THE KILL CALL

The 9th novel in the Ben Cooper and Diane Fry series

This excerpt was taken from http://www.stephen-booth.com and as such may not be the newest available version.

CHAPTER ONE

Journal of 1968

In those days, there were always just the three of us. Three bodies close together, down there in the cold, with the water seeping through the concrete floor, and a chill striking deep into flesh and bone. The three of us, crouching in the gloom, waiting for a signal that would never come.

And what a place to wait and watch in. Seven feet high and seven feet wide – it might as well have been a giant coffin. But slam down the lid and blot out the sun, and we’d survive. Oh, yes. For fourteen days, we’d survive. Thinking about all the things we’d hoped for, and the way our lives could be snuffed out, just like that.

One night, Jimmy looked up from his bunk at me and Les, and he said we were like the three little pigs, or the three billy goats gruff. Well, I don’t know about that. Three blind mice, maybe – it would be more fitting. If it all kicked off, the three of us would be as good as blind. Blinded by a million suns. Blind to the people dying.

A few of the details are a bit dim now. Age does that to you. But other things are as bright and stark in my mind as if they’d been burnt there by a lightning flash. Faces and eyes are what I remember most. Faces in the dark. Eyes turned up towards the light. That look in the eyes a second before death.

Yet all we had down there was a miserable six-watt bulb. I don’t think they even make bulbs that small any more, do they? No wonder your sight could get damaged. Then, every ninety minutes, the switch would pop and it went totally dark. Black as a cat in a coal hole. I always hated that. Even now, complete darkness is what frightens me most. You never know what might be coming up right next to you in the dark.

But it’s amazing how you can adapt to it, for a while. With that one little bulb, we could see pretty well in the murk, well enough to read and do what was necessary.

The place was shocking damp, too. I don’t know what they’d done wrong when they built it, but Les said it hadn’t been tanked. Les was our number one, and he might have been right, for once. The water seemed to soak right through the walls from the soil. It was particularly bad in the winter, or after a heavy rain, which happens a mite too often in Derbyshire. Some nights, if it were siling down, it would be all hands to the pump.

And that was the three of us. Me, Les, and poor old Jimmy. Always three, except for the time that we didn’t ever talk about.

A lot of things seem to come in threes, don’t they? The Holy Trinity, the Three Wise Men, the Third World War. There must be something magic about the number. Perhaps it’s to do with the Earth being the third planet from the Sun. Or the fact that we see the world in three dimensions – even if your world happens to be only seven feet wide and seven feet high.

Well, times change so much. The years pass and the world turns, and suddenly no one cares, and no one wants you any more. They take away your friends, your pride, your reason for living. But they can’t ever wipe out your memories. Sometimes, I wish they would. If only they could take away the nightmares, free me from the memory of those damp concrete walls and the icy darkness, and the memory of a face, staring up at the light.

And that’s another funny thing. They say bad luck comes in threes, don’t they? I think I always knew that.

But here’s something I didn’t know. It turns out that people die in threes, too.

CHAPTER TWO

March 2009, Tuesday

Old buildings drew Sean Crabbe like a bee to honey. The more neglected they were, the better he liked them. He couldn’t really explain the appeal. It might have been something to do with the history that clung to the walls, the lives of long-dead people written in the dust, their stories forever trapped in cobwebs hanging from broken ceilings.

That was why the old Nissen huts above Birchlow were one of his favourite places. He made his way there whenever he got the chance, bunking off from college or just disappearing on a weekend, when no one cared what he was up to. No one else ever went up to the huts any more – not since the homeless man had died there, wrapped up in a roll of plastic sheeting with empty cans scattered around him, a cold morning light glinting on the last drops of his beer as they dribbled across the floor.

Sean had been there on that morning, had found the old derelict lying in his pool of Special Brew, and had walked away to try somewhere else. Next day, he’d watched from the hillside as the police and paramedics made their way to the site. He wondered why they’d sent an ambulance when any fool could see that the man was long since dead.

Some folk said that the place was cursed now, haunted by the ghost of the drunken vagrant. So that was why Sean was always on his own at the old huts. And it was just the way he liked it.

There was one big building that was almost intact, with damp brick walls and corrugated-iron sheets banging in the wind. Its purpose was a mystery to him, but he didn’t really care. There were a few small rooms that might have been offices, a kitchen that still had a filthy sink in it, and a bigger space with a concrete floor and shelves along the walls, like a workshop. He liked the narrow corridors best, the floorboards that had warped from the damp and seemed to move with him as he crossed from room to room, and the peeling paint of the doorways where he could imagine anything waiting behind them to be found.

In a way, whenever he pushed open one of those doors, he was entering a different world, stepping through into the past. He wondered if the past had been a better world than the one he was in right now.

This morning, Sean’s need to escape had been urgent. His BTEC course at the further education college was turning out to be a waste of time, useless for his chances of finding the media career he’d dreamed of. The money he’d saved doing holiday jobs had long since run out. All those hours washing caravans and picking up rubbish hadn’t kept him in course fees for long, and now he owed his parents for a loan to see him through. His girlfriend had dumped him weeks ago, because she said he was mean. If he could call her a girlfriend. Most of the girls thought he was geeky. But, if he was a geek, why wasn’t he cleverer at passing exams and doing assignments?

And, to cap it all, a bunch of kids had mugged him last night outside the pub and nicked his phone. Lucky he didn’t have his iPod with him at the time, but losing the Nokia was a real pain. His parents had shelled out for it, and he couldn’t face telling them that he’d lost it.

It was pity there was no sun, though. A patch of thin, lattice-like wood had been exposed up there in the roof space, and when the sunlight shone through, it cast shadows across the floor. Then Sean could pretend he was a child, avoiding the cracks on the pavement. Here, he could step from light to light, avoiding the dark shadows as if they were traps, holes where evil lurked. Step from light to light, and avoid the shadows. If only life was so easy.

But there was no sun today. Just the rain clattering on the corrugated iron, blowing through the splintered windows, streaming down the walls. He was already wet when he arrived at the huts, and the chill made him shiver inside his parka.

Mouldy, fusty, stale and mildewed. Those were the familiar smells of the hut. If the weather was warm, he could scent an underlying odour of oil or grease, saturated into the concrete from whatever had gone on in here. That smell must have lasted decades. Fifty, sixty years? The buildings must be from about that time. They were so old-fashioned, so last century. It was hard for him to imagine what anyone might have done up here, stuck on an empty hillside in Derbyshire.

Now and then, he smoked a spliff up here at the huts, but he couldn’t afford that now. Instead, he plugged in the earphones of his iPod and selected some Coldplay. A feeling of peace settled over him as he listened to Chris Martin’s plaintive vocals coming in on ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’. He could forget everything else for a while once the music was playing.

Today, though, Sean knew something was different. He tugged out the earphones and stayed completely still, his eyes tightly closed, his ears straining for a sound. The scurrying of a mouse under the floorboards, maybe, or a bird scratching a nest in the roof. But there was no sound.

He squinted at the dust swirling slowly around him, disturbed only by the current of his own breath. The room looked the same as always. Nothing had been moved or disturbed since his last visit. It was always a worry that someone else would find the derelict buildings – another vagrant sleeping rough, a couple of kids finding a place to have sex or take drugs. Or, worst of all, the owner coming to check on his property, or a builder with a plan to demolish it.

Sean closed his eyes, trying to recapture the moment that had been lost. But he finally had to acknowledge that something really was different today. It wasn’t a sound, or anything that looked out of place. It was in the very quality of the mustiness, an underlying odour that was too sweet to be oil or grease. He couldn’t deny the message that was hitting his nostrils.

The difference was in the smell.

——————————————————————————————————————————

It had been raining for six hours by the time they found the body. Since the early hours of the morning, sheets of water had been swirling into the valley, soaking the corpse and the ground around it. Pools of water had gathered in the hollows of the fields below Longstone Moor, and a new stream had formed between two hawthorns, washing their roots bare of earth.

Detective Sergeant Diane Fry wiped the rain from her face and cursed under her breath as she watched the medical examiner and an assistant turn the body on to its side. Rivulets of blood-soaked water streamed off the sleeves of a green coat the victim was wearing. A crime-scene photographer crouched under the edge of the body tent to capture the moment. Big, fat drops bounced off his paper suit, ricocheting like bullets.

Shivering, Fry made a mental note to find out the manufacturer of the victim’s coat. Her own jacket was barely shower proof, and it would never have withstood the amount of rain that had fallen during the night. Her shoulders already felt damp, though she’d been standing in the field no more than ten minutes. If she didn’t get back to her car soon, her clothes would be sticking to her all day, with no chance of a hot shower for hours yet. She’d be unpopular back at the office, too. No one liked sharing their nice, warm working space with a drowned rat.

‘Haven’t we got any cover up here yet?’ she said. ‘Where’s the mobile control unit?’

‘On its way, Sarge. It’s a difficult spot to get to.’

‘Tell me about it.’

She’d left her Peugeot way back somewhere in a muddy gateway, two fields off at least. Her trek to reach the scene had been across hundreds of yards of damp, scrubby grass, dodging sheep droppings, hoping not to twist an ankle in the treacherous holes that opened up everywhere in this kind of area. The remains of old lead mines, she’d been told. The legacy of thousands of years of men burrowing into the hills like rabbits.

And then, when she arrived, she’d discovered a delay by the first officers attending the call to get a body tent up. The FOAs’ vehicle had been short of the required equipment. What a surprise.

An officer standing nearby in a yellow jacket looked at the sky to the west and said something about the rain easing off a bit. He said it with that tone of voice that a countryman used, pretending to be so wise about the ways of the weather. But that was one thing Fry had learned about the Peak District during her time in Derbyshire – there was nothing predictable about the weather.

‘Could you find something more useful to do than pretending to be Michael Fish?’ said Fry.

‘Yes, Sarge. I expect so.’

Fry watched him walk back towards the gateway to direct an arriving vehicle. Even if the officer was right, it was already too late. She felt sure about that. There was a limit to how much water even a limestone landscape could absorb, and this crime scene wouldn’t take much more of a soaking.

Continuous heavy rain did an effective job of destroying physical evidence at an exposed crime scene like this one. And exposed was the right word. She was standing in the middle of a field of rough, short-cropped grass, with no real shelter in sight except a distant dry-stone wall. Right now, she would be glad to huddle behind that wall, even if it meant sharing with the sheep she could see standing hunched and miserable at the far end of the field.

Crime-scene examiners put their faith in the theory that anyone present at a crime scene took traces away from it, and left traces behind. It was called Locard’s Principle. But, in this case, one half of Locard had been rendered practically worthless by the weather. During the past few hours, blood had been washed away, fingerprints soaked off, shoe marks obliterated. Whatever traces an attacker might have left behind were dissolving into the soil, his unique DNA absorbed into the landscape.

Fry took a step back and felt something soft and squishy slide under her heel. Damn it. If only traces of these bloody sheep disappeared from the landscape so quickly.

For a moment, she gazed across the valley towards Longstone Moor. According to the map, the nearest villages of any size were Birchlow and Eyam. But if they were ever visible from here, she’d chosen the wrong day to enjoy the view. Grey clouds hung so low over the hills that they seemed to be resting on the trees. A dense mist of rain swept across the part of the valley where Eyam was supposed to be.

Fry already hated the sound of Eyam. That was because she’d been corrected about its pronunciation. It was supposed to be said ‘Eem’, they told her – not ‘I-am’, which was the way only tourists pronounced it. Well, sod that. She felt inclined to say it the wrong way for the rest of the day, just to show that she was a tourist, at heart. Yes – deep down, she was just a visitor passing through, taking a break from civilization to study the ways of primitive hill folk.

A gust of wind blew a spatter of rain in her eyes. That was one thing you could say for a city. Any city, anywhere. There was always a building within reach where you could get out of the rain. In the Peak District, the weather would always catch you exposed and vulnerable. It could bake you one minute, and drown you the next. It was like some big conspiracy, nature combining with the remains of ancient lead mines that lurked under your feet to trip you up.

When Fry turned away from the view, she found the crime-scene manager, Wayne Abbott, standing in front of her, as if he’d materialized out of the rain. He was a damp ghost, glistening in his white scene suit as if he was formed of ectoplasm.

‘There doesn’t seem to be much physical evidence in the immediate area around the body,’ he said, when he’d got her attention.

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘And I can’t even see where the approach route might have been. We’ll probably have to do a fingertip search over the whole field.’

‘How many people on the ground would we need for that?’

‘I don’t know. It’s big field.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

Fry could imagine the arguments about overtime payments and the hours spent frowning over the duty rota. Luckily, she could pass that problem up to her DI, Paul Hitchens.

The information so far was too scanty for her liking. A sighting of the body had been called in by the air support unit at nine forty-five a.m., a sharp-eyed observer on board Oscar Hotel 88 spotting the motionless figure as the helicopter passed overhead en route to a surveillance task. The zoom facility on his video camera had confirmed the worst. Paramedics had attended, along with uniforms from Bakewell, the observer keeping up a running commentary to guide units to the location. With death confirmed, the duty DC had been called out, and gradually the incident had begun to move up the chain. Her DI, Paul Hitchens, would be on scene shortly, and he would become the officer in charge.

