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ever-changing live-in or-out lovers, tabbies, beagles, and, on one occasion, boa constrictor (who was reputed to have disappeared into the pipes) were more of the same. Howard’s house was one of the few places where I could be living in sin and still feel like a mother superior.
    I came around the front of the house. The wind ruffled the leaves of the hornbeam or hackberry. My skin was still quivering and cold. It wasn’t just from the wind or the Drem case. I stopped and glanced up at Howard’s bedroom windows. The panes were dark. The chill in my chest faded. It didn’t take a shrink to interpret that. But I was too tired to ponder the house and the reason I didn’t just resent it but was physically uncomfortable every time I had to go inside. It was decrepit, of course, but I’d lived in worse places. Shabbiness had a certain appeal to me. And for Howard, every scraped or nicked doorjamb was part of an elegant entryway waiting for rebirth, an entryway to one of the future rooms of his dreams. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t see that. I wasn’t sure either, but I didn’t. For me, those oak doors only swung closed. And locked.
    If I’d had this reaction to anything else, I would have worked it through by talking to Howard. God, I missed the old Howard: leaning back in his chair, his long legs extended, feet the size of skateboards tapping against the coffee table, and that wry grin on his face as he elucidated the male point of view. Or lantern chin extended, blue eyes scrunched as we considered the problem and played through and discarded the options. The old Howard would have asked if my reaction would be the same to any house that captured Howard. Or was there something unnerving about this particular house? But the old Howard was little more than a memory, and even the new Howard wasn’t in sight. He was probably out celebrating with Castillo and the other guys on his sting.
    Pushing aside my irrational discomfort, I opened the door and stepped into the dark foyer. The cavernous living room seemed dark and empty, but I could make out the pale glow in the fireplace.
    I sighed. Damn—one of the tenants hadn’t left. I’d come in on romantic scenes here before. The Never-on-Friday set had lots of time for liaisons of the heart, which frequently ended up liaisons on the sofa. Passion, I’ve found, is not so attractive to the observer as to the participants, and I was too tired to deal with one of those awkward conversations where only one third of the conversants is clothed. I moved as silently as possible, giving the sofa a wide berth.
    I was almost at the corner of the dining room when the figure on the sofa rose to sitting. Alone. It was Howard.
    “What are you doing here in the dark?” I said. “I figured you’d be off celebrating Hentry’s collar.”
    “No collar,” Howard snapped.
    “Oh, no. How could it … Damn!” I sat down next to him and turned on the light. “Did Hentry spot the trap?”
    “By the time Hentry got there, there was no trap.” Howard spoke through gritted teeth, directing his comments to his knees. The fire was down to embers. The flue, one of the many marginally working items here, must have been about a third open. The whole room smelled of smoke, the dark-green walls almost invisible, and it was cold. Howard, in a cotton shirt, didn’t seem to notice. But I was shaking. I pushed back into the sofa cushions and drew my feet up under me.
    Howard’s sting had been half a block from Drem’s accident. Could the crowd left over from Drem have derailed Howard’s plan? Surely Pereira and the backups had gotten them dispersed well before midnight. Surely … “What happened?”
    He sucked in air through his clenched teeth. “Okay. You know the setup. Castillo’s already in People’s Park with the regulars there. He’s got his sleeping bag and a backpack full of gear. All the guys in the park—the street people, the homeless guys, the winos, the addicts, the