“I need to talk to my mother,” said Martini.

“You go on,” said Stewart.

Martini placed the automatic on the workbench and walked quietly and ramrod straight from the garage.

“I was only playin’ with him,” said Hess, rubbing at his cheek.

“All for one,” said Stewart with a crooked smile. “That boy’s ready now.”

VAUGHN DROVE UNDER the B amp;O railroad tracks at Sligo Avenue, going south toward D.C. He dragged out the last of his L amp;M. If Hess and Stewart were leaving town, what would be their last stop? Visits to girlfriends. Road beer and cigarettes from Morris Miller’s, for sure. The very last stop would be the Esso station, where Stewart could fill up with gas on credit or for free.

Vaughn pitched his smoke out the window. He passed over the District line, then by the Shepherd Park Restaurant, Morris Miller’s, the A amp;P, the drugstore, the dry cleaner, and the small bank at the end of the shopping center, the Capitol Savings and Loan. He goosed the gas and headed for the Esso station at Georgia and Piney Branch Road.

THE APARTMENT SMELLED of soiled diapers and cigarettes. The baby boy, who Mary said was two months old, had been fed and now slept in an old bassinet beside the sofa. Strange sat on the sofa, sipping coffee from a chipped cup set on a dirty saucer, Mary beside him.

“I don’t know where he be stayin’ at now,” said Mary.

“He was here the other night, wasn’t he? With Kenneth and my brother?”

“Alvin and them came over to give me a little smoke and take some of my money. He comes by from time to time, when he needs somethin’. But not too much anymore. Basically, he left out of here soon after my baby got born.”

“It’s hard for some men to handle it.”

“It sure was hard for him.”

“Isn’t the boy his?”

“Yes. But that didn’t make no difference to Alvin. He said he couldn’t stand to hear him cry. I said, ‘Alvin, that’s what babies do. They just askin’ for somethin’ when they cryin’, the only way they know.’ But he didn’t want to hear about all that. I woke up one morning and he was just gone.”

“No idea where he went to, huh?”

“I got an idea it was to another woman, ’cause that’s how he did. He never had a job long as I knew him. He charmed women and he lived off them until he found a new one. I know because he came to me the same way, full of promises and smiles. But I don’t know the new girl’s name.”

Strange lifted his saucer and saw antennae moving behind the cup. A roach emerged and crawled around the saucer. Strange placed the cup and saucer back down on the table in front of the couch.

“Where would he be staying if he wasn’t staying with a woman?” said Strange. “He mention any relatives that you can recall?”

Mary stared at the television set, running without sound. Strange recognized the program, Eye Guess, had that crippled game show host, wore the thick glasses. Dennis had liked to look at those shows sometimes in the afternoons, shout the answers out before the contestants had a chance to. Drove their father crazy to see Dennis in his underwear, watching that show. “Man’s playing games,” he’d say, “while other men go to work.”

“Any relatives?” said Strange.

Mary cleared her throat. “Kenneth.”

“Anyone else?”

“Alvin did have a stepbrother, but he’s in Leavenworth forever. His mother’s dead. The only time he mentioned his father was in hate. He had this other cousin he talked about, lived down off Seventh, worked in a big-man’s store down that way. Ronald, Ronnie, somethin’ like that. Maybe he can tell you where Alvin’s at.”

Strange made a mental note of the information.

“If you do run into Alvin,” said Mary, “tell him he needs to come see his son.”

“I will.”

“Alvin ain’t right. But I believe that a child can change a man. A boy needs a father in his life to make him whole.”

“I agree,” said Strange.

“You say Alvin and your brother were friends?”

“Yes,” said Strange, the simple lie coming with difficulty from his mouth.

“I hope your brother’s at peace with the Lord.”

“I better get goin’,” said Strange, rising quietly so as not to wake the baby. “Thank you for the coffee.”

“Was it all right? You ain’t hardly drink any.”

“It was fine.”

He looked at the clock on her wall. He had time for one more stop before his shift.

“MAMA,” SAID DOMINIC Martini to his mother’s back. She stood facing the stove in her black dress, socks, and thick black shoes, stirring the contents of a pot set over a gas flame.

“What, Dominic?”

“I’m goin’ out.”

“Who you goin’ with, eh?”

“Buzz and Shorty.”

“Those guys are bums,” said Angela. “You gonna get in trouble with those two.”

“Ma.”

“Come here and taste the gravy before you go.”

Martini crossed the linoleum kitchen floor. On the way, he hung the key to the garage padlock on a nail driven into the molding. He reached his mother and stood beside her as she dipped a wooden spoon into the mix of chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, pork neck bones, veal shoulders, sausages, garlic, basil, and pepper. She blew on the spoon to cool the sauce and held it up to her son’s mouth.

Martini leaned into it, the garlic coming strong from the steaming spoon, bringing a pleasant burn to his nostrils. He tasted the sauce. “It’s good. But it needs a little salt.”

“I’m gonna add it later!” said Angela with great emotion.

Martini looked down at her with affection. “Awright, Ma.”

Her eyes, magnified behind their lenses, blinked one time. “You gonna be home for dinner?”

“Yeah,” said Martini. “I’m gonna come home.”

He kissed her cool cheek.

TWENTY-SEVEN

VAUGHN GOT OUT of his car and stood beside it as the Esso man, a fat guy breathing loudly, pumped eight gallons of high-test into the Polara. There was a car behind Vaughn waiting for gas and another, its driver staring at the fat man with impatience, on the far side of the pumps. The fat man removed the gas gun, closed the tank door, and reholstered the nozzle in the cradle of the pump. Vaughn handed him bills and waited for the man to make change from a coin bank he wore on the front of his belt.

“No help today?” said Vaughn, reading the “Manager” patch on the man’s chest, seeing the sweat on his brow and temples.

“My mechanic’s off and my pump boy called in sick.”

“The young guy who’s always here?” Vaughn was picturing him, dark-haired, good-looking kid with the haunted eyes, in his head.

“Yeah, Dominic,” said the manager, handing Vaughn his change. “If I find out he ain’t sick, his ass is gone.”

“What’s his last name?”

“Christ, can’t you see I’m busy?”

Vaughn produced his badge case and flipped it open. “His last name.”

The manager used a dirty shop rag to wipe at his face. “Last name’s Martini. Like Dean Martin’s before he changed it.”

“Martini was in the military, right?”

“He served.”

“He friends with Stewart?”

“Yeah. They’re asshole buddies.”

Vaughn chewed on his lip as he tossed over the new information: Stewart, Hess, and Martini had all made themselves absent from work on the same day.

“What’s Martini drive?” said Vaughn.

“A black Nova,” said the manager, moving to the car on the other side of the pump, adding over his shoulder, “but he better not be drivin’ it today. If he’s doin’ anything other than lyin’ in a sickbed…”

His ass is gone, thought Vaughn, finishing the manager’s sentence in his mind as he got back under the wheel of his Polara.

Vaughn drove to the Sixth Precinct station, a half mile down the road, to dig up Martini’s address.

DEREK STRANGE WENT through the residential entrance beside the liquor store on H, took the steps two at a time, and reached the second-floor landing. He found the door of Willis’s apartment and began to pound on it with his fist. He stopped pounding when he heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind the door.