"No. I have to meet a client."

"A murderer, like Jeff Bridges in Jagged Edge?"

"Nobody ever mistook Blinky Baroso for Jeff Bridges," I said. "Danny DeVito, maybe."

I pushed the clutch to the floor, grabbed the chrome ball on the stick shift, eased out the clutch while giving it some gas- leaded, high-octane-and tore up gravel, then burned rubber getting back onto the road. I figured the first lesson in nephew training was safe driving, which I sum up as follows: If you've got three hundred fifty cubic inches, use them all.

I live in a coral rock house between Poinciana and Kumquat in Coconut Grove. The house is a two-story pillbox that has withstood sixty years of hurricanes, a number of Super Bowl parties, and many years of benign neglect. Just after nine p.m., I pulled the Olds under a chinaberry tree that serves as a carport and showed Kip how to put up the canvas top. He seemed to like helping. Then I grabbed the duffel bag with all his worldly belongings and led him to the front door, which I opened by banging my good shoulder into the humidity-swollen wood. The door yielded with a groan, or was that me?

Inside was dark and stuffy. I turned on the ceiling fan to stir the soggy air and opened the blinds to let in the green phosphorescent glare of the neighborhood's sodium vapor anti-crime lights. I cleared some beer bottles from the sailboard that is propped between two concrete blocks and serves as a cocktail table. Then I sat down, put my feet up, and tried to figure out what to do next.

My house is furnished in Early Locker Room. There's a tasteful lamp made of a Dolphins helmet with an orange and aqua shade. There's a rusted scuba tank leaning against a planter filled with parched dirt and the fossilized remains of a rubber plant. There are newspapers and magazines and assorted volumes of Florida Statutes Annotated and a few paperbacks by John D. MacDonald.

Kip looked around, surveying my palace. "What a dump!" he proclaimed, and before he could tell me, I said it was a pretty fair Bette Davis. The kid looked sleepy. It hadn't occurred to me earlier, but now I was getting some vague idea about children's bedtimes. I had been planning to haul him with me to meet Blinky Baroso on South Beach. Now, I saw the kid couldn't make it.

I told Kip the bathroom was on the second floor to the left and he scampered up the stairs. I followed him up and put some fresh sheets on the bed in the spare room, a place former teammates crash when they hit town to check into Mount Sinai for a knee replacement or drug rehab.

I tried calling Blinky Baroso to tell him to come over to the house, instead of meeting me at our usual spot on South Beach, but all I got was a recording. Damn, he must have left already. I didn't even know why he wanted to meet. He hadn't said much on the phone when he set up the meeting. People were watching him, or me, or both, and we needed to talk. He probably wanted to tell me about his latest scheme to turn horseshit into gold, and I was growing irritated that he was dragging me out of the house and away from my kid.

Whoa, my kid?

Is this what fatherhood-or uncledom-does to a man? Was I finally getting domesticated?

I changed into my client conference attire, a clean tank top to match my cutoffs, deck shoes without socks, then came back downstairs. Maybe I could tuck Kip in bed and ask one of the neighbors to stop by. But it was Sunday night, and Phoebe, a thrice-divorced redhead across the street, was hosting one of her swingers' parties, complete with bobbing for apples (and what not) in the Jacuzzi. I could do without a herd of her sopping wet friends traipsing through my house, corrupting my nephew.

My neighbors are a fine lot, though not necessarily baby-sitter material in a Newt Gingrich world of family values. Besides Phoebe, there's Geoffrey, who works nights cruising the expressways looking for fiery car crashes to videotape, and Mako, who lives in a wooden treehouse on the other side of the limeberry shrubs. To visit, you have to climb a rope ladder, something that discourages process servers. Mako trades his custom-made hammocks for crawfish with Homer Thigpen, a lobster pot poacher who lives in the first house on Poinciana. I helped Homer beat a federal charge that could have cost him his boat under the forfeiture laws, and ever since, and I've been knee-deep in Florida lobster, some of them even corralled in season. I haven't felt so warm and fuzzy about the majesty of the legal system since I walked a parking meter thief who paid my fee in quarters and dimes.

