Mama got to her feet as Immaculata stood to give her room to exit.

She took Immaculata's hand, turned it over to see the underside of her forearm. She tapped the delicate veins there, nodded her head sharply. Smiled. "Good blood here too," Mama said, and kissed Immaculata on the cheek.

Max looked at me, puzzled. I didn't say anything-Mac would tell him when it was time for him to know.

I lit a cigarette as the waiter took away the soup bowls, and started to explain why I needed Immaculata.

61

BY THE TIME I was finished, it was mid-afternoon. Only the clock on the wall gave me a clue-daylight never reached the back booths in Mama's joint.

"You really think you can do it?" I asked her.

"It's not an interrogation, Burke. The little boy has information about what happened to him, but it's not so easy for him to talk about. He feels all sorts of things about the assault…guilt, fear, excitement…"

"Excitement?" I asked her.

"Sure. Children are sexual beings, they respond to sexual stimulation. That's why, if we don't treat a child who has been sexually abused, he's likely to go on looking for the same experience."

"Even if it hurt him?"

"Even so," she said.

"What would make him talk?" I asked her.

"You don't make him talk. He wants to talk about it; he wants to get it outside of him…put down the pain. But first he has to feel safe."

"Like that nobody can hurt him anymore?"

"That's it. Exactly."

"So it's easier if he was assaulted by a stranger, right? So his family can protect him?"

"Yes, it is easier if the assault wasn't by a family member. If someone you trust hurts you, it changes the way you look at the whole world."

"I know," I told her. "If I can get the kid, where would I bring him?"

"Bring him to SAFE, the Safety and Fitness Exchange-where I work. I told you about it, remember? It's the best place for this-lots of other children around, and we know how to act around boys like this one. He'll know nobody can hurt him when he's with us."

"You think he'll come with me?" I asked her.

"Probably-I don't know. It would help if someone he trusted said it was okay for him to go-promised him he'd be all right. Probably the best way would be for you to bring the child's parent, or anyone he trusted, with you. We work with relatives of abused children all the time."

"You wouldn't want to work with this one," I told her.

Max tapped his chest, folded his arms. The kid would sure as hell be safe with him, he was saying. I tapped my fist against his shoulder to thank him, bowed to Immaculata, and went back through the kitchen to Bobby's Lincoln.

62

I STASHED the Lincoln in my garage. Strega had already seen one car; that was enough. Pansy chomped on the heavy beef bones Mama had given me for her, snarling anytime she felt the slightest resistance. Her life would have been perfect right then if I could have gotten pro wrestling on the tube, but only the cable networks carry it during the day. The hippies downstairs must have cable-their lives wouldn't be complete without MTV. I'd have to get the Mole to make the necessary adjustments.

It was getting near time to leave. There's only two ways to ride the subways in New York: dress up like a carpenter or a plumber-anyone who routinely carries tools around with him-or carry a gun. I didn't handle tools like I knew what I was doing, and if I got dropped holding a piece I was looking at some serious time upstate. I put on a dark suit over a blue chambray shirt with a darker-blue knit tie. A hard-working architect. I pulled my new attaché case from under the couch. Its black fabric sides expand to hold a lot of stuff, but that's not why I wanted it. This attaché case is made of Kevlar-the same stuff cops use for bullet-proof vests. It looks like nylon, but it'll blunt a knife and stop a bullet-it even has a shoulder strap so you can keep your hands free.

I unzipped the case and threw in a pack of graph paper, some pencils, an old blueprint of a sewage plant, and a little calculator. I added a telescoping metal pointer, the kind architects use to point out features on their blueprints; it works just as well for keeping people from getting close enough to stab you. Then I hunted around until I found the clear plastic T-square the Mole made for me. It looks like the real thing, but if you wishbone the two ends in your hands and snap hard, you end up with a razor-edged knife. Perfect for stabbing and not illegal to carry. The CIA uses these knives to beat airport security machines, but their best feature is the way they break off inside a body-you can put a hell of an edge on plastic, but it stays very brittle.

I caught the E Train at Chambers Street, under the World Trade Center. That was the end of the line-the return would take me right out to my meeting with Strega without changing trains. And I got a seat.

The first thing I did was open my briefcase and take out my blueprints and T-square. I made a desk of the briefcase in my lap and sat there watching. During rush hour, the trains belong to the citizens. By the time we got into midtown, the car was packed with people. An Oriental man, his dark suit shiny from too many cleanings, face buried in a book on computers, shut out the train noises and concentrated. A dress-for-success black woman was reading some kind of leather-bound report-all I could read on the cover was "Proposal" stamped in gold letters. A pair of middle-aged women sat facing each other, arguing over whose boss was the biggest asshole.

The E Train has modern cars-blue-and-orange plastic seats set perpendicular to each other instead of lined up against the side like the older versionssubway maps set behind thick clear-plastic sheetsstainless-steel outer skins. Even the air conditioning works sometimes. By the time the train hit the long tunnel connecting Manhattan and Queens the car looked like a forest of newspapers and briefcases-gothic romances and crossword puzzles covered faces. A transit cop got on at Queens Plaza, a young guy with a mustache, carrying fifty pounds of equipment on his belt. His eyes swept the car for a second; then he started writing something in his memo book. The car was thick with people, but no skells-nobody smoking dope, no portable radio blasting. Working people going home from work. I felt like a tourist.

Roosevelt Avenue was the next stop on the express. The transit cop got off- Roosevelt Avenue was the Queens version of Times Square -the only thing free out on the streets was trouble. Next came Continental Avenue, where most of the yuppies made their exit. The train goes all the way out to Jamaica; by the time it got to the end of the line there wouldn't be too many white faces left.

I got off at Union Turnpike, stuffing the T-square back into my briefcase, checking my watch. I still had almost fifteen minutes to wait for Strega.