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"Little blond honky do it, everybody gets worried. How come you ain't worried about me?"
    "Nobody hired me to worry about you," I said. "You want to retain me?" "I seen her around," the woman said. "Suburb pussy." "Who's her pimp?"
    She shrugged again. "Red, maybe?"
    "Red got a last name?"
    "I don't know. White dude, red hair."
    "Coincidence," I said.
    "Huh?"
    "Never mind. Where's Red hang out?"
    "Bar called The Slipper, down toward Boylston."
    "I know where it is. You want my coat?"
    She shook her head. "Trumps don't let us wear none," she said. "Say it's not sexy." "Trumps? The guy I just talked with?"
    She nodded. "You better remember it. You gonna see him again, you hang around here." I held the blackjack out to her. "Here. When you see him give this back to him."
    She shook her head. "Naw. He gonna be mad enough. I gotta take a beating now. I don't want to make him madder."
    "What's he going to beat you up for?"
    " 'Cause I seen you roust him."
    The water dripped off the doorway canopy like a beaded curtain. A trio of sailors pushed past us in the doorway and went into the arcade. They all wore peacoats with the collars up.
    I said, "You want to come with me?"
    She looked straight at me for the first time. "Come with you?" She laughed. Derision. "Come with you? And do what? You gonna marry me? Take me away from all this?"
    "I could take you someplace where Trumps wouldn't beat you up."
    The laugh again. As mirthless as a knife blade. "People been beating me up all my life, man. One more won't hurt."
    I nodded.
    She smiled slightly. "Get lost. There's nothing you can do for me. You don't know nothing about it. Just get out of here 'fore Trumps gets back, maybe with help, and blows you away. There's nothing you can do for me."
    "You want any money?" I said.
    "The honky solution to everything," she said. "Keep it. You give it to me and Trumps take it away. Just get out of here. And watch your back."
    I nodded again. "So long," I said.
    "Yeah," she said.
    I walked up through Chinatown, came out on Tremont, turned right, and the Zone was behind me. I crossed Tremont at Boylston and started across the Common toward Beacon. They were starting to put up the Christmas displays on the Common.
    There weren't many people in the Common, and the rain still came steady, but not very hard. We were maybe five degrees from a snowstorm. The falling rain made the lights in the city around the Common haze a bit and soften. The rain also made the air seem clean, and it muffled the sound of traffic on Tremont Street and Charles Street. It was still and wet. A cop sat on a barrel-chested sorrel horse near the wading pool. He had on a glistening yellow slicker. There was a damp horse smell as I passed them. I liked it. When I was small there were a lot of horses around. They pulled the trash wagons and the milk carts. There was always horse manure in the streets. When Emerson and Whitman had strolled across this Common speaking of "Leaves of Grass," there were horses abounding—dignified and symmetrical with a pleasant odor.

Chapter 8

    I parked down from Amy Gurwitz's town house on Beacon between Exeter and Fairfield. I had to ride around the block for nearly an hour until a space cleared. The morning was clear and bright and the sun made stark shadows along the small bare trees in the tiny front yards along the street. I had a Thermos of coffee and a bag of corn muffins that I'd bought, recently made at a Dunkin' Donuts shop on Boylston Street. Say what you will about their architecture, Dunkin' Donuts makes a fine corn muffin. I ate one with some coffee.
    I didn't figure that April Kyle would be working the streets at 9:30 in the morning. Susan was in school. I'd already run my five miles along the river. The Ice Age art exhibit had departed the Science Museum. I'd read The New Yorker. Only an animal would lift weights at this hour. I was reading Sartoris that month, but I'd left it at Susan's. The Ritz Bar didn't open until I I :30.