Vespers

XI

In this church, here in this hallowed place, Our ther who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, searching now behind a life-sized piaster statue of the Virgin Mary holding the crucified Christ in her arms, here in this place, on his hands and knees but not praying, lifting altar cloths instead and looking under them, groping along stone walls inch by inch, inspecting niches in which there were statues of saints he did not recognize or could not remember, Carella was transported back to a time when a young boy who looked somewhat like the man he'd grown into, sat in a church not too far away from this one . the family had not yet moved uptown to Riverhead -- sat Sunday after Sunday listening to the drone of ritual, barely able to keep his eyes open.

Sunday after Sunday.

He was inside a church again today, seeking not salvation but dope.

Because Lieutenant Byrnes had told him to find that dope. Because if there was dope inside the church, then the black girl was truth about her brother stashing it there and Hennessy was telling the truth about so calling up and wanting it back, and the existed that Corrente or somebody else had back for it sometime before this afternoon. that was the case, then maybe the somel who'd come looking for it had run into the instead., And such a chance encounter called i great many possibilities, least of which violence. Where there was dope, the [ murder always existed. So find the goddamn and at least maybe you had your goddamn Sunday after Sunday.

Sundays with sunshine blazing through the high windows on either side of the illuminating stained glass that had been a local artisan here in this Italian section of the (which was no Firenze, that was certain), dust climbing to the ceiling while from the organ loft fat notes floated out onto the scintillated air, boy with slanting eyes and unruly hair listened to priest and wondered what it was all about.

On the day of his first holy communion was ten or eleven, somewhere in there a life was so alien to him now that he could no remember the exact dates of the most events in a young Catholic's life his slicked down the cowlick at the back of his head, walked to the church with her and his father and Uncle Lou, all so long ago.

Carella he was called Stevie back then, a name :'d always sort of liked until a girl a few years later Lbbed him Stevie-Weevie in an attempt to make feel childish; he was twelve and she was a vast difference at that age, he'd gone in tears. But on the day of his first holy Stevie Carella accepted the wafer on his allowed it to melt there, careful not to bite it ..cause this was the flesh and the blood of Jesus and the wafer would bleed in his mouth, blood would flow in his mouth, or so he'd given to understand by one of the nuns who'd taught him his catechism every Monday and ay afternoons after school.

He'd felt a deep and reverent attachment to God that day. He did not know exactly what it was he believed, it was all mumbo-jumbo of a sort to him, but he knew that he felt an inner glow when that wafer dissolved in his mouth, and he knelt there at the altar railing with his head bent and his cowlick plastered down, and he felt somehow enriched by what had happened this day, so very long ago.

Enriched. And somehow joyous. He'd gone to his first confession the day before, nothing to confess at that age, he truly was without sin, an innocent... Well... I lied, Father, and I ate meat on Friday, and I talked back to my mother. Sins. A boy's sins. lorgiven, absolved with a handful of Hail Marys, a couple of Our Fathers, and an Act again, the lamb again, joyous in the presence, on the following day, the Sunday of his communion. ' A year or so later, two years, so remember now, he was confirmed in that church, wearing the same blue suit, which beginning to outgrow, red ann ribbon on his his Uncle Lou looking tall and handsome in suit that matched his own, neatly mustache, his father gave him a gold signet rin his new initial on it, L for Louis, in honor godfather, SLC for Stephen Louis Carella, am a man. Sunday after Sunday in that then in the smaller church in Riverhead, three from the house his parents were renting, his own bedroom, he was a man now, he no shared bedroom with his sister Angela.

called him Stevie anymore. He was Steve Sunday after Sunday.

Rainy Sundays in the new church, slithering down the windows, plain glass Riverhead, he missed the stained glass they'd Isola, the priest's sonorous voice floating out the heads of the worshippers, the scent of wafting from thuribles, a lightning flash, the thunder, the scent of something else now, or real, the perfume of young girls, its scent headier than the incense, he was beginning to mind wandered, he thought of panties when he ,uld have been thinking of God.

Years later, on the Saturday before Easter he st have been fifteen or sixteen, he could hardly tuber anymore he was infused with the same spiritual fervor he'd felt on that day of his first , and he'd got on his bicycle, a black and ite Schwinn with a battery-powered horn, and pedaled over to the church, and locked the bike the wrought-iron fence outside... His father used to tell stories about the days when didn't even have to lock your front door, but that when there were chariots in the streets...

i ... and he took off his hat... He used to wear this shabby blue baseball cap that seen better days, but it was the good luck hat worn when he pitched a no-hitter... and he went into the church and dipped his into the font of holy water and made the sign of cross, and then sat down and waited his turn to enter the confession box. And he knelt on the padded kneeling bar, and the little door slid open and he could vaguely see the priest's face behind the screen partition, and he crossed himself and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, this is six months since rny last confession.”

There was a silence behind the screen.