But Fry could see that this was already looking like a difficult one. According to the control room, there were no overnight mispers, not so much as a stressed teenager who’d stayed out all night to wind up Mum and Dad. Neighbouring forces weren’t any help, either. She’d held out hopes of Sheffield , who usually had a bunch of drunks gone AWOL, even on a wet Monday night in March. But no such luck.

So there was going to be a lot of work to do getting a story on the victim, even with a quick ID. If this did turn out to be a murder enquiry, the first forty-eight hours were absolutely crucial.

Fry shivered again as a trickle of water ran down her neck. And it didn’t help much when Mother Nature decided to spend the first six of those forty-eight hours re-enacting the Great Flood.

A miserable figure was making his way across the field, slithering on the grass and dodging strips of wet crime-scene tape flapping around him in the wind. Detective Constable Gavin Murfin wasn’t cut out for country treks, either. But, in his case, it was for a different reason. No matter how many memos did the rounds from management about the fitness of officers, Murfin had been unable to lose any weight. Recently, Fry had noticed that he’d compromised by taking his belt in a notch, which had succeeded only in producing an unsightly roll of spare flesh that hung over his waistband.

Murfin had a comfort-eating problem, and Fry could relate to that. If only he didn’t leave so many crumbs in her car.

‘Gavin. How are things back at the office?’

‘In chaos. Have you seen that Branagh woman? She’s empire-building already.’

Fry shrugged. ‘That’s the name of the game at senior management level.’

‘God save me from promotion, then.’

‘I don’t think you need God’s help, Gavin.’

Murfin shrugged. ‘I notice you’ve been doing your best to keep out of her way. So I don’t suppose you’re exactly her number one fan, either.’

Fry didn’t answer. She still had some instinct for diplomatic silence.

Murfin pulled a face as he took in the fields and the distant stone walls.

‘Witnesses are going to be a bit thin on the ground, Diane.’

‘Yes.’ Fry eyed the sheep suspiciously. ‘There are plenty of those things, though.’

Murfin nodded. ‘Sheep see a lot of things. You’d be surprised. One day, some clever bugger at Ripley will come up with a scheme for surveillance sheep. Imagine them wandering about with miniature video cameras strapped to their heads, like hundreds of little woolly PCSOs.’

She tried to picture some of E Division’s community support officers with the faces of sheep. But her imagination failed her.

‘The mind boggles,’ she said.

‘A bit of boggling now and then never did anyone any harm, in my opinion.’

Fry sighed. ‘Where is everyone, Gavin?’

‘Oh, am I not enough for you?’

‘What about Hurst , and Irvine ? Where are they?’

‘Processing.’

‘Still?’

‘It’s the price of success.’

Fry didn’t need to ask any more. Sunday had been E Division’s strike day. Not a total withdrawal of labour in protest at their latest pay deal, as some officers would have liked, but a pre-planned operation targeting known criminals. Search warrants had been executed in various parts of the division. Arrests were made for assault, theft, burglary, going equipped, supplying Class-A drugs, and money laundering. Officers had recovered drugs, cigarettes, and a large amount of cash. Not a bad haul for the day, and the chiefs were happy. Intelligence-led, proactive policing at its best. But the consequent mountain of paperwork was horrendous. There were so many stages that followed from an arrest – prisoner handling, interviews, witness statements, case-file preparation …

‘And Ben Cooper –’ said Murfin.

‘Yes, I know. He’s got himself a cushy job.’

Murfin nodded casually at the body tent. Apart from the coat, about all that could be seen of the victim was a pair of muddy brown brogues that almost protruded from the tent into the rain.

‘We’ve got cars out trying to locate a vehicle,’ he said. ‘Reckon he must have got himself out here somehow, mustn’t he? He isn’t a hiker, not in those shoes.’

‘No luck so far?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘It’ll be parked up in a lay-by somewhere. Unless he was brought out here by someone else, of course.’

‘By his killer. Right.’

Fry didn’t answer. One of the other downsides of policing a rural area was the lack of CCTV cameras. One of the many downsides. If she’d still been working back in Birmingham, or any other city, they’d have caught the victim’s car on half a dozen cameras as it passed from A to B, registered his number plate at a car-park entry barrier, and probably got a nice, clear shot of him walking along the pavement to wherever he’d been going. And then they could have scanned the CCTV footage for possible suspects, grabbed images of a face from the screen for identification.

But out here? Unless their victim had been idiot enough to go more than ten miles an hour over the limit on a stretch of the A6 where the speed cameras were actually operating, his movements might as well have been invisible.

‘If someone else took his car,’ said Murfin, ‘they might have dumped it and torched it by now.’

‘If they have, it’ll turn up somewhere.’

Murfin was wrestling with a decrepit Ordnance Survey map. Normally, he swore by his sat-nav, and never took driving instructions from anyone but TomTom, or his wife. That wasn’t much use when you’d left your car two fields away, though Fry knew that Wayne Abbott had a GPS device to map the location of a crime scene precisely.

‘We’re somewhere about here,’ said Murfin, stabbing a finger at a square of damp plastic. ‘Longstone Moor that way, the nearest village is Birchlow, over there. A few more villages across the valley. And a load of quarries all around us, some of them still in use. There’s a big mill down in that dip. Not textiles, it processes stone from the quarries.’

‘A tricky area, then?’

Murfin shrugged. ‘The lads are checking any pull-ins on the A623 or this back road over here between the villages. But, as you can see, there are quite a few unmade lanes and farm tracks in this area. So it could take a while, unless some helpful punter phones in.’

‘The victim’s shoes are muddy, so he could have walked some distance, at least.’

‘Eyam at the furthest, I’d say,’ suggested Murfin, pronouncing the ‘Eem’ correctly. ‘There’s a car park that tourists use, near the museum. I’ve asked for a check on any that have outstayed their parking tickets. He’s been dead for an hour or two, right?’

‘Three hours, according to the ME.’

‘He might be due for a fine, then. Poor bugger. That’s the last thing he needs.’

‘That’s not really funny, Gavin.’

‘Oh, I thought those were tears of unrestrained hilarity running down your face. Maybe it’s just the rain, after all.’

The officer nearby was listening to a call on his radio, and became suddenly alert. Fry looked at him expectantly.

‘What’s the news?’

‘Not good, Sergeant. The control room says a 999 call was received about twenty minutes ago.’ The officer pointed towards a distant stone building. ‘A unit has been despatched to the old agricultural research centre, about half a mile away in that direction. They thought we’d like to know. There’s been a report of another corpse.’

Fry cursed quietly, squinting against the downpour.

‘I’ve heard about showers of frogs,’ she said. ‘But I’ve never heard of it raining bodies.’

HIDE AND SEEK

Prologue

Tommy Dietz grabbed the car door handle with one bloody fist, and braced his other hand against the roof, worried the carcasses in the back would buck out of the truck’s bed. Despite the precaution, his head thumped the muddy window. He glared at the driver who drove the truck like he rode a bronco, but BeeBo Benson’s full moon face sported the same toothless grin he’d worn for the past two weeks. Even BeeBo’s double chins smiled, including the rolls at the nape of his freckled neck.

The ferret thin guy in the middle snarled each time his Katy Railroad belt buckle chinked against the stick shift he straddled. Gray hair straggled from under his hat and brushed his shoulders. He had to slouch or he risked punching his head through the rust-eaten roof. Randy Felch’s snaky eyes gave Dietz the shivers even more than the freezing temperatures spitting through windows that refused to seal.

Three across the cramped seat would be a lark for high school buddies out on the town, but the men were decades beyond graduation. Dietz was in charge so Felch could either ride the hump or share the open truck bed with two carcasses, and the new Production Assistant.

Dietz stifled a laugh. Not so high-and-mighty now, was he? The man must really want the job. Vince Grady had turned green when he was told to climb into the back of the truck. Just wait till he got a load of the dump. Dietz remembered his first visit three years ago when he’d been out scouting locations. He wondered how the spit-and-polish Grady would react.

He’d hired locals for the rest of the crew. They needed the work, and didn’t blink at the SAG ultra-low pay scale, the shitty weather, or the stink. In this business, you took anything available when pickings were slim. Then the show got picked up and union fees grabbed him by the short hairs. Amateur talent screwing around and missing call times cost even more money, so he needed a Production Assistant—PA in the lingo—with more polish and bigger balls to keep the wheels greased. A go-to guy able to think on his feet, get the job done. No matter what.

If Grady wanted the PA job, he’d have to be willing to get his hands dirty, and stand up to BeeBo and his ilk. Riding in the open truck bed was illegal as hell, though here in North Texas even the cops turned a blind eye unless it was kids. This was an audition, and Grady knew it.

He had to give Grady props—he’d not blinked, but clenched his jaw and climbed right in when they collected him at his hotel. He’d been less enthusiastic after following the hunters most of the morning, tramping to hell and gone through rough country until his eyes threatened to freeze shut. Something drove the man, something more than a PA credit for piss-poor pay and worse conditions. Hell, something drove them all to work in this unforgiving business. Dietz didn’t care about anyone else’s demons as long as they let him feed his own.

Dietz craned to peer out the back to be sure the man hadn’t been tossed out the tailgate. Grady gave Dietz a thumbs-up. Probably wants to point a different finger, Dietz thought.

Grady wore the official Hog Hell blue work gloves and ski mask—dark blue background and DayGlo red star on the face—or he’d be picking his frostbit nose off the floor.

Prime time in the back woods. Dietz’s quick smile faded. Nothing about this trip was prime, not even the butchered Bambi in the back. Deer season ran November through early January, and it was always open season on hogs, so they were legal for any follow up film footage. The two deer hadn’t looked good even before BeeBo dropped them, but that’s what viewers wanted. Crocodile wrestlers, duck dynasties, and gold rush grabbers with crusty appeal and redder necks.

Nobody wanted actors anymore. Casting directors looked for “real people.” So he’d caught a clue, jumped off the thespian hamster wheel, moved to New York and reinvented himself as Tommy Dietz, Producer. He’d found his calling with a development company relatively quickly.

A movie star face didn’t hurt. Everyone these days had a little nip-and-tuck; it was part of the biz. He’d been selling his version of reality for years anyway, and always came out on top. He hit it out of the park on his third project. Hog Hell kicked off the next step with a Texas-size leap. He’d show them all, those who’d laughed at his dreams, calling him a loser. And he’d make them sorry.

The shabby pickup lurched down and back up again, and its engine growled and complained. Dietz was surprised the seat hadn’t fallen through the floor. The overgrown road the hunters called a pig path consisted of frozen ruts formed from previous tire treads. They damn well better not get stuck out here.

“Don’t worry, she’ll make it.” BeeBo talked around the stub of his unlit cigar. “This ol’ warhorse made the trip so often, she could drive herself. Ain’t that right, Felch?” BeeBo reached to downshift and Felch winced as the other man’s ham-size fist grabbed and jerked the stick between his knees.

Dietz sighed. Out the window, skeletal trees clawed the pregnant sky. Weird flocks of blackbirds moved in undulating clouds, exploding from one naked tree after another to clothe the next with feathered leaves. Spooky.

Thank God the icy weather stayed dry. Heartland, Texas had dug out of a record-breaking snowfall, and the locals hadn’t quite recovered. It put a kink in Hog Hell filming and they’d barely met the deadlines. Delay turned his balance book bloody with red ink.

Back home in Chicago they’d been hit with the same blizzard and so had NYC. But big cities knew how to manage winter weather. Apparently North Texas rolled up the sidewalks with even the hint of flurries. He wondered if BeeBo and Felch knew what to do in the snow, and didn’t want to find out. The thought of hunkering down overnight in the truck with these men turned his stomach.

Dietz adjusted his own ski mask. He’d folded it up off his face so the blue cap hugged his head while the red star painted a bull’s-eye on his forehead. He wore the official coat, too; dark blue and a bright hunter-safe star on the front and back, with the Hog Hell logo. The Gore-Tex fabric crackled with newness, and his blistered feet whimpered inside wet, dirt-caked boots. No way would he wear his new $300 Cabela’s, purchased for photo ops at the upcoming watch party. He had a gun, too. In Texas nobody cared if you carried. They expected it.

BeeBo’s preferred weapon, an ancient short barreled shotgun loaded with deer slugs, contrasted sharply with Felch’s double gun he’d had custom made last season. Felch shot 44 Magnums, and the cut down double barrel rifle boasted enough firepower to take out an elephant, or a charging feral boar hog.

They sleeved the guns in canvas cases stowed in the back of the truck, but the hunters cared far less about their own attire.

BeeBo and Felch would wear official Hog Hell gear at the watch party in five weeks, but not before. Dietz didn’t want them stinking up the outfits. Today they wore wash-faded coveralls, heavy work coats, earflap hats, clunky boots with thorn-tangled laces, and frayed gloves with fingertips cut out. A bit of peeling DayGlo tape formed an “X” on the back and front of each coat after Dietz insisted on the nod to safety, even though he knew the two hunters paid little mind to official start and end dates during hunting season.