I heard the water running upstairs and yelled at Kip to make sure he brushed his teeth. "Up and down strokes," I ordered.

I was feeling uneasy about leaving him alone in a strange house. He was a good kid. Okay, so he smashed a window and spray-painted the South Miami Cineplex with a pretty fair drawing of Arnold Schwarzenegger holding a shotgun. "Hasta la vista, baby," Arnold was saying in a cartoon bubble of iridescent blue paint.

It was an understandable protest by a kid who had ridden the bus from Islamorada to see Casablanca on the big screen only to discover that the theater had, without notice, substituted Revenge of the Nerds III. I thought the theater manager overreacted in reporting the incident as a terrorist act, and when Kip asked, I assured him he wouldn't get the chair like Jimmy Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces.

I was thinking about the juvenile court hearing when Kip came back down the stairs. He had changed into his pajamas, I thought at first, but then I saw he was wearing an old Dolphins jersey than hung down past his knees. "I found this in the closet," he said. "Okay if I wear it to sleep?"

He turned around, modeling it. Across his back, the lettering said LASSITER. Below was the number, fifty-eight. "Looks great on you," I said. "It's yours."

He smiled, stifled a yawn with a dainty fist, and came up to me. I didn't know what he wanted, but I figured it out after a second. I gave him a good-night hug, then on impulse, scooped him into my arms. We went up the stairs that way, his legs curled around me, and I dropped him into bed and pulled up the sheet to his chin.

"Good night, Kip."

"Good night, Uncle Jake," he said, his eyes half closed, his face a tranquil reflection of childlike innocence.

I took Douglas Road up to Grand Avenue, hung a right and headed into downtown Coconut Grove. To avoid the teeny boppers cruising Cocowalk on a Sunday night, I swung onto Oak and then by Tigertail going north. I turned left on Seventeenth Avenue, picked up I-95 to hook up with the MacArthur Causeway and drove east across the bay to Miami Beach. I found a parking spot next to a Dumpster behind a sushi bar and walked to the coral rock wall that runs along the east side of Ocean Drive.

A three-quarter moon was hanging above the ocean, spreading a creamy glow across the black water. A warm breeze from the southeast swirled sand across the sidewalk and into the street. Lovers of every persuasion strolled by the sidewalk cafes across the street, and the usual collection of models, photographers, would-be actors, wannabe trendies, and assorted semi-hipsters crowded the sidewalk, pausing long enough to be ogled by patrons sipping decaf cappuccino under Campari umbrellas. This season's color seemed to be black. Billowing black silk pants, square-cut black jackets with shoulder pads over white T-shirts. And those were the men. The women wore black minis and black fishnet stockings.

As is my custom, I was on time. It is a harmless obsession. I don't like to be kept waiting, and it's only fair to return the favor. So I sat on the low wall, watching the parade of characters go by on foot, in limos, on choppers, and occasionally on Rollerblades. I thought about Jo Jo and Blinky, the beauty and the bullshit artist. In my life, there had been women before Jo Jo, and women after her, but she was unique. Always pushing me. Reach high, be the best. She reminded me of a recruiting pitch for the Army.

I had cared for her, but I went on without looking back. I'm not proud of that, but it's the way I am. Introspection is not my strong suit. I am an ox, head down, plowing ahead to newer, if not greener, pastures. So when I am forced to revisit my past, I am confused. I do not see the present clearly because the past is still misty. I have not resolved old issues. Hell, I didn't even know they were issues at the time.

Now I waited for Blinky. If I smoked, which I don't, I would have struck a match. If I drank, which I do, I would have strolled across the street and sat at the News Cafe, watching for Blinky at the wall. So I did, at an outdoor table, ordering a Grolsch, the fine Dutch beer, in the sixteen-ounce bottle with the porcelain top.