Carella waited.

And then the priest said, "And you pick the busiest time of the year to come?”

Carella confessed his sins. He had done bad things that had kept him away from the for six months because he'd been afraid of those things to a priest, evil things like Irish girl named Marge Gannon, and mastur little.., well, a lot.., and saying Fuck you, dirty bastard. The priest told him what he had as penance, and Carella said, "Thank you, and left the confession box, and was starting the center aisle toward the altar, fully say the penance so that tomorrow he could communion and feel the same glow he'd first time, when all at once he stopped dead middle of the aisle, and he thought What mean, the busiest time of the year? Does busiest times of the year? I was feeling good came in here, I wanted to be near God! So hell do you mean he actually thought those what the hell, here in the church, standing middle of the aisle halfway to the altar hell do you mean, the busiest time of the year?

And he turned his back to the altar, and the aisle, and out of the church, and he lucky baseball cap down on his head, unchained his bike, and rode away from the without looking back at it. He had not been “

church again until his sister's wedding eleven ago.

He was in one today.

Looking for dope.

Father Michael had searched the church and undoubtedly he'd known its nooks crannies more completely than any outsider ld have. And Carella had searched it again with and Bobby Corrente and his friends had done ther more reckless search,, and no one had come with the hundred vials of crack. So maybe the wasn't here, after all, maybe all the versions of Rashomon were false. And even if the crack was here, what were we talking about? Five hundred .liars? That was the street value of the crack Nathan Hooper allegedly had stashed inside St.

Catherine's. A lousy five hundred dollars. Was that enough to kill someone for? In this city, yes. In this city five hundred pistachio nuts was enough to kill someone for. And if someone had come to this church to retrieve that dope... And had been intercepted by Father Michael...

Perhaps challenged by him...

Yes, it was possible. The lieutenant was right.

Where there was dope, there was often murder.

Sighing heavily, he started the search one more time.

From the top.

Playing his own Rashomon tune.

Imagining himself as Nathan Hooper entering this church on Easter Sunday with the pack in full cry behind him.

Through the massive center doors. Urn of holy Water on the left.

Stainless steel, sitting on a black wrought-iron stand. Little upright brass fastened to the top of its lid. Little brass spigot container below. He pressed the button on the A drop of water fell onto the fingers of his hand. He could remember back to a time when fonts of holy water in a church were filled to every day of the week. Now, they were empty on Sundays. The urn was simpler. It held... three gallons of water? You didn't have to around the church filling all those little basins time.

To the right of the entrance doors was containing religious reading matter. New: rifled National Catholic Register and Our Visitor and Catholic Twin Circles. Pamphlets titles like Serving God's People with a Be, Your Will and Students Pursue the Infinite Wi. of God and Proclamation: Aids for Lessons of the Church Year, this particular subtitled Lent. The rack was fashioned of wood troughlike partitions holding the printed had felt inside those troughs, searching newspapers, when he'd gone through the with Hawes. He did it again now. Nothing.

The offerings box stood alongside the rack; one was expected to make donations reading material. There were twenty-two of boxes scattered throughout the chur6h; he counted them on his earlier search. Each resembled nothing so much as a black iron a black iron tower growing out of it. The box as a foot square, with a heavy padlock fastened to front, where the box opened. The tower sprang the center of the box, rising to about Carella's buckle. It was a three-inch-square chute with a in the top of it. The slit was perhaps three inches and half an inch wide. Big enough to accept a wadded bill.

Or a vial of crack.

But wouldn't Father Michael have emptied all the boxes in the church since Easter Sunday? And even if Hooper had dropped a dozen vials here and there in offerings boxes around the church...

But this would have taken time.

He was being chased by an angry mob.

But, hold it. Rashomon, okay?

He comes running into the church, carrying his plastic bag with his precious hundred vials in it. The vials are identical to the ones perfume samples come in. In fact, most crack dealers get their vials from wholesale specialty houses. The sale of these tiny containers has skyrocketed since crack came into vogue. If you checked the books of these houses, you'd think half the population of this city had Suddenly gone into the perfume business. Little perfume tubes containing the crack crystals, most of them white, some of them with a yellowish tint, little clear crystals looking as if they've been chipped from a larger rock, it is sometimes called rock because of its appearance. White or yellow, when you smoke the shit, when you melt it and vapors, it produces an immediate high that the top of your head off. So he's carrying his vials of crack in a small plastic bag... They'd have fit in a small bag.

They're what, those vials? An inch long? of an inch in diameter? Little plastic cap top of the vial, well, just like the perfume vials, those are what these deadly little con are. So yes, they were small enough to fit insi smallest of the commercial plastic bags, one of sandwich-sized things and yes, practically the thing he'd have seen when he came running church would have been the offerings box black conning tower. It wouldn't have taken; more than a few minutes to dump those vials slot on top of the tower, turn over the bag of funnel them in, using the edge of his free a shovel, it was possible. Two, three minutes at If he had two, three minutes. With all of roaring up behind him?

