Nichols was looking very nervous. I got the feeling he wasn't used to having visitors and didn't really know how to converse without letting out too much.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm not here to cause trouble for you. I'll go talk to the hippies. I'm sure that they'll be able to tell me something."

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure they will." But he didn't look very confident.

Three lots down from Angelique Lear's apartment was a threestory building that had once been a single-family residence, had then been converted to apartments, and now was, once more, tenanted by a single group-related by interest if not by blood. A few windows were open on the south-facing wall. From each of these some kind of music was blasting. I could make out heavy metal, hard rock, and some punk. No R B, blues, or rock and roll proper.

I didn't need a tour guide to tell me that the two men working on the '64 Chevy in the open garage had done time and spent almost every moment of it in the company of their white brothers.

They both had long hair. The younger of the two had greasy red tresses, while his heavier friend's hair was salt-and-pepper, with a bald spot toward the back. They wore overalls and T-shirts in spite of the November chill. They had more tattoos than a lot of merchant marines, and almost every one represented a crime, sexual act, or violent wish fulfillment.

They seemed to be enjoying their work, until the younger one looked up to see me standing at the threshold of their garage.

"What the fuck you want?" he said, mimicking perfectly the dialect of people he probably detested.

The older ex-con hefted a twenty-four-inch wrench and stared at me. There were letters on the patches of skin between the knucklebones and finger joints of his fist but I didn't have the leisure to look closely enough to read what was written.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," I said in my best English, "but I have come here today to find out what happened to a young woman named Angelique Tara Lear."

"Huh?" Red said.

"Get the fuck outta my garage, man," the older one warned as he approached me with the bludgeon, held at waist level.

"I respect a man's domicile," I said, wearing the disguise of language. "That's why I am standing on the sidewalk."

"In my fuckin' driveway, motherfucker," he corrected.

By now he was almost upon me-his mistake. The ten or twelve pounds of stainless steel would be of little use to him in such close quarters.

"I was told that you saved the lady in question," I said as if we were gentlemen in a Sherlock Holmes story. "Miss Lear has disappeared and her father hired me to make sure that she's all right."

Even though I hadn't actually used the word, money was now a part of the conversation.

Red had moved up to flank his brother in life and in crime. He had an uneven green X tattooed on the left side of his neck. It was a jagged cry of illiterate emotion.

"What you want her for?" the younger man asked.

"Angelique and her father are estranged," I explained. "He only found out from her landlord yesterday about the attack. It seems that she's late on the rent and her mother, the cosigner, didn't have the money to cover it. She called the father, the father called Plenty Realty, and they told him about the attack. I guess a Mr. Klott told them."

"Klott," the balding white man spat. "He's a piece'a shit."

"Mr. Lear hired me to make sure his daughter was all right, and so I came to the people who saved her. He's willing to pay for information that will lead to his peace of mind."

"It was me was there," the kid said.

"But this is my house," the elder added. "My rules."

"Hey, Pete," the younger man objected. "You don't own what me and Figg did. You wasn't even there when those men jumped that girl."

Pete turned his head, placing his free hand on the kid's chest.

"This is my house, Lonnie. You live here for nuthin'. You eat and sleep on my dime. So you wouldn't even'a been here if it wasn't for me."

The kid's light-blue eyes were considering the words-also the big piece of steel in his benefactor's right hand.

The younger man needn't have worried. I wouldn't have let Pete break his skull. That cranium contained information I needed.

"Yeah, sure, Pete. You right," the kid said.

For a long moment Pete stared at Lonnie. Then he turned to me.

"You still here, blood?"

"Mr. Lear doesn't care who he pays for the information," I said simply, unperturbed by the elder's display of personal power.

"I told you to leave."

"You don't want the money?"

"I want to crack your head open with this wrench."

Most people will explain their jobs to you with surprising accuracy. They were, let's say, given a hundred tasks and they accomplished that number. Or, if only ninety-seven jobs were completed, they'll have a good excuse for the gaffe-which is usually something or someone else's fault. The generator blew, they might tell you. Or their associates, underlings, or bosses failed to make good on their promises or deadlines.

Even the president of the United States claimed that his war was a mistake based on misinformation he received from those whom he expected to supply him with the truth.

People who work within systems can avoid their own shortcomings because they are surrounded by people who are just as flawed.

I have never had that luxury. I work for myself and according to my own rules. When I was a crook, working for crooks, I had better know my weaknesses because a misstep meant at least prison and at worst death. And once I decided to go straight, my options became even more restricted. No one was going to protect me. No one was going to cover for my errors.

One of my most serious flaws is physical overconfidence. I'm rarely afraid of any man or group of men who threaten me. That's why when I was faced by Gustav and his Eastern European goons I was, mostly, fearless.

This fearlessness, by the fact of the absoluteness of the word in a physical world, is unfounded. I can be hurt. I can be killed. And, worse than all that, I can lose. But somewhere in my true being I am unaware of these facts. And so when Pete threatened to smash my skull, I smiled.

It wasn't a broad grin. I didn't show any teeth, but a bare flicker of disdain did cross my lips, and therefore the line that Pete had, in his mind, etched in the concrete at our feet.

Most people who glance at me see a short, bald, overweight, middle-aged black man. Not much of a threat to anyone. But prison had taught Pete to look closer.

After that smirk, he studied me like a religious scholar carefully perusing an original leaf of the New Testament, scrawled upon crumbling parchment.

It took him a minute but finally he said, "Show me some ID."

John Tooms had a detective's license with my picture on it. It was laminated and stamped, official to even the closest of inspections, and as counterfeit as a hundred-thousand-dollar bill.

If there was any flaw in the document Pete would have found it. He studied the card with an expert's eye. He tested everything from the texture of the photograph to the edges of the lamination.

Handing the card back to me, he asked, "How much?"

"Thousand dollars if I get any information that I should be able to chase down."

"Thousand dollars," Lonnie whispered.

"Let's see it."

"Let's hear what your friend here has to say first."

"Okay," Pete said. "Come on upstairs and we'll talk over a beer."

"I would prefer to take a walk down to the restaurant on the corner."

"You scared?" Pete asked, giving me a triumphant grin.

"I never enter the living quarters of a man who has threatened me."

"How can I be sure you'll pay if I let Lonnie talk to you?"