"He's not in therapy…not getting treatment from anyone?"

"He doesn't need any of that!"

"Yeah, he does. Or at least someone who knows what they're doing should make the decision."

"Not about this," she said, her voice flat.

"Look," I said, "you don't know anything about this, right? Treatment could make all the difference."

"I know about it," she said. Case closed again.

I took a deep drag of my smoke. "I need to have somebody talk to the boy, okay?"

"I'm going to be there when they do."

"No, you're not. That's not the way it's done. Nobody's going to be there."

She puffed on her little crack-laced pipe, flame-points in her eyes.

"He wouldn't trust you."

"He would if you said it was okay, right?"

"Yeah. He'd do whatever I said."

"You bring him to a place, okay? I'll meet you there. I'll have the therapist with me. You hand him over-tell him to be a good boy, okay? I'll bring him back in a couple of hours."

"That's it?"

"That's it," I said.

Strega rubbed her eyes as if she didn't like what she was seeing. "What if I don't do it?"

"You do what you want," I told her. "But you're paying me money to get something done-you don't bring the boy, it makes it harder. And it's tough enough already. It's up to you.

She took a last drag on her pipe, came over to me, and sat in my lap. She put one slim arm around my neck and leaned down to drop the pipe in the ashtray. "I'll think about it," she said, grinding her butt deep into my lap. Heat flashed below my waist but my shoulders stayed cold.

"When's your husband coming home?" I asked her.

"He can't come back here until after midnight."

"Can't?" I asked her, looking the question into her little face.

She buried her face in my chest, whispering so softly I could barely hear her. "We have a deal. I do him good. I'm what he needs. I know his mind. On his last birthday I brought a girlfriend of mine over for him-we did a threesome." She was wiggling frantically in my lap, whispering in that little-girl's voice. "All men are the same," she purred, reaching for my zipper, pulling it down, slipping her hand inside, stroking me, scraping a long thumbnail down the shaft. "A hard cock makes a soft brain."

The big house was quiet as a tomb. "Do I get the boy?" I asked her.

"Pull up my dress," she whispered, lifting her butt from my lap. It slid up to her waist as if it was oiled-the green silk made a thick band around her waist; only her dark stockings showed underneath.

She fit herself around me, never changing her position, her face still buried in my chest. She contracted the hard muscles in her hips, pushing back against me. "Say my name!" she whispered into my hair.

"Which name?" I asked her, my voice not as flat as I wanted.

"You know!" she cried, her voice years younger than her body.

"Strega," I said, holding one of her breasts gently in my hand, feeling myself empty into her. She ground herself hard against me, groaning like I was hurting her. In another couple of seconds she was quiet, still welded to me, leaning her head back, letting a long breath out with a sigh.

I rubbed my hand softly over her face. She took a finger in her mouth, bit down hard. I left my hand where it was. She shifted her hips. I popped out of her with a wet sound. She twisted in my lap, her face buried in my chest again. "I'm the best girl," she said. I patted her head, wondering why it was so cold in that pink room.

65

WE STAYED like that for some time. I couldn't see my watch. "Have another cigarette," she said, climbing off my lap and walking into her bathroom. She closed the door. I could hear the tub filling.

She came out wrapped in a white terry robe, her red hair tousled above the thick collar. She looked thirteen years old. "Now you," she said.

When I came out of the bathroom the bedroom was empty. I heard music from downstairs. Barbra Streisand. Too bad.

Strega was sitting on the white couch, now dressed in a black pleated skirt and a white blouse. I walked past her to the steps. She came off the couch and held my arm, grabbing her mink with her free hand. I went down the steps first, feeling her behind me, not liking the feeling. We got into the BMW without a word.

She pulled into the bus stop, hitting the brakes too hard. "The boy?" I asked her, one more time.

"I'll do it," she said. "Give me one day's notice." Her eyes were somewhere else.

"Good," I told her, getting out of the car, looking back at her.

Strega made a kissing motion with her lips to say goodbye. It looked like a sneer.

66

IT WAS STILL a half-hour shy of midnight when I grabbed the subway heading back to Manhattan. The day-shift citizens were gone but the same rules applied-look down or look hard. I alternated between the two until the train screeched to its last stop under the World Trade Center. I stayed underground, following the tunnel a few blocks to Park Place, found the Lincoln just where I'd left it, and drove back to the office.

I let Pansy out to the roof, searching the tiny refrigerator for something to eat. Nothing but a jar of mustard, another of mayonnaise, and a frozen roll. I poured myself a glass of cold water, thinking of the mayonnaise sandwiches we used to make in prison, stuffing them inside our shirts to eat in the middle of the night. Sometimes it was hard to keep my mind from going back to doing time, but I could control my stomach anyway. I'd eat in the morning.

The pictures of Strega's boy Scotty were on my desk-a happy little kid. Like she had been, she said. There's a big slab of corkboard on one wall of my office, just over the couch. There was plenty of room for the boy's pictures. I tacked them up to help me memorize his face-I didn't want to carry them around with me. I lit a cigarette, my eyes sliding from the burning red tip to the boy's pictures.

Working on it. Drawing a blank.

The back door thumped-Pansy was tired of waiting for me to come up on the roof. I let her in, turned on the radio to get the news while I put some more food together for the monster. Then I lay back down on the couch. The radio was playing "You're a Thousand Miles Away" by the Heartbeats. A song from another time-it was supposed to make you think of a guy in the military, his girl waiting for him back home. It was a real popular song with the guys doing time upstate. I thought of Flood in some temple in Japan as I drifted off.

67

I WOKE UP slowly to the smell of dog food. Pansy's face was inches from mine, her cold-water eyes unblinking, waiting patiently. Something was floating around at the top of my brain-where I couldn't reach it. Something about the boy's pictures. I lay there, ignoring Pansy, trying to get it to come back to me. No good. Lots of dreams never come to you again.

I took a shower and went out to get some breakfast, still trying to figure out what was bothering me. Whatever it was would have to get in line.

Pansy ate her share of the cupcakes I brought back. It wasn't until I put down the paper that I realized I hadn't even looked at the race results. Depression was coming down as surely as the Hawk-what people around here call the winter. They call it that because it kills. I had to get word to Immaculata that I was going to have the boy for her to interview. And after that, I had to wait.

I stopped at a light at the corner of the Bowery and Delancey. A big black guy with a dirty bandage over half his face offered to clean my windshield for a quarter. A used-up white woman with a cheap wig riding over her tired face offered to clean my tubes for ten bucks. I paid the black guy-V.D. isn't one of my hobbies.