Strange frowned, put his face close to the boy's, and lowered his voice. 'I don't want to hear you talking like that, Lionel. You have a nice young woman, you treat her with respect. The same way you'd want a man to treat your mother, you understand me?'

'Yessir.'

Strange still had his wallet out, and he pulled a condom he kept for emergencies from underneath his business cards. He handed the condom to Lionel.

'In the event something does happen, though…'

'Thank you, Mr Derek,' said Lionel, smiling stupidly as he pocketed the rubber. The horn sounded again from out on the street. 'I'm ghost.'

'Have a nice time.'

Lionel left, and Strange locked the door behind him. Strange walked back to the living room wondering just how bad he'd fucked that up.

Janine was waiting for him there. She had put Songs in the Key of Life on the stereo and brought out a cold bottle of Heineken and two glasses and set them on the table before the couch. Janine was sitting on the couch with her stockinged feet up on the table. Strange joined her.

'You and Lionel have a little man-to-man?'

'Uh, yeah.'

'There's so much I can't give him alone.'

'I'm just a man, no smarter than any other.'

'But you are a man. He needs a strong male figure to guide him now and again.'

Strange smiled and flexed his bicep. 'You think I'm strong?'

'Go ahead, Derek.'

'I don't feel too strong tonight, I can tell you that.'

'That Sherman Coles pickup do you in?'

'Good thing I had that young man with me.'

Janine put a pillow behind Strange's head. 'Tell me about your day.' They talked about work. He told her the Coles story, and she told him how she'd taken care of some loose ends at the office. When they were done talking, and the beer bottle had been emptied, they went upstairs to Janine's room.

She had turned the sheets down, and he knew she had done it for him. Her clock radio, always set on HUR, had been turned on, and was softly emitting some Quiet Storm. The room was strong with the smell of her perfume, and as he undressed her, taking his time, the room grew strong with her female smell, too.

He got out of his outer clothes and stripped himself of his underwear. They were naked and they kissed standing. He got his hand on her behind and caressed her firm, ample flesh.

'Damn, Janine.'

'What?'

'You got some back on you, girl.'

'You don't like it?'

'You know I do.'

He pushed her large breasts together and kissed them, then kissed her mouth.

'Come on,' she said, short of breath.

'You in some kind of hurry?' Strange chuckled and sucked a little on her cool lips.

'Sit your ass down,' said Janine.

'Here?' asked Strange, pointing to the edge of the bed.

'You said you were tired,' said Janine. 'Let me do the work tonight.'

'Who's this right here?' said Quinn.

'Lauryn Hill,' said Juana. 'You like it?'

'Yeah, it's pretty nice. But you have any music with a guy singer?'

'I got the Black Album. You know, Prince. Does that count?'

'Oh, shit,' laughed Quinn.

'What's so funny?'

'I already had this conversation once today.'

Quinn adjusted himself. He felt his erection returning, and he moved his hips against hers. He gave her a couple of short strokes to let her know he was still alive.

'You tryin' to stay in or get out?'

'Just testing the water,' said Quinn.

'The water's warm.'

'Deep, too.'

'Cut it out.' Juana smiled. 'Some guys I know, they'd be tripping over themselves right about now, trying to get out the front door.'

'I'd be trippin' over somethin', I tried to leave right now.'

'Stop bragging.'

'Anyway, I want to stay right here.'

'You tellin' me you're not the type to hit it and split?'

'I've done it; I'm not gonna lie about that. But I don't want to do that with you.'

They were still on the couch. Quinn pulled an afghan up over them. The fire had weakened, and a chill had come in to the room. He looked at his white skin atop her brown.

'Think we can make this work?' asked Quinn.

'Do you want it to?'

'Yes.'

Strange was under the covers, lying beside Janine, when Greco walked into the room. He dropped the chuck bone at the foot of the bed, then moved it between his paws as he got himself down on the carpet.

'He's tellin' me it's time to go home.'

'I wish you didn't have to,' said Janine. 'It's nice and warm under this blanket.'

'It wouldn't be proper to have Lionel come home and know that I was here.'

'He already knows, Derek.'

'It wouldn't be right, just the same.'

Janine got up on one elbow and ran her fingers through the short hairs on Strange's chest.

'That lawyer I do business with from time to time,' said Strange. 'That Fifth Streeter with the cheap suit?'

'Markowitz?' said Janine.

'Him. He owes us money, doesn't he?'

'He's got an unpaid balance, I recall.'

'Give him a call tomorrow, see if he can't get us the transcripts of the review board hearings on the Quinn case.'

'You want to wipe out his debt?'

'See how much it is and settle it the way you see fit.'

'What's your feeling on this Quinn?'

Strange had been thinking of Terry Quinn all night. Quinn was violent, fearless, sensitive, and disturbed… all of those things at once. A cocktail of troubles, a guy who could come in handy in situations like they'd had today, but not the kind of guy who needed to be wearing a uniform, representing the law.

'I don't know enough about him yet,' said Strange. 'Next thing I'm going to do, I'm going to read those transcripts. Then I'm gonna go out and try and talk to the other players.'

'You think Quinn was wrong?'

'I think he's a white man who saw a black man holding a gun on another white man in the street. He reacted the way he's been programmed to react in this society, going back to birth.'

'You saying he's that way?'

'He's like most white people. Don't you know, most of 'em will tell you they don't have a racist bone in their bodies.'

'They're pure of mind and heart.'

'Quinn doesn't think he's that way,' said Strange. 'But he is.'

12

Nestor Rodriguez looked in the rearview mirror and spotted the green Ford, ten car lengths back. He punched a number into the cell phone cradled beside him, then snatched the phone up as it began to ring on the other end.

'Lizardo.'

'Brother.'

'We're almost there. I just now called Boone and told him to pick us up.'

'We have to do this every time for the midget?'

'The jerkoff doesn't want us to know where he and his father live. He insists.'

'Why can't we just make the trade in the parking lot?'

'Because the little one likes to scale out the manteca and test it at his house, in front of us. He's afraid of being ripped off.'

'Shit,' said Lizardo. It sounded like 'chit.'

The Rodriguez brothers did not have to worry about their conversation going out over the radio waves. Nestor had paid a young software engineer in Florida to alter his and his brother's electronic serial numbers and mobile identification numbers. Also, a Secure Cellular device called a Jammer Scrambler, attached to both of their phones, altered their voices.

Nestor was traveling north on 270 in a blue Ford Contour SVT. Lizardo Rodriguez followed in a green version of the same car. There were five kilograms of Colombian brown heroin in the trunk of Nestor's Ford and five in the trunk of Lizardo's.

The Contours looked liked family sedans, but at 200 horses were hardly that. The cars did 0 to 60 in 6.9 and could top out at over 140 miles per hour. The Fords' bland body styling was perfect for their runs, but the Rodriguez brothers preferred more flash driving on the streets of Orlando, their adopted city. Nestor in particular, who was the unmarried one of the two, was in love with pretty cars. He owned a new Mustang Cobra, also an SVT. His did 60 in 5.5. He was proud that he had not touched it cosmetically, as many Spanish were prone to do, but had left it stock. Well, not all the way stock. He had put two decals, silhouettes of naked girls with white-girl hair on the back of the car, with 'Ladies Invited' spelled out between the girls in neon letters. But that was the only extra thing he had done to the car.