"Half" was half a yard, fifty bucks. The usual tariff for one of Boot's tapes was a hundred- you got a discount if the artist was popular enough to justify him running off a decent number of copies. I handed over the money, declining the offer to listen to it first. I knew Boot's stuff was always perfect. Besides, I only listen to Judy when I'm alone- what we've got, it's just between me and her.

"Do you have a No Smoking section?" a guy in a denim shirt asked, frowning at the Prof lighting up.

"Yeah," Boot told him. "It's right out front. Under the lamppost."

I stayed there a couple of hours, just listening. To the music and to the Prof getting it on with anyone who wanted to try him. Nice to be in a place where you could play the dozens without it ending up in blood.

A young guy with a Jewish Afro and granny glasses got into it about who was the strongest bass in all dooawop. "Herman?" the Prof mocked. "Man, Herman didn't have no bottom. Herman's bass was Mosley's falsetto, chump!"

The music took over. The Mystics blending on "You're Driving Me Crazy," Son Seals wailing his pain about the loss of his spotalabor job, the Coasters with Doc Pomus' immortal "Young Blood," a crew calling themselves the Magic Touch doing all a capella stuff from the fifties, a nice soft blend. Charley Musselwhite's "Early in the Morning," Ronnie Hawkins and the Nighthawks with "Mary Lou," Koko B. Taylor, Marcia Ball, Elmore James, Janis, Big Mama...

Boot didn't just hold yesterday's treasures, he carried tomorrow's crop too. A backacountry hardaedged band with a lead singer who knew all about pain pounded over the speakers. "That's Paw," a busty young woman in a white Tashirt with "DON'T! BUY! THAI!" blazed across the front in red letters said to me. "Mark Hennessy's singing. Don't you think he's amazing? That's where I got this shirt- at one of his concerts."

I nodded my head in agreement with whatever the hell she was saying, watching her chest hyperapneumatize the "DON'T! BUY! THAI!" message every time she took a breath. Somebody called her name and she turned in that direction. On the back of her Tashirt, in the same red letters, it said "ASK ME WHY!" I was planning to do just that when a skaablues singer I didn't recognize came on, singing about someone named Ghost, a Badger Game man tracking a woman he called Shella. "Who's that?" I asked Boot.

"Kid named Bazza," Boot said. Works with a crew called the Portland Robins. "I pirated it off Miss Roberta's show in Seattle. Pretty fine, huh?"

"Sure is," I said, handing over some cash- the only way you vote in Boot's country.

"If he's any good, he'll be on the charts," a black guy in a khaki jumpsuit and a blue cutadown fez said. "Sooner or later, cream comes to the top."

The guy with the Jewish Afro lunged forward, but the Prof armabarred him, saying, "Let me have this one, brother," like they'd both been challenged to a barafight. "Boot!" the little man commanded in a tone a maestro would use to his orchestra, "put on Number One."

Boot was too reverent to interrupt the Fascinators' version of "Chapel Bells." He waited until the last chord vibrated, then hit some switches and threw the place into silence. He rifled through his shelves, found the tape the Prof wanted, and slammed it into a slot.

"Give me some silence now, people," the Prof commanded.

A highatension guitar opened it- just a few perfect, fluid notes. A soft, throbbing sax line came up underneath, a tenor with a baritone counterpoint. Then Little Richard walked on. But he wasn't playing this time- no shrieking and shouting: he stood on the Vegasagospel borderland, a deep blues taproot anchoring him to the ground. Richard used the girl singers' background vocals like a trampoline, peacocking his way through his whole catalog: a pureasweet lusty tenor, climbing the scale at will, comfortable inside himself only because he had no limits. The recipe was a rich gumbo: chain gang chants, church hallelujah, the gunfighter bars where nothing lasts long. He capped the upperaoctave waves with his stylized hiccups, surrounding a talking centerpiece of blood poetry woven around sax riffs and that masterful muted guitar, driving off the black girls' storefrontachoir voices, lifted by the organ. Sad enough to make you cry. Beautiful enough to do the same thing.

Ah, maybe the lunatic was right- maybe Elvis did steal it all from him.

The last sounds faded to the stone silence of abject worship. Nobody in that room had ever heard better.

"Now who was that, Solly?" the Prof asked the guy with the Jewish Afro, setting up his pitch.

"Little Richard," the guy answered, like he was in school. "I Don't Know What You Got."

"He was alive in Sixtyafive, Lord!" the Prof intoned. "Open the door. Tell me more. Who's that on guitar."

"Jimi Hendrix," the young guy said. "Sixteen years old. Before he- "

"It was a big hit?" the Prof asked, setting up his speech.

