun. And taking care of Rex. After he went, I got to thinking. How many other boys there were, dying like that. No dignity. So I looked around until I found Ann.”

“Without all the money you put up, we’d never have been able to—”

“Oh no you don’t, missy,” the redhead snapped at her. “I am in on this. That is what you promised. I want to do it with my own hands this time.”

“I said—”

“I don’t care what you said. If you just came for financing, you came to the wrong place, this time. You want my money, you got to take my body, too. How’s that for a twist?” she laughed, looking at me.

I gave her a neutral half-smile, kept my mouth shut.

The redhead kept her green eyes on me. “Ann thinks she’s been around. And she has. But not around men. Me, I have. Plenty. And I’m not dumb enough to think every ex-con’s a tough guy.”

“I didn’t say I was—”

“Which?”

“Either.”

“Oh, you been in prison, baby. Or someplace bad. What I want to know is, did it make you bad?”

“Some say I was born bad.”

“And SueEllen Fennell says nobody’s born bad. That’s one of those Christian lies. Nothing but a damn fund-raiser. Answer my question.”

“Ask Ann,” I told her. “I’m going for a walk.”

The trailer park wasn’t designed for tourists. I found the DMZ between the whites and the Mexicans—a ditch filled with something liquid. I sat down on the bank, in a spot from where I could keep an eye on SueEllen’s trailer, slitted my eyes against the sun, and breathed shallow. After a while, my mind drifted to where it always goes when I need to figure something out.

When I came around, my watch said it was almost an hour later. And the math I’d been doing kept coming out to the same total, no matter how many times I added it up.

“Some of those ‘gatekeeper’ nurses, they’d be happier working at Dachau,” the emaciated man in the wheelchair told me. “When they see you coming, they look for the pain in your eyes. It gets them excited, the dirty little degenerates.”

“Douglas . . .” Ann said.

“But you know what really gets them off?” he said to me. “When they get to tell you ‘no.’ “

The small house was modest, but in pristine condition, its fresh coat of blue paint with white trim set off against a masterful landscaping job that used boulders for sculpture. The ’Vette’s big tires crunched on the pebbled driveway. In the carport, an ancient pink Firebird squatted next to an immaculate Harley hard-tail chopper, its gleaming chrome fighting iridescent green lacquer for attention.

The man who answered the door was big, powerfully built, with dark, intelligent eyes. He looked past Ann to me. “I told Dawn we were coming,” Ann said.

He nodded, stepped aside.

The living room was dominated by a rose-colored futon couch. And the striking strawberry-blonde who sat on it. She was a pretty woman, but you could see she’d once been gorgeous. And way too young to have aged so much.

Ann went over to her. They exchanged a gentle hug and a kiss. The man who’d opened the door took up a position behind the couch.

“Tell him, Dawn,” Ann said.

The woman’s gaze was clear and direct, azure eyes dancing with anger. But her voice was soft and calm, almost soothing.

“I’ve got MS,” she said. “When I was first diagnosed, I set out to find out everything I could about it. Kind of ‘know your enemy.’ Back then, the medical establishment would go into this ‘Pain is not usually a significant factor in MS’ routine every time patients complained. Now, finally, it looks like they figured it out. . . .”

“Or decided to finally give a fuck!” the man standing behind her said.

Dawn reached back with her right hand as he was reaching down with his. Their hands met as if connected by an invisible wire. “Yes,” she said. “And now the Multiple Sclerosis Society is admitting that as many as seventy percent of folks with MS have what they call ‘clinically significant pain’ at some point, with around forty-eight percent of us suffering from it chronically.”

“You couldn’t get painkillers for MS?” I asked her, surprised despite everything I’d been hearing.

“Well, you could always get drugs,” she sneered. “Even in the bad old days, neurologists liked handing them out—stuff like Xanax and Valium. Not because our muscle cramps and flexor spasms were ‘real,’ you understand. Since the pain was ‘all in our heads,’ they figured the tranqs would calm us down and make the problems in our brains and in our spines magically disappear. And since they did acknowledge that the deep fatigue was ‘real,’ you could always get stimulants.”

“But aren’t all those just as addictive as painkillers?” I asked her.

“Addictive?” She laughed. “Oh, hell yes. I had one neuro prescribing eighty to a hundred milligrams of Valium a day for me. She told me not to worry, there was no chance of becoming addicted. Needless to say, she was full of it. She just wanted her patients calm and placid, so they wouldn’t complain or take up too much of her time. Medicaid wasn’t paying her to give a damn, just to keep us quiet.”

Her left arm twitched. Her mouth was calm, but I saw the stab in her eyes. She took a deep breath through her nose, pushed it into her stomach, then her chest, and finally into her throat. Let it out, slow. A yoga practitioner, then. People in pain try every path out of that jungle.

“Let me tell you,” she went on, “detoxing from the Valium was a megaton worse than jonesing off cocaine. They used to say that was nonaddictive, too. But when I was young, I was into all kinds of street drugs, even freebasing. And I got off all of them myself. No programs, no nothing. But that Valium . . . damn!

“And all the stims they hand out for fatigue, they have pretty serious side effects . . . plus a potential for permanent damage I’m not willing to accept. The hell with the neuros. These days, I treat the fatigue with good strong coffee and naps.”

“What about the pain?”

“All I get for that is the medical marijuana—it’s the only ‘illegal’ drug I’ve used since I got pregnant, and Tam’s eighteen now. And in college,” she said, proudly. “But even that doesn’t always work.”

“And that slimy Supreme Court just struck down the law that allows medical marijuana,” Ann said, fiercely. “They won’t let people even—”

“Shhh, honey,” Dawn said to her. “Look,” she said earnestly, turning to me, leaning forward slightly, her man’s big hand on her shoulder, “the thing about neurologically based chronic pain is, it doesn’t work like ‘normal’ pain. Pot isn’t enough. It relaxes the muscles just great, but does nothing at all for ‘nerve burn.’ It’s like a really bad sunburn, only all over your whole body. I can even feel it inside—like if you could get a sunburn on your large intestine, or something.

“And the thing about that is, when it gets bad enough, it makes you . . . I don’t know . . . something less than human. When you can’t sleep, can’t sit up, can’t move, can’t get any kind of relief, just lay there and cry, curled up in a ball. It got to the point where I was willing to do just about . . . anything to make it stop, even for a few minutes.”

“The only people who really understand pain are the ones who have it,” her man said, making it clear he was ready to help a few doctors learn. “When Dawn scratched her cornea, that lowlife punk in the white coat acted like she did it on purpose, just to score a few stinking Vicodins. You think I couldn’t find better stuff in ten minutes? You think I don’t know where the tweek labs are? If Dawn hadn’t . . .”

He didn’t finish. Didn’t have to.

“What’s with the Grand Tour?” I asked Ann on the drive back toward Portland.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“All these people, the ones you’re making sure I meet. They’re all in on whatever scheme you’ve got going. What do I need to see them for?”

“I thought, maybe if you knew that it wasn’t just about cancer . . . if you knew the . . . caliber of the people we’ve got involved, and why they’re doing it, you’d—”

“What? Enlist in the cause? This was supposed to be a trade, remember?”

“I told you, I’m ready to take you back to Kruger any—”

“And I told you, I don’t think it’s over. And if I want to get anything out of him, I need to make sure it is.”

“That’s the real reason you’ve been with me every second, then. Not because you really wanted to meet the others.”

“You like saying things like ‘real reason,’ don’t you? Like you’re just pure virgin goodness and, me, I’m a man for hire. You’re right about the last part, anyway. Only thing is, I’m not a stupid man for hire. Reason you brought me around to all those people is so they’d get a good long look at me, right? Just in case something goes wrong . . .”

“What could go—?”

“I think you’ve got a lot of information, and maybe even some halfass plan, but you’re not sure yet. Besides, I think maybe you’ve got desire confused with skill.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I knew a girl once. Janelle. She was loyal to the core. The kind of girl who’d never drop a dime. But she was so dumb, she might let one slip, you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, keeping her anger at bay because she wanted something. Or maybe she was smart enough to realize I wasn’t talking about her.

“We’ve been doing this running around for almost a week,” I told her. “I met a lot of people. More than one who could do anything I could do. Dawn’s man, he’s a good example. So here’s what I think, lady. I think I’m the perfect man for your job. Because the people you’ve got, they’re all good people. In your mind, anyway. You don’t mind them doing some stealing, maybe. But violence, that’s not their thing, as far as you’re concerned. And that’s all that counts, what you think. No plan is perfect. If things go wrong, if somebody has to be hurt—”

“Like that . . . man with the white knife.”

“Yeah. Like him. I’m perfect for it, the way you got it scoped. If I have to take a fall, well, I’ve been down before. And you know I wouldn’t take anybody else with me.”

“You think I set up the whole—?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, sure, it’s true: there was a freak doing shakedown. And Kruger was burned about it. And maybe there even are a couple of men looking for Rosebud, too. But I think this was all about me proving in. Again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A test. Another test.”

“That’s not true! I need your help, I told you that. And I wanted to show you that we could . . . I mean, SueEllen alone, she’s good for the money I promised you. But I never thought it would come to—”

“I see how careful you are about risking your own people. You had it your way, none of them would be in on it.”

“They’re not criminals. All they want is to—”

“Sure. I’ve heard it. Heard a lot of it, these past few days. So it’s just you and me, right, bitch? Joan of Arc and the expendable fucking ex-con.”

She did a lousy job of trying to slap me as we were rounding a long curve, but a pretty good job of almost running us off the road. I kept my right hand and forearm in a blocking position in case she wanted to take another shot, but she seemed done.

“You bastard,” she said, quietly.

“I was in a war, once,” I said, softly. “There were two kinds of people you never wanted to go into the bush with: morons and martyrs. Understand?”

“Yes!”

“These drugs you want to hijack—you get caught doing it, they’ll never get into the right hands. So that only leaves three possibilities.”

“What?” she snapped.

“Either you want to get caught, go out in a blaze of glory, get a lot of media attention about your great sacrifice . . . like that. Or you don’t really have a plan; just a lot of information.”

“You said there were three.”

“Yeah. Or you plan to use me as bait: send me down a blind tunnel, tip the cops, then make your own move while I’ve got them tied up for a while.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. How could you tie up a bunch of cops?”

“I don’t mean with ropes. I mean . . . I mean, I’m not going back to prison. So it might take them a long time to bring me in. And it wouldn’t be cheap at their end. And I think you know all that.”

“Maybe you give me too much credit.”

“Maybe. Only I don’t think so. I think people spend so much time looking at your chest they never figure out how smart you are.”

“And you, you’re, like, immune?” she said, bitterly.

“Not immune. I just don’t get D-cup blindness.”

“Good,” she said. “Fuck yourself.”

The light was gone by the time we got back to Portland. Ann had changed in a gas-station restroom, so when she popped out of the Subaru she looked ready for work. I was slouched in the passenger seat, making it look like she was working unleashed, no pimp. We couldn’t be sure what information the knifeman had given his boss. We couldn’t even be sure he’d given any information at all. There hadn’t been anything in the papers, but that didn’t necessarily mean he’d even survived. So we stayed with the script.

Ann took a few tentative steps on the cheap spike heels, wiggling her bottom like she was practicing her moves. She headed for the same patch in the vacant lot where it had all started. I settled in to wait.

When it happened, I almost didn’t pick him up. A black kid, looked maybe nineteen, smooth brown-skin face, neatly trimmed natural. He was wearing a way-oversize black-and-white flannel shirt with sleeves so long they covered his hands, moving in a bouncy, prancing strut, covering ground like he owned it. Typical gangsta-boy moves, about as menacing as Martha Stewart.

But I was working, so I hit the switch and the window slid down in sync with the kid rolling up on Ann’s left side. That’s when I saw the chrome muzzle protruding from the tip of his right sleeve. He was maybe fifteen feet away and closing when he brought the gun up in the trigger-boy’s Hollywood flat-sided grip.

By then, my left forearm was along the windowsill, with the Beretta resting on top. I had three into him before Ann heard the sound of the shots.

“Get in here!” I yelled at her.

She ran toward the car, stumbled to her knees, got up quickly, snatching one of the spike heels off the ground, and half-hopped her way around to the driver’s side. I was already next to the kid’s body, relieved despite myself to see the faint light from down the block reflect on the flashy chrome semi-auto in his hand—it was the real thing, all right.

I knew, from the standard mumbo-jumbo every shooter gets when he can’t afford anything better than Legal Aid, that “self-defense” also includes “defense of others.” But if I shot the kid again once he was down, I couldn’t ever use that one in court. I balanced it in my head for split seconds. The people who’d ambushed me back in New York hadn’t made sure of their kill, and paid heavy for it later. But I couldn’t see a sign he could make it even if someone around there had 911’ed the action. He spasmed once. Then he crossed over.

I was back inside in a flash, and Ann had us gone from the scene in less than that.

Her hands were steady on the wheel as she slid the Subaru around corners, not giving the impression of great speed, but really covering ground. My hands were trembling a little, so I left them in my pockets.

