Otis signaled the bartender with a finger-wave over Darcia's gla.s.s. The drinks were cheap here, cheaper still this time of day. He left dollars on the bar, kissed Darcia on the neck, and walked across the wooden floor. Wasn't no kind of trick to gettin' p.u.s.s.y when you got down to it. You just needed to know how to talk to a woman, that was all.

"Say, man," said Otis as he scanned to 100.3, L.A.'s slow-jam station, on the radio dial.

"What," said Lavonicus.

"You get to keep one of those red, white, and blue b.a.l.l.s when you came out of the league?"

Lavonicus breathed through his mouth as he thought it over. He had thick red clown lips and large gapped teeth. Otis found him to be an ugly man - like that Jaws-lookin' sucker from that bad run of Bond movies - but he understood why his sister Cissy loved him. The man was as loyal as a spinster to her vibrator.

"Naw, I didn't keep one," Lavonicus said, his voice monotonous and deep.

" 'Cause I'd pay good money to have me one of those with some of your old teammates' autographs on it. Especially Marvin Barnes and Fly Williams. Listen, I was incarcerated when y'all were playin', and they didn't even televise those ABA games back then. But even so, Barnes and Williams were legends in the joint. Those were two black men who took s.h.i.t from no one."

"Barnes and Williams both ended up doing time."

"That's what I know."

"Barnes." Lavonicus shook his head. "He could party all night and still play. Fly gave himself that nickname, but n.o.body was more fly than Marvin Barnes. The man drove a Rolls-Royce, wore a full-length mink, platform shoes... s.h.i.t."

"Y'all had Maurice Lucas, right?"

"Uh-huh. Freddie Lewis, too. Caldwell Jones..."

"And Moses Malone?"

"For a while."

"Shoot, man, why didn't you win the championship?"

"We beat the Nets and Dr. J. in the first round of the play-offs."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"But the Kentucky Colonels took us to school after that. h.e.l.l, Roman, we were just out there having fun." Lavonicus smiled. His knees touched the dash. He lowered his head to look through the windshield. They were heading west on Little Santa Monica. "Where we going, bro?"

"Frank's supposed to call me any minute on my cell. Gotta pull over when he calls, 'cause we need to have a serious talk."

"What about after that?" said Lavonicus.

Otis said, "Gonna pick us up a couple of guns."

Otis turned up the volume on the radio. The O'Jays were doing "Brandy." Now that was one pretty song.

"Sippin' on a cherry soda pop," sang Otis, "building houses made of sand..."

He looked out the driver's window as he sang, let his hand dangle in the wind. Palm trees in the middle of the city. Who would want to live anywhere else?

Now he'd have to make some money to keep this lifestyle going. Because it couldn't get much better than this. Cruising through Los Angeles in a Mark V, the sun shining every day, listening to the O'Jays... free.

SEVEN.

I'LL GET THIS," said Bernie Walters as the waitress laid the check on the table. said Bernie Walters as the waitress laid the check on the table.

Thomas Wilson put his hand over the check and slid it in front of him. "I got it, man."

"C'mon, Thomas, you always buy."

"That way, y'all can't never say that a man who hauls trash for a living didn't hold up his end."

Walters and Wilson sat at a four-top in the Brew Hause, a glorified beer garden on 22nd, one block east of the church. The waitresses here were forced to wear ridiculous outfits, a combination of Heidi and Pippi Longstocking, and it showed on their embarra.s.sed, overworked faces. Karras and Stephanie Maroulis had done a round and left a half hour earlier.

"So you and Charles used to hang at Fort Stevens when you were kids," said Walters.

"Yeah. We played army, cowboys-and-indians and s.h.i.t over at that fort all the time."

"Vance always wanted to go there when he was a boy, but I never got around to taking him. Might as well add it to the list: another thing I never did with Vance."

"You were a good father, Bern."

"Yeah, sure." Walters swigged beer. "Hey. I just thought of something. A company motto for your uncle's business. Okay, you ready? 'We don't just talk trash. We haul haul trash.' What do you think?" trash.' What do you think?"

"It's good. But one of our compet.i.tors in the District uses a phrase d.a.m.n near like it already. Even has it painted on the side of his pickup."

"Maybe that's why I thought it up. Maybe I've seen his truck and I didn't remember. Like one of those subconscious things."

"You don't get into the city enough to have seen it."

"The city? You can have it. I come downtown once a week for the meeting, and believe me, that's enough. When I retire from the U.S. Postal Service, which is gonna be d.a.m.n soon, I'm gonna move down to my property in St. Mary's County and never look back."

"What you got, some kind of Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind thing goin' on down there?" thing goin' on down there?"