That was the point of the original reality program Cutting Corners that focused on people forced to skirt the rules to make ends meet. The unlikely stars of a single episode, though, turned Felch and BeeBo into overnight sensations and birthed the new show after Cutting Corners tanked. The two hunters were experts at skirting rules. Dietz was no slouch, either.

In the truck bed, Grady swayed back and forth. He’d pushed up the ski mask enough to expose his mouth. White breath puffed out in a jerky tempo, and Dietz wondered if the man would pass out. If Grady took a header off the truck bed, the liability would kill the show. “Find a spot to stop, BeeBo. I think our new team member has had enough.”

Felch grunted. “No place to stop till we get there. Unless you want us to get stuck.” He grinned, but the expression never reached his eyes. “You don’t want us lugging that shit back to your hotel. The stink ain’t something you want close by.”

BeeBo guffawed. “Got that right. With all the hunters unloading, it’s what y’all might call a ‘renewable resource.’” He twisted the wheel and the truck bucked, jittering the decades old pine-shaped deodorizer suspended from the rear view mirror. “The critters take care of the stink pretty quick, though.” His hairless wide-eyed face was a ringer for the Gerber baby. “It’s around that next bend. You might even catch a whiff of Jiff by now.”

Dietz wrinkled his nose. The pungent aroma wasn’t assuaged by the air freshener that had probably come with the vehicle. He shielded his head from another thump, and squinted ahead through the crusty windshield. Wiper blades had torn loose on the passenger’s side and smeared the detritus rather than clearing the view. It didn’t bother BeeBo.

The trio remained silent during the final bump-and-grind through the trees. They pulled halfway into the clearing, and Dietz waited impatiently until BeeBo cranked the steering wheel, turned, and backed beneath a massive tree with pendulous clusters decorating the branches. Grady ducked, or he would have been scraped off by low limbs.

Several similar trees bordered the clearing, and another smaller truck squatted at the far end of the area. An elderly man stood in the truck bed and flailed tree branches with a long pole, while the woman dodged and weaved beneath to gather the resulting shower in a bucket.

“What’s that?” Grady wasted no time jumping off the truck bed. He gagged when the wind shifted.

“Nuts.” Felch unfolded himself from the cramped middle seat. “Pecan trees. They’re gleaning the nuts.”

Dietz’s stomach clenched. He pulled the ski mask over his lips and breathed through his mouth, imagining he could taste the odor that closed his throat. Neither Felch nor BeeBo seemed to notice the stench.

Grady wiped his watery eyes. The breeze paused and he gulped a less contaminated breath. “Pecans? To eat?”

The truck squeaked, rocked and grew two inches when BeeBo stepped out. “Back in town they’ll pay $8 to $10 per pound, once shelled. I got my daddy’s old commercial sheller—held together with baling twine and spit, but works okay. I only charge fifty-cents a pound to shell.” He shrugged. “Every little bit helps. It’s too early for most of the big-name commercial farms, but for the gleaners, if ya wait too long the squirrels get ‘em off the trees, or the pigs root ‘em off the ground. Pigs eat lots of the same stuff the deer and turkeys eat, acorns and suchlike. But they get ground-nesting bird eggs, too. Pigs’ll root up and eat damn near anything.” He jerked his chins at Felch. “Gimme a hand.” He lumbered toward the back of the truck and waited by the taillights.

Felch vaulted in the bed of the vehicle, and adjusted his gloves. He pointed. “Smorgasbord, y’all. Hey Slick, you might want to get video of this. Bet your big-city cronies never seen the like.” His yellow teeth gleamed. He bent low, and grunted as he pushed and tugged the black plastic bag to the tailgate, hopped down and joined BeeBo. Together they slung the truck’s cargo into the pit.

Yipping and growls erupted from below. Dietz stayed back, he’d seen it before. This stuff he wouldn’t put on the air. This’d be too much even for the hardcore viewers without the added value of aroma.

Grady covered his mouth and nose in the crook of his elbow. He edged closer to the deep trough, a natural ditch-like runoff that sat dry three-quarters of the year. Piles of gnawed and scattered bones mixed with carcasses in various stages of decomposition. A family of coyotes tried to claim BeeBo’s tossed deer remains, but was bluffed away by a feral boar.

Grady ripped off his ski mask, puked, wiped his mouth, and grabbed his camera with a shaking hand. He spit on the frozen ground and jutted his chin at Dietz. “So?”

Dietz smiled. “You got the gig.”

***

The damn ski mask dragged against his hair so much, the normally clear adhesive had turned chalky. Victor had removed the wig after dissolving the glue with a citrus-scented spray, a much more pleasant olfactory experience than the afternoon’s visit to the dump. A shower rinsed away any lingering miasma, but he gladly put up with the stink, the rednecks, and the sneers. The payoff would be worth it.

Until then, he couldn’t afford for anyone in Heartland to recognize him. His tool kit of fake teeth, makeup and assorted hairpieces kept him under the radar. For the price, nearly fifty bucks for a four-ounce bottle of adhesive, it damn well better hold the new wig in place for the promised six weeks. He rubbed his hands over his pale, bald head and grinned. Even without the wig, she’d be hard pressed to recognize him.

Muscles had replaced the beer gut, Lasik surgery fixed his eyes, a chin implant and caps brightened his smile. He’d done it all, one step at a time, over the eight years it took to track her down. He’d even changed his name and transformed himself into a man she couldn’t refuse.

He’d done it for her. Everything for her.

He dialed his phone. “I want to order flowers. Forget-Me-Nots, in a white box with a yellow ribbon. Got that? And deliver them December eighteenth. It’s our anniversary.” He listened. “Use red ink. The message is ‘payback.’ Got that? No signature, she’ll know it’s me.” He picked up a news clipping that listed the address, and admired the picture. She was lovely as ever. “Two-oh-five Rabbit Run Road, Heartland, Texas. Deliver to September Day. The name is just like the month.” He chuckled softly. “Yes, it will be a lovely holiday surprise.” He could hardly wait.

Kate and Marika made coffee and rejoined the others who were huddled around the fire pit while Stepfan and Charisse moved off to one side and were deep in a private conversation.

“So what’s the big discussion about?” Kate asked, sitting down.

“I’m trying to explain the difference between sangomas versus witchdoctors,” Helen said, sitting back on her heels. “I thought I knew but then once I started explaining it, I realised I’m confused. Jono, maybe you can help us out?”

“I can,” Jono said, accepting a beer from Richard. “Thank you. First, some facts. Eighty-four percent of all South Africans consult a sangoma more than three times a year and there are more than 200,000 sangomas in South Africa alone. A witch and a sangoma are not the same thing whereas a witchdoctor,” he emphasized the last word, “is the same thing as a sangoma but the term witchdoctor is considered to be a perjorative one that came from the European settlers. Sangomas are practitioners of complimentary medicine and they serve a long apprenticeship learning to become intermediaries between the world of spirits and the world of the living. Witches are a whole other thing, they are evil and dangerous and if they cannot be cured, they are stoned to death or buried alive.”

“Yes, they certainly gave Kleine Skok the heebie jeebies,” Richard stretched his feet towards the fire. “Poor fellow, he had this godawful lump of dried up rabbit’s blood and I asked him if that was something a witchdoctor would use and he nearly shot right off the mountain. I felt quite dreadful for asking.”

Jono laughed and took a drink of his beer. “Yes, I can imagine that frightened him in a big way. More than six hundred people have been killed in the last ten years in Gauteng alone, because they were accused of being witches, so even the mention of such a thing is frightening for many people.”

“Can you cure someone of being a witch?” Eva asked.

“Yes, but it’s not easy,” Jono said. “You have to call an isanusi, a professional who can smell out witches and get rid of them.

“There are many kinds of witches,” he continued, “one of which is the night-witch who is invisible during the daytime but then at night, changes into an animal; a crocodile, a hyena, a lion, a wolf maybe. Night-witches devour human bodies, dead or alive during the night and they can been seen flying at night, with fire coming out of their bottoms.”

“They fart fire?” Mia found this hysterically funny and the rest of the group joined in, laughing. “Oh lord, fire-farting witches, knock my bleedin’ socks off.”

“Isn’t it true,” Helen queried when the laughter died down, “that Western doctors found a high correlation between schizophrenia and epilepsy in individuals who have been accused of being witches?”

Jono nodded. “Which would explain the hallucinations they have,” he said. “And some of them have also been found to be manic-depressives and schizophrenics. But if you ask me, this does not mean that Western medicine has any kind of increased knowledge in this area, it’s just that you call your witches by a lot of medical-sounding names and find different ways to treat them.”

“Touché.” Richard exclaimed while Helen nodded enthusiastically.

“So,” Jono said, “we have the isanusi or shaman, or the witch-finder, who sniffs them out, and then you have the witch-doctor, an igqira, who can smell by moral, not physical means, the corrupt presence of the witch or sorcerer. The isanusi is the diviner, and he is called upon to explain the source of your misfortune and to see if you have a witch. The sangoma, which is a Zulu word by the way, is the one who will be invited to cleanse an entire village of witchcraft by giving them emetics, or sneezing powder or making incisions into which medicine is rubbed, or by many other methods.”

“How does the isanusi know what to do?” Kate asked.

“The diviners, or isanusi, receives his knowledge from the spirits and there are more than sixty documented methods to ask the spirits; reading the stars, throwing sticks, studying lines in the sand, observing the blood trickling from a victim, even by looking at how birds are flying or how they are sitting on a tree. A lot of people think that diviners are not good because they are trying to know God’s secrets before God wants us to know them, and we should not be attempting to steal divine secrets.”

“I’m divining that it’s high time for schnapps.” Mia got to her feet, and brushed embedded grass from her legs. “I’m getting the Archers. Go on, you lot.” She waved and walked across the grass. “Don’t wait for me.”

“Yes, carry on Jono,” Richard said, “Mia won’t mind, she’s not into this sort of thing.”

“I find it incredibly amazing,” Helen spoke up quickly, “I wish I’d had time to learn more. Well, better late than never.” She smiled at Richard who cracked open another beer and missed her meaningful glance.

“So the sangoma tries to cure the witch…” Kate reminded Jono where he had left off.

“Yes,” Jono said, “but curing witches is a very small part of what the sangoma does as his life’s work. The main function of the sangoma is to heal and protect people in the community.

“Are sangomas only men?” Eva asked.

“No, both men and women can be sangomas, and they are generally very respected members of the community. Even Nelson Mandela was circumcised by a sangoma when he was sixteen by a famous ingcibi, a circumcision expert. Sangomas conjure up potions, known as muti to make you better and muti is made from all sorts of herbs and things. Then the sangoma dances herself, or himself, into a trance, usually with his drum which also has a spirit, and this is how they contact the spirit. Then they will alter their voice and begin to talk, using two voices, relying on their powers of ventriloquism.”

“I was told you can recognize a sangoma by their dress which is covered in beads, and is very ornamental, in red which is bomvu, black which is mnyama and white, mhlophe,” Helen said, hoping to impress Richard with her knowledge. Jono nodded. “The medicine the sangoma mixes can be based on colours also. The sangoma mixes opposite colours together, uniting them symbolically and then real life harmony follows. Light colours represent life and masculinity, dark colours are death and femininity.”

“I knew it.” Richard poked Mia who had returned with the bottle of schnapps and a sleeping bag, “you women are the death of men.”

Mia tittered, slapped him on the shoulder and wrapped herself in the sleeping bag. She opened the bottle, took a long swig and passed it to Jasmine.

“Is it true,” Marika asked, “that sangomas study for as long as doctors?”

“Yes. It takes seven years for the sangoma to study, and he, or she, studies a lot of things; techniques of divination, treatment of psychological, mental, physical conditions, animal and plant medicine use, the anatomy of the soul, ritual mastery, prayer and invocation, throwing the bones, trans-body, chant and song, channeling souls, soul ascension, case study, tradition and culture, and finally, techniques of investigation. Sangomas are also very good detectives and great historians and guardians of local culture and learning.”

“Impressive,” Kate said. “But the witches sound horrible.”

“They are. Witches operate on fear, superstition and rumour,” Jono said. “The evils of gossip. Nowadays even some of the churches use witchcraft to bring new worshippers, convincing them their problems are due to supernatural witch curses that only the church can cure. Some churches even preach that diseases like AIDS and leprosy, blindness, deafness, impotence and infertility are muti curses by witches.”

“Before we left,” Richard said, “I read an article about how Tanzanian witchdoctors have been killing albinos and harvesting their body parts because they think it will bring them good luck. What’s with that? Why albinos, why body parts for good luck?”

“What have you been reading, my friend, to hear that?” Jono asked and Richard’s expression became guarded.

“Oh, general research and whatnot. One’s interested in studying up before a trip, and what with the Internet, it’s astounding what one comes across. Some scary stuff actually. But why albinos, Jono?”