“What happened?” she asked.

“That was the other one.”

“He was going to—?”

“Kill you? Yeah. That’s what the fucking gun was for.”

“B.B., take it easy, okay? I’m all right. He didn’t—”

“This piece—the one I used—it has to go. Quick. We get stopped with it in the car, I’m done.”

“But you were just protecting me!” she said, as if reading my mind back when I stood over the kid’s body.

“That’s a law-school thing. Maybe even a courtroom thing. But with my record, even if I eventually walked, I’d be no-bailed for months, maybe years. And by then, people would know who I am.”

“Who you really are, you mean.”

“That’s right. Now, just go where I tell you.”

“¿Qué pasa?” Gordo asked me, as if walking into the garage at one in the morning was the most normal thing in the world.

“I need to borrow some tools.”

“What for, man? You ain’t no mechanic. Just bring whatever you got in here and we’ll—”

“It’s not a car. And it doesn’t need fixing; it needs destroying. Better you don’t see what it is, okay?”

He gave me a long look. “This . . . thing, it’s, like, metal, right?”

“Sure.”

“Not another . . . ?”

“No.”

“¿Cuánto?”

“Just the one,” I told him.

“I know this guy,” he said. “He’s got his own junkyard. Works a car-crusher there.”

“It has to be now, Gordo.”

“Sí. Just go and get it, compadre. Take me ten, fifteen minutes. Take you hours. I do it perfect. You do it, maybe not so good. Just go and get it.”

The unrecognizable pile of metallic filings and shavings and chips made a gentle rattling sound when Gordo shook the clear plastic box that held them. “Like a maraca, huh?” He laughed.

I pointed to Gordo and Flacco, separately. Bowed slightly. Said, “Obligado.” And walked out of the garage.

Ann was still in the front seat of her Subaru, but now she was dressed casual, in a pale-blue pullover and jeans.

“Where to?” she asked me.

“You’ve got all kinds of medical stuff, right?”

“Sure.”

“Got sulfuric acid?” I asked.

In the shadows of one of the bridges, just before a steel-gray dawn broke, I poured all that was left of the pistol out of a big glass jar into the Columbia River. We’d kept the news on the radio, but either the kid’s body was still in that vacant lot, or he hadn’t been important enough to crack the airwaves.

I went back to the apartment Ann used as a hideout. She said she wanted a shower. I wanted about four of them, but I told her to go first.

The next thing I remembered was waking up. It was late afternoon. I’d never had that shower, but I was stripped, laying across the bed, a soft, warm blanket across my back.

Ann.

I could say I was half asleep. I could say she started it. I could say I was still heavy-blooded with the killing in that vacant lot. And it would all be true.

But not the truth.

She ended up on her back, her face in my neck, not even trying to match her own counterthrusts with mine, just getting there. It didn’t matter who I was, maybe—she never called my name. When I felt her teeth part on my neck, I slipped my shoulder so she lost her grip. She reached out with one hand, grabbed a pillow, stuffed the end of it into her mouth, and bucked under me until she let go.

By the time I finished, she was already going slack. I felt as if I’d lost a sprint.

“Do you want a smoke?” she asked me, later.

“Huh?”

“A cigarette. Some people like to smoke after . . .”

“You read that in a book?”

“Look,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow, “I’m not a hooker, you already figured that out. But I’m not a virgin, either.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Which?”

“Either.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” I told her. “Not you.”

Later, when I was in the shower, my back to the spray, she parted the curtain and climbed into the tub, facing me. “This is the perfect place,” she said into my ear.

I didn’t say anything.

“I never tried to swallow before. I don’t know if I can. And if I can’t, it’ll all just wash right off. . . .”

When she carefully got down on her knees, I wasn’t half asleep. Turned out she couldn’t swallow it all. And that she was right about it not mattering.

But not the way she meant it.

When I got back to the loft, it was empty. But my note was missing. In its place, a piece of heavy red paper, folded origami-style to make a cradle for a single fortune cookie. Chinese inside Japanese—Gem’s idea of a joke? She once told me how the Vietnamese soldiers finally stopped the Cambodian mass-murderers, who supposedly took their ideology from the Chinese, who still hated the Japanese. . . . I remembered how she laughed bitterly when anyone used terms like “pan-Asian” to her face. I picked up the fortune cookie. It was weightless in my palm. I made a tight fist, crushed it to dust.

A tiny piece of paper was left when I opened my hand. Hand-lettered, in all caps:

It wasn’t like Gem to be cryptic. Mysterious, sure; but not mystical. This read like one of those sayings that took meaning only from interpretation . . . like the Bible. It sounded like a caution. But, for some reason I couldn’t pin down, it felt like a threat.

I stayed around long enough to take another shower, shave, change my clothes. I didn’t know what to do with all the laundry I’d accumulated during the past few days, but somehow I knew, if I handled it myself, that would be the end of everything with Gem.

If it wasn’t already.

Kruger didn’t put us through any elaborate ceremony this time. No sooner had we walked in the club than one of his girls came over and ushered us to his table.

When Ann started to slide into the booth like she had before, Kruger shook his head no. At the same time, he rapped twice on the tabletop with his two-finger ring. All the girls in the booth with him got up as if they’d been jerked by puppeteers.

Kruger rolled his head on his neck, like a fighter getting ready to come out for the first round. But it had nothing to do with getting out the kinks. His eyes swept the place, making sure everyone got the message: we wanted to be alone.

“You do good work,” he said.

“I keep my word,” I answered. Not acknowledging, reminding.

“Names help you, or you just want what they said?”

“Everything for everything.”

“Yes. Only I never asked for ‘everything,’ remember?”

“I don’t remember you asking for anything.”

He eye-measured me for a few seconds. Nodded to himself, as if confirming his own diagnosis. “G-men. Partners. Longtime, from the way they were with each other, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Chambliss and Underhill. Salt and pepper.”

“Not new boys?”

“Not close. These guys had a lot of miles on their clocks. Very soft-shoe.”

“And they wanted?”

“What you figured. This girl. The runaway. Rosebud Carpin. They had photos. Good ones, recent.”

“And they thought you had her?”

“No, man. Even the feds know I don’t go near that kind of thing. What they wanted was . . . what you wanted. Keep an eye out; pull their coat if I got a line on her.”

“Just that?”

“Well, they sort of implied they’d be real grateful if I could put some . . . personnel on the matter as well.”

“How’d they come on? Muscle or grease?”

“Wasn’t a single threat between the two of them, man. Just how much they’d, you know, appreciate it if I could be of assistance. Like I told you, all soft-shoe. Nice little shuffle. ‘Even the most astute businessman can find himself in delicate situations occasionally, sir, especially with agencies such as the IRS. I am quite confident you would find it to your advantage to have certain, shall we say, references, should such a situation effectuate.’ “

He had a gift for imitation; I felt like I was listening to the G-men themselves. “You took them seriously, right?”

“As a punctured lung,” he said solemnly. “And I’ve got people looking. Okay, that square us?”

“No,” I said, watching his eyes.

“I’m not following you, Mr. Hazard. I already told you everything they—”

“What would square us,” I said, very soft, “is if you were to call me first. Not a lot first, just a little head start, understand? You get information, you sit on it just long enough to call me, then you go ahead and do what you have to do.”

“But if she’s not there when they go looking, how much of a favor did I really do them, then?”

“They’re pros. They’ll know she was wherever you said she was, just jumped out a little before they closed in, that’s all. They’ll be grateful.” I paused a long few seconds. “I’ll be, too. Everybody wins.”

He took a little sip from a tall glass with some colorless liquid and ice in it. Maybe water. Maybe vodka. Couldn’t tell from any expression on his face.

“A little while ago,” he said, “a young man was brought into the ER. Got in some weird accident. Chopped off the tips of a couple of his fingers. Must have happened when he fell down that flight of steps, busted his face all to pieces. He’s never going to walk without a limp, either.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They didn’t buy his story in the ER, especially when they ran a blood tox and found he’d been blasted with some primo horse before he got dropped off. Whoever shot him up knew exactly what they were doing—he was feeling no pain, but he was coherent enough to stay with his story. So the ER called the cops. But this guy, he wasn’t saying anything. Ex-con, you know what they can be like.”

“I’ve heard.”

“What I heard was that his street name was something like . . . Blaze, I think. Looked like someone tried to put out his fire.”

“Or just made it hard for him to strike any matches himself.”

“There’s that,” he acknowledged, saluting me with his glass of whatever. “Anyway, whoever was shaking down the night girls, that all stopped.”

“And that’s good, right?”

“It is. Should be sweet out there now. Only . . .”

“What?”

“Only there was a shooting right on one of the strolls. Pretty unusual. I mean, around here, you can’t buy dope and pussy on the same corner. It’s just not done, you understand? If it wasn’t about dope, had to be gangbangers. The guy who got smoked, he was a black dude, so the cops, I guess they’re satisfied.”

“Why tell me?”

“Just making conversation. This black guy, he looked young, the way I’m told. Only, turns out he was thirty-four. Too old to be banging. And he sure wasn’t an OG. Not local, either—they had to get their info from his prints.”

“Doesn’t sound like he was Joe Citizen, either.”

“True. Very true. Anyway, the cops aren’t as dumb as they act. Some of them, anyway. Whoever took this boy off the count, they knew what they were doing. Heavy caliber. Close range. Nothing like a drive-by. And nobody saw a thing. Must have been a professional hit man. You know, the kind who’d know enough to make the gun disappear after he used it.”

“Who cares?”

“Sure. Anyway, Mr. Hazard, let me ask you something, all right? You know the difference between a crazy man and a professional?”

“There’s lots of differences.”

“Not really. The big difference is, the crazy man, he doesn’t have a sane reason for what he does. It may be a sane thing he’s doing, you understand. But where he comes up short is on the reason, you following me?”

“Sure. Like what the papers call a ‘senseless crime.’ “

“Exactly. So—what I want to know from you . . . You want a phone call from me, maybe. I mean, if I hear anything.”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t be impatient, now. Here’s what I want to know: Are you saying, if I did you this favor, maybe you’d do one for me? Professionally. Or are you saying, if I don’t, maybe you’d do something to me? Like a crazy man would.”

“You know what’s funny about senseless crimes?” I asked him, mild-voiced.

“What’s that?” he said, shifting his posture slightly.

“They only have to make sense to the people doing them.”

I never looked back. Ann caught up to me just as I got to the door of the club. No one gave us a glance on the way out.

“What happened?” she asked when we were a couple of blocks away.

“Nothing. And that’s what all this was worth. Nothing.”

“Kruger didn’t—?”

“I think he told me what he knows. I even think he told me the truth. But it doesn’t add up to anything I can use. Doesn’t put me any closer.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No. It wasn’t your fault. I’ve bet on the wrong horse before.”

“What do we do now?”

“There’s no ‘we,’ Ann. Just me,” I said, an acid rain of sadness falling inside me as I realized just how purely fucking true that was.

Whatever nothing I am in this world, I’m even less of it without my family.

She dropped me off where I had the ’Vette stashed, still arguing about me helping her with her crazy plans. I had her tuned out way before I got out of her car.

I sat in the driver’s seat, alone.

If I wanted a new piece, I’d have to see Gem.

I didn’t want to see her.

No, I did want to see her. I just didn’t want her to see me.

Hong’s Acura was parked in its usual spot. I stepped inside, prepared to see him sitting with Gem. Prepared to fade if I did.

What I wasn’t prepared for was to see them dancing. Slow and close. Santo and Johnny’s “Sleepwalk” coming out of the jukebox.

I went back to being with myself.

I was cradling the cell phone, deciding whether to call Mama, when it chirped for “incoming.”

“What?” It was almost two in the morning.

“You know who this is?” Jenn’s father asked.

“Yes.”

“Come on over,” is all he said before he snipped the connection.

They were all in the living room. Joel in his chair, Jenn perched confidently on the couch, Mike standing with his hands behind his back.

“Would you like some coffee?” a woman asked, stepping into the room like it was midday. She was short and trim, dark-haired, with a face I could tell was usually pretty . . . but now it was all focused on her children. She had cave-mother eyes.

“No, thank you,” I said, politely.

“I’d like some,” Michael said.

I knew she was his mother by the look she gave him.

“Jenn has something she wants to talk over with you,” Joel said. “And she said she’d feel more comfortable if we were all together when she did. That all right with you?”

“Of course,” I said, side-stepping the warning.

“Rosa called me,” Jenn said, no preamble.

I just watched her, waiting.

“It’s up to you, honey,” her father finally said.

“She wants . . .” Jenn started, then stopped herself.

I went back to waiting.

“What Rosa wants, it’s . . . complicated. And I’m not sure it would even be legal.”

“I’m not a lawyer,” I told her, aiming the words at her father, who’d translate them immediately.

“Rosa’s . . . tired of all this,” Jenn said. “She wants it all to stop.”

“All she has to do is—”

“She’s not coming home,” Jenn said, no-argument flat. “That’s not what she wants. She wants to . . . make her own life.”

