Halfway to the fourth floor a lion roared. That was Twill's assigned ring.

"You just about gave your mother an ulcer last night," were my first words. I was relieved to have someone I cared for to talk to.

"Sorry, Pops," Twill said. "Me an' Bulldog run into these two girls from Belarus and things got kinda hot and heavy."

"Belarus?"

"Yeah. That's part a' Russia. I told my girl I was nineteen. Sorry if we worried Moms."

"Have you called her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because they knew this artist guy out in Southampton and we came out here to spend a couple'a days."

"Southampton? What about school?"

"You wanna talk to D?" was his reply.

"Dad?" Dimitri said on the line.

"Listen, son," I said, "your brother is on probation. It's against the law for him to leave the borough of Manhattan. What's gonna happen when the school reports him truant?"

"You could call 'em an' say that he's sick. Tell 'em he got the flu or something. I mean, that would really help us out. And, and, and you could call his social worker, too… and explain why he's not at work."

I couldn't remember the last time my blood-son had used more than a few words when speaking to me. All the rage and shame I felt sunk down under Dimitri's uncharacteristic behavior.

"You're asking me to lie for you and your brother?"

"It wouldn't be the first time you lied."

"What's going on with you, D?"

"I'm just asking you for this, all right?"

What could I say? Dimitri hadn't so much as shown a smile in my direction in five years.

"When are you two coming back home?"

"Just a few days. I swear."

"Are you in trouble? Do you need me to come out there and help?"

"No. It's nuthin' like that. It's just this girl… I like her."

"Okay. I'll make the calls for Twill, and I'll talk to your mother, too. But I need you two to keep in touch with me. You hear?"

"Uh-huh."

"I mean it, D. You've got to call me every day."

"I will. I promise."

It was the longest conversation I'd had with him since the birds and bees.

"Put Twill back on."

"He went outside."

I THOUGHT I WAS over the worst part about Aura and that kiss, but when I'd stripped down and approached the heavy bag the feeling returned. I worked that leather sack the way I would have liked to have beaten on Aura's pinstriped boyfriend. I threw punches until my knuckles were swollen and even the soles of my feet were slick with sweat. And I kept on until my balance was threatened. I was down on points, in a championship fight, in the last minute of the final round, and refusing to let my body rest.

I had been at it for nearly twenty minutes when I finally sank to my knees.

Another cold shower, followed by twelve minutes on the locker room bench, and I was ready to go. I dropped by Gordo's office on the way out. I was so preoccupied coming in that I didn't even say hello to my substitute father.

But the octogenarian wasn't at his desk. Instead a young cocoa-colored man was sitting there: Timmy "The Toy" Lineman.

He was a tallish middleweight whose limbs and torso were corded with long and lean muscles, containing no fat at all.

"Damn, LT," the youngster said. "You go after that bag like you wanted to kill somebody."

"Where's Gordo?"

"Search me. Said he had to go to a doctor or sumpin'. All's I know is that if I sit here from seven to seven I get three weeks off on my locker space."

"He say what was wrong?"

"No," the smiling kid said. "Hey, you know, LT, it's different hittin' a bag than fightin' a brother in the ring."

"Really? That heavy bag fights back more than any middleweight I ever sparred with."

Toy's smile dimmed almost imperceptibly. He knew better than to challenge me to a "friendly" match.

HALF A BLOCK FROM the Tesla Building my cell phone made the sound of a hyena's yip.

"Detective Kitteridge," I said into the phone.

I gave my regular callers special rings so I knew who was on the line. The bear was anyone I didn't talk to on a regular basis.

"What's up, LT?"

"Just feelin' my age, man."

It was an honest reply and so threw the special detective off balance. He was used to more banter with me.

"I hear you showed up at a murder scene last night," he said.

"My father told me that bad news skims over the surface while good deeds sink to the bottom."

"I need you to come in, LT."

"Not unless you got some paper on me."

"Refusing a friendly request only serves to make you look involved."

"Showing up at the goddamned door did that. But I didn't have anything to do with it and I told Bonilla everything else."

"I'll expect to see you in my office at three," he said before disconnecting the call.

I pondered Kitteridge's request on the elevator ride up to the seventy-second floor. Carson was a good cop, maybe the only completely honest senior cop in the NYPD. Turning him down would cause trouble, but walking into his office without a full grasp of the situation would probably be worse. I didn't even know why I was at the murder scene. I was sure that Alphonse Rinaldo didn't want me talking to the cops about his business, and crossing Rinaldo was a mistake that no one had ever made twice.

I realized that there was a scowl on my face because when the walnut elevator doors slid open on my floor I smiled. I almost always grinned upon the lovely features of the Art Deco hallway that led to my offices. It was a wide hall with light fixtures of polished brass and a multicolored, marble-tiled floor.

Obtaining the eight-room suite of offices in the Tesla was the one crime I never regretted.

WHEN I TURNED THE corner I saw her: pretty and pale, slender, and not quite of this world. Mardi Bitterman stood in front of my oak door, an apparition of her own suffering. She wore a green and black tweed business suit that would have been more appropriate on a woman of fifty-fifty years ago.

The teenager smiled when she recognized me.

"Good morning, Mr. McGill," she said softly. "I guess I was a little early."

If this was a job interview it would have been over then. A young employee who comes in early is a rare commodity in twenty-first-century New York.

"How are you, Mardi?" I asked.

"Fine, thank you. Twill helped me get an apartment from some friends of his in the Bronx. Me and Marlene moved in last week."

I was busy working keys on the seven locks of my door.

"And you want to work for me?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Twill said that you always wanted a receptionist, and I studied office sciences in high school."

I pushed the door open and gestured for her to go in.

"Are you planning to go to college?" I asked.

"This is beautiful!" She was referring to the reception antechamber of my suite.

There was an ash desk backed up by a trio of cherrywood filing cabinets. The double window looked out over New Jersey, and the walls were painted a subtle blue-gray.

The desk even had a little plastic sign that read RECEPTIONIST.

"I thought Twill said that you never had a secretary," she said.

"I haven't. But I've always wanted one. It's just that the kind of work I do means that somebody would have to give a little extra effort. I mean, it's not easy working for a guy like me."

Mardi was running her pale fingers across the white wood.

"I'd love to have this job, Mr. McGill. The lady, Mrs. Alexander, who lives in the place downstairs, said that she'd look after Marlene if I was ever late, and I know about the kind of work you do."

"How old are you now, Mardi?"

"I turned eighteen last May."