"So maybe-no, not maybe, I'm sure it's an oversight."

Johnny waited. Mr Tortoni smoked some more. Johnny took a drink of his sirop. Billiard balls clicked behind him. 'Ti Amo' was over and 'Love Will Keep Us Together' came on, and Mr Tortoni made a motion to Sal Calcagno, who walked to the jukebox and pushed the button in the back before Toni Tenille could finish saying 'You belong to me now' Bobby Darin came on with 'Volare' and Mr Tortoni nodded, smiling, at Sal, then lost the smile and looked at Johnny.

"Well?"

"Whatever it is, I'll fix it," Johnny said.

"You don't know? It could be you forgot. The excitement all last night, this Ingraham problem."

Johnny nodded, without a clue.

"Ingraham is five hundred dollars. I get reminded today-bookkeepers, you know, they keep track of things."

Johnny still didn't see it. He was thinking, Five hundred?

Mr Tortoni put his hand over Johnny's, soft as a kitten. "Doreen Biaggi," he said. He went back to his coffee. "It's a small thing, Johnny, but then again, it isn't. Ingraham was five, Doreen Biaggi is one. Last night you're six short. I think maybe you're nervous, you got mixed up."

In spite of the sirop, Johnny's throat was sticking together when he swallowed. How could he be so dumb? He had tacked Doreen's vig onto Ingraham's, making up a bullshit story to Rusty about Mr Tortoni's interest rates going up to cover expenses-hell, Johnny knew Rusty would be able to come up with another hundred a week. So Johnny had gotten used to thinking of Ingraham as a six.

"So you collect from this Doreen?"

"Sure, like always."

"Then you got the hundred? Her hundred?"

Johnny reached into his back pocket, praying to every saint in Heaven that he had an even hundred in his wallet.

"You still nervous, Johnny? Is something wrong?"

Madonna mia! A hundred-dollar bill. He took it out and put it on the table. "I don't want to disappoint you, Mr Tortoni."

Angelo Tortoni palmed the bill and laid a hand softly against Johnny's cheek. "As I say, it's not a big thing. A hundred dollars. But the principle of it-am I right?"

"Absolutely."

"Maybe get a book," Mr Tortoni said. "Keep track who's a six and who's a five. And who's a one." He puffed at his cigar. "That Doreen Biaggi, she's got to be a pretty girl now with the nose fixed?"

Mr Tortoni stared now at Johnny, making sure he got the message that nothing was a secret around here.

"You know, Johnny," he said, quietly, gently, "we all got our own businesses to run. Your line of work, the temptations when you're working with cash, no records... I know what it can be like. You figure old man Tortoni"-he smiled, nodding-"yeah, I'm an old man, that's okay... you figure old man Tortoni, he just needs his five grand, whatever it is, every week, and so long as you come up with that, you're covering your end of the business. But, Johnny, that leaves out my side of the business. You might think-I'm not saying you do, I'm just saying I know the temptations and it might cross your mind-you might think you'll strong-arm somebody for more than the vig I charge 'em. Cut somebody else, maybe a girl, huh, a little slack."

Johnny couldn't say a word. Mr Tortoni was holding the thin cigar in his right hand, the one nearest Johnny, and he put that hand over Johnny's, the wet butt end of the cigar flattening out against the back of Johnny's hand.

"I know you hear what I'm saying, Johnny."

"I wouldn't do anything like that," he managed to get out.

"I put a man like you in a position of trust. He represents my interests to the community. A man betrays that trust, I got no use for him. Lean closer to me, Johnny."

The hand still covered his, gripping tightly.

"I kiss you now and you're a dead man."

Johnny swallowed, trying to breathe. Mr Tortoni's mouth was inches from his cheek. "If this is going on," he whispered, "it has to stop."

The strains of 'Ti Amo' began again. Mr Tortoni leaned back in his chair. He took the flattened tip of the cigar into his mouth like a nipple and drew on it. "I love this song," he said.

Frannie wasn't sure it had been a good idea, letting Dismas stay here. It was stirring things up.

Earlier, he'd almost gone back to his own house, suddenly worried that staying here was putting her in some danger. He just wasn't thinking clearly. There was no connection that could bring Louis Baker from Hardy's place to hers, and she had told him that. He was safer here and he was staying and that was final.

Now, closing in on midnight, she lay in the king-size bed, Dismas out at the kitchen table, probably staring out at the street as he'd done in every minute of his spare time since he'd been here, watching to see if Louis Baker would show up.

It wasn't like Diz. Just sitting there, brooding, with that damn gun out on the table, drinking decaffeinated coffee and waiting for Abe Glitsky to call him.

Which didn't seem like it was going to happen tonight.