But suppose he'd been too frightened to there in the entrance narthex, suppose he'd run the church instead... Carella stepped through the doors into the ... and was suddenly confronted with a feast of offerings boxes. There were shrines right and to his left... Dedicated to the Reverend... there were more statues of saints, were marble altars with goldleaf screens above were standing racks holding votive candles and were racks fastened to the wall and holding yet votive candles, and everywhere the candies there was an offerings box. Nathan Hooper to have seen what Carella was seeing now.

everywhere. Candles and flowers. The ons of the cross starting on the north wall of the to the right of the altar... Jesus is condemned , death... Jesus is made to bear His cross... Jesus is to the cross ..

Carella walking up the side aisle now... a stained glass window with an air-conditioner it.

He passed his fingers over the evaporating fins.

ut an inch of space between each fin. Had oper dropped his vials into one of the ditioners set under windows everywhere the church? But he was being chased! He have time to look, to find, to... More candles against the wall.

And another offerings box.

Maybe Farnes had been right about the good priest's obsession with the tithe.

Jesus falls the First time under His cross... And more candles.

And an offerings box.

And a shrine with a statue of Jesus with his open revealed in his chest, radiating gold-leaf rays, fresh flowers under the statue. And votive candles.

an offerings box.

Jesus meets His afflicted Mother... A candle rack fastened to the stone wall metal lip at its topmost edge, forming a angle with the wall. He felt behind the lip.

Double rows of candles flickering.

Where? he thought.

There were niches all over the church, little insets in the stone, all of them statues.

He felt behind each statue for the third fingers widespread, searching.

Nothing.

Niches everywhere.

He passed a font designed for bearing holy little steel basin sitting in a stone cavity. He empty basin. It fit the cavity exactly, there was millimeter of an inch to spare. No place to hide here, and besides it would have contained Easter Sunday, Hooper was being wouldn't have had time to... Hey.

Hey, wait a minute.

Wait a holy goddamn minute!

He came running up the righthand side church, passing the stations of the cross in order... Jesus is placed in the sepulchre... running past the arched doorway that led sacristy and the rectory beyond...

Jesus is taken down from the cross... passed another little shrine with a statue of yet ther saint, flowers at his feet... Jesus dies on the cross... opened the center inner doors, and stepped into entrance lobby, and turned instantly to his right.

Because if the offerings box with its black tower one of the first things Hooper had seen ;diately upon entering the church, then the next he'd have seen, had to have seen, was the urn of holy water.

Stainless steel, sitting on a black wrought-iron stand. Little upright brass cross fastened to the top of its lid. Little brass spigot on the container below. He did not know how often this um was refilled. But it looked too heavy to be carded to a water tap, and he was willing to bet it was regularly filled right here on the spot. Which, if true, meant that someone would simply lift the lid and pour water into the urn. He took off his jacket, unbuttoned the right-hand sleeve of his shirt, shoved the sleeve up to his elbow, and with his left hand, reached out for the brass cross fastened to the um's lid. Virtually holding his breath, he lifted the lid and reached into the water with his free hand.

Felt around. And... There.

He lifted the plastic bag dripping out of the water.

It was sealed with one of those little yellow plastic ties.

He loosened it.

Kneeling, he shook the contents of the bag onto the stone floor. The bag wasn't waterproof, the first thing that spilled out onto the floor' small amount of water. The vials came s next. He could tell at once that water had some of them as well, partially dissolving the crystals, melting others entirely. But, remained looked a hell of a lot like crack.

It occurred to him that if the urn had been since Easter Sunday... And if Father Michael had blessed the between then and the time of his death... Then the crack was holy, too.

Which, in a way, in America today, it was.

It began raining again later that evening, Willis was heading crosstown to a shop Castillo de Palacios. He was going there nobody at 1147 Hillsdale knew anyone Carlos Ortega. This was the address Orte given his Parole Board when he was released prison in October of last year. If there was address, the Department of Corrections was of it. Trying to find a Carlos Ortega in a city locked up eighty-three of them in the last little was akin to finding a pork roast in the state of El Castillo de Palacios would have ungrammatical in Spanish if the Palacios been a person's name, which in this case it be. Palacio meant "palace" in Spanish, and lacios meant "palaces" and when you had a plural un, the article and noun were supposed to unlike English where everything was so put together. El Castillo de los Palacios have been the proper Spanish for "The Castle the Palaces," but since Francisco Palacios was a El Castillo de Palacios was, in fact, correct though it translated as "Palacios's Castle," a on words however you sliced it, English or anish.

