Minna had Tony in the car already when he drove up outside the school. Gilbert went to the yard to pull Danny out of a three-on-three while I stood on the curb, motionless in the rush of students out of the building, briefly struck dumb. Minna got out of the car, a new Cadillac, bruise-purple. I was taller than Minna now, but that didn't lessen his sway over me, the way his presence automatically begged the question of who I was, where'd I come from, and what kind of man or freak I was turning out to be. It had everything to do with the way, five years before, I'd begun discovering myself upon Minna's jerking me out of the library and into the world, and with the way his voice had primed the pump for mine. My symptoms loved him. I reached for him-though it was May, he was wearing a trench coat-and tapped his shoulder, once, twice, let my hand fall, then raised it again and let fly a staccato burst of Tourettic caresses. Minna still hadn't spoken.

"Eatme, Minnaweed," I said under my breath.

"You're a laugh and a half, Freakshow," said Minna, his face completely grim.

Soon enough I would understand that the Minna who'd returned was not the same as the one who'd left. He'd shed his old jocularity like baby fat. He no longer saw drolleries everywhere, had lost his taste for the spectrum of human cmedy. The gate of his attention was narrowed, and what came through it now was pointed and bitter. His affections were more glancing, his laugh just a wince. He was quicker to show the spur of his impatience, too, demanded less tell your story tell your story, more walking walking.

But at that moment his austerity seemed utterly particular: He wanted us all in the car, had something to say. It was as though he'd been away a week or two instead of two years. He's got a job for us, I felt myself think, or hope, and the years between fell instantly away.

Gilbert brought Danny. We took the backseat; Tony sat in front with Minna. Minna lit a cigarette while he steered with his elbows. We turned off Fourth Avenue, down Bergen. Toward Court Street, I thought. Minna put his lighter away and his hand came out of his trench-coat pockets with business cards.

L&L CAR SERVICE, they read. TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. And a phone number. No slogan this time, and no names.

"You mooks ever get learners' permits?" said Minna.

Nobody had.

"You know where the DMV is, up on Schermerhorn? Here." He dug out a roll, scrunched off four twenties onto the seat beside Tony, who handed them out. For Minna everything had the same price, was fixed and paid for by the quick application of twenty dollars. That hadn't changed. "I'll drop you up there. First I want you to see something."

It was a tiny storefront on Bergen, just short of Smith Street, boarded so tightly it looked like a condemned building. But I, for one, was already familiar with the inside of it. A few years earlier it had been a miniature candy store, with a single rack of comics and magazines, run by a withered Hispanic woman who'd pinioned my arm when I slipped a copy of Heavy Metal Heavy Metal into my jacket and ducked for the door. Now Minna gestured at it grandly: the future home of L&L Car Service. into my jacket and ducked for the door. Now Minna gestured at it grandly: the future home of L&L Car Service.

