She brought him a beer and a menu while the other young women tried to catch his eye. There was a slim one with a little bit of back on her that he had already picked out; he had noticed her when he'd walked in.

One of the girls was talking to the tourist sitting at the table, who had set one of those booklet maps next to his beer.

'Whassa matter,' said the young woman to the tourist. 'You neeby be ray?' The other girls laughed.

Strange ate a dish of sesame chicken and white rice, with crispy wontons and a cup of hot-and-sour soup. He drank another beer, listening to the relaxing string music they were playing in the place. When he was done he broke open a fortune cookie and read the message: 'Stop searching forever, happiness is right next to you.'

Strange dropped the message on his plate. He signaled the older woman and told her what he wanted and who he wanted it from.

'Whassa matter,' said the young woman to the tourist, who now looked somewhere between confused and frightened. 'You neeby be ray?'

Strange left money on the table and got up from his chair. The tourist said, 'Excuse me,' and Strange went over to his table.

'Yeah?'

'Do you know what they're trying to ask me?' said the tourist.

'I think she's sayin', ain't you never been laid.' Strange went through the beaded curtain, muttering 'stupid' under his breath. He opened one of the closed doors in the hall and entered a series of rooms.

Strange undressed and took a hot shower in a tiled stall. Then he went to a clean white room, dropped the towel he had wrapped around his waist, and lay down nude on a padded table. The young woman he had chosen came into the room and began to give him a full massage. He felt her bare breasts brush his back as she straddled his hips, and he became aroused. She asked him to turn over. It was a relief to lie on his back, as he had a full erection now.

The young woman pumped her fist a couple of times and smiled. Strange said, 'Yes, baby,' and squeezed one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. She rubbed lotion on her hands and jacked him off. Afterward, she cleaned him with a warm wet towel.

Strange dressed and dropped forty dollars into a porcelain bowl set by the door. The young woman gave him a look of disappointment, and made a clucking sound with her tongue. But Strange was unmoved; he knew that forty was the price.

Out in the alley, he handed the hustler another five on the way to his car.

'All right,' said the hustler.

Strange said, 'All right.'

Strange drove north and parked his Caddy on 9th, directly in front of his business. He turned the key in the front door, went inside, and flicked on the lights. He walked toward his office, glancing at the neatness of Janine's desk. The woman just didn't go home until she had taken care of all the details of her day. He kept on walking to the back room.

In his office, he had a seat at his desk. Janine had picked up the packet of photographs he'd taken down off Florida Avenue. He went through the pictures: Ricky Kane had come out clearly, as had the numbers on the bumper and side of the police cruiser parked out on the street.

Strange reached for the phone. He called his old friend Lydell Blue and left a message on his machine. He didn't want to leave the cruiser's identifying number on Lydell's tape. He phoned Quinn, got his machine, told him they had work to do the next day, told him where and when he'd pick him up.

It was going to be an early day. I shouldn't have drunk so much tonight, thought Strange. I shouldn't have…

'Ah, shit.'

Strange saw a PayDay bar sitting on a piece of paper on the corner of his blotter. He lifted the bar and looked at the paper. Janine had drawn a little red heart on the paper, nothing else. Strange looked away and saw the Redskins figure, the one Lionel had painted for him, staring at him from the back of the desk.

'You all right, Derek,' said Strange. But his voice was unconvincing, and the words sounded like a goddamn lie.

27

Edna Loomis was straddling Ray Boone atop their bed, sliding up and down on his thick, short cock, moving her hips in awkward rhythm to the Alan Jackson tune that was blasting in the room. Her head was bent forward as she whipped her orange-blond, feather-cut hair across his pale chest, shaking her head in time to the music.

'She's gone country,' sang Edna. 'Look at them boots!'

Ray chuckled and grabbed one of her tits real good and hard. Edna kind of grunted. He couldn't tell if it was from pleasure or pain.

Ray shot off inside her, and right after that she faked like she was coming, too. He almost laughed, watching her shiver and howl, making a sound like a dog did when you went and stepped down on its paw. She must have seen some actress do that on one of her TV shows. Ray didn't know why she felt the need to fake it; he didn't care if she came or not.

Edna got off him and walked across the room. She turned the music down, then lit a Virginia Slims cigarette from that leather pouch of hers. The hand holding the lighter shook some from the speed that was still racing through her body.

'Turn that music off all the way,' said Ray. 'I'm tired of listenin' to it.'

Edna clicked off the compact stereo. Ray watched her, and when she caught him looking at her she sucked in her stomach. Aside from those dimples she had all over the tops of her legs, the girl was gettin' a belly on her, too.

'Me and Daddy gotta get goin',' said Ray, sitting up on the edge of the bed. He squeezed the rest of his jiz out and wiped it off on the sheets.

'You gonna leave me a little somethin', so I'll have somethin' to do while you're gone?'

'You just smoked up a mess of that crystal before we fucked, girl.'

'Bet your daddy's gonna leave his girlfriend a little somethin'.'

'Aw, shut up about that,' said Ray.

Edna stuck her tongue out playfully at Ray, then dragged hard on her cigarette. She wasn't going to make a fuss over it or nothin' like that. She still had that key to the room where he kept his stash, out there in the barn.

Earl Boone zipped up his trousers and looked at the girl stretched out there on his bed. She drew the sheets up to her birdlike shoulders and gazed at him with those funny, sexy, different-colored eyes. He didn't have no, what did you call that, delusions about her or anything like that. Sure, once he had got her out here in the country and cleaned her up, and kept her showered and smelling nice, she almost looked like any other good-looking young lady you'd see out there on the street. She was just a junkie, he knew, and if she kept up that pace of hers, she wasn't gonna live too much longer. But damn if she wasn't the prettiest junkie he'd ever seen.

'You gonna be all right, honey girl? 'Cause me and my boy, we got to make a trip into the city.'

'You'll leave me somethin', Earl?'

'Course I will. You know I wouldn't let you have any pain.'

Ray finished dressing. He heard that godawful music Edna was playing in Ray's bedroom down the hall. He hated that new stuff sung by those pretty boys with the department store-bought hats and the tight jeans, wondered why anyone would want to listen to that shit when they could be listenin' to Cash, Jones, Haggard, or Hank. Just when he thought he couldn't stand to listen to it any longer, the music ended. He figured his boy was getting himself ready for their last run.

Ray took a small wax packet of brown heroin from his coat pocket and dropped it on the dresser.

'Be back in a few hours,' he said.

Sondra Wilson watched him leave, closing the bedroom door behind him. She tried not to look at the packet on the dresser. She didn't want to do it up now; she wanted it to last. But then she began to shake a little, thinking of it sitting up there all alone. She thought of her mother and her brother, and began to cry. She wasn't sure why she was so sad. Everything she wanted was here, ten feet away from where she was lying now.