Hark!

'The book you stole,' Ollie said.

Emilio looked at him blankly.

'Report to the Commissioner,' Ollie said. 'Which I myself wrote.'

'You did notV Emilio said indignantly.

Ollie looked at him blankly.

'Olivia Watts wrote that report,' Emilio said.

'I am . . .'

'Olivia Wesley Watts!' Emilio shouted.

'I am she,' Ollie said. Or even her, he thought. 'Where's my fucking book?'

'It is not your book! It is Livvie's book!'

'I am Livvie!' Ollie shouted.

'Sure! Same as I'm Emma!'

'Look, you little prick . . .'

'Oh, darling,' Emilio said.

'If you don't tell me what you did with that book

'I got nothing to say to you about Livvie's book.'

'There is no Liwie!'

'Ho ho.'

'I made her up. Liwie is me, I'm Liwie, but she doesn't exist! Olivia Watts is a synonym I. . .'

'Olivia Wesley Watts. And it's pseudonym, not . . .'

'Don't get smart with me, you little . . .'

'And anyway, it isn't. A pseudonym. Because I saw her after the drug bust, and I told her . . .'

'You saw who after what drug bust?'

'Liwie. Detective Watts. The drug bust in the basement at 3211 Culver Ave, whenever it was. I saw her outside the building. I told her I'd burned the report so . . .'

'It wasn't a report, it was a novelV

'It said Report to . . .'

'You what?

'What?'

'You burned it? You telling me you burned it? You burned my novel?'

'To protect Liwie

'I'll give you protect Liwie.'

'So the bad guys wouldn't get it.'

'I'll kill you. I swear to God, I'll kill you!'

Ollie was out of his chair now, coming around his desk, his hands actually reaching for Emilio's throat.

'Do you know how long it took me to write that book? Do you realize . . . ?'

'Relax,' Emilio said, 'I memorized it.'

Ollie looked at him.

'Was it really all fake?' Emilio asked.

'You memorized it?'

'Word for word,' Emilio said. 'Gee, it seemed so real.

You're a very good writer, did anyone ever tell you that?'

You think so?' Ollie said.

'You captured the thoughts and emotions of a woman magnificently.'

Ollie almost asked, 'How would you know?' But he recognized unadulterated praise when he heard it.

'Did the female viewpoint seem convincing?' he asked.

'Oh, man, did it\' Emilio said, and rolled his eyes and began quoting. '"I am locked in a basement with $2,700,000 in so-called conflict diamonds and I just got a run in my pantyhose."'

'What comes next?' Ollie asked.

'"/ am writing this in the hope that it will somehow reach you before they kill me. You will recall. . ."'

'Emilio,' Ollie said, grinning, 'I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.'

STANDING ACROSS THE street from Sharyn's apartment building, Kling saw the taxi when it pulled up, and recognized the girl the moment she stepped out of it. Same white girl Sharyn and Hudson had met with yesterday. Early thirties, he guessed. Black hair and brown eyes. Slim and svelte, five feet six or seven inches tall. She looked up and down the street before she went into the building, as if she suspected someone was following her . . . well, she was half-right on that score.

Sharyn had told him she couldn't see him until later tonight because she had a meeting at the hospital. He'd known even on the phone that she was lying. Didn't have to look into her eyes to detect the lie. So he'd followed her from her office, and sure as he was white and Sharyn was black, she didn't go to any damn hospital, she went straight home to her apartment here in Calm's Point.

He'd half expected Dr. James Melvin Hudson to pull up ten minutes later, but instead it was the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty they'd had coffee with yesterday. He watched as she went into the outer lobby, studied the bell panel, found what she was looking for - Sharyn's apartment, he guessed, bright detective — pressed a button, and waited for the answering buzz. When it came, he could hear it faintly from across the street. The girl let herself in, and walked toward the elevator bank.

He looked at his watch.

It was almost five-thirty.

OLLIE'S MANUSCRIPT WAS only thirty-six pages long, which he didn't realize was perhaps the length of a mere chapter in most mystery writers' novels, although there were some bestselling practitioners of the craft who seemed to prefer much shorter chapters, like say a page and a half long. In any event, reciting even a thirty-six-page book from memory was not an easy task, especially if you were a drug addict beginning to come down from a truly splendid high.

Almost unable to believe his good fortune, Ollie provided sweets and coffee for his thieving storyteller, and then set a tape recorder going. This was not unlike the good old days when woolly mammoths roamed the earth, and wise old men sat outside caves reciting tales of hunting valor and skill. The other detectives of the Eight-Eight pulled up chairs around Ollie's desk, not so much because they were dying to hear Emilio's story, but more because they wished to sneak a peek or two up Emma's skirt. But as the tale unfolded, they began to get more and more interested in the intricate plot development and intriguing characterization.

It took Emilio precisely an hour and forty-three minutes to recite Ollie's book word for word. By that time, the assembled detectives were all agog.

'Did you really write that?' one of them asked Ollie.

'Ah yes,' he said.

'That is terrific stuff,' one of the other detectives said, shaking his head in wonder and awe. Absolutely terrific'

'You got a sure bestseller there.'

'Make a great movie.'

And, little lady, you did a great job reading it.'

Were it not for the presence of these other detectives, Ollie might have let Emilio go at that point, so grateful was he for the recitation, and the response to it. On the other hand, Emilio was just a no-good little cross-dressing whore who was a disgrace to his fine Puerto Rican heritage, and who, besides, had been pointed out as someone having knowledge pertaining to the hundred-dollar bills Melissa Summers was handing out in the drug community hither and yon, ah yes.

So Ollie picked up a throwdown dime bag of shit which he just happened to find under Emilio's chair, and he said, 'Well, well, well, now where do you suppose this came from, Emilio?'

Which is how Emilio gave up Aine Duggan.

WAITING FOR THE girl to come downstairs again, Kling visualized all sorts of things, none of them very pleasant.

First there was Sharyn and Hudson.

Sharyn in bed with a man blacker than she herself was.

Pornographic images of them doing all the things Kling felt only he himself did with Sharyn.

A black man fucking Sharyn.

(Was this a racist thought?)

A black man going down on her.

Sharyn slobbering the black man's Johnson.

An expression she had taught him.

A black expression.

(Was this damn thing, whatever it was, turning him racist?)

Well, whatever it was . . .

And at first it had appeared to be merely (merely!) Sharyn and Hudson alone, just the two of them, a sweet little love affair between a pair of colleagues, what the Italians called una storia, he would have to ask Carella's intended stepfather if that was correct, una storia, some 'story' here between these two black medical practitioners, some little goddamn fucking storyl

But then it had turned into what appeared to be a genuine three-way, Sharyn, Hudson, and the so-far anonymous white woman, Hudson at the center of an Oreo, the cream on the outside this time around, black Sharyn on his right, the white woman on his left, or vice versa, who gave a damn, it was still lucky Pierre, always in the middle! Would the picture in his mind be less detestable if the man in the middle was white? And if Sharyn had longed for a three-way, why the hell hadn't she invited Kling himself?