'Can I bring anything?'

'Yeah. Food.'

There was no point in retrieving my car, because Lucy lived in the northwest part of the city, just off Dupont Circle, where parking would be as bad as it was everywhere else. Marino whistled for a cab outside the grill, and one slammed on its brakes and we got in. The afternoon was calm and flags were wilted over roofs and lawns, and somewhere a car alarm would not stop. We had to drive through George Washington University, past the Ritz and Blackie's Steakhouse to reach Lucy and Janet's neighborhood.

The area was bohemian and mostly gay, with dark bars like The Fireplace and Mr P's that were always crowded with well-built, body-pierced men. I knew, because I had been here many times in the past to visit my niece, and I noted that the lesbian bookstore had moved and there seemed to be a new health food store not too far from Burger King.

'You can let us out here,' I said to the driver.

He slammed on the brakes again and swerved near the curb.

'Shit,' Marino said as the blue cab raced away. 'You think there's any Americans in this town?'

'If it wasn't for non-Americans in towns like this, you and I wouldn't be here,' I reminded him.

'Being Italian's different.'

'Really? Different from what?' I asked at the two thousand block of P Street, where we entered the D.C. Cafe.

'From them,' he said. 'For one thing, when our people got off the boat on Ellis Island, they learned to speak English. And they didn't drive taxi cabs without knowing where the hell they was going. Hey, this place looks pretty good.'

The cafe was open twenty-four hours a day, and the air was heavy with sauteing onions and beef. On the walls were posters of gyros, green teas, and Lebanese beer, and a framed newspaper article boasted that the Rolling Stones had once eaten here. A woman was slowly sweeping as if it were her mission in life. She paid us no mind.

'You relax,' I said to Marino. 'This shouldn't take but a minute.'

He found a table to smoke while I went up to the counter and studied the yellow lit-up menu over the grill.

'Yes,' said the cook as he pressed sizzling beef and slapped and cut and tossed browning chopped onions.

'One Greek salad,' I said. 'And a chicken gyro in pita and, let me see.' I perused. 'I guess a Kefte Kabob Sandwesh. I guess that's how you say it.'

'To go?'

'Yes.'

'I call you,' he said as the woman swept.

I sat down with Marino. There was a TV, and he was watching Star Trek through a swarm of loud static.

'It's not going to be the same when she's in Philly,' he said.

'It won't be.'

I stared numbly at the fuzzy form of Captain Kirk as he pointed his phaser at a Klingon or something.

'I don't know,' he said, resting his chin in his hand as he blew out smoke. 'Somehow it just don't seem right, Doc. She had everything all figured out and had worked hard to get it that way. I don't care what she says about her transferring, I don't think she wants to go. She just doesn't believe she's got a choice.'

'I'm not sure she does if she wants to stay on the track she's chosen.'

'Hell, I believe you always got a choice. You see an ashtray anywhere?'

I spotted one on the counter and carried it over.

'I guess now I'm an accomplice,' I said.

'You just nag me because it gives you something to do.'

'Actually, I'd like you to hang around for a while, if that's all right with you,' I said. 'It seems I spend half my time trying to keep you alive.'

'That's kind of an irony considering how you spend the rest of your time, Doc.'

'Your order!' the cook called out.

'How 'bout getting me a couple of those baklava things. The one with pistachios.'

'No,' I said.

LUCY AND JANET lived in a ten-story apartment building called The Westpark that was in the two thousand block of P Street, a few minutes' walk away. It was tan brick with a dry cleaner downstairs and the Embassy Mobile station next door. Bicycles were parked on small balconies, and young tenants were sitting out enjoying the balmy night, drinking and smoking, while someone practiced scales on a flute. A shirtless man reached out to shut his window. I buzzed apartment 503.

'Who goes there?' Lucy's voice came over the intercom.

'It's us,' I said.

'Who's us?'

'The us with your dinner. It's getting cold,' I said.

The lock clicked free to let us into the lobby, and we took the elevator up.

'She could probably have a penthouse in Richmond for what she pays to live here,' Marino commented.

'About fifteen hundred a month for a two-bedroom.'

'Holy shit. How's Janet going to make it alone? The Bureau can't be paying her more than forty grand.'

'Her family has money,' I said. 'Other than that, I don't know.'

'I tell you, I wouldn't want to be starting out these days.'

He shook his head as elevator doors parted.

'Now back in Jersey when I was just revving up my engines, fifteen hundred could've kept me in clover for a year. Crime wasn't like it is, and people were nicer, even in my bad-ass neighborhood. And here we are, you and yours truly, working on some poor lady who was all cut up and burned in a fire, and after we finish with her, it will be somebody else. It's like what's-his-name rolling that big rock up the hill, and every time he gets close, down it rolls again. I swear, I wonder why we bother, Doc.'

'Because it would be worse if we didn't,' I said, stopping before the familiar pale orange door and ringing the bell.

I could hear the deadbolt flip open, and then Janet was letting us in. She was sweating in FBI running shorts and a Grateful Dead T-shirt that looked left over from college.

'Come in,' she said with a smile as Annie Lennox played loudly in the background. 'Something smells good.'

The apartment was two bedrooms and two baths forced into a very tight space that overlooked P Street. Every piece of furniture was stacked with books and layered with clothing, and dozens of boxes were on the floor. Lucy was in the kitchen, rattling around in cupboards and drawers as she gathered silverware and plates, and paper towels for napkins. She cleared a space on the coffee table and took the bags of food from me.

'You just saved our lives,' she said to me. 'I was getting hypoglycemic. And by the way, Pete, nice to see you, too.'

'Damn, it's hot in here,' he said.

'It's not so bad,' Lucy said, and she was sweating, too.

She and Janet filled their plates. They sat on the floor and ate while I propped up on an armrest of the couch and Marino carried in a plastic chair from the balcony. Lucy was in Nike running shorts and a tank top, and dirty from head to heel. Both young women looked exhausted, and I could not imagine what they were feeling. Surely this was an awful time for them. Every emptying of a drawer and taping shut a box had to be another blow to the heart, a death, an end to who you were at that time in your life.

'The two of you have lived here, what? Three years?' I asked.

'Close to it,' said Janet as she speared a forkful of Greek salad.

'And you'll stay in this same apartment,' I said to Janet.

'For the time being. There's really no reason to move, and when Lucy pops in and out, she'll have some room.'

'I hate to bring up an unpleasant subject,' Marino said. 'But is there any reason Carrie might know where you guys live?'

There was silence for a moment as both women ate. I reached over to the CD player to turn down the volume.

'Reason?' Lucy finally spoke. 'Why would there be a reason for her to know anything about my life these days?'

'Hopefully there's no reason at all,' Marino said. 'But we got to think about it whether you two birds like it or not. This is the sort of neighborhood she would hang in and fit right in, so I'm asking myself, if I was Carrie and back out on the street, would I want to find where Lucy is?'