As it turned out, I had a three-Grolsch wait, and still no Blinky. I found a pay phone and called his apartment. "Hello, this is Baroso Enterprises, Inc. Please leave a message at the tone, and..."

It was nearly eleven, so I said to hell with it and walked back to my car, which still had its aerial, hubcaps, and AM radio intact. It occurred to me that Blinky might have gotten mixed up. Ever since the trial, he had been in a daze. He might be at my house, probably waiting on the front porch, cursing me. Hitting seventy on the brief stretch of the interstate, I was back on Kumquat Street in the Grove in fourteen minutes.

I parked under the chinaberry tree, same as always. The moon was higher in the sky now, the night warm and muggy, no trace of an oceanfront breeze here. I listened for the warbling of my mockingbird. He is my bird the way the raccoon who knocks over my garbage cans is my raccoon. But the mocker usually is perched in my marlberry bush, singing nighttime songs. Mimus polyglottos, Doc Riggs calls him, mimic of many tongues. He's not much to look at, sort of a battleship gray with white wing patches, but like the bobwhite, nighthawk, and whippoorwill, he's got a voice.

As I approached the front porch, I heard a sound from the hibiscus hedge, or maybe I sensed movement there. It could have been a variety of nighttime animals, including Peifidus nocturnus, who might be waiting to mug an honest citizen such as myself. I'm as brave as the next guy, and I don't mind a fair fight, but a punk kid with a semiautomatic could tattoo a ring around my heart before I got off a punch, so I hurried to the front door.

The sound was barely more than a squeak. "Uncle Jake."

I turned and ran back to the hedge. Huddled in the dirt, hidden by leaves and floppy red flowers was the boy in the Dolphins jersey. I reached down to him, and he crawled into my arms. "Uncle Jake, you're home."

He was crying, his tears tracking down grimy cheeks.

I was stunned. "What the hell's going on?"

He pointed toward the house, his hand shaking. "I woke up and heard voices downstairs. Then, somebody came up the steps. Slow, like he was listening for something. I got so scared, I crawled under the bed. Somebody opened my door, looked in, and closed it. Then he went into your bedroom. I heard sounds in there, but I just stayed under the bed. He went downstairs again, and I heard voices, real soft, then a noise like furniture being moved. Uncle Jake, I was so scared ..."

I squeezed him in my arms. "Kip, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left you. I'll never do it again, but you were dreaming, that's all. No one was in the house. You've seen too many of those movies where maniacs with razors go after the kids."

He was shaking his head. "Honest, Uncle Jake. You gotta believe me. After a while, I heard the front door close, so I sneaked to the stairs. Then I saw it. Even though it was dark, I knew what it was."

"What?"

Again, he pointed at the house with a shaky hand. "I didn't want to go out through the front. I just couldn't go into the room, so I ran back to my bedroom, climbed out the window, and crossed the roof to the tree in back."

"You came down the tree? Why?"

He started crying again.

"Hey, Kip. Everything's okay. Here's what we'll do. We'll go in the house together."

He shook his head and squeezed me tighter.

"Okay, Kippers, I'll go in. Will you wait for me?"

He nodded and wiped his nose on the sleeve of my old jersey. I carried him to the car and put him in the front seat. He sat there, rocking back and forth, hugging his knees. I went back to the porch, hit the front door with a solid shoulder and barged in. Moonlight slanted through the windows and lit the room in ashen grays. It was silent, except for the whompeta-whompeta of the ceiling fan. Which seemed to whomp slower than usual.

I saw it then, or sensed it.

A shadow, a shape, a movement.

I looked up. A dark silhouette flew just over my head.

A whirling, twirling, unidentifiable mass.

My first impression was that someone had leapt off the landing of the stairs at me, like a cowboy in a Western. I ducked and head-rolled on the old pine floor, coming up in a crouch, adrenaline pumping, knees bent, legs spread, fists clenched.

My second impression was different. There were two of us in the room, all right, but one of us was dead.