Minna had an arrangement with a certain Lucas, at Corvairs Driving School, on Livingston Street-we were all to receive lessons, free of charge, beginning tomorrow. The purple Caddy was the only vehicle in L&L's fleet, but others were on their way. (The car smelled poisonously new, vinyl squeaking like an Indian burn. My probing fingers investigated the backseat armrest ashtray-it contained ten neatly clipped fingernails.) In the meantime we'd be busy getting our licenses and rehabilitating the ruined storefront, fitting it with radios, office equipment, stationery, telephones, tape recorders, microphones (tape recorders? microphones?), a television and a small refrigerator. Minna had money to spend on these things, and he wanted us along to see him spend it. We might look for some suitable clothes while were at it-did we know we looked like rejects from Welcome Back, Kotter Welcome Back, Kotter?-the only thing to do was drop out of Sarah J. immediately. The suggestion didn't ruffle any feathers. In a blink we'd fallen into formation, Pavlov's orphans. We listened to Minna's new tonalities, distrusting and harsh, as they warmed into something like the old, more generous music, the tune we'd missed but not forgotten. He rolled on: We ought to have a CB-radio setup, this was the twentieth fucking century, had we heard? Who knew how to work a CB? Dead silence, punctured by "Radiobailey! "Radiobailey! Fine, said Minna, the Freak volunteers. Hello? Hello? We almond-studded cheeseballs were staring like we didn't know English-what exactly Fine, said Minna, the Freak volunteers. Hello? Hello? We almond-studded cheeseballs were staring like we didn't know English-what exactly had had we been doing for two years anyway, apart from researching how many times a day we could clean out our fish tanks? Silence. Spank our monkeys, rough up our suspects, we been doing for two years anyway, apart from researching how many times a day we could clean out our fish tanks? Silence. Spank our monkeys, rough up our suspects, jerk off jerk off, Minna meant-did he have to spell it out? More silence. Hello? Hey, had we ever seen The Conversation The Conversation? Best fucking movie in the world, Gene Hackman. We knew Gene Hackman? Silence again. We knew him only from Superman Superman-Lex Luthor. It didn't seem likely Minna meant that that Gene Hackman. ( Gene Hackman. (Lexluthor, text-lover, lostbrother, went my brain, plumbing up trouble-where was Gerard, the other L in L&L? Minna hadn't said his name.) Well, we ought to see it, learn a thing or two about surveillance surveillance. Talking all the while, he drove us up to Schermerhorn, to the Department of Motor Vehicles. I saw Danny's eyes dart to the Sarah J. boys playing basketball in the park across the street-but now we were with Minna, a million miles away. We ought to get limousine-operator's licenses, he went on. They only cost ten dollars more, the test is the same. Don't smile for the picture, you'll look like the Prom Date Killers. Did we have girlfriends? Of course not, who'd want a bunch of jerks from nowhere. By the way, the Old Stove was dead. Carlotta Minna had passed two weeks ago; Minna was just settling her affairs now. We wondered what affairs, didn't ask. Oh, and Minna had gotten married, he thought to mention now. He and his new wife were moving into Carlotta's old apartment, after first scouring the thirty-year-old sauce off the walls. We jarheads could meet Minna's bride if we got ourselves haircuts first. Was she from Brooklyn? Tony wanted to know. Not exactly; she grew up on an island island. No, you jerks, not Manhattan or Long Island-a real island. We'd meet her. Apparently first we had to be drivers who operated cameras, tape recorders and CB radios, with suits and haircuts, with unsmiling license photos. First we had to become Minna Men Minna Men, though no one had said those words.

But here, here was the beauty part the beauty part. By Minna's own admission, he'd buried the lead: buried the lead: L&L Car Service-it wasn't really a car service. That was just a front. L&L was a L&L Car Service-it wasn't really a car service. That was just a front. L&L was a detective agency detective agency.

The joke Minna wanted to hear in the emergency room, the joke about Irving, went like this: A Jewish mother-Mrs. Gushman, we'll call her-walks into a travel agency. "I vant to go to Tibet," she says. "Listen lady, take my word for it, you don't want to go to Tibet. I've got a nice package tour for the Florida Keys, or maybe Hawaii-" "No," says Mrs. Gushman, "I vant to go to Tibet." Tibet." "Lady, are you traveling alone? Tibet is no place-" "Sell me a ticket for Tibet!" shouts Mrs. Gushman. "Okay, okay." So she goes to Tibet. Gets off the plane, says to the first person she sees, "Who's the greatest holy man in Tibet?" "Why, that would be the High Lama," comes the reply. "That's who I vant to see," says Mrs. Gushman. "Take me to the High Lama." "Oh, no, you don't understand, American Lady, the High Lama lives on top of our highest mountain in total seclusion. No one can see the High Lama." "I'm Mrs. Gushman, I've come all the vay to Tibet, and I must see the High Lama!" "Oh, but you could never-" "Which mountain? How do I get there?" So Mrs. Gushman checks into a hotel at the base of the mountain and hires sherpas to take her to the monastery at the top. All the way up they're trying to explain to her, nobody sees the High Lama-his own monks have to fast and meditate for years before they're allowed to ask the High Lama a single question. She just keeps pointing her finger and saying "I'm Mrs. Gushman, take me up the mountain!" When they get to the monastery the sherpas explain to the monks-crazy American lady, wants to see the High Lama. She says, "Tell the High Lama Mrs. Gushman is here to see him." "You don't understand, we could never-" "Just tell him!" The monks go and come back and they're shaking their heads in confusion. "We don't understand, but the High Lama says he will grant you an audience. Do you understand what an honor-" "Yes, yes," she says. "Just take me!" So they lead her in to see the High Lama. The monks are whispering and they open the door and the High Lama nods-they can leave him alone with Mrs. Gushman. And the High Lama looks at Mrs. Gushman and Mrs. Gushman says, "Irving, when are you coming home? Your father's worried!" "Lady, are you traveling alone? Tibet is no place-" "Sell me a ticket for Tibet!" shouts Mrs. Gushman. "Okay, okay." So she goes to Tibet. Gets off the plane, says to the first person she sees, "Who's the greatest holy man in Tibet?" "Why, that would be the High Lama," comes the reply. "That's who I vant to see," says Mrs. Gushman. "Take me to the High Lama." "Oh, no, you don't understand, American Lady, the High Lama lives on top of our highest mountain in total seclusion. No one can see the High Lama." "I'm Mrs. Gushman, I've come all the vay to Tibet, and I must see the High Lama!" "Oh, but you could never-" "Which mountain? How do I get there?" So Mrs. Gushman checks into a hotel at the base of the mountain and hires sherpas to take her to the monastery at the top. All the way up they're trying to explain to her, nobody sees the High Lama-his own monks have to fast and meditate for years before they're allowed to ask the High Lama a single question. She just keeps pointing her finger and saying "I'm Mrs. Gushman, take me up the mountain!" When they get to the monastery the sherpas explain to the monks-crazy American lady, wants to see the High Lama. She says, "Tell the High Lama Mrs. Gushman is here to see him." "You don't understand, we could never-" "Just tell him!" The monks go and come back and they're shaking their heads in confusion. "We don't understand, but the High Lama says he will grant you an audience. Do you understand what an honor-" "Yes, yes," she says. "Just take me!" So they lead her in to see the High Lama. The monks are whispering and they open the door and the High Lama nods-they can leave him alone with Mrs. Gushman. And the High Lama looks at Mrs. Gushman and Mrs. Gushman says, "Irving, when are you coming home? Your father's worried!"

