Arlene nodded. "Any other gifts for me?"

Kurtz pulled the Kimber Custom.45 ACP from the holster at the small of his back. He set it on her desk. "Couldn't afford a Doberman," he said.

Arlene shook her head and reached under her desk, pulling out a hammerless, short-barreled.32 Magnum Ruger revolver.

"Hey," said Kurtz, "an old friend!"

"I thought that if it was going to be like the old days, I'd better act as if it was the old days." She hefted the weapon. "The last few years, the only reason I've had to go out is my weekly mah-jongg at Bernice's and the twice-weekly evenings at the shooting range." She slid the Ruger back into the holstered box screwed to the underside of her desk drawer.

"They didn't let us practice much target shooting inside," said Kurtz. "You're probably a better shot than I am these days."

"I always was," said Arlene.

Hiding his relief at not having to give up the Kimber.45, Kurtz set the semiautomatic back in its concealed carry holster, removed the holster, and flopped back on the couch.

"Are you interested in how Sweetheart Search, Inc., is doing?" said Arlene. "It is your business, after all. And all the skip-trace sites and services you told me about are working out fine. We pay them, charge the sweetheart wannabe twenty percent more, and everyone's happy. Want to see it in action?"

"Yeah, sure," said Kurtz. "But right now I'm thinking about something I'm working on. You could use it to look up Malcolm Kibunte for me, though. Usual sources—court appearances, warrants, back taxes due, whatever. I know he won't have a real home address, but I'll take whatever you find."

Arlene tapped away at her computer keys for a while, checking that day's hits, processing encrypted credit-card orders for searches, transferring the money to the new account, filing data into her search engines, and then beginning the search for Malcolm Kibunte. Finally she said, "I know you never talk about your cases, but do you want to tell me about what's going on now? There's some scary stuff in here about your Mr. Kibunte."

When Kurtz did not reply, she glanced his way. Sprawled on the couch, the holstered.45 clutched to his chest like a teddy bear, he was beginning to snore.

Blue Franklin was an old blues bar that had only gotten better with age. Young up-and-coming blues stars had played in the smoke haze and platter rattle of the little place on Franklin Street for six decades, gone on to national prominence, and then come back to play to packed houses in their prime and old age. The two playing this night were in their prime: Pearl Wilson, a vocalist in her late thirties who combined a Billie Holiday-like poignancy with a growing Koko Taylor rough edge, and Big Beau Turner, one of the best tenor-sax men since Warne Marsh.

Kurtz came for the late set, nursed a beer, and enjoyed Pearl's interpretation of "Hell Hound on My Trail," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Come in My Kitchen," "Willow, Weep for Me," "Big-Legged Mamas Are Back in Style," and "Run the Voodoo Down," followed by Big Beau doing solo riffs on a series of Billy Strayhorn pieces: "Blood Count," "Lush Life," "Drawing-Room Blues," and "U.M.M.G."

Kurtz could not remember a time, even as a boy, when he had not loved jazz and blues. It was the closest thing to religion he knew. In jail, even when he'd been allowed access to a Discman or cassette player, which wasn't that much of the time, even a perfect recorded performance such as Miles Davis's remastered "Kind of Blue" had been no substitute for a live performance with its ebb and flow of tidal forces, like a well-played baseball game gone deep into extra innings, now all lethargy and distance, transformed in an instant into a blur of motion and purposefulness, and with its cocaine glow of unlimited, interlocked, immortal energy. Kurtz loved jazz and the blues.

After the last set, Pearl, Beau, and the pianist—a white kid named Coe Pierce—came over to join him for a drink before closing. Kurtz had known Beau and Pearl years ago. He wanted to buy them a drink, but he barely had enough money to pay for his beer. They chatted about old music, new jobs, and old times—tactfully ignoring the past decade or so of Kurtz's absence, since even the piano kid seemed cued in on that—and eventually Blue Franklin's owner, Daddy Bruce Woles, a hearty, heavyset man so black that his skin glowed almost eggplant in the smoke-hazy spotlights, came over to join them. Kurtz had never seen Woles without the stub of a cigar in his mouth, and had never seen the cigar lighted.

"Joe, you got an admirer," said Daddy Bruce. He waved over more drinks for everyone, on the house.

Kurtz sipped his fresh beer and waited.

"Little runty guy in a grubby raincoat came in here three nights ago and again last night. Didn't pay any attention to the music. First time, Ruby was tending bar, and this dwarf lugs this big, like legal briefcase over and props it on the bar, asks about you. Ruby, she knows you're out, of course, and doesn't say anything. Says she never heard of you. The dwarf leaves. Ruby tells me. Last night, same dwarf in a dirty raincoat, same battered briefcase, only I'm at the bar. I never heard of you, either. I tried to get the dwarfs name, but he just left his beer and went out. Haven't seen him tonight. Friend of yours?"

Kurtz shrugged. "Does he look something like Danny DeVito?"

"Yeah," said Daddy Bruce. "Only not cute and cuddly like that, you know? Just turd-ugly all the way down."

"Someone told me that Sammy Levine's brother Manny's looking for me," said Kurtz. "Probably him."

"Oh, God," said Pearl. "Sammy Levine was a mean little dwarf, too."

"Used to use wood blocks on the pedals to drive that damn giant Pontiac he and Eddie Falco bombed around in," said Big Beau. Then, "Sorry, Joe, didn't mean to bring up sad times."

"That's okay," said Kurtz. "Anything sad, I got out of my system a long time ago."

"Doesn't sound like this Manny Levine dwarf has," said Daddy Bruce.

Kurtz nodded.

Pearl took his hand. "It seems like just yesterday that you and Sam were in here every night, all of us catching a late dinner and drinks after the last set, and then Sam not drinking because…"

"Because she was pregnant," finished Kurtz. "Yeah. Only I guess it seems like a while ago to me."

The vocalist and the tenor sax player glanced at each other and nodded.

"Rachel?" Beau said.

"With Sam's ex-husband," said Kurtz.

"She must be… what—eleven, twelve now?"

"Almost fourteen," said Kurtz.

"To good times again," said Pearl in that wonderful smoke-and-whiskey voice of hers. She lifted her glass.

They all lifted their glasses.

It was getting cold at night. As Kurtz walked back through alleys and parking lots to his warehouse, wearing the corduroy trousers and denim shirt Sophia Farino had given him—the shirt worn untucked to conceal the little.38 in his waistband—he briefly considered heading back to the office to sleep. At least the basement of the porno shop was heated. But he decided not to. What was the old maxim? Don't shit where you eat? Something like that. He wanted to keep business and business separate.

He was taking a shortcut down a long alley between warehouses, less than six blocks from his own warehouse, when a car pulled in at the end of the alley behind him. Headlights threw his shadow ahead of him on the potholed lane.

Kurtz glanced around. No doorways deep enough to hide in. A loading dock, but solid concrete—he could roll up onto it if the car accelerated toward him, but he could not slip under it. No fire escapes. Too far to run to me next street if the car came at him.

Not looking back, staggering slightly as if drunk, Kurtz pulled the.38 from his belt and palmed it.