“You mean, like an emancipated minor?” I asked, remembering what I’d said to Rosebud’s father. It seemed like months ago.

“What’s that?”

“It would mean she was an adult, for all legal purposes,” Joel answered her.

“Could that truly be? Even though she’s only—?”

“That would depend,” her father cautioned her.

“Oh. Well, maybe that’s sort of it. But, even if she was . . . emancipated, that wouldn’t be enough. She wants something else. Something much more important.”

“Daisy,” I said.

“Yes! How could you—?”

“I know about big sisters,” I said, thinking of SueEllen. And my own sister, Michelle. And how I wished . . .

“But could that be?” Jenn asked, breaking into my thoughts. “I mean, could she really—?”

“I don’t know,” I told her. “Your dad’s right. It all depends. I’ll have to talk with Rosa to see what she’s got.”

“Got?”

“I didn’t say that properly. I mean, what information she’s got. Because the only way to work something like that out would be if her parents consented—”

“They’d never!”

“You can’t be sure, Jenn,” her father said. “Perhaps if Mr. Hazard were to talk to them—”

“After I talk with Rosa,” I interrupted, not wanting to spell out to Jennifer that I’d need some heavy bargaining chips, but needing Joel to get that message.

“But you think you . . . maybe could . . . get her father to . . . ?”

“Maybe. Here’s what I can tell you for sure, Jennifer. If I talk to Rosa, no matter how it comes out, I won’t tell her father where she is. And I won’t try to bring her in myself.”

“Really? You swear?”

“Yes. I won’t even tell him I saw her.”

“I don’t see any Bible around,” Michael said. His hands were still behind his back, but the cords in his neck were standing out.

“Your brother’s right,” I told Jennifer. “And I think I know how I can fix it. But to do that, I need to talk to your father. Alone.”

She gave Joel a glance. He nodded. “Let’s go out in the backyard,” he said to me. “Be nice to be outside when it’s not raining, for once.”

“You can smoke out here,” he said, taking a seat on a redwood bench that circled a good-sized table made out of the same stuff.

“I don’t smoke,” I told him, setting the stage.

“When did you quit?”

“A long time ago. Smoking . . . looking like I’m smoking . . . is just another way of making sure people don’t know me as good as they think they do.”

“And that’s important to you?”

“I couldn’t do my work without it,” I said. “But sometimes I need people to trust me. Like now. If they don’t know me, there’s only one way to get that to happen.”

“Which is?”

“You’re worried that I might be lying. Might be working for Kevin so hard I’d say . . . do anything to get my hands on his daughter. I could sit here, tell you my whole life story. And if you believed it, maybe you’d believe me. Maybe not. Your whole life, it’s about making guesses, right? Educated guesses, sure. But . . . you said you were a forensic psychologist. I know what that means. At some point, you have to stand up—in court, before a parole board, maybe before Congress, for all I know—and say something that’s a guess. Only, coming from you, from a professional, it’s got to be a good guess. That’s what people pay you for, am I right?”

“If you mean I get paid for professional opinions, yes.”

“But they’re still guesses, doc. Good guesses, I’m sure. But . . .”

“But they’re all judgment calls, to some extent, yes.”

“And you’ve made some judgment calls about me. Otherwise, I’d never get within a hundred yards of your daughter, much less invited into your home.”

“Some judgments,” he acknowledged, making it clear he wasn’t finished adding up the score.

“If you had time to know me—or if I had the kind of references you could check—maybe there’d be another way. But there’s not. There’s no time. So I’m going to give you something else.”

“What?”

“A hammer. One you can drop on me anytime you think I lied to your daughter about what I’m up to with Rosebud.”

“You’re being oblique. And it’s late. . . .”

“Check the ER admissions for the past couple of weeks, doc. I know you can do that. You’ll find some guy was brought in, all pounded to hell. Big deal. But this guy, somebody chopped off the tips of his fingers. His two index fingers.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

“Because I did it,” I told him, keeping my voice matter-of-fact.

“All right,” he said, not reacting. “And why—?”

“Listen to me, doc. Why I did it doesn’t matter. This guy, he refused to talk to the cops. His boss, the one who was running him, he wouldn’t have wanted that. But now this boss, he’s not around. And this guy, he might be scared enough to say some things.”

“Things about you?”

“No. People remember their nightmares, but not the monsters in them. Not unless they know them from real life. He’d never seen me before. The only people who actually know who did that miserable little freak are me . . . and you,” I lied, smoothly.

“But,” he said, leaning back slightly, “if you’re not giving me the facts, what good would it do me to go to the police? They wouldn’t have enough to hold you.”

I leaned into the space between us. “They would when my prints fell, doc,” I said. “And you already have those.”

He seemed comfortable with the silence surrounding us. But it was no test of my patience. Dark and quiet. Safe. I could have stayed there for weeks.

“You think you know, don’t you?” he finally asked me.

“Know what?”

“Whatever drove Rose out of her house. Whatever’s going on with her and her father.”

“Yeah.”

He took a deep breath. Let it out. Held my eyes. “It’s not always that,” he said.

“I have what you want,” Gem greeted me as I walked in the door. “What you wanted, anyway.”

“Speak English,” I answered her. I don’t like it when people get ugly sideways; it always hurts less when they strip away the disguises and come straight ahead.

“The information from that computer you . . . investigated,” she said, ocean eyes innocent. “Remember, I told you it would take some time?”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I remember.”

“There was a lot to decipher,” she said. Catching my look, she went on quickly: “I don’t mean it was in code, or anything like that. There was just a huge volume of information. Apparently, your . . . target is a man who never erases anything from his hard drive. My . . . The person I used said that it hadn’t even been defragged in probably years.”

“Did he use it for e-mail, too?”

“Yes. And browsing. Very unsophisticated. He used a dial-up, and went to the Web direct through his ISP.”

“Any Daddy-Daughter stuff?”

“Daddy-Daughter?”

“Incest. He visit any incest sites? Or kiddie stuff?”

“No,” she said, her voice measured.

“Corporal punishment, spanking—”

“Sex spanking?”

“Yeah. Most of those sites make it clear they don’t play with kids, but some of them . . .”

“No. Nothing like that. He did seem to have an interest in bondage, but only in pretty mild stuff.”

“No asphyx-sex?”

“Nothing even close. But he did have a number of images downloaded. Always of men . . . restrained in some form or fashion.”

“You think he’s gay?”

“No. A trace-back showed that he got the images from dominatrix sites. As I said, very light. If he wanted heavier, it’s out there. And if he got as far as he did, he could have gone the rest of the way.”

“Is that the only thing he browsed for?”

“Oh no. It wasn’t even the majority, not by a long shot. He was very interested in politics and crime, especially where they intersected.”

“Yeah, he’s a major-league lefty, I know,” I said, thinking of the Geronimo Pratt book he’d marked up so much.

“It would seem so.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

“Not about . . . that. As I said, Mr. Carpin was something of a slob with his computer. So, if there was anything . . . bizarre about his tastes, I believe the trail would still be there.”

“Maybe he had more than one computer. Or he’s smarter than you’re giving him credit for.”

“I don’t think either one,” she said, holding up a thick stack of paper. “Because his banking records are all here.”

“Damn! You sure?”

“I cannot be certain he does not have other banking records,” she said tartly. “But his personal checking account, his savings account, his 401(k)—it is all here.”

“Did he—?”

“He paid all his bills by personal check, as near as I can determine,” she interrupted, reading my mind. “I have spent several days going over them. Here, take a look.”

I got up, moved to where she was sitting, her body covered in paper from the waist down.

“You said there was a phone in his office . . . ?” she asked.

“Yeah. Real fancy one, too. Top-of-the-line. And a lot of recording equipment connected to it, too.”

“But there is no bill for it,” she said, a faint smile playing on her lips.

“How do you know that?”

“Because he logs all his bills. He uses one of the accounting programs that come pre-loaded on many computers. There are four telephone lines—that is, lines with individual numbers—coming into his house. Each with numerous extensions. But the line in his office has no extensions. What you saw was the only connection. And Qwest bills him only for three of the numbers.”

“Maybe he’s got a different carrier for—”

“Not unless he is paying that bill in cash,” she said. “And, given the way he conducts his affairs, that seems highly unlikely.”

“But . . . wait a minute, Gem. His little accounting program wouldn’t show bills he’s not paying, right?”

“This is true.”

“So how do you know how many lines go into—?”

“My friend has access to more than just this man’s computer.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. But that is not what I found to be most interesting. Look at these figures,” she said, pointing with a French-tipped nail.

“What does that mean?” I asked, looking at a piece of paper with .10⁶ written at the top.

“It’s just shorthand for more than a million,” she said, impatiently. “But it is not the totals that are important. Look: see where he shows deposits. . . .”

What I saw was a long string of numbers, none less than five grand, a lot of them in the mid-five-figures.

“So?”

“So, first of all, these deposits are separate from his paycheck at the architectural firm. I don’t mean they are deposited separately—he seems to habitually commingle all his deposits without the slightest concern—I mean they represent an entirely different source of income.”

“Maybe he was consulting out. Or even working a few jobs off the books.”

“This would be some consulting job, Burke. The income stream goes back at least twenty years.”

“Christ. Who was writing the checks?”

“The checks?”

“The ones he deposited.”

“I don’t think I’ve been clear enough yet.” She chuckled. “A number of the checks are drawn on fictitious corporations—”

“Your computer pal again?”

“Yes,” she acknowledged, then went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “but the majority of the deposits were in cash.”

“Even the ones . . . ?”

“Over ten thousand dollars, yes.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

“It’s not possible he’s that fucking stupid,” I told Gem later. “Even a low-grade moron knows IRS would be on him like Jesse Jackson on a photo op with those kind of money drops. The banks have to report every single one. Unless he’s—”

“Everything’s with a local bank. Same branch for years. If he’s got an offshore account, it’s not on the computer you . . . looked at.”

“Why didn’t he just break them up?” I said, half aloud. “Anything under ten large, the banks don’t have to notify the federales.”

“Seemingly he did not care,” Gem said. “Most of the money came right out again.”

“For what?”

“For . . . everything. He has over a dozen mutual-fund accounts. He owns about half a million dollars’ worth of Oregon municipal bonds. His personal car apparently requires specialized upkeep, quite frequently. His wife’s vehicle is brand-new, purchased outright. And she has had very extensive plastic surgery, on several occasions. There is no mortgage on his home. On vacations, they travel first-class. In summary, his entire family lives well beyond the means of his salary.”

“So that’s another way they’d know.”

“Who do you mean?”

“IRS. Even without the cash deposits, he has to declare the income from the mutual funds. Hell, they declare it for him. Nobody’s that nuts.”

“Burke. Burke!”

“What?” I asked, shaking my head to clear it.

“You’ve been . . . that place you go . . . for a long time. Almost three hours. I cannot watch you any longer.”

“Was I—?”

“You weren’t doing anything,” she said, anger clear in her voice. “But I was afraid you’d . . . fall or something. And hurt yourself. I have been sitting here, watching you. But I am so tired, I am afraid I would fall asleep myself and you would . . . I don’t know . . .”

“I’m okay, Gem. Go to sleep.”

“Are you very tired yourself?”

“I . . . don’t think so. Not now.”

“Then would you carry me?” she said, soft-voiced.

In my life, I’ve slept next to a lot of women who’d been through hardcore trauma when they were kids. Some of them when I was just a kid myself—when you’re on the run, you look for the closest thing to a litter you can find. And I had sex with some of those women, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. One thing you get used to, sleeping with a woman who’s been through a lot, is how they startle so easy. The ones who don’t dope themselves up so they can sleep at all.

But Gem always amazed me. When she was a child, every time she closed her eyes there was the chance of waking up to death—if the class-cleansers Pol Pot had unleashed were merciful enough to make it quick. But she always slept as deep and as trusting as if she’d been raised by wolves.

She’d tried to explain it to me, once. Something about casting her lot and . . . whatever happens. Not quite fatalism. Something about choices. Even if you’re on the roof of a burning building, it’s still up to you to decide which direction to jump off.

Gem had never been anything but good to me. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t feel guilty about Ann.

Once, that was what I wanted. No conscience. How I envied the sociopaths around me. Without moral and ethical baggage weighing them down, without the boundaries that restrain the rest of the world, they’re the most efficient human beings on earth. You can kill them, but you can’t hurt them.

I was a kid then. What I wanted more than anything was not to be afraid all the time. So I tried to go in the other direction—not to be afraid ever.

I never got there. Wesley did. And what he got was dead. By his own hand, when there was nothing left to play for.

I still remember what he told me about fear. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he said back then. “And it’s not worth it.”

What happened to me was I . . . split. There’s a part of me that would pass every test for “sociopath.” I meet all the criteria . . . when it comes to strangers. I can watch people die and not give a damn. I can make them dead, if it comes to that. Nothing goes off inside me—I don’t feel a thing.