INTERROGATION EYES.

Minna Men wear suits. Minna Men drive cars. Minna Men listen to tapped lines. Minna Men stand behind Minna, hands in their pockets, looking menacing. Minna Men carry money. Minna Men collect money. Minna Men don't ask questions. Minna Men answer phones. Minna Men pick up packages. Minna Men are clean-shaven. Minna Men follow instructions. Minna Men try to be like Minna, but Minna is dead.

Gilbert and I left the hospital so quickly, and drove back in such a perfect fog of numbness, that when we walked into L&L and Tony said, "Don't say it. We already heard," it was as though I were learning myself for the first time.

"Heard from who?" said Gilbert.

"Black cop, through here a few minutes ago, looking for you," said Tony. "You just missed him."

Tony and Danny stood furiously smoking cigarettes behind L&L's counter, their foreheads pasty with sweat, eyes fogged and distant, teeth grinding behind their drawn lips. They looked like somebody had worked them over and they wanted to take it out on us.

The Bergen Street office was as we'd renovated it fifteen years before: divided in two by the Formica counter, thirty-inch color television playing constantly in the "waiting area" on this side of the counter, telephones, file cabinets and computer on the rear wall, underneath a massive laminated map of Brooklyn, Minna's heavy Magic Marker numerals scrawled across each neighborhood, showing the price of an L&L ride-five bucks to the Heights, seven to Park Slope or Fort Greene, twelve to Williamsburg or Borough Park, seventeen to Bushwick. Airports or Manhattan were twenty and up.

The ashtray on the counter was full of cigarette butts that had been in Minna's fingers, the telephone log full of his handwriting from earlier in the day. The sandwich on top of the fridge wore his bite marks. We were all four of us an arrangement around a missing centerpiece, as incoherent as a verbless sentence.

"How did they find us?" I said. "We've got Frank's wallet." I opened it up and took out the bundle of Frank's business cards and slipped them into my pocket. Then I dropped it on the counter and slapped the Formica five times to finish a six-count.

Nobody minded me except myself. This was my oldest, most jaded audience. Tony shrugged and said, "Him croaking out L and L L and L as his dying words? A business card in his coat? Gilbert giving out names like a fucking idiot? You tell as his dying words? A business card in his coat? Gilbert giving out names like a fucking idiot? You tell me me how they found us." how they found us."

"What did this cop want?" said Gilbert stoically. He would deal with one problem at a time, the plodder, even if they stacked up from here to the moon.

"He said you weren't supposed to leave the hospital, that's what he said. You gave some nurse your name name, Gilbert."

"Fuck it," said Coney. "Fuck some fucking black cop."

"Yeah, well, you can express that sentiment in person, since he's coming back. And you might want to say, 'Fuck some fucking black homicide detective,' since that's actually what you're dealing with here. Smart cop, too. You could see it in his eyes."

