“You were in vice before homicide. You know the street better than I ever will. I need you to help me find her.”

Gleason leaned back in his chair, stroked his sideburns. “You’re going to get me fried again, aren’t you?”

“That’s not my intent.”

“For those who really screw the rest of us, it never is,” he said. “I get off at four.”

“That’s great. You won’t regret it.”

“I do already.”

I looked around at the auto squad’s lobby, the empty space with its plastic chairs. “Can I wait for you here?”

“No,” he said.

I drove my car down a dark, narrow street in an old, abandoned part of the city, a festering urban sore just east of the Schuylkill River, within a stone’s throw of the refineries and porn shops that line the expressway. Whatever light had been left in the day when we started our search had fled west, so we were now cruising in shadows, only a few scattered shards of asphalt illuminated by the dim streetlights. This wasn’t a high-priced locale for selling your body, this wasn’t even Wal-Mart, this was a place for discontinued lines and damaged goods, this was streetwalker hell.

“My God,” I said. “Who would come here for a hooker?”

“That’s not the question,” said Gleason, “because they’ll always come. Set up in a cemetery, open a coffin, and watch the line form. The question is, who has fallen so hard that she has to sell herself here?”

“Kylie.”

“From what I could gather, she’s pretty much hit bottom. A bad drug jones, a pimp who kicked her out when she couldn’t make enough to keep herself above the Mendoza line, a body riddled with shakes and sores.”

“Last-chance corner, is that it?”

“This is where they end up when their last chance fails.”

“Where do they go from here?”

“The morgue.”

“Seems that’s what Kylie wants.”

“Hold on,” said Gleason. “What’s that over there?”

There was a shadow leaning against a wall not far from a lamppost. I pulled the car into the dim circle created by the streetlight. The shadow pushed itself off the wall, strolled over, looked fore and aft before bending down so that its arms leaned on the doorframe and its face loomed close to mine in the window, a hard, tired face, dark eyes, pale lips, a red welt on the cheek.

“You boys looking for a party?”

“What’s your name, honey?” said Gleason, leaning over from the passenger seat.

“Do it matter?”

“We got to call you something.”

“How about Jenny?” She smiled, and her teeth were like the neighborhood in which she worked, a few crumbling structures teetering over vast vacant lots. “You want to party with Jenny? I got tricks.”

“I’m sure you do, sweetheart,” said Gleason, “but we’re not looking for a Jenny. We’re looking for a Kylie.”

The woman lifted her head up, glanced down the street. “Who are you?”

“We’re here on business,” said Gleason.

“What the hell you think I’m doing here? That don’t mean we can’t party together. I got a place right back here, you want. I’ll make you happy” – she slapped her butt – “if you’re man enough to handle this.”

“We need to ask Kylie some questions,” said Gleason. “You mind if we take your competition off the street for a bit?”

She snorted. “That skinny bitch ain’t no competition.”

“Where is she, Jenny?”

“Is she in trouble?”

“Nah,” said Gleason. “Just some questions.”

“Too bad. Trouble would be a step in the right direction for her. Try a few blocks up on the right, in that warehouse where she does her stuff. You find her, you tell that princess with her little white ass that Jenny says fuck you.”

“It’s nice to see such camaraderie among the working folk,” said Gleason as Jenny backed away and blended again into the shadows.

I drove to the warehouse and pulled right behind an old two-tone Chevy parked at the curb. The warehouse was a crumbling brick building, its windows and door boarded with gray plywood. The thin wood over one of the low windows was smashed, darkness streamed out like some vile smoke from the opening.

Gleason cut the engine and we waited quietly.

A few moments later, a shadow slipped furtively out from the gap in the window, over to the Chevy, around the front. It glanced our way as it opened the door, slid into the front seat. The engine of the old beater roared through a failing muffler as it drove off.

“I suppose it’s our turn,” said Gleason.

“We’re going in there?” I said.

“Don’t worry,” said Gleason, reaching into the glove compartment of his car. “I got my little friend.”

I was disappointed when he pulled out a heavy blue flashlight.

“No gun?”

“I’m still on desk duty,” he said.

Out of the car, I followed him across the wide sidewalk to the shattered window. Gleason slipped over the sill and through the narrow opening. I hesitated for a moment and then followed, landing unsteadily on my feet on the other side. It was pitch-black in the building, fetid and dank, it smelled of urine and wet cement, of rats with damp fur, of sweat and cinder and old sad stories turned to ash.

Gleason turned on his flashlight, illuminated the piles of garbage, the twisted beams, the crumbling plaster walls, a sleeping bag in the corner quivering with life. And then, all the way to the left, a mattress, and on the mattress a young woman, all in rags, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin on her knees, her eyes staring straight up at the light, a sneer of defiance on her lips.

“Turn it off,” said the woman in a lifeless monotone. Her face was round, and it had been pretty once, you could tell, but not anymore. Her hair was greasy, her eyes red and watery, her cheeks sunken, her lips scabbed, her skin mottled with blood and filth.

“Are you Kylie?” said Gleason.

“I’m nobody,” said the woman.

“Then you’re our girl,” I said.

“Turn off the light, assholes,” said Kylie, raising a hand to ward off the beam.

“We want to talk to you,” said Gleason.

“It costs extra to talk.”

“How about if we only talk?”

“That you can’t afford.”

“Are you hungry, Kylie?” I said. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

“I don’t eat anymore.”

“Are you thirsty?”

“No.”

“I am,” came a voice from the sleeping bag. “I’ll drink anything, don’t matter what, so long it’s got a proof on it.”

“Shut up,” said Gleason.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” said the sleeping bag, “but I could always use a drink.”

“Just shut up.”

“Whatever you got, give to Al,” said Kylie. “You don’t need to liquor me up, I’m not that type of girl. Just shut off that light and do whatever you want.”

“We want to talk,” I said. “We want to hear a story.”

“Buy a book.”

“A story about Seamus Dent,” I said.

“Seamus? Jesus. What about Seamus?”

“We want to know why he died.”

“That’s easy,” she said. “Because he cared.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“What about you? What do you care about?”

“Nothing.”

“Not even Seamus?”

“Turn off the light.”

“If we turn it off, will you tell us?”

“If you turn it off, I won’t claw your eyes out.”

Al, in the sleeping bag, laughed.

“Name a price,” said Gleason.

“Now you talking,” said Al. “How much you talking about?”

“What does it matter anymore, what happened to Seamus?” said Kylie.

“It matters to the man here,” I said, indicating Gleason, “who did what he could to clean up Seamus when he found him wasted and lost in a drug house. And it matters to my client, who’s on trial for his life for something I think Seamus might have done. And it matters to Wayne, who still feels betrayed by Seamus because Seamus saved Wayne’s life and then apparently gave his up for nothing.”

“Wayne? You’ve spoken to Wayne?”

“That’s right.”

“Jesus. Wayne. You’re hitting the trifecta. How’s he doing?”