Stealing, lying, cheating . . . it’s not just something I can do, it’s what I do. I’m a man for hire. And, with a few exceptions, there isn’t much you can’t pay me to do.

But there’s another piece of me. The part that’s with my family. The family I chose; the family that chose me. I feel everything that hurts them, or makes them sad. I wouldn’t just kill for them; I’d die for them. They’re all I have. They’re everything I have. And what they give me is . . . that piece of myself that’s clean.

Not the part that worships revenge; I came stock from the factory with that.

I mean the part that told Joel the truth when I said I’d never give Rosebud up.

I looked at Gem sleeping next to me. Wondering if she’d already let me go.

“What shall you do now?” Gem asked me the next morning.

“I have to go to the library.”

“Because . . . ?”

“Because, when I was . . . thinking last night, I got an answer. Maybe not the right one, but . . . something I have to check out, anyway.”

“In the library?”

“A newspaper morgue would be better. Or even the AP wire. I’m looking for a—”

“—pattern?” Gem asked, maybe remembering my search for the humans who had tried to kill me. A search that took me all the way back to my childhood stretch in an institution for the insane. To a crazy, god-faced genius who makes a living finding patterns in chaos. And spends his life in a futile quest for the answer all Children of the Secret seek: Why did they do that to me?

Lune had unraveled the failed murder plot’s tapestry for me. And I’d made a noose out of the threads.

“Yeah,” I told Gem. “If I’m right, it won’t be that hard to pick up. Just take a long time.”

“I could help.”

“You’ve already helped. A ton. And I know you want to . . .”

“What?” she asked, sharply.

“I don’t know,” I finished lamely. “Go back home.”

“Burke, it is you who wants to go back home.”

“This place, it isn’t for me.”

“I know.”

“But I don’t know how things are back home anymore. I don’t know how I’d . . . make a living. I was working off a . . . reputation, I guess. But the street thinks I’m dead. Been gone for a while. I wouldn’t want people thinking I’m a goddamned ghost. I’ve been through that one already—when that maniac I told you about decided to bring Wesley back.”

“Home is not a place.”

“That sounds better than it plays, little girl. My family, they’re rooted there, understand? That’s where they’re . . . safe. Where they know how things work. There’s things you just can’t . . . relocate, I guess.”

“So—what, then? You go back and . . .”

“. . . and maybe put them all in a jackpot. Don’t you get it, Gem? Word gets out that I’m . . . back, I guess, and who knows what that kicks off? My family, they’d be right in the middle of it.”

“That would be their choice.”

“No. You don’t get it. They wouldn’t see it that way. If I was in it, they’d be in it. I’m the one who has to decide. Nibble around the edges, maybe. Test the waters. . . .”

“So why have you not, then?”

“I want to finish this thing here.”

“The missing girl?”

“Yeah.”

“And that is all?” she asked, her dark, fathoms-deep eyes empty of accusation.

“That’s right.”

She got up, left the room. In a few minutes, I heard the shower going.

“If you are going to search newspapers,” she said later, “there is a database.”

“Like NEXIS?”

“Yes. Or one could check Reuters and the AP and even various international services easily enough.”

“You mean with the computer?”

“With the Internet, yes.”

“It’s probably not that simple.”

“I am not simple, either,” she said, a trace of annoyance showing in her voice.

The cell phone in my pocket made its noise. Gem stalked off. Maybe to give me some privacy, maybe to underscore how little I was pleasing her.

“What?” I answered.

“It’s Madison. Ann vouched for you. And I have the proverbial good news and bad news.”

“Can you say it on the phone?”

“Sure. The person you were asking about got in touch.”

“And . . . ?”

“And she says someone she trusts is going to set up a meeting between you and her.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is, you were right. There was a connection between my work and what she was looking for. But it doesn’t have anything to do with her. Not with herself, see?”

“Not exactly.”

“That’s the bad news. I can’t tell you what she told me. I promised not to. But it is very, very serious.”

“You wouldn’t have called me if you couldn’t tell me something,” I said.

“Do you know what ‘empathy’ means?” she asked.

“It’s when you feel someone else’s pain.”

“Close enough. That’s her problem. And that’s all I can tell you,” Madison said.

I was just starting to ask her another question when she hung up.

“I need to get in the street,” I told Gem.

“I understand. Do you not want me to—?”

“I do want you to help. I apologize if I gave you any other impression.”

“You are very formal to a woman who has you inside her.”

“I . . . That doesn’t have anything to do with—”

“You act like a very stupid man sometimes, Burke. You know I was not talking about your cock. Or you should know.”

“I’m just screwing this up, Gem,” I told her, feeling hollow.

“Then do what you know how to do.”

“I . . .”

“You know how to hunt. That’s what you do. What you are. I will get my pad. I will write down what you tell me. And then, while you are doing whatever it is you . . . must, I will get the information you want. Yes?”

“Yes,” I said, not wondering where the guilt had gone to anymore. Not with it sitting on my shoulder like a fucking anvil.

The way Madison had related the information told me her conversation with Rosebud hadn’t been over the phone. The girl was close by; I was sure of it.

Anyway, I knew enough about her now. Rosebud wouldn’t ever get too far away from Daisy.

And she had said she was going to talk to me.

I just didn’t know what I was going to do when she stopped talking.

“I’m not doing it,” I told Ann.

“Why?” she demanded, hands on her hips.

“I don’t need you anymore. There’s no chance of a payoff. I’m in contact with the girl—through other people—and she’s going to come in.”

“Just like that?”

“I never said I would—”

“The money isn’t enough?”

“A hundred grand, against the hundred years I’d have to do if I got popped? No.”

“But that’s not the real reason, is it?”

“No. I already told you the real reason.”

“That you think I want you for a fall guy.”

“Or you’ve got a martyr complex.”

“The opposite,” she said. “I lose these”—flicking a hand across her breasts dismissively—“I might as well have had plastic surgery. Nobody who knew me here would ever recognize me. Once this is done, so am I.”

“How could that be? No matter how big the score, it can’t be enough to take care of all the—”

“I’m not giving up the struggle. I’m just going after it in a different way, once this last job is done. It’s not as if we’re alone. Some places—VA hospitals, for example—they know how to deal with pain. And they do it. There’s also—”

“VA hospitals?”

“Don’t look so surprised. The VA hospital system probably knows more about pain management than any other place on earth. Some of them, like the one in Albuquerque, they’re like . . . beacons in the night, for us. And Sloan-Kettering has been lobbying for changes in these stupid DEA laws that won’t allow them to administer enough—”

“Politics?”

“That’s right, politics. That’s where the change is going to be made. But I said politics, not politicians. You think there’d be any difference, no matter who was in office?”

“Me? I think the last two guys who ran for president were a pair of mutants.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means they’d been line-bred for generations, like the way you’d do a bird dog or a racehorse. They never had any other purpose, right from birth. Problem is, you breed a dog to fetch birds, he might do it perfect, but he couldn’t shoot the birds, see?”

“No.”

“Politicians are bred to run for office, not to run the office once they get it. That, they don’t have a clue about.”

“That’s right!” she said, her voice juicy with promise. “They’re all whores.”

“I don’t think that’s fair to whores,” I told her. “All they do is fuck for money. Most of them would draw the line at the stuff the average politician takes in stride.”

“You think all politicians are sick?”

“Like mentally ill? No. What they are is litmus paper. They turn color depending on what’s poured over them. You think any of them actually have a position on anything? George Wallace first ran for office with the backing of the NAACP. After he lost, he vowed he’d never get out-niggered again. The only ones who truly have a position are the fascists. They’re for real . . . which is why they’ll never get elected. And neither will that narcissist Nader. Some ‘green’ party he’s running—all he accomplished was to vampire enough dumbass liberal votes to elect a guy who’d sell the Grand Canyon to a toxic-waste dump operator.”

“You’re right. Which is why I’m going into a new line of work.”

“What’s that?”

“Fund-raising,” she said, with a truly wicked grin. “You know how it says, ‘God bless the child who’s got his own’? Well, people dying in pain in America don’t have their own. But we can buy some for them.”

“That’s a better plan,” I agreed. “If the gun people can do it . . .”

“Yes! I know. We’ve all been thinking about this for quite a while. Things have to change. Even when there’s a huge market for a drug—like the so-called ‘abortion pill’—it took forever to get FDA approval. Not because of science—remember, this is something they’d tested on humans, and for years—but because the politicians were afraid of the anti-choice lobby. With pain medication, it’s a thousand times worse. The only market for new painkillers is for the ‘nonaddictive’ type. But the very reason for taking pain medication dictates that you become dependent on it. If it keeps you from being tortured, why shouldn’t you be dependent on it?”

I stepped away from her a little. Obsessives make me nervous. Maybe that’s why I scare people, sometimes. About some things.

“I’m not arguing with you,” I said, gently.

But it was too late to derail her train. “Do you know why dealers started cutting heroin with quinine?” she said, her voice shaking. “The U.S. government taught them. The military used to mix quinine into the morphine styrettes soldiers carried into battle in the Pacific Theater, because of the malaria threat. Nothing too good for our fighting men . . . until they come back home. The government doesn’t care. And neither do the drug companies. The only real R and D going on is for the illegal stuff, anyway. Like Ecstasy. You get a real quick turnaround on the research—instant profits—plus, you don’t have to pay the human guinea pigs; they pay you.”

“I know,” I said. Thinking about the morphine pump they’d hooked me to while I was recovering from the bullets meant to kill me. That magic pump that fired a little bit of painkiller into my veins every time I squeezed it. But I could only squeeze it six times an hour. And every time I did, the hospital’s billing computer went ka-ching! That machine hadn’t been developed to kill pain; it had been designed by an accountant.

“But don’t you get it, B.B.? The DEA creates the market for new ways to get high. The pious, hypocritical—”

“I get it, Ann. But what good is one big score—even a humongous one—against that?”

“We need that shipment,” she said, adamantly. “We need something to sustain the ground effort, while the rest of us pull back and put the pressure elsewhere.”

“I can’t help you.”

“Yes, you can,” she said. “And I’ll show you why.”

I piloted the Corvette to Ann’s instructions. If she was trying to confuse me, she did a great job. I wouldn’t have been more lost if I’d been blindfolded. We pulled up to what looked like the bank of a river, but we were facing the wrong way for it to be the one that runs through Portland.

“Milwaukie,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“What do we do now?” I asked her.

“Wait. It won’t be long. Besides, it’s dark out.”

“So?”

“So haven’t you ever heard it’s much sexier to fuck outdoors?”

“No.”

“No, you haven’t heard it? Or no, you don’t believe it?”

“I’ve heard it. When it comes to sex, there’s people who get turned on by everything from latex to liverwurst. But, me, I’m a big fan of privacy.”

“That’s part of the fun,” she said softly, giving her lips a quick flick with the tip of her tongue. “That someone might come along.”

“Save it. When I was a kid, that was the only way it ever happened.”

“Outdoors?”

“Standing up in an alley. On a ratty couch in a basement with no door. On a rooftop; in the park when the weather was right . . .”

“Sounds like you had a lot of experience.”

“Experience? With sex, sure. With sex where you felt safe, like someone wasn’t going to run up on you any minute—not until I was much older.”

“I never tried it,” she whispered. “You sure you don’t want to show me?”

“I’m sure.”

“You don’t feel sure,” she said, giving me a rough squeeze.

“You didn’t ask me how I felt. You asked me what I wanted. And I told you.”

“You think, if we . . . if it happens again, you’ll be stuck? That you’ll have to go through with it?”

“No. And stop with the word games. There’s nothing for me to ‘go through’ with. I never made any deals.”

“You implied . . .”

“If you’d turned her up before I could do it on my own, I would have traded, like I said. But you didn’t.”

“Wait and see,” she said, folding her arms under her breasts. Then lifting them a little, just to show me what I had passed up.

“Time to go,” she said, about fifteen minutes later.

“Go where?”

“I’ll show you. We just had to park so . . . some people could be sure we weren’t followed.”

“So we never were going to be alone, huh?”

“You wouldn’t have known.”

“I get it.”

“No, you don’t. But this isn’t about that now. Just drive.”

The area behind the warehouse looked deserted. Except for the bright-red Dodge Durango.

“Flash your brights a couple of times,” Ann said. “Then pull in right next to him.”

I J-turned so that I could back in. As I was reversing, I saw two figures get out. By the time I was parked, they were sitting on the lowered tailgate of the Dodge.

Clipper and Big A.

“Hey, handsome,” Ann greeted Big A, giving him a kiss on the cheek, half big sister, half “Someday soon.”

“What’s up?” Clipper asked her, as if he was sitting in a coffeeshop and she’d just walked by.

“I don’t know,” Ann told him.

I took a step back, grabbed Clipper’s eyes, and took off my jacket. “All you had to do was ask,” I said to her.

“It was more fun my way,” she mock-giggled.

Big A ducked his head so I wouldn’t see him blush.

“What were you worried about?” I asked Clipper. “A piece, or a wire?”

“Guns scare me,” he said, calmly.