“Because they are considered to be very sacred. They are treated with deep respect because they are believed to be spirits born as human beings. And the whole muti body parts thing, well, that’s a whole other area, my friend, that is a dark thing for sure.”

“I’d be super keen to hear the whole bangshoot,” Richard said.

“Maybe you are, my friend but it’s not a discussion for the faint-hearted,” Jono warned. “And yes, Richard, I know the events of which you speak. At this time, nineteen albinos have been murdered in less than a year. But one last word on witches; they are also accused of inciting adultery, alcohol abuse and theft. Witches also have immense power to turn innocent people into witches and therefore it’s possible to become a witch without even being aware of it, simply by eating contaminated food or picking up an ‘impure’ object.”

“Oh, do not, for the love of God, tell Harrison any of this,” Richard said, “we’re all sworn to secrecy. Can you image what he’d be like if he heard these sorts of things? He’ll be rubbing everything, including us, in antiseptic.”

“All for one and one for all, we say nothing,” Helen assured him. “Jono, what about tokoloshes? I’ve tried to find out about them but no one would really tell me anything.”

“Ah,” Jono said, “the infamous tokoloshe. Helen, here is the secret to creating one – you remove the eyes and tongue from a full size corpse, then you blow a secret powder into its mouth and it is comes to life and will obey your every wish. But there is a high price for creating a tokoloshe, including the death of a relative within a year, because the spirits do not give life freely. If you are prepared to create an unnatural life, then you must be prepared to destroy a natural one.”

“An unnatural life,” Kate echoed and even the fire seemed to flicker and dim. Mia offered her the bottle of schnapps but she shook her head. Mia shrugged and passed the bottle to Jasmine.

“The tokoloshe,” Jono continued, “is a spirit in the households of witches and warlocks and they speak with a lisp…” “Sofie’s a tokoloshi.” Mia sat up, giggling “I suspected it all along.”

“She’s not small and brown,” Richard objected.

“Nor does she have a penis so long it has to be slung over her shoulder,” Jono said. “Sorry Mia, but she falls short of many of the physical characteristics needed.”

Mia found this so hilarious she nearly fell into the fire.

“Easy there, cupcake,” Richard said, kicking a burning log further away from her.

“I’m fine.” Mia protested, “perfectly composed. It’s the thought of Sofie with a giant penis slung over her shoulder, lisping…” She and Jasmine hung onto each other, hooting with laughter.

“The tokoloshe,” Jono said, “is very unusual in that he has a single buttock. Apparently Satan was unable to replicate this uniquely human feature, of our lovely, well rounded bottoms. So if you wish to scare away the devil, you must bare your buttocks at him and he will be frightened by that which he cannot have.”

“Ah that’s why mooning is such a handy tool,” Mia yelled. “Never mind crosses for vampires, just pull down your pants to the devil. Go on Richard luv, show us your moon.”

“Yes,” Helen chimed in, “show us.”

“I respectfully decline the invitation,” Richard said, “go on Jono.”

“I am too worried to continue,” Jono said. “I am afraid this discussion is being a health hazard to Mia.”

“No, I’m fine,” Mia gasped, “but my stomach hurts from laughing. Oh bleedin’ hell, this is hilarious. Go on Jono.”

“Part of the tokoloshi’s duties,” Jono said, “is to make love to its witch mistress, which is why he was created so well-endowed. As a reward for fulfilling these sexual duties, the tokoloshi is rewarded with milk and food.”

“Milk?” Kate was perplexed. “Why milk?”

“Milk is considered a sacred drink in many parts of Africa,” Jono explained, “it has many healing powers.”

“Likes to suck on a bit of tit, does he?” Richard was thoughtful. “Sign of a good man if you ask me.”

Jono ignored this comment and continued. “If you do see a tokoloshe, do not annoy it by talking to it and most certainly do not point at it because it will vanish immediately.”

“How on earth can I not look,” Mia shook with laughter, “when its hung like a bleedin’ donkey?”

Despite having downed half the bottle of schnapps, Mia was surprisingly coherent, unlike Jasmine, who had abruptly fallen fast asleep and was snoring slightly.

Jono finished the last of his beer and looked regretful. “Well, everyone, I must go to sleep or I will be a bad driver in the morning. Thank you very much for listening.”

He looked at Kate who grinned at him.

“No, thank you,” Richard said. “You’re incredibly knowledgeable, Jono, and I look forward to more stories about muti and witchdoctor’s and the like. Anyone else like one for the ditch? Last call, people, last call.”

“I’m going to bed,” Eva said. “Thanks Jono, thanks everyone.”

“Yeah, we’re calling it a night too,” Kate and Marika said, getting up.

“Me too,” Helen said. “That was fascinating, thanks Jono.”

“I’ll have one more,” Mia said, “lay it on baby.”

Jasmine was still fast asleep and Mia patted her head.

Jones was halfway down on the left side, a boxy, blue thirty-unit apartment building with Victorian adornments long since left to rot. The building was in a neighborhood on the lower section of Jones. It was the perfect spot for vice, where the steaming muck of the Tenderloin lapped the shores of Nob Hill decency.

The steel security door was ajar. Ray slipped inside and looked at the mailboxes. Apartment 12 was labeled “resident,” with no name listed. A sure sign of criminal activity. The inner door was locked. Ray paused and picked up a newspaper, loitering in the hall. He thought he loitered well. He was considering the next spoke in the investigative wheel when the inner door opened and an Asian woman in jeans and a red leather jacket stepped out. She held the door. Thanking her, Ray entered.

The hallway was painted institutional white. Wall sconces with flame-shaped amber bulbs cast a lurid hue. Debris littered the hallway: bottles with cigarette butts sloshing in the swill, condom wrappers, coffee cups. A sign on the wall read: Management will not help settle gambling debts. Gamble at your own risk. Manager.

He geared up for the upcoming interview. Numerous scientific studies had been conducted in the field of psychology regarding the detection of deceptive behavior. For a time, experts taught that if a person’s eyes shifted right, he was creating a visual response (and therefore presumably lying); if the person looked left, he was recalling an actual event (and thus most likely telling the truth). Newer studies had concluded that these eye movement theories were utter crap. If a man blinked, he was nervous, or stressed, or he had a gnat caught under his left eyelid; if he sweated profusely, he was lying, or possibly had lived for several years in Finland.

The heavy wooden door of apartment 12 was straight ahead.

Whiting runs a trembling hand through thinning hair, his scalp hot and moist. They’ve got to do something about these numbers. Short stubble on raw cheeks twitches as he anxiously works his jaws. They could lose the whole damn project. Thirty million! He can’t believe it, he’s bet everything on this project. And with the hard-money loan, they’ve got a bigger nut than ever. Shit! Those hard-money bastards, they’re Rodriguez’s contacts. Of course they had to have the money to finish—all the construction cost overruns. Fucking Rodriguez. His fingers manically drum on the hardwood desktop, their nails ragged, bitten to the quick. They’re in way too deep to quit now.
Chewing his bottom lip, Whiting redials Rodriguez’s cell.
Rodriguez sounds out of breath, frustrated. “Damn Gary, whaddaya want?”
“Mike, we need to go over some numbers. Ya got a minute?”
Rodriguez gives a short chuckle then lowers his voice, “I’m kinda in the middle of somethin’.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Gary hears a thump, then a woman’s muffled words. “Hey, are you at the office? Who’s with you?”
“Yeah, like I said, we’re kinda in the middle of somethin’ here.”
Whiting hears giggling in the background.
To Diane, Rodriguez says, “Stop that.” To Gary, he says, “Diane’s never done it on the desk before.”
Whiting can almost hear Rodriguez’s leering grin.
In the background Diane laughs then says, “Do I get overtime for this?”
Now they’re both laughing.
“Damn . . . Mike, you guys . . . in the office?”
“Hey, don’t sweat it. It’s almost seven, no one’s around, yard gates are locked, lights are off. No one’s gonna know.”
Whiting hears Diane coo and then more giggling.
Rodriguez speaks closer into the phone, “That is, as long as you keep your mouth shut.”
“Hey, no problem. I don’t care what you do with Diane. She’s your bookkeeper.”
Diane lets out a short yelp and says “What was that?”
“Shit!” Rodriguez whispers, “Shit.”
“Mike, what’s going on?”
“Hold on, I think someone’s here.”
Whiting hears grunting, rustling, probably scrambling for clothes, the metallic snap of window blinds.
Under his breath, Rodriguez says “Who’s that?” He whispers to Diane, “Get your panties on.”
Whiting hears Diane whine, “I’m trying.”
He hears Rodriguez whispering to himself, “Who is that? Is that . . ? I’ll get that bastard.”
Rodriguez says, “Gary, hold on, I gotta take a picture with this thing, hold on.”
“Okay.” Whiting hears the blinds clacking.
He hears Rodriguez talking to himself, “Damn, it’s dark . . . but I think I got ‘em.”
“Mike . . . Mike?”
“Yeah, I’m back, hold on. Gotta check this out.”
Whiting clutches the phone in a sweaty hand, pressed hard against his ear. He hears a loud bang. A door slamming the wall? Too weird. He needs a Valium.
Diane screams. Rodriguez yells, “You, you asshole! What the fuck do you want!?!”
Whiting hears POP, POP! Screeching, a low grunt, loud thumps . . . POP, POP, POP! “Uh, uh, uh . . .” Guttural gasps. A long wail. High-pitched keening, its otherworldly echo raising every hair on goose flesh. Whiting drops the receiver, horrified. The plastic handset bounces off the desktop as it sinks in. They’ve been shot!

Those legs were way too good for a cemetery. Long and well-sculpted, with just enough curves to get lost in without getting dizzy. Sexy, but elegant enough to avoid provocation. Those pins were about as fitting in that place as a hooker at a wedding.

A real waste.

Either way, the girl didn’t seem to bear any relation to the family of the deceased. Her presence was strictly physical. More body than soul. Not so much accompanying the mourners as scrutinizing them, and without making much of an effort to hide it.

It wasn’t hard to make out the friends from the relatives who were pretty thin on the ground, dressed in black, and maintaining a respectful silence. They seemed out of place among the buddies, old-time crocks in Hawaiian shirts who all seemed to arrive in groups and wouldn’t stop whispering – probably about the prospects for the post-funeral canapés. There was no hiding the fact they were Hollywood veterans. Maybe one or two had known the dead guy, perhaps even worked with him, but most of them had probably just turned up after seeing his obituary in Variety.

They sure were a special kind of wildlife these people. They didn’t want to admit the good times were now the old days and spent the best part of their time looking each other up to swap stories in which most of them probably never took part. But that was always the way in Hollywood, the stuff of legend.

No, that girl definitely didn’t look like she belonged to Lingwood G. Dunn’s usual crowd. A special effects director on movies like Citizen Kane, West Side Story and 2001, A Space Odyssey according to his obituary in the newspaper, he was still just an unknown technician for most people. An unknown who had chosen the worst possible day to buy his last one-way ticket.

I don’t know if he had been lucky in life, but death sure dealt him a bum hand. He had died of cancer the previous morning, May 15, 1998, and he had no other choice than to accept the burial today. The very same day the whole twentieth century show business world went into mourning meltdown. That May 16, Frank Sinatra died.

That’s why it was so surprising to see the girl. The way she looked, moved and acted it was clear she was a reporter. I’ve known more than a few. And that day the story was elsewhere.

Another time I would have gone over to find out what she was up to, the lady deserved it. But I was working and I needed to be prepared to act at any moment. When you’re past 70 it’s not good to be caught off guard.

So I went back to watching the other side of the street. The green sedan was still parked in front of the bar. I was beginning to get tired of sitting in my old Volvo and I was thirsty. I made my way through the traffic, leaned on the car I was watching, and pretended to be adjusting the turn-ups on my trousers. Then I went into the bar.

It was early, but more people were drinking beer than coffee. I sat at the bar and ordered a strong coffee and some donuts. In the mirror opposite, behind the bottles, I could keep an eye on pretty much everything in the joint. My man was at a table in the back, sitting in the same state of boxed-in nervousness I had left him in minutes before. His name was Benjamin O’Connors, a twenty-something from a good family. Well educated, but keeping bad company. He was wearing a red bomber jacket, perfect for doing exactly what he was hoping to avoid: drawing attention to himself.

I sipped my coffee and cursed as I burnt my tongue. Patience isn’t one of my virtues. While I got bored waiting I grabbed a handful of pistachios that had been left almost untouched by the suit who had just left. I put the nuts in my jacket pocket. The barman gave me a disapproving look. For my cockatoo, I said. It was true. I had a cockatoo, two fish, and a cat that was too lazy to try eating his flatmates. Then the door opened and there she was. She was silhouetted against the light, but those legs were unmistakable. She breezed over to the center of the bar and sat down. She swung her hair to one side and I thought how unusual it was to see a cut like that these days. She reminded me of Veronica Lake in those films I’ve learned to love over the years; learning to like Veronica Lake didn’t take so long. She asked for a coffee and got out a notebook. I wasn’t wrong about her profession.

