"Right, right," Leman said, a nasty, self-satisfied smile on his lips. "So, of course, that's when you decided to 'involve' your lady friend here."

Walter's eyes flicked over at me and then away. Smart move. Because surely the look I was giving him would have put his eyes out.

"That's the way it was, honeychile," Leman said. "Walter sicced Charlie on you."

"I didn't, Nan," Walter said, head down. "I mean, I did, but-"

"Yes, it appears that you did, Walt," I said.

Sweet's grin was ever-widening as he began to speculate. "Charlie picked you up on the street. The two of you were laying up in here having a good old time-"

"f.u.c.k you, Sweet," I said. And I meant it in a way I've never meant that obscenity before in my life. I made a silent vow never to use that phrase again.

He went on, untroubled by my outburst. "-except something totally unexpected happened that night. That night, a little geek named Diego murdered Charlie. And not because of this fantasy saxophone of gold. Oh no. Because of a skinny, blind s.k.a.n.k named Inge that he was hung up on. That greaseball kid was probably trying to break in here. Charlie could have heard him and thought it was you at the door, Walter. He opened up, took an ice pick in the throat, staggered back in here and died. Now, ain't that a b.i.t.c.h?"

He paused and wiped his forehead with his free hand.

"Charlie was a pretty good cop," Leman said. "A pretty good crook too. He hid the sixty grand in here before he went to sleep." He looked over at Walter then. "And maybe he hid something else-ain't that right, Walt? Maybe he lied to you and already had the sax. Maybe he stashed that in here too."

"He did no such thing!" I shouted. "How could he have hidden something like that?"

Sweet looked pityingly at me. "Did it ever occur to you while you were running around like black Kojak trying to solve this case that Charlie had put you out that night?"

"Put me out?"

"Drugged you, b.i.t.c.h. The two of you drank a lot, didn't you? The coroner said he had wine in his stomach. Maybe he doped you so he could have all the time he needed to prowl around here. The next day you found the cash in your sax, but not the other sax-not Rhode Island Red.

"So Charlie is dead now, right? What's Mr. Walter's next move, huh?" He caught Walter's eyes but Walter said nothing. "I'll tell you. Mr. Walter figures the money belongs to him now-in fact, everything belongs to him now, whatever he's man enough to find-the sixty thousand, the sax, whatever. So tell us, Walter, what you did about it."

"I don't know what you mean," Walter said quietly.

"Oh really? Wasn't your first step to go to Inge? Makes you kinda nervous to hear her name, doesn't it? Well, we can stop referring to her as Charlie's girl-the blind girl, Walter. Her name was Inge Carlson. Weren't you determined to shake the information you needed out of her? Scare her. Beat it out of her if you had to?"

Walter did that thing again-he swallowed, hard.

Oh no, I thought. No, no, no. Oh no. But I wasn't just thinking it. I was moaning aloud.

"She tried to tell you she didn't know anything about it, didn't she, Walter?" Leman said, sounding almost kind. "No matter what you did to her, she kept swearing she didn't know where the sax was. But you wouldn't believe her."

Walter was shaking his head.

"Is that a 'no,' Walt?" Sweet asked. "You mean no, you wouldn't believe her or no, that's not the way it happened?"

"No," he answered at last, "I didn't believe her. Because while I was searching her place I found a lot of cash. I mean, a lot. I figured she was in on the whole scheme and was cutting me out. She and this Wild Bill were going to cut me out completely. I was nothing to them."

"You were in a real corner, weren't you? You were desperate. You killed her, didn't you, Walt?"

I had been praying not to hear the question almost as hard as I was praying not to hear the answer.

"I was pushing her around," Walter said, his voice so quiet and thick now that both Leman Sweet and I were straining to hear him. "I was pushing her around and looking all over the place for that sax, or for more money. I had just opened a drawer in the kitchen. I looked up and she had a ... a pistol in her hand. She could hear me moving around and she had it aimed right at my chest.