"No, not really. Made the Top Twenty on the Rhythm and Blues chart, but..."

The Prof turned to his audience. "You all just heard it. The best song ever done. And never made it to Number One. Even if you escape with your life, the shark always leaves his mark. Case fucking closed."

We all bowed our heads, even the black guy in the fez.

"Where's Clarence?" I asked the Prof. We were standing on the curb outside of Boot's joint- the Prof highafiving a goodbye to Solly, me waiting patiently so I could talk to him alone.

"He'll be along," the Prof said. "What's on your mind, 'home?"

"Weird stuff. A girl. Client, I was told. She made a pitch, but I don't- "

"Danger stranger?" the Prof interrupted.

"That's just it," I said. "I don't know. And I don't know if it's worth a look to find out."

"Run it," the little man said, lighting a smoke.

The Prof listened close the way he always does. The way he taught me to. It only took a few minutes.

"Schoolboy, you know how some fighters, they just wave the right hand at you? Like they loading up, gonna drop the hammer? And all the time it's the left hook that's coming, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Some of them, the real good ones, it's the right hand that's coming. They one step ahead of where you think they gonna be, understand? Sugar Ray- I mean the real Sugar Ray now- he could do that, doubleafake quicker'n a snake. Bite you twice as deep too."

"So you mean..."

"Yeah. Whoever's in it- and no way it's just the broad- they got to be smarter than they showing. They got to figure you gonna come looking for answers."

"Only place I can go is back to this Bondi girl."

"The ho' don't know, bro. And a trick can't play it slick."

"Then who?"

"This accountant, right? Michelle's pal?"

"He doesn't know anything about me, Prof."

"You believe that, you might just be as big a chump as that broad's playing you for. You scan the plan, you know he's the man. It don't play no other way."

Michelle was a vision as she walked purposefully past the stanchion with the tasteful lettering saying: ALL VISITORS MUST BE ANNOUNCED. The uniformed guy sitting behind a counter had been watching a proppedaup little TV, but he snapped to attention when he heard the click of Michelle's spike heels across the blackaandawhite tiles. And one look at Michelle was all that he needed- he was skewered. Michelle doesn't do that swingatheawholeathing, pelvisaout model's walk- she moves like the sorceress she is, with that muted tickatock that tells you the motor's heavy on horsepower but not every key fits the ignition. I was a step behind, standing just to her right, but far as the uniformed guy was concerned, I wasn't in the lobby at all.

"Can I help you?" he asked her hopefully, his eyes wobbling between Michelle's perfect face and her slashedasilk pink blouse with its little white Peter Pan collar.

"I know you can, honey," she purred at him, redalacquered talons splayed on the countertop, big azure eyes holding his. Just in case he decided to look anywhere else, she took a deep breath, let it out in a faint shudder.

"Uh...I mean, you wanna see somebody?"

"That's right, handsome. Can you just ring twentyaone G for me?"

"Sure! I mean, who should I say- ?"

"My name's Michelle, baby. What's yours?"

"Manny."

"Manny? I know that's not it. That's a nickname, isn't it? What's your real name?"

"Emanuel. It's a family name, like. But I don't- "

"Oh you should," Michelle assured him. "It's a very strong name. Suits you much better than 'Manny,' don't you think?"

"Well...Yeah, I guess I do. But the tenants here, they like- "

"Emanuel is a man's name," Michelle cooed at him. "Maybe you should just save it for grownaups."

"I..."

"Can you push that button for me, honey? Tell him I'm on my way up?"

"Sure!"

Michelle twirled slowly, then started for the elevator. Old Emanuel's jaw dropped- up to then, he thought he'd been staring at the best part.

We got on the elevator together. But if a cop came around later, Emanuel would swear that it was only Michelle. And he'd be telling the truth.

Michelle disdained the discrete little black button set into the door jamb of 21G, rapping lightly with her knuckles instead. The guy who opened the door was in his late forties, taller than me, with a pale, jowly face and a droopy mustache. His tooablack hair was done up in an elaborate combaover. His eyes had that intense look you see in guys who should be wearing glasses.

"Michelle! I wasn't- "

"Ah, Harry, it isn't like that," Michelle said softly. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Yeah. I mean, sure. Why don't you..."

Michelle slipped past, gently bumping him with a rounded hip, moving him just enough for me to step in. He opened his mouth to say something. I showed him the pistol, asked, "You here by yourself, Harry?"

His face froze. Michelle closed the door behind her, twisting the dead bolt home with a harsh snap.

"What is this?" he asked, face going a shade paler.