I looked for the red bomber jacket in the mirror and saw that Benjamin O’Connors was still in the corner with his eyes glued to the door. So I grabbed my cup and moved a couple of stools down the bar, next to the girl.

“You got an interest in has-beens?”

She looked at me and smiled. She had too much experience to take the bait from a stranger first time of asking.

“I met Lingwood in ’55,” I said, “when he made that film with John Wayne.”

“You an actor?” She said without looking up from her notepad.

“No.”

“Screenwriter?”

“No.”

She looked up at me.

“A fellow technician?”

I shook my head.

“Just knew the guy,” I said.

“Listen Grandpa, if you really knew him maybe you could help me,” she said, rattled. When you’ve done a heap of shitty jobs in your life the attitude is easy to recognize.

“The guy was a friend of my editor-in-chief and he wants me to do something more than just short filler about his death. But those guys have only told me black and white stories of former glories without much of a spark. I think most of them are a bit…you know.”

“Old is the word,” I answered. “And don’t worry; I’m not bothered you called me Grandpa. I don’t happen to be one, but I guess I could be.”

“Okay. Listen up. Sir, today the greatest artist of the twentieth century died,” she put sugar in her coffee and began to stir, “and they got me covering the funeral of this guy who might’ve been a great guy to hit the town with, but frankly, I don’t give a damn.” She sipped her coffee. “So, if you don’t mind, I just want to get this business over with as fast as possible.”

She emphasized her displeasure with a grimace.

I went back to my coffee and stayed quiet for a while.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said after a few minutes, putting her hand on my arm. “Sometimes it drives me nuts covering these news fillers. I can get a bit problematic, you get my drift? And occasionally they give me these crappy jobs as a punishment.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I replied.

She gave me a pretty smile.

“And let me tell you, for a grandpa, like you said, you look pretty good. You gotta be older than my pa, but you look fitter than my last boyfriend.”

“Baby,” I said, “you just made my year.”

I winked and gave her a friendly pinch on the cheek. Call it golden-ager’s license. Afterward we both got back to our business.

Sincerely made up, I got lost in the reflection of my thin and wrinkled face in the mirror, my ash gray hair, which I luckily still had a lot of, and those eyes which seemed to sink further down every day.

I thought about forty years back and another reporter who’d managed steal my heart. And for the hundredth time I got a scare about how the years go by real quick. It was pretty clear I didn’t have long left and I didn”t like thinking that I might be taking what had happened back then as extra baggage.

“I think I got a good story for you,” I said without taking my eyes off the mirror.

She turned round with an air of irritation. I didn’t let her speak.

“It’s a story about Lingwood Dunn by the way, but I’m betting you’re going to be hooked.”

She looked at me with tenderness, her eyes getting ready to apologize.

“Are you serious? I mean I don’t wanna be rude, Sir, but I already told you,” she said, flashing her notepad. “So if it’s just another story about a golden glory…”

“I can guarantee you won’t have heard a story like this one. And stop calling me Sir. The pretty ladies call me Eddie.”

“Okay, Eddie, she replied with a smile that was more friendly than flirty. “In that case, if you…”

To be honest I was dying to know what she was going to say, but my sudden and unexpected movement made her instantly shut up. A ray of light told me the bar door was opening and I reckoned it was the man I was waiting for.

I don’t know if the girl was still looking at me, surprised by my sudden lack of friendliness, or whether she decided to tell me to go to hell and carry on with what she was doing. All my attention was focused on a long-haired guy in a black leather overcoat who was now walking through the bar behind me without taking off his sunglasses. He had an arrogant swagger totally out of key with his mediocrity. God, how I hate those kind of guys.

He walked toward the bathroom without changing his pace or deviating until he got to the last table, Benjamin O’Connors’. Then, in a surprisingly clumsy move, he put out his hand to take the envelope O’Connors had put on the edge of the table and hid it in his pocket. About as subtle as a drunk priest’s sermon. Then he carried on toward the bathroom.

I don’t think anyone in the bar had seen the operation, but not because it had been particularly discreet. They simply couldn’t give a damn.

I waited a few seconds before getting up.

“Back in a minute,” I said to the girl. I don’t know if she was listening.

My friend in the red bomber jacket was a lot more nervous now. He was looking around the whole while and couldn’t stop his legs from twitching. He looked at me, but could only hold the gaze an instant before fixing his eyes back on the beer he had in front of him. I guess he would see me again when I went past.

I went into the men’s room. Cleaner than I expected. Dirtier than I’d have liked. Two sinks, four urinals and three cubicles. Two were open. Under the third door I could see my man’s feet.

I looked at the others and noted that they all had two rolls of paper on the cistern.

I knocked on the door of the third.

“Busy!”

I knocked again.

“Busy, Goddamn it! Use a different one!”

“Young man, would you be so kind as to pass me a roll of toilet paper. I have a medical urgency due to an operation of…”

“Shit!” I heard the lock turning, “I don’t wanna know your life story, man.”

The guy opened the door and passed me a roll.

“Take it, and enjoy the show.”

It was time to be quick and effective.

With one hand I pushed the door open and with the other I grabbed the long-haired guy’s wrist and pulled it toward me, trapping it between the door and the frame.

“What the fuck!” he shouted from the other side.

Then with as much strength as I could, I smashed his forearm over and over again with the door.

He yelled and fought, but I’d caught him so unawares he couldn’t coordinate his movements. Then I went into the cubicle.

I pushed him against the end wall and before he fell and hit the toilet bowl, I put my hand between his legs. I squeezed hard. Luckily, he was dressed, so the move wasn’t so gross.

He groaned. I squeezed again.

He started to groan louder, but I shut him up by putting my free hand on his windpipe and forcing his head against the tiles. I let the hand go and caught my breath. Then a right hook to the nose. His head bounced and the tiles crunched. I hit him again and the blood stained my knuckles. Now the tiles were messed up too. Meanwhile, I squeezed the other hand and it seemed like something was crunching down there too. By now the guy didn’t have the strength to moan.

He was ready to talk.

I got him by the neck again.

“The gig’s over, buddy.” I said. From now on, you want money, you get a job.

I let go of the hand I had on his balls and checked his pockets. That made him change his expression and he tried turning to relieve some of the pain. I found the envelope stuffed with cash, and another one with the usual photos. But just the photos.

I got out a notebook and a pencil.

“Now you’re going to write down the address where I can go and get me the negatives.”

I grabbed his balls again. He gave a start.

He wrote it as fast as I forget my new friends’ names. He didn’t even look at the paper. For a minute I thought he was going to throw up.

Maybe I had squeezed too hard.

I know that sometimes I go overboard, but when you get to my age it’s better to take these guys by surprise because if I gave them a chance I could live to regret it. That said, it was clear I could get away with it because this was the nineties, and tough guys weren’t as tough as they used to be. Not even close.

I took him by the chin and shook his head so he would open his eyes and look at me.

“Remember this. If one day you go into a bar, a hotel or a disco and you realize that Benjamin O’Connors is in the same city, you get in your car and drive until you’re a 100 miles away. You hearing me? Otherwise, next time I’ll turn these – I squeezed lightly between his legs – into a cute decoration to hang from your rear-view mirror.”

I think he nodded, or at least tried to with what strength he had left. I didn’t get to see because right then the bathroom door opened and Benjamin O’Connors appeared, first with an expression of confusion and then one of fear.

“Shit!” was the only thing he said before he started running.

I let go of the guy and tried to get out of the cubicle as fast as I could, which wasn’t all that fast. It’s those moments I wonder whether I’m getting too old for the job.

“Take care, son.” I said by way of a goodbye.

I had time before I left to see him slide down awkwardly onto the toilet with both hands between his legs, trying to get some relief.

“Hey, Grandpa. What’s going on in there?” The waiter shouted from the bar.

“Nothing buddy, there’s a guy in here that seems to have eaten some bad scrambled eggs.”

The reporter, still on the stool, turned to look at me. Her smile evaporated when she saw the blood on my hands.

For a moment I thought I was going to say something but then there was a small explosion outside in the street.

“Be with you in a moment,” I said, as I passed her by.

The back wheel of the sedan had burst as it drove over the tacks I’d left to prevent my client driving off. I went up to the car and opened the side door.

Between the shock of the men’s room and the blowout, O’Connors was about to have a coronary.

“You can breathe easy. It’s all over.”

“He’s going to kill me,” he whispered.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to you.”

“Not you, my Pa!”, he shouted, annoyed by my error. “If he sent someone it’s because he already knows everything. And if he knows, he’s going to kill me.”

“Relax, son. Your old man just knows that this friend of yours wasn’t exactly a saint and that he was squeezing you for dimes by taking advantage of the good family name. But from the little he told me, he thinks you were being blackmailed so he wouldn’t tell your beautiful young wife about some lover you might have stashed away somewhere. What Daddy didn’t know is that the lover was the long-haired guy.”

“Please! Please..!”

I leaned inside the car so I could settle the matter in the most discreet way possible in the middle of the street.

“I told you to relax. Here,” I gave him the envelope, “get rid of these photos. I’ll find the negatives and you can forget about this business.”

“Can I… Can I trust you?”

“Do you wanna talk about your options?”

He shook his head.

“Forget about it. I swear I don’t give a damn about high society gossip.”

I took out the envelope with the money and took my fee for the job.

“Here, give this to your old man and tell him I already got paid.”

“Thanks.”

“And be careful about your friends. Or what you do with them.”

“It’s not what you think,” he whispered.

“You can be sure about that,” I replied as I got into the car. “When I saw you on all fours like a carthorse I tried to think about something else.”

As I closed the car door I noticed that all the clients of the bar were crowded round the windows and the door of the bar to get a good view of the scene. The guy in the black overcoat came out. He held a bloody tissue to his nose. He was stumbling with his head high but his legs slightly bent. Some of the people tried to help him, but he rejected their goodwill with violent shoves.

As he turned the corner, he looked back at me. I winked and then lost sight of him.

“Hey, guys!” I shouted as I went back in the bar. This guy has had a blowout; do you think you could lend him a hand changing the wheel?”

“Yeah, sure,” a couple of the customers said helpfully.

“I’d do it,” I said as they walked past, “but I’m too old.”

I climbed back on my stool at the bar. The barman went back to his place on the other side.

“A beer?”

It wasn’t so long ago when I didn’t have to think twice before answering that question.

“No thanks, another coffee please.”

I turned towards the girl who was sitting down slowly, with a frown. I guess she was wondering what kind of old crock would put on such a show.

“You wanna tell me what happened?” she said as she sat down.

“Don’t think so.”

“Really?”

“No,” I repeated, but it was the friendliest no I could manage.

“Before, you said you wanted to tell me a story and now you’re not talking.”

“That was a different story.”

“I thought you were a guy who liked to tell stories.”

“Well, actually, I’m the kind of guy who lives them.”

She thought for a moment and inclined her head so all her hair fell to one side. Maybe it was bothering her, though I suspect she was just using her female charm to get an old guy nervous.

She got close enough to whisper.

“Who were those guys?”

“Oh, just some guys with too much free time.”

She realized she was going to get nothing out of me and gave up, though she was still curious.

And then I saw a glimmer in her eyes that woke up an old itch. For the first time, she wasn’t looking at me all patronizing like most young girls look at older guys. So many women had looked at me that way during my life that it was impossible not to pick up on that spark one more time.

“Who are you, Eddie?”

“The one and the same: Eddie. You said it, gorgeous. And I’m real sorry to have interrupted our conversation before.”

Now it was me who was getting up close. “If I remember right, you were about to tell me something fascinating.”

“Me?” She answered, putting on an air of Miss Interested 1990. “Hmm, let me think. If I’m not wrong, I was going to say that if you gave me a good story for my article, I’d invite you to lunch.”

“Baby, when I tell you this story you’re going to want to invite me to bed.”

Saigon Laundry was owned and operated by the Trung family. They had come to America in two waves after the end of the Vietnam War. The first contingent of the family arrived shortly after the fall of Saigon

in April 1975 with Colonel Bao Van Trung, who served in the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. He had been politically connected throughout the U.S. involvement in the war, and that qualified him to evacuate with the U.S. forces. With him came his wife, who adopted the name Minny to better fit into to their new home in America, their four children, and Colonel Trung’s mother, Madame Trung. The second wave of Trungs—made up of the Colonel’s brother, Banda, his wife and children, and several cousins—were granted admission to the U.S. in the early 1980s as part of the Orderly Departure Program. That’s how Muerce first came to know, and eventually become part of, the extended Trung family. They, in turn, saw him as their guardian angel in a new, strange, and sometimes hostile land. For the Trung family, Jack Muerce didn’t just walk on water—he turned it into wine.

Muerce was fresh out of law school, working for a prestigious law firm, when he was assigned a pro bono case to help a Vietnamese refugee family navigate the bureaucratic confusion of immigration and commercial commerce laws. He had no idea what he was doing, but jumped into the work with all he had, partly to impress his superiors, partly because of the way he was raised, but mostly because he could help people. He liked how it made him feel. Helping people who needed it the most became more than a compulsion for Muerce. It was his duty, and it was chivalrous.

