He was pretty sick of it. All he needed was Eddie’s death declared a homicide, and he thought Glitsky had enough evidence to do it now. But really, there was no new evidence directly relating to Eddie. There were just possible motives and random weirdnesses, like the phone call from the goddamn middle of the city.

Hardy picked up the telephone, dialed a number and listened for three rings. When Jane answered, he said he had to see her.

ODIS DE la Fontaine was more impressed with what the papers had called rape than with the murder, but he was most impressed with the money. And Alphonse-his own older first cousin Alphonse-did he ever have money!

Odis had never seen so much money in one place before. And Alphonse hadn’t even unpacked the sports bag yet. What Odis saw was the one loose pack of hundreds that Alphonse was now carrying flat in the front pocket of his black baggy pants.

Odis checked it out again as Alphonse got up to go to the toilet. There wasn’t a sign of bulge in the pocket. Alphonse had stopped on the way to the airport and bought a pair of sandals and a Hawaiian shirt that he wore hanging out over his pants.

He took the sports bag with him to the bathroom, but Odis would have done the same thing. That was just smart.

Alphonse wasn’t worried. Why should he be? He looked different enough, Odis thought, with the new threads and the short hair. The picture in the paper had his Afro and the beginnings of that goatee he’d started a year before, then shaved off. So it wasn’t likely anybody was going to recognize him in the dark airport bar.

That morning, after his mother had gone out to work, Odis had cut Alphonse’s hair, then gone shopping for both of them. “And don’t get us no Montgomery Ward shit either,” Alphonse had said, peeling off five of the hundreds. “Get us some real clothes.”

Odis, nineteen, had gone into Macy’s up at the Skyline Mall and picked himself up a warmup jacket, a new pair of Adidas, a bunch of T-shirts. For Alphonse, he got some of the baggy pants, more T-shirts and a dress coat that cost nearly a bill. On the way out of the mall he passed a hat store and bought Bogart hats for the both of them. They hadn’t decided on Hawaii at the time.

He still had two unbroken C’s and maybe thirty more. Alphonse hadn’t even asked him about the change.

They’d left the house before Odis’s two sisters had come home from school, and definitely before Odis’s mother got back from work. She hadn’t been happy about Alphonse appearing on the run at their doorstep, but he was her sister’s only kid and she wasn’t about to turn him away. But she’d made it clear it was a one-night stopover, no more.

Taking Odis’s car, they’d shot some pool in San Bruno ’til six o’clock, during which time they decided on Hawaii to chill out until things got more mellow around here. They got some steaks at a Sizzler, couple of glasses of wine, and then they’d stopped while Alphonse bought his shirt. They had parked the car in the long-term lot.

Now Odis, thinking about white pussy, waited for Alphonse to return. He hadn’t heard nearly enough about it. Alphonse had said it was just like any other pussy. He didn’t seem that much into talking about it.

He told Odis he hadn’t raped the girl-she was a friend of his -and when she died it had just been an accident, which sounded right the way he told it. Alphonse sometimes hung out with some bad brothers, but he wasn’t ever going to kill anybody on purpose. He was too nice a guy.

He looked out at the planes taxiing out in the night, wondering if the plane he’d be on in a couple of hours was one of them.

“Another round?”

Alphonse had ordered up some drink with an umbrella in it from the bar when they’d come in. Odis turned his head and looked at the waitress-mesh stockings right up to her ass over great legs, blond hair surrounding a model’s face, tits pushed out the front of the scoop-neck blouse.

He nodded.

“What’re you having?”

Odis cleared his throat. “ ’Nother one of these. No, two of ’em.” He smiled at her. “Going to Hawaii.”

She smiled back. “That’s nice. I wish I was. What is that, a mai tai?”

Odis didn’t know, but he nodded. “Yeah. Two of ’em.” That was nice, the girl talking to him like that. He watched her walk back to the bar. Nice wiggle. A small little ass like some white girls had, but a pretty, pretty face. She looked back at him from the bar, catching him looking at her. He smiled. She smiled back.

Wonder what she meant saying she wished she was going to Hawaii too? Maybe she was coming on to him a little. The thing that was on his mind kept getting bigger, and he turned his head to look at the runways again. Hey, what if he just asked her when she came back?

There she was, looking at him again, saying something to the bartender. And now coming back, definitely showing him something.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’m going to have to ask you if I can see your I.D.”

Odis just looked at her, thinking, What’s this? “Hey,” he said, grinning, “I’ve already had one, right?”

She shrugged. “The bartender doesn’t remember serving you. He doesn’t think you look twenty-one.”

“Tell him thanks, would you?”

“I will. But I need you to prove it.”

There was something going on between them. He was sure of it. Odis leaned back in his chair and tucked in his shirt, pulling it tight across his chest. Then he looked her up and down. She liked that-he could tell.

Okay, then. He reached into his pocket. “Look,” he said, “I don’t got no I.D. right now.” He took out his roll of bills. “But I got a lot of this, and my cousin, he got more.”

She nodded and smiled, getting it, looking right into his eyes. “Okay,” she said, walking back to the bar.

Damn, this is easy!

And here comes Alphonse, sitting down, smiling. “The plane’s on time,” he said. “ ’Bout an hour and a half.”

Odis looked back over at the bar, the girl now just waiting while the bartender was busy for a minute talking on the phone. She looked over to him and smiled, so everything was cool. Odis smiled back.

Alphonse noticed. “What you doin’?”

“Nothin’ yet. But you got me thinking about it.”

“What’s that?”

Odis jerked his head toward the bar. “What she got.”

“Well, you think when we get over there. We got no time for that here. I tole you it ain’t no different.”

Alphonse picked up his umbrella drink and sucked at the straw. He stared into the empty glass. “I could get used to these, you know? Maybe that’s all I’ll do over there is suck up piña coladas.”

“Piña coladas?”

Alphonse shook his head, patient. “That’s what we’re drinking here, Odis. Piña coladas.”

Odis was just about to tell him that he’d ordered some mai tais for the second round when this guy looked like the Refrigerator came up and hovered over their table.

“Excuse me,” he said, all business, a giant standing light on his feet, hands folded in front of him. “Can I ask you gentlemen to show some identification?”

That’s when Alphonse bolted.

Expecting him was one thing. Actually seeing him at the door was another.

It had been her door for so long she’d forgotten that it had once been both of theirs. Dismas coming home from work every day those-how many?-years. Up the stoop, then hearing the key in the deadbolt. In those days, even before the baby, Jane getting home before him, making some hors d’oeuvres or blender drinks before he got home, sometimes bringing her friends with her, sometimes Dismas getting home with his. Once in a while twenty people descending on the Hardy fun house.

But most nights, just Dismas, home from work, loving her.

And now here he was, again, on the stoop, with no keys of his own, ringing the doorbell. The door’s top half was a frosted window, and through it the silhouette was Dismas, her Dismas, who’d once wanted it all and then none of it.