"How do you think it made me feel? Beating on a blind girl. I had crossed a line and I knew I was never going back. Just like Charlie had. But was I supposed to let her shoot me to death? I had come too far for that-too far and too close. I picked up that blade and killed her before I even knew it. That dog of hers was going nuts. I couldn't ..." He broke off into sobs.

"A touching story, bro," Leman said. "Most touching. Did you cry like that when you caught up with Wild Bill and near 'bout killed him too?" He didn't bother to wait for an answer. "He told you Charlie had the sax already, is that it? That Charlie had beaten him to it and didn't even pay him that sixty thousand. You figured then that Charlie had doublecrossed you. And then you realized, after all the places you had been looking for it, Charlie had hidden it right here in your girl's place. Meanwhile, Wild Bill obligingly drops dead of natural causes. Looks like you finally got a few breaks, man."

Yes. All Walter needed was a way to get me out of the picture long enough to take the place apart.

"So, a.s.shole, you finally hit paydirt," Sweet said to Walter. "You found it while Miss Bald America here was away from home today. We've been tailing the two of you for a long time now. Watching your comings and goings. If you'd made it out of here before the lady of the house returned, it would look as though she just had a routine robbery. But tell us, what would you have done if she'd walked in on you tearing this place up? Would you have blown her away too?"

I was curious about that too.

"You heard the man, sweetheart," I said to Walter. "Would you?"

He would not look at me. There was grief on his face. Not just shame. Grief.

And even I was ashamed of having asked that question.

Leman Sweet reached around into his back pocket, no doubt going after the cuffs he kept there.

In the half second it took him to do so, Walter made a move.

"Put that f.u.c.king gun down," I heard Sweet command. That's when I started screaming.

I'm sure they could hear me screaming on the Champs-Elysees, but Walter didn't seem to.

He turned and ran toward the fire escape, heedless of Leman's shouts.

Walter was at the kitchen window now, where two figures had suddenly sprung up outside. The sight of them was almost enough to halt my screaming. They were the two from the white van, the man and woman who had kidnapped me, the ones who had held a gun to my head, the ones who had told me about Henry.

Only this time they wore badges around their necks. And their dark weapons, pressed so close to the window, were trained on Walter's forehead and heart.

I saw Walter's arm go up.

"No!" Sweet ordered uselessly, already diving for the floor, taking me down with him.

The windowpane shook and exploded.

All around me the guns spluttered and boomed like amateur fireworks on the beach.

I saw my Limoges cafe au lait bowl do a freaky dance and finally leap to its end off the corner of the drainboard.

And then it was over.

But I was still screaming.

"I hope you're not going to waste no time mourning this motherf.u.c.ker," Sweet said with a jerk of his head in the direction of the blood-wet body on the floor.

The body. The body. That was no G.o.dd.a.m.n "body". That was Walter M. Moore. We had made love hundreds of times. Gone swimming in the country. Walked home from the movies. Argued about nothing.

I was sitting at the kitchen table and the detective was perched on the arm of a nearby chair. Someone had placed a gla.s.s of water in my hands.

Not stopping to think, not missing a beat, I was on Sweet, teeth bared, crazed. Trying to gouge his eyes with my nails, spitting incoherent curses.

It was the male cop from the white van who pulled me off. Had he flung me or did I slip? I don't know, but I landed on the floor, practically in Walter's arms.

And then, in one movement, I reached for the battered black case that Walt had been carrying. I ripped open the latches and threw back the top so that I could see the million dollar sax, the thing that so many people had died for.

The three cops rose as one.

I began to laugh wildly.

The case was filled with rusted tin cans.

Leman Sweet looked as if he'd been hit with a baseball bat. He reeled away from the case, looking sick.

The white male cop cursed despondently and sat down across the room.

"Charlie must have filled it up as a decoy and hid the sax somewhere else," the woman cop said.

Brilliant deduction.