Dismas had come in around six-thirty from his day of touring gun shops, excited that he'd proved something -Rusty Ingraham had indeed put in an order for a gun on Wednesday afternoon at a place called Taylor's in the Tenderloin district. He'd needed the gun as protection against Baker. Also, Louis Baker had evidently come by the Shamrock looking for Hardy. So he had placed a call to his friend Glitsky and thought with the new information, Glitsky would have enough at least to take Baker off the streets.

Frannie hadn't really understood. "So what if Ingraham ordered a gun? How does that help you?"

"Well, Abe's problem here seems to be Rusty as much as anything else. Since they haven't found his body, he is somehow not as real a victim as Maxine Weir."

"Well, maybe he's not."

Hardy had shaken his head. "You had to have seen him. The man was terrified."

"But that doesn't mean he's dead. Does it?"

He'd looked out then at the darkening street, perhaps trying to phrase it for himself. "No, not necessarily. But Abe seems to need a reason to want to go after Baker. His threat to me isn't enough, I guess, and Abe doesn't see any necessary connection between Maxine Weir and Baker."

"Maybe she was just there and got in the way."

"Right. Anyway, what I have to do is show Abe some hard evidence that Rusty's fear of Louis was legitimate. That it wasn't, say, Rusty who killed Maxine, motive unknown."

"Excuse me for being dumb, but how does the gun show that?"

"Doesn't it lead you to the conclusion that Rusty didn't own a gun? Or even have access to a gun?"

She'd thought a minute. "I guess it would."

"Of course it would. If he already had a gun, he wouldn't have had to order one."

"But why will that make your friend Glitsky do something about Louis Baker?"

"Abe is my friend, and Louis Baker is going to kill me unless Abe does something first-or I do. What I'm trying to do is get Abe to look at this with his cop's eyes. I think he sees the Baker angle now as his friend's understandable fear... without hard evidence... interfering with his real job, which is finding the killer of a known victim -Maxine Weir. I'm trying to make it clear that what Abe would call my paranoia is at least based on something real, which also improves the odds that Rusty Ingraham is a real victim too."

But the call from Abe hadn't come, and Frannie and Dismas had done the dishes and watched some television and Dismas had had a couple of beers before losing his patience altogether and beginning his vigil at the kitchen window.

Now she heard him moving out there, then a noise like the rustling of newspaper.

She turned onto her side of the bed.

Her husband Eddie had been dead for four months now. There was a hole there she would never fill, but she had been getting used to the idea of living alone, of having the baby alone, of making a new life somehow, alone.

Dismas was making her think again about Eddie. Or he reminded her of Eddie the way Eddie had reminded her of Dismas when she first met him. She told herself it was one of the hormone storms that had been so difficult in the first trimester, but she knew it wasn't just that. Dismas had inserted himself into her life, and she had welcomed it. And now even little things like doing the dishes and pouring him coffee made her shudder to think that this, too, would end. And then she would be alone again.

No, it wasn't just that. Since Eddie's death she had become acutely aware of mortality. She was trying to get over it, this feeling that everything was on its way to dying right now. And with Dismas it wasn't a theory-it was a good possibility. He believed that his life was in danger. He was no paranoid. She believed it too.

And if Dismas were gone, like Eddie already was, all the potentiality that might be over the rest of their lives would be gone too- When the telephone rang, she rolled over again. Dismas picked it up on the first ring, and she heard him talking too low to make out the words. It must be Abe Glitsky, she thought. The call didn't last long.

The receiver was slammed down loudly, followed by a little ring of protest. She looked at her bedside clock, glad she didn't have to get up for work tomorrow. More rustling of newspaper.

Leaning up against the doorway to the kitchen, barefoot with her flannel robe around her, her heart went out to Dismas. He sat huddled over the table, the newspaper spread out under him, his head in his hands. She crossed the kitchen and put her hands on his shoulders, rubbing.

"It was Abe," he said.

"I guessed that."

"No. Not just on the phone. It was Abe at the Shamrock today. Not Baker. He said he guessed all us black folks look the same."

"That's not fair. He should have just told Moses who he was."

"Why would he? He was looking for me. He knew I was supposed to be working there. It wasn't official business. So he asks, Moses says I'm not there, doing me a favor, and Abe leaves. Natural as can be." He breathed out heavily. "So now he really thinks I'm seeing Louis Baker in my dreams, which I am. He didn't even want to hear about the damn gun."

She pushed in at the muscles on both sides of his backbone. Dismas leaned back into the pressure. "What's the paper for?" she asked.

"Tide tables."

"You going fishing?"

"In a way." Then, "That feels good."

As he crossed his arms on the table and put his head down on them, she continued rubbing his back, kneading at his neck, knuckling the knots under his shoulder blades, the softer muscles lower down. His breathing slowed, became regular. She leaned over him and put her mouth by his ear. "Why don't you get some sleep now."

