Shouting at each other, frowning to hear in the heavy beat pumping out of the stack of woofers.

"For what?"

"I just told you, a stock certificate."

"What's the company?"

"Out in Texas, I think it's oil."

"How many shares?"

"Twenty thousand. It says it in statements the old man put in with the certificate."

She shook her head. "I didn't hear what you said."

"Come on," Montez said, taking her by the arm away from the stage to the wall along the side. "We can't talk in here. Let's go to your place. Hear some of those dirty girls doing their rap? Have us a beverage?"

Kelly saw one of the security guards, his back to the stage, watching them. A big white guy with a beard.

She said, "I worked all afternoon getting ready for a fashion show, I'm too tired to party. All I want to do is go home-" She stopped. "You brought it, didn't you?"

Montez, still holding her arm, put his free hand on his cashmere coat. "Got it right here."

"Let me have it," Kelly said. "I'll check it out and give you a call tomorrow."

Montez made a face, frowning, straining to hear over Hush.

Kelly leaned close to him. "I said I'll find out what it's worth and give you a call."

The bouncer, the security guy, was still watching them, staring hard.

Montez brought a manila envelope folded in half out of his coat. He held on to it as Kelly tried to take it from him, Kelly saying, "Just let me see what it is."

"I told you, I think it's a big oil company out in Texas. Has DRP in a fancy style on the folder."

She saw the security guy coming toward them and tugged at the envelope and gave Montez a shove and stepped back as the security guy caught Montez, took the envelope from him and gave it to Kelly, Montez trying to twist out of the guy's tattooed arms, yelling at him in the band racket, wanting to know what the f.u.c.k he was doing-Kelly pretty sure that's what he was saying.

She edged along in front of the stage past the pack waving, moving, Kelly moving toward the entrance on the other side, looking up at Hush in his sock hat, close enough to hear lyrics about sticking a condom in your ear to f.u.c.k what you heard, Kelly thinking it almost made sense, thinking that Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room would work in here, the first rap, and remembered part of another couple of lines from the poem, something about the crowd-that was it- would work in here, the first rap, and remembered part of another couple of lines from the poem, something about the crowd-that was it-gave a whoop and a call and danced the juba from wall to wall, and walked out of Alvin's.

A lot of the time she was restless. She liked to take chances and liked to bet on things and drive fast, run through red lights late at night on the way home. There was always a carton of Slims in the loft. She'd look at Chloe's pack on the coffee table and bet her ten bucks there were exactly ten cigarettes in it. Chloe said okay that time and shook out eleven. Kelly loved to drink c.o.c.ktails, almost any kind, and talk, alexanders, Sazeracs, daiquiris in different flavors she had in the liquor cabinet. She brought home a pair of sealskin mukluks from a shoot in Iceland, seeing herself posing in them for a panties shot, but none of the catalogs went for the idea.

Driving home she thought of her dad, wondering what he would do in this situation: if he were a girl and had a stock certificate in Chloe Robinette's name, could fake her signature and had her driver's license. He asks how much the stock is worth and she tells him possibly a million six hundred thousand. He'd clear his throat and say: "Or more if the value went up?"

Her dad was a gambler who always had his trade, scissors and a comb. When she was sixteen, talking about getting into modeling, he'd said, "Sweetheart, go to barber college and get a trade first. You ever see me I don't have money in my pocket?"

Tonight he'd say, "What's the stock?"

"Del Rio Power."

"Never heard of it."

"But you're not in the market."

"Not as long as you can bet at a casino."

"I'm about to look it up. But tell me what you'd do."

"I'd check to see what it's actually worth. See, then you have to decide what your price is. If you get caught for stock fraud or forgery, I doubt you'd do more than a year, if that. Get a dress at St. Vincent de Paul to wear to court. What's the risk of having a sheet worth to you? a.s.suming you can handle your conscience okay. Think of it as n.o.body's money. What's wrong with putting it in the economy?"

She'd lay it out before him to see what he'd say, not to take his advice.

"Okay, what's your price?"

Her dad would say, "You kidding? At a million six I'd go for it. Wouldn't you?"