Leman didn't have much left after that. The three of them began a half hearted search of my place, which had already been torn apart. But they seemed to know it was futile.

I wanted to say good-bye to Walter before they called the station and the morgue and the technicians; before the whole surreal mess that had marked the night Sig died started all over again.

I made myself kneel down beside him and touch his brow. Next to him on the thrift shop rug lay his wallet, the one I'd given him for Christmas three years ago.

I could see the tip of his blue plastic Chemical Bank cash card. For some reason that started the flood of tears again. Walter had always said that if he died suddenly my only responsibility was to empty his bank account and send the money to his nieces in Baysh.o.r.e.

Was Leman Sweet right? Was Walter Moore, my erstwhile fiance, a heartless killer? Would he have calmly blown me away if I had walked in on him earlier today?

Maybe. Honey, your taste in men is so bad, anything at all is possible. But what difference does that make now? asked Ernestine, my unbending conscience, my ceaseless voice, my guide, my tormentor, my nemesis.

I saw her point. As far as those two little girls in Baysh.o.r.e were concerned, what difference did it make?

I slipped the card into the top of my boot.

After they had all cleared out, including Walt, I sat on the kitchen floor and rocked myself like a mother with a wakeful baby.

When I felt strong enough, I called Aubrey, who listened to the whole story without saying a word, and then ordered me to lock up the apartment and get into a cab. She'd be waiting for me at the bar of the Emporium.

It was dark when I left. I didn't hail a taxi right away. First I had to get to a cash machine.

The nearest one was at a funky-junkie corner of Third Avenue. It was not a safe place after dark, but I was beyond fright.

Two derelicts were lying on the floor of the ATM. I stepped over them and inserted the card in the machine.

Walter's PIN number was easy to remember the numbers translated into "KNICKS".

I punched it in.

The machine asked me how it could help me. I punched the information key to find the balance.

I am working on it, read the display.

Current Balance: $21,415.42.

I stared at the figure for what seemed like hours. I knew that was the blind girl's money in Walter's account. It was like I'd told Henry that day: I got her killed. I gave her that money and I got her killed. Walter. Oh G.o.d, Walter. I broke down anew every time I said his name in my head. I was crying not only because he was dead but because he had murdered.

Walter must have been keeping tabs on me, watching me, all the time he and I were apart. Otherwise, how would he have known exactly when Sig was killed?

Internal Affairs had been watching Leman Sweet. Leman Sweet and the other cops had been watching me. Diego watching Inge. Sig watching Wild Bill. On and on it went.

I staggered out, as dazed as any of the lost causes sleeping it off nearby. Everything was crumbling. Sky. Pavement beneath my feet. Little square of plastic in my fist. Looked like it wouldn't be long before there was nothing left of my world.

I needed sanctuary, even if that meant a screaming neon palace of flesh. I needed to get to Aubrey.

CHAPTER 14.

'Round midnight Where the h.e.l.l was I? All I knew was, I was wearing a fur.

Oh, right. The Emporium. Aubrey had put me to bed on the fold-out cot in the dressing room.

The clock near the small sink read three o'clock. In the morning or the afternoon?

In a few minutes Aubrey came in, naked from the waist up and wearing a spangled G-string: that casually perfect, taut, amber body glistening. She took a clean towel from the back of a chair and began daintily to blot away the sweat.

"You awake, Nan?"

"I'm awake. How long have I been sleeping?"

"About five hours. I gave you a pill and you went out like a light"

"Walter is dead, Aubrey. They shot him."

"I know, baby. You told me."

"He was doing some terrible things ... terrible things, Aubrey. I didn't know."

I lay the coat aside then, and noticed that I was wearing a clean, starched shirt. I stared down at the whiteness of it, not able to remember changing my clothes.

"Here, Nan, take this." Aubrey had opened a cabinet next to her dressing table. She handed me a gla.s.s and half filled it with brandy. She lit a cigarette for me as I drank.