"Yes. That one. She had decided to make us her target. She wanted to have her people follow our geishas on their assignments and make trouble for them, draw attention to them, embarrass our clients. There is no doubt she could have destroyed the business this way."

"When was this?"

"Seven years ago. Nineteen eighty-one. She had just joined the group. She had many problems, with her marriage, with drinking and drugs. She was not… stable. She came to me and told me what she planned to do. She had not formally proposed it to the group yet."

"And?"

"And I gave her money not to."

"Hannah? You bribed Hannah?"

Ichiko held up her hands. " I made her an offer. A hundred-thousand-dollar anonymous donation to the organization. Enough money to keep them going for years. In exchange she would let me take my business apart slowly, in my own time, in my own way."

" I can't believe it."

"She was not the same woman then. When she brought in that donation, it gave her much power. She soon became president. That in turn gave her personal strength, let her conquer her private demons. There is no simple good and bad here."

"So the two of you stayed in touch."

"We shared that guilty secret. The guilt is mine also. I have done little to keep my end of the promise. Little until now. But perhaps the time has come."

"What about W O. R. S. E.? Are you in touch with them? Could they help me?"

" I will try. But you are not safe here. Check into a hotel somewhere. Pay cash; do not use your real name. Tell no one. Call me tomorrow at noon. I will see what I can do."

Veronica did as she was told. The next day, Ichiko gave her a single name: Nancy. This was the woman who had arranged for Hannah's lawyer. Ichiko described her over the phone with typical precision: five foot three, long brown hair parted in the center, wire-rimmed glasses, small breasts, full hips. Veronica was supposed to meet her at Penn Station at three o'clock, by the ticket windows for the Long Island Railroad.

She stopped off for her methadone on the way. She still had a check from Ichiko in her purse, the check she'd been meaning to deposit two days before, when Hannah…

Her numbness had started to wear off. The thought hurt her more than she could have imagined.

Finish it. When Hannah had gone berserk. Taken a guard's gun and started shooting.

The check would have to wait. She couldn't go back into that bank again, even if the cops weren't likely to be looking for her there.

Ichiko had said she was to be ready to travel, which meant lugging the suitcase and cat carrier with her. Liz hated being in the cage and squalled continuously. The suitcase, full of winter clothes, was enormously heavy. She was tired and sore and sweating by the time she made it through the labyrinth of tunnels to the LIRR.

Someone touched her elbow. "Veronica?"

Ichiko's description had been carefully nonjudgmental. It had omitted Nancy's clear skin, her smiling Clara Bow mouth. No makeup, of course. Intelligent light brown eyes. "Yes," Veronica said.

"I'm Nancy," she said. "I'll watch your things. Get us two one-way tickets for East Rockaway. We can just make the 3:23."

Veronica bought the tickets and Nancy carried her suitcase onto the train for her. They got settled and Veronica opened the door of the cat carrier to stroke Liz, hoping to shut her up. "Where are we going?" Veronica asked.

"I'm putting you up at my place for the duration. You'll be safe there. Not even Ichiko knows."

"I don't know how to thank you. I mean, you don't even know me."

"Hannah knew you. That's enough."

Veronica noticed the past tense. "You've heard, then." Nancy looked away, nodded stiffly.

"I'm sorry" Veronica said. "I don't know you, I don't know what to say to you."

Nancy nodded again, and Veronica suddenly realized what an effort she was making to be polite. "You don't have to say anything at all."

They changed in Jamaica. The wind whistled through the open platform, and Liz huddled in a corner of her cage, crying softly. They boarded the Long Beach train in silence.

When the train stopped in Lynbrook, Nancy suddenly grabbed Veronica's suitcase and started for the doors. "Come on," she said. "This is us."

Veronica got off the train behind her. "I thought…"

"It never hurts to cover your trail. Carrying that cat around-somebody at the ticket window might remember you." They walked downstairs and crossed the street to Carpenter Avenue. Veronica had never been on Long Island before, and the sense of space made her uncomfortable. None of the buildings were over two stories high. There were lawns and vacant lots covered with trees and grass. The streets were nearly empty.

Nancy led her to a door in a row of tall, narrow woodframe houses across from the library. There was a dead bolt but no police lock or alarm system. They climbed two flights of stairs to a refurbished attic. There was a bed, a bathroom with a shower, a half-size refrigerator, and a hot plate. A huge leather-covered armchair sat by a lamp and a crowded bookshelf.

"If somebody comes along who's got a worse problem than you, we'll have to make other plans. Until then, you can stay. I'll do your shopping for you, at least for a while, until we see how hard they're looking for you."

"I've got money," Veronica said. Or she would have, once she could find a way to cash the check. "I can pay for the room."

"That'll help." Nancy stood up. "I'll get you some foodand a litter box for the cat-and then I've got to get back to the city. Will you be okay here?"

Veronica nodded. Her growing despair seemed to make the wood-paneled walls grow even darker. "I'll be fine," she said.

The priest droned to a close, and the coffin was lowered into the ground. Ichiko would rather have been cremated, Veronica suspected. Miranda had refused to hear of it. And she had come up with this bastard amalgamation of Shinto and Catholic for a funeral service. Miranda was Ichiko's oldest friend, and she was Veronica's mother, so she got her way.

They filed past the hole, and each threw in a ceremonial shovelful of dirt. Veronica's dirt hit the coffin with a hollow whack. She passed the shovel on and went to stand by her mother. Miranda had walked well away from the others and stood with her arms folded, watching the driveway.

"He's not coming, Mother," Veronica said.

"He's Ichiko's only son. How could he not be here?"

"What do you want me to say? I could tell you maybe his flight was delayed. Maybe he got held up in customs. But you know as well as me he just decided not to come. She's dead, there's nothing he can do."

Except, she thought, use his tantric powers to bring her back to life. A particularly nasty thought that she left unsaid. Miranda started to cry. "It's the end of everything. The business is closed down, Ichiko's gone, Fortunato might as well be dead. And you, you've changed so much…"

I must be getting stronger, Veronica thought. I can almost handle this. She put her arms around her mother and held her until the crying passed.

It had taken Veronica a week to settle in at Nancy's house. Nancy had gotten her a fake birth certificate, which they'd then parlayed into a driver's license and a bank account. Ichiko had rewritten the check with Veronica's new name on it. With the money Veronica had Nancy buy her a portable stereo and a TV set for her attic cell.

She also got on a methadone program at Mercy Hospital. This was the biggest risk of all, but there was no way around it. It meant riding the bus up Peninsula Avenue once a day.

The hospital, with all its Catholic paraphernalia, seemed comforting to Veronica, an island of her childhood.

More and more she would find herself remembering her comfortable middle-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Miranda had been making a lot of money working for Fortunato, most of it going into savings. There was enough left over for a good-size apartment in Midwood, new clothes every fall, food, and a color TV Linda, Veronica's younger sister, lived in the apartment now, with her good-for-nothing husband, Orlando. Between Orlando and the smack, Veronica hadn't seen her sister in two years.