Kelly sat at the computer in the study with a Slim and a scotch. The stock certificate and statements from Del Rio Power came in a green folder with DRP in an elaborate design on the cover, the folder open now next to the computer. The statements told that the original 5,000 shares of stock were purchased in 1958 at eight dollars a share. Since then the stock had split twice, making Anthony Paradiso the owner of 20,000 shares. A form, signed by Paradiso, would transfer the stock to Chloe Robinette once she added her signature.

Okay, he'd paid forty thousand for the stock forty-five years ago, no doubt on an inside tip. Let's see what it was worth now.

Kelly keyed in the Web address for the New York Stock Exchange, got the home page, and in the SYMBOL LOOKUP window entered DRP and clicked the QUICK QUOTE b.u.t.ton.

It came back with "Error: Symbol Not Found."

She said, Uh-oh, entered "Del Rio Power" into another window and clicked SEARCH. Now she got a headline that read "NYSE to suspend, apply to delist Del Rio Power, Inc."

s.h.i.t.

She got out of the Stock Exchange and found Del Rio's Web page through Google. It told her the company was a North American provider of natural gas ... has a core business in the production, gathering, processing ... and was committed to developing new supplies and blah, blah, blah ... Kelly clicked on MARKET DATA and got the company's fifty-two-week history, the price of Del Rio stock one year ago was $81.40 a share, making the whole load worth $1,628,000. She clicked on CURRENT VALUE and looked at it, sat back in her chair and said, "s.h.i.t," feeling let down, even though she wasn't that surprised.

The current price of Del Rio stock was 53 cents a share.

She heard her dad say, "Yeah? What's wrong with ten thousand six hundred?"

Kelly went back to the Google search list and clicked on a Business Week Business Week story about "Fraudulent energy trading ... Could be looking at bankruptcy proceedings ... Trying to work out a settlement with states where they owe money ..." and heard her dad calling them a bunch of crooks. story about "Fraudulent energy trading ... Could be looking at bankruptcy proceedings ... Trying to work out a settlement with states where they owe money ..." and heard her dad calling them a bunch of crooks.

Now she tried to imagine what Chloe would say, hanging in as the old guy's mistress for almost a year, for what she made in two weeks. She wouldn't throw a fit. She'd say, "f.u.c.k," and let it go. But then she might play with it, say something like, "Maybe it'll come back," in an innocent tone of voice. Or, "Maybe I should sell before it goes any lower." Kelly loved her, loved to sit with Chloe, both sunk in the sofa with drinks and Slims, talking about movie stars, about Iraq, Chloe saying, "Throw out Saddam, you get one of those guys wears his turban on the back of his head." Or she'd say, "It takes a heartless dictator to handle those nuts over there."

She missed Chloe and her stories about guys trying to act cool and did everything she could not to see her sitting in the chair in her blood. She would think of Chloe, feel herself moments from tears, and would think of Frank Delsa and the way he looked at her. He was almost always on her mind.

She knew Montez would phone from downstairs on his cell, wanting to come up. When he called, he had to first tell her what the bouncer did. "The man threw me out on the street in my good coat."

"You sound like it's my fault."

"What'd you say to him? Nothing, not a word."

"You mean I should've explained we're friends, working on a fraud scheme? Getting thrown out of Alvin's isn't your problem. You want to know what the stock's worth?"

He paused before saying, "All right, how much?"

"As of the closing bell today, fifty-three cents a share."

"Hey, come on-I don't believe you."

"Down from eighty-one forty a year ago."

"You're playing with me, aren't you?"

"It comes to ten thousand six hundred. Not worth your time, Chops. You want the stock certificate? I'll mail it to you."

Montez said, "Now wait a minute, hold on. I want to talk to you."

"Go ahead."

"Come on, babe, buzz the door for me."

"I would," Kelly said, "but there's nothing you can say that I want to hear."

Now a pause before Montez said, "Turning on me, huh? The money ain't what you expected."

"I told you from the start I wouldn't help you," Kelly said. "Why can't you understand that?" She said, "Listen, Frank Delsa's on his way over. You want the certificate or should I give it to him?"

"How you explain you have it?"

"I tell him you gave it to me. I've told him everything else. What's the difference?"