He was suspended from the ceiling fan and looked like one of those circus performers on the high rings, spinning dizzying circles. The body swung at a forty-five-degree angle from the ceiling, circling above me in endless, hypnotic motion. The legs were straight out, the arms flung back from the centrifugal force. In the moonlight, the shadow danced crazily across the floor and up the wall.

A jumble of emotions. On South Beach, I had the strange sensation that something was wrong. Blinky was usually late, but he always shows. Tonight he had been afraid of something, someone. What, who?

I felt my heart beating and beating hard. I tried to calm myself down and think. What to do first? Cut him down, call the police, take care of Kip? They don't train you for this stuff, not in three-a-day practices in August, and not in night law school in September.

Now my mind was tearing along at a speed I couldn't control. Flashes of overlapping thoughts and unanswered questions kept jolting me with each spin of the body. Who killed Blinky Baroso and why, and had the killer been looking for me? I said a silent prayer of thanks that Kip was unhurt.

I duck-walked out from under the body and got to the wall, reaching for the light switch. Overhead, three spots flashed on. I squinted through the glare and saw how he was fastened to the motor housing of the fan. What looked like a bolt of colorful silk cloth was digging into his neck and tied to something, a wire coat hanger maybe, that was attached to the fan.

In the brightness, I could see his eyes were bulging open, and his tongue, black and swollen, stuck out the side of his mouth. And I could see something else, too.

It wasn't Blinky Baroso.

Chapter 6.

My Alibi.

I called Charlie Riggs first, getting a recording that informed me he had gone fishing, telling all his friends, "Vive valeque." I should have figured he was still in the Keys. Granny never complained when I headed north early, leaving Charlie behind to keep her company. I think it was Father Andrew Greeley, with the aid of the Gallup Poll, who determined that couples in their sixties have the best sex. Something to look forward to.

Granny answered on the second ring, and I pictured her rolling over in bed and handing the phone to my old friend. Charlie said he'd get here in an hour-fifteen if his old Chew pickup didn't throw a rod.

Next, I called Miami Homicide where I am known, but not necessarily liked. A woman with a faint Cuban accent took down the information, calmly checking the address three times, and politely asking me not to leave the premises. From her tone, she might have been taking an order for a pizza with anchovies, but that's the way cops act, particularly in a city where homicides are as plentiful as mosquitoes. Next I called Abe Socolow at home, figuring if I hadn't, the cops would have, and Abe's the kind of guy who remembers the small stuff.

At first, I tried not to touch anything, having been educated by television that I might foul up the crime scene with my fingerprints. Once every hundred years or so, a crime will be solved by finding an unknown assailant's fingerprints at the scene. Usually, fingerprints merely corroborate what everyone already knows: Three witnesses in the liquor store identify the gunman, and a fingerprint specialist confirms his prints are on the gun dropped at the scene.

Then, I remembered Kip was still in the car. I didn't want him to see the body a second time, so I hit the switch for the fan, went into the kitchen, hauled out a high stool, and climbed up until I was looking straight into the face of a dead man. A thin copper wire circled his neck and was looped through the motor housing of the fan. But that's not what killed him. The bright splash of cloth was an imported silk tie knotted by someone unfamiliar with the double Windsor. The knot dug deeply into the neck, just below the Adam's apple.

The tie was a palette of blues and reds and would have looked swell with a dark suit and a white oxford cloth shirt. In fact, it always looked swell just that way.

I should know. It was my tie.

I climbed down and went into the kitchen where I found a knife I use for cleaning fish. Up again, and this time, I hoisted the body with one hand placed under his chin and sawed through the copper wire. He dropped like a tree, banging the floor. I got down, covered the body with an old beach towel, and went out to the car.

I hustled Kip inside, told him he had been right, apologized for doubting him, and said everything would be okay, the cops would be here soon. I turned on the TV to distract him from the lump in the corner of the room, but in what must have been a first, he wasn't interested. It took about ninety seconds, but he wasn't scared anymore. He began babbling excitedly, asking questions, wanting to help, telling me how totally awesome and off-the-Richter it was to have a murder in the house, and did it happen often, and was somebody trying to set me up, like Gene Hackman did to Kevin Costner in No Way Out, which was a remake of The Big Clock with Charles Laughton and Ray Milland, in case I didn't know, which I didn't. He asked if we could keep the body a while, like the boys did in Weekend at Bernie's. I told him to calm down, but he kept chattering away, and I finally figured that it wasn't quite real to him. Just another movie.

