Lenna nodded, looking at the glass of beer in her hand. 'I don't like Ricky. I don't like what he does. I'm no user now, but I walked through that door when I was younger. For me it was coke. Now it's heroin for the younger ones and the after-hours crowd. That's the low ride down. The ones who are using it don't know it or won't admit it, but there it is. Anyway, like I say, it's none of my business. Anything else?'

'One more thing.' Strange slipped the photograph of Sondra Wilson from his leather. 'You recognize this woman? Ever see her with Kane?'

'No,' said Lenna, after examining it closely. 'Not exactly.'

'What's that mean, not exactly?'

Lenna shrugged. 'Ricky liked light-skinned black women, exclusively. She fits the bill. None of them had grass growing under their feet, I can tell you that. I don't recall ever seeing him with the same one twice.'

Strange took a long pull off his beer. He set the bottle on the bar and slipped five folded twenties into Lenna's palm. 'I guess that's it. Sorry if I insulted you earlier. I didn't mean to imply that I was offering you money for something else.'

Lenna shook hair off her shoulder and smiled, the light from the bar candle reflecting in her eyes. 'You're a handsome man. I noticed you when you were in the other night, as a matter of fact. I was kind of hoping it was something else.'

'I'm flattered,' said Strange. 'To be honest with you, though, I'm spoken for.'

'I understand.' Lenna got off her stool and drained her beer standing. 'Nice to meet you.'

'And you.'

He watched her leave the restaurant and walk north on 14th. Strange finished his beer, realizing that he was hungry, and maybe a little drunk. Lenna was a good-looking young woman, and he was feeling the need. And it always was nice to get hit on by a woman twenty-five years his junior. These days, it happened less and less. But this Lenna girl didn't interest him. The truth of it was, white women had never been to his taste.

26

Terry Quinn sat at the bar at Rosita's, on Georgia Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, waiting for Juana Burkett to finish her shift. While he waited, Quinn read a British paperback edition of Woe to Live On and drank from a bottle of Heineken beer. Juana had smiled at him when he came through the door, but he had lived long enough to know that it was a smile with something sad behind it, and that maybe things between them were coming to an end.

As the last of the diners left the restaurant, Juana came out of the women's room, still dressed in her wait outfit but washed and combed, with a fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth.

'I tipped the busboy out extra to finish my side work. You ready?'

'Yeah,' said Quinn, slipping the paperback into the back pocket of his jeans. 'Let's go.'

Raphael, sitting at a deuce and putting dinner tickets in numerical order, waved them good-bye as they were going out the door.

'Got something in today you'd like,' said Quinn. 'An old George Duke – from the Dukey Stick days.'

'"Talk to me quick,"' said Raphael. 'Hold it for me, will you? I'll be in to pick it up.'

Quinn walked with Juana down Georgia to where the Chevelle sat parked under a street lamp. It shone beautifully in the light.

'This is me,' said Quinn. 'What do you think?'

'For real?'

'C'mon. Let's go for a ride.'

Quinn headed into Rock Creek Park, driving south on the winding road that was Beach Drive, Springsteen coming from the deck. The night was not so cold, and Quinn rolled his window down a quarter turn. Juana did the same. The wind fanned her hair off her shoulders and bit pleasantly at her face.

'Now I know what you like to listen to,' said Juana.

'It speaks to the world I came up in,' said Quinn. 'Anyway, you buy a new ride, you got to christen it with Darkness on the Edge of Town. There is no better car tape than that.'

'I like this car,' said Juana.

Juana's hands were in her lap, and she was rubbing one thumb against the knuckle of the other. Quinn reached over and separated her hands. He took hold of one and laced his fingers through hers.

'I'm gonna make this easy on you,' said Quinn.

'Thanks.'

'I got all this baggage, Juana. I'm aware of it, but I don't know what to do about it. If I didn't care about you I'd say, I'm gonna stick around and let her work it out. Because I'd stay with you as long as you let me, you know?'

Juana nodded. 'I thought when we met that it could work. But then, out in the world, when other guys were staring at us, making comments when we were walking down the street, I could see that you couldn't handle it. And it's not like it was going to go away. In this wonderful society we got here, no one is ever going to let us forget. There were times, I swear to God, it seemed like you wanted the conflict. Like the promise of that was what got you interested in me in the first place. I never wanted to be your black girlfriend, Tuh-ree. I only wanted to be your girlfriend. In the end, I wasn't sure what was really in your heart.'

'I'll tell you,' said Quinn. 'Maybe, in the beginning, you were some kind of symbol to me, a way to tell everyone that, inside, I was right. But I forgot about that, like, ten minutes after we were together. After that, in my heart, there was only you.'

'It's too intense with you,' said Juana. 'It's too intense all the time. Even sometimes when we're making love. The other night-'

'I know.'

'I'm young, Tuh-ree. I got my whole life to deal with the kinds of relationship problems that everyone has to face eventually. Money problems, infidelity, the death of love… but I don't want to deal with those things yet. I'm not ready, understand?'

'I know it,' said Quinn, squeezing her hand. 'It's all right.'

Quinn turned left on Sherril Drive and headed up the steep, serpentine hill toward 16th. He downshifted and gave the Chevy gas.

'Nice night,' said Quinn. 'Right?'

Quinn drove back into Silver Spring and parked on Selim. He said to Juana, 'You up for a little walk?'

They crossed the pedestrian bridge over Georgia and came to the chain-link fence.

'I'll give you a leg up,' said Quinn.

'You said a walk, not a climb.'

'C'mon, it's easy.'

On the other side of the fence, they walked by the train station and along the tracks. A Metro train approached from the south. Quinn stopped and embraced Juana, holding her tight to his chest. He looked over to the traffic lights, street lamps, and neon of Georgia Avenue.

'It's beautiful, isn't it?'

Her fingers touched his face.

'Don't forget me,' said Quinn.

He kissed her on the mouth as the train went by, and held the kiss in the storm of dust and wind.

Strange was starving, and he decided he could handle another beer. He left the Purple Cactus and drove over to Chinatown. He parked in an alley, behind a strip on I Street, between 5th and 6th. There was a hustler in the alley, and Strange gave him five dollars to watch his car, promising another five when he returned.

Strange entered the back door of an establishment that fronted I. He went by a kitchen and down a hall, passing several closed doors, and on through a beaded curtain into a small dining room that was sparsely decorated and held a half dozen tables. Several young Chinese women and an older one were working the room. A single white guy sat at a four-top, looking about as much like a tourist as a man could look, drinking a glass of beer.

'Gonna have some dinner, mama,' said Strange to the older woman. She rattled off something to one of the young ones, who led him to a table.

'You like drink?' said the girl.

'Tsingtao,' said Strange.