"He's got a burner turned on in his head. I wouldn't mess with his male pride," I said.

"Is there something wrong with the way I look? I wish you'd stop staring at me."

"I think you've got a guilty conscience, Kim."

"Oh you do?"

"Did you drop the dime on us?"

She watched Jess putt across the green. The red flag on the pin flapped above his head in the distance. Finally the ball clunked into the cup. My eyes never left the side of her face. She pulled her dress tight over her knee. Her hips and stomach looked as smooth as water going over stone.

"Somebody told the Man. It wasn't Lionel or Fontenot," I said.

"Do you think Tony would be taking me out for lunch if he thought I was a snitch?"

"I think only Tony knows what goes on in Tony's head. I think he likes to live on the outer edge of his envelope. Eating black speed is like sliding down the edge of a barber's razor."

"Why do you keep saying these things to me? I have nothing to tell you."

"Do you know a Vice cop named Nate Baxter?"

I could see the color in her cheeks.

"Why should I know-," she began.

"He was following you the day you were in Clete's place. This guy's a lieutenant. Why's he interested in you, Kim?"

Her eyes were wet, and her lip began to tremble.

"All right, come on now," I said.

"You're a shit."

Jess had stopped putting and was looking at us. The gray hair on his chest grew like wire out of his golf shirt.

"Maybe I'm just a little worried about you," I said.

"Leave me alone. Please do that for me."

"I'll buy you a drink inside."

"No, you stay away from me."

"Listen to me, Kim-"

She picked up her purse and walked in her high heels across the lawn toward the club. Her calves looked hard and waxed below the hem of her knit dress. Jess walked off the green with the putter hanging loosely at his side.

"What's wrong with her?" he said.

"I guess I don't know how to talk to younger women very well."

"She's a weird broad. I don't trust her."

"Why not?"

"She don't ask for anything. A broad who don't ask you for anything has got a different kind of hustle going. Tony don't see it." He twirled the putter like a baton in his fingers.

I found her sitting on a tall chair-backed stool in the bar. The bar was done in mahogany and teakwood, with brass-framed round mirrors and barometers on the walls and copper kettles full of ferns hung in the windows that looked out over the yacht basin. Her eyes were clear now, and her hands lay quietly on the polished black surface of the bar, her fingers touching the sides of a Manhattan glass. She nibbled at the orange slice; then her face tightened when she saw me walk into the periphery of her vision. I ordered a cup of coffee from the bartender.

"What do I have to say? Don't you know how to let someone alone?" she said.

"I think you need a friend."

"And you're it? What a laugh."

"I know Baxter. If you've got a deal going with him, he'll burn you."

I saw her swallow, either with anger or fear.

"What is the matter with you? Are you trying to get me killed?" she said.

"Get on a plane, Kim. L.A.'s great this time of year. I'll get some money for you."

She looked straight ahead and breathed hard, way down in her chest.

"You're a cop," she said.

"Ex."

"Now."

"You'd better check out my record. Cops with my kind of mileage are the kind they shove out the side door."

"I can't afford you. I'm going to ask you one more time, get away from me."

"You're a nice girl. You don't deserve the fall you're headed for."

She started to speak again, but her words caught in her throat as though she had swallowed a large bubble of air. Then she sipped from her Manhattan, straightened her back, and signaled the bartender.

"This man is annoying me," she said.

He was young, and his eyes glanced nervously at me and then back at her.

"Did you hear me?" she said.

"Yes."

"Would you tell him to leave, please?" she said.

"Sir, this lady is making a request," the bartender said.

He wore a long-sleeved white shirt and a black bow tie, and his hair was blond and oiled.

"Yeah, I heard her, podna. I don't know where else I should go, though."

"Would you tell him to get the fuck out of the bar?" she said.

"Miss, please don't use that language."

"I ordered a drink. I didn't ask to have a dildo sit next to me while I drank it. Tell him to get out."

"Miss, please."

"What does it take to get through to you?" she said.

Other people had stopped eating and drinking and were looking at us.

"Sir, would you mind-," the bartender said.

"No, I don't mind," I said. "Where should I go?"

"Try Bumfuck, Kansas," she said.

"Miss, I'll have to ask you to leave, too."

"Is that right?" she said. "Would you page Mr. Cardo out on the golf course and tell him that? I would appreciate it if you would tell him that."

"You're Mr. Cardo's guest?" the bartender said. His face was bloodless.

"Don't sweat it, partner. We're leaving," I said.

"Is that what we're doing? Is that what you think we're doing? I don't think we're doing that at all," she said, and shattered her highball glass on the liquor bottles behind the bar.

The bar area and dining room were silent. Her gray pillbox hat was askew on top of her forehead, and a lock of her red hair hung down in one eye. The bartender stood on the duckboards and stared wide-eyed at Jess, who had just thrust open the outer glass doors to the bar, the putter still in his hand, his face pushed out of shape like white rubber.

We were driving away from the lakefront, on Orleans Avenue, past City Park. Tony had the window down and was turned in his seat, looking back at me and Kim, and his black and gray hair blew like tiny springs in the wind.

"What were you guys doing?" he said. He tried to hold a grin on his face.

"I was trying to have a drink," Kim said.

"Some fucking way to get the bartender's attention," Jess said.

"I'm sorry about that back there," I said to Tony.

"I can't believe it, eighty-sixed out of my own club," he said. "You know what it took for me to get a membership in that place?"

"You want me to go back and talk with somebody about it later?" Jess said.

"What's the matter with you? It's a country club. You can't come crashing into the bar with a golf club in your hand," Tony said.

"I thought they were in trouble," Jess said.

"So you had to knock a waiter down?"

"I didn't see him. What the fuck, Tony. Why you reaming me? I didn't start that stuff."

"I think you ought to consider who you invite out to lunch," Kim said.

"I think I ought to get a new life. Am I the only person that's sane in this car?" Tony said.

"It's my fault. I'm sorry about it," I said.

"How gallant," Kim said.

"All right, all right. I'll try to square it. It's just a club, anyway, right? Jesus Christ," Tony said, and blew out his breath.

We could see golfers out on the fairways in City Park and children on horseback beyond a grove of oak trees. Jess looked in the rearview mirror and changed lanes. Then he looked in the rearview mirror again, accelerated, and passed two cars. I saw his eyes go back into the mirror.

"We've got some guys behind us," he said.

"What guys?" Tony said.

"Two guys in a Plymouth. Behind the limo."

"Can you make 'em?" Tony said.

"No."

"They look like talent?"

"I don't know. What d'you want to do, Tony?"

"Pull into the park and stop."

"You want to do that?" Jess said, looking sideways at him.

"They'll cut and run. Watch. Come on, the day's starting to improve."