While working with the Trung family, Muerce learned how to leverage the resources he had been given by birth to get things done. He was intel

ligent, handsome, charming, and pragmatic. It also helped that his family was socially and politically connected, and very rich. The Trungs also opened a world to Muerce to which he had never been exposed—the world where people struggled each day to survive, whether it was putting food in their stomachs or a roof over their heads. It was a world where warm clothes and dignity were, too often, scarce commodities. What Muerce admired the Trungs for the most, was that they managed daily life with grace.

He also came to know the Trung family at a time in his life when there was a developing relationship with a young woman who would shape Muerce for the rest of his life—whether that was a good thing or a bad thing was something he struggled with daily. Its ending, and the circumstances around it, left Muerce off-¬balance, and feeling incomplete for a long time.

The heav y rain abated. Now just a few intermittent sprays were blown by rising winds that typically followed a storm to dry everything off. Muerce liked to think of it as Nature’s Car Wash where he imagined God and the angels as a crew of minimum wage earners toweling off the Cadillac Escalades, and their chrome rims, like the guys at the Suds Barn just down Canary Street.

He pulled the Mercedes to the curb in front of Saigon Laundry, and turned the engine off. For a moment, Muerce was lost in the silence of the car. He recalled her face, what her voice sounded like. Even though it had been a long time, all of it was as fresh as the rain. He became frustrated when his thoughts kept wandering back to Ashley’s face smiling at him from the bed not more than an hour ago.

The Mercedes door closed with a whong. Saigon Laundry was his office, and it was time to go to work.

Saigon Laundry was many things besides a two-¬story business front. The facade of the building was made of light ocher brick, and ornately carved limestone corners and arches. It sat on half a city block. The second floor, which was comprised of a dozen apartments, housed the extended family, and visiting Trung relatives. Over the years, Colonel Trung had purchased the large Victorian home behind the building, which had once been an upscale residential neighborhood. That was before the suburbs exploded, and the term “White Flight” was coined.

The front of the 1920s era building was plain except for a large neon sign Colonel Trung had installed in the late 1980s. The sign proclaimed “Saigon Laundry”, which was formed with an elaborate script, and painted in bright yellow with red trim. Within the letters, pink fluorescent

tubing spelled out the name of the business when night came. It was, Muerce thought when Colonel Trung first had it installed, a gaudy waste of money. Time had proved Muerce wrong, and the Colonel right. The sign did its job. It brought in business, and the business, like the Trung family, thrived.

Saigon Laundry was actually three businesses. The door to the far right—as you faced the neon sign—led to a large self-¬service laundromat. It had twenty-¬two coin-¬operated washers and dryers lined against pale green walls, and large, faded Formica-¬covered folding tables in the middle. There were soft drink, snack and laundry supply vending machines as well. What wasn’t provided in the Laundromat was seating. The Trungs learned early on that seating became territorial for customers, who would literally fight for their space. The seating went, and the rules sign went up. Rule No. 1: No sitting on the folding tables. Rule No. 2: Bring your own chair, and take it with you when you leave. Rule No. 3: No outside business (which meant no pimps, drug dealers or solicitations of any kind—even Girl Scout cookies—allowed). The rest of the rules were general housekeeping, and common courtesy.

Over the years, and under the Trungs, the laundromat had become the unofficial community center for the neighborhood. On the front wall next to the entrance were large bulletin boards that served as a community information center, and informal mail post. A flyer from the nearby Catholic Church announced a Friday fish fry, tacked next to it was a photo-¬copy of a missing young girl with a handwritten note from her family pleading for her to return. There were items for sale, as well as the names of bail bondsmen, and posters for various social service agencies. Four times a year, the city health department set up a small table for childhood inoculations. In the fall, flu shots were provided for infants, and the elderly. On Friday afternoons, the local food pantry truck parked outside to distribute meals and food packages to families in need.

Anyone and everyone was welcome at the laundromat, as long as they followed the rules. And anyone and everyone could be found there. It drew saints and sinners alike: from the nuns that ministered at the parish during the day, to the prostitutes who worked the bars on lower Canary Street at night.

The middle door entrance to Saigon Laundry, which was framed by the simple limestone trim, and situated below the neon sign, was the main entrance. It was the second of the Trung businesses—a dry cleaning operation, and tailoring service. The tailoring was done by Minny, who had worked as a seamstress in Saigon before she met and married the Colonel.

It had not been an arranged marriage, or one that was at first accepted by the Colonel’s parents or extended family. The Trungs had been very much woven into the fabric of Colonial French culture. The Colonel was educated in Paris, as were his parents. They had a lucrative business in the bamboo and rubber industries, part of which was a specialty subsidiary that produced the finest split-¬bamboo fly fishing rods in the world. Some of those rods made in the 1950s, now fetched upwards of ten-¬thousand dollars at auction houses in the United States. Minny, however, came from a poor family that lived in the Cholon District of Saigon. She had met the Colonel while fitting him for a uniform. They fell in love. They still were very much in love, which Muerce admired, and which Madame Trung had begrudgingly learned to accept over the years.

As you entered the dry cleaners portion of the Trung business dynasty, there was a large, arched opening to the right that led into the Laundromat. Along the wall next to the entrance was a long counter with a cash register, and hanging racks of plastic-¬covered dry cleaning. The dry cleaning itself was done in another building that was connected by a back alley, and located behind the Trung’s house. For tailoring, Minny had customers come to a nicely appointed room in the back. That the dry cleaning, pressing, and such were done off site was a concession Muerce had to have the Trungs concede to so they could get the proper licensing for their third business.

Benny Trung was Banda Trung’s son. Banda died of lung cancer two years after arriving in the U.S. There was a shrine for him on the wall behind the cash register that was maintained by daily offerings of food and flowers, and the burning of incense. Benny ran the third Trung enterprise on Canary Street. While you were visually greeted by the Colonel’s garish sign on the front of the building, and deafened by the constant drumming of washing machines, dryers and loud talk in the laundromat, it was Benny’s operation that stopped you where you stood as you entered. The smells made you close your eyes, and anticipate mellifluous, tart, savory, and exotic flavors.

Benny was the chef at Saigon Laundry. The restaurant was accessed through the smaller arched entry to the left, just passed the cash register and his father’s shrine. A dark, beaded curtain separated the restaurant from the rest of the business, and most of the gastronomic world.

The bell tinkled when Muerce walked through the front door. One of the Trung grand-¬daughters was working the dry cleaning cash register. She was immersed in a college physics textbook, her notes spread out on the counter. A white plastic string fell from each of her ears and merged

into one that was plugged into the iPhone laying flat next to her notes. Muerce closed his eyes and inhaled. There was the fresh aroma of baked goods, and dark coffee. Surely, this is what heaven smells like.

When he opened his eyes the grand-¬daughter was holding one of the ear buds in her right hand, and looking at him with amusement.

“ÔNG ỎÐÂU mãy nôm nay? ” she said, a hint of inquisition in her voice. “BÂN VIÊC, Tôi lā ngǚð i danh tiêńg,” Muerce said. The grand-¬daughter smiled at Muerce after chastising him for being tardy, and had a wicked thought of what it would be like to be occupied with him.

“Well, you’re late and she’s on the warpath, giving Uncle Benny a hard time,” the grand-¬daughter said, with perfect American pitch and tone. The sound of a breaking dish came from the kitchen in the back, followed by the voices of a man and woman arguing in Vietnamese.

“C’est la vie,” Muerce said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Si dedaigneux pendant qut nous soufrons de votre ralentissmento,” the grand-¬daughter said, plugging the ear bud back in, and returning her attention to the textbook. She lifted her swan-¬like right arm, holding her hand horizontal before waving him with three quick motions toward the beaded doorway that led to the dining area. Muerce liked her sassiness, though if Madame Trung had observed the interaction she would have interpreted her grand-daughter’s behavior as disrespectful to her elder, and lacking the appropriate filial piety for the family. Muerce winced when he thought of himself as the attractive young coed’s elder, and as a possible lover. Enough. She is family, and too young.

Saigon Laundry, the restaurant, wasn’t particularly big. It wasn’t located in any of the ritzy or fashionably hip parts of town, meaning it took real effort, and for some diners, a strong sense of adventure and courage, to journey there to eat. It was more than just the best French-¬Indochine cuisine you could find. Benny had taken Saigon Laundry to a new culinary level, earning rankings as one of the best restaurants in the world by a number of prestigious gastronomic associations, and publications. With a scant four, four-¬top tables at which only dinner was served, and a prix fixe menu at that (Benny prepared only what he wanted to serve over seven courses), made Saigon Laundry one of the toughest eateries in the world to get a seat. If dinner reservations were a commodity, getting a table at Saigon Laundry was like scoring a moon rock. Friday and Saturday nights were booked a year—sometimes two years for holidays—in advance. Weekday dinner reservations were full for up to eight months, depending on the day of the week.

Compounding the scarcity and exclusiveness of Saigon Laundry was that it was closed every Sunday and Monday—which Benny used to plan and shop for his menu for the week ahead. And there was only one seating per table per night; sixteen meals, eighty total for the week. All dinner reservations were for eight o’clock in the evening, starting with aperitifs and light hors d’oeuvres. Dinner service generally lasted until eleven o’clock with dessert or cheese and champagne. Diners had no choice in what spirits they were served. Benny matched cocktails and wines with the food. There were no substitutes, save for food allergies, which were addressed when the reservation was accepted, and again when a confirmation call was made the week before the assigned night. If a party cancelled, or did not show within twenty minutes of their reservation, there was a long waiting list of people willing to throw down whatever they were doing, and race to Saigon Laundry for dinner. Muerce couldn’t remember the last time he saw an empty chair at dinner, and he would know because he ate there almost every night.

For his relationship with the Trungs, and the legal and financial efforts he had put in on their behalf over the years—including loaning Benny the money to attend both Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York—the lone two-¬topper table wedged against the far wall was exclusively his. It included breakfast, lunch and dinner. He was the only person other than members of the Trung family, to be fed from Benny’s kitchen during the day. The two-¬topper also served as Muerce’s tacit place of business.

For what Muerce did, he only needed a phone, a roof over his head, and a good cup of coffee. He had long ago given up working inside the boundaries of a law firm.

The squabbling in the kitchen ceased. Muerce, now sitting at his crisp, white linen-¬covered table, prepared to be chastened by Madame Trung. She approached him from the kitchen with a silver tray that held a full French press, coffee cup and saucer, and a plate of beignets fresh from the oven.

Madame Trung was the third most remarkable woman Muerce had ever met in his life. There was his mother, certainly, and the woman he did not talk about.

Though the Colonel was the Trung patriarch, there was no doubt as to who had the final say in all family matters. Although eighty, Madame Trung looked like she was in her early sixties. Her features, attractive and intact, were ageless. She was medium height, still thin, and the few lines on her face did not hint at her age; the harsh black tint of her dyed hair, however, could not go unnoticed.

Madame Trung wore a dark purple ao dai. The right sleeve of the traditional garment was folded and pinned to her shoulder with an antique Tiffany brooch. Madame Trung lost the arm in an automobile accident in France when she was attending university in the early 1950s. She spoke little of it other than to refer to the incident as “The Tragedy.” The only details she had ever given to Muerce was that she had been riding in a delightfully sporting automobile, and the driver, a man, a poet, was killed in the crash. She only spoke of it to Muerce once, many years back, when she had consoled him through his own tragedy. He never forgot the sadness in her voice, or his own sadness.

Madame Trung set the tray on the table with an ease that was impressive for someone of her age and impairment. She had compensated for the lost limb with a grace of movement that made one forget what was missing. She smiled as she plunged the French press to the bottom of the glass container, then poured the hot, dark liquid into the cup. As she bent down, he noticed the large, crudely swathed black cross adorning her forehead. She was a true French Colonial. A devout Catholic. Madame Trung had gone to early Mass for ashes.

“Bonjour Madame Trung, merci beaucoup,” Muerce said, as she finished pouring the coffee.

“Bonsoir Monsieur Muerce,” she replied, dryly and emphasizing the greeting for the latter part of the day. And so it begins.

“Pardonnez, s’il vous plait, mes offenses,” Muerce said. “It was an active evening, and I did not get much sleep.”

Madame Trung arched an eyebrow, and gave a speculative look at Muerce before putting her one hand on his left shoulder, patting him softly.

“Et ne nous soumets pas a la tentation,” she said. Temptation was Muerce’s favorite distraction. He lifted the cup to his face and absorbed the aroma of the coffee and the beignets, which held the promise of a hint of maple syrup goodness. The coffee was Trung Nguyen. Dark and strong. The first two sips cleared away what remained of the champagne fog. He closed his eyes and savored another sip before biting into one of the warm pastries sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. There was the distinctive maple sweetness that merged with the airiness of the pastry, and made a subtle crunch when he chewed. Perfection.