Francisco Palacios was a good-looking man with .,an-living habits (now that he'd served three Istate on a burglary rap) who owned and operated pleasant little store that sold medicinal herbs, books, religious statues, numbers books, tarot cards, and the like. His silent partners were named Gaucho Palacios and Cowboy Palacios, and they ran a store behind the other store, and this one offered for such medically approved "marital aids" as dildos, French ticklers, open crotch panties (bragas sin entrepierna), plastic vibrators (eight-inch and ten-inch in the white, twelve-inch in the black) leather executioner's masks, chastity belts, whips With leather thongs, leather anklets studded with chrome, penis extenders, aphrodisiacs, inflatable life-sized female dolls, condoms in every color of the rainbow including puce, books on how to hypnotize and otherwise overcome reluctant women, ben-wa balls in both plastic and gold plate, and a highly popular mechanical device guaranteed to satisfaction and imaginatively called Suc-u-i Selling these things in this city was not ille Gaucho and the Cowboy were breaking This was not why they ran their store store owned and operated by Francisco. did so out of a sense of responsibility to the Rican community of which they were a did not, for example, want a little old lady in shawl to wander into their backstore shop dead away at the sight of playing cards men, women, police dogs and midgets in marital-aid positions, fifty-four if you counte jokers. Both the Gaucho and the Cowbo' community pride to match that of Francisco Francisco, the Gaucho, and the Cowboy fact, all one and the same person, and they collectively a police informer.

Naturally, the police had something on in any one of his incarnations; nobody hardly anybody becomes a snitch merely he believes he will be performing a service while simultaneously enjoying a romantic adventure.

What they had on Palacios a small tax-fraud violation that would have sent l to a federal prison for a good many years had chosen to exercise their option to arrest Palacios cheerfully accepted the grip the police over him, and tried to lead an exemplary life. now and then he did a little something illegal hot CD players along with his dildos and ,-dads he figured there wasn't much more he uld lose. With a federal rap hanging over his head, else seemed minor.

Willis went to him not because he was a better than Fats Donner ...

actually Donner had a :ht edge when it came to providing quality information ... but only because over the years penchant for young girls had become more more unbearable; being in the same room with was like inhaling a mix of baby powder and spermicidal gel. The Cowboy was actually pleasant to be with. Moreover, Carlos Ortega was of Hispanic origin, and so was the Cowboy, whose shop was in a section of the Eight-Seven known as El Infierno, which until the recent influx of Jamaicans, Koreans and Vietnamese had been almost exclusively Puerto Rican.

He was combing his hair when Willis, soaking wet after a two-block run from the bus stop, came into the back of the shop. High pompadour, the way kids used to wear it back in the Fifties. Dark brown eyes. Matinee idol teeth. It was rumored in The Inferno that Palacios had three wives, which was also against the law, but they already had him on the tax fraud. One of the wives was supposed to have been a movie star in Cuba before Castro took over.

That had to put her in her fifties or sixties, Willis guessed. He got straight to the point.

"Carlos Ortega," he said.

"Gimme a break," Palacios said. "You in here with Spanish names that all sound "Forty-two years old, ugly as homemade "What'd he do?”

"Nothing that we know of right now, not where he's supposed to be.”

"Where's that?”

“1147 Hillsdale.”

“Tough neighborhood," Palacios said, sort of comical in that he lived in anel that had racked up three dozen corpses beginning of the year.

"He was busted on a drug charge," Willis "Did good time, got paroled in October. He's very ugly, Cowboy, that might be where you "If I had a nickel for everybody's ugly city...”

"Big bald guy, knife scar over his n partially closing. “

“Popeye Ortega," Palacios said.

Which is the way it went sometimes.

The one thing Palacios forgot to tell him was was a crack house.

"Here's where you'll find him," he said, and him an address and an apartment number. If had known where he was going, he "might realized that the twelve-year-old kid standi outside the building was a lookout.

As it was ast him as innocent as the day is long, which maybe why the kid didn't challenge him. Or be it was because he didn't look at all like a cop.

Five-eight, slender and slight, wearing a sports shirt ;n at the throat, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, blue slacks, and scuffed loafers, he could have been anyone who lived here in a housing development where blacks, whites, Hispanics and Asians lived side by side in a volatile mix. The twelve-year-old scarcely gave him a passing glance.

Still all unaware, Willis went into the lobby and took the elevator up to the third floor. Apartment 37, Palacios had told him. Ask for Popeye.

A kid of about sixteen or seventeen was lounging against the wall opposite the elevator doors. The moment Willis stepped out into the third floor corridor, he said, "You looking for something?" Big husky white kid wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The shirt had the call letters of a rock radio station on it. You looking for something? And all at once, the twelve-year-old downstairs registered and Willis realized that the Cowboy had sent him to a crack house.

"I'm supposed to meet Popeye Ortega," he said.

The kid nodded.

"You know the apartment number?”

"Yes," Willis said. "Thirty-seven.”

"End of the hall," the kid said, and stepped out of his way.

