Back to the apartment. Part of a package of fish sticks, part of a bag of frozen French fries. Dump them on a cookie tray, stick them in the oven. Get out the ketchup. Frost had formed inside the packages from being open in the freezer compartment. The French fries came out wet and hot and steamy. Flavorless.He ate them anyway. Go down the hallway, take the wet stuff out of the washer and stuff it in the dryer. Go back to the apartment and open a beer.

Stepovich began the nightly ritual of flicking through the channels. Apartment came with cable.Cable TV and roaches, free with the rent. At least having the cable gave him plenty of channels to flip through. He watched about three hours of television a night, and as Ed had once observed, that was a lot,at only three minutes per channel.

The steamy romances potboiler on four put him in mind of Durand and Tiffany Marie, and he watched the couple on the tube make fish mouths at each other while he thought about what a jerk he'd been today,climbing on Durand about Tiffany Marie. When he got to feeling too abashed he switched to seventeen.Quiz show time, stupid questions and dumber answers, because the contestants were movie stars and they were more concerned with being witty than with getting the answer right. That was him in the park with the horse-hack, and he'd learned about as much from him as he was learning from the show. Click the channels some more, to a rock video of young girls writhing and moaning. He could call Laurie. Hell, he should call Laurie, except that Jennie probably wouldn't put him through. She'd as much as told him to butt out. Not that she would really make him butt out, but she could make it uncomfortable. But he could call and promise he wouldn't say anything to her about what her mom had talked about today. But,hell, that wouldn't fool anybody. Laurie would know why he was calling. She was one smart kid, Laurie was. Growing up so fast. Too fast, and he was missing it. Click the channel selector.

Thirteen had on a horror flick, with unavenged ghosts and a battered old gypsy woman telling the hero to beware, but also telling him that he was the one destined to free them all. Find out who killed me,that sort of line. Click.

A cop show. Two partners had gone bad, were dispensing vigilante justice, and the good cop was hunting them down.

Click.

Rocky and Bullwinkle. He watched Boris and Natasha once more temporarily vanquished, watched the little fairy sweep up the fractured fairy tale, and was just getting into Shermie and Mr. Peabody when the phone rang.

Eleven o'clock. No one but Ed ever called him this time of night. He picked up the phone and said,"Yeah?"

"I thought you said you'd call me," Marilyn snapped. He sat up straight on the couch, zapped the TV set into oblivion.

"Jeez, I'm sorry," he said, "I meant to, but…"

"I thought this was so all-be-damned important to you, and so I go ahead and…"

"It is, it is," Stepovich assured her hastily. Where was his notebook? End of the coffee table. He reached for it, knocked the ketchup bottle rolling onto the floor, but let it go. It was a squeeze bottle, it wouldn't leak much anyway. Grab the pen, and "Go ahead,what did you find for me?"

"Too damn much, that's what, and not much at all. You want stuff done by gypsies, I got a ton of it.You want stuff done by John Does, possible first name Chuck, I got a ton of that, too. I mean, good lord,Stepovich, half the gypsies in the world have facial scars. Doesn't this man have a tattoo, or a lisp, or a birthmark or anything?"

"Not that I know of. There was no overlap, no gypsy of that description, possible first name Chuck?"

Marilyn sounded miffed when she replied. "I knew you'd ask that. I knew it. So I dug, and I dug like hell. How about a vagrancy, possible involvement in an arson, six years ago? In Kansas City?"

"That's not really what I was looking for," Stepovich muttered, not sure if he felt frustrated or relieved.No serial killings in some obscure part of the U. S. at least. No string of crimes attached to that description and name. "Is that all there was?"

"I swear to God, I been working with you too long.If you aren't too fussy about the gypsy description, I can give you about thirty-two shoplifting cases. Three grand theft auto, two of those from auto dealers in Sacramento, looks like a regular scam. A porno ring in Fort Lauderdale, but the ones they caught weren't really gypsies. Still, there was a Chuck involved. Airplane hijacking. In Oklahoma. Almost funny, that one's so stupid. Cropduster hijacked from one field to another."

"That's not what I meant," Stepovich cut in frustratedly. "I was looking for a felony, or a string of felonies, something serious. The arson and vagrancy were the only ones where there was a good overlap between the name Chuck and the description of the Gypsy?"

Marilyn sighed. "Almost, I had a feeling you were going to be stubborn on this. I pulled up stuff I didn't even know I could access. Stuff I would have sworn was too dead or too cold. How's this. New Orleans,A stabbing. In a bar. Victim Timothy DeCruz, also known as Timmy Dee, sometimes Tim del Mendicant much on the killer, but the victim had a file of past convictions as long as your arm. Mostly little scams, but the kind that hint he was involved in bigger, nastier stuff but didn't get caught. Cause of the fight was possibly cheating at cards, it was never clearly established. Ugly crime. The medical report comments on the strength required to drive a knife that size through a leather vest and completely into a man's body. The hilt left a bruise, it impacted so hard. Talk about your crime of passion. The guy was either horribly strong, or totally enraged. Witnesses described the killer, and it fits your guy to a tee. But for all that, they didn't seem too hot to help the investigation. The perp was never found."

A little prickle of certainty ran up Stepovich's spine,that little trickle of instinct that never betrayed him."It's him. When was it, and who handled it?"

Nasty satisfaction as she said, "August 12, 1935. But the description does match your man."

"Shit, Marilyn, my guy probably wasn't even born then."

"Maybe it was his father then. Maybe it's a gypsy crime family, and you're tracking the youngest member."

He was beginning to get an inkling of just how bad he'd pissed her off. "Jeez. I'm sorry. I guess I wasted a lot of your time today." Cautiously. "You sure that's all there was?"

He heard her breathe out through her nose in disgust. "You talk to Durand today?" she demanded,ignoring his question.

"Yeah. Marilyn, I don't think it's quite how you're seeing it. I think he really likes her."

"That's why he stood her up tonight, right? She turns down a date with a nice college boy to wait fora sleazy-ass cop who doesn't even show."

"I don't know nothing about that," Stepovich objected.

"No. Of course you don't. You didn't drag him off on this wild goose chase of yours, did you?"

"Swear to God, I didn't, Marilyn," Stepovich said fervently. "And Jesus Christ," he said, becoming annoyed in turn, "I lit into my partner like I was going to tear his throat out, just on your say-so, and it turns out the damn fool's in love with her. How do you suppose that makes me feel?"

"What makes you think-?"

"I see them together. You don't. All right?"

"Hmmph. I'd have seen them together if he'd shown up tonight."

"Marilyn, he's my partner, not my goddamn kid. I did what you told me to, and you were wrong about him."

"Well," she said, relenting a little. "Well. Maybe I was. Sorry. But you have to talk with him anyway. He's not right for Tiffany Marie, he isn't going to bring any good to her life. You reason with him."

"Sure," Stepovich said. "Sure, I'll do that. And you talk to her. Okay?"

"Okay."