“Vietnam style, no chicory,” Madame Trung said of the coffee, her hand still on Muerce’s shoulder as she turned to address the kitchen, and began yelling. “~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~”

“You go to ashes?” she said, returning her attention to Muerce. “Noon Mass with my mother at the Cathedral,” Muerce said. At Madame Trung’s barked command, Benny appeared in an instant

with a crisp, white linen napkin he placed on the table. “~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~” Benny said. Madame Trung removed her hand from Muerce’s shoulder, waved it in

the air at Benny in a dismissive gesture, and began muttering in Vietnamese as she returned to the kitchen.

“~~~~~~~” Muerce said to Madame Trung as she departed.

Benny clasped his hands together, as if in prayer, and bent down slightly to greet Muerce.

“How is it, Jack?” he said.

Muerce looked up at Benny, rolled his eyes and contorted his face to mimic a moment depicting the peak of sexual passion, and emphasized the gesture with a moan. Seriously Benny, what do you expect?

“Excellent, will you be with us for dinner?” Benny said. “Yes, early though Benny,” Muerce said. “What’s on the menu?” “Seafood all this week. The presentation will be a surprise.” “Sounds wonderful,” Muerce said, biting into another pastry. “We missed you last night,” Benny said. “Did you find a better place to eat?” “Not possible, and you know that,” Muerce said. “Mardi Gras party. I was obligated to attend.” “Good gumbo?” “Awful gumbo. But lots of pretty girls who drink too much.” Benny winked at Muerce. “What time tonight?” “Early, say six if that’s okay,” Muerce said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” “Yes, that was the speculation when you weren’t here… at your regular time,” Benny said, looking toward the kitchen. “Six is good.” Some kind of ruckus had begun in the kitchen, and Madame Trung was yelling in Vietnamese. Benny put his hand on Muerce’s shoulder, and gave him a look of exasperation. “I’ve got to go. She’s been at it all morning,” he said. “More beignets?” “Yes. Sorry for being late.” Muerce said, chagrined that his intimate conquests were part of Trung family conversations. That’s how families are.

Muerce savored the coffee, the beignets, and the sudden quiet that settled in the dining space with Madame Trung and Benny back in the kitchen. There was only the gentle drumming of the machines coming from the Laundromat.

He surveyed his surroundings. It amused Muerce, that the restaurant side of the business was in such contrast to the rest of Saigon Laundry. While the décor of the laundromat, dry cleaners and tailoring was well suited for the rundown part of the city—although close in proximity to Downtown—the design of the dining room was high-¬end French Colonial Vietnam. Paris on the Mekong. It exuded a feeling of expensive and ornate furniture slowly decaying in the fetid heat and humidity of Southeast Asia. Two large ceiling fans circulated the air, which was warmed by the busy nature of the laundromat, and the ovens and stoves in the kitchen. It really was a small space. Two of the four-¬top tables were tucked toward the back of the room with the opening archway leading to the kitchen. Benny liked that the kitchen was somewhat open for viewing. It enhanced the dining experience, allowing customers to see, smell and hear their food being prepared. That way, Benny believed, all of their senses were heightened when the food arrived at their table.

The other pair of tables were nestled partly into each of the two bay windows at the front of the building. Benny had sealed off what used to be an entrance. Along the front window and where the door used to be, was an elaborate collection of plants and flowers that included some of Madame Trung’s finicky orchids. In the fall she would swap out some of the containers for mums. In the spring there would be tulips and daffodils. There were also pots of different herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme, lemon grass and mint.

Large colonial shutters framed the front windows. The floor had been renovated with an ornate parquet pattern that squeaked when you walked on it. On the walls were gilt-¬framed antique street maps of Paris, and what was now Ho Chi Minh City. On the wall above Muerce’s table was a framed linen napkin. On the napkin was a drawing of an abstract likeness of a young Madame Trung. It was signed by Picasso. Madame Trung delighted in never telling the full story of the napkin, only saying how upset her father was with the friends she had made attending university. Who, Muerce knew, included the dead poet. Madame Trung, Muerce liked to believe, was very wild in her youth.

She was now, however, immune to Muerce’s attempts to flirt with her. Nonetheless, he made efforts to on occasion. When he did, she would smile, and dismissively pat him on the head with her one hand.

Briefly lost in his thoughts, Muerce snapped back to reality when he remembered he had a voicemail waiting for him. He pulled the phone from the pocket of his suit coat that he had draped over the back of his chair. He fingered the bottom button that brought the black screen alive with various colored icons, and navigated his way to voicemail with his index finger.

The drawl was unfamiliar, but the name was not. The call was from Tyler B. Squire, the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of what was now referred to in business parlance as one the largest “healthcare systems” in the county. To Muerce they were still hospitals. Just a lot of them under one publicly traded umbrella. You went there if you were sick, or dying. Otherwise, you avoided them as best as possible. Tyler B. Squire was originally from somewhere in the South—Texas or Alabama, or something like that. Muerce wasn’t sure. As is the custom in the South, the health care executive’s name had been shortened to T.B. Squire. Muerce rolled the humor around in his head. Was there irony in a man in charge of a national chain of hospitals being saddled with the name T.B., or was it just a cruel coincidence?

Distracted with the inane amusement, Muerce missed the point of the message and replayed it, this time intent on listening. He had never given T.B. Squire one of his business cards. That the man had his mobile number meant that either someone of some influence had provided it to him, or someone to whom Muerce was indebted had.

T.B. Squire’s message was polite, brief and to the point. Would Mr. Muerce please return his call at his earliest convenience as it was a personal matter involving his son. T.B Squire ended the message saying he was giving Muerce his own private mobile number, and not his work mobile number, and that he would be monitoring for his call as to not miss him.

Muerce contemplated the information, and tone of the message. T.B. Squire had a son in trouble. A son he apparently cared about because his voice was heav y with concern, if not a little fear. If T.B. Squire didn’t care about his son, Muerce would have picked up on anger beget from annoyance. If that had been the case, Muerce would politely return Mr. T.B. Squire’s call, and without asking what the problem was, say he was unable to be of any help. Muerce shied away from favors having to do with spoiled rich kids. He had done enough of those to know that, in most cases, the kid was better off learning from the consequences than being bailed out by Mommy and Daddy. That, and the return favor was rarely honored.

It was unlikely, though, that Mr. T.B. Squire’s troubled son was facing a drunk driving or drug possession charge. Either of those could be han

dled by an army of attorney’s the CEO had at his disposal. Muerce also factored in that the call had come very early in the morning—the memory of Ashley naked in his bed flashed in his head again—and the man had gone to the trouble to find an alternative solution to his problem. Muerce was the alternative people turned to before they had to come face-¬to-¬face with the last resort—reality. Anyone who knew Jack Muerce knew that you did not share his mobile number freely. Muerce’s business card was as rare a commodity as a dinner reservation at Saigon Laundry. You treated either as a divine gift. Nothing goes down on this, Muerce thought, until I know who gave out my number.

He poured the last cup of coffee from the press, and took several sips. It was time to go to work. He thumbed the button that returned T.B. Squire’s phone call. It rang only twice before it was answered.

“Mister Murse?”

“It’s pronounced mercy,” Muerce said, disappointed that T.B. Squire hadn’t done all of his homework.

“I apologize Mister Muerce.” There was a moment of pregnant silence between them. “I’m returning your call, Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “Ah, yes. I’m sorry Mister Muerce. I’m not sure how this works.” “How what works, Mister Squire?” “Well, frankly, as I said in my message, how I go about asking you to, perhaps, help my son,” Squire said. “It’s Jack isn’t it. May I call you Jack?”

Time to set some boundaries.

“My friends call me Jack, Mister Squire. Are we friends? Have I ever been invited to your home for dinner?”

A few fleeting seconds of awkward silence followed. “I understand Mister Muerce,” Squire said. Good. “Can you help me, Mister Muerce?” Squire said, subtly pleading. “I don’t know, Mister Squire, can I?” Muerce said. “How was it you came to get my name and number?” T.B. Squire hesitated. He was a man used to making important, and very expensive decisions at a moment’s notice. He knew when to heal a decision, and when to unleash one quickly. This one involved his only child, his son, so he went with honesty.

“Detective Trumbley,” Squire said, pausing. “He asked that I not use his name, Mister Muerce. I wanted to respect that request, but I also want to respect yours as well. Although we’ve never been formally introduced, I have heard of your family, and your… reputation.”

Right answer, though you should have asked about proper pronunciation if you say you know of my family.

“I appreciate that Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “There will be no repercussions for disclosing Detective Trumbley’s identity.”

Muerce knew Trumbley well. Nick Trumbley could call him Jack. He could call Jack anything he wanted, and get away with it. Few people could do that. Trumbley was a good man, and an honest vice cop who wouldn’t hand out Muerce’s name on a whim. He wouldn’t refer T.B. Squire to him unless it was a sensitive, or nearly impossible problem. It was Trumbley asking for a favor, and Muerce would do the best he could to fulfill the request, and find out why later.

“All right Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “How time sensitive is the problem with your son?”

T.B. Squire felt like he had been holding his breath beyond his capacity. His chest was heavy. He exhaled and took in fresh air that gave him a positive outlook.

“I’m not sure what you mean by time sensitive?” he said.

“I’d rather not talk about particulars over the phone Mister Squire,” Muerce said. “Especially cell phones. I’d like to meet, so we can be… properly introduced.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” Squire said. “There’s a little time, a few days.”

“Good,” Muerce said, reviewing his schedule for the next twentyfour hours, and realizing that he could only fit T.B. Squire in at dinner. “Six o’clock, Mister Squire. Six Twenty Five Canary. Park out front. Go through the middle door. Ask for me. I’ll see you tonight”

Muerce pressed his thumb on the red icon that ended the call.

T.B. Squire scribbled the information on a fluorescent orange Post-¬It note without giving the address any thought. He was a transplant to the city, and was still unfamiliar with street addresses. Particularly addresses in the part of town where Saigon Laundry was located. Given the discourse with Muerce, T.B. Squire was savvy enough to know that he was to come alone. He would have anyway. The trouble his son, Travis, had gotten into was something he wanted as few people as possible to know about. Not for his own sake, but for his son’s.

Muerce placed the phone on the table, and rubbed his hands over his face in a massaging motion. Despite the strong coffee, he was still groggy from too much champagne, and too little sleep. He hoped the vigorous motion might alleviate the faint throbbing in his head. Some of the night before started to return to him. He and Ashley had gone at it, rather loudly, for some time. He didn’t think they fell asleep until three

o’clock that morning. He also began to realize that his pelvic bone was sore. The duration of their carnal activities, and the soreness it left, made him smile. His headache abated some.

Swiveling in his chair, Muerce lifted the empty press up so Benny could see him. Benny acknowledged with the wave of one finger and spoke to Madame Trung, who reacted with a barrage of Vietnamese that Muerce could not make out. Several minutes later, Madame Trung was at Muerce’s table with a fresh press of coffee, and another plate of beignets.

“Merci, merci beaucoup,” he said. “Vous vous etes top rejouis hier soir,” Madame Trung said. “Yes, too much fun last night,” he said. “I’m sore, every where.” Madame Trung frowned and pressed too hard on the plunger. A spurt of coffee and grounds was ejected from the lip of the container, staining the white, linen table cloth. She shook her head in disapproval, not at the mess she had made but at what she guessed to be Muerce’s activities the previous night.

“Good thing Lent come,” she said, in broken English. “You no so young no more.”

Muerce screwed up his face in a dramatic wince.

“~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~,” she said. “Old Vietnamese proverb.”

“It’s an old Greek proverb,” he retorted. “The Romans translated it as, Modus omnibus in rebus.”

“Vietnam older than Greeks,” she said. “You older than Greeks, I think.”

“~~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~,” Muerce said, clutching his right hand to his chest as if he’d been shot.

“You hurt self. You get ashes with your mother. You start atone.”

That last word landed like a lance, and the past spilled into his thoughts like the coffee staining the table cloth. The memories were granular, dark, hot, and messy. Her face was as clear as if she were sitting across the table from him. He felt like his flesh was being torn from his body.

A loud commotion erupted in the laundromat, and the face disappeared. Madame Trung and Muerce went to see what it was about.

“You can’t leave that baby here,” said the Trung grand-¬daughter, the white cords of her ear buds dangled from her shoulders.

She was addressing a short, pasty-¬skinned woman with dark hair cropped very close to her head. The woman wore heavy, black eye makeup, which complimented her black, leather mini-¬skirt. Her outfit was accented by a tight pink blouse hidden under a white, faux fur jacket. She teetered on pink stiletto heels. Her wardrobe left no doubt that she was dressed for work, and the look of desperation on her face indicated she was late. Her boss would not be happy, or understanding.

“It’s not my baby,” the woman said, with a defiant and heavy SerboCroation accent. “Is Redzil’s. I was just watching it for a few days while she… was away. For work.”

“So?” the grand-¬daughter said. “You’re responsible. You can’t just leave a baby here. This isn’t daycare drop off.”

The crying baby was wrapped in an assortment of dingy blankets, and had been placed inside a dilapidated wicker basket. Muerce guessed the infant was, maybe, three months old.

“Red. Redzil, will be here soon,” the woman said, her voice becoming more anxious and desperate than defiant. She kept looking toward the front window at a car idling outside. “She promised to meet me here. Just watch it for a little bit. I have to go. I have to go!”

