She thought, Well, now you know. And got out of bed.

Karen walked out to the sitting room with a sense of expectation. Foley was gone, but maybe he'd left a note. She looked around, at the desk, the coffee table. The newspaper photo he'd laid there was gone. But something wrapped in a napkin was lying by the half-empty bottle and the ice bucket.

She picked it up and knew what it was as she unfolded the napkin.

Her Sig Sauer.38.

TWENTY-ONE

Drop you off," Buddy said, "give the valet guy the car, Glenn and a black kid by the name of Kenneth are waiting in the lobby. This is three o'clock in the afternoon, the snow's coming down, they want us to take a ride with them. I said you were buying a pair of shoes, and if they want to go look for you over there, good luck. We come out, White Boy's waiting in the car.

What time did you get back?"

"About ten."

"It took you, what, seven hours to buy a pair of shoes?"

Wednesday morning now, Buddy had come to Foley's room frowning, wondering where he'd been.

"I saw Karen Sisco," Foley said.

"She's staying at the Westin."

Buddy didn't say anything right away. First he sat down at the table to look at Foley across his room service tray, Foley having the Continental breakfast in his socks and underwear, a bottle of Jim Beam close by.

"And she saw you?"

"Yes, she did."

Buddy said, "Oh, my," and watched Foley pour a shot of Beam into his coffee.

"Well, we're sure casual about it, aren't we? You talk to her?"

Foley nodded.

"Buy her a drink?"

"We had a few."

"She knew who you were."

Foley nodded again, sipped his coffee and raised the cup.

"You want some? You can use the glass in the bathroom."

Buddy shook his head.

"Have a nice visit and then you left?"

Buddy waited but didn't get an answer, Foley biting into some land of Danish.

"How's that work, a wanted felon socializing with a U.S. marshal?"

Foley said, "You know how I felt about her." He put his cup down.

"The night I came out, we're in the trees by the highway, she's in Glenn's car? You kept asking why I wanted to bring her along. I said I just wanted to talk to her. Well, it turns out she wanted to talk to me, too, and that's what we did."

Buddy said, "Did you give her a jump? If you did I might begin to understand where your head's at. I know the attraction pussy can hold for a man. What I can't imagine is risking your life over it, though I know it's done."

"It wasn't about getting laid," Foley said.

"You told me out on the highway it was too late, you know, to have a regular life.

I knew that. I still wanted to know what might Ve happened if things were different."

"You find out?"

Foley said" Yeah I did," not sounding too happy about it.

But what did that mean? He was disappointed by what he found? Or was sorry now he'd robbed all those banks?

Don't ask, Buddy thought. He said, "What happens now?"

"We're back where we were."

"You don't want to move on?"

Foley sipped his laced coffee. He said, "If you want to, I'll understand, but I'm staying."

"Well, shit," Buddy said, "if you aren't worried-a big sensible fella like you… I think we ought to move to a different hotel, though, not be so close."

"It's all right with me."

"She know Glenn's here?"

"I think so, but I doubt she's located him."

"Glenn's nervous, being with those guys. White Boy and this Kenneth, they're the kind probably can't write their own names but know everything. They took me by the State, it's a regular movie house on Woodward Avenue. If the snow wasn't up to our ass we could walk. Those salt trucks, they pile the snow up down the middle of the street and then haul it away, I believe dump it in the river."

"What time are the fights?"

"They start at eight."

"Let's go about ten. They say why Snoopy wasn't there?"

"Said he was busy. I'd call him Snoopy talking to Glenn?

Glenn'd look at White Boy and I'd see White Boy in the mirror giving me the evil eye. We work with those assholes one time only, that'll be enough for me."

"We've come this far," Foley said.

"They took me past the Detroit Athletic Club, said Ripley goes there for lunch almost every day, comes out about midafternoon and goes home, takes the Chrysler Freeway. Glenn said they've been checking Ripley out since November. See, but Glenn wouldn't tell the Snoop what the score would be till he came back to Detroit this time."

"What do they need Glenn for?"

"That's a good question."

"What do they need us for?"

"That's even a better question."

"We watch each other's back," Foley said.

They'd been doing that for years. Buddy looked at the rolls in the Continental basket.

"You gonna eat those?"

"Help yourself."

"I got your girlfriend's shotgun, but the only way I can get it out of the hotel's in a suitcase. Your Sig Sauer's no problem."

"I don't have it," Foley said.

Buddy was spreading butter on a croissant. He said, "What'd you do with it?" and bit off half the roll.

"I gave it back to her."

Buddy had to chew a few seconds before he said, still with a mouthful,

"You want to forget the whole thing and go to California, I'll drive us."

Burden's voice, sounding patient, said, "Karen, I just spoke to our people up there, they tell me they haven't heard a word from you."

Patient and then adding a note of surprise to the lilt in his voice.

"Now how could that be?"

"I've been busy," Karen said. She held the phone between her shoulder and jaw, picked up the paper and turned to the Local News section.

"Daniel? Three shot to death in home invasion." Last night, during a snowstorm. Detroit Police think one of the invaders may be a guy I was over there asking about the other day, Maurice Snoopy Miller. The victims ran a dope house and this guy used to do business with them."

"Snoopy," Burdon said.

"Yeah, he's a friend of Glenn Michaels. They met at Lompoc and Glenn told DEA he stayed with Maurice last November when he was up here."

"Karen, you're ducking my question. How come you haven't been to see our people?"

"I don't have anything to give them. I walk in empty-handed saying I want to help, they'll say, good, why don't you put the coffee on."

"I told them you were coming."

"Yeah, and what'd they say?"

"They thought with something like two hundred agents in the state of Michigan and a bunch of marshals they had enough help."

"See? I don't want to go in until I can give them something, like pay my way, and I know I'm close to locating Glenn. In fact, I'm going to the fights this evening, and I have every reason to believe he's gonna be there."

"

"Every reason to believe' is like telling me you think he'll be there.

All I have to say, Karen, you spot Glenn I want you to call for backup.

You don't spot him, you come home and we'll find something for you to do. You took advantage of me, girl, caught me in a weak moment."

"How'd you do with the Super Bowl?"

"The point spread I had, I was doing fine till you came along."

"I won a new pair of shoes, off my dad."

"What about Foley? You hear anything?"

"I'm after Glenn, he's the key."

"Karen, you fuck up and I get sent to White Fang, Alaska as resident agent…"

"I'll go with you," Karen said.

"You bet your skinny ass you will."

Karen said, "Okay, then…"

She should have said, "You're hoping I do fuck up, aren't you?" She didn't believe she had, yet; because she didn't think of the time spent with Foley as morally wrong, and if it wasn't, and if she wasn't technically aiding or abetting but only violating a code of conduct, she could live with it and not feel guilty. When she was much younger she would go to confession and say, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I stole a lipstick from Burdine's and I let a boy touch my breast but we didn't do anything." If she felt a need to tell more, she might add that she had smoked cigarettes after promising her mother she wouldn't. The priest would give her ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys, absolve her, she would be sorry for her sins, sort of, and whatever degree of guilt she had felt would be gone. Since then, for the past fifteen or so years, Karen hadn't been to confession because she seldom felt guilty about anything. If she had doubts, she would talk to her dad about it. Or, she would imagine talking to her dad, which to Karen was much the same thing.