"Fuckicide," I thought to add.

"Who's going to tell Julia?" said Danny quietly. His mouth, his whole face, was veiled in smoke. Nobody answered.

"Well, I won't be here when he comes back," said Gilbert. "I'll be out doing his work for him, catching the motherfucker who did this. Gimme a coffin nail."

"Slow down, Sherlock," said Tony, handing him a cigarette. "I wanna know how'd it even happen in the first place? How'd the two of you even get involved? I thought you were supposed to be on a stakeout."

"Frank showed up," said Gilbert, trying to flick his depleted lighter again and again, failing to make it catch. "He went inside. Fuck. Fuck." His voice was clenched like a fist. I saw the whole stupid sequence playing behind his eyes: parked car, wire, traffic light, Brainum, the chain of banalities that somehow led to the bloody Dumpster and the hospital. The chain of banalities now immortalized by our guilt.

"Inside where?" where?" said Tony, handing Gilbert a book of matches. The phone rang. said Tony, handing Gilbert a book of matches. The phone rang.

"Some kinda kung-fu place," said Gilbert. "Ask Lionel, he knows all about it-"

"Not kung fu," I started. "Meditation-"

"You're trying to say they killed him with meditation meditation?" said Tony. The phone rang a second time.

"No, no, we saw who killed him-Viable Guessfrog!-a big Polish guy-Barnamum Pierogi!-I mean really really big. We only saw him from behind." big. We only saw him from behind."

"Which one of us is going to tell Julia?" said Danny again. The phone rang a third time.

I picked it up and said, "L and L."

"Need a car at One-eighty-eight Warren, corner of-" droned a female voice.

"No cars," I said by rote.

"You don't have any cars?"

"No cars." I gulped, ticking like a time bomb.

"How soon can you get a car?"

"Lionel Deathclam!" I shouted into the phone. That got the caller's attention, enough that she hung up. My fellow Minna Men glanced at me, jarred only slightly from their hard-boiled despair. I shouted into the phone. That got the caller's attention, enough that she hung up. My fellow Minna Men glanced at me, jarred only slightly from their hard-boiled despair.

A real car service, even a small one, has a fleet of no fewer than thirty cars working in rotation, and at the very least ten on the street at any given time. Elite, our nearest rival, on Court Street, has sixty cars, three dispatchers, probably twenty-five drivers on a shift. Rusty's, on Atlantic Avenue, has eighty cars. New Relampago, a Dominican-run service out of Williamsburg, has one hundred and sixty cars, a magisterial secret economy of private transportation hidden deep in the borough. Car services are completely dependent on phone dispatches-the drivers are forbidden by law to pick up customers on the street, lest they compete with medallioned taxicabs. So the drivers and dispatchers litter the world with business cards, slip them into apartment foyers like Chinese take-out menus, leave them stacked beside potted plants in hospital waiting rooms, palm them out with the change at the end of every ride. They sticker pay phones with their phone number, writ in phosphorescent font.

L&L had five cars, one for each of us, and we were barely ever available to drive them. We never handed out cards, were never friendly to callers, and had, five years before, removed our phone number from both the Yellow Pages and the sign over the Bergen Street storefront.

Nevertheless, our number circulated, so that one of our main activities was picking up the phone to say "no cars."

As I replaced the receiver Gilbert was explaining what he knew about the stakeout, doggedly. English might have been his fourth or fifth language from the sound of it, but you couldn't question his commitment. As Bionic Dreadlog Bionic Dreadlog was my likely contribution-my mourning brain had decided renaming itself was the evening's assignment-I was in no position to criticize. I stepped outside, away from the chainsmoking confusion, into the cold, light-washed night. Smith Street was alive, F train murmuring underneath, pizzeria, Korean grocer, and the Casino all streaming with customers. It could have been any night-nothing in the Smith Street scene required that Minna have died that day. I went to the car and retrieved the notebook from the glove compartment, doing my best not to glance at the bloodstained backseat. Then I thought of Minna's final ride. There was something I'd forgotten. When I steeled myself to look in the back I saw what it was: his watch and beeper. I fished them out from under the passenger seat where they'd slid and put them in my pocket. was my likely contribution-my mourning brain had decided renaming itself was the evening's assignment-I was in no position to criticize. I stepped outside, away from the chainsmoking confusion, into the cold, light-washed night. Smith Street was alive, F train murmuring underneath, pizzeria, Korean grocer, and the Casino all streaming with customers. It could have been any night-nothing in the Smith Street scene required that Minna have died that day. I went to the car and retrieved the notebook from the glove compartment, doing my best not to glance at the bloodstained backseat. Then I thought of Minna's final ride. There was something I'd forgotten. When I steeled myself to look in the back I saw what it was: his watch and beeper. I fished them out from under the passenger seat where they'd slid and put them in my pocket.

