Hark!

And now —

Now this white woman rendezvousing with Sharyn on her own, the three-way turning into a possible lesbian relationship, the movie in his mind suddenly becoming black and white, the women hugging, the women kissing, the women fondling, the women muff-diving, Hudson excluded, Kling excluded, just the two women, black and white, locked in secret, steamy embrace.

The deception.

The deceit.

He snapped off the projector in his mind.

The screen went blank.

He looked at his watch.

Seven twenty-three.

It was starting to rain.

AINE DUGGAN WAS curled up in a fetal ball when Ollie found her in an alley off Thompson and shook her awake. It had begun to rain lightly. She blinked up at him.

He could barely recognize this woman with long stringy bleached blond hair and a few missing teeth, wearing blue jeans and a soiled gray sweatshirt, loafers without socks, scabs all over her ankles. The hooker he'd briefly questioned about Emilio Herrera shortly after his book was stolen had been wearing a cute short black skirt and a neat pink halter top and her hair was Irish-red and cut short and she looked like a teenager even though she was twenty-five at the time, which had not been all that long ago. She now looked thirty-five.

'Whussup?' she asked.

'I want to become a mailman,' he said.

'Yeah?'

'I hear there's money in it.'

'Who told you that?'

'Little birdie.'

'I don't know whut the fuck you're talking about.'

'A woman paying you to deliver a letter.'

'Yeah?'

'To the Eight-Seven.'

'Yeah?'

"Where'd you meet her, Aine?'

'How do you know my name?'

'Little birdie,' he said again.

It was dark in the alley, but if she wasn't so down and out this very minute, she might have recognized Ollie, anyway, from their last encounter in a galaxy far far away. But the black tar had worn off, and she was no longer high, and she knew she didn't have any money and would probably have to jones her next fix, so who was this fat asshole kneeling beside her, with her face getting all wet from the rain? Was he maybe a prospective John?

'You wanna see my pussy?' she asked.

'I wanna see Melissa Summers.'

'Yeah?'

'Where'd you meet her, Aine? Where can I find her?'

'Do I know you?' she asked, and peered at his face through the falling rain.

'Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks,' he said. You know me.'

'Am I busted?'

'For what, Aine?'

'I don't know. I'm not a bad person, Detective.'

'I know that.'

'I'm just a person needs to be comforted and helped . . .'

'Sure,' Ollie said.

' . . . a person to be pitied.'

'Sure, Aine.'

'I'm just a sorry fucked-up piece of shit.'

'I can help you, Aine.'

'I need to make up. I need a fix real bad.'

'I can see that.'

'I need to find the candy man.'

'I can help you do that.'

She blinked at him in the falling rain.

'Tell me where you met Melissa Summers. Tell me where it was.'

'Who?'

'Melissa Summers. Either a redhead or a girl with long black hair.'

'I'm a natural redhead,' Aine said. 'Wanna see my pussy?'

'Focus, Aine. Melissa Summers.'

'Black hair. Bangs.'

Yes.'

'Slipped me a deuce to deliver a letter.'

'That's her.'

Yeah,' Aine said, and nodded in the falling rain.

'Where?' Ollie said.

'How much?' Aine asked.

'SO  HOW'D THE meeting go?'Kling asked.

It was ten minutes past eleven. They were in his small studio apartment in the shadow of the Calm's Point Bridge. She'd been here waiting for him when he got home. Here in bed waiting for him, in fact. Wearing a white baby-doll nightgown.

'Boring stuff,' she said.

'Like what?'

He was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. In the bedroom, propped against the white pillows behind her, Sharyn was watching the Eleven O'Clock News on Channel Four.

'The new Medicare stuff,' she said. 'How we'll be handling prescriptions, who becomes eligible, da-da, da-da, da-da,' she said, twirling her fingers in the air.

Lying.

She hadn't been at any hospital meeting. She'd been in her own apartment with a woman whose name was either C. Lawson, L. Matthews, or J. Curtis.

"What time did it end?' he asked.

'Around eight-thirty,' she said.

Which was the exact time she and either Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis had come down from her apartment, walking together arm in arm to the bus stop on the corner, where Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis had hailed a taxi, and Sharyn . . .

'Come straight home?' he asked.

'Caught a bus,' she said.

True enough. But not from any damn hospital.

In a second taxi, Kling had followed the white woman, no clue to her name as yet, just a tall, slender woman with dark hair and dark eyes, apparently comfortable enough to afford taxis all over the city, something Kling himself wasn't too cozy with. 'Follow that taxi,' he'd told his driver, and flashed the tin like a cop in a movie. Joined at the hip, they came over the bridge, yellow cab glued to yellow cab.

Like a cop in a movie, he'd followed Sharyn's three-way lesbian lover to her building after the taxis let them each off, waited till she entered the elevator, and then watched while the indicator showed her getting off on the fourth floor. He checked the lobby mailboxes, no doorman here, no need to conceal or reveal, all the time in the world to check the mailboxes at his leisure.

There were six apartments on the fourth floor. Three of the mailboxes carried men's names: George Santachiaro, James McReady, and Martin Weinstein. The other three carried androgynous, but most likely female, names: C. Lawson, L. Matthews, and J. Curtis. Kling didn't know why the women in this city thought an initial in

front of their surnames would fool anyone into thinking a man lived here. Usually, that single letter was a good invitation to a would-be rapist. He jotted the three names into his notebook, and took the subway uptown. The time was nine-twenty.

He stopped in a Mickey D's for a hamburger and some fries.

Walked around in the rain a little, thinking, wondering what to do.

The city seemed glittery and bleak, bright white lights reflecting on black shiny roadways.

Black, he thought.

White, he thought.

Now, at fifteen minutes past eleven, Sharyn called, 'Come look, it's Honey Blair.'

Black skin against white nightgown against white pillows. He climbed into bed beside her.

Honey Blair, blond and white, wearing a sexy little black mini and standing in her trademark legs-slightly-apart pose, was thanking all of the good citizens out there . . .

'. . . for phoning or e-mailing tips on the man or woman who tried to kill me, I can't thank you enough. And mister, sister, whoever you may be . . .'

'Is that racist?' Sharyn asked.

'. . . we're gonna get you!' Honey said, pointing her forefinger directly at the camera.

'I mean the sister part,' Sharyn said.

'You'd better believe it,' Honey said, and turned to the anchor. 'Avery?' she said.

'Now why do I think that girl's lying?' Sharyn asked.

You should know, Kling thought.

12.

HE HAD BEEN STANDING outside her building since eight this morning, but no sign of Miss (or possibly Mrs.) Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis. If she had a nine-to-five job, which was possible even though she'd met with Sharyn and her doctor boyfriend at a little before three on Tuesday, she'd be leaving for work sometime between eight and nine, was what he figured. But no sign of her yet.

A white girl, not her, came out of the building at eight-twenty, began walking off into what was shaping up as a sunny day, all that rain last night. Another white girl, again not the one he was looking for, came out at eight-thirty, and then a flurry of them a few minutes later, but still not his target. Was it possible she'd slept with the busy Dr. Hudson at his place last night? Nine o'clock, then nine-fifteen, and nine-thirty, no Lawson, Matthews, or Curtis. Maybe she'd overslept. The mailman arrived at a quarter to ten. Kling followed him into the building.