"This is your lunch? No wonder you look so skinny." Carla took an early break from the drugstore photo counter to meet me at the yogurt shop.

"I've been busy," I tell her.

"Too busy to call?"

"It's one thing after another with this story."

"Ah ha!" she says. "Blackjack is getting laid again, isn't he?"

How on earth do they know? It's truly baffling.

"No comment," is my mealy reply.

"Well, it's about damn time." Carla stretches across the table and tweaks my nose. "Who's the lucky girl? Tell me everything, Jack. She give head?"

"Jesus, Carla!"

"Reason I ask, I'm thinkin' of having my tongue pierced."

"Stop right there." I raise both hands.

"All I want to know is, would it make a difference in the b.j. department? My girlfriend Rae, she says the guys go crazy. She's got a half-carat ruby on a platinum post."

"And that doesn't interfere with her tuba lessons?"

"Come on, Jack, tell me."

"I paid a visit to your mother. How pathetic is that."

"Oh, I know. I got the whole story," Carla says.

"And you were right. She's pretty darn happy."

"Toldya."

"Would I be even mildly amused to hear the wedding arrangements?"

"First you've gotta tell me"—Carla pauses to lap up the last smudge of her boysenberry yogurt—"what happened Saturday night with you and Loreal. After you split from the club."

"Not much. I tailed him to some redneck dive and pretended to interview him about Cleo Rio's new album."

"You mean CD," says Carla. "An album is where you keep your photographs, Jack. Speakin' of which, I got some juicy ones if you're up for it. Amateur bondage!"

"No thanks. I turned pro last year."

"So, about Messr. Loreal—tell me more, tell me more ... "

"Schmuck city, Carla, I checked him out. All these groups he says he produced, it's bullshit. He's just a studio rat. When Sugar Ray wants a Pellegrino or Snoop Doggy needs an Altoid, this is the guy they send to the mini-mart."

"You're saying he didn't produce the Wallflowers?"

"I'm saying he's lucky to produce a decent fart."

"Then why is Cleo with him?"

"Probably because he comes cheap. He thinks Jimmy's widow is his big break," I say. "So then, regarding the nuptials of Ms. Anne Candilla ... ?"

"Simple ceremony, Jack. I'm the maid of honor. The best man is Derek's brother Nigel. We're to call him 'Nige.' "

"Will it be at a church or a KOA campground, in honor of the groom's distinguished past?"

"Neither," says Carla. "A private home somewhere down on Miami Beach. Hibiscus Island, I think. My mother has reluctantly agreed to allow bagpipes."

"And the vows?"

"Traditional," she says. "Derek wanted to write his own, but Mom thinks she talked him out of it."

"Thus averting disaster."

"Afterwards the newlyweds are off to Ireland, and then to sunny Prague."

"Ugh-oh."

"Not to wreck your day, Jack, but they're making a miniseries from The Falconer's Mistress.Derek's gonna punch up the script."

"It's only fair," I say with level calm.

"Boy, you mustbe getting some. I haven't see you in such a good mood since that big-haired Karen chick was polishing your knob."

"Carla, are you poaching from Emily Dickinson again?"

"You know what I'm talkin' about."

Now I remember what I wanted to ask her. "The other night, did anything happen after I left the club?"

"Yeah. Two Japanese businessmen offered me four hundred bucks for a friction dance. They were incredibly lost."

"No, I meant with Cleo."

"She tried to score some X off me in the ladies' room, but that's about it. Hey, I really gotta get back to work."

"Tell your mom I wish her the best. I mean that, too."

"I know you do." She scoots out of the booth and slings a mailbag-sized purse over her shoulder. "Sure you aren't up for some dirty snapshots? There's this one blond cow, she's got some wrangler tied naked to a barber's chair with a string of Christmas lights." In a whisper she adds: "The lady who brought in the film, she's a big shot with the Junior League."

"Very tempting," I say to Carla, "but I'll pass."

Naughtily she cocks an eyebrow. "Jack, you old hound. She must be a hottie, this new babe of yours."

" 'Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.'"

"Whatever," says Carla, sticking out her tongue.

To avoid working on MacArthur Polk's obituary, I busy myself in the newsroom by scrolling up the many bylines of Emma's father on the International Herald Tribune'sdatabase. He is, as she told me, a topflight reporter. Among other big stories, he covered the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and the investigation into the automobile crash that killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend. Painfully I realize the disparity between my career arc and that of Emma's father is so vast as to render insignificant the four-year gap in our ages. He's batting cleanup in the big leagues, I'm riding the bench in the minors. Anticipating the withering onset of a depression, I abruptly click off the Herald Tribunesite and return full bore to Jimmy Storm patrol.

The obliging archives of the Palm Beach Postreveal that the Sea Urchins, the chief beneficiary of Jimmy's estate, is an old and well-regarded charity that sponsors children's marine camps in Key Largo, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. The kids are of elementary-school age, and come from impoverished neighborhoods throughout the United States and Canada. The seven stories on file contain no hint of scandals or misdeeds connected to the program. A recent feature piece about prominent Sea Urchins boosters includes a quote from a "James B. Stomartie" that I assume to be Jimmy, surname misspelled. "Every kid, no matter how poor, deserves a chance to dive into an ocean at least once in his life," he said.

Janet's brother wasn't a complicated man, and his bequest was born of uncomplicated motives. He probably figured that a glimpse of the undersea world would do for those kids what it did for him. Cleo might be fuming about the terms of her husband's will but she'd be an idiot to challenge it now. The headlines alone would annihilate her career (Pop Star Widow Sues to Claim Kiddie Charity's Loot).As

Janet said, if Cleo wanted Jimmy's money, she'd have been better off divorcing him than killing him. If she did murder him, it surely was over something else.

I hope to learn much more when, at noon sharp the day after tomorrow, the phone should ring in a booth at the end of the Silver Beach fishing pier. Maybe it'll be Cleo calling, maybe somebody in her posse.

Or maybe the phone won't ring at all, and then I'm stuck again. Maybe she never found the "Cindy's Oyster" disc with the phone number. What if she's allergic to coleslaw, and tossed the bag in the garbage?

"Jack."

It's Emma, sneaking up on me like in the old days. Only now, instead of acting officious, she seems rattled and hesitant.

"Do you have a credit card?" she says. "Because I haven't figured out how to get the paper to pay for this yet. But I will, don't worry. I'm waiting to corner Abkazion between the five– and six o'clock news meetings."

"Pay for what? "I ask.

"A plane ticket to Los Angeles. Here, look." She hands me a printout of a short piece from the Associated Press. Before I can begin to read it, Emma blurts: "Tito Negraponte was shot last night."

"No shit," I hear myself saying. "You were right ... "

"He's not dead. They've got him listed as serious at Cedars-Sinai. You want to take a crack at an interview?"

I'm dumbstruck. "You mean it? You want me to get on an airplane and go chasing a story, just like a real reporter?"

Emma reaches out lightly to touch my arm, as if she's brushing away a fleck of lint. "You've got to promise you'll be careful."