He did not want to go in here as a cop. If he flashed the tin, the roof would come down around his ears. But passing the scrutiny of a twelv.

outside and a sixteen-year-old here in the was not quite the same thing as slipping through enemy lines. He thought at once should split, put the joint under surveillance, back another time with a hit team. But he Popeye Ortega. i He went to the door of apartment 37, it.

A peephole opened.

"I'm supposed to meet Popeye Ortega," he If it worked once, he figured it might work It did. The door opened. The man standin was a big, good-looking black man who a job playing the sidekick cop on a police show. first thing he said was, "Have I seen you before?”

"No," Willis said.

"I didn't think so.”

“Popeye told me to meet him here.”

"He's upstairs. What can I get you?”

"Nothing right now," Willis said.

The man-looked at him.

I'll just go talk to him," Willis said, and past him into the apartment.

Kitchen on the Dead ahead, in what would have been the room, three young men sat a table. One. black, white, one Hispanic. Crack pipes on the Butane torch. Butane fuel. Crack vials. cream-colored rocks in a vial, cost you five and in L.A., fifteen in D.C., the nation's capital. rocks.

Good for an instant high that lasted ut thirty minutes. Then you were back in the again till your next hit.

On the Coast, they called it rock. In D.C., they it Piece of the Mountain. In this city, there were a dozen different names for it. You made the ;tuff in your own kitchen. You mixed cocaine der in a pot with baking soda and you stirred it till you had a thick paste. Then you cooked the paste on your stove and you let it dry out until it resembled a round bar of soap. You broke it into chips. Another name for it. Chip.

If you were a roller, you packaged it and sold it under you own brand name. If you used made from coke powder that had already been cut with some deadly shit like ephedrine or amphetamine, you could end up in the morgue.

Users like to know what there were smoking. They looked for brand names they could count on. Lucky Eleven. Or Mister J. Or Royal Flush. Or Paradise. Or Tease Me.

Actually, you didn't smoke the stuff, you inhaled it.

Although you could crunch up the rocks, and sprinkle them inside a marijuana cigarette. You called this "whoolie," the pot laced with crack, and it was one way you could actually smoke the product.

But you didn't normally burn it the way you burned tobacco or pot.

Normally, you melted it.

The three young men at the table were go.

They were each holding a glass pipe. This resemble a real pipe the way a glass sl resembled a real slipper. The "pipe" was fasl of a clear glass bowl with two glass tubes from it on opposite sides at right angles to each one vertical, one horizontal. It looked more laboratory instrument than a smoking You expected to see it over a Bunsen burner, some mad scientist's evil brew boiling in bowl was about the size of a tennis ball, and it hole in it through which water could be poured.

glass tube was about five inches long, diameter of half an inch or so.

You wedged rocks each rock weighed about a milligrams into the top of the vertical glass which after very few uses became blackened, you put the horizontal glass tube in your mouth, you picked up the butane torch... "Beam me up, Scotty," one of the young said.

Intent on what they were doing now.

flame into the tube. The rocks beginning to Sucking the vapors through the water in the pipe. Up through the other glass tube, lips around it, inhale the vapors, a five-second from the lungs to the brain, and whammo!

The equivalent of an orgasm, most addicts said.

Rapture.

Euphoria.

In laboratory tests, rats ignored electric shocks to at their cocaine doses, chose cocaine over food, se it over sex, allowed it to dictate the very course their lives. By the end of a month, nine out of ten them were dead.

Willis watched the young men sucking up death.

The crack house was in actuality three separate ;nts on the second, third and fourth floors of building. The floor and ceiling of the third-floor :nt had been broken through and ladders set to allow access to the second floor below and the floor above. There were entrance doors on floor, of course, but anyone wanting to come in and smoke away the time had to come in on the third floor, where he paid his money for his vial and his pipe. The three-level arrangement also served a more practical purpose. In the event of a raid, the second and fourth floors could be emptied in a flash while the cops milled about on the entrance floor of the dope sandwich.

He found Popeye Ortega on the fourth floor.

He was sitting at a table in the far corner of the second bedroom, looking through a rain-lashed window, at least a dozen empty vials of crack spread on the table top before him. Willis did not know how long he'd been here. He looked as if he had not changed his clothes or shaved in days, and he Smelled of the stench of his own urine. He kept staring through the window at the rain outside, as if viewing somewhere in the streaked greyness and images mere mortals could not see.

"Ortega?" Willis said.

"Scotty got dee chip, man," he said.

He was, in truth, as ugly as Marilyn had des him, as ugly as his picture and/or his the Buenos Aires documents and the I.S.

But there was something missing here.

Willis stepped out of the room, opened in the hallway, and allowed the cool, clean fresh rain to sweep into the apartment. He wait until Ortega came down from his high, he would question him. But he already certain that the man sitting in there, staring window and stinking of his own piss, could the same man who was threatening What was missing in this man was the Marilyn had described. The huge ugly man in had long ago lost all sense of direction, drive. Crack had stolen his life force. He was effect, already dead.

