Macy and I held each other and cuddled for a moment on the living room couch. I liked her touch, the way she kissed. This wasn't right, though. I knew that I didn't want to be here. Not tonight, anyway. Macy wasn't at her best right now.

"Good man's hard to find," Macy said, drawing me close. She was still slurring her words a bit. "You have no idea, no idea. So hard out here. It's hell."

I did have some idea about how hard it was to find someone to be with, but I didn't pursue the point. Maybe some other time.

"Macy, I'm going to head home," I finally said. "I liked seeing you again. I liked it a lot."

"I expected as much! I knew it!" she exploded on me. "Just go, Alex. Go. I don't want to fucking see you again!"

Before the anger had welled in her eyes, I had seen something beautiful and nearly irresistible. Now it was gone again. Maybe she could get back in touch with it, maybe not. Then Macy started to cry, and I knew enough not to try and comfort her. I didn't want to be condescending.

I just left the apartment, with its beautiful piano and the wonderful quote from Rudy Crew. This woman wasn't right for me to be with. Not now, anyway.

Sad night.

A good woman is hard to find too, I wanted to tell Macy.

God, I hated dating.

The night with Macy Francis kept bothering me for the next few days. It was like a sad song that played in my head. I hadn't expected it to turn out that way. I didn't like what I had seen, or felt. The look in Macy's eyes stayed with me: a terrible mixture of hurt, vulnerability, and anger that would be hard to soothe.

I grabbed Sampson on Wednesday night after work. We agreed to meet at the Mark for drinks. The bar was a couple of streets down from Fifth. Local hangout. Tin ceiling, wide-board pine floors, long, worn mahogany bar, ceiling fan turning lazily.

"Sugar, damn," Sampson said, when he arrived and found me sitting by myself, nursing a Foggy Bottom lager while studying the old Pabst clock on the wall. "You don't mind me saying, you look like shit, man. You sleeping all right? You still sleeping alone, aren't you?"

"Good to see you too," I said to him. "Sit down and have a beer."

Then Sampson wrapped one of his mammoth arms around me. He hugged me as if I were his little kid. "What the hell is going on with you?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Don't know exactly. The manhunt on the West Coast went real bad. I mean, it dried the hell up. There's no word on Betsey Cavalierre's murder either. Had a date the other night. Just about has me swearing off dating for the rest of my life."

Sampson nodded. "I know the words to that sad song." He ordered a Bud from the bartender, an ex-cop we both knew, Tommy DeFeo.

"The case I was working on in California ended real badly, John. The killers just disappeared. Thin air. So. How are you doing? You look good. For you."

He raised an index finger. Then he pointed it right between my eyes. "I always look good. It's a given. Don't try to change the subject on me. We're into something here."

"Oh hell, you know I don't like to talk about my troubles, John. So tell me about yours." I started to laugh. He didn't.

Sampson just looked at me, said nothing, waited me out.

"You'd probably make a decent shrink," I told him.

"Speaking of which, have you been to see the good Dr. Finally lately?" Adele Finally is my psychiatrist. Sampson has also seen her a couple of times. She helps. Both of us agree on that. We're fans of Adele.

"No, she's really pissed off at me. Says I'm not trying hard enough, says I won't embrace my own pain. Words to that effect."

Sampson nodded and smiled thinly. "So why is that?"

I made a face. "I didn't say that I agree with Adele."

I sipped my Foggy Bottom. It wasn't too bad, and I liked being loyal to a local brewer.

"When I tryto embrace the goddamn pain, I keep coming back to the conflict between the job and the life I think I want to lead. I missed another one of Damon's concerts while I was out in California. Stuff like that keeps happening."

Sampson punched my shoulder. "That's not the end of the world, you know. Damon knows you love his little ass. The young dude and I talk about it sometimes. He's over it. Now you get over it."

"Maybe it's just that I've worked on too many bad murder cases in the past few years. It's changing me."

Sampson nodded approval. He liked that answer. "Sounds like you're feeling a little burned-out."

"No. I'm feeling like I'm caught in a scary nightmare that won't go away. Too many coincidences whirling around me. The Mastermind howling my name, threatening me. I don't know how to make it all stop."

Sampson stared into my eyes. He locked into them. "Back there a little bit you said coincidences, sugar. You don't believein coincidences."

"That's what makes it so scary. If you want to know the truth, I think that someone really is after me, and they've been after me for a long time. Whoever it is, he's scarier than the vampires. I keep getting calls from somebody, John.

He calls me every day. Hardly misses a day. We can't trace the calls."

Sampson ran a hand across his forehead. "Now you're scaring me. Who would be stalking you? Who would dare to take on the Dragonslayer? Must be some kind of fool."

"Believe me," I said. "This is no fool."

Sampson and I stayed at the Mark later than we should have. We drank a lot of beer, and finally closed the place down at around two. We were smart and sane and sober enough to leave our cars in the parking lot instead of driving home. John and I walked home under a bright moonlit sky. It reminded me of the two of us growing up in Southeast. We had to walk just about everywhere we went. Maybe we'd take a city bus if we were feeling flush. He dropped me off at my house and continued toward the Navy Yard and his place.

Early the next morning, I had to retrieve my car before I went to work. Nana was up with little Alex, and I drank a half pot of her coffee, then put the boy in his stroller. He and I walked to my car.

The morning was clear and bright, and the neighborhood seemed peaceful and quiet at around seven o'clock. Nice. I've lived on Fifth Street for thirty years, ever since Nana moved there from her old place on New Jersey Avenue. I still love the neighborhood, and it is home for the Cross family. I don't know if I could ever leave.

"Daddy was with Uncle John last night." I bent down and talked to the boy as I pushed his blue-and-white-striped stroller along. A nice-looking woman passed us on her way to work. She smiled at me like I was the best man in the history of the world because I was walking my child this early in the morning. I didn't believe it for a second, but I enjoyed the fantasy.

Little Alex is very alert at nine months, and he likes to watch passing people, cars, the clouds streaming above his little head. He loves rides in the stroller, and I like pushing him, talking or singing kiddie ditties as we go about our business.

"See the wind blowing the tree leaves?" I said, and he looked up as if he understood every word.

It's impossible to tell how much he understands, but he seems responsive to what I say. Damon and Jannie were the same way, though Jannie was constantly babbling as an infant. She still loves to talk, and to get in the last word, and the next to the last, just like her grandmother, and also, now that I remember, her mother, Maria.

"I need your help, buddy." I stooped down and talked to little Alex again.

He looked up at me, smiled beautifully. Sure, Daddy, you can count on me.

"It's your job to hold me together for a little while. You give me something precious to focus on. Can you do that?"