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“Maybe crime is your strong point—think of a country where they use capital punishment like we use fucking probation.”

“South Africa?”

“Give the man a gold star or a quick blowjob, whichever you’d prefer,” and Michelle went back to giggling.

“How do you know it’s South Africa?”

“Baby, I don’t know. It may be Rhodesia, or whatever they’re calling it today, or something like that. But it’s white men, with this African-soldier rap.”

And I thought of Mama Wong, and the dog with the dark colored spine—a Rhodesian Ridgeback, the kind they breed for tracking down runaway slaves. They can even climb trees. Not supposed to be good pets, but some folks are crazy about them. Michelle saw I was trying to catch the tip of a thought and run it down. She kept quiet, smoking. I thought about all the conversations in the yard when I was inside. The guys with the short bits dreamed about parole—the guys with the telephone-number sentences only thought about escape. And the warrior whites, the neo-Nazis, the cons with race war on their minds at all times . . . they always talked about Rhodesia like it was the Promised Land. Where they could be themselves.

“Michelle, what do they want?”

“Honey, God only knows, and She’s not telling. But they’re here and making a lot of trouble for some people.”

“What kind of trouble.”

“I can’t tell you. I don’t get up there much anymore. I just hear it around that they’re bad people to deal with, that they don’t know how to play the game, you understand?” I just sat there, looking out the windshield to the street. Michelle looked over at me. “You got some more questions, honey, or did you change your mind about the kiss of life?”

“One more question. Will you ask around about this freak I told you about?”

“Anything you say, Burke. Is there any money in this? I still want to visit Denmark and come back a blonde.” The giggle again.

“I honestly don’t know, Michelle, but there might be. I can give you this twenty on account,” and gave her a piece of last night’s cash.

More giggling. “On account of what?”

I touched my forehead in a half-salute and she slithered out of the car.

I didn’t know which Michelle needed more . . . an operation on her plumbing or her head, but it didn’t matter to me. Maybe the guys who paid her twenty-five bucks for a car trick weren’t exactly sure what they were buying, but I was. Her gender might be a mystery, but in my world, it’s not who you are, it’s how you stand up.

7

I FIRED UP the engine. The Plymouth rolled away from the pier and headed north as surely as though it had a radar cone dialed to Sleaze in its nose. I stayed as close to the river as I could on my way uptown, looking for someone I knew. Most of the street signs have long since disappeared once you get into the West Thirties, but I didn’t need them. I stopped for a red light beneath the underpass and made eye contact with a youngish guy wearing an army raincoat and black beret. He walked carefully toward the car, trying for a smile out of his bloated face. I kept looking at him, didn’t move. He opened the raincoat to display what looked like a scabbard with a long handle at the top and looked up at me to see if I was still watching. When he saw that I was, he pulled the handle up to show me part of a gleaming machete blade. Then he put the blade back into the scabbard, closed the coat, tried for a smile again, and held up his open right hand. Flashed it open and closed three times to show me he wanted fifteen bucks for the blade, raising his eyebrows to see if I wanted to buy or to bargain. I reached in my pocket and held up a gold shield—if you got close enough to read it, you’d see it said I was an official peace officer for the ASPCA. He didn’t get any closer but he didn’t run either. Just stepped backward a few feet until he disappeared. Like I said, I don’t need the signposts.

I drove slowly up and down the back streets in the West Forties until I found what I was looking for—a parking place, complete with attendant. The muscular black