Willis took a cigarette from the package in pocket, lighted it, and stood by the window on it, looking out at the rain, wondering how would be before Ortega surfaced. He could voices from downstairs welling up in the hole had been cut in the ceiling. The good-loking man greeting a customer. Willis figured that he was here, and just so it shouldn't be a total he might as well ruffle a few feathers. He went ladder again to the third floor. He walked past the young men sitting at the table. They had been by a fourth man, who was at that very moment up. This has to be China in the 1800s, Willis thought. This has to be a nation of drug addicts. This has to be the disgrace of the planet. This has to be an America that makes you ashamed.

The good-looking black man was sitting at a table in the kitchen.

Willis walked in with his gun in one hand and his shield in the other.

"What's this?" the black man said. "What do you think it is?" Willis asked.

"Hey, come on, man.”

"Meaning what?”

"Meaning you know.”

"No, I don't know. Tell me.”

"Come on, man.”

Meaning, of course, that the fix was in. As simple as that. Hey, come on, man, this has been taken care of, huh? Go talk to your people, man, they tell you let it slide, huh, man? With the numbers involved in the drug trade, there would always be somebody letting it slide, somebody looking the other way.

"What's your name?" Willis asked.

"Come on, man.”

"What's your fucking name?”

"Warren Jackson.”

"Mind if I use your phone, Warren?”

"You steppin' in deep shit, man.”

"Wait'll you see what you're steppin' in," said, and yanked the phone from the wall dialed the precinct number. Charlie-car showed five minutes. The driver looked surprised. So man tiding shotgun. Both of them knew Willi..

"Gee, Hal," one of them said, "when did thi spring up?”

"Surprises every day of the week," Willis Warren Jackson was scowling at both Charlie-car cops. Willis figured they were both the deal. Partners.

Helping Young America its fucking brains out.

"More detectives on the way " he conversationally.

"Good," the shotgun cop said.

"You know Detective Meyer? He's on the "Oh, sure," the driver said.

"Meyer Meyer. bald guy, right?”

"Right. He's got young kids.”

Both cops looked at him.

"He has a thing about crack," Willis said, pleasantly.

So far Warren Jackson wasn't saying He was possibly waiting for somebody to tell to fuck off. But nobody was doing it. Not yet. young crack addicts sitting around the table something was going on, but they were so far out! it, so high up on the third moon of the planet the galaxy Romitar that they figured maybe guys in blue uniforms were the palace standing there with the big black eunuch and the short curly-haired jester, all of them guarding the Emperor Pleth's harem, this was a good movie.

"Where's your sergeant?" Warren said at last.

This was Charlie Sector, the Patrol Sergeant's name was Mickey Harrigan, a big redheaded red-faced hairbag who'd been on the force since Hector was a pup. It was entirely possible that Harrigan was in on it, too.

Maybe every cop in the sector was in on it, including the CPEP cops on the beat.

"Call your fuckin' sergeant," Warren said, "tell him. we got a misunderstandin' here.”

The Charlie-car cops looked at each other. They were trying to figure what the protocol was here.

They knew their Patrol Sergeant outranked Willis, but if it came to a matter for Internal Affairs, rank didn't mean a goddamn thing. Unless Willis himself was in on the deal. In which case... "Sure, call him,” Willis said.

They figured he wasn't in on the deal.

"Go ahead," Willis said.

The shotgun cop's name was Larry Fitzhenry. He raised Harrigan on the walkie-talkie and asked him could he please, Sarge, stop by this apartment here on Ainsley and Fifth, apartment 37, Sarge, where there seems to be some sort of misunderstanding here? Harrigan said he'd be right over. His voice sounded noncommital. Over the years, Willis had learned that you should never trust anyone Mickey unless his last name was Mouse.

Meyer got there before Harrigan did.

He did not like what he saw. Willis took him and told him he thought the proprietor was blow the whistle. He figured some uniforms about to hit the fan, at least one of them dec with a gold shield. Meyer looked even annoyed. The Charlie-car cops looked nervous. Warren Jackson was getting angrier over the untrustworthiness of the department.

When Harrigan showed up, he said, this ? What is this ?" Warren Jackson told him to get his men in this wasn't what three grand a week was buy.

Harrigan told the detectives he didn't know the fuck Jackson was talking about.

Meyer said, "You're full of shit, Mickey.”

Willis went upstairs to talk to Ortega.

Shad Russell refused to discuss it on the When they met later that night, at a on The Stem, he told her why.

"It occurs to me that perhaps you're setting up," he said.

This was already nine o'clock. The rush had peaked, but neighborhood people were ;gling in and taking seats at tables near the where they could watch the springtime rain the sidewalk outside. There were still things this city that were nice.

"You still think I'm a cop, huh?" she said.

"Or working for the cops, yes," he said.