“We’ll be right back,” I told him. Then I reached over and grabbed the back of Ann’s neck. I would have used her hair, but I knew the wig would come off in my hand. “Come on,” I said.

She came along meekly enough until we got to the corner of the building. I had to put on a little pressure to get her to make the turn, out of sight of Clipper and Big A.

“Do it,” I said.

“Do . . . what?”

“Search me. Do a good job. I don’t know what all this is about, but I want you to be able to tell Clipper that I’m not carrying.”

She ran her hands over me. Tentatively, not sure what she was doing, but covering all the ground. It didn’t surprise me that she missed the sleeve knife.

“Can I . . . ?”

“Whatever you want,” I said. “Just get it done.”

She unsnapped my jeans. Pulled the zipper down. She tugged at the waistband just enough to get her hands inside. Spent more time there than she had to.

“All right,” she finally said.

We walked back around to where Clipper and Big A were sitting.

“He’s empty,” Ann said. “Now let me tell you what’s happening. B.B. doesn’t want to help us out with our . . . project anymore.”

If Clipper had a problem with “our,” he kept it off his face.

“And the reason he doesn’t,” she went on, “is because he thinks he’s found what he’s looking for.”

“Is that right?” Clipper asked me.

“Some of it. I never did want to ‘help out.’ It was supposed to be a trade. You know what I was looking for. If Ann turned it up, then that would have been different.”

“That ‘it’ you’re talking about is a human being.”

“Hey, that’s a good one. Very sensitive. You ever been a guest on Oprah?”

Big A started to get up. Clipper put out a hand to restrain him even as Ann started to step between us.

“You think she’s coming back soon?” Clipper asked.

“What I think is that she’s going to meet with me. Coming back, that’s her decision. All I ever wanted was the meet.”

“When do you think it’s going to happen?”

“Any day now.”

“I don’t think so. More than a week. Maybe even two.”

“And you’d know that . . . how?”

“Because she’s with us,” Big A said, pride strong in his voice. “She’s been with us all along.”

“Sure.”

“I kind of thought you might react like that,” Clipper said. “So I did something I hate doing. But I didn’t see any other way.”

“You ever just talk straight out?” I asked him.

“Sometimes,” he said, nodding as if he was agreeing with something.

“Want to take a walk, cutie?” Ann asked Big A.

“I’m staying here with—”

“Go ahead, Big A,” Clipper said to him. “I don’t want Ann to hear what I’ve got to say . . . and I don’t want her wandering around back there alone, okay?”

“Okay,” the kid said, accepting the wisdom.

We watched them walk away. When they were out of sight, Clipper reached in his pocket. “Recognize this?” he asked me. “It’s a micro-cassette recorder. The fidelity’s pretty good. Just touch the button right . . . there.”

I did that, then put the little machine down on the tailgate, so I’d have both hands free.

The voices came out of the tiny speaker thin and metallic, but clear enough so there wasn’t any doubt.

“Jenn, are you sure?”

“Yes,” Jennifer said, her voice patient and gentle. “But I wouldn’t want you to trust only that. Daddy talked to him. A lot. And he found out some things about him, too.”

“Like what?”

“Daddy wouldn’t say, Rosa. But Daddy said he’d never make you go back if you didn’t want to go.”

“Does he know what I really—?”

“Pretty much. Not everything, but almost. Daddy thinks, maybe, he could even help you get . . . the rest of it, too.”

“For real?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, Jenn! That would be so . . . I can’t believe it.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what your—?”

“No! I can’t talk about that.”

“All right,” Jenn soothed her. “That’s all right.” A long pause, then, “I saw Daisy.”

“How is she?”

“A little fireball, like always.”

“She is.” Rosebud chuckled. “She’s always been like that.”

“I know.”

“Jenn?”

“What?”

“You’ll never know. You’ll never know what it means to me that you’re so . . . so loyal. So loyal and true.”

“You’d do the same for—”

“That’s not the point!” Rosebud said, harshness in her tone. “Plenty of people are good and loyal. But that’s not always a two-way street.”

“Do you want to—?”

“You’re just like your father,” Rosebud laughed. “No, Jenn. I do not want to talk about it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Jenn, you know what?”

“What, Rosa?”

“I’m . . . still not sure. And I don’t want to meet with this . . . man until I am. I need more time.”

“How much more?”

“A week. Maybe a little more. I have to . . . check some things. Then I’ll be ready.”

“Okay. You know where to—”

“Yes. I love you, Jenn.”

Then the sound of a phone being hung up.

“Voice-activated,” Clipper said.

“Uh-huh. This a wiretap?”

“No. On my line. In my house. Or where I’m staying now, anyway.”

“With Rosebud?”

“That’s right.”

“And what you’re saying is, if I do this . . . project, you’ll bring me to her, even if she decides she doesn’t want to go through with it?”

“Yes.”

“You’d sell her just like that?”

Clipper stood up so suddenly we almost bumped. His voice was low and hard, urgent. “Look, I don’t need lectures on ethics from mercenaries. One, it’s all about the greater good. And, two, she can’t stay like she is. I don’t know what’s wrong. Not exactly, anyway. But she can’t keep this up. I was going to call her friend Jenn myself, if Rose didn’t decide to come in on her own. And since you seem to have passed muster with her . . .”

“I get it.”

“Yeah? Well, if you want it, now you know what you have to do.”

The rich lady’s penthouse looked like it had all been redecorated since the last time we’d been there. Probably one of her hobbies. I walked over to the huge aquarium. About half the fish were missing now. And the little sharks looked bigger.

“Nice joint you’re running here,” I said.

“That’s the way of the world,” she shot back, sounding annoyed. “In microcosm. Don’t you agree?”

“Sure. People with money put things in cages. Then they watch them eat each other up.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re one of the good people.”

“B.B.!” Ann hissed at me.

“Hey, fuck the two of you,” I said. “You know why I’m doing this, okay? You want a good attitude thrown in, you’re out of luck.”

The rich woman stood up. Walked over close to me. “I like you,” she said, huskily. “What do you think about that?”

“What I think is that I don’t like you.”

“Because of an . . . aquarium?”

“That’s right.”

She turned and walked away. “You picked yourself a real beauty,” she said to Ann.

“Were you deliberately trying to get her to drop out?” she asked in the elevator on our way down.

“She’d never drop out,” I told her. “It’s like her . . . thing, right?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re purity personified. You and Clipper and everyone helping you. Me, I’m just a hijacker who’s getting hijacked himself.”

“Everyone’s got a handle, B.B. I told you where mine was. Why are you so angry I found yours?”

“I have a lot of data for you,” Gem said that night. “But it’s raw. And it could take you a lot of time to sort it. Can you narrow down the criteria for me, just a little bit?”

“Sure.”

“Burke, what is wrong? You sound so . . . angry.”

“Not at you.”

“At who, then?”

“At me, little girl. Wesley warned me. A long time ago.”

“What did he—?”

“He told me,” I said, cutting her off, “that anyone who knows how I am about . . . some things, it’s like a bull’s-eye painted on my back.”

“You mean . . . children?”

“It’s not about kids. I don’t even like kids. It’s those fucking freaks who feed on them. . . .”

“Burke, stop!”

“What?”

“When you start to talk like that, it frightens me.”

“Why? I haven’t even raised my voice. I’m in control.”

“It is so cold in here now,” Gem said, shuddering. “And you, you are . . . not in control. Not at all.”

“You sure you can do it?” I asked SueEllen. “You’re the key. He doesn’t come along, we can’t—”

“Honey, we got a lot of information. Everything you said you wanted. But there’s no way we’re going to know in front if that man likes women. Don’t believe everything you see in beer commercials.”

“Fair enough. Besides that, can you—?”

“Oh, spit it out, mister. I can do anything for those damn drugs. And I will, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We have about a six-hour window. Maybe a little more, depending on what time we get on the road. But once it’s docked, the whole thing has to be empty and gone, fast.”

“That’s covered,” Clipper said, emotionless. It was the first time I’d ever seen him without Big A.

“And you’re sure about the information?” I asked Ann, for maybe the third time. “If any little piece of it’s off, so is the deal.”

“Yes,” she said, patiently, “I’m sure. It’s not as if they ever take precautions with this stuff. It might as well be a load of TV sets, the way they set up security.”

“I’ll handle my end,” the old man said.

“Pop, you know all you’re supposed to do is—”

“Create a little diversion for the County Mounties. Don’t worry about me, gal. It’s going to be fun.”

Ann shook her head sorrowfully. “If anything happens to you . . .”

“I asked Sherry,” the old man said.

“That is what you want me for now? To be your alibi?” Gem said, sneering the last word. “That is not how you treated me before. . . .”

“This is different.”

“So you say, master. I hear and obey.”

“Gem, you don’t want to do it, just—”

“Just . . . what? Get out of your life completely?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“You are not saying anything, Burke. And you have not for a long time.”

“When this is over . . .”

“Ah.”

I took a deep breath. Let it out shallow and slow. “Are you going to do it?”

“You are a fool,” she said.

Hong watched me approach his table like I was a bad biopsy result. “What are you looking for this time?” he asked, when I sat down.

“I’m not sure I get your meaning.”

“You’re not sure you like my meaning. Your little ‘trades’ seem to have a way of causing more problems than they solve.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. For example, Kruger’s stock has gone way up in the past couple of weeks. Any idea why that would be?”

“Not me.”

“Right. Not you. Only there was this gutter-punk who’d been shaking down hookers. And now he’s out of business.”

“What’s bad about that?”

“By itself, nothing. In fact, we didn’t really put the whole thing together until we showed him some pictures.”

My face didn’t reveal anything—I was confident of that. But if Hong had my sheet, I was . . .

“Not what you’re thinking,” he said. “Not a mug shot. A morgue shot.”

“I’m not with you.”

“Oh, I know you’re not. If there’s anything I’m sure of in this whole mess, it’s that you’re not with me.”

“And I was supposed to be?”

“Let’s stop playing, okay? The punk—you know, the one with the missing fingertips—he wasn’t saying a word. But when we showed him a picture of his boss on a slab, he went into a panic. Can’t stop him from talking now. He’ll cop to anything we want, if we promise him PC on the Inside and the Program when he makes the gate.”

“What’s he got to trade?”

“A lot of crap about his big ‘operation’ he was fronting. Not much use to us, seeing as how the fucking ‘kingpin’ is dead. So the only thing he can give us is whoever did the job on him.”

“You mean, like an assault?”

“An assault-with-intent, pal. Pounding on him is one thing. But mutilation, that’s what we call an ‘enhancer’ in these parts. Whoever goes down for it is looking at a long bit. And if that person had priors . . . well, you know the deal in Oregon, don’t you? He might never see the street again.”

“So you know it was a man?”

“Ah, you’re a piece of work, Hazard . . . or whatever your name is. Yeah, it was a man. And, no, we don’t have a description we could do anything with. Except . . .”

I raised my eyebrows, like I was getting bored with his pregnant pauses and wanted him to get on with it.

“Like I said, this is one scared boy. We put a bunch of guys in a lineup, whisper ‘Number Three’ in his ear, guess which one he’d pick out?”

“Sounds like a defense attorney’s dream,” I said, still bored.

“It does,” he conceded. “But that doesn’t change the truth.”

“Tell it to O.J.”

“You ask me about Kruger. A favor gets done for Kruger. So I figure Kruger must have done a favor for you.”

“Kruger didn’t do a goddamned thing for me,” I said. “And you can take that one to the polygraph.”

“Maybe. But now you come here on another visit. What do you want this time? And who’s going to get themselves dead?”

“More hookers are,” I said, taking everything out of my voice but the truth I needed him to hear. “It’s not one man. Like I told you before, remember? It’s a team.”

“Two men? You’re trying to tell me that the little degenerate with the missing—”

“No. A man and a woman. You’ve run every sex offender who’s been released in the past, what, five years?”

He nodded, listening now.

“What you want to look for is a man who’s been either married or living with a woman for some time. Either he’s using her to pull hookers, like she wants to bring the girl home for a three-way, or she’s right there in the car with him. Something like that Bernardo case.”

“Yeah, you mentioned it before. In Canada, right?”

“Right. The freak made torture videos of some of the girls they captured. When he got popped, the search didn’t turn them up. He told his lawyer where they were. The lawyer kept quiet, so his girlfriend got to cop to light time in exchange for her testimony against him. If the cops had found those tapes first, she’d have been buried as deep as he is.”

“That might be the scenario, but it doesn’t narrow things down much.”

“I’m sure it’s a man-woman team. Not two men, like the Hillside Stranglings, where those two dirtbags played cop to get girls in their car. It wouldn’t work up here.”

“I’ll buy that. What makes you think it wasn’t that guy from Spokane? Robert Lee Yates. He just copped to a whole ton of hooker killings.”

“Any of the missing ones on the list?”

“Two.”

“Sure! So why would he leave out the others? He made his deal; all the details, plus he showed the cops where a couple of the bodies were buried. Took a life sentence in exchange. What would he have to gain by not mentioning some of them? Freak like that, the more kills he can claim, the more letters he’s going to get in prison. Better chance some asshole will set up a Web site for him, too.”

