She wiggled deep into the feather body pillow on the futon and settled on her side, hands in prayer position between her drawn knees. “ East St. Louis,” she said out loud. What part of East St. Louis don’t know not to talk to a cop? A seagull cried. “That’s what I’m talking about,” she told the bird. “Ain’t he never seen Law & Order?” The woman who adopted him used to be crazy with the electric cord on his ass, Isaac had told her. “She bang your head up too, baby? That the problem?”

Her phone rang before the alarm clock. She ignored both and slept past 10:00. Her body required eight or nine hours of sleep and took it. That’s one reason she’d stopped touring. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, gargled with hydrogen peroxide, then popped her morning elevator. She took her ritual cup of hot lemonade with honey to the computer and found a message from the judge. Darcelle was out of town but gave Nina the name of a female attorney in Roxbury. Nina forwarded it to Isaac, then tried his cell. She ignored his voice mail and tried the house.

“Hey, Miss Nina,” Devon answered before the second ring.

“Now that’s how I know you love me. You screened me in. What you been up to?”

“Working, working, working.”

“One would have been enough. More makes me suspicious. How’s the grades?”

“I’m passing.”

He was a grown hard-back man now-or thought he was. She had to tread lightly. Concern without badgering. She asked about his plans for the summer.

“I’m going to work the rest of the year and go back full-time next spring.”

She feared he would never make it back. “Not many students live rent-free. Do you really need to work full-time?”

“The rent’s free, but that’s not exactly money in my pocket.”

Nina always thought his living arrangement curious. He and Isaac were quasi-superintendents. Handled trash, shoveled snow, showed units to prospective tenants in their building and other properties Mrs. Sheridan, the landlady, owned.

“What’s the gig?” she asked.

Property management, he said. He was still showing Mrs. Sheridan’s units. Painting them too. And he was getting his real estate license. “It’s crazy out here, the money from flipping houses. Mrs. Sheridan’s been cleaning up.”

That’s her main thing now? Nina wondered. Houses? Nina knew her as the wig lady. She owned one of the biggest wig and beauty supply stores in Roxbury and another on Central Avenue in Cambridge.

Of course, Devon didn’t need a license to flip houses. But she told him it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have one in addition to his degree.

“Exactly.”

“Listen, I’m trying to catch up with Isaac.”

“He was gone when I got up.”

Nina didn’t want to assume what Devon knew about Isaac’s legal difficulties so she didn’t mention the attorney. “When are you coming by so we can really catch up?”

Sunday’s were usually good, he told her, though not today.

“Next Sunday work for you?” she asked. “Around 6?”

He said he’d be there.

Nina Sojo had first seen Devon Mack in a second-grade St. Louis classroom. She was the sub. He began the day beating on the kid beside him-any kid beside him. And the boy roamed. She tried to manage him by keeping him on task with challenging puzzles, painting, and storybooks. But there were twenty-three other kids with matching proclivities. Before noon, he had kicked the trash can at Nina’s bent back. She’d spun around, dropped the loaded can on the boy’s head, and made the terror clean the mess that rained down over him. “And don’t you ever in your life even think of kicking me, or anything at me, again.” Later, she took him aside and said that when little boys are so ready to fight it usually means they are unhappy about something. “Are you unhappy about something?” By 3:15 he was slumped in her arms, his eyes overrun ponds. Will you come back tomorrow? Are you ever coming back? Why can’t you come back? The questions of too many sad children she’d meet year after year.

Nina had discovered his birthday was the following week and showed up that day with a cake, coloring books, and a box of Crayolas in a big red bag. The principal arranged for Nina to drive Devon home.

“Where you taking me?” the boy demanded, cringing in the backseat of her car.

“Your house. They know we’re coming.”

Four blocks later, Nina encountered a pregnant teenager and an older woman waiting with smiles. And Devon ’s hard jaw relaxed.

Nina sent the boy a card every birthday for three years. Then stopped for four. Nothing matched the way she felt those years. Then, early in ’98, Devon ’s sister-the pregnant girl-sent Nina an e-mail. Her AOL address had been printed on the business card Nina planted in the big red bag. Tania Mack said her health wasn’t too good and asked, Could you check on my baby brother time to time? He still lived with their aunt, but the aunt’s new husband wouldn’t mind seeing Devon gone. Tania died of leukemia shortly after that and Devon went to stay with Isaac. They were already living in the Roxbury sweet spot when Nina arrived.

She called their Fort Hill place sweet because of the area’s history and the quality of the renovated housing. The Hill had been known for its tie-dye-and-dashiki brigades when she was at Berklee. The dissidents and artists remained, renovated and spurred investment from people like Mrs. Sheridan. Isaac and Devon ’s unit had elegant crown moldings, granite counters, a spa tub…in exchange for shoveling snow. And use of Sheridan ’s company vehicle: a 2001 black Durango. Nina wanted their gig.

Before taking Devon in, Isaac had been rooming with another student in a nice-looking space around the corner from Dorchester ’s “Hell Zone.” Murder round the clock. After sundown, thugs ran the streets while owners of homes worth a half-million cowered in their parlors.

Tania and her baby-daddy had had an understanding. He’d made the hookup that put Devon and Isaac in the sweet spot. “He’s friends with Mrs. Sheridan. Both of them are Korean,” Isaac eventually explained, one long weekend months ago.

“Korean immigrants, you mean?”

“Uh-uh. Korean American.” The man had big money and a big family, Isaac went on, holding Nina close. They were cuddlers big-time, for about four weeks.

“You know him?” Nina had asked.

“I know he had a thing for Tania.”

Tania couldn’t have been more than sixteen when Nina met her. She’d asked about Tania’s baby and learned it had been put up for adoption. All of it arranged before the child was born.

These days, Nina was still suspicious of the living arrangement. She didn’t tell Isaac, but she had met the landlady.

Mrs. Sheridan tagged her late husband’s name to her real estate enterprise and Paradise to her beauty supply business.

Nina had been to the Paradise location in Roxbury. It was a long space, with three aisles. She’d barely been inside a minute when a stocky Latino guy coming one way fingered the crotch of a voluptuous Jamaican sister walking opposite him down the middle aisle. The woman wore black leggings and a smile. She tried to swivel around him while he held on a few more seconds. Evidently, the maneuver helped an itch get scratched. They both worked there. He custom-blended hair for weaves and braids. The woman cut and styled wigs. She had a busy operation. Two in chairs, four waiting. Her partner, built like a sprinter, cut hair like one too. Fast. Nina liked the way she was layering the cut on one customer’s wig. They called the sprinter Rocket, Nina would learn later. And it had nothing to do with speed.

Juliette Choo Sheridan, the owner, clearly spent some time in the mirror. It reflected pinkish-red hair swept into a short, spiky ponytail. Blunt cut bangs that stopped short of her carefully placed false lashes-just a few spidery ones on the upper lids. And pouty pink lips. Between all that and the red boots with stiletto heels was a tight black dress to tone things down. Nina had eyed the plunging V-neck for signs of wrinkles. But Mrs. Sheridan didn’t have enough tits for cleavage. Nina figured she was forty-three.