I locked the car and rehearsed a few imaginary options. I could go back to the Yorkville Zendo by myself and have a look around. I could also seek out the homicide detective, earn his trust, pool my knowledge with him instead of the Men. I could walk down Atlantic Avenue, sit in an Arabic storefront where they knew me and wouldn't gape, and drink a tiny cup of mudlike black coffee and eat a baklava or Crow's Nest-acid, steam and sugar to poison my grief.

Or I could go back into the office. I went back into the office. Gilbert was still fumbling with the end of his account, our race up the ambulance ramp, the confusion at the hospital. He wanted Tony and Danny to know we'd done all we could do. I laid the notebook flat on the counter and with a red ballpoint circled WOMAN, GLASSES WOMAN, GLASSES and and ULLMAN, DOWNTOWN ULLMAN, DOWNTOWN, those crucial new players on our stage. Paper-thin and unrevealing as they might be, they had more life than Minna now.

I had other questions: The building they'd spoken of. The doorman's interference. The unnamed woman Frank lost control of, the one who missed her Rama-lama-ding-dong Rama-lama-ding-dong. The wiretap itself: What did Minna hope I'd hear? Why couldn't he just tell me what to listen for?

"We asked him, in the back of the car," said Gilbert. "We asked him and he wouldn't tell us. I don't know why he wouldn't tell."

"Asked him what?" said Tony.

"Asked him who killed him," said Gilbert. "I mean, before he was dead."

I remembered the name Irving, but didn't say anything.

"Somebody's definitely going to have to tell Julia," said Danny.

Gilbert grasped the significance of the notebook. He stepped over and read what I'd circled. "Who's Ullman?" said Gilbert, looking at me. "You wrote this?"

"In the car," I said. "It's the note I took in the car. 'Ullman, downtown' was where Frank was supposed to go when he got into the car. The guy in the Zendo, who sent him out-that's where he was sending him."

"Sent him where?" said Tony.

"Doesn't matter," I said. "He didn't go. The giant took him and killed him instead. What matters is who sent him-Failey! Bakum! Flakely!-the guy inside the place."

"I'm not telling Julia," said Danny. "I don't care what anyone says."

"Well, it ai tellin;t gonna be me," said Gilbert, noticing Danny at last.

"We ought to go back to the East Side-TrickyZendo!-and have a look around." I was panting to get to the point, and Julia didn't seem to me to be it.

"All right, all right," said Tony. "We're gonna put our fucking heads together here."

At the word heads heads I was blessed with a sudden vision: Lacking Minna, ours, put together, were as empty and tenuous as balloons. Untethered by his death, the only question was how quickly they would drift apart, how far-and whether they'd burst or just wither. I was blessed with a sudden vision: Lacking Minna, ours, put together, were as empty and tenuous as balloons. Untethered by his death, the only question was how quickly they would drift apart, how far-and whether they'd burst or just wither.

"Okay," said Tony. "Gilbert, we gotta get you out of here. You're the name they've got. So we'll get you out doing some hoofwork. You look for this Ullman guy."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Gilbert wasn't exactly a specialist in digging up leads.

"Why don't you let me help him?" I said.

"I need you for something else," said Tony. "Gilbert can find Ullman."

"Yeah," said Gilbert. "But how?"

"Maybe his name's in the book," said Tony. "It's not so common, Ullman. Or maybe in Frank's book-you got that? Frank's address book?"

Gilbert looked at me.

"Must still be in his coat," I said. "Back at the hospital." But this triggered a compulsive self-frisking anyway. I patted each of my pockets six times. Under my breath I said, "Franksbook, forkspook, finksblood-" "Franksbook, forkspook, finksblood-"

"Great," said Tony. "That's just great. Well, show some initiative for once and find the guy. That's your job job, Gilbert, for chrissakes. Call your pal, the garbage cop-he's got access to police records, right? Find Ullman and size him up. Maybe he's your giant. He might of been a little impatient for his date with Frank."