Slowly he straightened up in the chair, lifted the gun, checked the safety, stood. "Good idea," he said, then turned toward her. "You think you could spare a hug?"

She put her arms up around him and they stood there, holding one another. "You be careful, Dismas," she said into his chest. "I'm not about to lose two men I love in the same year."

It had been a warm, moonlit night, all the students back in town long enough now to know where they could go get some rock and be ready to party. Money flowing like water, early in the year when all the moms and dads send 'em off to school with their lunches packed up-money for books, for movies, for food. Money.

Dido's roll was thick in his pocket. His throat still hurt where Louis Baker had hit him. But he'd take care of that later. Now he was doing his business. He was mostly selling twenty bags-four rocks. He could do hundreds, but most of these kids tonight seemed to be into the quick-flash, one-time, try-it-out-and-party thing. Later in the year there might be fewer buyers, but those that bought would do more hundreds, so it worked out. Try the crack for a party, and pretty soon you couldn't have a party without it.

Lace or Jumpup would be there when the cars stopped, asking if there was any stuff. They were both good at sniffing the heat, but even so, you didn't let them hold any product. You never knew, some plainclothes might get clever and not drive a city-issued Pontiac.

No. How you keep control was, you held the product yourself, and the money, walking one end of the cut to the other. It wasn't smart to let a line form. Dido smiled at the image, maybe he'd open a drive-away stand.

It was late now, the night pretty much over. He stood in the shadow by Louis Baker's place and watched as the college-boy customer walked back and got into his car. He heard the girls giggling in the back seat. The car took off, spitting out tiny rocks and asphalt behind it. Lace came up beside him.

"Maybe we call it tonight," Dido said, his voice still sounding odd, croaking. He looked at Baker's wall, painted over white again. That man would have to be dealt with. It had been a good night, and would have been perfect but for the fight.

He took the roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off two for Lace, nodding in the direction of Baker's wall. "Man thinks he beat me, but who's working the cut?" he said.

Lace wasn't saying anything.

"What?" Dido asked. "I don't hear you."

"What you want me to say?"

"I asked who's working the cut." He didn't wait for Lace to respond. "You don't think I got it, you let me know."

"You got it," Lace said.

"You think that homeboy got me worried?"

Dido picked up a stray length of two-by-four and walked over to Baker's new side window, a black shining rectangle in the white wall. "Here's how much he scares me." He swung the board. The sound of breaking window echoed down the cut and before the echo had died down, Dido was walking back to the other end to meet Jumpup.

Lace walked alongside, looking back over his shoulder toward Louis Baker's place. Waiting for the door to open and Louis Baker to come charging out.

A few cars passed on the street, but they didn't look to be more customers. None had stopped by the time they got to Jumpup, who was sitting on the curb, waiting.

"Let's take it in," Dido said, and handed Jumpup his couple of bills. The three of them started walking back where they had been, making one more pass at the cut, seeing it was secure.

As they passed the first building someone called out Dido's name. They all stopped, staring into the blackness. "You keep walking," Dido said to the two boys. He took a step or two toward the shadows, figuring it might be someone from another cut seeing them going in, wanting to buy the last of his stash.

The first booming shot took Dido in the stomach and Lace saw him back up a step. He grunted and said, "Hey!" The second shot knocked him over onto his back on the ground. He didn't say anything after that.

"Mama. Mama, get up."

There was one light on in the front room, maybe sixty watts under a yellow shade on a pitted end table next to the couch. But with the blinds pulled it shouldn't draw any attention outside. Mama was dressed but she wasn't moving. A bottle of sherry lay on its side on the floor beside the couch.

Something hurt on Louis Baker's hand and he realized that in shaking her he had picked up a piece of glass from the shards that had rained down on her. And if she hadn't even stirred when the window broke right over where she was passed out, it wasn't likely he was going to have much luck getting her up now.

But he had to get out of here, and she had a car with keys. First the breaking window, then the shots, had awakened the whole project. Now, Baker could hear people gathering outside, a few calling out, trying to do something about Dido. Nothing anybody was going to be able to do for Dido ever again.

Mama groaned and shifted on the couch. He tried shaking her, hard, one more time, but she was out. "Mama!" Pieces of glass fell from the back of the couch onto her. Louis Baker sat back on his heels and his face relaxed. He had not even glanced at the end table, and there the keys were, where they had been dropped.

Outside, he took a last look at the crowd that had now formed around where Dido lay. In the distance he heard a siren. He walked up the street, looking straight ahead. He found Mama's tiny old Dodge Colt and squeezed himself into the seat behind the wheel.

The radio came on with the motor and he heard James Brown singing 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.' He left it playing, turning up past the park where he'd been working out, leaving all of this behind for good.