“We haven’t heard that one since-” Marge looked at her watch “-oh, since maybe two hours ago.”

“Look over here,” Decker said. “Lacerations of the hard palate when the kid was three. Mom said he fell with a spoon in his mouth. The doc records not one, not two, but three semicircular cuts in the region. Looks like Dustin fell with three spoons in his mouth.”

“Jesus, what a bitch!” Hollander said.

“Yep,” said Decker, closing the chart. “Psychos don’t come out of nowhere.”

Friday blurred into Saturday. Shabbos was just another day of the week.

Mary Hollander opened the door and gave Decker a startled look.

“Pete! I haven’t seen you for ages. Thought you’d dropped out of all the shenanigans.”

Decker smiled.

“Guess not. How’s it going, Mary?”

“Fine. They’re all in the back room hooting and hollering. Sounds like a good game.”

Decker stepped inside.

“Bring you a beer?” she asked.

“Sure.”

He walked through an immaculate living room full of knick-knacks collected over the course of a thirty-year marriage and into the den. It was crowded. Hollander sat on the edge of an ottoman, munching popcorn and shouting at the TV. Marge was parked on the red Naugahyde loveseat, next to a behemoth of a man he didn’t recognize. Fordebrand and MacPherson filled the matching sofa and Marriot reclined on the Barcalounger. They fell silent when he walked in the door.

“What’s the score?” Decker asked.

“What are you doing here?” Fordebrand asked puzzled.

“Oh boy,” Marge groaned.

MacPherson started singing: “Oh it’s crying time again…” He was from Robbery-a black man with a sizeable paunch who loved Shakespeare and had a lousy voice.

“Shut up,” Decker said grumpily.

“Want a hot…?” Hollander paused. Decker could smell the wood burning. “Want something to eat?”

“Hot dog’s fine,” Decker answered.

“They’re not kosh-”

“Hot dog’s fine,” Decker repeated.

Hollander grunted as he rose from the ottoman and went into the kitchen.

“You just missed a hell of a play, Rab-Deck,” Fordebrand said.

“Does he really give a damn about football?” MacPherson mused. “When the cloth of passion’s gown hath been rent-”

“Knock it off, Paul,” Marge said. “Pete, this is Carroll.”

Decker shook hands with the behemoth, noticing that the man’s paw was twice as big as his own. Marge had described him as big, but it didn’t do him justice. The guy was a barn.

Hollander brought Decker a hot dog and a cold beer and sat back down on the ottoman.

“What did I miss?” he asked.

“Pete was just going to tell us his sob story,” MacPherson said.

“Knock it off,” said Fordebrand.

“Hey, he’s among friends.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Decker said mildly.

“Peter! Come on!” MacPherson pressed.

“Why the fuck should he tell a loser like you?” Fordebrand asked.

“Because one loser can relate to another.” MacPherson’s eyes gleamed. “Besides, if he and Rina are really kaput, I wouldn’t mind giving her a try.”

Decker laughed.

“Well,” MacPherson said, “I’ve had black women, white women, spics, and chinks. Never tried a Jew. Certainly not an Orthodox Jew. Certainly never one who looked like Rina. Those big blue eyes and pouting lips. That nice tight-”

“You’re pushing it, Paul,” Decker warned.

“Can we watch the fucking game?” Hollander asked, annoyed by all the noise.

“I have to make a phone call,” Decker said to Hollander. “I’ll use the kitchen phone.”

“I thought she didn’t answer the phone on Saturdays,” MacPherson said.

Decker ignored him and left the room.

“Poor guy,” Marriot said sympathetically. He was a wiry, bespectacled man who never spoke hastily.

“I’ll say.” Hollander turned to MacPherson. “Rina was one piece of ass.”

“Think she was really any good?” MacPherson asked. “I mean being a nun and all.”

“Probably dynamite,” Hollander answered, “I mean, the man had to be hooked on something else besides God, right?”

“Mind you the only thing I did was superimpose the X rays of the skull over the painted boy’s face,” Hennon said over the phone. “But as an off-the-cuff opinion, I’d say the boy in the film matches the skull you dug up.”

“Thanks for doing this on your weekend, Annie.”

“I’m still waiting for a dinner, big man.”

“How about tonight?”

There was silence over the line.

“You’re serious?” she asked.

“If you are.”

“You’re on,” Hennon said. “Anywhere specific you want to go?”

“You choose. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Great.”

She gave him her address in Santa Monica and Decker hung up the phone. He turned around and saw Marge.

“Eavesdropping on me?”

“I just came in to use the phone,” she said.

“It’s all yours.”

She looked down and kicked the floor absently.

“Of course I couldn’t help but overhear a little.”

“Hennon says the skull that we dug up in the mountains matches the painted man in the snuff film.”

“Just as you figured.”

“Yup.”

“So who’s the painted boy?”

“The Blade,” Decker answered. “Whoever he is. Find out what happened to Clementine?”

“No.”

“Damn. I’m so pissed at myself. I should have pulled him for a composite when I had the chance.”

“He’ll show up eventually unless he’s running from something.”

“My informants tell me no one is after him as far as they know,” he said.

“Then he’ll turn up.” Marge paused, then asked: “What happened with Rina?”

“Cultural differences,” he said.

“I thought you liked being Jewish?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I wasn’t aware of how involved it got. Now I am. Judaism is a hands-on religion. It takes over your life. There are dietary restrictions, sexual restrictions, drinking restrictions, clothing restrictions…You know you’re not even allowed to wear a garment made of wool and linen.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. No one does. It’s just a law.”

He paused a moment, then said, “Over there, I’m an alien. But I’ve been a stranger in a strange land before, and I consider myself very adaptable. But adaptation is empty unless you believe in what you’re doing. I know that and so does Rina.”

“I think about God once in a while,” Marge said.

“You do?”

“Yeah, I think about the size of His penis.”

Decker burst into laughter.

“Must be a humdinger, don’t you think?” she said.

“That’s blasphemous.”

“Yeah, it is,” she said. “I was raised an Episcopalian, but I stopped going to church the day I sprouted pubic hairs. I don’t believe in it at all. But every once in a while, when I’m all alone in bed-a rare occasion if I can help it-I get to thinking, what if I’m wrong? What if all that crap they fed me at Sunday school turns out to be right? Then I get real spooked.

“Rina has it made,” Marge went on. “Even with all the restrictions. If she’s wrong and there’s no one up there, she’ll be dead anyway and won’t know the difference. But if she’s right…man, she’s hit the jackpot.”

“Do you want to come in for a nightcap?” Hennon asked, flicking on the lights to the apartment.

“Sure,” Decker replied.

Her condo was comfortable, full of soft colors, a pillowy sofa and plants sprouting from terra-cotta pots.

“Have a seat,” Hennon said. “What can I get you?”

“Coffee’s fine,” Decker answered.

“Take off your jacket. Make yourself comfortable.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

He removed his jacket and holster and stretched. Looking around he saw the bathroom. A few minutes later he came out to find her pointing his.38 at one of her Boston ferns.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked irritatedly. She lowered the gun.

“I just wanted to see what it felt like being behind one of these.” She smiled. “God, you feel so invincible.”