“Okay. But even if you’re right, we’ve got no starting place to look.”

“You might. You already have the lists of men who were released. Go back and check, see which of them ended up marrying a woman who met them through some kind of prison correspondence, or even a prison visiting program.”

“That happens a lot.”

“Sure. And most of it’s straight-up legit. People get together for all kinds of reasons, and some of them are righteous. But what you’re looking for is any of those women you can’t find now.”

“I’m not sure I . . .”

“The women, they were the citizens, right? Not the outlaws. So why would they go missing?”

“You think . . . ?”

“That the guy you’re looking for, he cut her off from her family and friends. That nobody knows where she is. That she’s some kind of ‘slave’ to him by now . . . or she loves the killing, too. And that her family . . . her friends . . . her old job . . . somebody would be worried enough about her to have said something. Maybe even gone to the cops, but—”

“If she was an adult, it wouldn’t be a missing-person case.”

“Yep.”

“It’s a real long shot.”

“It is.”

“But . . . okay, worth playing. Thanks.”

I got up to go.

“Wait. What did you come to see me about?”

“What I just told you.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Sit down a minute,” Hong said. He lit a cigarette, pushed his gunmetal case over to me.

We smoked in silence for a minute.

“You know what ‘Angkat’ means in Cambodian?” he finally asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I do. And I know you think you’re packing the glass slipper, too.”

When I got up to leave then, he didn’t say a word.

On my way back, I found the blues program on KINK-FM. Otis Rush was the featured artist. “You Know My Love.” I wondered if anybody did.

Gem and I watched a bull-chested raven float down onto the flat top of a mailbox, then calmly drop whatever he’d been carrying in his beak to his personal chopping block and go to work. When he was finished, he left the table. In a few minutes, another raven took his place, with his own score. Word gets around.

“We went for a long drive down the coast,” Gem said. “We packed a picnic dinner, because we wanted to sit on the seawall at midnight where we first met. To celebrate our anniversary. We were in that car,” she said, nodding toward the Corvette. “I remember setting the trip odometer, because Gordo was curious as to what kind of mileage the car gets, now that he’s worked on the engine. We got back to the loft around four in the morning. We made love. Twice. Then I took a bath while you watched TV. I will have the shows taped for you to watch when . . . later. You took a shower while I made us an early breakfast. You had a three-egg omelet, with mushrooms, onions, and roast pork. I had waffles, with ice cream. All the ingredients for these are in the loft. I will prepare the dishes. I will eat some of the food, and make sure the rest is disposed of. If you are there when the police come, then you never left. If you are not, you went out just before they arrived. I do not know where you were going, or when you will be back.”

The ocean was an angry slate. The winds were cross-gusting. I watched a hovering gull briefly resist, flapping its wings hard for stability before straightening them out and just going with it, riding the vector.

“Perfect,” I said, trying for the same path I’d just witnessed.

“Oh no; it’s not,” she said sadly. “It is not perfect at all.”

Gem dropped me off about a mile from the truck stop. I made my way through an open field, carrying my gear. Found my lurking place, and hunkered down to do what I do best.

It was almost eleven before the semi rolled in. Couldn’t miss it; big silver rig with the drug company’s logo covering the length of the trailer.

I watched the driver get out and head for the truck stop. He’d left his engine running—they pretty much all do if they aren’t going to sleep, and the word was that all his route permitted at this stage was a meal break.

Between SueEllen inside the diner and Ann slutted up somewhere in the shadows, we had him bracketed—provided he hadn’t already made a CB appointment with one of the lot lizards. I saw a couple of them strolling halfheartedly, so I figured most of the business was prearranged over the air. The rich lady’s info had been perfect, but it didn’t drop all the way down to the identity of the individual driver, much less his sex habits.

One time I never want a smoke is when I’m waiting. Too many men are doing time for that. Too many dead, too. I let part of my mind go to a safe place, opened my sensors to full alert. Another mistake amateurs make is to assume watchers don’t get watched.

Every time the door swung open from the inside, I was on it. No need for night glasses. They kept the parking lot dark, but the diner was bathed in floodlights, making it look like an oasis in a desert of darkness. I guess that was the idea.

When I saw SueEllen come out, long red hair swinging, her left hand on the right arm of a big guy in a blue windbreaker and matching cap, I knew it was a go—I just didn’t know exactly what the mark had gone for.

“My husband will whip my ass big-time, he ever finds out where I was tonight,” SueEllen said, giggling, as they passedby where I’d moved to . . . a pool of shadow between a pair of parked trucks. She made the prospect sound like fun.

“How’s he gonna find out?” the guy with her asked. “You said he works nights.”

“Well, my girlfriend—remember, the one I told you came with me?—she’s got a mouth on her.”

“But she’s doing the same thing you are, right?”

“Sure, baby. That’s right. But she’s kind of . . . well, she’s not exactly skinny, if you get my drift. So maybe she won’t get as lucky as I did. Just remember, this has got to be quick, okay? Next time you’re back this way, you let me know in advance, and I’ll . . .”

“You never gave me your number.”

“Oh, I will, honey. But there’s something else I want to give you first. . . .”

“My rig’s right over there. You sure you don’t want to get a room? They have some nice—”

“No way, baby! Every time I see one of those huge trucks thunder by, I wonder what it would be like to do it right inside the cab. You said there was a . . . sleeper thing?”

“Sure,” he said, proudly. “Wait’ll you see how it’s all fixed up.”

I stepped out of the shadows, the dark stocking mask pulled down, the watch cap concealing my hair. And the sawed-off shotgun riveting his eyes.

“Put your hands up,” I said. “Very quiet. If there’s even a little noise from you, there’s going to be a big fucking noise from this, understand?”

SueEllen and the driver raised their hands.

“You!” I said to SueEllen. “Drop your purse.”

She did it.

“Kick it over to me. Careful,” I hissed.

She did that, too.

“Now turn around,” I said. “Just the bitch,” I told the driver, when he started to do the same thing.

“Lady,” I said. “Pull your pants down.”

“I’m not—”

“Now!” I soft-barked at her. “I’m not fucking around.”

The sound of her zipper was clear in the darkness. The truck driver could barely keep himself from turning his head.

“All your pants, lady. Down to your ankles.”

“You sick motherfucker . . .” SueEllen muttered, even as she was doing what she was told.

“Good. Now take off those boots. And the pants. Quick!”

She did it, making below-audible sounds.

“Travis, you there?” I called softly.

Three distinct raps on the side of the trailer SueEllen was facing answered me.

“Pick up her pants and boots. Find someplace to throw them away. She’s not going to be running anywhere real soon without them. And when she finds them, I don’t think she’s going to the cops, either, are you, lady?”

“No!” SueEllen hissed at me.

“I didn’t think so. Your husband might not understand, huh? Now, you,” I said to the driver, “open up your cab.”

“I don’t keep no money in the—”

“Friend, this isn’t about money. Me and Travis, we broke out three days ago. We’ve been hiding out around here ever since. What we need is a ride out, understand? Now, Travis, he says he can drive a big rig. But, me, I got my doubts. So you’re going to be the chauffeur, understand?”

“I . . .”

“A ride, pal. That’s all. We don’t need to make this a murder rap. You can’t see what I look like, and Travis’s going to be behind you . . . in that sleeper . . . all the way. You get us to where we need to go, we jump out, you keep driving. Far as we’re concerned, you can tell the cops the truth after that—we’ll be over the border.”

“The border? I’m not set up for—”

“Yeah, you are, pal. You don’t have to make the crossing into Canada. All we need to do is get close. The rest of the way, we go on foot, get it? Now, let’s go. Either you be the chauffeur, or we find out if Travis can really drive. Your choice.”

I had him open the cab, turn his head to face me as Ann climbed inside and got in back. I let him get in from the passenger side, the scattergun so close he never even thought about doing anything but obeying, me right behind.

We pulled out of the parking lot and headed north.

“Your name’s Norman?” I asked the driver, glancing at his license. I’d made him hand over his wallet, but hadn’t touched the bills inside. “What do your friends call you? Norm?”

“Hoss, my friends call me Hoss.”

“Used to play some ball, huh?”

“In high school,” he said modestly. “Defensive end.”

“Uh,” I said, thinking of Pop, “must have been brutal.”

“It wasn’t so bad.”

“Neither is this, Hoss. I promise you. Just keep this rig rolling, don’t be silly with the lights, you know the deal.”

“I got you. Don’t worry.”

“We’re not worried. Are we, Travis?”

For answer, Ann stuck the tip of a hunting knife just behind the driver’s ear, then flicked the lobe.

He shuddered.

I shared a sympathetic look with him. “That’s right, partner. Be glad it’s me holding this shotgun and not Travis. He is one stone-crazy psycho motherfucker.”

We were gone almost an hour when the CB crackled with the news that any trucker in the area could go pedal-to-metal without worrying about the law. Seems the troopers were all converging on the spot where some drunken lunatic was driving a bulldozer right through some little town. I mean through the town. Had the ’dozer all covered up in sheet metal, like a damn tank, one of them said. And the driver was armed. Kept shooting out windows and stuff like that, too.

“Kee-rist!” Hoss said. “Some people.”

“That’s the truth,” I agreed.

The roads were near-empty. A light rain came and went. And the big rig motored right on through, just a tad over the limit. Hoss and I talked about football, women, and prison. . . . He was real interested in prison.

I gentled him down, working the job. When you need people to do as you tell them, you need to induce a little fear. But you have to avoid panic at all costs. If you’re going to be with them for a while—like if you’re waiting for the banks to open in the morning so they can make that phone call you want—the sooner Stockholm Syndrome sets in, the better. You handle it right and they start to see you as a friend, not a hostage-taker.

Just like I was taught, I thought to myself, thinking about hijackings I’d pulled with my own family. Next to those, this was a cakewalk. I felt my people with me, heard the Prof in my mind: “You want to walk that track, you better know where the third rail is, Schoolboy.”

When we got close, I had to give him step-by-step directions, but he handled the semi like a maestro, never missing a beat.

Somewhere in the darkness, a rich woman was watching. A rich woman with a cell phone. When we got within sight of the warehouse, I could see the door was wide open.

Hoss pulled in. Killed the motor.

“Okay, partner,” I told him. “Hands on the wheel. I’m going to cuff you there. By daylight, someone will be here to open up.”

“But we’re not that close to Canada,” he said, sounding almost disappointed.

“No. That was kind of a scam, Hoss. We’ve got friends waiting. Right outside. In a few minutes, we’ll be gone. Ka-poof! Let’s see, it’s almost four in the morning. By the time they get you loose, we’ll have three hours. More than enough. Come on, now, let’s get it done.”

He put his hands on the wheel. I worked the cuffs one-handed until I had him locked.

“Look straight ahead,” I told him as Ann slithered out of the cab. “You know better than to yell, right? I mean, I don’t have to gag you or nothing?”

“No,” he said, shaking a little.

“Relax, Hoss. If I wanted you dead, I would have let Travis go to work with his blade as soon as we had you cuffed.”

I jumped down from the cab, leaving him alone.

We let a few minutes pass, just to be sure Hoss was going to play his role. Then we let him hear some car doors slam, people moving around. . . .

I popped back into the cab. “Okay, partner, we’re ready to split. Your smokes are right here. Be a little tricky, but you can reach them all right. Just flick the butts out the window when you’re done. Don’t worry, the floor’s all been swept—they’ll just burn themselves out. I can’t offer you much to pass the time. Sorry I had to disable the CB, but you want the radio on? It won’t run the battery down that much.”

“Yeah. Please.”

“All right, Hoss. You’ve been a man about all this. Now that my boys are here, I’m not broke anymore. I’d like to show my appreciation.”

“You don’t have to . . .”

“I know. I was thinking, maybe you could use an extra ten grand,” I said, bringing closure to the job the way I’d been trained, by cementing the bond. When you make the victim a beneficiary, it may cost you a little cash . . . but it costs the cops a witness. “But I can’t just stick it in your wallet,” I told him. “The cops look at all that, they might think you were in on this. Maybe I could stash it somewhere in the cab for you?”

He didn’t answer, but his expression told me everything I needed to know.

“All right. Now, I could just have it mailed to the address on your license,” I said, “but, for all I know, your wife . . . Ah, look, never mind. I wasn’t trying to insult you. I got ten thousand, right here,” I said, holding up the thick wad of hundreds so he could see them. “I can mail it to your address, plain brown wrapper . . . or even mail it someplace else, if you want. Your call, Hoss.”

He was quiet for a minute. Then he gave me an address. A different one than was on his license.

“Okay,” I said, shaking his cuffed hand to seal the bargain. “Now, how about a cold one?”

“A beer?”

“Sure. The boys brought a cooler-full. Been a few years since I had one, but there’s plenty to go around.”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

“Wait here,” I told him.

When I got back with an ice-cold bottle of Bud, he was real grateful. I even held it for him as he gulped it down.

