He took both her hands and held them tightly. "Maria, it's Lombardo. He's no longer with us."

"What happened?" She stared at her father's face. The areas beneath his eyes were dark. His jowls sagged even more than she remembered.

Her father gestured. "These young men brought the news. "

Frankie, Joey, and Little Renaldo stood clumped together. Joey literally held his hat in his hands.

"We told Don Carlos, Maria. Lucky Lum-er, Lombardo was coming right over here but he stopped for a minute in the subway."

"He wanted to get some gum, I think." Frankie volunteered the information as if it had some significance.

"Yeah, anyway. He didn't come out. We were just hanging around," said Joey, "so we decided to find out what was going on when we heard about… disturbance in the station. When we got there, we found out what happened."

"Yeah, they found him in about two dozen-"

"Frankie!"

"Yes, Don Carlo."

"That will be all for tonight, boys. I will see you in the morning."

The three young men nodded and touched their foreheads in Rosemary's direction as they left.

"I'm sorry, Maria," said her father.

"I don't understand. Who would have done this?"

"Maria, you know Lombardo worked with our family business. Others knew that. And they knew he was about to become my son. We think it may have been someone trying to hurt me." Don Carlo's voice sounded sad. "There have been other incidents lately. There are those who want to take away what we have worked for a lifetime to achieve." His voice hardened again. "We won't let them get away with this. I promise, Maria!"

"Maria, I have some nice lasagna. Your favorite. Please, try to eat." Rosemary's mother spoke from out of the shadows. She rose to take Rosemary to the kitchen, escorting her with an arm around her shoulders.

"Mama, you shouldn't have held supper for me."

"I didn't. I knew you would be late and so I saved some for you. "

Rosemary said to her mother, "Mama, I didn't love him."

"Ssh. I know." She touched her daughter's lips. "But you would have grown to care for him. I could see how well you got along."

"Mama, you don't-" Rosemary was interrupted by her father's voice following them from the library.

"It has to be melanzanes, blacks! Who else would be attacking us now? They have to be coming down from Harlem through the tunnels. They've wanted our territories for years."

"Especially they want a susina like Jokertown. No, jokers would never dare do this on their own, but the blacks could be using them as a distraction."

Rosemary heard silence, followed by tinny squeaks from the telephone. Her mother tugged at her arm.

Don Carlo said, "They must be stopped now or they will threaten all the Families. They're savages."

Another pause.

"I do not exaggerate."

"Maria…" said her mother.

"Tomorrow morning, then," said Don Carlo. "Early. Good."

"See, Maria. Your father will take care of it." Her mother led Rosemary into the harvest-gold kitchen with all its bright appliances, the walls lined with framed samplers of old country homilies. She thought of telling her mother about C.C. and the subway, but it seemed impossible now. It had to have been her imagination. She just wanted to sleep. She didn't want to eat. She couldn't take anything else tonight.

The bag lady stirred in her sleep and one of the pair of large cats beside her moved out of the way. He raised his head and sniffed at his companion. Leaving the woman with an opossum curled against her stomach, the two cats silently stalked out into the darkness of the abandoned subway tunnel. The neglected 86th Street cutoff took them toward food.

Both cats were hungry themselves, but now they hunted for their woman's breakfast. Using a drainage tunnel, they exited into the park and out beneath the maples to the street.

When a New York Times delivery truck paused at a light, the black cat looked at the calico and pointed his muzzle at the truck. As the truck pulled away, they leaped aboard. Settled on the back of the truck, the black created the image of mounds of fish and shared it with the calico. Watching the city blocks pass, they waited for the telltale scent of fish. Finally, as the truck slowed, the calico smelled fish and impatiently jumped down from the vehicle. Yowling angrily, the black followed her down an alley. Both stopped when the scent of strange humans overwhelmed the food. Farther down the alley was a crowd of jokers, crude parodies of normal humans. Dressed in rags, they searched through the garbage for food.

A wedge of light spilled into the alley as a door opened. The cats smelled fresh food as a well-dressed man, larger than any of the scavengers, carried boxes into the alley.

"Please." The fat man spoke to the paralyzed jokers in a soft voice filled with pain. "I have food for you here."

The frozen scene ended as the jokers rushed together toward the cartons and began ripping them open. They jostled each other and fought for position to get at the rich food.

"Stop!" A tall joker cried out in the midst of the chaos. "Are we not men?"

The jokers paused and withdrew from the boxes, allowing the fat man to dole out the food to each of them. The tall joker was the last to be served. As the host handed him food, he spoke again. "Sir, we thank Aces High."

In the darkness of the alley, the cats observed the jokers' meal. Turning to the calico, the black formed the image of a fish's skeleton and they moved back toward the street. On 6th Avenue, the black sent a picture of Bagabond to the calico. They loped uptown until a slow-moving produce truck provided a ride. Many blocks later, the truck neared a Chinese market and the black recognized the familiar scent. As the truck began to brake, both cats leaped out. They kept to the dark beyond the range of the streetlights until they reached the open-air grocery.

It was still long before dawn and the truckers were unloading the day's fresh produce. The black cat smelled freshly slaughtered chicken; his tongue extended to touch his upper lip. Then he uttered a short growl to his companion. The calico leapt onto a display of tomatoes and began to claw them to pieces.

The proprietor yelled in Chinese and hurled his clipboard at the marauding cat. He missed. The men unloading the truck stopped and stared at the apparently insane feline.

"Worse'n Jokertown," one muttered.

"That's one big sumbitchin' kitty," said the other.

As soon as their attention was fixed on the calico cat destroying the tomatoes, the waiting black cat sprang to the back of the truck and seized a chicken in his mouth. The black was a very large cat, at least forty pounds, and he lifted the chicken with ease. Leaping off the tailgate, he ran into the darkness of the alley. At the same time, the calico dodged a broom handle and bounded after.

The black cat waited for the calico halfway down the next block. When the calico reached him, both cats howled in unison. It had been a good hunt. With the calico occasionally aiding the black in lifting the chicken onto curbs, they loped back to the park and the bag lady.

A fellow street dweller had once called her Bagabond in one of his more sober moments and the name had stuck. Her people, the wild creatures of the city, called her by no name, only by their images of her. Those were enough. And she only remembered her name once in a while.

Bagabond pulled around herself the fine green coat that she had found in an apartment-house dumpster. She sat up, careful not to displace the opossum. With the opossum settled in her lap and a squirrel on each shoulder, she greeted the proud black and calico cats with their prize. Moving with an ease that would have amazed the few street denizens who had anything to do with her, the woman reached out and patted the heads of the two feral cats. As she did, she formed the image in her mind of a particularly scrawny chicken, already half-eaten, being dragged out of a restaurant garbage can by the pair.