I went back to the waiting game. She cried a little more, but not like before. This time she didn't have to leave the room. She stopped in maybe five minutes. Her eyes were red again. But her makeup was still okay. She sat in her chair and looked at nothing.

"So how much of Lionel's story should I believe?" I said.

She was hunched forward now, looking at the floor, with her clenched hands between her knees.

"We had a relationship," she said. "We met when he bought a night with me, and we liked each other, and he kept requesting me. Mrs. Utley was good that way. And after a while I started to see him on my own and not charge him. That was against the rules, but Mrs. Utley never knew. I saw him on my own time."

Her voice as she spoke was soft and flat. She seemed to be reciting a story she'd learned by rote about someone else. "When Mrs. Utley sent me up here, he would come up to see me and spend the night. We talked about things. We'd lie in bed at night after and talk about going out on our own. We'd need a nest egg, he said, and he showed me how to skim some money on Mrs. Utley each day and she wouldn't know."

"So you could open a place of your own."

"Start a chain," she said.

"How long did you figure it would take you to embezzle enough to do that?"

"Not long. It was only for the down payment. Earnest money, he said. He said he was lining up investors."

"So what went wrong," I said.

She stared silently down.

"He cheated on me," she said.

"Anyone you know?"

"Yes. Here. One of the girls. In this house."

I nodded.

"He didn't pay her," April said.

"You sleep with an occasional customer," I said.

"He knows that and he knows it's business. It's not about us."

There was nothing for me down that road.

"So you broke up?" I said.

She nodded.

"How'd he take it."

"He acted like nothing had happened," she said.

"Denied everything?"

"Just pretended like I hadn't thrown him out or anything. Just said he knew I was upset."

"And left."

"Yes. He tried to kiss me good-bye," April said.

"You hear from him again?"

"A week later," April said. "He sent me a bill for what he called his share of the business."

"Ah, Lionel," I said.

"I sent it back to him," April said, "with fuck you written across it."

"And soon thereafter Ollie's people showed up," I said.

"Yes."

"And you came to me," I said, "hoping somehow I'd take them off your back without finding out what had happened."

"I was cheating Mrs. Utley. I had fallen for another loser and gotten in trouble. I didn't know what to do. I was too mortified to tell you the truth."

"And you thought I wouldn't find that out," I said.

"I don't know. I was alone, and scared, and ashamed, and you were the only person in my life who had ever actually helped me."

"Except Mrs. Utley," I said.

"I couldn't go to her. I was stealing from her."

I nodded.

"Hell," April said. "Maybe I wanted you to find out."

"Maybe," I said.

30

Susan had occasional small fits of domesticity. They passed quickly in most cases, but now and then one fell at the wrong time and she felt the need to make dinner for us. So there she was, wearing a nice-looking apron, standing at her kitchen counter preparing food.

"You believe April?" Susan said.

"More than I believe Lionel," I said.

"But not a lot more?" Susan said.

"I like her better," I said.

"It's good," Susan said, "that you don't let sentiment cloud your judgment."

"I'm a seasoned professional," I said.

"If she's telling the truth," Susan said, "then Lionel is, in effect, stalking her."

"Virtual stalking," I said. "He hired Ollie DeMars to do it."

"Doesn't matter. Stalking is about power and revenge and control, and who the physical stalker is doesn't matter if the real stalker gets the feelings he needs."

"Or she needs," I said.

"Of course. I was speaking of this particular incident. Women can be stalkers, too."

"How come you don't stalk me," I said.

"Don't need to," Susan said.

"Because you already have feelings of power and control?"

"Exactly," Susan said.

"Is that because I come across for you so easy," I said.

"It is."

"What if I didn't?" I said.

Susan smiled at me. She was halfway into the preparation for some sort of chicken in a pot. As she spoke she chopped carrots on a cutting board. It was slow going and I feared for her fingers, but I was smart enough to make no comment.

"Empty threat," she said. "What are you going to do about Lionel Whosie?"

"I could kill him," I said.

"No," Susan said, "you couldn't."

"No?"

"No. You would do that for me, maybe for Hawk. But not for April."

Susan began to peel onions. Her eyes were watering.

"If you peel those onions under running water," I said, they won't make you tear up."

Susan nodded and continued to peel them without benefit of water. When she was done she quartered them and tossed them into the pot, after the carrots.

"How about the police?" Susan said.

"And April gets dragged into it," I said, "and probably Patricia Utley."

Susan smiled.

"They're whores," Susan said. "By choice. One could consider getting in trouble with the police an occupational risk."

I shook my head.

Susan smiled.

"They may be whores," Susan said. "But they're your whores."

"Exactly," I said

Susan put some fresh parsley and some thyme into the pot, poured in some white wine, and put the cover on.

"This might actually be good," she said, "if I don't overcook it."

"How about setting the timer?" I said.

She looked at me scornfully, and took off her apron, and set the timer.

"So what shall we do while it cooks?" she said.

"We could drink and fool around," I said.

" Pearl 's asleep on the bed," Susan said.

"I know," I said. "She likes that late-afternoon sun in there."

"But there is the couch," Susan said.

"There is," I said.

"First I think we should shower."

"Together?"

"Sure, get a clean start," Susan said.

"And if you put me under running water," I said, "you may not tear up."

Susan began to unbutton her shirt as she walked toward the bedroom.

"Oh," she said. "I probably will anyway."

31

I was drinking coffee and eating acorn muffin and reading the paper in my office with the window open and my feet on the desk. In mid-February the temperature was fifty-one, and the snow was melting as fast as it could. I had just finished reading Arlo & Janis when Quirk came in.

"Got a shooting," he said. "In Andrews Square. You might want to take a peek."

I took my paper, my coffee, and my muffin and went with him.

There were eight or ten cop cars, marked and unmarked, clogging nearly all movement in the area of OIlie DeMars's clubhouse. Belson walked to the car when it stopped. He looked in and saw me.

"Oh, good," Belson said. "You brought help."

We got out.

"Every citizen's duty," I said, "to step forward when needed."

"Try not to stomp on the clues," Quirk said as we went into the building.

There was no one from Ollie's crew in sight. Just Ollie, sitting in his chair behind his desk, with his head slumped forward and blood on his shirt. A couple of crime-scene types were photographing and writing notes and taking measurements.

"Whaddya got," Quirk said to one of them.

"Took one in the forehead, Captain. Small-caliber. Snapped his head back, and then forward."

The crime-scene guy demonstrated snapping his head back and letting it rebound forward.