He was out in ten minutes.

I walked past what seemed like dozens of people unloading the truck and transferring the cargo to all kinds of different vehicles. A couple of women ran around with handheld bar-code scanners and clipboards. A lot more folks than I’d expected. And a lot more efficient, too.

I found the anonymous little Neon out back, where they’d promised me it would be.

Clipper was standing next to it. “You did a great thing,” he told me. “This load, it’s going to change the lives of—”

“If the meet doesn’t go down, and Rosebud isn’t where you say she is, Big A’s going to be an orphan,” I told him.

I drove myself to downtown Portland. Found a legal spot. Walked for a lot of blocks through the Northwest sector, stopping to throw the Neon’s ignition key into a Dumpster.

The streets were crawling with bottom-feeders, looking for carrion. None of them bothered me. Smart fucking move.

I was in bed with my alibi before six.

Sometimes after a job, the fear-jolts that kept me alert while I was working keep dancing around inside me for a while. They have to work their way to the surface, and it looks like I’ve got the shakes, bad.

Didn’t happen this time. I didn’t feel anything.

When I woke up, it was mid-afternoon. Gem was standing over the bed, looking down at me.

“Why did you go to see Henry?” she demanded.

“Not for the same reason you do,” I said.

I didn’t even try to block her slap. In a few minutes, I heard the door slam.

I watched the tapes Gem had made for me. Old movies, off cable. She probably figured I’d seen them before, give me a little edge. I hadn’t, so I watched them close.

Then I waited for night. My time, since I’d been a little kid. A scared little kid, just learning to prey.

I needed another pistol. And I didn’t want to ask Gem to paper me through again.

As I walked into the kitchen to see if there was anything ready-made to eat, I saw several perfectly aligned stacks of paper on the table. Gem’s work. From the computer runs, using the newly narrowed criteria she’d asked me for. I picked up a stack, being careful not to mess up the others, and brought it over to the easy chair.

By the time it was prowler’s-dark out, I knew I’d been right.

“I’m done,” I told Ann, holding the cellular a little bit away from my ear. “I told you where to leave . . . what you owe me.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s not what this is about. There’s something I want to give you.”

“Already had it. Thanks anyway.”

“It won’t work, B.B. That icy act isn’t getting over. And I’m not playing. I have something I know you need. I’m leaving. You can meet me and get what I’ve got before I go, or you can just buzz me off, it’s your choice.”

“I’ll meet you,” I said, playing out the string.

“Good,” she said. And gave me a street corner and a time.

The Subaru glided to the curb. Before I could open the passenger door, Ann bounced out, dressed in a gray sweatshirt that went almost to her knees. “You drive,” she said.

I got behind the wheel. “It’s got real good traction,” she told me. “Hard to spin the tires even in the wet. Try it.”

I mashed the throttle. Even on the slick streets, the Subaru felt solid under me. Ann gave me directions as I drove. The steering was nicely weighted, the brake pedal a little mushy for my taste, but the binders worked really fine.

“I never drove one before,” I told her. “Are they all like this?”

“Almost. This is a ’97, the last year they made them. I had it all redone, to get it looking like I wanted. They changed a few other things—gas shocks, bigger brakes, wheels, and tires. Even ‘freed up’ the engine, whatever that is.”

“I wonder why they didn’t sell a million of these.”

“I don’t know. Maybe the kind of people who buy Subarus didn’t want all the luxury stuff. And the people who buy luxury stuff didn’t want Subarus . . . ?”

“And what do you want?” I finally asked her.

“Just to tell you a few things. Things you need to know.”

“Like what?”

“Like the driver—Hoss—is fine. He woke up in Battleground—that’s in Washington, north of Vancouver. The company doesn’t think he was in on it, not at all. The cops cleared him completely. They figure it was a professional job all right, but that the hijackers thought they were getting something else. Like taking down an armored car and finding it empty. They had a pretty fine laugh over it.”

“Good.”

“It may interest you to know that Hoss described you as a black man.”

“No. I figured he’d turn out to be a class act.”

“Yeah. Only SueEllen isn’t saying the same thing about you.”

“What’s her problem?”

“You know what her problem is, B.B. Did you have to make her . . . do that?”

“I had to do something to make Hoss cooperate without thinking he was going to get murdered at the end of the run. The way I did it, he saw I wasn’t going to be killing people just to keep them quiet. And if SueEllen really had to run around looking for her pants in the dark, that would have given us plenty of time to get in the wind, especially with the back roads you had mapped out. It was simple and quick. Hoss never would have bought it if I told ‘Travis’ to tie her up and leave her somewhere. And it would have scared him a lot more than I wanted him to be.”

“Well, if I was you, I wouldn’t be stopping by SueEllen’s trailer anytime soon.”

“I don’t want to see any of you, ever again.”

“Except Clipper.”

“Not him, either.”

“So that last threat you made to him—”

“That wasn’t a threat. We had a deal. I kept my end. I was just telling him he better keep his.”

“It sure sounded like a threat to me.”

“Cherish the thought,” I told her.

“Here we are,” she said, a few minutes later. “Pull in there.”

I’d recognized the signs for the last few minutes. We were in that same place, on the riverfront in Milwaukie. I backed the Subaru in.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t like it here. Too much foliage. Anyone could just come up on you and—”

“Then let’s get out, talk outside. How’s that?”

“Okay,” I said, wanting to hear the rest of whatever she had.

We climbed out. Ann put both palms on the Subaru’s front fender and hopped up, posing the way she had when we’d first met.

“What else?” I asked her.

“One, the girl is with Clipper and Big A. She’s been there almost from the beginning.”

“If he turns her over like he—”

“B.B., just listen, all right? I think her father did something to her.”

“I know he did.”

“But she still loves him.”

“Sure. I know. That’s not so unusual.”

“You act like you know all about this.”

“It’s no act. What else?”

“This car,” she said, handing me a scrap of paper, “picked up street girls. A bunch of times.”

“So?”

“So . . . I don’t know what your whole game is, B.B. I’m not sure why you want the girl . . . the runaway so bad. I don’t know who you’re really working for, or even what you do. But I know you want . . . something. I saw . . . I mean, I know the way you . . . when that freak cut me. I get this strange idea that maybe you’re looking for a killer. The one picking off all the street girls.”

“Lots of people get ideas. Don’t make more out of me than I am.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, here’s what I have. You don’t want it, throw it away. That piece of paper I gave you? It’s a license number. The car picks up girls. And it’s a woman who does the asking. A man driving, but a woman making the deal; understand?”

“Yes. But all the girls they picked up, they came back, right?”

“Not all of them. One didn’t. She went by Merlot. . . .”

“Like the wine?”

“Yes. And, the way it was figured, she was holding out on her pimp and made a break one night. It happens.”

“So the only thing you have is that it was a man-and-woman team—”

“That’s not all. The license plate . . .”

“What?”

“It showed up a few times. On different cars.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Maybe that’s nothing by itself, but . . .”

“You’re not wrong, Ann.”

“So it is worth something.”

“It could be, anyway.”

“This certainly is,” she said, holding up an envelope.

“Pretty small envelope for a hundred grand.”

“That’s in the trunk,” she said. “In a Delta Airlines bag. Just like you said: all hundreds, used, random serial numbers. This,” she told me, waving the envelope, “is the title to the Subaru. I signed it over. You can register it any way you want, but it’s yours now.”

“I . . .”

“Take it, B.B. I know you don’t have a car.”

“How could you—?”

“Either you’re fabulously wealthy and you’ve got a whole stable of vehicles . . . which I don’t think so . . . or you borrow cars all the time. Anyway, where I’m going, I won’t be able to use it.”

“Why?” I asked, despite myself.

“I told you. It’s all going to change from here on out. I don’t want anything tying me to Ann O. Dyne. She was always a myth. Now she’s going to disappear.”

“All right.”

“Aren’t you going to check your money?”

“I know it’s there,” I said. And knew I was right even as I spoke.

“You ever think about . . . ?”

“What?”

“Making a change, too. Starting a new life. Starting over.”

“I can’t start over,” I told her. “I’m not a myth. I’m me. Forever.”

“But people can . . .”

“No, they can’t, girl. Not all of them, anyway. Not me, for sure.”

“I’ll know you if I see you again,” she said, getting to her feet. “But you won’t know me. Without these,” she chuckled, reaching down and hauling the sweatshirt up over her head, “probably nobody would.”

“I’d know your eyes,” I told her.

She stepped close. “You probably would. You looked there, often enough. Tell me something, B.B. When you were a kid, when you . . . did it outside, how did you do it?”

I took her shoulders, gently turned her around so she was facing away from me. Then I put my hands on her waist and cranked my thumbs forward until she was bending over, her hands on the fender of the Subaru. “Like this,” I whispered in her ear. “That way, we could keep watch while we were . . .”

Later, she told me to just take off. By myself. Whoever was waiting on her was close by.

She stood on her toes, gave me a goodbye kiss. “You can find your own way back,” she said.

I wondered if that was true.

“What do you want for all this?” Hong asked me, fingering the slip of paper Ann had given me.

“Your throwdown piece,” I told him.

“You think this is New York?”

“I think cops are cops.”

“Well, I don’t carry one,” he said, huffily.

“All right.”

“You have a drop?” he asked.

The next morning, under the loose cinder block in the corner of the garage Gordo and Flacco used, I found a brand-new Browning Hi Power 9-millimeter. The Mark III, with the nonglare finish, still in the original sealed carton. And two boxes of shells.

Not exactly the most powerful man-stopper on the planet, but a beautiful, expensive weapon. And maybe Hong was trying to send me a message by not going with the same caliber of slug the autopsy team would have pulled out of the black guy who’d tried to smoke Ann in that vacant lot.

I night-swept with the Subaru a few times, the tinted windows clouding anyone’s view of who was doing the driving. Maybe it would buy Ann a little more of a head start if people thought she was still around.

I hadn’t changed anything about the Subaru, but I’d done one thing to make it mine. The license-plate number Ann had given me was taped to its dash.

“Now.” Joel’s voice, on the cellular. My watch said it was six-thirty in the morning.

“Where?”

“Just come here. I’ll take you.”

Joel’s car was a green BMW Z3 with a tan canvas top, one of the early ones. He drove aggressively, keeping the little car in its lower gears until the tach asked for mercy. He braked late for corners, occasionally kicking the tail out, but always catching it smoothly. By the time he got to where I recognized a few landmarks, I knew where we were headed.

“She wants the meet where Daisy picks up her letters?”

“Yes. She said you already know about it, but nobody else does. She feels safe there.”

“Is that where she spent the night?”

“She spent the night at my house,” Joel said, in a “Want to make something out of it?” tone. “Jenn drove her over while it was still dark.”

“So Jenn’s with her?”

“Yes.”

“And Daisy?”

“No. Rose was quite adamant that Daisy not be present.”

“She’s calling the shots.”

“Speaking of shots . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I think you better let me hold your gun.”

“Why is that?”

“You’ve made no attempt to conceal that you’re armed. I’m concerned it could frighten Rose.”

“You know how to use a gun?”

“I . . . no.”

“Then I’m keeping it. It’s out in the open because I didn’t want to hide anything from you. But it’s not to scare Rosebud, it’s for her protection.”

“You think it’s that bad?”

“I know it is,” I told him.

Jenn and Rosebud were sitting together on the stone wall. They watched us approach, whispering urgently to each other.

“Maida and Zia,” I said, greeting them.

I was expecting a smile, hoping for a giggle. Got neither.

“What do you want to tell me?” Rosebud asked. “You already know I’m not going back.”

She looked like she was ready to jump off the stone wall and make a run for it any second. And Joel looked ready to try one of his wrestling moves if I made any attempt to stop her. I had to toss one of my aces on the table, quick.

“Rosebud, if I wanted to bring you back, if I didn’t respect what you’re doing, I could have just grabbed you and been done with it.”

“That’s pretty big talk,” she said. “You’ve been looking for me for a long time. Lots of people have.”

“Lots of people, yes. Me, no. I always knew where you were, Rosebud. I just went through the motions so I could keep your father from doing something real stupid.”

“Where was I, then?” she challenged.

“With Clipper and Big A,” I said, quietly. And as I said the words, I finally figured out who’d been making the dead drops for Rosebud.

Her mouth made an O, but no sound came out.

“I know why you went to Madison, too,” I said, closing in. “And I have the answer you want.”

“Madison wouldn’t—”

“She didn’t,” I said. “I put it all together. From the beginning. I know why Kevin is really looking for you, too.”

Rosebud turned to Jenn, a look of pain on her face so deep I didn’t think another human being could ever touch it. But Jenn gathered her in. They rocked together, both of them crying, Jenn saying “I know,” and “Daddy can fix this,” and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t follow.

Joel stood beside me, as still as the stone wall. And less movable.

The two girls finally turned to face me, holding hands. I didn’t bother to ask Rosebud if it was okay to talk in front of the others.

I told her the truth.

