"She lives with her mother. The incest happens during the time she visits him."

"No more visits for him?"

"That's really up to the courts. When the child showed signs of having been sexually abused, the mother took her to a doctor. She didn't know what was wrong, but she knew something was. The doctor didn't find anything physical-he never thought to check for V.D., it never occurred to him. The actual diagnosis wasn't made until weeks later-when the mother took the child to the emergency ward because of a vaginal discharge. The child was referred to a program where they do therapy and also teach the children physical and emotional self-defense. I work there too-I need the supervision to qualify for my license here. What I was doing in the playroom was preparing the child for supervised visitation with her father. She has to know she can confront her father and tell him to stop, and she has to feel protected if she is to do that."

"Why should this maggot get any visits with her?"

"That's a good question," she said. "The answer is that the child must work through her own rage at what happened to her. She has to recapture a sense of control over her life. The supervised visits are not meant to benefit the father-they are therapeutic for the daughter. And, at the same time, the father can start his own treatment."

"How about if he denies the whole thing?"

"They usually do, at first. But eventually, most of them do acknowledge what they have done-covering it, of course, with a thick layer of self-justification."

"What justification?"

"Oh, that the child was the instigator…that this was nothing more than showing his affection in a special way…minimizing

"What bullshit. Is he going to be tested for gonorrhea?"

"Yes, he will be tested. But it takes less than twenty-four hours for all traces of the disease to disappear if he gets treatment. However, the courts will consider the presence of a sexually transmitted disease together with my validation. And find against him."

"You're telling me there really is treatment for these people?"

"That's one of the major arguments in the profession today-I don't know the answer."

"I don't know about incest like this. But the maggots who like sex with kids never stop."

"Pedophiles may well be incurable. I don't know. I work only with the victims."

Max crossed over to stand behind Immaculata. He shook his fist tightly to show me how proud he was of his woman. She looked up at him and I knew this wasn't a day for gin rummy.

EVERYTHING probably would have blown over between Immaculata and Mama except that Max brought his woman to the restaurant one night. In honor of the occasion, we all took one of the big tables near the back. There's no air conditioning in Mama's place, but the atmosphere was like a meat locker anyway. Mama wasn't insane enough to openly insult Immaculata, so they fought their battle with the subtle fire only women of character ever truly master.

One of the thugs brought a huge tureen of hot-and-sour soup. Mama bowed to Immaculata, indicating she should serve everyone-that's what bar girls do, right? But Immaculata never flinched-she took Max's bowl off his plate and spooned in a generous helping, being extra-careful to serve it properly, a full measure of all the ingredients, not just the thin stuff on top. Mama smiled at her-the way the coroner smiles at a corpse just before the autopsy.

"You serve man first, not woman. Chinese way, yes?"

"Not the Chinese way, Mrs. Wong-my way. To me, Max comes first, you see?"

"I see. You call me 'Mama,' okay? Like everybody else?"

Immaculata said nothing, bowing her head ever so slightly in agreement. But Mama wasn't finished.

"Immaculata your name? I say that right-Immaculata? Is that Vietnamese name?"

"It's the name the nuns gave me-a Catholic name-when the French were in my country."

"Your country Vietnam, yes?"

"Yes," said Immaculata, her eyes hard.

"Your father and mother both from Vietnam?" Mama asked innocently.

"I don't know my father," Immaculata responded flatly, "but I know what you want to know."

The table was dead quiet then. Max watched Mama, making up his mind-Mama had survived two wars but she was never as close to death as she was at that moment.

Max pointed one steel finger at my face, then opened his hands, asking a question.

I knew what he wanted. "No," I told him, "I don't know who my father was either. So what?"

Max wiped his hands together: "All finished," he meant. The discussion was over.

But he wasn't going to pull it off that easy. "You want to know my father's nationality, yes?" asked Immaculata.

"No," Mama said, "why I want to know that?"

"Because you think it would tell you something about me."

"I already know about you," Mama snapped.

"And what is that?" asked Immaculata, the air around us crackling with violence.

But Mama backed away. "I know you love Max-that good enough. I love Max-Max like my son, right? Even Burke-like my son too. Have two sons-very different. So what, yes?"

"Yes, we understand each other," Immaculata told her, as Mama bowed her agreement.

"You call me 'Mama'?" the dragon lady asked.

"Yes. And you call me Mac, okay?"

"Okay," said Mama, declaring a truce, at least when Max was around.

B SUT MAX wasn't around now, so I'd have to leave the money with Mama. No big deal-anytime I make a score, I stash some of it with Max or Mama. It's not that I have such good savings habits-it's just that it's a long time between decent scores for me. I didn't mind working without a license, but I wasn't going to try it without a net.

The last time I went back to prison changed everything. When you're raised by the state, you don't think about the same things citizens do. You find out sooner or later that time is money-if you don't have money, you're going to keep on doing time. Most of the guys I came up with were doing life sentences on the installment plan. A few years in-a few months out.

I thought I had it figured out before I took my last fall. Up to then, I kept making the mistake of involving citizens in my business. There's a different set of rules for them and for us. You stab a man in prison, you might end up in the Hole for a few months-you stick up a liquor store on the street and you're looking at telephone numbers behind the walls, especially if you've been there before. I'd taught myself some things by then, and I knew better than to work with partners who wouldn't stand up. And I knew where the money was-if I wanted to steal without making citizens mad at me, I had to steal from the bad guys. Back then, the heroin business was strictly European-the blacks were only on the retail end and the Hispanics hadn't made their move. The Italians were moving pounds and pounds of junk all through the city, and they weren't too careful about it-they had no competition. Max wanted to hijack the gangsters when the money changed hands, but that wouldn't work-the Italians transported the dope without a care in the world, but they got paranoid as hell when it came to cold cash. Too many bodyguards-I wanted a nice smooth sting, not the O.K. Corral.

Finally, I came up with the perfect idea-we'd hijack the dope, and then sell it back for a reasonable price. It worked fine at first. Max and I watched the social club on King Street for a few weeks until we saw how they did it. Three, four times a month, a blue pastry truck with Jersey plates would pull up to the front door, and the driver would offload the covered trays of pastries and the metal tubs of tortoni and spumoni. Within a couple of hours, a dark blue Caddy would pull up outside and the same two hard guys would get out. They looked enough alike to be twins: short, muscular, with thick manes of dark hair worn a little too long in the back.