"Setting you up for what?”

"First for dealing guns and next for dealing dope.”

"Don't be ridiculous," she said.

"Maybe I am being ridiculous," he said, and shrugged. "But maybe I'm not.”

"I thought you called Houston.'“

"I did.”

"I thought you talked to Sam Seward, how could I be a cop?”

"Maybe he's in their pocket, too, the Houston cops. And maybe they got you sewed up here, the cops here. All I know is first you come around looking to buy a gun, and next thing I know you've got five hundred K, and you wanna buy dope. To me, that sounds like a setup.”

"Well, it isn't.”

"For all I know you're wired. For all I know, you got a mike hung between your knockers. I set up a drug buy for you, I end up in a holding cell.”

"I'm not wired.”

"Prove it.”

"How?”

"Strip," he said.

She looked at him.

She sighed heavily.

"So we're back to that again, huh?" she "No, we're not back to that again," mimicking her, "get your fuckin' mind out gutter. I call up this lady friend of mine, we place, you strip for her, not me. She tells me clean, we talk.”

"Did you find a deal for me?”

“No strippee, no talkee," he said.

"I cashed that check today," she said.

Shad looked at her and said nothing.

"I've got five hundred thousand in hundre bills.”

Still he said nothing.

"Come on, don't be a jackass," she said.

"Lady," he said, and stood up, "it was meeting you.”

"Sit down," she said.

"My friend lives on Darrow," he said. "Nei old Franklin Trust building.

Yes or no?-”

Marilyn was shaking her head in amazement; "Yes or no?" Shad said.

Russell's lady friend was a hooker, for sure, but apartment was tidy and well-furnished, and guessed she worked solo. Her name or it least name by which she introduced herself Joanne. This was a common hooker name.

Like Tracy or Julie or Deborah. She looked to be in her d-thirties, but Marilyn guessed she was at least a decade younger. She told Marilyn she could undress in the bathroom.

The bathroom was spotlessly clean. Through force of habit, Marilyn checked out the medicine cabinet and found several bottles of mouthwash, three boxes of condoms, and a bottle of Johnson's Baby Oil. She took off her clothes and folded them neatly on the small wooden table opposite the sink.

There were two robes hanging on the back of the door. Marilyn put on one of them. Silk. The aroma of perfume clinging to it. Something she recognized but could not for the life of her name. Not a cheap scent.

She fastened the sash at her waist and came out into the bedroom wearing only the robe and her own high-heeled pumps.

Joanne looked at the robe and said, "Make yourself at home, why don't you?”

"Sorry, I thought...”

"You mind taking it off, please?”

Shad was sitting on the edge of the bed.

Marilyn looked at him.

"This is a search," Joanne said, "take off the fuckin' robe.”

Shad got up, and went into the other room.

Marilyn took off the robe. Joanne looked her up and .down.

"Nice," she said.

"Thanks.”

"Your own?”

"Yes.”

“Nice," she said again. "Turn around." turned.

"Nice," Joanne said again. "You gay?”

"No.”

"Bi?”

"No.”

"That's a shame. Take off the shoes, Marilyn slipped out of the pumps.

Joanne them up, felt inside each of them, tested each see if she could slide it away from the body shoe, and then handed the shoes back.

I'll check your clothes," she said, and went the bathroom.

Marilyn put the robe on again, and sat on the of the bed, her legs crossed. She desperately a cigarette. In the bathroom, Joanne picked up article of clothing the skirt, the blouse, the bra,. slip, the pantyhose and patted them down. opened Marilyn's handbag, then, and whistled she found the .38.

"Shad sold that to me," Marilyn said.

"I don't want to know," Joanne said, continued rummaging through the bag. At last, snapped the bag shut, said, I'll tell him clean, you can dress now," and went oui into living room. Marilyn went into the bathroom, for her package of cigarettes, immediately one, and then closed and locked the door. In room, she could hear their muffled voices.

puffing on the cigarette and resting it on edge of the sink, she dressed silently, and then flushed the cigarette down the toilet. When she walked out into the living room, Joanne was gone.

"She said we can talk here," Shad said.

"Fine.”

"Sit down.”

"Thanks.”

He was sitting on a sofa covered with a pale blue fabric. Behind him was a Van Gogh poster, all yellows and oranges and bolder blues. She took a chair opposite his, crossed her legs. At the far end of the room, rain lashed the window.

"What'd you think of her?" he asked.

"Nice lady," she said.

"She told me she'd like to go down on you.”

"Sorry, I'm not interested.”

“You're a difficult person," he said, and sighed.

"Shad, can we talk business? Please?”

"That is her business," he said, and smiled the crocodile smile. "I'm glad you were clean. It really bothered me to think that maybe you were fuzz.”

"Good, now let's get on with it. Have you found...?”

"Did you really cash that check?”

"Yes.”

"Half a mill in hundreds, huh?”