When I was done, she looked at Jenn, who nodded agreement.

“It’s right here,” she said, handing it over.

“You understand what I’m going to trade it for, Rosebud?”

“Yes. How could he do that? How could he be a . . . traitor?”

“And that, if it works,” I said, ignoring her questions, “you understand you’ll never see him a—?”

“Yes! I have to do this. Daisy needs me. Jenn . . . ?”

“Yes,” Jenn said. Adding her vote.

“You take Rose back,” Joel told his daughter. “Mr. Hazard and I will go see Kevin. It will all be over soon.”

“You’re not going with me,” I told him on the drive back.

“The hell I’m not.”

“Listen to me, doc. You got no idea how much respect I have for you. I see the way your kids look at you; I feel so jealous, I can’t put it into words. You’re a standup man. But I have to do this one alone.”

“Why?”

“Because I made the girl a promise. And I’m going to keep it.”

“I’m not follow—”

“How much more do you want me to say? If Kevin goes for the deal, Rosebud will never see him again, right?”

“Right.”

“But if he doesn’t go for the deal, she still won’t,” I said; soft and slow, so he’d understand what I was telling him. “You want to be in on that?”

“I’ve got her,” I told Kevin on the phone.

“Oh God, that’s great! When can you—?”

“Tomorrow morning, maybe. If you can guarantee your wife and Daisy are out of the—”

“No problem! She’s going to drop Daisy at camp and then she’ll be—”

“—gone by seven-thirty?”

“Absolutely!”

“See you then. Leave your garage door open. We’ll come to your office.”

“Okay, okay, sure. Do I have to—?”

I hung up on him.

“What are you going to do?” Gem asked me that night. “Now that you know you were correct about him.”

“Depends on him.”

“Does that mean . . . ?”

“Yeah.”

“Burke . . .”

“I’m doing it, Gem.”

“Can you not trust me anymore?”

“Trust? Sure. Hell, I trust everyone. If I have to do it, I’ll be using this,” I said, taking out the pistol Hong had left me. “And if your boyfriend Pearl Harbored me, if this piece is hot, I’m fucked.” I didn’t bother to mention that I’d test-fired it, just to make sure Hong hadn’t given me a bunch of blanks.

She got to her feet, the anger gone from her face. “He is not my . . . boyfriend. I said you were my husband long ago. I meant that.”

“But the past can become the future.”

“Yes. You understand. But it was not a threat. And it was not about Henry. It was about you. Your past. Your future. I know how you hate it here.”

“I don’t hate it here. It’s kind of nice, actually. Portland’s, what, a tenth the size of New York? But it’s got more blues bars, and . . .”

“But even that. It is not really your music, is it?”

“The blues? Honeygirl, I was born to the—”

“No. I don’t mean the . . . feeling. Remember the music you told me all about. Doo-wop, yes?”

“That’s right. The Brooklyn Blues, sure.”

“New York music.”

“I . . . guess it is. When I think of blues, I think of Chicago. Or Detroit. Or even the Delta. But I grew up with a capella sounds in the subway tunnels, on the street corners, in the shower rooms of the institutions—it was everywhere.”

“And it is not here.”

“Ah, it’s not much of anywhere, anymore. And the weather’s better here. The people are the same, but I’d have to change planets to fix that.”

“So it is your family.”

“That’s it, Gem. My family. I . . . I need to be there with them. Not next door or anything. I don’t have to see them every day. But I’ve got no . . . life here. I’m not a dentist or a lawyer. I can’t get an Oregon license for what I do.”

“I know all this.”

“When I finish with Kevin, I’m going back home,” I said.

“I know that, too. I have known for a while. And I shall go with—”

“No. No, Gem. Not yet. I don’t know how it’s going to be, a man who’s supposed to be dead, coming back.”

“It does not—”

“It matters to me. And that’s not the whole of it. I . . . I don’t know if I want to be with . . . anyone.”

“I see.”

“And I think there are things you need to—”

“Don’t put any of this on me, Burke.”

“Fair enough.”

“I will not wait for you forever. There is always another border for me to cross.”

“I don’t want you to wait at all.”

“Yes, you do,” she said.

There was no way to tap Kevin’s phone. And even if I could, he had access to too many of them. But I was in his neighborhood at four-thirty the next morning. As I drove by, I spotted Clipper’s red Durango and pulled next to it.

“We’ve been in place since you called last night,” he said. “Rotating shifts. Nobody’s been to the house. No cars, no cabs, nobody on foot. Nothing.”

“Thanks.”

“We’re all with Rose,” Big A said.

“I’ve got it from here,” I told them. “Don’t come back.”

I was behind the house before five. If anyone else showed up, I’d know. And I’d had Clipper’s crew in place half an hour before I’d called Kevin. Not perfect, but the best I could manage.

In Portland, anyway.

I watched the mother’s Mercedes sedan pull out at seven-twenty. Good enough. I made my move through the backyards, quick and flitty, now that it was light. Found the Subaru where I’d left it, got in. I made a couple of quick passes before I pulled up just past the driveway and reversed my way into the garage.

He was standing in the open door, one hand on the jamb. I couldn’t see that close, but I knew his knuckles would be white.

I got out just as he sent the garage door down. I went behind the Subaru and came toward him.

“Where’s—?”

“I’ve got what you really want,” I told him, holding up the leather-bound notebook Rosebud had given me.

He went into shock. More than enough time for me to get the Browning pointed at him. That worked better than smelling salts.

“No!” he shouted. “I can—”

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “This is just in case you’ve got any friends with you.”

“I told you. I’m alone.”

“Let’s go into your office.”

He turned and started up the stairs, glancing back over his shoulder. Not at the pistol, at the notebook. I could have walked him through the house at gunpoint, made sure he really was alone. But the risk was too great that I’d get jumped from behind if I did that. I’d rather keep the high ground, let them come through Kevin if they wanted me.

“Sit down,” I told him, pointing to a chair with its back to one side of the door. I took a seat, too, facing the opening.

“Look, whatever you—”

“I’ll tell you what I want. And it’ll be very simple for you, Kevin. A man like you, you already made all your choices. A long time ago.”

He looked down at the floor. “How did you . . . ?”

“You weren’t careful about the money, Kevin. You figured you were working for Uncle Sam, who was going to bother you about unreported income, right?”

“They said—”

“They’ll say anything, Kevin. You should know that, better than most.”

“But they promised—”

“Sure. Your daughter went missing. And not for any of the usual reasons. You wanted her back. Bad. You wouldn’t have come to a man like me if you much cared how it got done, either. But I misjudged you, Kevin. I thought it was all about . . . something else.”

“I don’t—”

“I thought you’d been fucking your own daughter, Kevin. And that Daisy was next.”

He didn’t get angry. “I’d never do that,” he said, his voice as hollow as his eyes. “I love Buddy. She knows I love her. I never really had a . . . friend. That’s why . . . I mean, she was my buddy. I would never violate her. She knows that.”

“You violated her trust. You raised her in your image, not in your truth. So your own daughter thinks you’re a traitor.”

“No! I’m not. I had no—”

“You had choices, Kevin. You were in the underground. I don’t know what went on back then, but I’m guessing you did something pretty heavy. And that the G-men popped you for it.”

“I was with the—”

“I don’t care,” I told him, truthfully. “Maybe you set a bomb to make a statement and it made jelly out of some janitor. Maybe you stood watch outside a bank while a cop got gunned down. Maybe you smuggled a pistol into a prison and people got killed. Maybe . . . What difference does it make? They popped you, and you rolled over on your—what is it that you called them then?—comrades? What’s the big deal, anyway? Pretty standard for you people. Didn’t Timothy Leary turn in the same people who busted him out of prison?”

“It was a long time ago. You don’t understand. That was before Buddy was even—”

“A long time ago, sure. And you were scared. I can understand that. You weren’t raised to be a criminal. Turning informant, I’ll bet they even convinced you it was the right thing to do.”

“It was.”

“Yeah. I know. Only, after a while, you got to like it, didn’t you?”

“No!”

“Sure you did, Kevin. You’ve been ‘underground’ for almost thirty years. Your old network, they can count on you. And you could count on them to spread the word. You were smooth, I give you that. At first, I thought I could just match up the money with the news of one of them getting arrested all out of the blue. You know, one of them that had been underground themselves for all these years. Married. Kids, job, community. A new life. And then it all explodes. Or, sometimes, for no obvious reason, they just ‘decide’ to come in out of the cold. As if they didn’t know the feds were breathing down their necks. But your checkbook didn’t prove that one out.

“That’s when I snapped to it. You’re weren’t getting rewards for ratting out your old friends, Kevin. You probably fingered all of them a long time ago. No, you were on the payroll. Bringing in new clients all the time. Word-of-mouth is the best advertising of all. That’s why all the left-wing stuff; that’s why you keep up the image. All camouflage. You would have been fine, except that your daughter, she believed it all. She bought your line. Because she loved you. Her daddy could do no wrong.”

“Why are you—?”

“You got what you raised, you pathetic motherfucker. A beautiful, intelligent, caring young woman. All she wants to do is change the world, make it a better place. The way her daddy took such risks to do. You told her all your old war stories, didn’t you?”

“I . . .”

“Yeah. Well, you did a good job. Such a good job that, when she found out what you were doing, you know what she did?”

“What?” he said, voice breaking.

“She went to an expert in Multiple Personality Disorder. A real expert, you understand. Someone who’d been there herself. Because, the way that pure-hearted daughter of yours had it figured, her father could never be a traitor. It had to be that you were a multiple. Like an evil twin, you know?”

“Maybe I . . . I mean, part of me always—”

“Save it. Christ, you’re a slimy maggot, aren’t you? Right to the end.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Me? Nothing. It’s what you’re going to do, Kevin.”

“I don’t under—”

“Shut up. I’ll tell you when to talk. How much of this does your wife know?”

“Mo was . . . there with us. At the beginning.”

“Yeah. That’s the way it scanned to me, too. Good. Makes it easier. What you’re going to do is this, Kevin: you’re going to sign some papers that make Rosebud an emancipated minor.”

“A . . . what?”

“And some more papers,” I went on, “that give custody of Daisy to Dr. Dryslan and his wife.”

“Daisy?! What are you—?”

“It won’t matter to you, Kevin. You’re never going to see either of them again. Because I’m going to give you something you never gave the poor bastards who trusted you all these years. A head start.”

“Please. Can’t you under—?”

“Kevin, it all happens. And right now. You’re going to sign these papers,” I said, taking them out of my inside pocket. “They’re all back-dated. Notarized. And tonight, while you’re packing, you can tell your wife she signed them, too. Forging her signature wasn’t much work,” I said. Thinking, even as I spoke, about how much I had counted on Gem for all this.

“Packing . . . ?”

“You can take all your money. Even your car, if you’re fool enough. But not the house—you’re signing that over to Rosebud, so she can sell it and have enough to take care of Daisy until they’re both out of school. You can tell your handlers that now it’s time to see if the Witness Protection Program really works. Or you can try the underground for real; it’s up to you. And, Kevin . . .”

“I’ve still got friends in the—” he muttered.

“They were never your friends,” I cut him off. “You think, because they were willing to put a couple of men in the street looking for your daughter, they were with you? Don’t make it worse. You send your tame G-men after me, somebody may get dead. Might be them. Might be me. But you do that, no matter how it comes out, you are for damn sure dead. Play it wrong now, and every single man, woman, and child you’ve fucked with your games all these years will know the truth. It’s all ready to go. Newspaper ads, the Internet, fax chains, word-of-mouth . . . everything. You’ll be hunted down the same way they were . . . only the hunters won’t be carrying badges. You wouldn’t even be safe in prison.

“But do it right, you can just disappear. People will wonder, but so what? Besides, your wife will want it this way. You’ll still have a nice, luxurious life.”

“You don’t know her. You can’t judge—”

“If you’re still here tomorrow night, Kevin, it won’t be me doing the judging.”

“Can you tell Buddy . . . ?”

“What?” I asked him, despite myself.

“Tell her I always loved her,” he said, sobbing, trying to manage his own pain the same way he’d manufactured it. “Tell her I understand what she did. Tell her I’m proud of her. Tell her to take care of Daisy. Tell her she did the right thing.”

“She still loves you, Kevin. She’d rather you were on the run than dead.”

“I’m . . .”

“Kevin, listen good. Me, I don’t care if you live or die. I think you know that. But I know a checkout promise when I hear one. Don’t do it. If you go to ground—and you sure know how to do that—you’ll still be able to see Buddy. Not a visit, but you can . . . watch from afar, you understand? Watch over your kid. You do that, I promise I’ll tell her what you said. Fair enough?”

“Yes,” he said, sniffling.

“Here’s your blood diary,” I said, tossing it at him. “And, yeah, I’ve got a few copies. You keep your deal, and no one will ever see them. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Kevin, this is simple. Yes or no. Live or die. Tomorrow night, you be fucking gone.”

It took four days for me to make sure Kevin had done it all. That he was really gone for good.

Twenty-four hours after that, so was I.