"The guy upstairs set Frank up," I said. I was frustrated that Gilbert and his jerk friend from the Sanitation Police were getting the assignment to track Ullman. "They were in it together, the guy upstairs and the giant. He knew the giant was waiting downstairs."

"Okay, but the giant could still be this guy Ullman," said Tony irritably. "And that's what Gilbert's going to find out, okay?"

I raised my hands in surrender, then snatched an imaginary fly out of the air.

"I'll go up to the East Side myself," said Tony. "Take a look around. See if I can get into this building. Danny, you mind the store."

"Check," said Danny, stubbing out his cirette.

"That cop's gonna come back around," said Tony. "You talk to him. Cooperate, just don't give him anything. We don't want to look like we're panicking." Implicit in this assignment was the notion of Danny's superior rapport with the fucking black cop fucking black cop.

"You make it sound like we're the suspects," I said.

"That's how this cop made it sound," said Tony. "It isn't me."

"What about me?" I said. "You want me-Criminal Fishrug!-to go with you? I know the place."

"No," said Tony. "You go explain to Julia."

Julia Minna had come back with Frank from wherever he'd gone between the dissolution of the moving company and the founding of the detective agency. She might have been the last and greatest of the Minna girls, for all we knew-she sure looked the part: tall, plush, blond by nurture, defiant around the jaw. It was easy to imagine Minna joshing with her, untucking her shirt, taking an elbow in the stomach. But by the time we got to meet her the two had initiated their long, dry stalemate. All that remained of their original passion was a faint crackle of electricity animating their insults, their drab swipes at one another. That was all that showed anyway. Julia terrified us at first, not for anything she did, but because of her cool grip on Minna, and also how tense he was around her, how ready to punish us with his words.

If Julia and Frank had still been animated, quickened with love, we might have remained in infantile awe of her, our fascination and lust still adolescent. But the chill between them was an opening. In our imaginations we became Frank and loved her, unchilled her, grew to manhood in her arms. If we were angry or disappointed with Frank Minna we felt connected to his beautiful, angry, disappointed wife, and were thrilled. She became an idol of disillusionment. Frank had shown us what girls were, and now he'd shown us a woman. And by failing to love her, he'd left a margin for our love to grow.

In our dreams we Minna Men were all Frank Minna-that wasn't news. But now we shot a little higher: If we had Julia we would do better than Frank, and make her happy.

Or so went dreams. I suppose over the years the other Minna Men conquered their fear and awe and desire of Julia, or anyway modulated it, by finding women of their own to make happy and unhappy, to enchant and disenchant and discard.

All except me, of course.

In the beginning Minna had Julia installed in the office of a Court Street lawyer, in a storefront as small as L&L's. We Men used to drop in on her there with little deliveries, messages or gifts from Frank, and watch her answering phones, reading People People, making bad coffee. Minna seemed eager to show us off to her, more eager than he was to drop in himself. Similarly, he seemed pleased to have Julia on showcase there, under glass on Court Street. We all intuitively gasped Minna's instinct for human symbols, for moving us around to mark territory, so in this one sense Julia Minna had joined the Men, was on the team. Something went wrong, however, something soured between Julia and the lawyer, and Minna dragged her back to Carlotta Minna's old second-story apartment on Baltic Street, where she'd stayed for most of fifteen years, a sulking housewife. I could never visit without thinking of Carlotta's plates of food being carried down the stairwell by Court Street's assorted mugs. The old stove itself was gone, though. Julia and Frank mostly ate out.

I went to that apartment now, and knocked on the door, rolling my knuckles to get the right sound.

"Hello, Lionel," Julia said after peering at me through the peephole. She left the door unlatched and turned her back. I ducked inside. She wore a slip, her ripe arms bared, but below it she was already in stockings and heels. The apartment was dark, except for the bedroom. I shut the door behind me and followed her in, to where a dusty suitcase lay open on the bed, surrounded by heaps of clothing. It wasn't going to be my privilege to be first with the news anywhere, apparently. In a mass of lingerie already inside the suitcase I spotted something dark and shiny, half smothered there. A pistol.

Julia rummaged in her dresser, her back still turned. I propped myself in the closet doorframe, feeling awkward.

I could make out her labored breathing as she fumbled through the drawers.

"Who told you, Julia? Eat, eat, eat Eat, eat, eat-" I ground my teeth, trying to check the impulse.

"Who do you think? I got a call from the hospital."