"Vanna doesn't give him much help," the man said. "She can't wait to say 'Bye' and wave to the audience. What she's good at."

He was wearing a warm-up suit, the dark blue with yellow piping. He had glanced at Montez coming in the room and gone back to Pat and Vanna.

Montez said, "Chloe's coming tonight, huh?"

"Yeah-you get the cigarettes?"

"Not yet. You want me to pick her up?"

"That's what you do, isn't it?"

Montez could say not always, but this was edgy enough. He said, "What time?"

"Nine-thirty."

Montez waited a moment. "You know I didn't have any idea she was coming?"

The man was watching a sappy ad now about Mr. Goodwrench. He said, "Don't forget the cigarettes."

"Come on, Mr. Paradise, do I ever forget anything?"

The man looked up at him and said, "You forget who you are sometimes."

Lloyd, in the white shirt and black vest he wore with a black bow tie, was in the dining room clearing the table. He said to Montez coming in, "Put something in your hands." Montez picked up the bottle of red, down more than half, and followed Lloyd to the kitchen.

Montez saying, "He still got the bug up his ass."

"You're the one put it there," Lloyd said.

"How come I didn't know his girl's coming?"

"You still on that?"

"What if I'd gone someplace?"

"You'd have gotten permission, wouldn't you? Ask Mr. Paradise sir was it all right? He'd tell you no, you got to pick up his ho," Lloyd said. "Least he'll be in a good mood later on. You see what he's wearing? His ath-e-lete suit. Means we gonna have some cheerleading tonight." Lloyd said to Montez walking out, "The ho's gonna bring another ho to do it with her."

Montez went out the back door and cross the yard toward the garage thinking, Jesus Christ, two of 'em now. He brought out his special phone, the cheap one, and punched the number he'd tried in the car. When the woman's voice came on, the same woman saying hello like she hated answering phones, Montez said from a hard part of his throat, "Don't fuck with me, Mama." She hung up on him. He put in the number again, listened to it ring and ring until Carl Fontana's voice came on saying he was out and to leave a message. Montez said, "There's no game tonight. Understand? Call me by nine."

That was all. He knew better than to get his name and too much of his voice onto tape.

4

Jerome looked at his street-market Rolex .

It was 8:15 P.M., fluorescent lights on in the squad room: Jerome sipping on a can of Pepsi-Cola in a swivel chair Delsa had brought over to put next to his desk, Delsa reading what he said was Jerome's LEIN report. They were the only ones in the room. Jerome tried to figure out what LEIN meant and finally had to ask.

"Law Enforcement Information Network," Delsa said.

"I'm in there?"

"Anybody commits a crime."

"What they have me doing?"

"Possession with intent."

"Was only dank. I never had any intention to sell it. Was the judge wouldn't believe it was for my own smoking pleasure."

"How much did you have?"

"Four hundred pounds. Got me thirty months in Milan, man."

He thought the detective would start talking about prison now, asking did he want to go back, waste his life inside. Preach at him. No, that seemed to be it. Now he was looking for something on his desk. Having trouble finding it, all the shit piled there. One thing about him, he never yelled, never got in your face and screamed at you, like some of those old-time white dicks still around. Jerome swiveled in his chair away from Delsa and pushed up.

He said, "You got all white fellas in here?"

Delsa looked up at Jerome, standing now.

"We had eight in the squad, five black, three white. Three of the eight women, but now we're down, shorthanded."

"You the boss, you sit at the front desk?"

"Acting head. The lieutenant's in the army reserve. He's over in Iraq."

He had always a quiet tone of voice, answered your questions. It gave Jerome the feeling you could talk to him. Jerome believed he was Italian, dark eyes that were kinda sad, dark hair that looked like he combed with his fingers. What he should do, have it straightened some and slick it back with a dressing, give it a shine. The blue shirt and tie could pass, if it's what you had to wear working here. The man didn't have much size to him-was stringy, but could have been an athlete at one time. Or he ran and did that weight shit, like in the yard at Milan.

Jerome looked around the room, took a few shuffle steps and paused. When he wasn't told to sit down he began to stroll, checking out the shit on the desks:

Case files, witness statements, preliminary complaint reports-Jerome reading titles on the sheets-scene investigation and Medical Examiner reports, M.E. proof sheets of gunshot wounds-six in the back of the head, Jesus Christ, exit wounds in the man's cheek-Polaroids of a woman lying in the weeds, phones, computers, directories, mug shots and coffee mugs. Four desks on one side of the room, two pair butted together, three on the other side. The one Delsa sat at faced down the aisle between them to a door that was open and what looked like a walk-in closet inside, painted pink.

Why would they have a pink room in here?

Why would they have a fish with big ugly lips in a tank on top a file cabinet? The fish looking at him.

A printed sheet with a fancy border of flowers, taped to the side of the cabinet-you had to get close to read-said:

TOO OFTEN WE LOSE SIGHT OF LIFE'S SIMPLE PLEASURES. REMEMBER, WHEN SOMEONE ANNOYS YOU IT TAKES 42 MUSCLES IN YOUR FACE TO FROWN. BUT IT ONLY TAKES 4 MUSCLES TO EXTEND YOUR ARM AND BITCH-SLAP THE MOTHERFUCKER UPSIDE THE HEAD.

Delsa said, "Jerome? You have an idea what happened to the gun?"

He watched Jerome in his green and red Tommy jacket and black do-rag, blousy cargo pants sweeping the floor, turn and come back to the chair next to the desk.

Jerome said, "What gun you mean?" sitting down again.

"Tyrell's, the murder weapon."

"How would I know?"

Jerome swiveling the chair back and forth now in slow motion.

"You said he pulled a nine."

"I could be mistaken."

"Jerome, don't bail out on me. I swear you won't have to testify. Nothing you tell me leaves this room."

"Was a Beretta, the one holds fifteen loads."

Delsa said, "Your girlfriend's name is Nashelle Pierson?"

"That's right."

"She has a half-brother named Reggie Banks?"

Jerome hesitated. "Yeah:?"

"And Reggie, who works at the Mack Avenue Diner with Tyrell, is a homey of yours?"

"How you know that?"

"I ride the block and talk to people. Who's this Jerome Juwan Jackson I hear about? Has style, tight rims on his car. A girl sitting on her front steps says, 'Oh, you mean Three-J? Yeah, lives in the house down the block, in the house has boards over the windows. Protect him from dudes shooting at him.'"

"Uh-unh, the windows already busted when I moved in."

"Rent free," Delsa said, "looking after the house for, I believe, your uncle doing time?"

"How you know that? Me and him have different names."

"I told you, I talk to people. Most of 'em want to help us, Jerome. I mean ordinary people, not just paid informants. Nobody wants a crack house on their block. Hear gunfire in the night. See innocent children, babies, killed in drive-bys. You know how many times in a drive-by they get the wrong house? You see a car cruise past a couple of times? Now here it comes back? What do you do?"

"Hit the floor, man." Jerome grinned. He said, "Tell me something. How much these paid informants get paid?"

"Depends on how good the information is. We get tips all the time. A guy has a grudge, wants to pay somebody back and names him as a perp. Guy writes from jail. 'Get me out of here and I'll give you the guy did Bobo.' It's our junk mail. The pay for information we need comes out of what's called Crime Stoppers. It's a program."