Hark!

'Liss . . .'

'Do it! Now!'

'You're making a big mis . . .'

'I said now!'

He turned swiftly and moved closer to the hall table, and then got down on his knees, and then lowered himself flat on the floor, positioning himself so that his head and his hands were close to the hall table. He could feel her presence behind him, the gun level in her hand. If he did not make his move now . . .

In that next crackling instant, she realized he was reaching into the blue sports bag on the floor under the table, and she saw what was in that bag, saw his hand closing around the handle of the automatic weapon there. And in that same crackling instant, he saw from the corner of his eye the little gun leveling in her hand, steady now, no longer uncertain, and he tried desperately to shake the Uzi loose of the bag before . . .

Almost simultaneously, they thought exactly the same thing: No, not again!

She meant getting fucked by yet another pimp.

He meant getting shot by yet another woman.

Actually, she did manage to say just that single word aloud, 'No/', before she shot him in the back the same

way she'd shot that other pimp, Ambrose Carter. Twice. The same way.

16.

IN THIS CITY, there are beginnings, and there are sometimes endings. And sometimes those endings aren't quite the ones imagined when you and I were young, Maggie, but who says they have to be? Where is it written that anyone ever promised you a rose garden? Where is it written?

'I understand someone sent you a note,' Hawes said.

'I get notes all the time,' Honey said.

'This note was an important one,' he said.

They were in her apartment. The apartment on the seventeenth floor of the building where Eddie Cudahy had taken a potshot at him on Wednesday morning, the second day of June. Several potshots, in fact.

It was now three o'clock on the afternoon of the twelfth, ten days and some eight hours later, but who was counting? Hawes had already arrested, questioned, and booked Eddie Cudahy, but Honey Blair was still in her nightgown and peignoir, trying to look innocent when she knew exactly which note Hawes was talking about. He was talking about the Note.

DEAR HONEY:

PLEASE FORGIVE ME AS I DID NOT KNOW

YOU WERE IN THAT AUTOMOBILE.

'According to a man named Eddie Cudahy,' he said, 'who works for Chann 'Yes, I know,' she said.

'You know him . . . ?'

'Vaguely.'

'. . . or you know the note I'm talking about?'

'Both.'

'Why didn't you tell me about it?'

'Because Danny decided not to broadcast it.'

"Who's Danny?'

'Di Lorenzo. Our Program Director.'

'That was withholding evidence,' Hawes said.

'Well, it certainly wasn't truth in broadcasting,' she said, and smiled.

'This isn't funny,' he said. 'The man was trying to kill me.'

'Yes, well, me too, you know.'

'No, not you too.

'Well.'

'He specifically wrote . . .'

'I know.'

'. . . that he didn't know you were in that limo. He was after me, Honey. Me and me alone.'

'Well, probably. Yes.'

'So why'd you suppress that note?'

'I didn't. Danny suppressed it.'

'But you went along with it. You went on the air every night

'Well, yes.'

'Why, Honey?'

'Be good for my career,' she said, and shrugged.

'But bad for my health,' he said.

'Well, that too.'

'Uh-huh,' he said.

They looked at each other.

'This note,' he said. 'Was it handwritten?'

Yes.'

'Where is it now?' 'I have no idea.' 'I'll need it.' 'Why?'

'For evidence. We've charged Cudahy with attempted murder.'

'That's a shame. He seemed nice.'

'Murder would've been a bigger shame,' Hawes said.

They kept looking at each other.

'Why don't we go back to bed?' she asked.

'No, I don't think so,' he said.

'Cotton ..."

'See you,' he said, and walked out.

THEY WERE ON the thin edge of ending it here, and they both knew it. Sharyn had lied to him, and Kling had followed her like the detective he was, and both transgressions were grounds for packing toothbrushes. So they sat together in his apartment, silent now, Sharyn having explained (sort of) and Kling having defended (sort of), each waiting for more because each still felt betrayed.

Someone had to break the silence here.

If this thing was going to work here.

They both knew they had to make this thing work, because if it couldn't work right here, between this white man named Bertram Alexander Kling and this black woman named Sharyn Everard Cooke, then maybe it would never work anywhere in America between any two people of different colors. It had got down to that between them; thinking of each other as two people of different colors. But someone had to break the silence here, someone had to reach across this widening chasm.

So, reluctantly, but like the good detective he was, he weighed in his mind which had been the heavier offense, lying or following someone you were supposed to love, and he guessed his breach had been the greater one. So he cleared his throat and looked across the room to where she sat turned away from him in stony silence, arms folded across her chest, and he said, 'Shar?'

She did not answer.

'Shar,' he said, 'I'm sorry, but I still don't quite understand.'

'What is it you don't quite understand, Bert?' she said.

'If Jamie Hudson really wants to marry this Julie person . . .'

'She's not this Julie person. She's a woman named Julia Curtis, who happens to be a physician, just like Jamie and . . .'

'Oh, forgive me, a physician, please, do I need an appointment here?'

'Go to hell, Bert.'

'How was I supposed to know she's a doctor? I see the three of you running around like spies in . . .'

'Yes, go to hell.'

'If he wants to marry her, why's he meeting you?'

'He asked me to talk to her.'

'Why?'

'Damn it, she's not sure!'

'Not sure of what, damn it!'

'That she wants to marry a black man!'

'So what are you, a marriage broker all of a sudden?'

'No, I'm Jamie's friend. The girl has serious doubts. She loves him, but her entire life . . .'

'Oh, I get it. You're the shining example, right? You and me. Black woman, white man, you're supposed to show her it can work, is that it?'

'You still don't get it, do you?'

'No, I'm sorry, I don't. Are you sure that's the only reason she won't marry him? Because he's black and she's white? Or is there . . . ?'

'She's black, too,' Sharyn said.

'What?'

'I said she's black. We're all three of us black. Jamie, Julie, and me. We're all black. Get it now?'

He let this sink in. She watched him letting it sink in.

'She looks as white as . . .'

Yes, Bert?'

'She looks white,' he said.

'White enough to pass ever since she turned sixteen. She left home, left the south, went to Yale Med. She's afraid if she marries Jamie, she'll lose her white practice, lose everything she's worked so hard for all these years.'

The room went silent again.

You should have told me,' he said.

'I'd have broken her trust.'

'How about my trust?'

'How about mine, Bert?'

She said his name softly this time.

You shouldn't have followed me,' she said.

You shouldn't have lied to me.'

'Here we go again,' she said.

There was another silence.

He wondered if they could ever again breach the silence.

'Whatever happened to SHLEP?' he asked, and picked up the needlepointed pillow, and held it against his chest so she could read it: