"Yeah, sorry... having a hard time with that."

"Well, just remember all those norms out there who are having a hard time with you." She nudged me with her shoulder. "Now, you gonna show me the piece of paper in your pocket?"

"What are you, Ray Milland?"

She laughed. "I get it! The Man With X-Ray Eyes. 1963."

"I'm impressed."

"I love B sci-fi. I mean, look at me! I am B sci-fi. And to answer your question, smart guy, I caught a glimpse of the paper sticking out of your jacket pocket when you sat down."

I pulled out the Times article. She unfolded it and started reading. Slowly, her eyes widened until her pupils were swimming in a sea of white. "Where did you get this?" she said.

"Keep your voice down."

"Donner, this isn't sanctioned. Digging into your past."

"It's my fucking past."

"That's not how the state looks at it. For good or ill, you're considered a Fresh Start. Legally, whatever happened in your former life happened to a different person."

"So, what? You're going to report me?"

She toyed with her swizzle stick. "You've broken some fifteen different laws, big and small, since revival. Have I reported you yet?"

She handed me back the article.

"So why the slack?"

She bent the swizzle stick, then lost her grip. It catapulted away down the bar.

"Maybe... maybe I..." She bit her lip, cheeks flushing. "Look, just because I think-I mean, just because I think you're-"

She cut off. Her face was full of dismay. So was mine.

I'd assumed the flirting, the feigned jealousy, was simply a game, a subroutine to make me feel more at home. But this made no sense. She couldn't really be attracted to me, could she? A smarty couldn't... could it? Even if the algorithms or whatever got so complex that true emotion crept into the mix... Chemistry between a created being and a human? Did that mean she was really a person, like she said?

Did it mean I was?

"Look, I'm way out of my depth here."

"Forget it. I'm just tired," was her reply.

"Tired."

Sad eyes. "Donner, I get tired, I sleep. I even dream."

The drummer from the swing band reeled over. He leaned against the bar, reeking of cheap gin and cheaper cologne. "Hey, pal, how much she cost?" He leered pop-eyed at Maggie, and then batted my arm.

"Pardon?" I said.

"These holowhores is getting good." He nudged me conspiratorially. "Almost feel like the real thing." Unbelievably, he actually reached toward Maggie's breast for a touch test. I smacked his hand away and stood.

"Get lost," I said, voice low.

Maggie's spine straightened in alarm. "Donner..."

The drunk's ogling face contracted into something ugly. He opened his band jacket to show me the walnut grip of a pistol.

"Meet Roscoe," he said.

Why did guys always think packing iron made them tough?

"Drop it in the Hudson before you hurt yourself."

"Maybe I'll drop you in a cemetery where you belong, corpse." He put his hand on my shoulder.

The change in my eyes panicked him. He made the mistake of reaching for his piece. Bad move. A punch-kick combination lashed out of me automatically. His left arm became useless and he crashed to his knees, shins on fire. The gun hit the floor and I sent it skittering across the floor toward the bandstand.

It should've ended there, but like most inexperienced fighters, the guy didn't know when he was done. He struggled up and threw a wild roundhouse at my head. The hatred on his face for me-no, for what I was-was so raw that my mind exploded in a red haze and a roar came from my lips. Somewhere Maggie was yelling.

When I returned to myself, the drummer was out on the floor with a crumpled face and left side, the bartender had his bat out and I was being pulled from the bar by Maggie.

"Go!" Maggie hissed. "C'mon, now!"

Outside, a taxi floated curbside liked a bored bumblebee. Maggie pushed me in and waved her wrist at the armrest scanner. "Home," she instructed. Her address materialized in the windshield and the cab pulled away.

I stared into empty space. "What... ?"

"You broke his jaw! And his collarbone, from the look of it!" She fell against the seat. "Jesus, If I hadn't pulled you off him..." She fixed me with a disturbed look then, as though seeing with fresh eyes. "You were going to kill the man."

My voice wanted to fall apart. I clamped down hard. It came out mechanical and low.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," I said.

Maggie got him home and into bed without too much more trouble. She looked at Donner's face, tight and unhappy even in sleep, and stepped quietly out of the bedroom. She activated her telephony program and waited for the connection.

"What?" came a gravel-filled throat.

"We had an incident."

"Did you handle it?"

"Of course. But I don't like this. I don't like this at all."

12.

DONNER.

The next day, Bart's displeasure at hearing from me was palpable.

"You got me into this," I said, shading my eyes against the Venetian blinds, wondering what the morning sun had to be so damned happy about.

I recounted my meeting with Ms. Struldbrug. I wanted background on the murder of Crandall's associate, Dr. Smythe.

"They weren't connected. Different M.O.s," he said.

"You're sure? Where'd it happen?" I asked.

"An S&M Club in Harlem."

"S&M? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours?"

It was an old cop joke. I felt him smiling on the other end of the line.

"Meet me at the scene in twenty minutes," he said grudgingly, and gave me the address.

As the taxi slid north of 90th street, the landscape changed. At first, I couldn't peg the difference. The buildings looked the same: vintage row houses, store fronts and apartment buildings. We passed Graham Court at 116th, a regal landmark commissioned by John Jacob Astor. I'd been inside once. Eight elevators.

So what was different?

The vehicles, for one. They were blockier, with squared-off cabs, fat fenders and toothy radiators. And the natives-black interspersed with white and Latino. The men wore v-necks, bow ties and spectator shoes. Some of the preppier ones had wide-legged cuff pants that dragged the ground-oxford bags, I think they called them. The women wore figureless, backless dresses of silk, georgette and crepe. They adorned themselves with beads or pearls and feathered bandeaux, their hair short and waved, covered in low-brimmed, boyish hats. It seemed incredibly formal for street wear- -and then it fell into place all at once. I'd driven into the 1920s.

Harlem had returned to its heyday, the Harlem Renaissance-the age of Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington and Zora Neale Hurston. Of bohemians and flappers, speakeasies and hooch joints, the Cotton Club and middle-class black doctors and lawyers on Striver's Row, struggling for respect.

It'd been silly to assume a city as large and diverse as New York would have adopted only one retro style. And naive to think that black culture, so fiercely independent, wouldn't develop their own identity distinct from white Manhattan.

The cab pulled to the curb. I couldn't see an address. "Is this right?" I asked the hackie.

The man gave me a look. "You wanted Acquiesce, right? Down the steps." He added sarcastically: "Have a good time."

I went down the steps to the basement level entrance, and sure enough, the name was enameled on the black door. I rang the buzzer. A slot shunted back, revealing dark eyes.

"Appointment only," the husky voice said.

A hand that was mottled with age spots reached past from behind me and flashed a badge. The eyes in the slot blinked and disappeared.

I turned to regard Bart. "Retired, my ass. I didn't hear you at all."

He suppressed a look of pride. "Semi. Semi-retired." He looked like he'd slept an hour last night. In his clothes.

"Thanks for meeting me here."

He threw me some half-hearted annoyance. "Couldn't very well leave you twisting in the wind."

The door opened, revealing the dark eyes' owner. The bruiser gave us a cement glower. His cream leather pants showcased a prodigious crotch. He was shirtless, other than a white vest. Arms and chest were covered in violent tats. An Aryan Brotherhood Chippendale dancer.

"We told you we'd be back, Danny," said Bart. "That wasn't very polite."

Danny didn't seem recalcitrant. "This thing is bad news."

A tall, black reborn woman in an evening gown appeared in the narrow hall behind Danny. "We don't like bad news, do we, Daniel?"

"No, Madame St. Clair." The brute sounded like a shy school kid around the woman.

Bart gave the woman a two-finger salute. "Afternoon, Queenie."

She didn't like the moniker. She angled her head at me. "Who is the gentleman?" It came out in a French Caribbean accent. "Who iz zee jentlemahn?"

"Paul Donner. He's an investigator."

"You're so fresh, mon cheri you still have zee dirt in your ears."

I flushed. Danny sneered.

"Crime scene is still intact, I hope," said Bart.

"As you requested. Me and Bumpy, we cooperate with the police."

Something clicked in my head. Harlem... Bumpy... Queenie... Jesus! This was Queenie St. Clair, back from the grave! She'd been a powerful crime boss in the 1920s, and Bumpy Johnson had been her right-hand man. She'd run the famous extortion gang known as the Forty Thieves, as well as numbers rackets. This was one hard woman. Within a year after immigrating from Martinique with $10,000, she'd been worth more than half a mil. In that day, for a black woman to take over a predominantly Caucasian gang of cut-throats like the Thieves... well, it spoke to her powers of persuasion. She'd grown so powerful that even the Italian families didn't encroach on her turf. If she and Bumpy were back, then Harlem had new landlords.

"Yeah, where is your number one?" asked Bart.

"Who can tell?" she said. "Maybe on holiday."

Bart sucked his teeth. "You know, Queenie, you wouldn't have tolerated this crap in the old days. Bumpy's pimping."

"This eez not a whorehouse, Detective. Eez a club. Consensual and legal. Nobody sells sex here."

"Just renting handcuffs, eh?" I said.

Queenie bobbed her broad shoulders. "Ah, oui."

"Okay, let's see the dungeon."

We followed Queenie in, past a long series of doors on either side of the corridor. I'd busted enough places like this to know that behind them were mattress-filled mini-rooms for patrons who wanted more privacy than the main space.