"What I got temporarily temporarily is a pop-up trailer-tent with a Jiffy John beside it. Five acres of woods and a little clearing by a deep creek. You oughtta come down." is a pop-up trailer-tent with a Jiffy John beside it. Five acres of woods and a little clearing by a deep creek. You oughtta come down."

"I love you like a brother, Bernie. To tell you the truth, though, it doesn't sound like my thing."

Walters stabbed his cigarette into the ashtray and patted his breast pocket, where he kept his pack.

Wilson dropped money on the table. "Hey, Bern. Dimitri and Stephanie left together again tonight. You notice that?"

"She doesn't drive. He gives her a lift home. So what?"

"Dimitri lives down below Malcolm X Park, and she lives uptown, on Connecticut. You You live out in the suburbs. If it's just a question of a ride, make more sense for you to drop her off on your way." live out in the suburbs. If it's just a question of a ride, make more sense for you to drop her off on your way."

"She didn't ask me. And besides, the two of them being Greeks and all that, they probably have a lot to talk about."

"And Karras is a booty monger from way back."

"Cut it out."

"I'm tellin' you, man, 'cause I know. One can spot another from a mile away."

"You're major league in that department, huh? So why is it that I never see you with a woman, Thomas?"

"Shoot, none of the frauleins in this joint are to my taste, that's all. What you gotta do, you gotta come up around my my way if you want to see me operate. 'Cause you know I like to play in the nappy dugout." way if you want to see me operate. 'Cause you know I like to play in the nappy dugout."

"What the h.e.l.l is that?"

"Forget it."

"Yeah, forget it. And forget about Dimitri and Stephanie, too. Everybody's got to grieve in their own way. You've got your own private way, whatever that is. Stephanie gets by on her positive att.i.tude. I tend to lean on the good Lord. And Dimitri -"

"Likes p.u.s.s.y. Matter of fact, I got ten dollars right here says that Dimitri is. .h.i.ttin' it right now."

"Leave it alone, Thomas."

"I'm just makin' conversation."

"Yeah, okay." Walters drained his beer. "You ready?"

"Sure, Bernie. Let's go."

"So," said Karras. "Would you like to be undressed from in front or behind tonight?"

Stephanie smiled. "Oh, I don't know... in front, I guess."

Moonlight and streetlight illuminated her deep brown eyes in the darkened room. Karras unb.u.t.toned her blouse. He peeled it off her shoulders, and she slipped her arms free. He unfastened her bra and dropped it to the floor.

Karras cupped her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, leaned in and licked a mole centered between them. His tongue flicked at her right nipple. She stroked his gray hair, and he came up and kissed her deeply on the mouth.

They moved to the bed and undressed completely. Then they were naked atop the sheets. Karras put a pillow beneath her. She was ready for him, quick of pulse and wet. Her smell was strong in the room.

"Ella, Thimitri." Thimitri."

"Not yet."

"No, now."

"So you're giving the orders around here, eh?"

"C'mon."

He penetrated her, pulled out, rubbed the head of his c.o.c.k along the inside of her muscled thigh.

"Quit playin' around." She reached down. "Whaddya, need a map or something?"

"Careful, you'll tear it off."

"It feels st.u.r.dy enough."

"Okay... okay."

Stephanie arched her back as he walked her ribcage with his fingers. She took his hands and put them on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He buried himself inside her until there seemed no more of her. Then she adjusted her hips and he slid farther into her gloved warmth.

"There we go," she said.

"Opa," said Karras.

Karras washed himself, phoned his apartment, came back into the bedroom, and had a seat on the edge of the mattress.

Stephanie got up on one elbow. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just got a message from a guy, called my place. I haven't seen him in years. Greek guy named Nick Stefanos. My old man used to work for his grandfather a long time ago."

"What'd he want?"

"He wants to give me a part-time job in a bar he works in, down in Southeast. Kitchen help." Karras rubbed his cheek. "Things do come around."

"Why's he calling you now?"

"My friend Marcus's wife, Elaine? She hooked it up. Elaine uses Stefanos as an investigator on some of her cases."

"Are you going to talk to him?"

"I don't know."

"It would do you good to get out in the world a few hours a day."

"I know it."

"I'm serious."

"Stephanie, I know."

She pulled him down on the bed, her hair falling and touching his face. She smiled, looking into his eyes. "You were really ornery tonight, Dimitri."

"Sometimes I don't feel like talking."

"You still come to the meetings, though."

"I like being with you guys," he said. "Aside from the pleasure of that, it doesn't do much good. Look, don't try to make me your project, Stephanie."

"You're not. We need each other, though. All of us, I mean. Can't you see it?"