"Yes.”

"What'd they say?”

"What do you mean?”

"What'd you tell them? Why you wanted C-notes.”

"They didn't ask.”

"But didn't you feel funny? Getting all that in hundred-dollar bills?”

"I told them I was buying an antique vase, man wouldn't accept anything but cash”

"An antique vase, huh?”

"Yes. Ming Dynasty.”

"Ming Dynasty, huh?”

"Museum quality.”

"And they bought that, huh?”

"I'm a regular customer at the bank, they asked me why I wanted...”

"But you told them, anyway, huh?”

"Yes.”

"Because you felt funny, right?”

"No, because it was an unusual transaction.”

"And because you used to be a hooker, n Marilyn looked at him.

The rain beat a steady tattoo on the window.

"I can understand why you walked easy," he "I wasn't walking easy," she said. "The knows me. But I felt my request was a bit...”

"But they don't know you used to be a hooker, Big smile on his face.

Little man with a big and a big secret. She wished he'd get off this he kept coming back to it, the blonde used to be hooker, what do you know?

"So did you find a deal for me?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, "I found a deal for you.”

"Good. Who?”

"A man up from Colombia, I done deals with him “

"When will it be?”

"He'll have the eleven keys by tomorrow night.”

"Good. Did you tell him I wanted to pick the place?”

“I told him. He didn't like it but...”

Shad shrugged and smiled again.

"Did you tell him one-on-one?”

“I told him. He agreed to it.”

"Where'd you leave it?”

"He'll call me tomorrow night, when he's got the stuff together. I call you, you tell me where you want him to come, he'll be there in ten minutes, provided it ain't in Siam.”

"What's his name?”

"Why do you need to know that?”

"I guess I don't.”

"You guess right, you don't. All you need is the money.”

"After I've got the stuff...”

"Yeah, well, first you gotta get it.”

"Yes. But after I have it, how long do you think it'll take to turn it around?”

"Depends on who I can find. Two days Somebody to step on it it'll cost, you know "Yes.”

"And then somebody else'll take it off hands. All in time. Two, three days.”

"Because the thing is, I haven't got much you see.”

"I figured.”

"I'm getting a lot of pressure, you see.”

"Mmm.”

"So the sooner we can turn it around, the I'll be.”

“Oh, sure," he said.

"But first you gotta m buy, don't you?”

"Yes. But that's tomorrow night.”

"Provided," Shad said.

"What do you mean provided? You tomorrow night, didn't you?”

"Yeah, to meet him.”

"Yes.”

"Test the stuff, taste it...”

"Yes.”

"Which you don't know how to do, right?”

"Well,.. that shouldn't be a problem. You you'd...”

“Yeah, I said I'd teach you.”

"Yes.”

"To taste it," he said, and smiled.

She looked at him.

A fresh wind swept torrents of rain against the vindow.

"You really want me to put you in touch with this guy, don't you?" he said.

Smiling.

She kept looking at him.

"Well, don't you?" he said.

"You know I do.”

"Because this deal is very important to you, right?”

“Yes," she said.

"Very important," he said.

"Yes.”

"Sure.”

Smiling.

"Well, don't worry about it," he said.

"Everything'll be all right.”

"I hope so," she said.

"Oh, sure," he said. "Provided.”

His eyes met hers.

The rain and the wind rattled the window.

"Come here, baby," he said, and began unzipping his fly.

She went immediately to the door.

It was locked.

A dead bolt.

The key gone.

In prison that first time, the door had been locked from the outside.

The warden El Alcaide, a squat little man wearing jodhpurs and high, brown-leather boots, a riding crop in his hand had askel raise her gown for him. She'd run to the was locked. She'd twisted the unre,, doorknob again and again, shouting English and then "Socorro.t'' in Spanish, the coming up behind her, the riding crop raised.

Never again, she thought.

She took the .38 from her handbag. "Unlock the door," she said.

He looked at the gun in her fist.

"Now," she said.

"You're a hooker," he said. "What's blowjob more or...9”

She almost shot him dead on the spot minute. Her finger almost tightened millimeter on the trigger, she almost s brains on the wall. Instead, she turned to the leveled the gun at it, and fired repeatedly wood, splintering the area around the lock. bolt upright on the sofa, his words cut off explosions, his eyes saucer wide, his fly Marilyn twisted the knob, and pulled open the tearing the latch assembly from the tattered bolt still engaged in the doorframe's striker "Now there'll be cops," he said, petulantly.

"Good," she said. "You explain it to them.”

Doors were opening all up and down the Curious tenants who knew that a hooker lived and who were expecting trouble sooner or later, it was on a rainy spring night. She walked past them, and went down the steps and out into the street. People who had heard the shots were gathering near the front stoop. She could hear a police siren in the distance. She walked away swiftly, through the rain.

She was thinking that now she'd have to kill the two men from Argentina.