Montez said, "You're f.u.c.kin with me, aren't you?"

"You don't believe me, look it up. Or I can e-mail you the story, if you want-why Del Rio Power, already in the toilet, is about to go down the drain."

Montez said, "You gonna hear gla.s.s breaking out here, you don't open the door."

Kelly reached in her bag for her cell and said to Montez, "And you'll hear the nine-eleven operator on my cell ask what's going on." She said, "I forgot to mention, Delsa has the two white guys staked out. If I were you, Chops, I'd get out of town."

Kelly heard him say, "You think you done with me?"

She hung up the phone, got Delsa's card out of her bag and called his cell number and heard his voice say, "Frank Delsa," in that quiet way of his.

Kelly said, "I'm home and Montez is downstairs."

Delsa stepped inside the loft and turned to Kelly, her back to the door. He said, "He wasn't outside," and hesitated, barely, before she was in his arms and they were kissing in that dark hallway like they would never get enough of each other, her hands slipping inside his jacket, sliding over his ribs. They kissed and held each other and he told her, "I've been wanting to do this since the other night."

She said, "Love at first sight?"

He said, "Almost. It was when you came out of the bathroom with your face washed."

"It's working out," Kelly said. "I planned to jump you if you came over tonight. I'm not a witness anymore, I'm out of it," and told him about getting the stock certificate while a homicide cop's son was rapping-Delsa saying, "Hush"-and about looking up the stock and telling Montez the million six was now ten six and going fast. "You want the certificate?" She said, "I have it," leading him to the counter in front of the kitchen where the papers were lying.

She asked him what he wanted to drink. He said anything and she poured them each a scotch. They touched gla.s.ses eye to eye, put the gla.s.ses on the counter and took hold of each other and got into more of that first-time kissing, neither of them getting enough of the other until he whispered to her, "You're no longer a suspect. But you're still a witness."

She stood in her wool socks looking up at him.

"But you don't care."

"This is bigger."

She was nodding. "You're sure I'm not a suspect?"

"I think you were tempted, so you played it out."

Still looking up at him she said, "'If you want me to, I'll love you. I know you better now.'"

He remembered the key word but not the line he'd have to make positive. He said, "And I'll be glad to reciprocate," and had to smile. "Who wrote that?"

"John O'Hara."

"I thought he was supposed to be good."

"He was. I love his short stories, especially the ones set in Hollywood. O'Hara drank a lot and was near the end when he wrote this one. It's called The Instrument The Instrument. But he also wrote Appointment in Samarra Appointment in Samarra, about not being able to escape your fate."

"Like Montez," Delsa said. "No matter what he does to slip out of this one, he's going down."

She said, "I was thinking more of us."

"I know what you mean. There's a lot we haven't said."

"We've barely said anything."

"See, but Montez still might want the ten six. Try to get you to sign the paper."

"I'm giving it to you," Kelly said, "and the driver's license. There won't be any way I can help him. But you're probably right. The last thing he said to me, on the phone, 'You think you're done with me?'"

"That's all?"

"I hung up on him."

"That's why you're still a witness, I don't have him yet. Or the two guys. We've got the prints of one of them on the same vodka bottle with Montez'. It could put them together at the house-if you'll testify that's what the old man was drinking, the Christiania. And I'd like you to look at the two guys in a lineup. If you can put them at the scene that night, they're done. We'll pick 'em up if they ever come home. Carl's wife Connie says he stays with Art a lot of the time. Art lives in Hamtramck with Virginia Novak. We checked, they're not married, but have a statue of the Virgin Mary in the front yard holding a birdbath. I'm hoping it was Art's idea. I didn't tell you their names, did I? Art Krupa and Carl Fontana. They could've met at Jackson, they were both there at the same time. They come out and for the past year and a half they've been shooting drug dealers, and then Paradiso."

"And Chloe," Kelly said.

"And Chloe. Montez hired them to do the old man. But how did he find out about them? Look at it another way. How did they get the contracts to take out the drug dealers? These two guys wouldn't ordinarily have much to do with African-Americans. It's like they have someone who arranges the hits. Like a manager."

"Or an agent," Kelly said. "Have you ever heard of that?"