"Why don't we all sit down?" I suggested, pointing the pistol at a white leather living room set: sofa, love seat, easy chair with ottoman.

Harry backed toward the easy chair, his eyes everyplace but the pistol. I nodded. He dropped into the chair. I took the love seat. Michelle perched on the arm of the sofa, crossing her spectacular legs. "You want a drink?" she asked Harry.

"Yeah. I'll- "

"Let me do it, honey" she interrupted, getting to her feet and moving off. I didn't watch her go. Neither did Harry.

She was back in a couple of minutes, carrying a little round tray. "Scotch rocks," she announced to Harry, bending forward like a stewardess. "Your usual, right?"

"Thanks," he mumbled, reaching to take the heavy tumbler.

"Vodka and tonic," Michelle said to me. I took the glass, tipped it to my lips. My kind of drink- vodka and tonic, hold the vodka.

Michelle had mixed herself a Green Hornet- gin and creme de menthe- in a highball glass. She held it in her hands, contented herself with licking the moisture off the outside of the rim. Harry watched, forgetting the pistol.

"How well do you know this Bondi girl?" I asked him, breaking the spell.

"I don't. I mean, I just met- "

"And she told you she had a problem? Needed somebody to do something for her?"

"Yeah."

"And you thought, maybe Michelle might know somebody who could get the job done...whatever it was, right?"

"Right."

I reached inside my jacket, took out a tube silencer, held the semiaauto in one hand while I screwed the silencer in with the other.

"Hey!" Harry yelped. "I didn't- "

"Yeah you did," I assured him. "You're lying. I'm not mad at you, Harry, but business is business. I got no time to shove bamboo slivers under your fingernails. No taste for it, either. Whoever's idea it was to come to Michelle, it wasn't yours. You can tell me, and it's over. You tell me and I'm out of here. You don't, this thing goes pop. And then I go and talk to the broad. Your choice."

"That's enough!" he said."

"Whatever you say."

"No! I don't mean it that way. I'm gonna tell you. He said I could tell you...just to see what you'd do first, that's all."

"And...?"

"And you fucking did it, okay? You don't need the piece." He took a deep hit from his Scotch rocks, leaned back. "I'm a gambler," he said. "You'd think I'd know better, what with what I do for a living and all, right? I mean, I know numbers. If there's one thing I know, it's numbers. But you keep feeding the kitty, she gets used to a steady diet. You stop feeding her, she growls- you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yeah. You're a hardacore gambler, and- "

"Hardacore? Man, I'm a degenerate gambler, a sucker's sucker. I win, I tell myself I'm playing with the track's money. You think I don't know that's bullshit? I mean, you win the money, it's your money. But it ain't your money unless you go home with it. And me, I never go home with it. I got in deep. And then I went deeper."

"Okay, what then? The sharks?"

"Of course the sharks?" he sneered. Not at me, at himself. "What else? And with the vig, I was getting buried alive. So I did some other stuff...helped a couple of clients work bustaout, ran a little laundry, did some structuring- you know what that is?"

"Yeah." Structuring: breaking big cash transactions into biteasize chunks of less than ten grand to slip past the IRS currency reporting laws. Michelle had him pegged- wannabes always love the language.

"I was chasing," Harry said. "You know what that means- no way I was gonna get out of it. I was going on the arm from one shy to pay another. Then I got this foolproof scheme," he laughed acidly. "A fucking horse, what else? An undefeated monster, going into the Meadowlands Pace. Millionadollar purse- no way anyone's gonna tank that one. So I decide, I'm gonna bridgeajump, all right? I empty the tax escrow account. All my clients' money on this horse. Not to win; to show. It'll pay two twenty minimum on a deuce, maybe even two forty, two fifty. Ten, twenty, even twentyafive percent return in less than two minutes- how could you beat that? I figure I'm golden."

He took another deep drink. "That's why they call it bridgeajumping, I guess. The fucking nag breaks stride. They pull him to the outside, get him under control. And then he flies, but he doesn't make it. Misses third by a goddamned neck. And then it's my neck. I'm done.

"I'm afraid to go out. Just sit here, waiting for them to come. But I get a phone call instead. From the guy who holds my markers. He tells me, maybe I can square it. I ask him, who does he want me to kill? He just tells me, just go to this place, see this guy. Me, I figure I'm dead anyway, so I go.

"And I meet this guy. He tells me, all I gotta do is call Michelle, tell her that there's a good score, give her this Bondi's number.

"'That's all?'" I ask him. He says, one more thing. A man's gonna come around, sooner or later. He's gonna ask some questions. I figure you're that guy. Anyway, he says, this guys comes around asking questions, you just give him this..."