I was trying to concentrate, to figure it out, but Kip was carrying on about murder plots, so I led him to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and popped the porcelain top on a sixteen-ounce Grolsch. I found two glasses that didn't appear to carry contagious diseases and poured half into one and half into the other.

"How 'bout a beer, Kip?" I asked, handing him a glass.

"Wow, that's completely broly of you, Uncle Jake," Kip said, which I took as well-deserved praise of my child-rearing skills.

I drained my beer while Kip sipped at his, making a face.

Then I had another, sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, feeling my pulse rate subside. I needed to think, to consider what I knew and what I didn't. There were a hundred questions, but they all boiled down to two.

What was Kyle Hornback doing in my house, and who killed him?

To answer those two, I needed to consider what Charlie Riggs called the threshold question in any unsolved crime. Cui bono? Who stands to gain? If I couldn't figure that one out, Abe Socolow would be the first to tell me. First, though, he'd probably ask me something I'd been wondering ever since I cut down the body.

Where the hell was Blinky Baroso?

Two detectives showed up first, an Anglo major near retirement age and a young Hispanic who didn't give his rank. The older cop had tired eyes and wore a lightweight brown suit with shiny black shoes. The younger one wore a short-sleeved white shirt and a blood-red tie. He had the sloping shoulders and bulging arms of a weight lifter. I had known the major from my days as an assistant public defender, but we'd never had a case together. The young one was a stranger to me.

Abe Socolow walked in five minutes later. After they convinced themselves that there was indeed a death not from natural causes, they called the assistant medical examiner lucky enough to be on weekend duty. Socolow spent the next ten minutes chewing me out for contaminating the scene, as he put it. Then the younger detective flexed his triceps and called the station, asking for what used to be called the crime scene boys, who turned out to be an African-American woman and an Asian-American woman. They arrived, toting their cameras, tape measures, fingerprint kits, and assorted technological doodads.

Kip followed them around for a while, eyes wide, mouth closed, except when he asked the difference between the Glock nine-millimeters city cops carried and the Beretta used by Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies.

I was sitting on the battered sofa with the two detectives in mismatched chairs at slight angles to me. Abe Socolow paced in front of me. He wore his trademark black suit, white shirt, and black tie, but it being a Sunday night, the tie was loosened at the neck.

The major asked all the right questions, and I had none of the answers. No, I didn't expect Kyle Hornback here. That's right, I leave the front door unlocked, preferring burglars to walk in, rather than busting up the place. Besides, unless you know to batter the door, it's stuck shut by the humidity.

Where was I earlier in the evening? On South Beach. That's right, I left the youngster here alone.

The crime scene investigators had shooed Kip away while they photographed the body, and now the lad joined me, moving close on the sofa, where I put my arm around him. Even under the paddle fans, it was about eighty degrees in the house, so the goose bumps on Kip's arms couldn't have been from the temperature. Maybe it was starting to sink in. Maybe it was becoming real.

The major asked Kip what he saw, and he ran through the story. Footsteps, his door opening and closing, someone in my bedroom . . .

"That's when they must have taken my tie," I chimed in.

"Shut up, Jake," Socolow said, still pacing.

Voices downstairs, Kip continued, furniture moving, the front door closing again. He sneaked down the landing, saw the body spinning, tossing shadows across the moonlit room, ran back upstairs and climbed out his window. Same story he told me with no embellishments.

"Good try, Abe," I said, "but I don't think the kid killed him, even though he doesn't have an alibi."

"What about you, Jake? What's your alibi?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Hey, Jakie, let's get something straight here. This is a murder investigation, so I ask-"