A white Cadillac Escalade with a cascade of gaudy gold trim and gold rims was parked behind Muerce’s Mercedes. The drumming of the washing machines and dryers was interrupted by a series of aggressive honks from the waiting car.

The darkly tinted passenger window slid down, and a pale hand covered with gold jewelry that matched the trim of the Escalade aggressively motioned for the woman to hurry.

Madame Trung frowned, and looked at Muerce. Fine, he thought, I’ll take care of it.

“Nobody go any where,” he said, looking directly at the pink and black dressed woman. “I’ll be right back.”

The bell on the front door of the laundromat tinkled behind Muerce as he stepped outside and approached the open window of the waiting car. The wind had picked up, lifting his tie over his right shoulder, and the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees.

The ostentatious car belonged to Mikal Delic, who liked to call himself “Pimp Deluxe”. He was also known as “Micky D” for his fondness of the Golden Arches. Mikal was in his late thirties and had come to the U.S. in the mid-¬nineties after fleeing the hostilities and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-¬Herzogovina. There was, at that time, and again in the early 2000s, a flow of immigrants, mostly Muslim, into the city, along with a few Christians. The ethnic cleansing from the “old country” spilled over onto American soil in the form of gang warfare. A lot of it played out along the Canary Street corridor. It had been no different for previous waves of immigrants—Nigerians, Vietnamese, Hmong, Jamaican, Cuban,

along with the original settlers of the city; the Irish, Italians, and Germans. Most of them, however, had long ago climbed up the economic ladder, and out of the now worn and squalid neighborhoods that made up Canary Street.

Muerce rested his arms on the open window of the Escalade, and leaned inside.

“Micky D, what shakes?” he said.

Mikal flashed a hip-¬hop smile. His top left, front tooth was encased in gold. A one-¬carat diamond was set in the middle of the tooth. He reached across from the driver’s seat with an open hand, palm up.

“Jock Mur-¬see, what it is, my man,” he said, smiling, his Serb-¬Croat accent thicker than the pink and black girl’s mascara. Mikal’s gold chains made a metallic rustling sound as he leaned over. He wore a purple, velour track suit, and a white “wife-¬beater” t-¬shirt.

“What it is, Deluxe,” Muerce said, slapping Mikal’s hand.

“Stock market good,” Mikal said. “Bidness been booming. Girls busy for Deluxe. Think economic finally looking up.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, move everything out of treasuries. Yields crap,” Mikal said. “More opportunity in equities. Deluxe not need to be so liquid. You should talk to my broker.”

“Smooth, my man.” “How you do Jock?” “Business is good,” Muerce said, pausing to look back into the laun

dromat, then back at Mikal. “What’s the four-¬one-¬one inside?” “Beech is late for work,” Mikal said, agitated. “The baby, Micky D,” Muerce said. “What time your girl shows up for work is none of my business.” Mikal pushed his lower lip up his face and made a slight nodding motion with his head, indicating he understood. Mikal respected Muerce. If you didn’t, he knew all too well, you could get burned in a way you had never thought of before. Muerce was fair. He knew what was, was, and what is, is. It was better to work with Muerce than against him. You don’t fuck with the man who’s armor shines brightest.

“Belong to Redzil, Redzil Hadzic,” Mikal said. “She belong to you?” Mikal nodded his head that she did. “You know her Jock?” Mikal said. “Maybe she please you sometime?

The tall red-¬head. Pretty face, big lips, long legs. You like the long legs, Jock, yes?”

The description registered with Muerce. He had seen her in the laundromat before. She was pretty, and she did have the kind of long legs he liked, though she, like all the working girls that frequented Saigon Laundry, were, of his own accord, strictly off limits. Don’t blur boundaries.

“Your girl, your responsibility,” Muerce said. Mikal rolled his eyes. “I Pimp Deluxe not Montessori,” he said. “Besides, it deal Redzil make

with beech inside. I not baby daddy.” “The one inside, she got a name?” Muerce said, his voice rising. “Mirsad. I lose respect fucking around babysit beech’s kids.” “You lose street cred too if you don’t take good care of your girls, Mi

kal,” Muerce said. “No more Pimp Deluxe. They’ll go to someone else, or start freelancing.”

Mikal gripped the leather wrapped steering wheel. His knuckles turned white.

“Look, Jock, you do me favor I do you favor?”

“You still owe me favor, Mikal, lots of favor. I want to know what is going on. Now.”

“Da, da, da,” Mikal said. “Beech inside—Mirsad—say other beech— Redzil—have side deal she not tell me about. Freelancing, like you say. Piss me off. She give baby to Mirsad take care of while she go for weekend. Weekend come and go, no Redzil. I tell beech inside got to get back to work. Fuck Redzil. Fuck beech’s baby.”

“Mirsad just volunteered that information, did she?” Muerce said.

“I convince her a little,” Mikal said. “Not hurt her bad. Just help get to truth faster.”

“Maybe I help Pimp Deluxe get to the truth a little faster,” Muerce said. “Does this look like an orphanage Mikal? You just drop the kid off in a basket, and that’s it?”

“Like I said, Jock. You do Deluxe favor, he do you favor.”

Muerce was losing his patience when he felt a tug on the back of his shirt. It was Mirsad. She wanted past him, and into the Escalade. There was no baby in her arms. Muerce glanced back into the laundromat to see Madame Trung holding the baby in her one arm. It had been decided, not by him, that Muerce would grant a favor. But it wouldn’t be for Pimp Deluxe, it would be for the baby. Not so much for the baby’s mother, Redzil Hadzic, wherever she was. Muerce opened the car door for Mirsad. As she passed he could see bruising on the back of her neck.

“Look at me Mikal,” Muerce said, leaning back into the open window as Mirsad fumbled with the seat belt. “When I call, and I will call, you get one ring. If I hear two, I’ll hang up. And then I’m going to start twisting you. Very hard. No more treasuries, no more equities, no more liquidity, no more beeches for you.”

Mikal smiled his pimp smile, and nodded.

“I have a special dentist who owes me a favor,” Muerce said. “Maybe you pay what you owe me in gold.”

Mikal’s smile disappeared.

“When your girl turns up, tell her the kid is in the system,” Muerce said.

Mikal put the car in gear, pressed down hard on the accelerator and sped off, kicking up a dirty spray from the wet streets that soiled the back panel of the pearl white SUV. Muerce stepped back from the car as it bolted away, his hands in the air, feeling like he’d just been robbed at gunpoint despite his threat.

The hot, humid air of the laundromat enveloped Muerce like a blanket. He fixed his tie, frowned at Madame Trung, and reached in his pocket for his phone. The baby was quieter in her arm.

“Miriam, it’s Jack Muerce,” he said into the phone. He reached voicemail, and left a short message. “I need a favor…”

Half an hour later a black-¬and-¬white was parked outside. Muerce gave the two patrolmen what little information he had about the child when Miriam Estrada walked in. She was carrying an infant car seat, and a large diaper bag that she tossed onto the laundry table. She waved her Family Welfare credentials at the patrolmen without looking at either them. Her eyes were fixed on Muerce.

Miriam was a welcome sight, and not just because it meant the cops, Muerce and the Trungs could beg out of dealing with an abandoned child. The Welfare Lady, as Miriam was commonly referred to, was a handsome woman in her late thirties. She was tall with dominant Aztec features: dark skin, high cheekbones, and emerald green eyes. She and Muerce had a brief history, once, years earlier. At the time, she was separated. Her husband had been a good cop with a bad problem. He and Trumbley were partners. Miriam’s husband was a drinker. A big drinker. When his liver gave out, Miriam took him back, and nursed him until the end. She called it off with Muerce, who understood her decision. Muerce did everything he could, from a distance, to help her care for her dying husband. After he passed, they decided to remain friends, and only friends.

Still, her eyes twinkled whenever she saw Jack Muerce. 28

“Been awhile Mister Muerce,” she said, addressing him in front of the patrolmen. She turned to the senior cop. “You guys got all you need? I can take it from here.”

All business.

“Yes ma’am,” the cop said, glad they could get on with their day, but disappointed they couldn’t linger to gawk at Miriam a moment or two longer.

“I’m sure you two have more important things to do than change diapers,” she said, in a tone used to usher them on their way.

When she heard the tinkling of the bell above the laundromat door as they left, Miriam retrieved the child from Madame Trung’s arm, turned to Muerce and smiled.

“You look good Jack,” she said, holding the baby in her arms. Her eyes smiled in a way that Muerce thought might indicate a change in their agreement to be friends, and just friends.

“Not as good as you look Miriam,” he said. The memory of her soft dark skin, and the dimples at the small of her back came to him easily.

“I drop everything to run down here and that’s the best line you have, Jack, really?” she said.

Madame Trung barked an order in Vietnamese for her grand-¬daughter to get back to the dry cleaning counter, and then excused herself. The handful of customers in the laundromat returned to their wash, gossip, and magazines. Miriam turned her attention from Muerce. Cradling the baby in one arm, she spread out a disposable paper blanket on the laundry table, and went about giving the child a cursory examination for any indications of abuse, or poor health.

“Seems healthy, fairly clean and well-¬cared for,” she said, removing the soaked disposable diaper. “Male. Hmm…”

Miriam looked at the child’s irregular facial features. “Not the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen,” Muerce said. “As if you’ve ever seen many babies,” Miriam said, still examining the

infant, who was, she guessed, about three months old. “I’ve seen enough of them,” Muerce said. “You mean you’ve dated enough of them,” she said. “And I thought you were happy to see me,” Muerce said. “So, is some

thing wrong with it?” “Don’t know. Could be fetal alcohol syndrome, crack baby, or any other number of congenital or genetic tags,” Miriam said. “Or just plain and simple FLK syndrome.”

“FLK syndrome?” Muerce said. 29

“Funny Looking Kid,” Miriam said. “It’s not a real term, Jack. He got a name?”

“Mother is a prostitute, Bosnian, I think, goes by the name Redzil,” Muerce said. “I forget the name but I can try. Her street name is Red. She dumped the kid off with a… co-¬worker slash friend… for a weekend special, and hasn’t shown up. The friend got behind on her work hours taking care of the kid, and decided to drop him off at Madame Trung’s Orphanage.”

Miriam looked around the room. “This is as good a place as any, if not better. Hell, it’s cleaner than any of the fire stations, or police precincts.

“So, he’s a John Doe? Or should we call him Jack Doe?” “Not funny, Miriam,” Muerce said. She put a fresh diaper on Baby John Doe Redzil, and gleefully handed

Muerce the old one before dressing the infant in a floral one-¬piece cotton jumper that was too big. Muerce held the soiled diaper as if it were nuclear waste.

“What do you want me to do with this?” he said.

“Are you really that clueless, Jack?” she said, pulling a wet wipe from a container, and handing it to Muerce. She placed the child in the infant car seat, and secured the straps.

“Throw it in the trash,” she said. “You can flush the wipe if you want when you’re done.”

Muerce dropped the diaper in the trash can next to him, wiped his hands with the wet wipe, and disposed of it with the diaper. Miriam jumped up to sit on the folding table next to the baby, who was sucking on a small formula bottle she had produced from the diaper bag. Some of the customers in the laundromat frowned at her. Rule No. 1: No sitting on the folding tables. But nobody was going to mess with the Welfare Lady, and she knew it.

“Baby Jack is hungry,” she said.

“Yes he is,” Muerce said. Miriam either ignored or missed his inflection, so he changed the subject. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Nah, too much already,” she said. Muerce could make out the faint smear of ashes on her forehead. A good Catholic girl.

Miriam had a girlish smile. She averted her eyes from Muerce’s, and looked through the archway that led toward the restaurant.

“Last time I was here was for dinner,” she said. Muerce didn’t say anything.

“I miss that,” she said, wistfully. “Miss what?”

“Going out to dinner.”

“It’s been, what, two years?” he said, opting to drop the “death” part from the rhetorical nature of the question. “You’re an attractive woman.”

“With two teenage boys, Jack,” she interjected. “You want to go down that road? Get real.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t go out to dinner every once in awhile,” he said.

There was a loud sucking sound that indicated Baby Jack Doe Redzil had finished his bottle. Miriam turned her attention to the child, which let out a loud burp. She slung the diaper bag over her shoulder, and picked up the infant seat holding the baby. As she turned to head toward the door, Muerce stepped in front of her.

“Do you want to have dinner sometime?” he said. “With you?” she said. “Dinner with Jack Muerce is never just a meal.” “Is that a yes or a no?” The tension in her face eased, and Muerce thought he saw a hint of

coquet as she batted her eyelashes a few times without looking directly at him.

“Maybe,” she said, slightly embarrassed. Then she walked straight out the door, secured the infant seat in her car, and drove away. Definitely call Miriam.

Madame Trung stood in the archway, Muerce’s suit jacket and raincoat draped across her arm.

“You going to be late for ashes,” she said. “You hurry.”

He looked at his watch. Now it was his mother who was going to be pissed.