"There's a gun on your belt, right side. Take it out with the first two fingers of your right hand. Two fingers only. I see more than two and your brains will make a very small mess on the sidewalk."

Chuckie hesitated. I thumbed the hammer back. He twitched slightly. Had he been standing it would probably have been a jump, then he took the gun out.

"Slide it toward the gutter," I said.

"Two fingers only."

He did and I stepped away from him and picked it up, and put it in my coat pocket. I uncocked my own gun and put it away.

"Now," I said, "what I was wondering was, who runs prostitution in town since Tony went to the house of blue lights?"

From flat on the sidewalk, Chuckie gave me an expressionless I'll-get-you-for-this stare. I gave him a gentle kick in the ribs.

"Tony still runs it," he said.

"From the place."

"And who helps him on the outside?" I said.

"Tarone."

"Give me a full name."

"Tarone Jessup."

"Thank you."

I turned to the whores giggling in the doorway.

"Ladies," I said.

They giggled some more. Nervously, trying not to. Chuckie would probably beat them up if he thought they were laughing at him. I smiled at them.

Chuckie was sitting up now.

"Hey, man," he said.

"You going to gimme back my gun?"

"No," I said.

"Piece cost me five hundred dollars, man," Chuckie said.

"Think of it as rent," I said, and kept on going.

CHAPTER 35

Hawk located Tarone Jessup the next day and we went to see him in the back room of a video arcade on Ruggles Street. The front room was full of black teenaged boys who stared at me as Hawk and I walked through the room. Tarone's door was open and we went in. There were three men in the room. One at the desk with his feet up, two sitting against the right-hand wall.

"You Tarone Jessup?" Hawk said to the guy at the desk.

"Un huh."

He was a thin jittery-looking guy with a sharp nose and oval black eyes like a bull terrier.

"I'm Hawk."

"Knew you were," Tarone said.

"Who that with you, Casper the friendly ghost?"

The two guys against the wall laughed more loudly than the remark required.

"He do look kind of pale," Hawk said.

"He look like a honky motherfucker to me," Tarone said.

"Just think of me as color challenged," I said.

"Who you been paying off to run your whores in Bay Village?"

Tarone was wearing a small brimless black cap and some sort of loose-fitting multicolored African tunic. Authentic.

"The honky cut right to the fucking chase, don't he?" Tarone said.

The two guys against the wall guffawed some more. One of them had the thickened features of a not too successful prize fighter.

The other one, taller and younger, looked like a guy who might benefit from a few pops on the beezer.

"We looking for a woman," Hawk said.

"We starting at the other end, so to speak, working back. You understand? Got nothing to do with you."

"You want a woman?" Tarone said.

"I get you a woman, man.

We got a lot of them."

He looked at the two guys on the wall. They thought he was funnier than a bucket of bullfrogs. The younger one was stamping his foot as he laughed.

Hawk looked at me. Then he leaned over Tarone's desk and spoke very softly to him.

"Tarone, you don't know me," Hawk said.

"But you know about me. Don't you."

"Sure, I heard 'bout you."

"Anybody mention I enjoy being fucked with?"

Hawk's eyes were maybe six inches from Tarone's. Tarone looked quickly at his two pals. Then he looked back at Hawk. The two pals stood up, somewhat stiffly, against the wall. Hawk's eyes were steady on Tarone, barely breathing room between their faces.

"Be cool, Hawk," Tarone said.

"I ain't fucking with you."

Hawk slowly straightened. He smiled pleasantly. But his eyes still held on Tarone's.

"Well, good," Hawk said.

"That's nice. Who you paying off to run your whores in Bay Village?"

"Guy comes by, Anthony, collects a percentage every week."

"Anthony Meeker?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Who's he deliver it to," Hawk said.

"Mr. Ventura."

Hawk looked at me.

"How much?" I said.

"We give him five grand a week," Tarone said.

"Do any business with Gino Fish?" I said.

Tarone shook his head.

"Marty Anaheim?"

Tarone shook his head again.

"Pay off anybody else?"

"Just some Vice graft," Tarone said.

"Nickels and dimes."

I nodded.

"Anything unusual about your deal with Ventura?"

"No. It's his turf. He got a right to tribute."

"Tribute," I said.

Tarone shrugged.

"What he calls it," Tarone said.

"And you don't deal with Gino Fish," I said.

"Not direct. He may have some deal going with Mr. Ventura. If he do, I don't know nothing about it."

"Thank you for your time, Tarone," I said.

I nodded at Hawk and we started for the door.

"Hey, Hawk," the young guy said.

"You sure you tough as you think?"

Without speaking, Hawk turned and kicked him in the groin.

The young guy doubled over and fell on the ground. And moaned.

Hawk looked at the ex-fighter. The ex-fighter shook his head, and Hawk turned back to the door.

"Probably am," Hawk said.

CHAPTER 36

Dixie Walker agreed to take a ride with me before she went to work, and I picked her up outside The Starlight at about 4:30 on a Thursday afternoon. It was lousy weather, overcast and spitting rain. Dixie was wearing a yellow slicker jacket over jeans and a tee-shirt. To keep the rain off her head she was wearing a black baseball cap with her hair spilling out the adjustable opening in the back.

"Nice to see you dressed," I said.

"Thanks a lot."

"Be nice to see you undressed too," I said.

She smiled without much enthusiasm.

"That's better," she said.

"Go back down to one-A. Anthony's place is out Eastern Ave."

"You know the address?"

"No, but I can find it. I went there enough."

"Good."

"Be the first time I went there with somebody sober."

"You or me?" I said.

"Both," she said.

"I hope I can find it without a hand up my skirt."

"Well," I said, "if you can't…"

She smiled, more genuinely now.

"I'll let you know," she said.

Route 1A is narrow and residential as it runs through Lynn. The rain was annoying. It didn't wet the windshield enough to prevent the intermittent wiper blades from dragging, but if I shut the wipers off altogether, the water beaded up and made it hard to see.

Timing is everything.

"You didn't find Anthony in Vegas?" Dixie said.

"Found him and lost him," I said.

"His wife was killed."

"Really? By him?"

"Don't know," I said.

"My guess is no."

"Yeah, he doesn't have the balls for it," she said.