I turned to the bar, and there was Carolyn. The tables were crowded but the bar was half empty, lightly attended for that hour on a Friday night. At her right, toward the door, a couple of beer drinkers stood talking baseball. To her left, there were three vacant stools in a row.

I took the middle one and ordered bourbon, a double with water back. Billie served it, saying something about the weather. I took a sip of my drink and shot a quick glance at Carolyn.

She didn't appear to be waiting for Tommy or for anyone else, nor did she look as though she'd just breezed in a few minutes ago. She was wearing yellow pedal pushers and a sleeveless lime-green blouse. Her light brown hair was combed to frame her little fox face. She was drinking something dark from a lowball glass.

At least it wasn't a tequila sunrise.

I drank some bourbon, glanced in spite of myself at Fran and was irritated with my own irritation. I'd had two dates withher, there was no great mutual attraction, no chemical magic, just two nights of leaving her at her door. And tonight I'd called her, late, and she'd said she had other plans, and here she was, drinking a tequila sunrise with her other plan.

Where did I get off being mad about that?

I thought,I'll bet she doesn't tell him she's got an early day tomorrow. I bet the White Hunter there doesn't have to say goodnight downstairs.

To my right, a voice with a Piedmont softness to it said, "I forget your name."

I looked up.

"I believe we were introduced," she said, "but I don't recall your name."

"It's Matthew Scudder," I said, "and you're right, Tommy introduced us. You're Carolyn."

"Carolyn Cheatham. Have you seen him?"

"Tommy? Not since it happened."

"Neitherhave I. Were you-all at the funeral?"

"No. I thought about going but I didn't get there."

"Why would you go? You never met her, did you?"

"No."

"Neither didI." She laughed. There wasn't much mirth in it. "Big surprise, I never met his wife. I would have gone this afternoon. But I didn't." She took her lower lip between her teeth. "Matt.Whyn't you buy me a drink? Or I'll buy you one, butcome sit next to meso's I don't have to shout. Please?"

She was drinking Amaretto, a sweet almond-flavored liqueur that she took on the rocks. It tastes like dessert but it's almost as strong as whiskey.

"He told me not to come," she said."To the funeral. It was someplace in Brooklyn, that's a whole foreign nation to me, Brooklyn, but a lot of people went from the office. I wouldn't have had to know how to get there, I could have had a ride, I could have been part of the office crowd, come to pay my respects along with everybody else. But he said not to, he said it wouldn't look right."

Her bare arms were lightly dusted with golden hair. She was wearing perfume, a floral scent with anundertaste of musk.

"He said it wouldn't look right," she said. "He said it was a matter of respect for the dead." She picked up her glass and stared into it.

She said, "Respect. What's the man care about respect? What's he so much as know about respect, for the dead or for the living? I would just have been part of the office crowd. We both work there atTannahill, far as anyone knows we're just friends. Lord's sake, all we ever were is friends."

"Whatever you say."

"Well, shit," she said, drawling it, giving the word an extra syllable or two. "Ah don't mean to say Ah wasn't fucking him. Ah surely don't mean that. But all it ever waswas laughs and good times. He was married and went home to mama most every night"- she drank some Amaretto- "and that wasjes fine, believe me, because who in her rightmind'd want TommyTillary around by the dawn's early light? Christ in the foothills, Matthew, did I spill this or drink it?"

We agreed that she was drinking them a little too fast. Sweet drinks, we assured each other, had a way of sneaking up on a person. It was this fancy New York Amaretto shit, she maintained. It wasn't like the bourbon she'd grown up on. You knew where you stood with bourbon.

I reminded her that I was a bourbon drinker myself, and it pleased her to learn this. Alliances have been forged on more tenuous bonds than that, and she sealed ours with a sip from my glass. I offered it to her, and she put her little hand on mine to steady the glass, sipping daintily at the liquor.

"BOURBON is low-down," she said. "You know what I mean?"

"Here I thought it was a gentleman's drink."

"It's for a gentleman likes to get down in the dirt. Scotch is vests and ties and prep school. Bourbon is an old boy ready to let the animal out, ready to let the nasty show. Bourbon is sitting up on a hot night and not minding if you sweat."

Nobody was sweating. We were in her apartment, sitting on her couch in a sunken living room set about a foot below the level of the kitchen and foyer. Her building wasan Art Deco apartment house on Fifty-seventh just a few doors west of Ninth. A bottle of Maker's Mark from the store around the corner stood on top of her glass-and-wrought-iron coffee table. Her air-conditioner was on, quieter than mine and more effective. We were drinking out of rocks glasses but we weren't bothering with ice.

"You were a cop," she said. "Didn't he tell me that?"

"He could have."

"And now you're a detective?"

"In a way."

"Just so you're not a robber. Be something if I got myself stabbed by a burglar tonight, wouldn't it? He's with me and she gets killed, and then he's with her and I get killed. Except I don't guess he's with her right about now, is he. She's in the ground by now."

Her apartment was small but comfortable. The furniture had cleanlines, the pop art prints on the brick wall were framed simply in aluminum frames. From her window you could see the green copper roof of theParc Vendome on the far corner.

"If a burglar came in here," she said, "I'd stand a better chance than she did."

"Because you've got me to protect you?"

"Mmmm," she said."Mahhero."

We kissed then. I tipped up her chin and kissed her, and we moved into an easy clinch. I breathed in her perfume, felt her softness. We clung together for a moment or two, then withdrew and reached as if in synchronization for our drinks.

"Even if I was alone," she said, picking up the conversation as readily as she'd picked up the drink. "I could protect myself."

"You're a karate black belt."

"I'm a beaded belt, honey, to match my purse. No, I could protect myself with this here, just give me a minute and I'll show you."

A pair of modern matte-black step tables flanked the sofa. She leaned across me to grope for something in the drawer of the one on my side. She was sprawled facedown across my lap. An inch of golden skin showed between the tops of the yellow pedal pushers and the bottom of her green blouse. I put my hand on her behind.

"Now quit that, Matthew! I'll forget what I'm looking for."

"That's all right."

"No it's not. Here. See?"

She sat up, a gun in her hand. It was the same matte-black finish as the table. It was a revolver, and looked to be a.32.A small gun, all black, with a one-inch barrel.

"Maybe you should put that away," I said.

"I know how to behave around guns," she said. "I grew up in a house full of guns.Rifles, shotguns, handguns. My pa and both my brothers hunted.Quail, pheasants. Some ducks. I know about guns."

"Is that one loaded?"

"Wouldn't be much good if it wasn't, would it? Can't point at a burglar and say bang. He loaded it 'fore he gave it to me."

"Tommy gave it to you?"

"Uh-huh." She held the gun at arm's length, sighted across the room at an imaginary burglar. "Bang," she said. "He didn't leave me any shells, just the loaded gun. So if I was to shoot a burglar I'd have to ask him for more bullets the next day."