“What do you want?”

“For the last three months, I’ve been trying to find this kid on my off-hours. I’m going through the lists and this place popped up. I’m just asking if you’ve seen him. And if you haven’t, do you know of other places where I should look?”

She took in the picture. “You already looked in L.A.?”

“Everywhere. I was thinking that because he’s black, maybe he perceives himself safer here.”

“That’d be a switch.” Her laugh was bitter. “Comin’ here for safety.”

“I’m grasping at straws. What smells so good?”

“The kitchen.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the location was through the doorway behind her. “Cookin’ up supper.” She glanced at Koby, then returned her eyes to me. “What’s your business in a nine-month-old crime?”

“It’s a long story.”

She crossed her arms and waited.

I took a deep breath. “His girlfriend gave birth to a baby girl. She threw the kid away in a Dumpster. I retrieved the baby. I think the kid deserves to know both her parents. Especially since this poor boy was frightened away. He’s not indigent. There’s a trust fund for him. If I could prove he’s the father of this baby, the kid might get some money, too. Lord knows, she deserves it.”

“And you’re not gettin’ any finder’s fee?”

Cynical eyes.

“I’m not getting a dime,” I told her.

She laughed contemptuously. “Just your average nice white do-gooder cop.”

I held my ground. “They exist.”

She glanced at the picture. Then took it and studied it in earnest. “Lemme show it to Urlene.”

I said, “And you are…”

She hesitated. “Cerise.”

“Cynthia Decker.”

I held out my hand. She gave me a limp-fish shake, then regarded Koby. “You don’ talk?”

“Just here for the ride,” he answered.

“You said it, bro’. ’Cause all yo’ be gettin’ is aride.” She stood up-her lower torso encased in black stretch shorts-and tramped through the archway into the kitchen.

I threw my hands over my face.

“Don’t worry about it,” Koby whispered flatly.

But his eyes were roiling like storm clouds. He was slipping.

We lived in a liberated and somewhat libertine age and the vast majority of the time our skin tones were as relevant as vestigial tails. So when it happened, it was always like a dash of cold water, this thinly veiled hostility. Koby got the worst of it from white men; I got it from black women.

Your men aren’t enough? You’ve got to steal our men, too?

About a month ago, Koby had taken me to a party hosted by one of his friends. It was 80 percent black, 15 percent Hispanic and Asian, and a few stranded whites. By subconscious design, we Caucasians wound up talking together. We swapped stories and formed a consensus. It was easier to deal with hostile women any day of the week. Women sniped with words, men shot with guns.

Of course, Koby’s attraction to me had little to do with my being white and very much to do with my being Jewish. Even more important, I had never been married. Although Koby wasn’t Orthodox like Rina, he was well rooted in tradition. He was born into the Jewish priest class-Kohanim-and I found out from Rina thatKohanimcannot marry divorced women without giving up their priesthood. Which didn’t translate into much; it was a symbolic thing that most American Jews couldn’t care less about. But I knew Koby and I knew he cared-the reason he had asked me soon after we met if there had ever been an ex-husband in the picture. It was obvious he was looking for something more than a casual lay.

Cerise came back a few minutes later. “Yeah. It’d be like I thought. He’s been here, but not for at least four months.”

I was utterly flabbergasted. “He washere?”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

“Oh my God, he’s alive!” I grabbed Koby’s arm and broke into a smile. “I can’t believe it!”

“I don’t know if he’s alive. I haven’t seen him in months.”

“You made my summer!” I was grinning. I took her hand and pumped it. “Now it’s just a matter of finding the right spot. Did you talk to him at all?”

“Girl, we get over a hundred souls walkin’ through that door every day of the week.” She pulled her hand away and shook it up and down. “I jus’ remember him ’cause he got that Down’s face. I’ll tell you one thing. He looked a lot older than that picture.”

“But you think it was him.”

“I knowed it was him. He ate in our kitchen for mebbe two months.”

“Did he ever talk to anyone?”

“Now, how would I know that? He never talked to me. Just ate his food and crawled back under the cracks. That’s where all these people are from, Miss Cop. The cracks.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

“Into another crack.”

“Any other shelters around here?”

“I thought you said you had a list.”

I pulled the slip of paper out of my purse and showed it to her, pointing to a specific address about five miles away. “This was going to be my next stop.”

She shrugged. “It’s as good as anything I can help you with.” She stood up again. “I got business. You can let yourselves out.”

As she walked back to the kitchen, I saw her shaking her head. I took Koby’s hand and laced his stiff fingers with mine. “C’mon, big boy. Let’s get out of here.”

He didn’t answer me, and that was always a bad sign. Something ugly was brewing inside his brain, and if it was going to erupt, I felt we should be in a safe environment. I pulled him back to the car-still there and still intact.

“Uh, you have the keys,” I told him.

He reached into his pocket and unlocked the doors. We got in and his autopilot took over, turning on the motor, pulling out of the space, finding the freeway on-ramp. I gave him directions to the next shelter. He barely seemed to process the information.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he had “dark moods.” I’d gone through this before, and as requested, I had left him alone and let him work them away. But today we were together and neither of us had an escape valve.

I said, “It’s over, Koby. Let’s move on-”

“Pigs!” he spat out.

“That’s why none of them are worth a second thought.”

“They callmea nigger?” He pointed to himself. “I am black. They areniggers!”

I blew out air. “I know it’s okay for you to use the N-word, but please don’t. We whites have a problem with it.”

“It is what they are! Ignorant swine!”

“At least, Cerise was helpful.”

“If she’d been white, you would have called her a bitch!”

“I’m trying to be charitable.”

“Your knee-jerk liberal roots are showing,” he growled out.

“Okay. She was a bitch! And the two boys were punks. But punks come in all colors.”

“But it has to be my own people to hurl such insults.”

“Not at all. Look, Koby, we’re spoiled. We hang out in Hollywood, where anything goes. I mean, just yesterday night when we went to the Twenty-four/seven café at two in the morning, at one table there was that bull dyke pouring her heart out to a drag queen. Then there was that Asian girl with blue hair talking to her leather-clad, pincushion white boyfriend with around a zillion pierces. Then there was that Chasidic guy doing a deal with that porno producer-”

“We don’t know for sure he was a porno producer.”

“C’mon, he was something sleazy. The point is, we were the most conventional couple in the place. Yaakov, there are places in the good old USA where I wouldn’t take you on a bet, and it’s not just the Deep South or rural Texas. It’s lovely areas with pretty little homes and green lawns and posters in their windows that say, ‘The South shall rise again.’ ”

His jaw was still clenched. “Your bigots do not excuse my people’s stupidity!”

“No one’s making excuses. It’s just that stupidity comes in all colors, including the white liberals in the West Side. God, Koby, you remember the party Mom gave for Alan’s birthday? The looks on the guests’ faces when they met you. Man, if their smiles had been any more frozen, I could have chipped them off with an ice pick.”